Oh my word, guys. Yikes. This took *way* longer than I intended. Thank you for being so patient! (Or not caring, idk. Either way, thanks for no hate mail.) I feel like this could be sort of a filler chp., but hopefully it's still enjoyable. The next chpt will be up *much* quicker, as I already know where I'm going from here. :)

Also, thank you to those who voted on the poll! It was helpful to sort of see where people might be at for future story stuff. I'll have to see where this goes/ends.

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Sutton only saw a flash of the large, modern home she'd been taken to. It was all glass and wood and sharp geometrical shapes, seeming to rise out of the ground instead of being built there. Alice stopped running and the interior came into focus. It too was sleek and modern. Everything was sharp corners and straight edges, softened by a natural color palette and well placed throw pillows. Alice sat her down on a long leather couch and stepped back to join the group.

Sutton felt like she was on display.

The living room was filled to what looked like capacity. Even the Quileute boys had packed into the room without any protest or complaint. Nothing was right in this scenario. Nothing felt like how the books and movies played out. Why had they all gathered around her? How had they known she existed in the first place?
"We could…feel you."

Sutton's gaze snapped to the copper-haired Edward as he spoke. He was handsome, with a chiseled jaw and wide eyes, but it wasn't enough to put her in a stupor. She'd met too many characters already for that. He had answered a question that she hadn't voiced aloud and Sutton's eyes thinned.

"I can only really catch bits and pieces," he explained. "But your expressions say enough on their own."

That probably meant she should be a bit more careful, a bit more guarded, but she was too exhausted to make the effort. Sutton sighed.

"Right."

Her nose itched and she wiggled it quickly while rubbing at it with the back of her hand only to come away with dried flakes of blood. She tensed instinctively and raised only her eyes to see the response from the room. No one shifted; there were no growls of warning. Sutton was confused but she tried not to let it show. Her hand was still frozen in front of her face as if any more movement would trigger an attack.

Bella was actually the one to step forward. She brushed back a strand of her dark brown hair and placed a tentative hand on Sutton's shoulder.

"They -uh- they won't hurt you. It's old blood anyways. Besides, that'd be, like, a rude way to say thank you."

Thank you for what? Sutton could feel a buildup of frustration and confusion growing in her chest. Why did everything have to be so mysterious? The people around her were fuzzy in her vision at best and her stomach ached. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept or eaten. There wasn't space in her brain for this.

Edward shifted his stance, Sutton wasn't sure if his lips were even blurrier than his body due to her vision or his own actions. Esme perked up.

"Let me fix you something to eat, dear," she said. "You must be starving."

Sutton's expression flatlined to an unreadable blankness. First they could, what, sense her? And now Edward could consistently 'sort of' read her mind; like Snape, like Loki?

Could she not have any sort of privacy? For just a moment? She didn't want him to be able to have such an intimate insight into her. He'd be able to know the things she wanted to hide away.

Her hands shook, her rib cage rattled, and Edward visibly blinked.

Sutton took respite in the thought that she was alone in her thoughts at least. She didn't quite care how much it pained her to maintain.

"Hey, you need to conserve your energy for healing."

Carlisle knelt down in front of her next to Bella and admonished her gently. Sutton grit her teeth and held onto the spiteful belief inside that kept Edward out.

"No offense," she grit out, "but I'd like to have some- wait. Wait, how did you know? How do you know anything?"
"If you don't stop," he calmly explained, "you're going to get a fresh nosebleed. I can smell it."

Sutton flinched at the implication and released the tension, letting go of the belief that she was shielded from the mind reader. It felt like releasing a tight muscle, but in her mind.

Carlisle smiled in encouragement. Sutton wasn't sure how anyone could be convinced that the man was old enough to have high school aged children, adopted or otherwise. He looked about her age. All except for his eyes, she supposed. His eyes showed a maturity and wealth of experience far beyond his apparent years.

"That's better," he said. "You can't really afford to be doing that, I'm afraid."

Bella moved back, her hand slipping from Sutton's shoulder as she moved to stand back to chest with Edward. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his nose into her hair. Sutton's own nose wrinkled despite her attempts to remain aloof.

Was now really the best time for everyone to be so touchy feely? As she scanned the room it seemed like the entire living room was joining in on clinging to their significant other. She thought she saw Emmett and Rosalie making out in one corner of the room. Had they all been like this in the books? It'd been a long time since she last read them.

Yes, a long time.

No one had yet to offer any sort of explanation and her irritation was only spiking.

"Can someone just please tell me what's going on," she snapped.

Esme reappeared in the room with a bowl of what smelled like chicken broth and a glass of water. Sutton was just able to sit up on her own and she accepted the hot bowl gingerly as the glass of water was set on the table before her. She swallowed a spoonful of broth before glaring up at the group.

"And if one of you just says that I 'saved you' again, I'm chucking this bowl across the room."

She wouldn't. She'd already taken two more bites in between syllables. The broth just sloshed around in her empty stomach, as if the organ didn't recognize the substance as real food. She lapped up several more hot spoonfuls.

"You had to have noticed that this world wasn't right."

Sutton peered at one of the Native American boys from over her bowl. Jacob, was her guess.

"We weren't right either."

She swallowed another mouthful of broth, scraped the spoon along the bottom of her bowl and finished off what was left. The glass of water was handed to her and she gulped down two drags of the liquid before responding.

"Yeah," she admitted. A tremor passed through her as she recalled how the world had been only minutes before now. She would never be able to unsee their twisting, rubber faces. "It was definitely... 'Not right' is one way to put it."

"We were like that for a long time," Jake continued. "Until just now."

"Obviously," Rosalie snorted; the wolfpack shot her a glare. She flicked back her hair flippantly and settled her gaze on Sutton.

"It's like this, we didn't exactly exist until just now. We were-"
Sutton watched as the woman seemed to choke on the sentence and blink rapidly. Emmett sat a hand around her shoulders and held her close.

"We were whatever the next person wanted us to be."

Sutton squinted, there were too many people in the room, she couldn't keep track of who was talking. Their story still wasn't making sense. Her head was starting to pound around the temples.

"That doesn't- no. That's not how this works. Meyers wrote the book, people believed in it, so your world became real. It- it worked everywhere else. I never saw- they were always… stable."

The soup was starting to sink into her stomach and it cleared her mind marginally. She shook her head and gazed up at the crowd still around her, her face twisting in a look of pained disbelief.

"You guys aren't even supposed to be this aware of, well, your situation. Or anything."

It didn't make sense. Why were they the only ones who were twisted by, by the fans? Readers? None of the rest were. And there was more than enough craziness in every fandom to cause chaos.

There were rules to this! It had taken Sutton a while to learn them, and she still wasn't one hundred percent confident on some things, but she knew a lot more now! The creator established the world, and the fans brought it to life.

Establish.

Why did that seem to ring funnily in her head?

The creator established. Establish. Stable.

"Oh my gosh." Sutton sucked in a painful breath and wasn't sure if she was more inclined to laugh or cry. "Did, does Meyers not… Does she not have it?"

Last year, when the Avengers had first invaded her home and Loki had first cornered her; he'd said she had potential. Just like Stan Lee. Just like J.K. Rowling. Just like everyone who'd created all the world's she'd just razed through.

They all had large fan bases. And they had all been stable.

But, what if something had a large fan base, but no creator to keep it grounded? Or what if the creator's "potential" was weak? Was that something that was even possible?

Alice stepped forward and cupped Sutton's face, forcing her out of her thoughts and back into the present moment.

"What's important is that for the first time we finally get to just be ourselves, and we can't thank you enough for that."

Had she given them their personalities, then, based off her view of their characters? Is that why they shared features with her imagined version of them?

"But-"
"Shh. We're ourselves."

It was silent for a beat and Sutton tried to wade through the mess in her head. Alice was trying to reassure her, and Sutton was touched by the effort. Someone in the back of the room snorted and one of the members of the wolfpack sneered. Paul? It could be Paul.

"As sickeningly sweet as this all is, it's really starting to stink in here."

"No one's making you stay, furball."

Sutton saw Edward shake his head before he locked gazes with her.

"See, Alice is right."

She proceeded to tune out the ensuing argument which seemed to be happening just because it could and lacked any real bite.

Heh. Bite.

She finished off the glass of water without replying, hoping that Edward hadn't been able to catch the last part of that thought.

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The lab was almost quiet. It was an eerie sort of quiet though. Usually there was humming and mumbled chatter with the occasional automated beeps tossed in; but not now. There was a weight hanging in the air threatening to bear down uninhibited on the occupants of the room.

Tony was slumped and snoring lightly in a swivel chair. After being awake for another seventy-two hours straight he had just suddenly collapsed in the middle of a sentence, and the others decided to just leave him. His chin rested against his chest and his brow was furrowed despite his unconscious state. A string of muttered syllables tumbled from his lips and his face scrunched in a grimace. His whole body tensed then, and his breathing started coming in short, gasping pants.

He was back in space. The dark emptiness engulfed and threatened to consume him as taunting colors and stars glittered in the far distance. The only separation he had from the fatal vacuum of space was his iron man suit.

He just had to get rid of this nuke. Thousands of invading alien forces were pouring out of spacecraft floating before him and if he didn't do this the entire earth would be decimated. The anxiety in his chest tightened as he pushed the missile in their direction. The eye-lens on his suit proceeded to crack as he floated backwards. The earth hung below him, the portal rapidly closing in on itself and barring him from safety. He was going to die up here.

Tony gasped a few more times, trying to breathe while he still could. Pepper had never answered his phone call; he never said goodbye. A bitter pang bit though his heart.

He closed his eyes and prepared to wait.

"Help!"
The ships and nuke had disappeared and now in their place was a lone figure. They were hidden inside a thick space suit, but were spiraling out of control without the ability to stabilize themselves. Tony activated his thrusters and grabbed the body before they made another 360° rotation.

"Tony! Help me!"

Tony jerked back when he finally saw the face behind the helmet.

"Sutton!"

She was sobbing as she stared up at him and he finally noticed the giant crack in the visor of the helmet; it spread across its entire surface.

"Please, Tony! Help me!"

"Hold on, hold on! I can-"
His hands fumbled encased in his metal gloves as he scrambled for a solution. The earth had disappeared and they were both stranded in open space. He had nothing. The visor cracked further.

"No! No, hold on! Just hold on, ok?"
Sutton grasped at his shoulders, pulling him down, down, down as she cried. Her face glowed red as tears began to fill the helmet.

"Why? You were supposed to save me! Why didn't you save me?"

"I-I can still-"
The visor shattered and Sutton gargled a last gasping breath as the oxygen was suddenly ripped from her lungs. Her body convulsed from the act and then she went still. The helmet was gone and shock froze Tony as he watched her curls float upwards, some tendrils wrapping around her limp limbs. Her eyes still glistened with tears even as they turned glassy and empty.

Tony screamed.

The swivel chair lurched backwards as Tony spasmed and woke. His skin was clammy, brow dotted with sweat, and his eyes darted around the room as his mind caught up with his waking state. Jane, Reed, and Axel were huddled over some notes in a corner of the lab and looked torn between asking if he was alright and pretending they hadn't noticed anything. Tony glared in their direction and then scowled as he scrubbed at his face and stood up to leave the room.

They wisely remained silent.

Once more he found himself in the lab's adjacent kitchen.

"Lights."

His voice was hoarse and shaky but the lights in the kitchen came on just the same.

Tony shuffled over to the countertop and reached up to open one of the cupboard doors. He halted with his arm halfway in the air and winced. With his other hand he rubbed at his chest before shaking his head and continuing on. There was a bottle of aspirin sitting on the edge of the shelf, and Tony shook out a few pills then went to fill a glass with water. He downed them in a hurry, leaning against the counter with his eyes squinted shut as he waited or the medication to take affect.

"We'll get her back."

Tony groaned in irritation and grimaced over his shoulder at the intrusion.

"You know, you have a knack for being exactly where you're not wanted."
Axel refused to shuffle under Tony's gaze and instead sat down on a bar stool across the room.

"Look, I wouldn't have bothered you, but Jane and Reed sent me; they didn't want to break their stride. They just wanted to let you know they have that interfering code locked and stable now; so it must be a nonliving object of some kind. When we run the machine again, it'll pull whatever that is through first and we won't have a problem."

Tony dumped the rest of the water down the sink and sat the glass down after it. Finally, he turned to face Axel, though his demeanor had hardly lightened. There were dark rings still under his eyes. He'd really only slept a few hours. He could only sleep a few hours.

"If the machine didn't use so much power, we could just-"

"Yeah, that's not happening. We can't run that thing any more than necessary; we've already gotten a few calls from several government branches and NASA."

Tony flashed a cheeky grin and pushed himself away from the counter to mosey back towards the kitchen exit.

"That sounds like a SHIELD problem to me. Good luck with that though! At least we finally found out the reason you're still here."

He waited long enough to see Axel's grumpy frown and then saluted him mockingly as he swiveled on the heel of his foot and left the room.

Maybe now Pepper would stop bothering him about things like "rest" and "self care" and "doling out responsibilities".

Tony Stark had work to do.

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Sutton managed to convince the mob downstairs that she was stable enough to shower, and on her own. Luckily for her the Cullens were rich enough to be those people who had a shower big enough to run circles in. And that meant it had a bench to rest on. Because why not?

She had sat on the closed toilet seat and carefully peeled off her borrowed uniform after removing the knee brace. Just looking at the clothing made her uncomfortable and set her teeth on edge. The metal case was still securely in a pants pocket, and she set that carefully on the vanity next to her before unraveling the light wrapping around her torso. Even removing the gauze was painful, heat shot up from her ribs and sent her hissing. Sutton tried to keep her back straight and rigid so there was no more pressure on the bones than necessary.

The shower was warm and quite apparently necessary. She still had dirt from Kronos caked on her skin and it coated the shower tiles in a dingy brown film before being washed away down the drain. Sutton sat under the spray of the water for awhile before gently washing herself clean and building up the energy to leave the shower again. Alice had given her a pair of warm cotton sweats, a simple v-neck tee, and basic underthings. All items fit relatively well, given that she was near Alice's size in at least height.

Rewrapping her ribs on her own was out of the question though. The knee brace was easy to put back on, and she decided to leave her fingers unwrapped only because she wasn't sure how to properly get the job done.

When she limped out of the bathroom and back out into the hall with her case in hand, Dr. Carlisle was waiting for her.

"I have some painkillers for your ribs."
Sutton sighed.

"You heard me."
"Sorry, it's hard not to. But it's important to take something to ease the pain. You don't want to be taking shallow breaths until you heal."

He passed her a couple pills and held a small cup of water she hadn't noticed before. She shifted the case under her arm and accepted the offering with her left hand while he eyed her right hand at her side.

"And you should let me take a look at your hand too. Your fingers will probably need to be splinted, guessing by the swelling. Were they dislocated or broken?"
"Does it matter?"
Carlisle gave her a patient smile that only the best of doctors could possess.

"A lot, actually. The treatment for dislocation and broken bones differ a bit."

Sutton swallowed the pills and accepted the cup of water to wash them down. These pills would work, she realized. They had medication that existed in her universe, she might actually get some relief for awhile. She swallowed and glanced around the hall before rubbing at her right arm.

"Dislocated," she said. "I think." Her voice was hushed, even if it didn't matter with a house full of vampires.

Carlisle didn't touch her, but gestured forward to a door down to the left.

"I have some medical equipment set up here. We can take care of your injuries and then you're free to rest however you choose. There's more food in the kitchen if you're still hungry."

She wasn't sure if she was or not. Sutton decided she only had the ability to make one decision and take one action at a time. She followed as Carlisle led her down the hall and she sat heavily on the doctor's bed that he had in his house. It was weird, but at this point she didn't think anything could phase her. Really, what was "weird" when you'd seen several different universes? And how could a doctor's office in a house stun her after all she'd seen and done?

Not once did Carlisle ask how she'd gotten her injuries. Sutton appreciated it more than he would ever realize. Even as gentle and methodical as he was being, she still couldn't help tensing every time his cool skin ghosted over hers.

Back in the living room things had cleared out. The wolfpack was gone, they wanted to see their families Bella said, and those that lived here seemed to be settling down. Sutton gingerly sat back on the couch she'd been on before and her muscles released the taut extra tension they'd been holding just to keep her upright.

"I'm sure you have some questions."

Sutton cut her eyes over to Alice and Jasper, who were both squeezed into one seat across the living room. She huffed as she leaned further back into the couch. The aspirin hadn't quite kicked in yet and she could still feel flashing pains in her upper chest. Pride or fear kept her from mentioning that detail to Carlisle.

"Probably not as many as you think," she said. Now that she was settled on the couch, Sutton wasn't sure she could get back up if they asked her to. She rubbed at her chest as an odd fluttering spasmed behind her ribcage.

The two vampires tilted their heads at her as if they had heard the fluttering that she'd felt. Maybe they had. Sutton dropped her hand quickly and shrugged one shoulder dismissively.

"As unbelievable as it may seem, this isn't exactly my first rodeo."

Sutton sighed once more and draped her arm over her face, careful of the bruising still around her right eye socket.

"So what's next on the agenda? Were you in the middle of leaving Bella? Are the Volturi coming? What is it?"

The room was quiet a bit longer than what felt necessary and Sutton peaked out from under her arm at Alice and Jasper. They were eyeing her with raised eyebrows as if she'd said something odd.

"Um," Jasper drawled, "I don't think anything is happening."

"No Volturi in sight," agreed Alice. "We've just got settled. I'm hoping we'll get a bit of a break to adjust, to be honest."

"Huh." Sutton glanced around the mostly empty living room. "Well then, where is every-no, wait, never mind."

She didn't quite know how to feel about "nothing" happening. Relief? Perhaps. Certainly! But to just suddenly slam on the brakes after escaping Khan did nothing to ease the dread or shame that still coated her insides. She still clung to an irrational fear that he might spring around the corner any moment.

There was a bang at the front door. Sutton jumped, and the door was pushed open before anyone got up to answer it. In barged Jacob Black, alone this time, and he strutted into the house as if he were regularly invited over. Sutton placed a hand on her chest as her heart tried to slow down. She hadn't even been that startled, surely?

"Hey! You look better now."
Sutton could see Jasper stare drolly at Jacob from where he sat.

" 's there a reason you're back here?"

Jacob shrugged. Sutton attempted to shift to make room on the couch as he came closer, but he only fussed and insisted that she stay as she was.

"No, don't do that. I'll be fine on the floor." He shot a glare to the vampire couple and pointed. "No dog jokes."

It didn't take but a moment for Bella and Edward to emerge from some corner of the house at the boy's appearance.

"Jake, what are you doing back here? This-"

"What? Violates the treaty? I think we're a little passed that right now."

Edward shook his head and Sutton wasn't sure if the vaguely irritated expression was normal or due to Jacobs appearance.

"He just came to make sure Sutton was doing alright," Edward said. "He thinks she's under The Pack's protection as well."

"She is."

These odd, new dynamics between vampires and wolf shifters was confusing Sutton. They had been near enemies when she read the books, perhaps unwilling allies when forced to be. But certainly they were generally adversarial. Here they just seemed apathetic at worst. And it was all due to them "not existing" before she arrived here?

"What was it like before," she interrupted. The room hushed and she kept her gaze down, near Jacob. "Before I got here," she clarified. "I don't understand that part. I haven't been anywhere where the creator hadn't had the gift. It doesn't make sense to me. You couldn't have been all people's characterizations at once. Is that even possible? That'd make a person crazy."

The room was stiltedly silent. Uneasy gazes cut across to each other in turn as they all waited for someone else to answer first. Eventually Jacob broke the stalemate.

"It was almost… fuzzy. Like watching yourself in a dream," he said.

"A dream that changed every three seconds." There was a note of resentment in Edward's voice as he chimed in. "And one that you couldn't quite control your actions in."

"It was awful," Bella snapped. Sutton was actually surprised to hear so much emotion in her voice. "It wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare."

Alice remained silent and Jasper wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders.

"That's why we're so grateful you came," Jacob continued. "No matter how you did it. We can finally be one person." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch cushion.

"It's finally quiet."

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If I did another Torn Pages chapter, which would you rather see?

- Another "alternate sequel" chapter
- Sherlock part 3
- Scene from another character's POV

Reviews = Motivation and love 3