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Blood Ties: At First Blood; Epilogue;
She became aware of noises first…commonplace sounds; people talking quietly, and traffic outside, someone was being paged in a very loud voice…they didn't have to yell, especially when she had such a headache. Someone should tell them to be quiet…she tried to wake up enough to do so herself, felt the pain as her lips rubbed together like they were chapped and raw and a small sound escaped. She wrinkled her forehead in annoyance, as it happened again, opening her eyes to tell them off, she promptly shut them again in near blindness it was so bright in the room. The sunlight glancing off the pure white walls so strongly it hurt.
It seemed wrong that it should be so bright…she remembered darkness, a black so pure and deep it should have swallowed the world.
"Coreen?" another voice. Why wouldn't they be quiet and let her sleep?
"Coreen, are you awake? Come on, open your eyes." But there was something familiar, in the voice and the tone, something that she recognized and that touched and resonated deep within her. A pain deeper the loss, with guilt and blame and heartbreak.
She let her eyes flicker open, the barest of fractions so that her lashes still shielded them from the unbearable light.
"Mike?" she asked after a moment as her eyes slowly adjusted.
He nodded, leaning closer from where he sat beside her bed. But that was strange, this wasn't her apartment…"Where am I?"
"You're in a hospital."
"What happened? Where is Henry? Vicky?" he flinched with the question as if she'd struck him and she automatically tried to reach out a hand but it only moved the barest of distance before she let it fall back, utterly exhausted.
"You….you don't remember?" he asked, something in the way he wouldn't look at her and ducked his head warning her that maybe she didn't want to remember. When she stayed silent he took a deep breath, as if trying to find the courage to speak and then giving up; his voice sounding empty and hollow:
"It was two days ago" the stubble of untrimmed beard that graced his chin, and rumpled unchanged clothes were evidence enough of that, but she stayed quiet.
"I was just getting off duty when it started. I didn't know what it was right away, there was this sense of dread first…and menace like something was lurking in the dark ready to take you, kill you, or worse…"
"Evil," she supplied, voice saying the word and conjuring a memory of drawing a circle on a familiar wooden floor.
"Yes." Mike affirmed. "It was evil…it was as if the world was being swallowed by evil. And then I knew. I don't know how, but I just knew and suddenly there was no where else I wanted to be when the world ended. I had to be with her. I was ready for it, so long as we were together and the last thing I saw was her eyes….but then…then I lost her. She saved the world from being taken over by Asteroth…but it might as well be Hell for me. Because she's not here but the world goes on anyways."
Mike stared vacantly off into middle distance, not looking at Coreen or watching while his words brought it all back to her, not looking at anything really. He pushed himself up, and out of the chair as he heard Coreen take the first shaky breath that was sure to lead to tears, to the raging and pain and grief that would follow. And then he turned and walked out the door. He was done with it. He was done with it all.
Let the world deal with the demons that had slipped through Asteroth's open door on its own. Let the world burn for all he cared anymore. Vicky Nelson was gone, and with her went all that was worth fighting or saving in this world anyways.
A/N:
Here ends Blood Ties: At First Blood. My second fanfiction in the BT universe.
Thanks again to Tanya Huff for creating such wonderful characters, and Peter Mohan for bring them to life on the screen with the talents of Christina Cox, Dylan Neal, and Kyle Schmid
Finally--- don't worry! Our tale doesn't end here—check out the third fic in my Blood Ties trilogy:
Blood Ties; The Ties that Bind
(chapter 1 up now and more to follow) to find out if everyone can pick up and go on or if this is it for our supernatural fighting trio.