Daze Past 2

ooOOoo

For the first time in a long time, Jenny had no idea what to think.

Which most would find natural, after receiving a lethal wound, then being cast through time and space to a world she hated with a passion. A world that left scars on her as a small child, many that would never truly heal.

But all things considered, Jenny could handle that. Weird didn't begin to describe her life.

But what really threw her for a loop was seeing her mother, Winifred Burkle, who was supposed to be dead, laying in a meat cart otherwise full of corpses.

Dead? Alive? Jenny didn't know what to think either way.

Other than the fact that life could be amazingly ironic at times.

Jenny stared for a minute, trying to process the situation. The sheer unreality of it, even in a world with Elder Gods, vampires and such, struck Jenny full force.

It took Jenny a little longer than she would have liked to admit, to get her brain working again.

"Okay, okay," Jenny said aloud, trying to steady her nerves, "check. This could be an alternate reality, Days of Future Past situation."

Jenny reached out, and pressed her fingers against her mother's(?) neck, and held her breath.

Jenny didn't know what she expected, what she wanted, but after several tense seconds, she found a pulse.

It was weak, and took Jenny longer than she would have liked to confirm it, but she found a pulse.

"Okay, one question answered," Jenny said, "triage from there, Ms. Burkle."

She grabbed her mother, and gently pulled her out of the pile of bodies, and carefully laid her on the ground.

Jenny paused, half expected her mother to snap awake and lunge at her at any moment, like some monster in a horror movie.

When that didn't happen, Jenny placed her mother ("Fred," she said to herself) on her side, and examined her back.

Jenny wasn't too terribly surprised by what she found. Purple and yellow lines, spider-webbed across her mother's back. Jenny recognized them as symptoms of the 'eel whips' the Overseers used when they wanted to make an example of someone. Jenny had only seen it twice, but it was hard to forget. She now suspected that it mimicked electricity, and could have sent her mother into shock and unresponsive, to the point that she appeared dead.

"Okay, need to get to work," Jenny said to herself. Her father had taught her many things, but the most important thing he'd taught her was that the world wouldn't politely wait while she resolved her issues.

She'd just killed two so-called pure blood demons, their bodies not even cold yet. Should anyone else come along the path and discover what happened, things would get complicated.

In that, they would try to kill Jenny and anyone with her. Just on twisted principle.

More than that, she was now in another, hostile reality without any real supplies. Jenny had some weapons, but they were of limited use, all things considered. Great in a fight against amateurs, but against an experienced fighter, Jenny knew that she would be in trouble.

Also, weapons weren't edible.

"Okay, time see how screwed we are," Jenny muttered. In the past, she'd found talking to herself brought some calm, but not here so much.

She did a mental checklist, and everything came up wanting. She had no supplies, barely any resources and no shelter. And every second she stood still increased their chances of discovery.

So Jenny got to work.

First, she stripped the demons of their possessions. She took their shirts pants and boots, and put them in one pile, and their boots, jewelry and weapons in another.

It was strange, Jenny reflected, how she felt no shame robbing the dead but instead felt an ugly sense of satisfaction. It was people like these who'd destroyed her childhood, brutalized her and ripped her from her mother. This barely scratched the debt bastards like these owed her.

Jenny was surprised at herself. But then, after seeing her family and possibly world die, only to stumble across her still living mother, she thought that she was entitled to be a little emotionally off.

Jenny wasn't too shocked to find little of value. The coin in the purse was little more than a hundred dollar back home, and their weapons were dull and rusted.

But it was better than nothing.

Jenny loaded the corpses atop the work horses and then lashed them on. Once she was certain they were secured, she slapped the horses on the backside, and sent them on their way.

She watched as the horses disappeared. Jenny hoped that they would wander off course eventually, in case anyone sought to backtrack the two demons she'd just killed.

Once that was done, Jenny made a liter for her mother, and gently loaded her onto it. The young hybrid turned into the forest, looked for the path of least resistance, and simply began walking.

oooOOooo

Jenny walked slowly and carefully. She focused solely on the path ahead of her, mindful of jostling her mother, of her delicate state.

Jenny was thankful for the walk, as focusing on it allowed her not to think about the woman in the liter that she was dragging. To not think about back home, and what had become of her family.

What had become of her entire world, really.

After Jenny made it three miles through unforgiving woods, before her body demanded rest.

Jenny gently set her mother down, and began clearing the ground to start a camp fire.

Mechanically, Jenny collected twigs and leaves. She still remembered how to start a smokeless fire, and remembered enough of Pylia's cold nights to know she'd need it.

Jenny cheated a little, having long ago made a habit of carrying a lighter in her equipment.

Once the fire was going, Jenny allowed herself to feel the exhaustion of the day, plopping down on a long across from her still unconscious mother. The swell of emotions she'd felt, her entire world ending to finding her mother alive, had settled into a deep, bone-tired ache.

Jenny watched as the light of the fire flickered across her mother's face, uncertain of how to feel.

Fred, her mother, had been dead for so long. Only now, her mother was alive, and her entire world was dead.

And Jenny Burke had no idea how to feel about any of that.

oooOOoo

Jenny woke up stiff and aching, sore all over. A night of sleeping on the cold ground had that effect.

Standing up slowly, Jenny's mind was a slog, and it took her a second before she noticed the empty liter across from her.

"Shitshitshit!" Jenny muttered. She wanted to be angry with herself, but just feeling anything after all that had happened was difficult.

Jenny paced back and forth, as she struggled to think of a plan or course of action. But overwhelmed did not begin to cover how she felt right now, and just thinking about the next ten minutes felt like an impossible task.

So she didn't immediately notice when two recently deceased rabbits were dropped at her feet.

"Umm, excuse me?"

Jenny froze, the strange recognition of her mother's voice playing absolute havoc with her emotions.

"Are you hungry, Miss…?"

Jenny slowly turned towards her mother, who looked like death warmed over. Her face was covered with dirt, her eyes were unfocused and her hair completed the 'crazy look' ensemble.

And yet, Jenny realized, she was more together than the young hybrid.

"Amanda," Jenny replied, "my name is Amanda."

"Amanda?" Fred tilted her head to the side, and Jenny instantly realized her mistake. Her name was too ordinary, too earth-like, too much like home, for her mother to accept it without question.

"Family name," Jenny replied quickly.

"Hmm," Fred crooked her head, like a cat examining something new, "I had you pegged as a G something."

"Umm, thanks?"

"And the clothes?" Fred said.

"Long story," Jenny snapped.

"Not busy," Fred smiled.

"Yeah, but I'm hungry," Jenny replied.

Jenny found herself surprisingly grateful for the survival skills she had been made to learn at the Watchers Academy. She skinned the rabbit with the survival knife Gunn had given her years ago (and that she carried out of habit), and cooked it over the fire.

The two women ate in silence, each trying not to look at the other.

Once the meal was finished, Jenny knew that she had to take control of the situation.

"I escaped some slavers, and found you with some slavers that I ambushed," Jenny explained, "I got these clothes from previous raids."

"You must be very brave," Fred observed.

"Just surviving," Jenny replied, trying not to think of what she'd lost, "and I could use all the help I could get with that. If you're interested."

"Two is better than one," Fred smiled, "I think I saw a cave not far from here. It backs up to a cliff, which is nice."

"I wouldn't mind some protection from the elements," Jenny observed.

The two Burkle women marched through the woods in silence, until Jenny saw the cave that her mother had found.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Jenny muttered.

She recognized the cave instantly, despite having not seen it in years. It was the same cave that Cordelia had directed her to when Jenny was returned to Pylia.

Jenny's heart skipped a beat, when she considered that this might all be a time-loop, that her reality still existed, that her family…

But she dismissed the thought. Even if she found herself in a loop, that didn't mean that her home reality, and everyone she loved, wasn't dead already.

"I'm sorry?" Fred said.

"Nothing," Jenny replied, "I think this cave is just fine. Give it a little work, might feel like home."

oooOOoo

'Home' was a stretch, but between the two of them, it became comfortable.

There was a small town nearby, and with a disabled collar, Jenny learned that her mother was practically invisible. So long as she didn't commit any blatant acts of theft in front of someone, everyone just assumed that she was a trusted cow, running an errand.

But Jenny found it utterly nerve wracking, watching her mother leave for supplies, each time worrying if she'd make it back.

But it was effective. Jenny had to give her mother credit, she was an excellent thief. With two weeks' time, their cave was a comfy little home.

The two women ate together, and Jenny watched as Fred went from lucid, to delusion and back again, sometimes in the same conversation.

"So Lance Armstrong was the first man to land on one of the two moons," Fred explained, as they ate a creature akin to a fox, "the return trip wasn't easy, splashing down in one of the great lakes is hard to do from the moon."

"I see," was all Jenny could think to say.

Jenny only approached the subject of her past self, and only then by accident, once.

They had been running a little short of supplies, when Jenny offered a solution.

"Maybe we should go into town together?" Jenny suggested, "we could pass as sisters."

Fred's expression jolted, as if she were electrified. She looked at Jenny, examining her with new eyes, studying her features more closely than ever before.

"Sisters, mothers, daughters," Fred muttered, "I had a mother. Not here. And I had…"

Fred clutched her chest as it began to hammer, tears streaming down her cheek.

"Had, past tense, not present. No, no…no," Jenny caught her mother before she would have collapsed, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Jenny hated herself, as she clapped her hand over her mother's mouth. They were still fugitives, and couldn't risk anyone investigating her screams.

Jenny simply held her mother, as her body wracked with sobs that didn't stop until Fred's body surrendered to exhaustion, and she fell asleep in her daughter's arms.

In the end, Jenny was left feeling as if she'd never been farther from her mother's love and influence than when she was alive, and only a few feet away.