Author's Notes: They ain't mine, 'cause if they were, they might have hope of a happy ending.
It's almost an understatement to say this piece is dark. And angsty. Times a hundred. Fair warning.
I am forever indebted to Alamo Girl, SpikesSweetie and Meredith Paris, because they put up with about forty-six versions of this story (not to mention a ridiculous amount of messed up tense changes) before I settled on the version I liked best. Your patience, insight and name-calling are priceless, girls. Thank you.
It was a past imperfect, one she could not run from.
It was flashes and sparks, bits of memory that seemed instinctual in nature, for they played easily in her mind without her bidding them to do so.
It was the unbearable weight of yesterday and tomorrow, of knowing a once vibrant world had dulled to the point of being unrecognizable. It was the unavoidable grey hue around everything, as though the heavens were kneeling in submission, losing their hopeful luster as they awaited their execution and descent into hell.
It was appropriate, given that the gods abandoned her and the Zone so long ago.
She remembered it all; sometimes in spurts, and others in inescapable and repetitive Technicolor visions that painfully rivaled the harshest punishment ever inflicted by the TDESPHTL.
It was the inability to escape any of it; that wishing and hoping for something different was bordering on insanity.
It was the recalled taste of roasted meat and steamed vegetables, and a shared smile over the edge of chipped coffee cups and lukewarm beverages. It was the feel of cool marble beneath her bare feet as she slid through empty corridors to spend the night in a room that was not hers. It was the stupidity in believing this was where she was meant to be; that home truly was where her heart was. Finally, after years of running, she could stop.
It was the memory of blue eyes blazing in arousal, of wandering hands and reverent whispers. It was an unexpected laugh and forgoing a pillow in favor of a shoulder leaned on so many times. It was finding a balance between who she had been and who she could be if she let herself dive headfirst into him.
It was the smell of gunpowder; the jarring sound of repetitive explosions that shook not only the base of the castle, but the very foundation on which she'd tried to rebuild her life. It was the realization that everything around her was folding uncontrollably like a house of cards; she had gambled, and she had lost.
It was the automated response of ducking and covering, of an ex-Tin Man's senses being painfully sharp and reaching for his gun before fully waking. It was the terrified cries that roared hysterically through the castle, creating a disorienting cacophony when failing to harmonize with the exclamations of the advancing insurgency.
It was the ice that ran through her veins when she felt the inherent magic--the tie that once bound her to her family and her homeland--being violently, painfully extinguished. It was the panic that sent her shaking when one of the few surviving loyalist guards found them, and in the same breath told her that the royal family was dead and they had to get her out of the castle.
It was the urgency in his voice when he pushed her toward the servants' entrance and cried, "Go, DG! Run and keep running! Don't stop for anything!"
It was the memory of goose bumps prickling her skin as she fled through the rain. It was the frenzied dash during which she didn't process the sounds of war raging around her; where she did not smell the onslaught of burning flesh or hear the screams of the dying. It was the scared fury that built up in her throat as she flew through the maze, knowing she should turn around and make sure Cain was behind her. It was the encroaching, dark hopelessness that told her with absolute certainty that if she stopped, even to take half a breath, it would be her last.
It was the burning in her legs as she traversed the hills at Finaqua, and the horrific realization that she'd run straight for the cave that once held the Witch. It was the feel of the crumbling rock beneath her fingers as she fought her way through its dark confines, unsure if she should hide herself completely in the tomb, or again run from that which had caused so much pain.
It was the reverberating, deafening thunder of her heartbeat in her ears as she heard voices she'd thought were familiar, but not brave enough to confirm. It was the inability to move as the torchlight got closer and brighter; it was her fight response screaming unheard in her head, drowned into submission by the will to run. It was the sickening awareness that she could not ask her sister if that's what it felt like with the Witch in her head.
It was the caress of his gentle tone as he found her; embarrassment at the momentary but consuming ignorance that wherever she went--even if she didn't know the destination herself--he was bound to follow. It was the protective embrace that warmed her in the thunderstorm before he confirmed her worst nightmare--they were all dead.
Her mother. Her father. Her sister. Her tutor. Her guards. Her favorite cook who always hid a pastry for her when she was having "one of those days." All gone at the hands of a people who stormed the castle, wielding deadly weapons, unbridled hatred and seething distrust.
It was her violent fists against his body as she beat her denials out against him, fighting the world as it beat the wide eyed optimism out of her. It was his hand in her hair as she sobbed about the senseless of it all, as she wondered what would become of them.
It was his hitching breath, her cheek moving from beneath his chest, as he corrected her: what would become of her. It was her initial confusion being overwhelmed by stubborn refusal when he said they need to split up; that they needed to get as far away from each other as humanly possible if they had any chance of surviving.
It was being violently ill against the dirty, pebbled ground when she realized there was a bounty on their heads. That he was terrifyingly right. That she was truly, inescapably alone. That she'd finally been handed the independence she'd once longed so fervently for.
It was realizing nothing would make her feel any deader than she felt in that moment--not even the insurgents' guns or swords. It was knowing she should push him away; that forcing his soothing hand from her back might somehow make the necessary separation easier.
It was the memory of trying to be brave in the face of the crushing reality. It was the taste of salty tears, first on her lips and then on his as they said the most painful of goodbyes; when he told her to go to the edge of the realm and seek shelter at Ralph and Lorraine's. It was the dizzying, overwhelming sensation she felt as he told her hurriedly about stops that used to be safe along the Resistance's underground, about known loyalists with property where she could hide. It was feeling like she was cramming for a test she had no hope of passing.
It was the realization that this time, he truly wouldn't be able to help.
It was the heavy, cold metal in the palm of her hand as he pressed his gun into her fingers and urged her not to be seen--and if she was, to shoot first and worry later.
It was the part of herself she left inside the cave when she headed west and he went north.
It was the painful scraping of thorny bushes on her calves as she traversed the densest part of the forests that framed the Zone. It was her haggard reflection in the small side stream as she tried to wash the incalculable days, and the survivor's guilt, from her body.
It was the exhausted relief she felt when she finally saw the familiar cabin laid out before her in the tiny valley. It was seeing a feeble beacon and lighthouse trying to light the unfamiliar path, trying to reach her. It was the disappointment at realizing she was completely unreachable. She was already gone.
It was the burden of counting each day, of wishing she did not know how to count that high, of learning how to spot the quickest escape route or vantage point, regardless of her surroundings. It was memorizing the names and locations of sympathizers who hid her in cold, cramped rooms that were poorly illuminated, covered with fraying blankets that didn't even reach her knees. It was the unbearable knowledge that these rooms had been in use almost as long as she had been alive.
It was being unable to escape the irony that the places she laid her head were embodiments of her tired, tarnished soul.
It was the self-hatred that came with knowing that less than a year ago, she would have said she'd give anything to wave a magic wand and make the world go away. But magic had only brought heartache and destruction; had ripped her life from her and executed it before her eyes. She wanted it out of her so desperately that she felt unhinged beneath the intensity.
It was running in an endless circle, trying to accept that she would never learn how to live being constantly threatened: with imminent discovery, with encroaching insanity. It was the irritation borne of knowing there was nothing she could do to make the interminable seconds--for she could not bear to wait for an hour to pass as an accomplishment--tick by faster.
It was knowing she could not talk to herself, for fear of being overheard. She could not write in a diary, for fear of exposing not only herself, but those who had helped her--people she'd be sending to their deaths if the information ever got into the wrong hands. It was the disappointment as she realized she'd never want to recall all that had happened anyway, both before the coup and after. It would have most likely and finally--mercifully, she sometimes thought, for the weight of the world was a burden no man should bear--suffocate her, smothering the little spark of life that had carried her this far.
It was knowing that there was a war outside, but that the more pressing battles fell within the cramped crawlspace. It was waking up each day and wondering if today would be the day she finally waved the white flag. If she finally proved to the insurgents that she was just as weak a coward as the rest of her family.
It was the decision that feeling the pain, the despair, the despondency was harder than feeling nothing at all. It was the steely resolve she fought for to straighten her spine; the proclamation that she would no longer feel sorry for herself.
It was the realization that there were no pieces to pick up; that she had and would survive. One foot in front of the other. Heightened senses. Taking the first piece of advice Cain had ever bestowed upon her--trust no one--to heart. Focus on one thing and one thing alone: survival of the fittest. Live to see tomorrow; don't care about who won't see sunrise with you. She would do what was necessary. At all costs.
It was being unable to decide that whether the chance meeting two hundred and seventy-five days ago was a blessing or a curse. It was the vibration of boots on a wooden floor above her head. It was the once unsettling but automatic response of calmly preparing to fight; to know that should a hostile party descend the small, rickety stepladder into the basement that she'd come out the victor. No matter what.
It was living with the fact that she pointed his gun at him when he opened the trapdoor, and that it took her a full two minutes to lower it. It was the nauseous feeling that rolled through her when she admitted to herself that she didn't click the safety off for close to an hour, finger still resting insistently on the trigger. Just in case.
It was the understanding that she'd lived nearly three hundred days with only two thoughts: that one, and "what if."
It was the ache in her bones and the shaking of her hands when she allowed herself to acknowledge that he was kneeling in front of her, war torn and blemished, but somehow miraculously alive. It was the acute pain when she realized this wasn't like Finaqua--he hadn't known where to find her. This was mere coincidence; most certainly not fate.
It was the dry feeling in her mouth and shying away as he reached out to her, both physically and emotionally, and she could not reach back.
It was the relentless sullied feeling that occurred when she thought about the fact that she fell into him, painfully urgent in the field behind the safe house, for no other reason than she needed to feel alive again, even if it was for a blinding and fleeting moment. It was the self-loathing that accompanied thoughts of the clinical detachment of the sex that night--for it was definitely not lovemaking--the removal of only necessary pieces of clothing, the fact that she kept her eyes wrenched shut and focused only on animalistic release.
It was the guilty rush of tears when she realized he understood why she felt safer on the dingy mattress in the crawlspace than she would have been curled into him.
It was the rocking comprehension that she'd never committed herself fully to him, and that was why it was so easy to walk away.
It was the hollow resolve sitting leaden in the pit of her stomach when she knew exactly which path to send him down, for she knew the routes as well as the back of her hand. It was the chillingly cool, detached feeling--colder than the ice that had frozen her solid the night of the coup, not yet thawed--as she watched him ride away just after midnight.
It was the feeling of failure when the simmering flash of anger lit beneath her feet and forced her to the edge of one of the safe house property lines, gun loaded and at the ready. It was the abhorrent declaration that she'd gone down without a fight, and that was an insult of the highest order; preposterous and unacceptable. That was a fate worse than any death she might face.
It was the inevitable truth that they'd kill her on sight as soon as she crossed enemy lines. It was hoping she'd get to take a few out in the process; even the score a little bit. It was the readiness to fight back. Again at all costs.
It was the heart stopping realization that she'd died the same night her family did. She was no longer the DG they--or she--knew. She was a shell of her former self; out to save only her own hide. Unable to care about those around her, those who had been so loyal and giving of themselves. Unable to be diplomatic or conciliatory, because fiery rage felt so much better than cold hopelessness in the dark, dank crawlspace.
It was the terrifying acknowledgment that she'd turned into another Sorceress.
It was an angry retreat back to the safe house, and the slamming of the ladder against the lowered ceiling as she again second guessed herself. It was the broken finger she suffered slamming her hand into the concrete barrier separating her from both life and death.
It was realizing she'd prefer the latter at this point.
It was the numbing realization that she, once the most emotional of people, didn't even have the instinct to cry. This was hell, and she just needed to deal with it.
It was the sinking certainty she felt when her period didn't come that month. Or the next. It was the horrible confirmation when her formerly--religiously--flat stomach began to swell. It was the biting fury at the conclusion that the gods truly had abandoned her, and demons were dancing in anticipation around her waiting grave, for this could be nothing other than a strangling curse. It was the icy hatred at her own stupidity. At her constant failures.
At realizing the insurgents had been right--she was completely useless.
It was the destructive nature of the coldhearted debate, and the way she roundly ignored it. Of knowing there was no way she cold survive lugging a child between outposts. Of the repetitive assertion that the child was probably better off never being born. It was her steely façade momentarily cracking as she felt the first kick.
It was the stalwart resolve as she decided to ignore the life inside her--for how could it be alive when she was dead--and just count the days until she could be done with this latest mistake.
It was the decision she ultimately made as rebel forces circled the small cabin, and then stormed the building, beating her protectors for information.
It was the disconnected air she kept even through the hardest part of her labor--giving birth on that dingy but comfortably familiar mattress, remaining mostly silent and almost disinterested through the pain and the pushing. It was reading the concern in the loyalist woman's eyes when she handed DG a baby girl--Cain's baby girl--and she refused to look the infant in the eye.
It was the one thought running an endless loop through her head: trust no one. At all costs.
It was the gentle prompting that the little angel needed a name. It was the unexpected rush of forgotten tears as she registered the nickname, as she finally wanted to ask for those she could not have; those who had been lost to her over a year before.
It was the quick, harsh blinking away of those emotions; the retreat into being cool and calculating as she called the child Spencer Aurora. It was the knowledge she kept hidden from the midwife that Spencer had been her adopted last name on the Other Side. It was the warning contained within the moniker; urging the child never to look to the horizon and wish for something better, as this torment was probably all that lay at the end of the yellow brick road.
It was the swift passing of the swaddled infant to the midwife, the ignoring of the baby's wails. The hope that the child hadn't inherited enough of her parents' features and would never favor one over the other; that way, the world wouldn't know who she was. That way, she wouldn't be a target as her parents had been, and could live the normal life her new family had probably killed people to preserve. At least she'd be safer with the lions in the den than accompanying Daniel--in the guise of DG--into battle.
It was the faint tapping sound as the woman ascended the staircase and shut the trapdoor before walking to her horse and taking the child to be dropped anonymously on the orphanage steps.
It was cleaning herself up, packing her lone parcel a few days later, and setting out on one final journey. It was the bitterness that tainted her tongue when she wondered how she'd ever been so naïve to think anything in this world--on this side or any other--could be an adventure.
It was the resolve that her instinct to run had been right. Just. She'd fought it for too long. Now was the time to finally give in.
It was the faint scratching of the end of her toothbrush--which she'd carved into a shank of sorts--as she wrote one word to Cain in the clay wall in her last safe house.
Goodbye.
It was the order to the patriarch of the last loyalist family that he was to spread the rumor that she had killed herself by jumping into the crack of the O.Z. It was the knowledge that once Cain heard the news, he could decide whether or not it was safe for the rest of the sympathizers to come out of hiding. It was the knowledge that with the confirmation she was dead, perhaps he could live the life she'd taken from him so many times.
It was asking one more favor of Ralph and Lorraine by way of the railroad; get her Ahamo's balloon. Thankfully, DeMilo had made a killing scavenging through the remnants of the House of Gale, and Ralph negotiated its purchase for her.
It was waiting for a violent nighttime thunderstorm as cover to finally leave. It was waiting for a lightning strike as an appropriate end to her journey, sending her down in flames to meet the demons who'd plagued her for an eternity, who'd stalked her soul all these months.
It was slipping through to the Other Side; the smell of exhaust and freshly cut lawns curling acridly through her nostrils. It was the relieved clarity she felt when she started putting distance between her and the balloon. Between her and her tarnished history.
It was the assumption of yet another new name, a new home, a familiar job. It was the daily reminders that she should not look toward the horizon, for it would only remind her of what should not have been, what shall never be.
It was the bruises that ached for days after she was deposited back on the Other Side, as she finally acknowledged and treated the longstanding injuries of both mind and body. It was the first time she let herself cry since the night of the coup; the wracking sobs that buckled her knees and threw her against the chipped tile of the shower stall.
It was the resignation that it would forever be a past imperfect, but one that she'd somehow survived.
It was the question as to whether or not it would be a similarly insufficient future.
It was the answer she did not have.
FIN