A/N: Hey people... I read the incredible 'Gone' series by Michael Grant some time ago and I totally got possessed by these books, I just love them so much. That's why I decided to write a little fanfic to this fandom. It's my first story for 'Gone' and I'm a little bit stressed publishing it, to be honest. ;)
This quite short story is about Sam and Astrid's life after FAYZ but the other characters appear too. I hope you'll like it and leave a review after reading. :) Enjoy!
Sam knows FAYZ is over when he falls down on the ground, blinded because of a light blind and his thesis comes true when he's able to open his eyes and stand up slowly - he sees grimy, gaunt kids who are looking at each other in a disbelief and then all together run to their parents to share hugs with them.
Next to him Astrid sits down on the ground but she's not observing parents and children but Caine who's lying down limply.
Sam needs to look at him only for a few seconds to realise that his twin brother is dead.
FAYZ is over and his prayers finally came true but now, when he's aware his mother is looking for him and Sam thinks about things they have to explain each other, he realises he's not sure whether it's a good thing.
Astrid finally looks at him and Sam finds an uncertainty and doubt in her eyes. He knows what she's thinking about - how will she explain a death of Little Pete to her parents - and he guesses that Astrid is also not very happy about coming back to the reality.
They grab each other's hands and wait.
A six months need to pass before Sam finally feels calm. He's only sixteen but lives on his own in huge Los Angeles, far away from mother and Perdido Beach (he can't even imagine coming back there). Sam doesn't find living on his own bad - he grew up much earlier than people at his age. He tries to make his life quite normal, calm down, but even after an half of a year every night in the nightmares he sees dead kids bodies on the streets of Perdido Beach.
Astrid is with him. He's ashamed to admit it now but after FAYZE's finishing (everyone calls it 'getting free again' but Sam's not sure whether it is a proper name) he was afraid she would go away and leave him, just like his mother had. But she stayed and despite of difficulties on the beginning, being isolated of each other, now they're together and it's hundreds times more important for Sam than some stupid documentary movie about Perdido Beach nightmare which Astrid wants to take part in.
Sam spends his free time at surfing which he missed so much while FAYZ. But now he doesn't enjoy it at all, he doesn't get relaxed. He tries to find some happiness in surfing what he used to love but he can't. FAYZ has took away all his joy and left only pictures of pale dead bodies with limbs bent at weird, unnatural angles in his mind.
Diana lives along with them in Los Angeles but not for a long time. Sam knew she agreed to move in LA with them only because Astrid had insisted on it and - to be honest - personally he didn't like this idea at all. But when after a month Diana gives Sam and Astrid a goodbye hug, he feels a strange pin in his heart and for a moment he wants Diana to stay. He feels that within her he loses calmness and part of events happened inside FAYZ. He should be happy about that but once again he realises that in the FAYZ things seemed to be less complicated.
Three years later Sam and Astrid get married. They're only nineteen and most people at their age think it's incredibly stupid and far but for them it's right. They're not like their contemporaries who have never lived in FAYZ. For them a year there was like a five years and their went through so much difficulties together that they're sure their relationship is strong.
The wedding is simple and small, only a few people from FAYZ take part in it. There's Lana along with Patrick sitting next to her obediently and rousing a winces at priest's face, there's Dekka dressed in black in a mourn on Brianna, there's Diana who shyly holds a hand of tall, brunet young man looking similar to Caine, there's Sinjin along with his siblings standing next to Lana, there are Roger and Edilio looking at each other in way what leaves no doubt about their love and there's Quinn who grins and on his blazer there's gold metal fish. There's not Sam's mother and Astrid's parents, there's no adult. Again.
They're bunch of kids, weirdos, who isolate from the society and the priest is still staring at them, clearly disgusted. But when Sam puts the wedding ring on Astrid's finger and glances at the guests he feels that he's really and truly the one of this group of weirdos.
Few months later Astrid discovers she's pregnant. At the beginning they're both frightened but when the time goes on and Astrid's belly become bigger and bigger Sam gets peaceful. He still can't believe he's gonna be a father but wasn't he a father for around two hundreds kids in FAYZ?
Astrid gives a birth to a baby girl without any complications or even a yell what makes the midwives amazed and surprised. When Sam comes to visit them he feels a lump in his throat which prevents him from breathing and after a long moment he realises what it is - an affection.
"How will we call her, Sam?" astrid questions quietly when they're leaning over the baby's bed and looking at their little daughter sleeping peacefully.
Sam glances at her eyes and even they didn't think about a name earlier, now both of them wonder about this same and it seems to be obvious and natural.
"Brianna," they whisper at once.
Little Brianna developments so fast that Sam calls her Brianna the Genius when Astrid's not around. She's very absorbing and Sam can swear he saw a Sammy's Sun between her tiny hands for a fraction of second, but when he tells it Astrid, she firmly states it has to be an illusion because superpowers are gone after FAYZ.
Sam thinks for a moment and comes to the conclude she's right. Almost five years after FAYZ he dreams the nightmares hardly ever and faces of dead kids become blurred in his mind. But when it happens to wake up with a scream, one glance at Astrid swaying Brianna in her arms is enough to realise everything is alright.
Dekka becomes Brianna's godmother and engages herself more than Sam and Astrid expects. They have their own explanation which their discuss about when Dekka goes home - she's still not okay with the Breeze's death.
Sam and Astrid were close to death so many times they have a feeling that death will never find them. But they're wrong because death comes in the most unexpected moment.
It has to be a ride, just a ride by a car to celebrate getting a driver's license by Sam. They leave Brianna with Dekka and ride on the highway to forget about reality only for a moment, to spend some time alone. And when they're glancing at each other, whispering 'I love you', they get possessed by death.
The witnesses are able to say only about a truck which took an opposite lane suddenly and hit a car with incredibly loud 'bang'.
"The truck and its driver seemed to be okay but the car literally concertinaed," one of the witnesses tells a Los Angeles Time journalist. "There were a girl and a boy sitting inside, they had no chance to survive..."
On the funeral Dekka stays outside the shrine, holding little Briana in her arms and tears stream down her face like never before. She wants to come closer but at once she know it would be better for the baby to not see this, although she doesn't understand what's going on, she doesn't understand she lost her parents.
People who take a part in the funeral wonders how it's possible that Sam and Astrid Temple died, just died after surviving FAYZ and all cruelty inside. They can't believe that they, who were close to death so many times, died because of something so common like car accident. They realise that death doesn't care about your achievements or age and you can't avoid it in any way because it'll come back - sooner or later but it will and finish its work.
Six months later Dekka leaves the court building with a feeling a heavy weight is lifted from her mind. She fought hard but FAYZ has learnt her to not give up so she didn't even when she was losing her hope.
She comes back to the house where Sam and Astrid lived in. Since six months it has been her house too where she has been taking care of Brianna. She pays a babysitter who was looking after the kid while the trial and looks at the baby tenderly. She's her legal guardian since today and loves her like her own child (which she'll never have) and wants to be a mother for her. Dekka grabs the baby and raise her up, tickling and the girl giggles in happiness.
And Dekka finally gets the thing she has dreamt about since she turned fifteen - Brianna is hers.