Angst
A W.i.t.c.h. Fanfiction by: A J
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. The O.C.'s Steph and Gen are mine, as is the plot.
Summary: Zenith was NOT the end of the story. Even if it WAS the end of W.i.t.c.h. …
Chapter 3
"I still don't see what that weird news story has to do with our daughter," Elizabeth Hale said. Almost all of the Guardians' parents were gathered in her spacious living room, watching the Eleven O'clock News on the Hales' 50" plasma-screen television. C.h.k.y.y2. had worked double-time to get Susan Vandom, Chen and Joan Lin, and Tom and Anna (and Chris) Lair over to the Earth Guardian's residence once they'd revived Taranee. (She and Peter had decided, since their parents were out of town at a concert for the evening, and consequently wouldn't see the damning newscast, not to tell them anything. Yet.)
As Yan Lin and Susan had been leaving the Vandoms' apartment, Dean Collins had been arriving, and at just the sight of Susan's worried expression and Yan's sorrowful one, he'd silently fallen in step beside them, holding Sue's hand reassuringly.
They were still handclasped now in Harold and Elizabeth's living room, a growing sense of horror overtaking them at the end of the news segment as realization rocked the pair to the core. Dean could tell the Lins were just as hard-hit; Joan was a weepy wreck, and Chen's eyes had that hollow look the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had worn at the end of World War Two.
"But muqin, what happened to the girls?" Chen asked, his voice hoarse.
"We still don't know for sure," Yan Lin's Altermere answered. For simplicities' sake, the group of former Guardians had decided to start calling her 'Mira'. It had been her unpleasant task to bring Chen and Joan to the Hales'. Chen's reaction to suddenly having two mothers wasn't nearly as bad as the way the gathered parents were taking the news that their heroic children were quite probably dead. News which, unfortunate though it might be, Elizabeth was still not buying.
"Oh, come on, Joan, Chen, you believe this crazy lookalike about the girls? Taranee," Elizabeth started, turning on the quiet girl slumped miserably in the corner. "Tell us the truth. What happened downtown? Where are the other girls?
Poor shaking Taranee looked up at her brother and Elyon, who were keeping her company at Harold's entertaining minibar. Her sigh had Peter ready to pour her a stiff shot of the first bottle to hand, just for her nerves. "It's all true, Mrs. Hale. After the others reawakened me from my elemental trance, I helped them search more before we all came over here. We didn't find any sign of the others." She shuddered anew, thinking of the awful realizations she'd come to as they checked through the wreckage.
"Hay Lin was probably blown away and dispersed by the concussion wave when the building collapsed. Irma and Cornelia were at ground zero, and were quite likely absorbed into the impact crater. Will would have ground out on the masonry and steel as it crumpled. I couldn't find a telepathic trace of any of them afterwards." Taranee shook again, looking at each set of parents as she started to cry again. "I'm … I'm sorry …" She virtually collapsed into herself, and Peter wrapped his arms around her. "So … sorry," she continued telepathically, literally scaring the truth into Elizabeth and the Lairs. Pragmatists both, Tom and Anna had until that moment steadfastly disbelieved the very notion that their daughter had been a magical winged superhero.
"What do you … what does she mean, 'ground out'?" Susan redirected her question from Taranee to Cassidy, who was closest.
Cass looked up from her clasped hands. "During the battle with Cedric – the big snake guy – the girls assumed Elemental Zenith, literally becoming their elements. Will's element is … was … electricity …" Cassidy sobbed softly. She spun on her chair to look at her teammates. "Oh, god, Yan, Halli, I've got to tell my mom, too. She deserves to know where I've been for thirty years …"
"Cassidy, be careful," Halinor warned mentally. "We don't want to get their hopes up prematurely. Until we know how Rissi brought you back, I don't want to mention it to them yet." As the Voice of Candracar present, the rest of C.h.k.y.m. took her words to heart, and Cassidy hurriedly turned back to Susan and Dean.
"I was in a coma, stuck in Metamoor for thirty years after our former leader Nerissa went power-mad and attacked us. Long story short, she revived me using power stolen from the Heart of Meridian," she paused and gave a brief nod toward little Elyon Brown, "so she could reclaim the Heart of Candracar from Will and the Guardians …"
"The Heart of Candracar?" Susan sat upright. "You mean that gaudy pink necklace Will was always wearing?" She stood up and looked at each of the former Guardians in turn. "MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SOME ANCIENT WITCH WHO JUST WANTED HER FAVORITE NECKLACE BACK?!" She was facing Yan Lin at the end, her eyes wild, tear-reddened, and mad as Hell. "How could you let this happen? I trusted you … we ALL trusted you with our daughters. Your own GRANDDAUGHTER, YAN LIN!" Susan started breaking down in front of them all. Her arms crossed over her chest, clutching her shoulders and falling to her knees as she began to shiver in the onset of shock.
Dean sank down next to her, wrapping his arms around her. "Sue! Susan, it'll be okay, just hold on. Taranee survived; maybe the others did too, somehow. We won't stop looking, I promise." Tom Lair rumbled his vehement agreement to that. Taranee's renewed sobs could be heard as a counterpoint to Susan's, and none of C.h.k.y.m. could meet any of the parents' eyes.
"Why …?" Sue's moaned question made everybody cringe anew. "Why didn't Will just give her the Heart?"
"Because … she was a true hero, Susan." Yan Lin knelt before the grieving mother, but addressed all the parents. "They all were true heroes: saving lives, stopping the bad guys time and again, regardless of the personal cost." She met Tom's eyes challengingly. "Would you have truly expected any less from your daughters?" Yan looked back at Susan. "Will knew, better than anyone, what Nerissa was capable of; and that was with the partial power she was able to leech off of three Hearts. The Guardians, our girls, were there to make sure she never reclaimed control of the Heart of Candracar, with good reason."
"What is all this stuff about Hearts?" Anna Lair asked. "And what's Candracar?" All the Guardians looked back and forth for a moment, stumped for a simple explanation for what to them was more a spiritual conviction.
"Hearts are … the embodiments – some living, some not – of the magical energy inherent in the worlds throughout the infinite dimensions," Elyon started, sounding like she was giving a book report … with a head cold. She sniffled next, completing the image. Elizabeth Hale needed no other proof that something bad had happened to her daughter. Whether this story of theirs was true or not … her thoughts were interrupted as Elyon continued.
"I'm not from Pequot, Missus Hale. My family is from another world, called Meridian by the inhabitants. I'm now its Queen. The girls helped me reclaim the throne from my brother, Phobos, who was a … very unpleasant … jerk." She exchanged a strange look with Taranee, who had been staring at her ashen-faced since she'd started her 'confession'. At her thoroughly inadequate description of the former ruler of Metamoor, Taranee choked back a snort of surprise and almost grinned. Almost.
"I'm also the Heart of Meridian," Elyon continued. She held out her hand, palm up, and generated a small glowing purple globe of power. The gasps of the gathered parents overlapped, and Yan and Mira winced, while Peter backed up a few steps. As the others watched, she turned the violet orb into a large flat oval, and with a wave of her other hand over it, she created a painting on one side of the five girls in their Guardian forms, ranged from right to left in the order of their initials in their team name, W.i.t.c.h.
As everyone was exclaiming over her handiwork, she gave the reverse side a similar swipe, and the five W.i.t.c. appeared on the back in opposite order, in their Elemental forms. One more run of her hand around the edge created a simple wooden frame around the newly-created portrait, and Elyon handed it to Taranee with a watery smile. "Don't give up, T. We'll find out some way to save them; I promise," she whispered.
While the young queen turned back to deal with the parents again, Peter came forward and gave the painting a cautious poke. He looked up at his sister with a tremulous smile when he found it was as real as the floor he stood on. "Whoa," he said, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Now that's magic …"
"If any Heart can do that," Susan accused, waving a hand in the girls' direction, "what's so special about the Heart of Candracar?"
"Candracar lies at the hub of a multidimensional nexus, and so draws in the nascent, untapped energies of them all," Yan Lin started in, gaining a surprised and grateful nod from Halinor. "With Candracar's Heart, Nerissa would have been able to remake worlds." She paused while waiting for Susan and the other parents to process that.
"Ohmigod, Yan Lin, we've gotta go back!" Taranee gulped out "We … we've …" The bespectacled girl swallowed back fresh tears. "I've got to find the Heart."
"What? You mean it didn't come to you?" Yan Lin and her teammates looked at each other worriedly.
"It went straight to you when Cassidy was … hurt, I thought," Halinor asked the elderly Chinese woman. Yan and Mira both nodded, then she looked back at Cassidy. "Did you tell it who to seek, Cass?" the former Fire Guardian continued.
"No," the red-haired water-maiden answered. "I remember the argument we had," 'All too well,' she added to herself. "And then Rissi just … lashed out." Cassidy hung her head. "The next thing I remember is reawakening to Nerissa's cajoling, and then we were all her zombies, 'til now."
"So, … if the necklace didn't go to someone else … maybe Will is still alive!" Susan latched onto that as a mantra, praying someone would take pity on her. Will was out there, she knew it. She surged to her feet, hope lighting her features.
"C'mon, Sue," Tom said, zipping his coat back up. "We'll draw less attention in my cruiser." As Dean and Cassidy fell in step behind them, Officer Lair looked back at Peter and Taranee. "You gonna be okay to drive, son?" Peter nodded back glumly.
"Tee, Elyon, you two ready to go back there?" He gave his sister another comforting squeeze on the shoulder. The two girls just stood, nodded, and started shuffling back towards the door. Halinor and Mira fell into step behind the three teens.
"I'll stay behind with the munchkins, Tom," Anna said from the kitchen doorway. Looking at the dining table, she quirked an eyebrow at the Hales. "Harold? Liz? Do you both want to go?"
"I'll stay too, hon; you and Cornelia have always been closer," Harold said, and gave his wife a faltering hug. Elizabeth nodded, and left with Kadma and the Lins in tow.