Disclaimer: don't own Secret Saturdays, don't own Doyle, don't own...well, you'll see who else it is I don't own when you read the story.
Do own the dreams Doyle referred to. I guess I own "Sammy" and her mother, though does that really matter? I suppose that depends on if they make another appearance....
Spoiler Alert:
The saying goes "You always hurt the ones you love." And I'm a total Doyle fan-girl.
Read that how you will.
This oneshot is based on Doyle's side of my history.
It is nothing more and nothing less than my speculations on how certain elements of that history (namely, the original version I wrote immediately following the Owlman episode) would be written if, somehow, Jay Stephens happened to have very nearly the same ideas as I'm using in the fanfic.
Obviously the way I'm writing the "complete" history would be far too brutal for the actual show (though some of the things in this version may border, or even cross, that line, as well—provided I decide to extend the oneshot beyond the present version).
"Obviously" meaning, if the reader has already read that history. (Depending on when you read this one, my version of the "complete" history, or at least relevant parts of it, might not yet be posted.)
Likewise, certain things in the history depend on how I'm writing elements from the past, and thus Jay Stephens, if he used a similar concept, as like as not will use different details.
This theory is simply a re-write of how a certain incident occurs after the Owlman episode (again, as written in my fanfiction). It is, shall we say, the "nicer" version of those chapters—and it's not very nice at that. Also, I attempted to eliminate anything that depends on my fanfiction, though some hints may remain. Readers of those other stories should be quick to spot the hints. Those who haven't read them and don't mind spoiling it—or simply want an explanation as to certain things that show up in this story.... Explanations may be found following the oneshot.
This story is meant to be a combination of "what if" and true-ish to canon, though regarding that "nice" bit...don't expect to see it on the show (at least not the way I'm writing it), even if JS does come up with a similar idea.
(At some point I might re-work this oneshot so that it fits into my fanfiction, though I do not see many necessary changes.)
As to the timing: this story—or rather, the "complete" version in the history—was originally thought up immediately following the Owlman episode. Seeing as Doyle has finally made another appearance, other stories including that history are suffering a re-write so that I can assimilate the new information from new episodes. This one-shot, however, I think could probably fit just about anywhere...provided Jay Stephens doesn't come up with anything specific enough that looks similar to my own idea....
Readers could probably just fit this story in wherever the heck they want. I don't think I left anything in that was too terribly dependent on timing, though I would appreciate any input that points out if I'm wrong! Besides the obvious fact that fanfiction is not true to canon, anyway.
Oh, and this version started out as a text file (no formatting), so I used caps to deal with emphasis. When I copied it over to a Word document, I think I fixed all of them (there are a few that I left in for added emphasis), but just for a heads-up....
ONE FINAL WARNING!!!!
I have, towards the very end of this oneshot, used two words that, according to Wikipedia, are Russian swear words. I used those terms for two reasons: to use the swear words without...using swear words (which depends a little too heavily on the assumption that most of my readers are English, which I recognize is not a guarantee). And to imply that the speaker is Russian (no, he's not Van Rook, but he might make another appearance in one of my other stories, and that little bit of dialogue is just a set-up to make it the "same" character).
I hope I used the correct words for my purposes, and I also hope that nobody is offended by their use...or my intent in choosing those words.
You have been warned.
Anywho....
He wiped at the blood that dripped into his eye and tried frantically, with limited success, to analyze his surroundings. His luck had been double-edged; the shrapnel from his ruined jetpack had missed blinding him by millimeters, but the flash had not. The explosion left him dazed, dizzy enough that he probably shouldn't be moving, but he couldn't afford not to. Every second he waited was another second that those people might catch him....
His breath came rapidly; his eyes stared at nothing. What sight the explosion left him, his terror denied him.
He had to force himself to move, not to let the fear paralyze him.
He'd had this dream many times before, or many like it. The specifics changed, but the concept was always the same. Those people found him. Those people chased him. He tried to run away. He never escaped. Sometimes he woke up screaming before the dream ended. Sometimes he couldn't wake up until those people caught him.
The dreams never continued beyond his capture. They didn't need to. He didn't need the dreams to know what those people would do to him; he didn't need to be asleep for that nightmare.
The dreams had all but stopped after Van Rook had hired him, but once he'd left the mercenary, they'd started in again the very night he'd joined his family. And they'd continued, and gotten worse, and grown more frequent. He'd started spending the night in Drew's garden, just so that everyone else could sleep.
He scrambled up the hillside, hoping to make it to the village on the other side. It didn't matter that those people could see him here; it didn't matter that he left a trail a blind man could follow.
It didn't matter that he hated crowds.
Those people knew where he was. If he made it to the village, they might lose him in the crowd; until then, hiding was not an option.
He barely made it to the top of the hill before he stumbled into a gopher hole. He slid down the side of the hill—the other side of the hill; thank the gods for small miracles—and rolled to his feet at the edge of the village.
And nearly collapsed again. He'd twisted his leg awkwardly when he fell, maybe even broken it. His fear blocked the pain, but the leg wouldn't hold his weight for long.
He heard one of them curse behind him as they realized what he planned. He couldn't take the time to catch his breath; he dove into the biggest knot of people he could find, hunched down so that those people would not see him.
Part of his mind screamed at him; all these people surrounded him, pressed in on him, trapped him.... He tried to tell that part to shut up; he wasn't trapped, he was hiding. It was better than hiding indoors. These buildings might only have one or two escape routes; he could run in any direction from the crowd.
That part of his mind persisted; escape routes from the shops would not shift with every step. The buildings would not move unpredictably; the buildings would not hurt him when someone introduced a new factor.
A gunshot sounded, and another, and the internal argument ended.
The crowd surged and became a panicked mob; it took all of Doyle's concentration just to keep on his feet. Not that he wouldn't have preferred to be closer to the ground, to stay out of sight, but he had no desire to be trampled.
Somehow, he managed to move with the mob. He snickered, and had to fight to keep his laughter from turning hysterical. Those people had hoped to panic the crowd, to make it more difficult to hide. But they'd also made it more difficult to predict where he'd separate from the crowd. If he could just stay on his feet long enough....
A scream cut through his thoughts. A child's voice, a little girl, crying for her mommy. The sound was a mix of pain and fear.
He snarled at himself, and shoved his way through the crowd to where he'd heard the voice. He tried not to knock anyone down, and hauled people back to their feet when he could. It was not out of any concern for them that he helped; the more people were on their feet, the easier for him to hide.
Finally he came across the little girl. No more than five years old, she huddled where someone had knocked her over. He leaned over her so that nobody could touch her, and looked her over. Nothing seemed to be broken...except for a little wooden toy. Some part of his brain noted with amusement that it was one of his own carvings. The slightest thought, and a green flare that he hoped nobody else could see, and he handed the undamaged toy back to her.
She stared at the toy for a moment before she allowed him to pick her up. "That-a-girl," he whispered, shielding her from the mob. "Can you tell me where your mommy is?" Then he flinched. Stupid question. She'd be lucky to find her without the mob.
"Sammy? Samantha!" A woman's voice called out from the other side of the mob. "Sammy, where are you?"
The little girl perked up. "Mommy, mommy!"
She twisted in Doyle's arms, and he had to struggle to keep from losing her to the crowd. "It's okay, don't worry, I'll bring you to your mommy, just...stop...moving!" He shoved his way through the crowd again until he found the woman calling for 'Sammy.' She saw him with her daughter, and her expression became one of horror.
He grimaced. Just his luck, she probably took him for a kidnapper. Better than if those people had found him, though; he doubted they'd hold back just for a child in his arms.
The woman was distracted just long enough that another surge in the crowd knocked her over.
"MOMMY!" the little girl screamed. Doyle winced; she'd shrieked right into his ear.
Doyle stifled a curse and dove after the woman. He hauled her to her feet before the crowd could trample her, and dragged her and the little girl to the edge of the crowd and into a nearby shop. Only then did he let the woman take the child from him.
He barely even heard the woman try to thank him for protecting the girl. He pressed himself against a wall and peered out the window. All his attention was focused on the crowd outside.
Did they see me? Do they know where I went? His gaze flickered back and forth as he tried to get just a glimpse of his pursuers. He wanted to go back out there; for all that he hated crowds, that mob was still the best hiding place at the moment.
He couldn't find them out there, but they could be watching for him. He turned to one of the workers. "Is there another way out of here?" He couldn't manage more than a whisper, and he had to repeat himself before the worker understood.
"Oh, yeah, the kitchen," the worker replied, also in a whisper. "Employee entrance. Leads into the plaza." He leaned close. "Give me a moment, I'll take you there."
Doyle hesitated; his fear had been obvious, and there had been gunshots. What if the man thought him a crook, and meant to call the police on him? He weighed his options: police, or wait for those people to find him? Those people would not risk coming after him if he were in police custody...he hoped...and he could always escape from jail if he had to. Doyle finally nodded.
The worker headed into the kitchen, and Doyle turned his back on him to watch the window.
"You're not really planning on going back out there, are you?" asked a voice from behind him.
Doyle turned to face the speaker...and whatever excuse he'd planned stuck in his throat. Only a whimper escaped.
Now, he told that persistent part of his brain, I'm trapped.
Doyle backed up, one step at a time. The man in front of him matched him step for step, a cruel smile on his face.
Doyle nearly stumbled over some obstacle on the floor. He took a quick look behind him to see if the way was clear.
The man took advantage of his distraction and lunged at Doyle.
Doyle jumped back, and the man overbalanced himself.
Doyle ducked under the reaching arm and raced towards the kitchen. The worker saw the man chasing him, and gestured Doyle to the door.
The worker moved to block Doyle's pursuer. Another gunshot sounded, and nobody else was willing to stall the pursuer.
Doyle made it through the door, into the alley, and raced towards the open plaza and the mob beyond.
He felt someone make a grab for him; he made it to the plaza; the crowd was just a few steps farther....
Several somethings pierced the backs of his legs. A shockwave went through him and left him twitching on the ground.
The sensation gradually left him, and with it, all feeling. He thrashed and ripped the wires free. Someone behind him gave a shout of surprise.
He somehow managed to stagger to his feet, but someone grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, and slammed him face-first against the wall.
"My goodness," one of them said from the entry to the alley. "This one gets jolted enough to take down a herd of elephants, and have juice left over, but he still wants to fight." It was the same voice, the same words, always the same, as from the other dreams.
Doyle struggled against the hands holding him to the wall. "NO!" he screamed. "Please, no! Please, stop. Let me go!" His screams broke down into sobs. "Please, oh please, let me go!"
"Not till you say 'please,'" one of them remarked.
"What're you waiting for?" another voice asked, right next to his ear. "You gonna give him the stuff, or what?"
"What's the matter?" the would-be comedian asked. "Is he too much for you?"
The voice next to him sputtered. "This pathetic zhopa? No! But the...unh! Would you hold still!" Doyle pulled one arm free, and the person holding him grabbed his head and smashed it against the wall. Doyle continued to struggle, heedless of the blood dripping down his face. "The...orders were to bring...der'mo! Hold still, already! To bring him in alive and...mostly...undamaged."
"That's the problem," the first voice, the one from the other dreams, replied. "Way he's thrashing, even if I don't hit something vital by mistake, he's liable to give himself a heart attack."
The voice by his ear started to cackle. "Guess I can put him out the old fashioned way," that voice said. Somebody grabbed Doyle's hair and jerked his head forward, deliberately scraping the side of his face against the wall. The voice snickered. "Looks like he's already forgotten this lesson."
Doyle felt cold metal touch the back of his neck. The stun gun was flicked on with a crackle of electricity, and Doyle screamed and thrashed and was finally released to collapse whimpering and twitching on the ground. The old scar below his hairline was torn open and burned with the new.
Slowly, he reached out one hand to claw at the ground, to try to crawl to freedom if he had to. The person who'd held him whistled. "He's still moving?"
"He's still breathing?" another one remarked in a whisper.
Doyle felt something jab into his back, forcing out his breath; from what he could feel of the weight, one of them must be kneeling on him. Someone grabbed his hair again, and jerked his head around so that the injured side of his face pressed into the ground. The stun gun was held so that he could see it in the corner of his vision.
He could barely move anymore; even if the sight of that weapon didn't frighten him, he didn't have the strength to fight them.
Someone moved just beyond his focus. He didn't even feel the pinprick in the side of his neck.
He shuddered as a powerful sedative entered his bloodstream.
His sight and hearing faded, and he passed out.
Epsilon lifted Doyle's head by the hair. The agent stared into Doyle's face and chuckled. "Van Rook honestly thought he could hide you from us?"
Uh...cue intro music and animation?
First, a warning: I have used terms that, to my understanding, are swear words...or something of the sort. What I used, however, was (presumably) Russian swear words. If you are of age for such a topic to be appropriate, then please wiki the phrase "Russian mat", and look up two of the terms that "the voice next to his ear" used.
I hope I used the right terms. I hope those who are at least remotely comfortable with the fact that I used swear words will understand which meaning I intended (provided they actually look them up; I'm not saying what I meant by them).... And I hope anybody who knows Russian forgives me for any misunderstandings that may occur.
I may, or may not, decide to add to this (namely, a very brief description of his imprisonment, just to give readers a taste of what, exactly, Doyle was running from—besides, obviously, the Grey Men), but other than that, consider this done.
I might even decide to include this oneshot as a chapter in the actual "history." But if I do that, certain things, like that line about Van Rook, will probably be removed. If I use this chapter there, it might be as a later chapter, one of a number of escape attempts after the Grey Men have already captured him. Thus, that line about Van Rook hiding him would be irrelevant.
(Or maybe not, seeing as I'm modifying a number of things about my other stories to account for the fact that Doyle's back! on the show. How much modification is necessary remains to be seen.)
Quick question, though. If I include this version, or one like it, in the main history, this will probably be the actual chase scene, rather than another dream (although I'll still make references to the dream). But in the oneshot version, is he actually being chased, or is he having the nightmare? You decide.
I have mixed feelings about that scene with the stun gun. The original version had the person holding him actually look at the old scar before making that remark about forgetting the lesson...and then I realized that up until then, everything had been told exclusively from Doyle's perspective, so I had to re-word those paragraphs. I'm trying to point out that there was another scar there, another mark left by a stun gun (the original version had it that the stun gun was just right size to have made that scar; a newer attempt was to say that the new scar matched the old, but working in that phrase still gave me problems). I'm not sure I worded it quite the way I wanted to....
Otherwise, I think I've got this version working the way I want it to.
By the way, the fact that I never mentioned Epsilon until the end is important, and I found myself having to rewrite that scene several times to get it right. Whether Doyle knows that Epsilon is there is irrelevant to the oneshot, but it's a crucial detail if I include this as the actual chase scene in the "complete" history. In that version, Doyle is supposed to know that it's the Grey Men chasing him, but because of the circumstances, when he wakes up he isn't entirely certain if he'd been dreaming again…until he sees Epsilon. So I don't want Doyle to be able to recognize anyone who's chasing him. Assuming, of course, that this is the "first" capture, rather than one of many later escape attempts. Hmm....
Why would Doyle recognize Epsilon? Well, you'll have to wait for me to post the "complete" history (or certain relevant parts), to find out…or see if Jay Stephens has a similar idea when Epsilon shows up again on the show….
SPOILER ALERT
For those that are wondering, the "hints" that associate this oneshot with my other fanfiction, even beyond it being a sort-of "nicer" version of part of the history, are as follows:
In one of my stories, I decided to claim that Doyle had learned how to carve toys and such out of wood from a young age. In fact, I have him doing that several times as a child (after the avalanche) and selling them as a way of keeping himself fed. Whether that specific detail ever becomes relevant in any other story—besides the "complete" (and generic) history, of course—remains to be seen.
And:
The green flare, and fixing said carving with a thought. I decided in a variety of stories that Doyle should have a limited ability to do magic. You got that, magic. Those who don't believe in magic can claim he has psychic abilities. I could care less what name you use. (I honestly don't see much of a difference, besides the genre of story.) A lot of it is similar to Zak's ability to deal with cryptids, though without the control element, but he also has a limited ability to use telekinesis, among other things. Such as the fact that he keeps having this dream...right up until the point where it comes true.
Any thing else was either based on the fact that this is a version of that history, and so would have other associations (like the fact that he's running from the Grey Men, or that line at the end about Van Rook hiding him from them), or else is purely unintentional. Or something that I just forgot about.