Happy New Years everyone! (at the time I'm posting this) So this is my not so short New Years special, it jumps through details from chapter 35 and 37 then to Sweet Pea in the cemetery: I tried really hard to make it easy to know where in the story it was taking place so that you guys shouldn't have to go back and read those chapters. I'll shut up now, and I hope ya'll enjoy.
He looked up from his case file at the sound of a knock on his door. She'd been by often enough he knew her soft pattern. With an aggravated sigh Minetta climbed to his feet and let her in. She wore a showy gold dress with a neckline that plunged almost to her navel, and he wasn't a man easily taken by a pretty woman but something about this one did terrible things to him.
"I'm meeting with him tomorrow, if that's what you're wanting," he told her as she slipped around him into his apartment. He'd gotten off the phone with Hiram only a few minutes before, who'd only just learned of Minetta's relationship with Lane and was fuming.
His eyes followed her as she moved to where he'd left his phone, taking control as she always did, wanting something as she always did. Finding what she wanted she put the phone back down and turned blinking slowly up at him as the start of a slow swaying song began to play. "You owe me a dance," she told him softly, her face the picture of innocence.
Without any conscious thought he stepped to her wrapping a hand around her back, feeling the warmth of her soft skin beneath his palm, and he took her smaller hand in his other as they began to sway. There was something in her eyes as she stared up at him, something he couldn't read, but the music swelled and he spun her slowly. When she came back she let her head fall to his chest with her cheek resting over his heart, and if she held her breath she swore she could hear it beat.
They went on like this softly for the next few songs, his cheek over the top of her head breathing in the smell of her shampoo, and her eyes closed with her face slightly upturned smelling his cologne. "You're gonna be the death of me," he said at last. Minetta already knew what to say to convince Lodge Lane hadn't corrupted him, but he knew how this would eventually end. And most likely it would end with her, staring at those beautiful cold green eyes.
Her eyes opened and she took a breath before looking up at him, and again he saw something in them he couldn't place. Something dangerous. "Guess you should've thought about that before driving my car off the road," she said softly, seeing something in his expression still. There was no need for an accusation, they both knew what he'd done.
"How long have been thinking that?" he asked wondering why she was here, why she'd come here if she knew.
They weren't dancing anymore but his arms were still around her and she had one hand on his chest and the other around his back, they weren't dancing but they held each other still. "Longer than I was willing to admit."
He'd been hoping to have more time, to convince her it was never personal and he'd never stop regretting that he had to do it. But of course she was too smart for that, she always was. She wanted something, that's what was in her eyes – need. "You wanna know how long he's had me watching you," he said rather than asked.
"I wanna know how long you've been in love me," she said, because that was gonna tell her more. It'd tell her how much she could trust him or whether she needed to have Hiram kill him. And she watched the smallest twitch at the corners of his mouth, that was the right question.
"The day we met," he told her without hesitating, as though he'd been waiting for this conversation. As though he'd known from the beginning exactly how this was gonna go. "You had me figured out before I opened my mouth." He could still remember her wide eyes as he approached her in the high school, playing the part of concerned Sheriff as he arrested her friend.
Her brow cocked and a cruel smirk formed. "That's sweet," she told him in an emotionless voice, stepping forward so the he was forced back, "but it doesn't explain why you didn't kill me that day at the garage. You had a perfect shot." Instead he'd given Spyder enough time to get her out of the way, just like this time when he'd left tire treads on the road so the Serpents would find her.
He took another step back, then another, as she herded him. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked instead. He'd never admit how long it'd been, she'd have to care for it to matter and she'd never let herself.
"What's the matter, Mike?" she asked, and the back of his legs hit the couch forcing him to sit looking up at her as she stood over him. Toying with him. "Worried I'm gonna kill you?"
His chest rose and fell in quick rhythm as he waited for what she really wanted, her face a level of calm he knew not to trust. "That is the obvious next move." It's how he always figured this would end, he just hadn't thought it would end so soon. But she grinned in a way that wasn't pretty and he swallowed heavily.
She pulled the thin straps from her shoulders letting the dress slip down her body and gather at her feet, seeing the heavy dip in his chest as he lost his breath. "You're lucky I need you." She set a knee on either side of him so that she was pressed against him feeling how deep his breathing had grown as he continued staring up at her, his face now level with her bare chest.
His hands came around her hips as she settled on his lap. "For what?" he asked without hesitation.
This is what she'd been working him toward for the last four months, he'd do anything she asked him to. She could see it in his eyes as he waited, as he'd been waiting until she was finally ready to make her move. Because he'd always known how this was gonna end. "You're gonna help me die."
.^.
It was a slow moving plan with several pieces Lane and Minetta got into place over the span of the next couple weeks while they both continued to play their parts. Minetta as the Sheriff and Hiram's right hand, and Lane as a Serpent and now an active partner of Hiram's. Hiram would never trust her, he'd never find her more useful than threatening; it was never about that. It was about access to what he was really planning for Riverdale, where the drugs were coming from and where they were going, it was about finding people capable of being turned against him. It was about taking him down.
And all the while behind closed doors she and Minetta went round and round, and round again, scrutinizing every detail to her plan until they'd molded it into something absolute. They knew what they needed to do, the timeframe it needed to be done within, and how. Only one piece was missing, and it'd taken Minetta a week before he found it.
Lane stood outside the elevator in the Pembrook in a dress he'd asked her to wear, knowing he had something planned. Not many people could take her by surprise, but Minetta did it with ease. "The dress is for me," because he cared too much, "the waitress is for you."
Her heart quickened as she looked at him realizing they'd finally done it, and then the realization that the end was near – there was a flicker of a thought that looked like Sweet Pea, but she was getting better at hiding it from herself. When they finally made it to the diner and sat in the booth Lane looked up at the sweet natured waitress with the grave misfortune of bearing a slight resemblance to the malevolent girl she smiled at as she asked what drink Lane wanted.
"What do we know about her?" Lane asked when she left, finding it eerie and unsettling how much they looked alike. Except for the eyes.
"She and her father came here from Mexico a couple years ago, and she's been using his expired work visa since he died last year," he told her, having gone through a number of girls before finding this one. Like she'd been sent here to serve this purpose. "When we're ready I'll send the paperwork through, with how poorly their files are managed it'll look like she'd been deported."
It was perfect, so goddamn perfect, and yet Lane took a sip of the water the girl only a few years older than her set down suddenly feeling nauseous. Minetta looked across at Lane seeing something hiding behind her stony façade, a softness she tried to refuse. She couldn't do this on her own, he'd have to be her backbone. And he spent the rest of the evening and all of the next day soothing her doubt, playing her favorite song because he knew she'd want to dance. And they did, dance.
.^.
Helping Veronica break Archie out was neither being a Serpent nor working for Hiram, it was just being Lane. And honestly Lane wasn't sure she knew who that was anymore. She looked in the mirror and she'd see the waitres or she'd see Sweet Pea – the pieces of who she was now and who she used to be and they just didn't fit. Knowing what she was gonna do Lane had to wonder if it was all worth it, if she was worth it. If the life she was trying to ensure she could live was even one worth living.
…
"Loving you was a mistake," she told Sweet Pea callously as he sat on an exam table holding a bedpan, "one I won't make again." His eyes were so wide and pained as she decimated every effort he made to love her, but she wouldn't have it. "I'm gonna give you a minute and I'll come get what I need, and if at that point you want me to leave I will." She watched understanding slowly harden in his stare, she was never going to take him back.
Closing the door behind her she walked calmly to the bathroom down the hall and she locked that door before she fell apart. With a hand hooked on either side of the sink and her head hung she held her breath choking her tears, and when they passed she looked up at herself in the mirror seeing the face of another girl who was better than she would ever be.
But she blinked and all she was left with was this person she didn't recognize or even want. He'd hate her if he knew what she was doing. "You don't get to love him," she told the girl in the mirror, like she was someone else. And whoever she was she didn't get to have him, she'd taken enough from him.
Sweet Pea didn't look at her when she came back, she looked through the drawers for what she needed and took it. She stood at the counter feeling him behind her with every part of her screaming at her to turn around, to go to him. "I'll call Fangs to get me," he told her, unable to look at even the back of her. The breath she'd been holding passed silently from her lips and she turned the handle and left him.
…
It wasn't the door opening and closing, it wasn't drawer slamming shut or the bed dipping as she sat beside where he lay, it was the sniffing that woke Minetta. He blinked the sleepy shadows from his eyes until she began to take shape, sitting on the edge of the bed holding a half empty bottle of wine as she stared at the carpet. "What are you thinking about?" he asked her softly, not wanting to startle her. Because there something that felt so fragile in her silence.
"Dying." She hadn't meant for that to come out but she always said too much when she was drunk. He was sitting up immediately as he reached for her, her skin was cold. He tried grabbing the bottle not wanting her to do this tonight but she pulled away. "I have to be drunk for it to be believable," she told him, and then she giggled. It was high pitched, deranged. "As if I need to be drunk to wanna kill myself."
All at once he understood, this time he only reached for her chin to turn her to face him and she let him. "How long have you been off your meds?" he asked running his thumb over her wet cheeks.
"You know, I tried to kill myself last year," she said as though she hadn't heard him.
"You told me."
"I did?" she asked, her face scrunching up as she tried to look at him but between the tears and the dizziness she couldn't see him. "Oh yeah, you asked," she said vaguely remembering that he had after being prescribed the antidepressant. "You're the only one who really asks about me," because unless it was Serpent related no one else had, not even Sweet Pea. "No one in the whole world knows me more than you, and you killed my daughter."
This time she let him take the bottle from her and he set it on the nightstand before he turned back to her. She was so drunk he held an arm out to her and she crawled over him to lay against his chest, sober she wouldn't let him bring her this close. It strayed too close to intimacy for her. "I wish you killed me too sometimes."
"I know." She didn't have to tell him that he could see it in her eyes, he could hear it in the way she sighed. As if life to her had become as inconvenient as it was inevitable. "Go to sleep," he said with an arm around her shoulders.
She sighed against him feeling the warmth she'd found in the bottle solidify until the weight of the entire world held her down. "You have to draw my blood," she mumbled, her eyes already closing.
He felt her jerk herself back awake, the sensible part of her trying to remind herself why she was doing this. "I will when you're asleep," he told her in effort to quiet that part of her mind. She went limp against him as she settled into an uneasy sleep, the only sleep she was able to get anymore. With her unconscious and compliant, unable to push him away, he held her a few moments longer.
.^.
For a moment she was aware of how warm she was wrapped in a blanket and a pair of strong caring arms, for a moment it felt like peace. Then the pain came in, along with the realization she was still laying over Minetta's chest. She sat up reaching a hand to her head that ached hard enough it nearly blinded her. Feeling a pull in the crease of her arm she looked down seeing the bandaid he'd placed after the blood draw. "How much did I drink?" she asked in a voice too hoarse to be hers.
"Half the bottle," he answered brushing her hair back, feeling how clammy her skin was. Something resembling a scoff escaped her mouth before she winced finding it too loud. "Do you still want to die?" he asked needing to know where her head was at, if he needed to be helping her.
Sitting at the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor and her head hung forward in her hand she told him simply, "all the time." She'd never convince herself so instead she just stood, and she paused as she and the world swayed in different directions. "Don't think too much on it, even at my happiest," which was with Sweet Pea, "it never really went away." It was always there like a festering wound.
She left the door open to the bathroom and he heard the soft sound of the shower running, of the water hitting her body before it fell into the tub. He was left in a bed that quickly grew cold without her feeling so much care for this broken girl, caring for her more than she cared for herself.
.^.
Lane climbed onto the elevator feeling it dip as Minetta climbed in after her, and she turned to him seeing the doors close behind him as he stepped toward her. With a hand holding the rail on either side of her he bent forward so that his nose brushed her forehead."Is he ready to kill me?" she asked, because he knew Hiram better.
His mouth twitched as he settled more against her, feeling the elevator lurch before it took them down to the lobby. "You're getting him there." And it would happen sooner rather than later, that's what tonight was about.
Or at least partly, because Minetta realized as she directed Hiram's attention away from him that she'd really been doing this as a way to protect him. No matter how hard she tried not to care, it was second nature to her. It's why when Hiram finally gave him the order to take her out, an order he'd convinced Hiram he was waiting for, Lane wouldn't be able to do what was needed. Because underneath it all this callous uncaring girl cared too much. Standing over her now staring down at her glittering green eyes, he was ready to do what she couldn't. Because she needed him.
.^.
She could feel it on the wind that carried a chill threatening the coming winter, it crept down the back of her neck making her shiver – the end. It didn't make sense for Lane to know, they'd planned everything down to the week Hiram would finally give in and they were still two weeks from that. And yet she laid awake beside Minetta when night had grown late enough to become morning, and she knew. Intuition, it was the same thing she felt within her own body but she wasn't ready to acknowledge that yet.
But it's how she found herself creeping into her own home and settling against Fangs' side listening to his deep even breaths. She'd memorized that sound, and on the bad nights she set her body in tune with his and let it soothe her. She loved him, so goddamn much. But she could never leave him, not like this, not thinking she was gone.
"You're gonna hear something about me, the worst thing you could ever hear," she told him, as if she wasn't about to do the very worst thing. "Don't believe it."
She kissed him, not because she wanted to or because it felt right, there was just too much feeling and it was the only way she could let it out. He had to know, he could probably taste it. But she laid with her head over his chest feeling his arms around her, assuming that because she was there she was safe. Not knowing she was the thing someone needed to be saved from. He'd hate her too if he knew.
.^.
The only one who didn't or wouldn't hate her was Minetta, and as she stood in the dark cave with her heart hammering in time with the gunshots she wondered if she always knew it'd be this way. Looking at his deadly serious face as the crack of gunfire lit his features momentarily she could almost imagine what life with him would be. Several minutes later, and several miles further down the road, as he laid moving over her in the backseat she could feel what life with him would be.
They stayed that way for a small time her hands on his back and him laying over her with a hand in her hair as he stared down at her. He wondered if she knew how sad she looked, the kind of sad that aged her normally pretty features and made her look tired. Pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead he pulled down the skirt of her white nightgown, the one he knew would get the boys attention because she looked so goddamn beautiful in it.
She let him pull her with him out of the car and she took a breath gathering a bit of herself that she'd lost, that nothing about this was what she wanted – not him, not her, not what she was doing. As always her mind strayed to Sweet Pea, and mostly Fangs. She was trying to find any way to convince herself not to go through with this. They climbed in the front and she reached for her phone seeing Fangs had called her, and then texted that he needed her.
She was contemplating helping him, as she always did and was likely to do now, or forcing him to learn how to do this without her when Minetta got a call. Watching him she saw the way he froze, not angry that came with the clenching of his jaw or the twitching of his eye; she'd never seen this before. "What's happening?" she asked when he finally turned to her, a gentle hand on her cheek as his sad eyes bored into her face like he was trying to memorize it.
If she knew what Hiram was planning she'd never go through with this, she'd stay for her friends and part of her would stay for him because at some point she'd tied herself to him. "He's upping the timeline," he said leaving her to think the he in question was Hiram, and not Minetta himself. This needed to happen before he was gone. "I know you hate plans changing, that's why we planned for this."
Lane knew he wasn't telling her something, the way he wouldn't tell her whether Hiram was involved with G&G and the seizures. But he was still helping her which meant he wasn't turning against her, which meant Hiram was turning against him. She sat beside him as he drove back to Riverdale going over every angle of the plan, factoring in him coming with her. It didn't work. If they both disappeared Hiram would know, if Minetta stayed then he'd convince Hiram Lane was dead, but if Lane died and Hiram got rid of Minetta then he'd never question her being alive. "There's still time to come up with something." This came from the small weak part of her, the part that desperately hung onto Sweet Pea, refusing to just let him go.
"You know as well I do this works out better," Minetta told her, wishing it didn't mean as much as it did that she was trying to save him. Pulling into the driveway of her old house that stood dark and empty he cut the engine and turned to her, seeing the way she looked up at it as though the building itself was a ghost. "Get your boy to be your eyes, see this through, and I'll take care of the rest."
The car shook as his door closed and she watched him let himself in the house her father had died, knowing what he was about to do. There was still time to stop this, to change her mind. But she knew she wouldn't, she'd come too far and she was far too stubborn and she hated that about herself. A week ago Lane had broken into the waitress' house for two reasons, to find a spare key and something with her DNA. Minetta told Lane they couldn't do anything to the file they had at the Sheriff's station because it'd be flagged, but they could alter the lab's results and have the waitress, who wasn't in any system, come up as Lane.
Eventually her thrashing body stilled and she lay in the filled tub with her dark eyes held open, lifeless. In a few hours the typical eerie milky hue would cover that, no one would ever know. Minetta turned to see Lane standing in the doorway behind him, her face a hard mask but her green eyes stared hopelessly at the dead girl in the tub. Pleading.
"Lane." His voice was soft as he stood, letting his hands drip because knowing this house – that Hiram owned – was the place she really died was part of the plan. But it was enough to jar Lane and she held out a towel and the tattoo gun she'd taken from a Serpent a couple weeks ago.
It's buzzing filled the cold desolate air as he gave the girl the same mark Lane bore an inch above the right corner of her mouth, and then he set about drawing the serpent on her finger. "Her skin'll bloat, it doesn't have to be perfect," Lane said, hating herself for saying it.
There's this old western I used to watch with my dad, it was a terrible movie really. But the hero and his villain are in the typical standoff and they turn their backs and walk their ten paces before pulling their guns, and you just know the hero's gonna get his shot off first. But they both drop dead. Because really, what's a hero without his villain.
Lane was never going to be the hero, eventually she'd convinced herself that was okay. His cold wet hands wrapped around her arms and she looked up at him wondering again if they couldn't just run away. She could still be dead.
As if reading these thoughts from her eyes he pulled the nightgown from her shoulders so he could dress the corpse with it. And he pressed a firm kiss to the top of her head before pushing her out of the bathroom, so she could put on the clothes he'd grabbed for her and leave – a silent goodbye.
.^.
In the early stages of getting everything in order Lane had done the little things, one being her will and including where to bury the body because she couldn't let the girl rot alone. However, with Minetta now gone, and Lane now blind, she snuck into Sierra McCoy's office in the early hours of the morning before the sun even thought to rise and replaced the original letter she'd left for Sweet Pea with one that would tell him a little more.
She didn't go to the funeral they planned for her even though she wanted to, she knew Hiram would consider the possibility this was a farce and have his men along the perimeter looking for her. So she stayed away. But she got a call later that day on a phone only one person had the number to, and seeing that familiar string of numbers tore at her heart a little.
Fangs stood in the house Lane left him holding the post it note Mrs McCoy had given him along with the deed and the bank account she'd transferred all her money to. The ringing stopped abruptly and he froze listening, trying to hear anything to let him know it was her. But there was only silence. "I know this is probably for emergencies, but I just wanted you to know," he started, finding himself suddenly breathless, "I heard you loud and clear baby girl." He waited wishing she'd give him something, just a breath of a laugh. But his phone beeped and he looked to see she'd hung up, and he sighed disappointed.
But several miles away Lane sat in a hotel room she'd paid for in cash holding the phone to her chest as tears filled her eyes. It took just about everything she had to pull herself back together, and even then it felt like she'd left a little piece of her with him.
.^.
He stood at the grave of a girl he'd never known, who probably deserved him more than she ever would. He was smart enough to leave the jacket, to not make it as obvious who he belonged to, but she knew the shape of him. Even the back of Sweet Pea had Lane's heart quickening in a way she'd tried so hard to stop. She got close enough he could hear the soft rustle of her as she stopped, could smell her perfume on the wind. He turned to her and she watched his face fall apart as utter relief made his knees weak.
The vulnerability in his wet eyes made Lane uncomfortable, that she was having to do this because this was not the plan. She let him go, or at least she'd gotten him to let her go so he wouldn't feel as responsible for this. But she needed someone in Riverdale and Minetta now wasn't, and really it had always been Sweet Pea for her. "I just want it to be known, my original plan was not this messy."
A broken breath of a laugh escaped him as he shook his head at that being the first damn thing out of her mouth. And it was so like her it just about ruined him. Because forever wasn't without her, and for a while he really thought it was going to be. He wanted to kiss her, and he wanted to shake her, and yell, scream even. She was the worst person he'd ever met.
He was still gaping at her and she could see he had too many thoughts and couldn't pick one. Obviously he was relieved, but he was mad too and she expected that – she never expected him to forgive her, it's why she pushed him away, needing him to let her go. But he stepped forward, his face stuck in the initial shock, and he stood only a breath away staring down at her with too much in his eyes for her to really know what he was thinking.
His arms came around her back pulling her up onto the tips of her toes as his head fell to her shoulder, squeezing her tight enough she couldn't breathe. And she stood with her arms at her sides staring unknowingly at the sky as a flood built behind her eyes. She'd felt so lost since the accident, like part of her never really came back and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't fill it. But it hit her, hard and sudden; like coming home. And she threw her arms around him.
They stayed that way for a long while, feeling pieces of what had broken between them begin to shift as they tried to pull back together. But their eyes dried and their breathing calmed and they pulled only far enough away to see each other. "What happens now?" he asked knowing enough that she couldn't just come back. He didn't even know if she ever planned to come back. He'd go with her if she was running, with nothing but the clothes on his back he'd give her everything.
"He was never gonna stop coming after me," she told him. "This was the only way I could find to build a case against him, to get to the people whose lives he's ruined like mine. Like ours," she added, seeing the flash of devastation as he realized Hiram really was the reason their daughter was dead.
It shouldn't have been a surprise, Lodge had taken everything from Lane of course he'd taken her too. And instead of being there Sweet Pea left Lane to do this on her own, like he always did. "Minetta was supposed to keep an eye on him while you were gone," he said piecing little things together. The one behind him, that he just buried, he left that one alone.
She nodded grabbing his phone out of his pocket and replacing her number with the one to the phone she now had, because her old phone was beside the bathtub where the waitress was drowned. Another incriminating piece of evidence to stack against Hiram, and if by some minor miracle Minetta wasn't actually dead then the rest of her plan really would come to fruition. "Half the deal was he'd keep an eye on you guys," she said looking up at Sweet Pea, seeing his small nod as he agreed to keep her informed on the rest of the Serpents but mostly Fangs and Cheryl. "I'll also need you to follow up on any leads, you can take Fangs if you want but you can't tell him anything. Jughead and Archie will have something, I'll see if I can't find them. I followed Hiram the other day to the Sister's of Quiet Mercy he's got some deal there, Betty'll have that when she gets out. Veronica's closest to him, she might have something too."
Sweet Pea nodded hearing that while he'd been mourning her she'd been working, while he'd been playing the game and screwing around with Josie she'd been working. The only one getting shit done. "Keep me updated, I'll call when I have to be in or near town, let me know where he is." She didn't know how to say goodbye, she didn't know how to do this with him anymore. So she reached a hand to his arm, awkwardly, and she stepped back turning away.
Your love was never gonna save me, that's what she'd told him. She was choosing death, she'd done enough to deserve it. Loving her wasn't going to save her, but maybe it would be enough to change her mind. She didn't make it far before his hand fastened around her arm pulling her back around to face him, and he looked down at her with a thought too big for him to ever say aloud or for her to ever let herself hear. So he kissed her. Not hard or demanding, not filled with too much fractured emotion that they couldn't stand it. It was soft, timid, like it was the first time. Like they were falling in love.
The breath stilled in her lungs at the shock of it, and she sighed at the tender familiarity as her hands came around the back of his neck pulling him closer. For a moment, just a moment, she felt like herself again. But her hands slid down his shoulders to his chest gently pushing him back. "I already told you," she said in a soft voice.
"I know," he told her, thinking this was the softest she'd been to him in months. God he'd missed her. "You don't have time to love me, but I do." He saw how hard that hit her, that he'd been right in thinking she didn't fully know he loved her still. Then he hit her again. "And I already told you, we end this together."
A breath of an unamused laugh escaped her and she let her head hang, standing so close to him it fell to his chest. "Why do you have to make everything so hard on me," she said thinking this was so much easier without him. Without his feelings to consider, and her stupid ones. With an aggrieved sigh she pushed him back. "I have to go."
"Where?" he asked feeling her fingers slip around his, not ready to let him go yet. He didn't like knowing she'd be on her own, he knew how dark her mind got and she was in a worse place now.
Squeezing his hand she made herself let go and she wrapped her arms around herself in place of him. "I'll be back," she assured him, in a tone that sounded mildly annoyed. "But first, I have to find an old friend."
.^.
It took her a day to get there and at least a couple hour hike before she finally noticed the way the trees thinned, of a collection of underbrush that was hiding a car beneath it. Casting her eyes about she found the signs of a lightly worn trail, the way Minetta had taught her, and she followed it several hundred feet before the sunlight gleamed on a very thin line that ran only inches above the ground. A tripwire.
Minetta told her about these, he told her a lot of things, and she followed it on either side seeing it'd been set as a perimeter. Which meant it was less likely to trigger an explosion and more likely to be the first line of an alarm system.
So she tripped it and continued on, just barely making out an old cabin at the top of the hill she was climbing. She scanned the trees around her as she climbed higher, her chest aching as she nearly heaved, catching sight of motion detecting lights that were more for night, a couple cameras. He knew she was there.
It was so utterly quiet in those woods that she heard the door open, heard his boots as he stepped out on the porch, she swore she heard the skin of his palms unsticking from the rifle as he shifted his hold on it. She stopped at the foot of the stairs that led to the house and stood looking up at a tall man with a weathered face and long sandy brown hair. "Hey," she said out of breath as she reached a hand to wipe the sweat from her brow.
A wry smile pulled at his mouth as he leaned the rifle against the outer wall of the house, his green eyes fixed on her achingly familiar face. In a gruff voice Tall Boy greeted her, "hey kid."
Since I'm taking free reign from here and deviating more from the show, you bet your ass I brought Tall Boy back (and I've been waiting for this since the start of the season!) I might include a few more details from upcoming episodes, or I might dislike it even more than I already do and just wrap the story up. Either way, I'm thinking I've only got about 5 chapters (give or take one) left.
And after this terrible chapter you might be wondering how Lane could possibly come back, or if like Lane you're wondering if she should even be allowed to come back, you guys technically already know where she's gonna go (it is a place) you just don't realize you know. And that is my only hint for what is coming.
I'm still working on my alternate version of this story, With your Arms Like Towers - that one will follow the show more, it's a little more lighthearted (for those following it you know Lane just got out of a very traumatic situation). You can check that out if you're interested.
Otherwise, I'll see ya'll at some point in nearish future.