This idea came to me after the season finale and kinda just stuck with me! Only started watching Killjoys this season, so still working out the show/characters – hopefully I haven't butchered it too much. I wrote this chapter and the first half of the next in an afternoon, so haven't had a chance to properly spell check it yet.
Hope you all enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
She smiled at the stranger as he entered the bar, a sense of familiarity creeping through her mind that she couldn't quite place. He shared some similarities with her husband, so she put it down to that, but a small part of her couldn't shake the feeling that she was staring at family.
"D'avin." He introduced himself warmly, stopping short of her to watch her reaction.
"Yala." She told him, the name sounding as foreign on her tongue as it did when Johnny had said it earlier.
"Have you seen this kid around?" He asked, handing her the PDD he was carrying with him.
The image of the child made her pause once more, the boy, no more than 15, could have been a perfect mix of herself and the man in front of her. If the man had picked up on this he didn't let on, instead choosing to continue to watch her reaction in a manner that seemed off to her.
"No, never seen him." She answered after a moment, something inside her wanting to tell the man in front of her that he'll never find the child here.
"That seems to be the party line around here, but this is where my intel says he should be." The stranger going by the name D'avin sighed as he took the PDD back.
"Maybe your intel is wrong?" She responded politely, moving back towards the bar with no real sense of purpose.
"Maybe. Thanks for your time." He told her as he turned to leave, a tone of distrust around him that she knew just wasn't right.
She poured a drink for herself the moment the door shut behind him, something was right about the whole morning, something she just couldn't place. She felt a strange connection to a stranger, as if he was as much family as the man she had woken up next to that morning and that wasn't like her.
"Yala isn't like that." She spoke out loud, her name still not following out as it should. Then what am I like she wondered, she knew who she was today but she couldn't make a clear picture of who she was yesterday, let alone a year ago.
Taking a fourth and then a fifth shot of Hokk, she could feel the alcohol hitting her head, but she didn't feel in through her body. It was as if she was drinking a memory of alcohol not the actual thing. Her last thought stayed in her mind as if it was important, like it was a task she was not supposed to forget but for some reason she couldn't understand its importance.
Later that night, with Johnny back, she watched him work and talk with their apparent friends, hoping he would somehow jog some sense into her brain. But with every drink served and every new friend, she just felt more and more on edge. People came and went as if it was predetermined but without the purpose they should have.
The next morning felt the same as the last, except she felt as tired as when she went to sleep. She made sure her husband had his lunch as he joined his friend for their day job, she got the bar ready and she tried to feel drunk. By the third day of slight differences but basically the same, she nearly threw a bottle at a patron when they tried to slip out the back without paying, for the third day in a row.
The confusion and concern on Johnny's face bugged her even more, his eyes felt off to her and not understanding why was what was driving her mad. Making an excuse that she was tired, she left for bed early, taking a bottle of Hokk with her to try and help actually get some sleep.
Lying in bed, she tried to sleep but there was a deep sense of fear and sadness seeded in anger, that for the life of her, she couldn't place. She had no memories to match the feelings, but they were there, stronger than the happiness she was supposed to be feeling, so strong that they were acting almost as a warning.
Once again, she woke tiredly, as if she had not slept at all. She voiced her request for extra sleep before the words registered in her mind, the same words she had said every day earlier. The voice in her head that had been quietly brewing was starting to get louder but everything around her did not change.
After waving her husband once off again, she felt a tinge of guilt, one thing she was sure of was that she loved the man like a brother, not like a lover. Staring out the bar's window she watched as the westerly's general population went about their same day to day duties, so similar that she could nearly guess their next moves.
Walking into the market, a chill ran down her spine, like everything else the past week she couldn't place it but she knew to trust it. She smiled at a vendor as she stopped to look at their produce, the pause giving her the chance to see a man at the next store start to draw a knife on the vendor next door.
"Hey!" She yelled at the man, her tone more deadly than she expected, drawing the thief's attention towards her.
The thief lunged at her with the knife, she fought back, instincts she didn't understand kicking in quicker than her body could keep up. She managed to disarm the man, but with her instincts still driving her, she kept with fight, taking each punch easier than she should have.
In a haze of anger, she launched at the man, snapping his neck in a move so quick that it startled even herself, dropping the body as if it burned her. The company guard rushing towards her looked between her and the man on the ground a few times before walking forward with cuffs.
Lying in the jail cell, an old memory cut through her ringing head, this was far from her first time in a cell but the memory only hurt her head more. Closing her eyes, she replayed the fight in her mind but the face kept changing and eventually the manner of death started altering, the new memories feeling more real than the one she had just formed.
Soon enough, the door opened to a couple of guards and Johnny, the later not looking as confused as he should, but almost as if he was annoyed. She followed them out of the jail, realising not saying anything was the better course to follow.
"Why did they let me go?" she asked once they were on the street home, her wounds stinging as she spoke, the pain more an annoyance than an actual pain.
"The witnesses came forward and explained that happened." Johnny spoke nonchalantly, as if he wasn't walking his bruised and murdering wife home.
She made eye contact with the beggar across from their home and his gaze hardened as memories of him leading her into war flashed across her mind.
"Go get yourself cleaned up." Johnny told her as he handed her a first aid kit from behind the bar.
Walking back down the stairs, the sound of John and the stranger from the other day laughing together, she paused for a moment to take the sounds in. The easy conversation and the laughter coming from the boys downstairs making her feel more herself than she had throughout the past week.
The stranger smiled at her as she entered the room, a glint of teasing still evident in his eyes from whatever he had been saying to her husband. An image of them in bed together, with him holding himself on top of her joking about her royalty status flew into her mind, freezing her in her spot.
"Yala! Be a darl and grab D'av and I fresh drinks." Johnny asked with a light-heartedness she couldn't recall hearing.
"Your wife is hot." D'avin exclaimed loudly, smirking at the man next to him.
She placed the bottles on their table, her eyes flying to the door where a bunch of people were piling in. She recognised the man leading them in as Johnny's work mate, but the one following in next forcing another memory into the forefront of her mind.
"Pree!" She greeted, who she had worked out was a former friend, her tone confusing the man next to her and the man walking through the door.
"Who's this?" Johnny's inquisitive smirk watching her closely as he rose.
She watched as he blinked and the moment his eyes opened she knew he was not Johnny anymore, a darkness fell over his face as he shook his head at her.
"All you had to do was go about your life." The man in front of her said, picking up a piece of wire from behind the bar, he moved around the bar slicing the patrons necks quicker than they had the chance to move, shots ringing out for the few that did attempt to run.
She pleaded with the man she knew to be her best friend, she had no idea what had been going on the past week, but she knew the people in this room were her people and watching them die was the first real pain she had felt in this place.
The shot sounded through the room, but instead of death, she awoke back in the same room as every other day. Each time it ended the same, all her friends and family being killed and each time she woke up at the start all over again instead of dying. By the third reboot, Dutch had all of her real memories back, she knew that she was trapped in the lady's morbid game.
D'avin and Johnny stood impatiently at the hanger entrance, waiting for the new arrival to push through the doors at put their minds at ease. The air was thick with fear and apprehension that was coming to a head after days of not knowing the fate of their third team member.
To anyone, it would have been easy to mistake the woman stepping towards them for the last member of team awesome force, but to the two that knew her better than anyone in the world, the woman in front of them was the wrong one.
"Aneela?" D'avin asked in a questioning tone, not as confirmation but as a question to why and how she was here.
"Can we talk somewhere more privately, with Dutch?" Aneela asked in her usual calm tone, her eyes hardening when the two men shared a sideways glance, but following none the less as they directed her away.
Turin was waiting for them, his face blank as the three of them entered the room with the previously green bath. He eyed their old enemy closely, still not sure if he believed she was on their side.
"Where's Dutch?" D'avin demanded, unable to hide the worry.
"What do you mean? What happened to the lady?" Aneela questioned the group as she stared at the water in the tub.
"You pulled her back in, so why is she not with you?" Johnny started rambling, his eyes accusing the women across from him.
"The four of us left the green, only you didn't come out the other side. Dutch touched the water and you pulled her back in." D'avin explained further.
"The lady knocked me out, last I saw she was going with you three to get out." Aneela told her side of what happened, giving them a moment for the words to sink in. "I didn't leave with you."
"Wait so it was the lady with us not you? How did we get out without you?" Johnny asked, suddenly not only worried for his best friend, but also for their war.
"Dutch must have gotten you out, but she mustn't have been able to get the lady out too, so she dragged her back in, probably hoping between Dutch and I we would be able to get her out." She started explaining, more to herself than to the men in the room.
"How did you get out then?" Turin accused, crossing his arms as he tried to take all the information in, trying to work out his next move in the war.
"With Khlyen's help, with a trick he had taught me back on Arkyn, which is why I ended up back there." Aneela rushed over what she had done, knowing full well none of them would understand it fully.
"So you came out on Arkyn and hailed a ride from us?" Turin grumbled.
"What about Dutch? The lady has her all alone now." D'avin questioned, the concern evident in his tone, his end statement causing a silence to settle on the room.
"I don't know. The green is dead now, I can't go through it." Aneela answered quietly, a hint of emotion clouding her words.
"But you got out, so she can too?" D'avin pushed further, trying to work out his next steps.
"I don't know, it was still dying when I got out." The woman across from him gave more honestly in her uncertainty than she had been with any of them.
"We have to get her out." Johnny back up his brother and his partner, the thought of leaving the latter on her own with their enemy made him want to punch the lookalike in front of him.
"Dutch is on her own. We have bigger issues to deal with here." Turin stated, raising his voice to the room.
"We can't just leave her in there." D'avin fought back.
"Anything we do could risk letting the lady out, and Dutch wouldn't want that." Aneela tried to reason with the brothers in front of her.
"She was planning on dying to kill Aneela, as much as I don't want to, this is what Dutch would want." Johnny conceded, knowing Dutch would prefer it this way.
"She won't die, the lady will torture her. Remember how she was last time?!" D'avin fired back, he had begrudgingly accepted her suicide mission once, but there was only so many of those he could back her on.
"She understands the green better now, she has a better chance of getting out." Aneela quietly stated, a small touch of compassion to her tone.
"And we still need to work out how to fix our friends, the war isn't over yet General." Turin said, putting an end to the discussion at hand.
By the time the resets had started in the double digits, Dutch had started losing count. She tried fighting to begin with, but eventually she let the story play out, her begging not to shoot, turning into her begging to shoot, until she was simply silent.
She opened her eyes with a sigh, quickly sitting up alert at the change of surroundings, the room in the stone building that had haunted her dreams since her first visit to the green filtered into her vision. The lady in the skin of Khlyen made her way into Dutch's vision.
"What, grew bored of that play did you?" She spat at the lady.
"You remember everything again, I thought it was time we had a chat." The lady shrugged uncaringly.
"So what was the point, to drive me mad?" Dutch growled, ignoring the fact that it was near driving her mad.
"I just wanted you to know what I can do and what I will do to your friends once I am out." Khlyens voice laughed back at her.
"Haven't you realised, you're never getting out." Dutch responded, actually believing the words she was firing.
"If I never get out, neither will you little flea." The lady stated with the same certainty.
"That's okay with me." She had been prepared to give her life for the cause many times already; why should that change now.
"You say that now, but give me more time." An eagerness to the words, cutting deeper than the words themselves.
"Do you want to know how your real friends in Old Town are?" The lady asked after a while, not enjoying the silence.
"What did you do to them?" Dutch fired up at the question, trying to lunge at the being in front of her but she didn't have the strength to fight against her.
"Oh, just freed them from their memories for a while." The lady smirked, her enjoyment visible.
"Why?" She demanded, the anger flaring up deep inside of her.
"I'm giving them a taste of freedom, without any of those pesky reminders of their pasts." The lady explained with a psychotic tone. "Don't worry, the effects usually wear off after about a month, then they get all their memories, new and old."
"Do you know what your down fall is?" Dutch stated after a while, knowing she had to be smarter about picking her fights.
"Enlighten me, little flea." Khlyens voice taunted her.
"You get all parts of the memory, physical and emotional, but you only understand the physical, you're not human enough to understand the emotional side." Dutch taunted right back.
"That's not my downfall; that is what makes me better." The lady watched her with amusement; she really did enjoy having a play toy.
"Maybe, but it doesn't make you stronger." Dutch stated, knowing her welcome was wearing thin.
The next time she woke, the story was similar but this time she was the monster getting hunted, she was alone, but where the lady thought she was driving her mad, she was actually giving her an advantage. It gave her time to formulate her plan, to start getting ready, hiding out, she practiced manipulating the green, manipulating the bounds of the lady's reach.
Every time she was found, and every time she was killed by her friends, her teammates, but each time the story reset her self-taught skills got stronger, her planned seemed more feasible. She had no real idea if her plan would work, but it was the only one that she had, if it didn't, she had no idea what would happen, so she was choosing not to consider that option.
The next time the lady brought her in for one of their chats she was as ready as she would ever be. She kept her mind clear and set to the first part of her plan, a skill that Khlyen taught her, so it was only fitting that the lady was still in his skin.
"I want to tell you a story now" Dutch spoke evenly.
"This shall be interesting, little flea." The lady responded, her amusement over riding whatever her reason for bringing them together once again.
She weaved the story through the ladies mind, a story of death, betrayal, fear and heart wrenching pain; emotion would in fact be the ladies downfall, she was hoping.
In the pauses of the story, she blocked her mind from the lady and silently collected the spore that would kill the green once and for all, inside and out.
Nearing the end of her story, she knew it was time, the lady was bombarded with the story, learning and gathering as much information from it as she could to use against her human enemies.
Dutch closed her eyes, drawing in every ounce of training and strength she had to block the lady out and visualise the flowing green pool from her memory mother's cave in front of her, she flicked her hand through the green, remembering the feel of the silky substance. Bringing a handful to her mouth, she kept her eyes shut and pushed the doubt away; this was the only plan she had and it had to work.
Thanks for reading!
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