DISCLAIMER: Falling Skies belongs to TNT, Robert Rodat and Steven Spielberg.
Wow! I am so honoured to have you all as readers. This story has received over 60 reviews and 3,000 hits! I'm happy that everyone is still enjoying this tale I'm telling. I enjoy writing it. I'm sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up, but I actually ended up rewriting it several times… It's a bit longer though :) Once again, sorry about the wait! Here is the long-awaited chapter… I hope you all like it!
Huge thanks go to my beta Emotional Dalek. This hasn't been beta'd yet, but I will upload the beta'd version as soon as she's worked her magic :)
TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
DancerInTheDark101
Takes place immediately after the conclusion of Season 2. Hal's a sleeper agent, Anne's pregnant and the Second Mass just witnessed a new wave of aliens descend upon the planet. What do they want? And more importantly, whose side are they on?
-FALLING SKIES SEASON 3-
Chapter 7 – How it Used to Be
…LAST TIME…
"Hal!"
Pope fired.
A pain-filled scream echoed in the air.
Tom yelled in horror.
The rest of the Second Mass opened fire…
…NOW…
As he stepped forward, Hal saw Pope pull the trigger on his gun, sending the fatal bullet flying towards him. Everything slowed. He could see the path the bullet would take, and who it would end up hitting. If he continued moving forward at the rate he was going, that target would be him.
'His Mistress would be safe.'
"No…" Hal moaned, a severe ache starting to pound in his head. That alone was what saved his life. That moment of pain caused him to falter in his steps and the bullet flew past him before slamming into Karen with great force.
And that was when the pain really started. The severe ache turned into a roaring fire burning through his brain, sending agony racing through his nerves in the rest of his body.
He was able to remain standing just long enough to see Karen fall, scarlet blooming over a spot on her abdomen. She screamed in pain, hands reaching to clutch at the rapidly growing stain. Hal screamed in unison.
'I'm sorry Mistress…'
Hal fell to his knees, hands reaching up and gripping his head tight. He could hear people yelling in the background, but their voices were muffled and distorted, as if they were somehow underwater. He dug his fingers into his head, trying anything, everything to get rid of the pain.
Gunfire started.
The loud sounds of guns firing rapidly did nothing to help. He fell forward, even his knees unable to hold his tormented body upright. His hands started to shake, followed by his arms and then his legs. His whole body was twitching, as if someone had run an electric current through him.
"Hal…"
Someone was close. He felt a hand being gently placed on his arm, and couldn't help the scream that was let loose at the contact. His body felt like it was on fire. Gasping, the eldest Mason flinched away from the touch. He curled into a ball, trying to stop the trembling that had taken over his limbs.
Time passed.
He didn't know how much. It could have been minutes, hours or even days. All he knew was the pain. Eventually, Hal found himself fighting against the impending darkness. It came from nowhere, sneaking up on him like a thief in the night. It slowly took over his senses; the trembling in his limbs faded into numbness, the distorted sounds of the world disappeared into silence and his vision, which was blurry at best, was replaced by a void of black.
The last thing to be swallowed by the darkness was the pain. It didn't fade slowly like everything else, instead one minute it was there and the next there was nothing.
When he woke, Hal found himself very uncomfortable. His body ached fiercely and his head still pounded.
What had happened?
He moaned lowly, shifting on whatever it was he was lying on. He felt the rough feeling of sheets against flesh and wondered why he was in a bed. Slowly, Hal attempted to open his eyes. It took some time, but he was able to pry them open enough to take a very blurry look around. He blinked, trying to clear some of the haze and was relieved when it worked somewhat.
The med bus – he was in the Second Mass's medical bus.
A small cough erupted from deep within his chest. He winced as his throat burned with the force.
Twisting his head around, Hal peered at his surroundings. He couldn't see any light filtering in from outside, so he knew it was sometime during the night. A battery powered lantern had been left on one of the benches, casting an eerie blue light over the interior of the bus.
It wasn't until Hal turned his head all the way to the right that he saw that he wasn't the only one currently sleeping in the med bus. There was another young teen lying on a stretcher across from him, curled up on his side. Even from this distance, Hal could see the kid was in rough shape.
The kid obviously had a fever, if the flushed skin and increased rate of shallow breathing was anything to go by. His sandy blonde hair was matted to his forehead with sweat. He was covered by a thin sheet, but his chest and arms were bare, and Hal could see heavy bandaging covering the uppermost part of his left arm.
He took a good look at the kid's face.
"…Ben?"
His voice was raspy and hurt as his vocal cords were stretched. He coughed painfully, one hand weakly going to rub his throat. He tried again.
"Ben?"
There was still no response from his brother.
Suddenly Hal heard footsteps approaching the bus. There were voices accompanying them and before he knew it, the door to the bus had been flung open quietly and two people entered. They both rushed over when they saw him looking.
"Hal!"
It was his dad and Dr. Glass.
"Dad…" Hal whispered, a smile weakly slipping onto his features.
Before he knew it, his dad was leaning down and pulling him into a tight embrace. Hal was shocked at first, but eventually he leant in and returned the gesture.
"Oh god… I was so worried. Thank god you're alright." The strain in his dad's voice was unmistakable.
"What… what happened?" Hal murmured against his father's collar. The last thing he recalled was standing on the bridge when Karen had arrived. Everything after that was a blur – a haze of distorted shapes, sounds and pain. The pain he remembered.
His father released him, letting Hal fall back onto the bed with a wince.
"Don't you remember?" he asked gently.
Hal shook his head. "I… I remember Karen arriving. But that's it…" he admitted.
Tom ran a hand through his unruly hair. "I don't know how to say this Hal… but Karen's dead."
The eldest Mason boy looked up sharply at his dad's words. What? Karen was dead? "How?"
"Pope shot her. She showed up and told us a bunch of things about these new aliens. We don't know if she was telling the truth or not. Anyway, Pope – being Pope – got sick of it and threatened to shoot her, saying that she most likely had some Skitters and Mechs stashed away to attack us as soon as she gave the order."
"Did she?"
"Yes," Tom nodded. "Pope shot her. Skitters attacked us as soon as she went down, but we managed to hold them off until we were able to escape. That was two days ago."
There was something his dad wasn't telling him. He could see it in his eyes.
"Two days? But how did I end up unconscious for two days?"
Tom sighed, a hand rubbing over his face. He locked gazes with his son. "I don't know exactly what happened, but for some reason you almost stood in Pope's line of fire. It looked like you were protecting her."
"What?" Hal whispered, shocked. "Why would I do that?"
"I don't know," Tom said, shaking his head slowly. "But when Karen fell, something happened to you. You screamed and grabbed at your head before falling as well and have been unconscious ever since. You've had us all pretty worried, Hal."
Hal didn't know what to say. It seemed that something weird was going on, but he had no idea what. Why the hell would he try and protect Karen? Yes, she'd once been his girlfriend and for a long time he'd hoped that she would come back to the Second Mass. But after she'd attempted to manipulate Ben and had been the cause of Dai's death, Hal had given up all hope for her.
She wasn't Karen anymore; just a minion for the Overlords to do their bidding.
"I…" Hal started. "I don't understand…" Everything was so blurry. He didn't remember stepping into Pope's line of fire and he honestly didn't know why he would. The countless unanswered questions were driving him insane.
He didn't even notice that he was starting to hyperventilate until his dad pulled him into a hug again, his arms wrapped tightly around him.
"Hey, hey… Take it easy. You're okay. Everything's okay."
Hal couldn't help the sob that escaped. He was so confused. There were so many things he didn't remember, yet other things were floating through his mind – things he was sure he didn't do. It was all coming at a rapid pace and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop it.
Burying his head into his dad's shoulder, Hal heaved in a few deep breaths in an attempt to get himself under control. It was then that he once again caught sight of his unconscious brother over his father's shoulder.
His eyes widened and he started to pull back, looking at his father.
"Dad? What's wrong with Ben?"
Tom didn't answer straight away, sending a shot of fear through Hal. Was it that bad? Was he… dying?
"Dad?"
Hal watched as Tom stood and slowly walked over to where Ben was lying. His skin was still flushed, sweat beading on his forehead and making the sandy strands of hair stick to his skin. His lips were parted slightly and his breathing was shallow and irregular. But it was the lines of pain etched into his younger brother's face that held Hal's attention. Ben was in pain; and a lot of it.
"We're not sure what's happening with your brother…" was the eventual response. "He's been like this for two days, since he was injured in the attack on NC." Tom was staring at Ben, a faraway look in his eyes, as if he was seeing something other than what was in front of him.
"It's the harness."
Hal's head shot up, shocked. He stared at Anne, horror filling his eyes. The harness? He swivelled his gaze back to Ben.
"The harness?" he whispered, not taking his eyes off his younger brother. "What's happening with the harness?"
"I'm not one hundred per cent certain, but from what I've seen, it looks like either his body is rejecting the harness… or it's dying."
"What?" Hal breathed, before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing on shaky legs. Anne reached out and steadied him as he swayed. Hal nodded in thanks before stumbling over to Ben.
He reached out and placed a hand on his brother's head, wincing at the heat emanating from his body.
"Can I see?" he asked Anne and his father.
There was no reply. Instead Anne moved around to the other side of the stretcher and pulled the sheet down a little. Hal swallowed when he saw the flecks of fresh and dried blood splattered on the white material.
Hal leant over and peered at his brothers back. He couldn't hold back the gasp when he finally caught sight of the skin and metal spikes protruding through. His hand flew up to cover his mouth before shooting an incredulous look to his father.
Ben's back, for lack of better words, was a mess.
As Anne explained what had happened in the past few days, when she'd first discovered the issues with the harness remains, Hal continued to look over his brother.
The spikes were slowly turning black. The tips were still the murky grey/silver colour they had always been, but Hal could see black creeping up past where they pierced through the skin. Small amounts of blood leaked from around the rods, welling up in the gaps between the rod and skin.
The skin that had begun to harden and change colour due to the harnessing process was cracking and bleeding. Anne explained that beneath the dying skin was fresh human skin. What caught Hal's attention the most was the small holes in the base of Ben's neck, where spikes used to be.
"What?" he pointed to the holes. "What the hell happened?"
Anne sighed before tentatively reaching out and touching one of the empty holes. "When I first discovered what was happening with the harness, I was feeling the spikes, as I'd noticed they had a lot more freedom of movement than before. I was looking at one of the ones at the base of his neck, when it came free." She moved over to one of the benches and pulled out a specimen jar.
Inside was a cylindrical object, Hal noted. It was silver in colour at one end and black at the other. The black end split into several root like tendrils.
"Is that…" he murmured. "Is that one of the spikes?"
Anne nodded. "That was the first one to come out. Since then, two more have come free. I would like to think that this is a good thing, but unfortunately it seems as though it is doing more harm than good. The harness was – is – attached directly to Ben's spine. We have no way of knowing what it's done to his nervous system or what's going to happen to it now that the harness seems to be dying."
Ben moaned and shifted on the bed, his eyes screwing up tighter as he trembled in pain. Hal ran his fingers through his brother's short hair, trying to calm the boy. Ben stilled under his touch, letting out a shuddering breath before falling limp again. God… couldn't Ben ever catch a break? Couldn't any of them?
Tom had to look away as Hal calmed his brother. Even though Hal still wasn't one hundred per cent, he was still able to push that all aside and look after his younger sibling. Hal looked terrible, Tom noted. He was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes, betraying the exhaustion his eldest son must have been feeling.
They were still not sure what had happened with him on the bridge, but at this moment, Tom was just relieved to have him awake.
Having two sons out for the count was hard. Tom hadn't left either of their sides in days, only leaving the bus to get some food and attend meetings with Weaver. Matt had joined him in his beside vigil. It had been hard on his youngest son, having both his brothers injured in some way. Both he and Anne had decided not to let Matt know what was going on with the harness though.
Maggie had been a constant visitor too; sitting beside her boyfriend and gripping his hand tight. It wasn't that long ago that they'd been in the same situation – when Karen had kissed Hal and he'd lapsed into an unconscious state.
But Karen was dead now and there was no way she would be able to harm his son again, Tom thought as he watched Hal and Ben.
They'd buried Karen. Many hadn't wanted to give her the honour, but Tom had disagreed. Before being harnessed, she had been a member of the Second Mass – a valued member. She'd been his son's girlfriend and one of the best Scouts the militia group had. Yes, the harness had changed her, but they all knew it wasn't her fault.
So they'd given her a proper burial and service. Not many had shown up, and it hadn't lasted long, but there was now a simple wooden cross pushed into the ground in a nearby grassy patch that read: Karen Nalder. May you rest in peace.
He was sure that one Hal was able to fully process everything that he'd just learnt; he would mourn the loss of his ex-girlfriend.
"Hey," Tom addressed his on. "Would you be okay to look after Ben for me for a little while? I've got a meeting with Weaver soon and I don't want him left alone."
Hal nodded, not taking his eyes off his brother. "Sure."
"Thanks, Hal." Tom walked past, patting Hal on the shoulder and quickly giving Ben's arm a gentle rub. "Hold on, kiddo. We'll figure out what's going on with you." He whispered the last part to Ben, a weak smile tugging at his lips.
He was back in the harness facility.
He was strapped to the table, hands tied tight and a strap running across his legs, holding them in place. He was looking down through the hole that had been cut in the wooden structure, staring at the dirty floor that was covered in grease, slime and other stuff he didn't want to know about.
But it was different. Something wasn't right. It wasn't the same dreams he'd had before. This one had been altered.
Ben had lied when he'd told Weaver and the others that he didn't remember much about when he was harnessed. He just didn't remember anything that they wanted to know. When he'd been taken, the distance between the holding room and the harnessing chamber were the last things on his mind.
He remembered the fear; the paralysing fear that had almost crippled him as he awaited his fate. He remembered the sounds; the screams and cries of the other kids that had been captured. He remembered the smell; the scent of blood and decay. And he remembered the pain; the pain of the straps digging into his skin, the pain of when the harness slithered across his back and injected the spikes deep into his spine.
Ben heard a Skitter approach his table and he started to squirm, trying to get out of the restraints, even though he knew it was fruitless. His breathing quickened as a claw landed on his head, caressing his skull before moving down his neck and onto his back.
Trying to fight back the tears, Ben attempted to curl himself up as small as possible – an impossible task as he was tied to the table.
It was as he tried to move that Ben realised there was a heavy weight on his back. Confused, he lifted his head and strained his neck to try and look at what was lying on his back. It didn't help. He wasn't able to see a thing.
He felt the Skitter's hand move further down his body before it hit whatever it was that was pressed against his spine. At that very moment, the familiar tingle that accompanied the activation of the spikes raced through him. The thing on his back shifted, wriggling at the somewhat familiar touch.
The harness was still attached to him. His dad and Anne hadn't removed it…
What was going on?
Ben tensed as the harness creature shifted again, pulling at the spikes that were embedded in his spine. The teenage boy gasped at the sudden pressure. It hurt.
"Stop!" he called out as a few tears leaked from his eyes and dropped onto the dirty ground below. Screwing his eyes shut, Ben tried to curl away from the Skitter, but once again was unable to.
And then the pain exploded.
The sound of something tearing reached Ben's ears through the pain and he was vaguely aware of the weight vanishing off his back.
"It is not yours to keep."
The Skitter spoke through the tentative mind link still active. Ben took in shuddering, heaving breaths as he tried to work through the agony. It was white hot, racing through every nerve ending in his body. He was shaking, unable to stop the tremors that held his limbs captive.
There was another ripping sound and the pain intensified. Ben cried out as he felt something being ripped from his back. He felt the spikes loosen their hold on his spine and pull free, sliding through the holes in his skin. Hot blood flowed from the newly emptied wounds, the warm liquid quickly coating his back.
It hurt. It hurt so much.
It was suddenly extremely hot. Sweat soaked his body, plastering his hair to his head and dropping into his eyes. Coughing several times, the teenage boy blinked sluggishly as it got harder to breathe easily.
Wheezing, Ben struggled to pull in a deep breath. The ground below started to spin in slow circles, moving faster and faster the longer he looked.
"Help…" he whispered as he closed his eyes against the wave of dizziness that appeared. "Please…"
Then there was nothing.
"Help… Please…"
Hal looked closely at Ben when he heard the murmured, pain-filled words.
"Ben?" he whispered, shaking his shoulder gently, careful of the heavy bandaging on his upper arm. "Ben…?"
A low moan was his answer and Hal found his breathing speeding up as he watched Ben's eyelids flutter. Was he waking up?
After what seemed an eternity, Hal was rewarded with the sight of his brother's green eyes – albeit glazed and extremely out of focus.
Ben was awake.
"Ben!" Hal grinned, leaning closer so that Ben would be able to see him properly.
His younger brother blinked sluggishly and groaned.
"H-Hal?"
The eldest Mason couldn't shake the grin off his face. Placing a hand on his brother's forehead, he was extremely happy to find that his temperature had gone down a little.
"Welcome back bro."
Well there you have it! A longer chapter for you all this time :) This chapter was going to end differently at first, but I thought it would be cruel to leave you with another evil cliffhanger… hehehe.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and please don't forget to leave a review :) Thanks for all the support!
The next chapter could take a while (sorry!) as I've got a big weekend planned :P Movie World (one of Aussie's theme parks) is having a horror based night, so I'm heading to that Friday and then on Saturday I have a rugby game to go to (NZ vs Australia – go NZ!). But I will try my hardest to get the next one asap!
