Hey Guys! Sorry it's been a while! (Well over a year actually *bad Katie*) But I'm back, with the Final instalment; Tales of Lives Future.
I've taken a different route than I had originally planned, this one seems to work much better as a fic. So here it goes!
Just a heads up, this fic, and the characters in it, may nt make much sense if you haven't read the two fics preceding this; Tales of Lives Past and Tales of Lives Present. (If you like the universe there is a fluffy Christmas fic.) As always I love to hear what you're all thinking so if you would drop me a review that would be amazing!
Elizabeth opened one eye as her cell creaked open. The eight inch steel door slowly
Pulling herself from her meditation, she fixed the guard in a cold glare, "The days may fade into one another, but I know for a fact it hasn't been four hundred and fifty years; so, why the hell is this door opening?"
The man shifted uncertainly, she knew the expression well; poorly hidden curiosity and fear. They knew she was a murderer, but her admission and isolation had been done with such secrecy the guards were left perplexed; and well… rumours grew from there.
From behind the door, a familiar pair pushed their way into the cell.
Helena's face was pale and drawn, dark bags hung under her eyes. Myka looked to be in a similar state, her curls were frazzled and she was wringing her hands nervously.
Sitting up on her bunk, Elizabeth frowned, asking, "What is it?"
It was Myka who spoke, her normally calm and collected voice cracked with desperation, "We need your help."
Helena nodded, "Everything is going to hell at an alarming rate- we need you back."
Keeping her face straight, and her eyes cold, the guardian hid the joy of seeing the pair behind carefully honed barriers of self-righteous thought, "What part of locked up for murder don't you understand?"
Shaking her head, Helena frowned, "What? We come begging for your help and you are so damned concerned about satisfying your own damned conscience you're willing to let…"
Myka gripped her wife's arm, "Helena. Elizabeth, we wouldn't have sought early release if it wasn't a matter of great importance."
Bright green eyes scanned the two agents, despite Helena's set jaw and furious eyes, the agent looked one push away from breaking down in tears. Myka, as usual was trying to hold it together but the redness of her eyes suggested a lack of sleep.
"What is it?" She couldn't give them softness or tenderness. To do so would break everything she had built inside. She had prepared herself for isolation, cutting herself off from her emotions for twelve years- was this what the other guardians had felt? Freya? Shu? This cold icy detachment? It was as if someone had put a brick wall between her and those she cared about.
Her eyes seemed to be able to watch them age as they stood there. Mortals, so weak, so breakable; so temporary.
Her eyes snapped to Helena, a realisation flared in her friend's gaze; followed quickly by a heart-breaking melancholy.
Scowling, trying to hide the hurt surging through her chest, she snarled, "It doesn't matter."
Spinning to her wide, Myka's voice rose an octave, "What? Helena! We need her! How else are we going to stop…"
"I said we needed Elizabeth." She growled bitterly. Casting a disappointed look towards the sitting immortal, Helena shook her head, "Elizabeth is dead." With a mock curtsey, the warehouse agent sneered, "Apologies to have disturbed you, oh mighty Guardian." Before slamming the cell door shut with a heave.
"Helena! Helena!" Myka yelled as turned away from the now bolted high security cell. Catching her wife before she stormed away, she asked, "What the hell was that?"
Hastily wiping away rebellious tears, Helena glared back at the closed steel, "Did you not see her eyes Myka? Did you hear her voice?" Pausing, she scowled at the crack in her voice, "She is not Elizabeth. There was nothing in her eyes; they were cold." She shuddered, "It was like looking at Shu or Gunter."
Running a hand through her curls, Myka sighed, "Maybe we can convince her? We need her Helena, Freya needs her; and so does Lizzie."
The inventor's tired voice dropped to barely a whisper, "She's no good like this. If Elizabeth is still in there she's hidden behind some hellishly thick walls. We're just going to take this one on our own love."
A smile managed to tug at the corner of her wife's lips, and Myka chuckled, "Wells and Bering, solving puzzles, saving the day?"
Winking, Helena kissed her wife's cheek, "Bering and Wells."
Claudia sat with her head in her hands, "Are you sure this is the only way?"
Mrs Frederic nodded as she took a seat beside her future successor, "I'm afraid so."
"It's just, she's locked in there like an animal. She isn't even in the warehouse!"
Sighing, the caretaker nodded, "It is for the best. She is safer away from the warehouse."
Turning back to the computer, she hissed, "We've had another twenty pings in the last hour alone. I sure as hell hope Myka and HG manage to get Elizabeth out." Glancing to the empty chair next to her, she gave a frustrated growl before returning to furiously typing.
With a quick sip of coffee her eyes never left the screen as she called Pete on his Farnsworth.
"Hey Pete, how's the mission?"
Tired and somewhat charred, the agent held up a static bag, sighing in exhaustion, "Yeah, got it. What's next?"
Glancing to him, she bit her lip, "Come back man, that's your third snag this week. I'll hit the field, and you hit the hay."
Putting his all into a weary grin, he chuckled, "Nah, I've got at least another two in me before I drop!"
Smiling slightly, Claudia shook her head, "Come home man, you're no good to us barbecued."
"Affirmative, Kirk out."
Leaning back in her chair, the future caretaker looked on in despair as ping after ping flashed onto the screens, "We're screwed." Gripping her hair, she began to call Helena and Myka.
In the car park of the maximum security prison, Helena flipped open her Farnsworth to see Claudia. The younger agent looked like hell; they all did. But then again a week with more or less no sleep would do that.
Myka looked over her shoulder, "Hey Claud."
"Hey Myka, I need you to go to Alnwick, it's just a little way north of where you guys currently are. A couple of window cleaners have started dropping dead without any obvious cause of death."
Rubbing her eyes, Helena nodded, "Sure, we'll be right there."
"Actually HG," She paused, knowing the news wouldn't be well received, "I need you back in the states. There has been reports of several suspicious suicides I want you to check out in New York."
The stormy frown that crossed Helena's features was enough to make Claudia shrink away from the Farnsworth, "Claudia. I've made it very clear…"
"You don't like to be apart from Myka when on missions, I know Helena. But right now I have forty outstanding pings, and Pete is ready to drop. Leena is doing solo missions, and even some regents have had to be deployed into the field!"
Gritting her teeth, Helena hissed, "Fine. But this only happens once Claudia."
Typing furiously at her computer, the younger agent shook her head, "Can't guarantee that HG. Did you have any joy with Elizabeth's guards?"
Myka took over the Farnsworth as she saw her wife's eyes flash dangerously, "We couldn't get her out Claud."
Pausing her computing, Claudia turned back to the Farnsworth, "What? Did you explain the situation? The world is in serious danger Myka!"
Groaning internally, Myka resisted the urge to snap, "I know Claud, but we couldn't get her out, they..."
"She." Helena cut across, "She wouldn't come Claudia. I don't know who they've got in that cell but it sure as hell isn't the woman we need."
Frustrated, sleep deprived and at the end of her tether, Claudia barked, "What the hell is that supposed to mean? She won't help us? Did you even explain it to her?! We need her to contain the fall out in Freya's absence! What the hell did they do to her in there?!"
Frowning bitterly, Helena hissed, "I have no doubt whatever was done was entirely self-inflicted."
"Helena." The crimson haired agent growled, "I need you to just stop being cryptic and tell me what the hell is going on."
"Claudia, I don't know what is going on. She wouldn't come. Feel free to try yourself but she's cut herself off; it's going to be impossible to reach her."
"So what you're saying is we're screwed?"
Sighing, the Victorian nodded, "I'm afraid so."
Rubbing her eyes, she let her head sink to the desk, "Dammit."
"Yeah. We'll report in soon Claudia."
"Okay." She replied wearily before closing the Farnsworth. Swiping the coffee mug off of her desk, feeling a small amount of catharsis when it smashed, she hissed, "What the hell are we going to do?"
Shackles clinked as a pair of armed guards escorted their charge to her cell. Not that the weapons would do them any good should she decide to turn on them; they'd be toast before they could even yell for help.
But the woman between them gave no fight. Her shoulders were slumped and her crimson hair fell lank about her face. She clung to the Dhoti about her shoulders and the oil soaked tunic she wore.
The regents hadn't said who she was, only to escort her to one of the deepest and most secure regent vaults in the world.
The cell was small, no larger than twenty metres squared; not that she'd be moving much. A cot was pushed into the corners.
They had been told not to approach the cot; asbestos they had been told. Nodding gratefully as they let her go, their charge retreated to the cot before settling on the uncomfortable bedding. Her only thought being at least it doesn't burn. But it was hardly a comfort, she could already feel the faults and weaknesses in her supposedly impenetrable prison.
It would barely take any effort for her to destroy it entirely. But she stamped down such thoughts, and wrapped Ghandi's Dhoti tighter about her shoulders.
Thanking her guards, she barely recognised her own voice, harsh and rasping, her vocal chords had changed as well as her appearance. Blue and white eyes were now amber and black. Teeth sharpened, but they weren't overly obvious yet. She was becoming gaunt, animalistic.
She was becoming the thing she destroyed.
Lying in her cell praying the artefacts could stop the inevitable, Freya could feel the chaos in the world far above; a chaos she could no longer control.
Hey! What did we think?