I finally finished it…this is the last chapter…well, until I get round to writing a sequel anyway. I hope everybody likes it. I got a resounding 'happy ending' majority but I didn't want it to be all 'sunshine and fluffy bunnies.' It's a happy ending with an edge. Thank you to everybody that read it, thank you to all those who reviewed. I'm just so sad that its all coming to an end *tear* I'm sorry, I just seem to be getting a little emotional. I'd like to say thank you to my parents for all their support over the years and last but definitely not least, I'd like to say thank you to God…you the man! (I hope I didn't offend anybody with that, if I did, I promise to hit myself over the head with something very heavy)
Have a nice day.
Shalimar had been asleep for a week. She hadn't wanted to leave so soon but had agreed that the rest of Mutant X couldn't very well stay with her. There might have been some kind of emergency going on back in the real world. Besides she had wanted to enjoy it by herself for a while. Adam had kept all the machinery up and running just to make sure that nothing else went wrong but Emma had assured him that Shalimar was fine.
Despite knowing this Brennan had not left her side since getting out of her head. He hadn't slept properly in six nights, taking naps every so often, always awakening every time there was the slightest movement in the lab. He didn't care about the lack of sleep or food (unlike sleep he had completely forsaken food despite all of Adams warnings and threats.) Brennan just wanted to make sure that when Shalimar woke up she would see a familiar face so she wouldn't be scared.
Jesse and Emma had taken to joining Brennan for a couple of hours in his vigilant watch every day. They would talk about the most random of things and when Adam came in to check on Shal (and to make sure Brennan hadn't collapsed from lack of nourishment) they would involve him in the conversation. The laughter wasn't as joyful as it would have been if Shalimar was a part of the joke but it was laughter in a Sanctuary that had been silent for a long while.
It was dark all through Sanctuary, just the lights of the equipment and the occasional quiet beep. Brennan was sat on the floor, leant against one of the pillars. He had fallen asleep, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, poetry book hanging loosely from his hand. His head had flopped forward onto his chest and his legs were stretched, straight out in front of him.
Shalimar stirred. She was having the greatest wander around her mind. Now she understood why Emma spent so much time meditating. It was so peaceful. She was standing in the exact same place she had been standing when she had encountered Gabriel. But the feelings of confusion and fear were gone. Things were so different now.
The sun was shining so brightly onto her face, forcing her to squint her eyes slightly but the ground was covered in glistening, fresh, crisp snow. This had always been something Shalimar had loved ever since she was a little kid. She had loved looking out on a world covered in ice and bathed in sunlight.
The white flakes lay heavily on the outstretched branches of trees, weighing them down. Children built snowmen with their parents and some teenagers were racing down a nearby hill in toboggans. The skyscrapers had all been restored to their former glory and looked impressive in the distance. They reached into the cloudless sky.
Shalimar laughed out loud as she saw a dog running away from a cat. That had always been on of her dreams: cats getting their own back.
She looked around her, eyes sparkling as she took in her last view of this place…well, for now. She would be coming back but right now she needed to go home, back to her sanctuary.
She lay down on the ground, savouring the cold on her back and the warmth on her front. She closed her eyes and slowly felt herself drifting back into the real world.
Shal opened her eyes. Above her the overhead lighting of the lab had been turned off. She flicked her eyes to the left and then to the right. There was a dim glow coming from the lights set into the walls. It was glinting off the surfaces and through the colourful substances in test tubes.
Shalimar sat up slowly; she had an aching back and neck from two weeks of being in the same position. She looked around her and then noticed Brennan slouched over on the floor. She slid out from underneath the thin blanket that had been placed over her and silently placed her feet on the ground. She crept over to where Brennan sat and picked up the book that had fallen onto the floor. Poetry. A smile slowly spread across her face. Things hadn't changed.
Jesse reached over to his bedside table and twisted the digital clock around so he could see the flashing neon digits. 02:00am. Jesse didn't know why he had woken up. Normally he slept all the way through the night, and a lot of the time quite a bit of the way through the morning.
It was still dark all the way through Sanctuary and he could only just make out the outlines of the furniture in his room.
He pushed the covers off his boxer-clad body and put his feet onto the floor. His throat was dry and he needed a drink.
He pulled a hoodie that had been resting on a chair over his tousled head. He yanked open his cupboard door and dragged (Jesse was most definitely not a morning person) a pair of grey sweatpants out.
He stumbled his way down the hall to the main room of Sanctuary. He could see the kitchen light was on and wondered if Emma or Adam had gotten thirsty too.
Jesse groped his way across Sanctuary, trying not to stub his toes on anything. He rounded his way into the kitchen and then came to a complete stop.
In front of him was Shalimar, a large pepperoni pizza on the table in front of her. Or atleast, when she had first started eating it Jesse assumed it had been large. Now there were just a few slices left. She looked up and stared Jesse straight in the eye. He stared back, not sure whether to laugh or turn and run.
They stared at each other for a whole minute before bursting into laughter. The noise seemed to break some kind of spell and Jesse pulled up a chair and took the offered slice of pizza. They didn't talk, just sat there in comfortable silence eating pizza, like they always used to after a big fight with the GSA.
Shalimar's legs were still a little unstable seeing as she hadn't used them in two weeks but she had a desire to look around Sanctuary to see what else had or hadn't changed, so Jesse took her arm and helped her. She noticed everything now even though not a lot had altered and Jesse and her laughed their way through every room not even worried about waking the others. Neither of them noticed as the time sped on and before they knew it, the sun was creeping round the edges of the windows, bouncing off the water and causing hypnotic patterns to flicker across the walls.
Despite the big sleep she had just had Shalimar tired easily. Jesse went to get showered and changed while Shalimar wandered back into the kitchen. She opened the freezer and reached for the tub of Haagen Daaz, Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream. She was really starting to feel the emptiness in her stomach. Adam had been keeping her nourished via a drip while she was out of it but a drip was no replacement for actual food. And the craving for chocolate was almost unbearable. Shal grabbed a spoon from one of the drawers and padded her way back to the lab.
Brennan was still asleep, a weeks lack of catching up with him. Shalimar nimbly jumped up onto the bed and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She remembered how Brennan had done the same thing with his jacket. He had been cold and wet (a dangerous thing for an electrical elemental to be) but he had done that for her. Her calm brown eyes looked at him, wondering what he had been thinking when he saw her in such a mess. She hadn't looked at herself in a while but she figured she must look like absolute crap. And she hadn't showered in two weeks. The thought made her shiver and then giggle. Not showering in two weeks was totally gross and it wasn't even like she had a decent excuse. She laughed again, leaning back on the chair still holding the ice cream in her right hand and the spoon in her left.
Brennan's eyes flickered open at the sound of Shalimar's amusement. He looked around him, not aware that he had fallen asleep. As he got used to his surroundings again his eyes alighted on Shalimar's golden hair. Still slightly disorientated, it took him a while to register the fact that she was awake. He sat there staring at her.
All the stress and frustrations of the past couple of weeks were slowly being released from Shalimar and she found that once she had started laughing like a complete lunatic she couldn't stop. A few years ago she would never have found herself in this kind of situation but now it was all so normal. That was the funny part. This was her life: being held hostage in her own mind, fighting people with extraordinary abilities, living in a building where sparring wasn't just about the martial arts.
Brennan looked on. He wasn't sure what to do. Should he just sit there and let her laugh it all out or should he get up and book a bed in the nearest mental hospital? She looked so beautiful, head back, long blonde hair cascading over the back of the bed, eyes sparkling; he was tempted to watch her forever.
But then his leg decided for him. It had fallen asleep and was now at the stage where it was all tingly. Trying not to fall over and give Shal one more reason to laugh, he stood up.
She saw him. The laughter came to an abrupt halt. She looked at him. His normally neat hair was shooting out at the oddest angles, he had huge bags under his eyes and his shirt was just one big crease. She looked him up and down for a while and then, realizing that she was going to laugh again decided she had better offer him some ice cream. She pulled the lid off and digging the spoon into the semi-frozen chocolate held her arm out in front of her, offering it to him.
At that he turned and walked out of the lab. Shalimar sat on the bed, staring at the closed lab door, sadness drifting over her. She didn't know what she had done that was so bad he couldn't even stay in the same room as her for five minutes. She felt the tears prick at the corners of her eyes.
Just as the tears were about to start rolling down her pale cheeks the door opened and Brennan walked back into the room. He held up his hands showing off the tub of Ben and Jerry's chunky monkey and his own spoon.
'I haven't eaten in a week,' he began. 'I refuse to share food with anyone right now due to the whole starvation thing…plus you haven't brushed your teeth in a while and although I'm not completely averse to catching your cooties, that's just plain unhygienic,' he finished with a smile.
Shalimar blinked back the tears, relieved that he wasn't angry with her. She pulled her legs into her chest, leaving Brennan with plenty of room to sit down. He walked over to the bed and they sat there until the ice cream tubs were completely empty. Neither of them remembered afterwards what they had found to talk about. It didn't matter. The only important thing was that Shalimar was back and they were hanging out in Sanctuary, their home.
Despite the fact that neither of them had had a whole lot of sleep they couldn't have slept a wink so they walked into the rec room and stuck a DVD into the machine. Snuggling down into the huge cushions of the sofa Shalimar felt at peace. She was in the safest place she knew of. She had her friends; her family around her and Gabriel was gone. Although she hadn't realized after he died that he was still in her she felt like a huge soul crushing weight had been lifted. She could sit back and watch the film without any kind of pressure bearing down on her. She sighed with satisfaction as the title credits came up onto the screen.
Brennan looked down at Shalimar's contented, peaceful face. He was so relieved that she was okay. But he still had so much to tell her. Now wasn't the time. She didn't need to think about anything complicated or make any tough decisions for a while.
As the sun rose higher in the sky shafts of golden sunlight shone through the windows onto the heads of Brennan and Shalimar. He offered her a tissue from the box on the table next to the couch. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose thoroughly.
'What's the matter?' Brennan asked gently.
'I don't know,' Shalimar replied in a tearful voice. 'I just always end up crying when the geese and that little girl make it to the big lake.'
He looked down at her, eyebrows raised, lips quivering, eyes sparkling as she looked at him, a plaintive look on her face.
'Don't laugh,' she ordered, attempting to cover up her own giggles.
Holding his hands up he replied: 'Wasn't even thinking about it,' a mock serious look on his face.
'Good,' she answered as they both turned their attention back to the movie. And much as they both tried, the sound of laughter filled the room in under ten seconds.
Adam, Emma and Jesse, standing round the corner from where Shalimar and Brennan were sitting turned to each other and smiled.
She was back.
Shalimar was sitting on the top of the cliff staring out at the landscape. The sun was setting on the horizon and Shalimar, after spending the entire day relaxing inside with the team (she had refused to let Adam run any tests on the grounds that she had been screwed around enough for quite some time) was getting away from it all for a while. She needed time to process everything that had happened.
Her eyes shone from the light of the sun and her body was bathed in its warm light. She should have been happy. She was back with Mutant X and Gabriel was out of her life. She should have been jumping for joy. But something was off. Nobody else seemed to have noticed, but Shalimar had barely stopped thinking about it. She figured Emma hadn't been reading her cos it would have been too stressful. But Shal was glad Emma hadn't been probing. She wanted to tell them all in her own time.
The sun disappeared over the edge of the world as Shalimar flicked the sparks from finger to finger, like she had been born to do it.