ALEX IS NOT DEAD.

I'll say it again- ALEX IS NOT FUCKING DEAD.

I refuse to believe it. Lauren Oliver would not DARE kill off my favorite goddamn character like only a fucking bitch would. Lauren Oliver is not a fucking bitch. Until I read Pandemonium, I stand by that.

Anyway, this is a little (very short) one-shot of what would happen if Alex had made it over the fence with Lena. Which he should've. Because he's Alex. And although I know he did it because he loves Lena so goddamn fucking much, I wish that bastard would've been like Peeta with the whole 'I'll stay with you, always' thing and jumped the goddamn fence to keep his promise.

But Lauren Oliver didn't do that. So, by default, I had to.

This is just to tide me over until Pandemonium comes out (too long to wait, I can't stand it * twitch *) and I get my beloved Alex back. Which he will come back. He's not dead, simply being held in the Crypts until he can do the whole badass-escape thing Lena's mother pulled. Cuz you know if anyone can do it, Alex Sheathes fucking can.

Disclaimer- I don't own this. However, if Lauren decides to become the fucking bitch I'm assuming she is not, I will have no choice but to retrieve all Delirium books, set them on fire, and rewrite the entire damn thing myself. With a totally different fucking ending.

The fence looms above us: fifteen feet, ten feet, five feet. I think, We're going to die.

Then Alex's voice, clear and forceful and, incredibly, calm, so I'm not sure if I hear him or only imagine him speaking the words into my ear. Jump. Now. With me.

I let go of the handlebars and roll to one side as the bike skids forward into the fence. Pain goes through every single part of my body-my bone is being ripped from muscle, my muscle is being ripped from my skin-as I tumble across jagged rocks, spitting up dust, coughing, struggling to breathe. For a whole second the world goes black.

Then everything is color and explosion and fire. The bike hits the fence and a tremendous, rolling boom echoes through the air. Fire shoots into the ever-lightening sky. For a moment, the fence gives a high, shrill whine and then goes dead again, silent. No doubt the surge shorted it momentarily.

This is my chance to climb, just like Alex said.

Somehow I find the strength to drag myself to the fence on my hands and knees, dry-heaving, vomiting dust. I hear shouting behind me, but it all sounds distant, like under-water noise. I limp to the fence and haul myself upward, inch by inch. I'm going as fast as I can but it feels like I'm crawling, barely making progress. Alex must be behind me because I hear him shouting, "Go, Lena! Go!" I focus on his voice: It's the only thing that keeps me going up. Somehow-miraculously-I reach the top of the fence, and then I step over the loops of barbed wire like Alex taught me, and then I tip over the other side and let myself drop twenty feet to the ground, hitting the grass hard, half-unconscious now and incapable of feeling any more pain. Just a few more feet and I'll be sucked into the Wilds; I'll be beyond its impenetrable shield of interlocking trees and growth and shade. I wait for Alex to hit next.

When he does he crashes, giving a yelp of pain but jumping to his feet immediately, grabbing my waist and pushing me forward. "Run, Lena, run!"

Alex told me to run. And so I run.

We run for I don't know how long. Hours, maybe, or days.

You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way.

But me and Alex, we have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and we will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin us down with a hundred thousand arms, but we will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear.

I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.

OoO

In the beginning, there is fire.

Fire in my legs and lungs; fire tearing through every nerve and cell in my body. That's how I am born again, in pain: I emerge from the suffocating heat and the darkness. I force my way through a black, wet space of strange noises and smells.

Alex is cursing the entire time, in pain and frustration. He keeps stopping to check the trees, trying to find his way to the buried toolbox. It's strange how he can remember where it is; had we really only crossed a couple of days ago? Lifetimes, it seemed. But he'd done it before.

He pulls up short without warning and I give a shriek, both in pain and surprise as his hands, still gripping my hips, pass across the many wounds scraped into my body.

"It's okay." He whispers, and I know he's doing it purely for my benefit, or maybe something else. Maybe he doesn't feel safe yet either. "I have to find the flashlight. I think it's here."

He guides me to the ground and I sit there, panting and wheezing as he shuffles through the darkness, looking for the damn flashlight that was stashed here so many years ago. He doesn't say anything when he finds it, simply switches it on and grabs for me again. "Come on, Lena."

We start running again.

oOo

I don't know how we find our way, even with the flashlight. Everything blurs past me in a rush of darkness. Black. It's everywhere. It's going to swallow us up, we don't know where we're going, Alex is leading us into the deepest part of the forest, he doesn't know where he's going, he can't possibly follow a path in this pit of a black hole…

We break out of the trees suddenly. Moonlight washes over the landscape and I see what I've seen before: the road, filled with holes, cracked and buckled in places, enormous piles of concrete rubble, winding up a long, low hill, disappearing over the hill's crest. The gigantic clearings on either side of the road, covered in waist-high grasses and some young, thin trees, enormous beams of timber piled on top of one another, long-ago bombed out houses.

And there's the blue truck. We start walking and come across the unscathed white house again, the tank of a house that survived the blitz attack. Alex leads me inside.

And somehow, I know we are safe.

OoO

I know, very short, but it's something like how the books SHOULD'VE ended. (Hear that, Oliver?) Anyway, I'm sure I could be convinced to turn this into a multi-chapter story… if I have the right persuasion… have some ideas… just click that little review button to let me know…