Title: Escape
Rating: At the moment we shall stick with a PG, but it might get up to a PG- 13, who knows
Summary: Vaughn and Sydney have been captured by Cuvee and Jack and Irina must race to save them
Notes: Enjoy people and Read and review, I hope you all had a great Christmas! I did! Yes, another one, I'm a bit stuck with the other two, so I figured do something else. This started with a song, I won't name it, but then I figured I should make it into a proper fic, so now I want reviews if you want more. Ahem, Read and review and enjoy, this one is also slowly drawing to a close. Anyways, hmmm, that's all.
Author: If you hadn't guessed, it's me, Aeria, Aeryn, Doona, depending where you know me from.
Chapter Seventeen
"Jack," stupid that it's all I can think of to say. I'm faintly aware that this doesn't seem much like hell, but then, I don't believe in anything after death, so I have to ask; Where the hell am I? I'd ask it out loud but my throat is parched and the pain I can feel running over me is too much to risk opening my mouth. I remember everything that happened, every single word from the conversation on top of the waterfall, every little detail, the weather, the wind, the water at my feet. The words that Jack and Sydney said, the looks on their faces, but most importantly, what it felt like to finally be in his arms again. That was all I could think of as I fell, how damn good it felt and what I'd been missing out on in the past twenty years.
That was the only memory that I had clung to as I fell, entering the water, surprisingly, with what I would consider a perfect dive, pulling my hands up the second I hit the water, trying with all my might to avoid the bottom that was closer than I thought. There had been no hope of living, I am, at heart, a pessimist, I rarely do something I don't have good odds for and this was not good odds. I hadn't believed I would even land in the water, I'd expected the gravity of the rock wall to pull me into that, but I know the moment I hit the water that I hadn't hit the vertical wall but was now faced with the horizontal wall, complete with jagged rocks at the bottom.
I can remember the pain, but that's it, from that, as I lie here, wherever I am, I try to piece together what happened. I jumped, I hit the water, then what? I pulled my hands up, a reflex that curves the back and pulls you away from the bottom. It's a shame that very few people could dive into that pool and pull up fast enough not to smash their head open on the bottom. But I can't remember feeling that, I remember the floor curving away from me, my body getting closer and closer but angling upwards with the hopeless hope that I might escape.
Then there was more pain. Life shattering, breath stopping pain. Across my shoulders and then pausing but only for a second, making the next abundance of slashes ten times worse, something attacking me twice, like a thousand knives, lined up and cutting a thousand slices along my body, starting half way up my neck and continuing over my shoulders and down through where my top had started, stopping a few centimeters after that. But, I'd felt them start again, this time on the bottom of my rib cage, hacking through the taunt skin of my abdomen before disappearing, only slicing a few times at my bare legs and never returning.
What had that been, I think hard, my head hurting, but my mind ignoring the pain as I put the puzzle together, my eyes still tightly shut. And then it occurs to me, the slices were the bottom of the pool, the rock there would have been crafted from years of water moving over them, obviously the currents never change and had carved thin edges everywhere. But why had they cut me, instead of just smashing up into me, filling the pool with my blood?
I wish I could be bothered to open my eyes but I can't, it's the kind of pain that makes everything seem insignificant, seem unimportant and unwanted. Right now all my body wants to do is rest, it doesn't care where I am, but I do. There hasn't been a reply to my one word, my utterance, 'Jack,' so I can presume that no one's listening, I think. My mind is blurry, I hate it but I can't think clearly.
I grit my teeth, feeling the pain ebbing from my skin, even now it's slowly hurting less, I try not to breathe, the tiny movements of my skin sending acute pains up and down. I want to see where I am, I have to, screw what my body wants, I'm going to listen to what my heart wants for once.
I open them, only a millimeter because, right now, that's all I can manage. I quickly close them with the light that's filtered in through my own lashes. Automatically I bring a hand up to my eyes, a whimper escaping, uninvited as I feel my skin tear again in a million places, knowing that the blood has started seeping out again. I swallow but can't move my arm too quickly, instead moving it agonizingly slowly back to my side, I try to blink my eyes open again, the pain creating adrenaline and waking me up.
Then I feel a pair of hands, soft, feminine, welcome, brushing over my shoulders, looking at the wounds, causing tiny stings but forcing me to know someone's there. "Mom?" Only one person can call me that and I force my eyes open again, looking up, I find the son blocked by Sydney's head, for a moment, I think that this is some trick, but she's too real and I want to believe.
She looks worried and I force my vision to steady, wanting to smile, to say something, but I can't, I don't know what to say or how to say it, and I still don't understand what's happening. Is it possible that I lived? I wouldn't have thought so, but perhaps, you never do know. Sydney speaks again, tiny bits of light filtering through from behind her and adjusting my vision to the light, I try to let my eyes slide around but all I see is flashes of green jungle, of the rain forest we were are in when I jumped. "Vaughn, give me a hand."
A jolt of fear, why is she calling Agent Vaughn, but I can't think, Vaughn, I can see his face, staring at me, his usual vulnerability he exhibits around me still there, but an uneasiness has grabbed him as well. He looks at Sydney, one of those meaningful looks that I've only glimpsed a few times but am beginning to understand just how much they can say with a look. It's incredible. I would keep thinking but the pain comes back as Vaughn picks me up, gently I suppose, but still forcing skin to bend and crack open the slices. Sydney carries my feet and soon I'm in water. Just on the edge, the water coursing over me as Vaughn makes me sit up, I shriek.
I don't remember ever having shrieked before, not once, but this isn't a bullet hole or a broken limb, this is everywhere, this is on every inch and even if the cuts aren't, my nerves seem to think they are. Vaughn doesn't say anything, nothing, he looks shocked, taken back, but there is nothing he can say, Sydney just looks at me, worried.
The panic and pain sets off more adrenaline I can feel my brain warming up, becoming less fuzzy and aware of what's going on. For the first time I try to look around properly, surprised to find myself in the pool I thought would kill me, I'm sitting up, the top I'm wearing, still the black one, is shredded at the top and bottom, only just hanging onto my figure. There's blood around me, slowly dissolving away, but tiny bits as the water tries its best to wash the leaking liquid from my flesh. I swallow as the cold water numbs the pain and the adrenaline ignores it.
Nothing's changed, only now, I'm down here and not up there, only now Cuvee seems to have left and now I'm alive, very sore, but alive. I look around, my gaze passing over Vaughn and Sydney to Sark who's grinning. Not his usual smug grin but a happy, surprised grin, but then the smug grin returns and I know I'm not dreaming, he speaks to me, the first one to speak to me properly, his voice is raspy but his words are strong and I want to laugh, "You're lucky," I smile at him, the pain ignored as I find another interest.
"How do you think I'm lucky?" I ask, even then wanting to search for Jack, wondering where he is and why he isn't saying anything.
Sark just smiles hard and in his normal cocky, British, son of a bitch accent answers, head to one side, "If you'd died, I never would have gotten my new Merc." He seems so matter of fact and I do laugh, deep and twisted, but amused none the less. Typical of Sark to make a situation like this into something about a car.
I look him over, seeing he's slightly dirtier than when I jumped and his hair disheveled as though he has run his hand through it far too many times. I smile and say, "I'll get you two. And something else." He smiles and nods, standing still, forever my right hand man. I shake my head and let my eyes continue to wonder, brow creasing lower and lower as I find myself unable to find Jack.
I wonder if he's dead, if Cuvee somehow killed him, I wonder if he's left or disappeared or something horrible has happened, but no, nothing tragic or disastrous, just there. I see him, my eyes bright and attentive now; they find him, hands shoved into his pockets, staring at me, face unreadable as ever and this upsets me. Maybe he's decided this was all part of my plan. I smile sadly at him and he just stares back, not glaring or smiling or anything.
The feeling is startling.
But then I realize what's going on. Sydney's next to me, Vaughn beside her, playing with his fingers in the water, his thoughts not with us. Sark is just standing, eyes ahead as he tries to appear on stand by, like a good soldier. But he isn't, that's why I recruited him, made him my right hand man, because he's never on stand by, even now he's thinking, about something. I don't need to know, I want to speak.
My throat is parched though, I throw an empty hollow look at Jack, trying to make him understand, but like most men he doesn't and I'm forced to move. astonishingly the pain isn't as bad as the last time, already I'm getting used to it. I dip a hand into the water, tasting a little of it and finding it to taste fine I proceed to gulp down mouthful after mouthful, I can feel his eyes on me, burning like they always do. I take one last mouthful and sit back up, the pain still enough to haze my vision for a second. I stare at him but he remains steely and I ask him, my first words and they have to be a question, I'm so predictable.
I smile sadly at him, "I know why you won't say anything."
His brow just deepens but he asks his voice empty but for the huskiness he cannot mask, "What?"
Hehe, longest chapter of all my updates and still not my usual length, sorry, I am so busy with the lead up to school. Anyways, please review, that's why you do get more, and I will write when I get a chance. Also, go read the others, in particular, review Mission cause it's my friend's birthday tomorrow and the latest chapter is hers, and that's going to be part of her present, but, if you hadn't noticed, I cannot provide reviews if you don't write them, so ppl, read and review everything you read!
Rating: At the moment we shall stick with a PG, but it might get up to a PG- 13, who knows
Summary: Vaughn and Sydney have been captured by Cuvee and Jack and Irina must race to save them
Notes: Enjoy people and Read and review, I hope you all had a great Christmas! I did! Yes, another one, I'm a bit stuck with the other two, so I figured do something else. This started with a song, I won't name it, but then I figured I should make it into a proper fic, so now I want reviews if you want more. Ahem, Read and review and enjoy, this one is also slowly drawing to a close. Anyways, hmmm, that's all.
Author: If you hadn't guessed, it's me, Aeria, Aeryn, Doona, depending where you know me from.
Chapter Seventeen
"Jack," stupid that it's all I can think of to say. I'm faintly aware that this doesn't seem much like hell, but then, I don't believe in anything after death, so I have to ask; Where the hell am I? I'd ask it out loud but my throat is parched and the pain I can feel running over me is too much to risk opening my mouth. I remember everything that happened, every single word from the conversation on top of the waterfall, every little detail, the weather, the wind, the water at my feet. The words that Jack and Sydney said, the looks on their faces, but most importantly, what it felt like to finally be in his arms again. That was all I could think of as I fell, how damn good it felt and what I'd been missing out on in the past twenty years.
That was the only memory that I had clung to as I fell, entering the water, surprisingly, with what I would consider a perfect dive, pulling my hands up the second I hit the water, trying with all my might to avoid the bottom that was closer than I thought. There had been no hope of living, I am, at heart, a pessimist, I rarely do something I don't have good odds for and this was not good odds. I hadn't believed I would even land in the water, I'd expected the gravity of the rock wall to pull me into that, but I know the moment I hit the water that I hadn't hit the vertical wall but was now faced with the horizontal wall, complete with jagged rocks at the bottom.
I can remember the pain, but that's it, from that, as I lie here, wherever I am, I try to piece together what happened. I jumped, I hit the water, then what? I pulled my hands up, a reflex that curves the back and pulls you away from the bottom. It's a shame that very few people could dive into that pool and pull up fast enough not to smash their head open on the bottom. But I can't remember feeling that, I remember the floor curving away from me, my body getting closer and closer but angling upwards with the hopeless hope that I might escape.
Then there was more pain. Life shattering, breath stopping pain. Across my shoulders and then pausing but only for a second, making the next abundance of slashes ten times worse, something attacking me twice, like a thousand knives, lined up and cutting a thousand slices along my body, starting half way up my neck and continuing over my shoulders and down through where my top had started, stopping a few centimeters after that. But, I'd felt them start again, this time on the bottom of my rib cage, hacking through the taunt skin of my abdomen before disappearing, only slicing a few times at my bare legs and never returning.
What had that been, I think hard, my head hurting, but my mind ignoring the pain as I put the puzzle together, my eyes still tightly shut. And then it occurs to me, the slices were the bottom of the pool, the rock there would have been crafted from years of water moving over them, obviously the currents never change and had carved thin edges everywhere. But why had they cut me, instead of just smashing up into me, filling the pool with my blood?
I wish I could be bothered to open my eyes but I can't, it's the kind of pain that makes everything seem insignificant, seem unimportant and unwanted. Right now all my body wants to do is rest, it doesn't care where I am, but I do. There hasn't been a reply to my one word, my utterance, 'Jack,' so I can presume that no one's listening, I think. My mind is blurry, I hate it but I can't think clearly.
I grit my teeth, feeling the pain ebbing from my skin, even now it's slowly hurting less, I try not to breathe, the tiny movements of my skin sending acute pains up and down. I want to see where I am, I have to, screw what my body wants, I'm going to listen to what my heart wants for once.
I open them, only a millimeter because, right now, that's all I can manage. I quickly close them with the light that's filtered in through my own lashes. Automatically I bring a hand up to my eyes, a whimper escaping, uninvited as I feel my skin tear again in a million places, knowing that the blood has started seeping out again. I swallow but can't move my arm too quickly, instead moving it agonizingly slowly back to my side, I try to blink my eyes open again, the pain creating adrenaline and waking me up.
Then I feel a pair of hands, soft, feminine, welcome, brushing over my shoulders, looking at the wounds, causing tiny stings but forcing me to know someone's there. "Mom?" Only one person can call me that and I force my eyes open again, looking up, I find the son blocked by Sydney's head, for a moment, I think that this is some trick, but she's too real and I want to believe.
She looks worried and I force my vision to steady, wanting to smile, to say something, but I can't, I don't know what to say or how to say it, and I still don't understand what's happening. Is it possible that I lived? I wouldn't have thought so, but perhaps, you never do know. Sydney speaks again, tiny bits of light filtering through from behind her and adjusting my vision to the light, I try to let my eyes slide around but all I see is flashes of green jungle, of the rain forest we were are in when I jumped. "Vaughn, give me a hand."
A jolt of fear, why is she calling Agent Vaughn, but I can't think, Vaughn, I can see his face, staring at me, his usual vulnerability he exhibits around me still there, but an uneasiness has grabbed him as well. He looks at Sydney, one of those meaningful looks that I've only glimpsed a few times but am beginning to understand just how much they can say with a look. It's incredible. I would keep thinking but the pain comes back as Vaughn picks me up, gently I suppose, but still forcing skin to bend and crack open the slices. Sydney carries my feet and soon I'm in water. Just on the edge, the water coursing over me as Vaughn makes me sit up, I shriek.
I don't remember ever having shrieked before, not once, but this isn't a bullet hole or a broken limb, this is everywhere, this is on every inch and even if the cuts aren't, my nerves seem to think they are. Vaughn doesn't say anything, nothing, he looks shocked, taken back, but there is nothing he can say, Sydney just looks at me, worried.
The panic and pain sets off more adrenaline I can feel my brain warming up, becoming less fuzzy and aware of what's going on. For the first time I try to look around properly, surprised to find myself in the pool I thought would kill me, I'm sitting up, the top I'm wearing, still the black one, is shredded at the top and bottom, only just hanging onto my figure. There's blood around me, slowly dissolving away, but tiny bits as the water tries its best to wash the leaking liquid from my flesh. I swallow as the cold water numbs the pain and the adrenaline ignores it.
Nothing's changed, only now, I'm down here and not up there, only now Cuvee seems to have left and now I'm alive, very sore, but alive. I look around, my gaze passing over Vaughn and Sydney to Sark who's grinning. Not his usual smug grin but a happy, surprised grin, but then the smug grin returns and I know I'm not dreaming, he speaks to me, the first one to speak to me properly, his voice is raspy but his words are strong and I want to laugh, "You're lucky," I smile at him, the pain ignored as I find another interest.
"How do you think I'm lucky?" I ask, even then wanting to search for Jack, wondering where he is and why he isn't saying anything.
Sark just smiles hard and in his normal cocky, British, son of a bitch accent answers, head to one side, "If you'd died, I never would have gotten my new Merc." He seems so matter of fact and I do laugh, deep and twisted, but amused none the less. Typical of Sark to make a situation like this into something about a car.
I look him over, seeing he's slightly dirtier than when I jumped and his hair disheveled as though he has run his hand through it far too many times. I smile and say, "I'll get you two. And something else." He smiles and nods, standing still, forever my right hand man. I shake my head and let my eyes continue to wonder, brow creasing lower and lower as I find myself unable to find Jack.
I wonder if he's dead, if Cuvee somehow killed him, I wonder if he's left or disappeared or something horrible has happened, but no, nothing tragic or disastrous, just there. I see him, my eyes bright and attentive now; they find him, hands shoved into his pockets, staring at me, face unreadable as ever and this upsets me. Maybe he's decided this was all part of my plan. I smile sadly at him and he just stares back, not glaring or smiling or anything.
The feeling is startling.
But then I realize what's going on. Sydney's next to me, Vaughn beside her, playing with his fingers in the water, his thoughts not with us. Sark is just standing, eyes ahead as he tries to appear on stand by, like a good soldier. But he isn't, that's why I recruited him, made him my right hand man, because he's never on stand by, even now he's thinking, about something. I don't need to know, I want to speak.
My throat is parched though, I throw an empty hollow look at Jack, trying to make him understand, but like most men he doesn't and I'm forced to move. astonishingly the pain isn't as bad as the last time, already I'm getting used to it. I dip a hand into the water, tasting a little of it and finding it to taste fine I proceed to gulp down mouthful after mouthful, I can feel his eyes on me, burning like they always do. I take one last mouthful and sit back up, the pain still enough to haze my vision for a second. I stare at him but he remains steely and I ask him, my first words and they have to be a question, I'm so predictable.
I smile sadly at him, "I know why you won't say anything."
His brow just deepens but he asks his voice empty but for the huskiness he cannot mask, "What?"
Hehe, longest chapter of all my updates and still not my usual length, sorry, I am so busy with the lead up to school. Anyways, please review, that's why you do get more, and I will write when I get a chance. Also, go read the others, in particular, review Mission cause it's my friend's birthday tomorrow and the latest chapter is hers, and that's going to be part of her present, but, if you hadn't noticed, I cannot provide reviews if you don't write them, so ppl, read and review everything you read!