Gregor and the Law of the Lake

A/N: This fanfic is very AU. I was so disappointed with the ending in the book that I decided immediately to go back and mess with the last chapter to make everything go my way. In the book, it just seemed like one of those goody-goody endings where the author goes off preaching "We must all be nice to each other and never fight again and help those who have fallen," to the readers. I was disappointed, I was angry. I was furious. I was enraged. I was disgusted.

So, with that in mind, and my book in hand, let's see what the future holds for Gregor and company, and how this goes!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of this chapter except the parts that I have changed to my liking, and I do not own any characters in this story except those who are newbies made up by me or my reviewers (or rather, future reviewers).

Prologue / Chapter 27

This is my prologue, but it's Suzanne Collins's 27th chapter, thus the name!)

It was late. Two-fifteen by the clock on the taxi's dashboard. The driver was tired, uncommunicative, and didn't seem to wonder what they were doing hanging out in Central Park at that hour.

When they got to their building, the elevator was broken, so they took the stairs to their apartment. Gregor's mom had to rest every couple of flights. His dad finally gave him the keys and told him to take the girls on ahead. When Gregor opened the door to his apartment, he couldn't believe how small and cramped the place looked. He and Lizzie slumped back on the couch while Boots immediately dumped a basket of plastic animals on the rug and arranged them in a parade. When she came to a little black bat she'd gotten for last Halloween she held it up happily. "Look! Ares!"

Gregor could think of nothing to say as she flew the bat around his head.

His parents came in about ten minutes later, and even though she was dropping from fatigue, his mom went right in to check on his grandmother. That's when Gregor realized she didn't know that Grandma wasn't there. His dad had been waiting until they got home to break the news. "It's her heart, Grace. She's in the hospital. We'll go see her first thing tomorrow," his dad said.

They went straight to bed. Gregor didn't even bother with pajamas. He just stripped right down to his Underland briefs and crawled between his blankets. They had a dusty, familiar smell. A siren went by. Music from a car radio blared then faded. A toilet flushed. The old comforting sounds of New York City lulled Gregor to sleep... (and the altering begins in one word!)

The cave was dark. The flashlights stolen from the museum long dead. Gregor was relying solely on the rats around running beside him. It had been stupid to go this way. Gorger had told him but he hadn't listened. Now they had found him. As he ran he could feel the humans panting behind him so he turned and swung, slashing open several faces. But then his sword was knocked out of his hand, and he was running too fast to retrieve it. He tried to continue again but the floor was crumbling beneath his feet and realized too late that the edge of the cliff was upon him. Then he was falling, falling, falling into a black pit. He waited for his bat to sweep beneath him and carry him away but there was no Ares and he could see the sharp rocks as they rushed up to meet him, feel the agony as they pierced his chest!

Gregor bolted up in bed, heart pounding, sweat-soaked, his right hand clutching his throbbing chest. Had his own voice woken him? No one came running in. No one called his name. The screams of pain must have stayed in his dream.

The falling nightmares that had plagued him growing up had stopped when he'd had Ares. Now they were back again, filled with rats and blood.

Dawn was just breaking over the city. He'd been in bed only a few hours. He knew he should go back to sleep. But the nightmare had been too real. He sank back on his pillow and watched the sunlight brighten until it stung his eyes.

Gregor cracked open his window and took a deep breath of the exhaust-scented air. What day was it? What month was it? He had no idea. He hadn't been home since Hazard's birthday. That had been in the dead of summer. The air was crisp. Suddenly he had an urgent need to know how much time had passed, to ground himself in some kind of reality. The calendar in the kitchen would be worthless, but he could turn on the TV...no, that would wake everybody...He could go down to the corner and check the date on a newspaper. He flung off his blanket and froze as he got his first look at his body in sunlight.

"Oh, geez," he said. He knew he'd gotten beat up pretty bad in the Underland, but things healed up and you moved on. Only he hadn't accounted for the accumulation of scars that dated all the way back to his earlier visits. Marks left by squid suckers, vines, pinchers, teeth, claws. Then there were the wounds he'd made on his hands when he'd broken Sandwich's sword less than a day ago. His skin was like a map where you could trace all the terrible things that had happened.

The Underlanders had given him more of that fish ointment. Maybe it would help. But some of these things...like the five claw marks the Bane had left on his chest...They were going nowhere fast. They were part of him forever. How could he ever explain them? Say he'd been in a car wreck? Fallen through a plate-glass window? Wrestled a pack of tigers? If he couldn't explain them, he'd have to hide them. Forget the beach, forget gym class, and forget even going to the doctor unless he was on death's doorstep. A doctor wouldn't accept some lame excuse. He'd want answers, and the truth would land Gregor in a mental ward.

Gregor dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants, both of which seemed too short. He'd done quite a bit of growing in...in however long he'd been gone. He pulled on his socks and his only Overland footwear, a pair of dress shoes he'd gotten for the spring concert. His toes felt cramped and they looked stupid with his outfit. He wanted those great sneakers Mrs. Cormaci had sent him but they'd been ruined in the war.

He left quietly, but as he passed Mrs. Cormaci's apartment, the door opened. She had alwaysy been an early riser. "So. You stayed in one piece," she said, looking him up and down critically. "Your pants are too short. Want some French toast?"

Gregor followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while she made breakfast. She filled him in on his grandma's condition. "She's not doing too well, Gregor. She's in intensive care. If your mother has some idea about taking her on a road trip to Virginia, well, that just isn't going to happen."

She piled the thick slices of challah bread fried in egg batter on Gregor's plate and placed a platter of bacon in front of him. "I don't see how we can stay here," he said, pouring syrup on the toast. "Maybe she'll just take us kids." It would be awful breaking up the family again, though. They'd just gotten back together.

"Maybe. So, what's been going on with you, mister?" Mrs. Cormaci asked.

Gregor thought about all that had happened since he'd last been home. All he'd seen and done. He couldn't form any of it into words.

"Cat got your tongue?" asked Mrs. Cormaci. "It's okay. You don't need to tell me or anyone else about it unless you feel like it." She dipped a piece of bacon into his syrup and chewed it thoughtfully. "You know, Mr. Cormaci fought in a war. He didn't want to talk about it, either. I knew there'd been some terrible things, though. That man had bad dreams until the day he died."

"One woke me this morning," said Gregor.

"It won't be the last," said Mrs. Cormaci. "Want some juice?" She poured him a glass without waiting for him to answer. "It's like this. You spend your whole childhood hearing about being nice to other people and how hurting someone's a crime, and then they ship you off to some war and tell you to kill. What's that going to do to your head, huh?"

"Nothing good," Gregor said.

"You'll be all right, though, Gregor," said Mrs. Cormaci.

"I don't know. In my dream, I fell to my death," said Gregor. "I used to have falling dreams before, but this was the first time I hit bottom."

"Don't worry. If you hit bottom, there's a whole lot of people here to help you up," said Mrs. Cormaci.

"Help me up?" Gregor thought. "Wipe me up is more like it. Nothing left to help once you hit those rocks." And even if people wanted to help, Gregor was alone in his dreams. No one could help him there.

While he ate, Mrs. Cormaci found a pair of old sneakers that had belonged to one of her sons about twenty years ago. They weren't exactly in style but they fit pretty well and looked better than the dress shoes.

"You're going to need new clothes for school," she said.

"Has it started already?" he asked.

"Weeks ago," she said. "We're halfway through October, Gregor."

"I didn't know," he said.

The morning was spent watching his sisters while his parents and Mrs. Cormaci went to the hospital. While Lizzie and Boots ate breakfast, Gregor stood at the kitchen window watching the neighborhood kids go off to school. He thought of his friends Larry and Angelina and wondered what they must make of his disappearance. Did they think he had moved? Was sick? Part of him wanted to see them badly and another part never wanted to see them again. He had been through so much, changed so much, that the idea of hanging out with them and pretending everything was back to normal seemed impossible.

His parents got back around lunch. The visit had been a shock to his mom. No one could say when his grandmother would be able to leave the hospital, and even then she'd probably have to go to some kind of nursing home with full-time medical care.

"Can I see her?" asked Gregor.

"Not now, son. Maybe when she's stronger," said his dad.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Gregor. "About Virginia?"

"I don't know. We'll work it out," said his dad.

"I don't want to go to Virginia," said Lizzie, and they all looked at her in suprise.

"But you said you did, Lizzie," said their mom. "You were the first one packing when I mentioned it."

"I don't want to go anymore. This is our home. I don't want to run away," said Lizzie. "Ripred says that if you run from things that scare you they just chase you."

"What about you, Gregor?" asked his dad.

Gregor tried to imagine living in Virginia. Tried to imagine staying here. "It doesn't matter. I don't care where we live. Either way, it won't be where I want to live, and that place is out of the question!" Gregor looked at his family, his sisters looking almost like they were about to announce that they were agreeing with him, his father looking petrified, and his mother shocked into silence. "I'm going for a walk."

He didn't plan where he was going, but instead he let his feet carry him wherever they wanted. He ended up in Central Park, but somehow, he had already known that he was going to.

Gregor sat down and leaned against the rock that covered the passageway to the Underland. He was careful not to shift it so that no one else at the park would know that the passageway existed.

Why did everything have to be so complicated? It was as though everyone had decided to pile all of the important stuff on his shoulders. Where should they live? Why?

And then, out of the blue, as the sky began to darken, Gregor felt it. A small tapping on the rock he was leaning against. The passageway.

He began translating it into alphabet from taps, clicks, and scratches he had learned only a few days ago.

GREGOR. NOWE. UENQ.

Then he applied Lizzie's Code of Claw, and he got this message.

GREGOR. MOVE. TEMP.