Title: Details in the Fabric
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Summary: Sequel to Time After Time. AU Season Three. In the end, it's the little things that can pull a group together. And it's the little things that can tear them apart.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: War (part four)
To search for the best way of all
Is finding the best way to fall
Keeping your head in the clear
"This way! Michael, Michael! Come on…"
"Where's Max? Isabel, where's Max?"
"What the hell? You lost him?"
"Michael!"
"Ahab? Have you seen…?"
"Look out!"
Something heavy collided with Isabel, knocking her out of the way. She looked up in time to see Patrick knock her out of the way of an attack, and then the wall exploded behind her, raining plaster and shards of brick down on all of them.
She scrambled to her feet and looked around. Liz was still frantically looking for Max in the chaos of the fighting and Michael was being pulled away from her, dragged by the sheer force of the crowded fighting. Her heart constricted painfully, and she felt sudden panic. The walls were closing in on her, and she couldn't breathe, couldn't think.
There was blood on her clothing.
She looked down, opening her mouth to call to Patrick, to tell him to get up, to ask him if he had seen Max, but the words froze, because there was blood spreading along his back and a large fragment of jagged brick sticking out of his skin.
He wasn't moving.
"Patrick!"
Isabel's head jerked up, her eyes widening at the sheer anguish in Lillian's voice as the Royalist stumbled towards her fallen husband. She reached out her hand, fingers hovering, trembling in midair above Patrick's still form. The expression on her face sent ice through Isabel's veins, and she tried to think of something to say. But Lillian was looking devastated, and there were no words.
Her expression reflected what Isabel knew she would feel if Alex had died.
"I… it happened so… so fast… and I…" Isabel stammered.
Lillian looked up, staring at Isabel as though not even seeing her. Then she shook her head, her expression hardening. "We're still fighting," she said, her voice breaking. "He's dead, but we're not. We're still fighting. So fight."
And then she turned and walked back into the fighting, and Isabel was left standing next to Patrick's dead body.
"Isabel," Isabel suddenly heard Maria's voice in her ear. "Max is by the door on the opposite side of the room. Liz is with him, and Tess is going that way, too."
For a moment, Isabel couldn't quite figure out what to do. She knew Maria could see everything on the computer monitors, she had to be right, but she couldn't see Max over there, couldn't see anything in the chaos…
Then she lifted her eyes and caught sight of a skin approaching, menace shining in her dark eyes. Everything seemed to slow down as the skin flung out her hands, and then a burst of energy spread outwards, expanding rapidly.
The woman was abruptly thrown away from Isabel, and the energy she had been conjuring spun out of control and then disappeared before it could harm anyone. The woman crashed to the ground, her eyes closing, and Isabel wasn't sure if she was dead or just unconscious.
Didn't really care, either.
Isabel turned as Michael came running towards her, grabbing her arm.
"Let's go!" he shouted at her, dragging her. "Come on!"
"Michael! Isabel!"
Tess and Liz were on the other side of the room, standing side-by-side, and Tess was frantically waving towards them. Max was already disappearing through the door behind them, following something or someone that Isabel couldn't see.
Isabel stumbled after them, Michael right behind her.
The desperate reality of the situation was slowly sinking in, and the panic that she had felt earlier was bubbling inside her chest, threatening to explode.
Fingers grasped her shirt, biting into her skin, and she spun around to face malicious blue eyes. "Well, well, well… if it isn't the Princess…" a voice whispered, and another skin was there, grabbing her arms and yanking her away from Michael.
Behind her, she heard Michael cry out her name, but her name turned into a guttural cry and she caught sight of him falling, grasping his head tightly, fingers woven into his hair. There was blood on his lips.
Isabel reached up and scratched her nails across her attackers face, drawing blood. The skin stumbled back and Isabel curled her hand into a fist and hit the other alien in the chest. Her hand was glowing with energy, an energy she wasn't even sure how she had conjured, and the skin exploded.
Just completely exploded, pieces of dry skin floating in the air.
Tess was there, pulling Michael to his feet, her fingers running over his temples, her eyes closed tightly as she used her powers to undo whatever had happened to him. It must have worked because Michael's eyes snapped open and he began gasping for air.
"Michael…?" Isabel whispered.
"I'm okay," he said, and then he grabbed her again and continued towards the door.
The hallway shook, and Isabel stumbled and fell against the wall. Max was ahead of them, running, his feet slapping against the ground, his face filled with concentration. He was clearly following someone, but Isabel had no idea what it was and she was too worried about the fighting anyway.
But Max was following something.
"He's cracked," Michael whispered to Tess, his eyes on Max. Tess gave him an annoyed look, but Isabel couldn't help but agree with Michael's assessment.
What was Max doing?
"Shut up, Michael," Liz snapped.
The hallway shook again, and this time it was Tess who lost her footing and went skidding to the ground. She clambered back to her feet quickly, and Max paused long enough to look back and make sure she was okay, but they continued through the hallway without any more of a pause.
The air smelled like smoke and sweat and blood and Isabel's head was pounding painfully and the panic was still there and she couldn't figure out why Max was so sure that he was going the right way, that he was going to find the right room.
There was a blinding flash of light from up ahead, a burst of brilliant whiteness that momentarily blinded Isabel. She blinked several times, trying to force her eyes to work again. When she could properly see, her mouth dropped open in horror.
The entire front of the hallway had been destroyed, blown away. There was a gaping hole in the floor below them, and through it, Isabel could see another room filled with dead bodies. Someone below them had just caused a powerful enough explosion to kill everyone around them and destroy the standing structure.
"Oh my God…" Isabel breathed.
Max, who had been closest to the explosion, took a few steps backwards, his eyes wide with shock. "That was… That was it. That was him. He's down there."
"Khivar?"
Max nodded.
"There are stairs behind us," Michael said, turning towards a nearby door. "We can get down to the bottom floor. If he's still there…"
Max nodded. "Okay. Okay."
The stairway was small and cramped and narrow and exactly the sort of space Ahab had warned them to avoid. It was too easy to get trapped there, with no way out, no exit in case they needed to escape. But Isabel wasn't thinking about that, or about the dim lighting and the torn carpet on the stairs, or the staleness of the air.
She was thinking about Max, about the fact that he could somehow sense Khivar.
And she was thinking about the fact that she was starting to feel Khivar's power as well, that his familiar aura of energy was assaulting her senses, filling her with fear and anticipation for the confrontation that was to come.
She wasn't entirely sure what happened after that. Michael had her by the arm again, and she was being dragged out of the staircase and into the hallway, past more sounds of fighting and into a room littered with dead bodies. She could barely breathe, and the sight of so much death only made it worse.
And then she looked up, looked across the room, and saw Khivar.
They were dead. All of them.
She didn't know exactly how she knew it. She just did. Intuition, perhaps, or some sort of sixth sense, an instinct guiding her. It was vague and fuzzy and too difficult to explain, even to herself. But it did not change the knowledge that she now had, the realization that settled heavily in her chest.
She knew they were dead.
She stood at one end of the long corridor, staring blankly at nothing. To her left, the wall was lined with windows, and the black curtains that hung over these windows fluttered in the gentle breeze. She could smell smoke, but it was faint and almost unidentifiable. It floated into the corridor on the wind, drifting over from some other part of the palace.
This part of the palace was intact. It was untouched by the fire and fury that Khivar had unleashed on the many other rooms and hallways. She closed her eyes for a moment and could picture the blood and the loss and destruction she had caused.
They were dead. It was over.
This couldn't be happening.
She had not seen her brother since the previous day. She would never see him again.
She'd sworn to him, weeks earlier, that she had nothing to do with Khivar any more. She had looked him in the eyes and promised that she had realized her errors, that she would always choose her family over this usurper who sought her brother's throne. She had promised her brother…
She had lied.
Had it been a painful death?
She fell to her knees, suddenly too weak to stand. This couldn't be real. It was a nightmare, some horrible, twisted nightmare. She would wake up, and she would be safe, and it would all be a dream, and this knowledge she somehow had of their deaths… it would be false.
But it wasn't a nightmare. It was real. She knew that, too.
She'd been a fool to let Khivar in the gates, to believe his honeyed words, to keep the guards quiet and stop the alarm from being sounded until the attack was underway and it was too late…
Too late.
In that moment, that split-second in which she had realized what was happening, in which she had stared at Khivar and seen a stranger looking back at her, she had understood. He'd lied to her.
Tears burned her eyes. Hot, painful, salty. They slid down her cheeks and fell onto her dress, and she slowly lifted one hand as though to wipe them away. But her hand froze in midair, seeming to stop of her own accord, and she stared at her fingers. Her pale skin, adorned with a single ring, her nails painted red.
It was strange. She felt an odd disconnect, as though the sound of fighting growing steadily closer did not bother her at all. And why would it? It couldn't be real. It just couldn't.
They couldn't be dead.
She continued to stare at her hand, mesmerized. She was in denial.
Then, suddenly, she doubled over, pain exploding in her chest. For a moment, she thought she'd been attacked, and both hands moved to her chest automatically, searching for signs of injury, for blood. But there was nothing, and she realized the pain was not physical.
It was guilt.
Oh… God… she had done this.
She had killed them.
They were all dead.
Ava.
Ava who was temperamental and fierce and completely unpredictable. Ava, who loved her brother deeply, and often hated him with just as much passion. Ava, who had never wanted to be a court ornament, who had viewed being a Queen as trivial. Ava, who laughed too easily and too often, who ignored common sense and did whatever she pleased with no thought to the consequences, who still had chipped nails and dirt under her fingers despite the expensive jewels and dresses she wore…
She had promised Ava they would be friends forever. When they were younger, when Ava was just another girl in the palace, not her brother's intended, not the Queen. When Ava was a pixie child with an impetuous grin and too much energy, and she herself was too fond of adventure and too excited by dreams…
Ava had been Zan's opposite in almost every way. Where she was full of energy and excitement, he was quiet and thoughtful. Where she was impetuous and reckless, he was deliberate and cautious. He was kind and thoughtful and felt things deeply and she laughed at his brooding and mocked his sincerity and loved him anyway.
And now they were both dead.
Because of her.
Nicolas had grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her away from the fighting. Khivar had led his army through the gates and she had let him. She'd done nothing, just stood there, and when she had realized what was happening, it had been too late.
Too late.
And Nicolas had tried to pull her away, tried to take her to safety, and she had torn loose from his grip and run, stumbling steps, panicked, frantic glances, searching, searching…
Too late.
She hadn't found them. Not in time.
And now she was here in this abandoned corridor with the black curtains floating in the air and the acrid smell of smoke and the burning in her eyes and none of it made any sense.
Khivar had told her that he loved her.
Laughter burst from her lips. She couldn't control it, and soon she was laughing so hard she had to brace herself with her hands against the floor. Her body shook with the laughter, a nearly crazed sound. If someone where to see her now, they would think her mad.
But who would see her? The only ones who mattered were dead.
The laughter started to choke her, and soon she couldn't breathe. She was struggling for air, laughter fading into sobs as her body continued to shake and the tears streamed down her face and she just didn't know what was happening or what she felt or…
"Lonnie?"
Her head jerked up.
He was there. Standing there, at the other end of the corridor, partially obscured from her view by the fluttering of a black curtain. The chandeliers above did not give off enough light for her to see him clearly, but she knew. She knew his voice, she knew the sound of his breathing and his footsteps on the floor. She knew everything about him.
"Liar," she snarled, rising unsteadily to her feet. She would go mad. She would go completely mad, she would break herself apart, she would kill him.
"Vilandra…"
She darted forward, grief giving away to fury. A scream tore itself from her throat, cutting off his words. "Liar!" She lunged into him, nearly knocking him over with the strength of her wrath. He stumbled back but caught himself, and his arms wrapped around her tightly.
"Lonnie, please…" he began.
She reached up and slapped him. She curved her fingers and slapped him again, nails raking across the skin on his face, drawing blood.
"Liar! Why do you not kill me, too, Khivar?"
"I do not want to hurt you," Khivar said, his voice low and gentle. Soft. Too soft. How could he pretend to care about her now, so soon after murdering all of them?
Her brother, her best friend, and…
Her betrothed.
Loyal. And boring. He'd driven her insane with his constant courteous presence. He would have moved the world for her, but she knew it was not because of love. It was duty. She was to be his wife, and he was to be her husband, and he viewed his responsibility to her the same way he viewed his responsibility to his soldiers. And to her brother.
A job. A duty.
Not love. Never love.
But he was good and kind and would have protected her, and did it matter if it was love or not? She'd still betrayed him, and he was dead now…
Dead.
…and even if they would never be in love, they were still friends. Well… they had been friends.
Past tense.
What were they now?
What was she now?
She collapsed against Khivar, her hands turned into fists, hitting him repeatedly in the chest. "Just kill me," she sobbed, "like you killed them. Do you not see that I am your enemy?"
"I love you," Khivar answered. "We are not enemies."
"You murdered my family!" she snarled, lifting a flushed face to glare at him. She could see the drops of blood forming from where her fingers had scratched his skin, and then saw the other bruises and cuts, signs of the battle he had been fighting.
The battle against her family.
"Murderer," she screamed, raising both hands. Her fingers glowed white as she reached up to hit him, to burn him, to force her own pain and grief into him. But he caught her wrists easily with one hand and pushed them away. Her fingers hit the nearby curtain and it went up in flames.
Her other arm tightened around her even more.
"I love you. Do you not you love me?" he asked.
"No! No, no, no! I do not," she hissed. "I do not."
But what difference did it make now? They were dead, all of them, and she was alone. And it was all her fault.
There was smoke in the air and Khivar was holding her tightly, and was falling apart. This wasn't possible, it just wasn't. She wanted it to be a nightmare. She wanted to wake up, safe in her own bed.
She wanted this to be over.
"Just kill me, too," she whispered, pleading, begging. She wanted this to end.
"Do you really not love me?" Khivar pressed. She felt his hand on her chin, lifting her face up, and she looked into his eyes. He was staring at her, smiling softly, and for a moment, the rest of the world seemed to fall away. The sound of fighting was gone, and the smell of smoke and blood and the knowledge of what had just happened all faded away and she was caught in this one moment, with him.
"I do not love you," she whispered, forcing out the words.
But it was a lie. Even after all of this… she loved him still.
But…
But they were all dead.
It was over.
She stepped backwards, out of his embrace, and with one fluid movement, she snatched the gun from his belt. He reacted quickly, too quickly for her, and as her finger pressed against the trigger, he had already twisted her arm so that the gun pointed back at herself.
There was a flash of white, and then nothingness.
They were dead. All of them.
"Hello, Zan."
Isabel felt her heart hammering in her chest, felt the air leave her lungs. He was here. Khivar was here. Not in her dreams, not in her memories. He was actually here. In person.
In front of them.
There was blood on the floor. Blood and dead bodies. And charred wood and broken glass and plaster and brick. And more blood.
Isabel felt abruptly nauseous.
"You killed my brother," Khivar said, walking forward. His expression was calm, except for his eyes. His lips were a straight line, his body relaxed, but his eyes…
His eyes were burning with fiery hatred.
"You killed my brother and you murdered my followers."
"You killed me and took my throne," Max replied. "You killed my wife, my sister, my best friend. My people. You started this war, Khivar. Not me."
"This was quite the trap," Khivar said softly. "Did you have Ahab's help? I can't imagine you planned the entire thing on your own." He paused, arms folded over his chest. "And the energy we sensed. That wasn't really the Granolith, was it?"
"You've been looking for it for over fifty years. Did you really think we would make it that easy for you to find it?" Max replied.
He wasn't Max anymore. Isabel could see that. All she had to do was look at her brother and see Zan breaking through. It was happening to all of them. Rath was shining in Michael's eyes and Ava was seeping into Tess' expression and Isabel knew that this was probably normal, probably a side-effect of the fact that they had been relying so much on their powers, tapping into their alien half to win this battle.
But she was trying not to let Vilandra come through. She was trying so damn hard not to let the alien Princess break through her firm control, but Khivar was here, standing in front of her, and she was losing the battle.
She drew a slow breath. She'd beaten Khivar once. She'd beaten Vilandra, too. She could do this.
The wall behind Khivar had been partially blown away, and several figures appeared. They were skins, and they picked their way through the rubble, coming to stand behind their leader. There expressions were hard and flat and determined, and it was clear that they would fight to the death if need be.
"You killed us," Isabel whispered. Khivar looked at her, and she continued, "You were supposed to love me. You promised that, and you… you killed me. You killed everyone that I loved. And you killed me."
"What is that human saying?" Khivar mused, eyes narrowing in thought. "Ah… yes. All's fair in love and war." And he flung out both arms, sending a burst of energy towards Isabel.
Max raised his hand and conjured a shield, and the flickering green force-field absorbed the blow. Then he dropped his shield, and Michael flicked both wrists in an expert gesture, causing the already broken ceiling above them to explode even further. The air was filled with dust and several of the skins had to dodge the falling debris.
"Kill them!" Khivar snarled, and several skins rushed forward. They were slightly outnumbered, and Khivar probably overpowered them all, and Isabel knew it wasn't good for them… it wasn't good at all…
She dodged an attack, felt her heart skip a beat.
She was scared. Terrified.
They were fighting a war. She knew that, she had known it all along, but somehow the weight of that suddenly settled on her far more than it ever had before and she was terrified.
"You brought the rebel skins and your own Royalists," Khivar spat as he loomed in front of her. "Clever. It was good, very good. But not good enough." He was there, right in front of her, his hands wrapping around her arms. And she felt stuck, like she was drowning, because she couldn't remember how to fight him.
"Isabel!"
"Izzy, fight him!"
Max and Tess were yelling at her, but they were fighting on their own, skins were everywhere and Isabel stumbled backwards, tears in her eyes.
"Isabel! You've done this before. Fight back!" Michael screamed, and then he fell, a skin standing over him and Isabel couldn't understand what had just happened, how had everything spun so far out of her control?
"Isabel?"
It was Alex's voice in her ear, coming from the earpiece she was still wearing.
"Alex…" she whispered.
"Fight back!" she heard him say, his voice strong and sure.
She looked up and met Khivar's gaze.
And fought back.
Next Chapter: War (part five)
Due: Soon