Part 21: True Betrayer
The dark cold prison cell contained more than the rats and insects that typically made their homes in its dark corners. It contained more than the three teenage girls, held prisoner after their capture in Buckingham Palace. It contained more than a bloodstained shirt, worn by the blonde girl with the blank, haunted stare. It contained the broken promises and hopes that had been driving her all this time.
In the last month, Clover had traveled through three countries on three separate continents, fled from more than her fair share of life-threatening scrapes, and watched the first person she'd ever been able to completely trust die right in front of her as her former best friend watched. After all she'd done... all they'd struggled to do... this was how it ended.
"Clover..." Mandy's voice echoed in her mind from the cell beside hers, though she paid it no real mind. They were just waiting for transfer to an American facility, where they would probably meet some tragic prison 'accident'. "Clover, talk to me." She could still see Tassara's eyes staring up at her, looking straight through her as if already on her way to Heaven or whatever afterlife she'd believed in. "Clover!"
"Shut up..." Clover growled at Mandy, who was leaning against the bars that separated her and Clover. They were all contained in different cells composed of dirty brick floors and steel bars. Clover was sandwiched between Mandy and Alex, who was sitting on her bed and staring at the ceiling blankly.
"Clover, please. Talk to me. I don't want to be alone in here." Mandy begged, leaning against the bars and reaching her arm through them, as if begging Clover to come closer.
"Why should I?" Clover shrugged. "It'd be like playing a nice round of Chess before our execution."
"Well I don't like the silence here. It's creeping me out... and I'm worried about you." Mandy stated. Clover quirked one eyebrow, staring at her. "You've been really quiet for the last two days... ever since we were caught. It's not like you, you're strong, you're a fighter. You're a spy for crying out loud, how can you start moping like this?"
"It's pretty easy when you watch someone you love die right in front of you!" Clover retorted venomously without thinking. Mandy's eyes went wide in surprise. It took Clover a moment to realize that she'd just revealed the deep nature of her's and Tassara's relationship. "Yeah... yeah that's right. She was the only person who, despite all the evidence, despite the danger, believed me from the moment she heard what was happening. And now she's dead because I dragged her along..."
"Wow... I had no idea..." Mandy said softly. "I'm sorry... I just never expected..." She trailed off.
"Forget about it." Clover waved her apology aside with one hand.
"Clover please... come here..." Mandy begged. Clover looked over at her blankly. "I don't want to be alone right now. You may be used to this kind of thing... but I'm... I'm scared..." Mandy's voice shook as she spoke, her hand desperately grabbing for Clover.
Clover stared at her for a moment, then stood from her cot and approached the bars that separated their cells. She sat down and leaned against them sideways, letting Mandy's hand wrap around her back and pull her close. Mandy wrapped her arms around her waist, leaning against the bars until they were as close together as they could possibly get.
"You know Clover... since this all started... I've been thinking about what you said." Mandy admitted softly. Clover looked at her curiously. "About smacking you around and egging you on for my own amusement all the time... and you were right. I'm sorry." Was she really thinking about that now of all times? Well, it was a welcome change from waiting for death.
"Well... I'm sorry too. I've gotta admit, I enjoyed smacking back." Clover confessed. "You gave me something to focus on when I wasn't busy smacking down bad guys."
"If I knew you were a spy I never would've singled you out all those times." Mandy stated.
"Hey, I wouldn't be much of a spy if you DID know, would I?" Clover smirked. "And I'm sorry for upstaging you all those times too."
"Well I'm sorry for being better than you."
"I'm sorry for being better than you too." They both faded into whimsical, half-hearted chuckles. All those arguments seemed so stupid compared to what they'd been through the last few weeks. Arguing over boys and acting parts and who was better able to keep up with the constantly changing fads that swept over teenagers on a daily basis.
They both looked back as one of the security guards approached Clover's cell. "Someone wants a word with you." He told her ominously. Clover stared up at him, then looked at Mandy again through the bars of her cell.
"I'll... be back soon I guess." Clover pulled herself away from the bars, letting Mandy's hands slip from her arms as she turned to leave with the guard. He gripped her arm tightly and led her down the hallway toward a long room in the middle of the building. When she went inside, she saw that it was an interrogation chamber, with a mirror on one side and a desk with chairs in the center.
Clover was pushed down onto the seat on the opposite side from the door and the guard left, leaving the door open for a moment until Brittany walked through it, closing the door gently behind her. Clover watches her as she approached the small intercom underneath the mirror on the wall.
"I didn't kill Jerry..." Clover tried one more time in a soft voice, though she knew it was probably useless. Brittany's reply came after she'd disabled the intercom, and stunned her beyond belief.
"I know." Brittany said simply, walking back to the table to lean against it, crossing hr arms over her chest. "Not like it matters. Orders are orders, whether they're right or wrong."
"Y... you know..." Clover blinked in astonishment. "If you know you should do something about it! If you'd done something about it earlier we could have avoided all this! If you'd done something about it earlier Tassara might not have had to die!" Clover jumped to her feet angrily, but Brittany didn't even flinch.
"Sit down." Brittany ordered confidently. Clover's fists were shaking furiously, but she lowered herself back down to the chair. "I'm really sorry Clover, but some things are bigger than us. Bigger than our conscience or morals. Sometimes it's best to just buckle down and let life take you where it will."
"Life or death... whichever is most convenient huh?" Clover glares at her darkly. "How do you know I didn't kill him? Why have you been helping them hunt me all this time?"
"Does it matter? Let's just say orders are orders..." There was a genuine sadness in Brittany's gaze as she reached into her glove and pulled out a small nail file with a serrated edge that would probably be perfect for cutting through beef... or human flesh.
"Orders..." The blood drained from Clover's face as she stared up at Brittany, her deep blue eyes going wide. "You... someone ordered you to kill Jerry..." Brittany didn't respond, giving her a sidelong glance. "You were the only person besides me, Sam, and Alex who had access to the cookies... you murdered Jerry, didn't you?"
"Orders are orders." Brittany repeated blankly, staring down at the serrated blade in her hand. "A little cyanide dust in your cookie dough... and the bomb started counting down." She looked over at Clover again, though her gaze remained blank. "We don't always have a choice in what we do... do we? Neither of us wants to be here. We're just pieces of debris caught up in the tsunami."
"Philosophical bullshit..." Clover stated more calmly than one would have thought. This was just another in a long line of betrayals and tragedies, realizations that the world was never so simple as she'd once thought. "You're a murderer. No amount of assuring yourself that you didn't have a choice will change that."
"Just remember I didn't want to be here." Brittany pushed herself away from the desk and approached Clover, still holding the dagger tightly in one hand. "I liked you guys, I always have ever since we met."
"Fuck you!" Clover leapt up suddenly, slamming into her and carrying her up against the mirror on the wall. The dagger fell from Brittany's hand as she was taken off guard, clattering uselessly to the floor. "You betrayed all of us! You murdered Jerry, and you've been playing Sam all this time! Where is she!?" Clover demanded.
"She's still in the hospital where your little girlfriend put her." Brittany replied calmly. "Now if I were you, I'd back off." Clover felt her press her fingers into her stomach. She could feel several sharp points sticking into her flesh, almost as if they were moving. The Retractable Razor Faux Nails... they could put several holes right through her.
Clover slowly backed away from her, never taking her eyes away from Brittany's. "So this is it... you're gonna walk away knowing that you betrayed us all... for what? Because some guy with a crooked nose told you to?"
"We all have our reasons for what we do." Brittany retorted. She looked over at the door when it opened and one of the British guards poked his head in.
"We heard banging and yelling in here. Do you need any help subduing the prisoner?" He asked.
"No thank you. I've got it under control." Brittany replied quickly. The guard nodded and left again, while the Asian spy turned back to Clover. "Now, if you don't mind, there's an important United Countries summit coming up in a few days. Me, Madison, and Sam were going to go make sure nothing happened to disrupt it."
"I thought Sam was in the hospital." Clover said.
"She is. But she takes her job seriously. She's dedicated to her country, she won't let an injury keep her from her duty." She turned away from Clover.
"So you just brought me here to taunt me?" Clover scowled.
"No. I brought you here to kill you." Brittany replied. "Orders, you know..." she began to walk toward the door.
"So why not? You have a chance now. You could tear my face off and feed it to me with those nails before any guard could come in, then you could claim self-defense. Why not go ahead and do it?" Clover asked.
"Some orders are easier said than done..." Brittany replied softly. With that she left leaving the guards to escort Clover back to her cell. Clover walked into it, seeing Mandy and Alex both up against the bars that separated them before the cell door even closed.
"Clover! Are you okay!? What did they want!?" Alex exclaimed worriedly.
"To talk... they just wanted to question me." Clover replied. She wasn't in the mood to tell her about Brittany's involvement with Jerry's death. She walked to the bunk in the back of the cell plopping down and curling up in a fetal position against the wall.
"Clover...?" Mandy asked worriedly. Clover didn't respond, staring at the floor with a blank gaze. Mandy sighed and turned away from her, leaning against the bars and sinking to the floor. Alex sighed and walked back to her own bed, throwing herself onto it and burying her face in the pillow. Clover ignored them both, wanting to just make it all go away.
The days passed, though the rain that beat down against the side of the prison did not. Clover said very little, though Mandy and Alex held regular conversations through her cell walls. There wasn't much else to do, so they spent the time talking about boys and the past and the events that had transpired since they got there.
Occasionally Mandy would beg Clover to talk, but she refused. Even when they brought them food in their cells, she took it silently to her bed to eat it. She was still wearing the same shirt she had been when she was captured, covered in Tassara's now-dry blood. It was difficult to eat while wearing that damned shirt, and after several days she'd begun to hate it with a fiery passion.
It seemed like they were waiting for their own funeral. They knew once they were finally transferred back to America, their lives would quickly become forfeit. Death row for trying to save the world. They were right, saving the world truly is the most thankless profession.
Finally one night Clover was trying to sleep, tossing and turning in her rock-hard bed when she heard a voice whisper in the darkness. "Clover... come here." She lifted her head and looked down to find Mandy standing beside the bars that separated them.
"What are you doing? We're dead anyway, we'd might as well just relax..." Clover rolled over.
"Please Clover... I need to talk to you." Mandy begged softly. Clover ignored her, staring at the wall. Mandy sighed. "Fine... you stay there. I'll talk." Mandy leaned against the bars of the cell and slid to a sitting position, draping her arms over her bent knees. "You know I was trying to find a way to beat you as this year's homecoming queen before this all started? I was thinking of trying to get my friends on the voting committee or something."
Clover remained silent, trying to block out her rambling but not succeeding. "And then you showed up at my door... looking all confused and mopey. To be honest it felt good to be able to make you so upset... at first. Then I realized how much I was really hurting you and... it didn't feel so good anymore." She tapped her hands on her knees idly in a steady rhythm. "Now after all this... seeing you hurting so much more... and hurting myself... it makes me feel... like..."
Clover rolled over, looking at the back of Mandy's head through the bars. "I don't know. Like we're the same or something." She wrung her hands in front of her. "I wish I knew where Madison was now... what that blue-haired witch was doing to her." Clover knew of course, they were on their way to the U.C. building by now for the summit. "I wish my dad... was..." she trailed off, then chuckled lightly to herself. "I guess I just wish none of this ever happened. We could still be happily beating the mental snot out of each other."
Clover pushed herself up from the bed and approached the cell bars. She knelt down behind Mandy and slid her arms through the bars, wrapping them around her torso. "Sam told me before this all happened that me and you had a lot in common..." Clover told her softly. Mandy fell silent, leaning her head back against the bars of the cell. "I didn't believe her of course... but it seems more and more like it..." Tears slid down Clover's cheeks.
"We both lost someone important during all this..." Mandy stated softly, turning her head to look back at Clover. "I'm sorry about Queen Tassara Clover... I wish I would've acted sooner instead of waiting... maybe I could've saved her."
"I don't think she wanted to be saved..." Clover sniffled, staring into Mandy's eyes sadly. "I think she wanted to die... like she believed the spirit of her country was already dead." Mandy turned around and reached for her through the bars, putting one hand on her cheek.
"Did you and Tassara ever... 'love' each other?" Mandy asked curiously.
"Yes..." Clover replied softly, staring into her eyes deeply. "Yes we did... before we had to flee Washington..."
"I'm so sorry Clover... but I'm glad you're still here." Mandy looked at her squarely. Clover quirked one eyebrow, staring back into her violet eyes. They seemed to have become deep pools that could suck any person into them with but a gaze, trapping them forever in the almost jewel-like depths. She smiled slightly, not taking her gaze away from Clover's for an instant.
"Why does it matter whether I'm here or not...?" Clover asked softly, Mandy reached her other hand up to gently hold her face in her hands, stroking it tenderly with the tips of her fingers. Clover stared at her, reaching up to cover one of Mandy's hands with her own, though she didn't pull it away. Mandy's face was silhouetted by the moonlight pouring in through the sole window in the cell behind her.
"Because I don't want to be alone right now..." Mandy whispered softly, pulling Clover's face slowly closer to the bars. Clover leaned in toward her, staring into those large violet orbs. Their lips met through the bars and they both closed their eyes. In Clover's mind she could see Queen Tassara watching her with an unreadable expression on her face.
'Keep hoping.' That was what she'd wanted Clover to do. It was so hard, hope seemed like nothing more than a fading memory. She forgot how to hope... she even forgot how to love... so why was she doing this? Was Tassara making her do this somehow? Was she reaching out for comfort in her grief? Or did she somehow really love Mandy?
When they pulled away from each other Clover blinked, staring into her former arch nemesis' eyes. "I'm glad I still have you now..." Mandy said softly. "If... if you want me too." Clover stared at her, then sighed and gave her an ever-so-slight smile.
"I need you too..." She pulled Mandy into as much of a hug as they could share through the bars of the prison cell that separated them. They both blinked when a pair of heavy boot steps approached Clover's cell behind her. She looked back to see a silhouette in a heavy trench coat looking through the bars straight at her.
"Do you need something?" Clover spat. The figure opened the cell and stepped into the moonlight. "Bob?"
"Yes, we do." Bob told her seriously. "We need you to save the world one more time."
TO BE CONTINUED
The dark cold prison cell contained more than the rats and insects that typically made their homes in its dark corners. It contained more than the three teenage girls, held prisoner after their capture in Buckingham Palace. It contained more than a bloodstained shirt, worn by the blonde girl with the blank, haunted stare. It contained the broken promises and hopes that had been driving her all this time.
In the last month, Clover had traveled through three countries on three separate continents, fled from more than her fair share of life-threatening scrapes, and watched the first person she'd ever been able to completely trust die right in front of her as her former best friend watched. After all she'd done... all they'd struggled to do... this was how it ended.
"Clover..." Mandy's voice echoed in her mind from the cell beside hers, though she paid it no real mind. They were just waiting for transfer to an American facility, where they would probably meet some tragic prison 'accident'. "Clover, talk to me." She could still see Tassara's eyes staring up at her, looking straight through her as if already on her way to Heaven or whatever afterlife she'd believed in. "Clover!"
"Shut up..." Clover growled at Mandy, who was leaning against the bars that separated her and Clover. They were all contained in different cells composed of dirty brick floors and steel bars. Clover was sandwiched between Mandy and Alex, who was sitting on her bed and staring at the ceiling blankly.
"Clover, please. Talk to me. I don't want to be alone in here." Mandy begged, leaning against the bars and reaching her arm through them, as if begging Clover to come closer.
"Why should I?" Clover shrugged. "It'd be like playing a nice round of Chess before our execution."
"Well I don't like the silence here. It's creeping me out... and I'm worried about you." Mandy stated. Clover quirked one eyebrow, staring at her. "You've been really quiet for the last two days... ever since we were caught. It's not like you, you're strong, you're a fighter. You're a spy for crying out loud, how can you start moping like this?"
"It's pretty easy when you watch someone you love die right in front of you!" Clover retorted venomously without thinking. Mandy's eyes went wide in surprise. It took Clover a moment to realize that she'd just revealed the deep nature of her's and Tassara's relationship. "Yeah... yeah that's right. She was the only person who, despite all the evidence, despite the danger, believed me from the moment she heard what was happening. And now she's dead because I dragged her along..."
"Wow... I had no idea..." Mandy said softly. "I'm sorry... I just never expected..." She trailed off.
"Forget about it." Clover waved her apology aside with one hand.
"Clover please... come here..." Mandy begged. Clover looked over at her blankly. "I don't want to be alone right now. You may be used to this kind of thing... but I'm... I'm scared..." Mandy's voice shook as she spoke, her hand desperately grabbing for Clover.
Clover stared at her for a moment, then stood from her cot and approached the bars that separated their cells. She sat down and leaned against them sideways, letting Mandy's hand wrap around her back and pull her close. Mandy wrapped her arms around her waist, leaning against the bars until they were as close together as they could possibly get.
"You know Clover... since this all started... I've been thinking about what you said." Mandy admitted softly. Clover looked at her curiously. "About smacking you around and egging you on for my own amusement all the time... and you were right. I'm sorry." Was she really thinking about that now of all times? Well, it was a welcome change from waiting for death.
"Well... I'm sorry too. I've gotta admit, I enjoyed smacking back." Clover confessed. "You gave me something to focus on when I wasn't busy smacking down bad guys."
"If I knew you were a spy I never would've singled you out all those times." Mandy stated.
"Hey, I wouldn't be much of a spy if you DID know, would I?" Clover smirked. "And I'm sorry for upstaging you all those times too."
"Well I'm sorry for being better than you."
"I'm sorry for being better than you too." They both faded into whimsical, half-hearted chuckles. All those arguments seemed so stupid compared to what they'd been through the last few weeks. Arguing over boys and acting parts and who was better able to keep up with the constantly changing fads that swept over teenagers on a daily basis.
They both looked back as one of the security guards approached Clover's cell. "Someone wants a word with you." He told her ominously. Clover stared up at him, then looked at Mandy again through the bars of her cell.
"I'll... be back soon I guess." Clover pulled herself away from the bars, letting Mandy's hands slip from her arms as she turned to leave with the guard. He gripped her arm tightly and led her down the hallway toward a long room in the middle of the building. When she went inside, she saw that it was an interrogation chamber, with a mirror on one side and a desk with chairs in the center.
Clover was pushed down onto the seat on the opposite side from the door and the guard left, leaving the door open for a moment until Brittany walked through it, closing the door gently behind her. Clover watches her as she approached the small intercom underneath the mirror on the wall.
"I didn't kill Jerry..." Clover tried one more time in a soft voice, though she knew it was probably useless. Brittany's reply came after she'd disabled the intercom, and stunned her beyond belief.
"I know." Brittany said simply, walking back to the table to lean against it, crossing hr arms over her chest. "Not like it matters. Orders are orders, whether they're right or wrong."
"Y... you know..." Clover blinked in astonishment. "If you know you should do something about it! If you'd done something about it earlier we could have avoided all this! If you'd done something about it earlier Tassara might not have had to die!" Clover jumped to her feet angrily, but Brittany didn't even flinch.
"Sit down." Brittany ordered confidently. Clover's fists were shaking furiously, but she lowered herself back down to the chair. "I'm really sorry Clover, but some things are bigger than us. Bigger than our conscience or morals. Sometimes it's best to just buckle down and let life take you where it will."
"Life or death... whichever is most convenient huh?" Clover glares at her darkly. "How do you know I didn't kill him? Why have you been helping them hunt me all this time?"
"Does it matter? Let's just say orders are orders..." There was a genuine sadness in Brittany's gaze as she reached into her glove and pulled out a small nail file with a serrated edge that would probably be perfect for cutting through beef... or human flesh.
"Orders..." The blood drained from Clover's face as she stared up at Brittany, her deep blue eyes going wide. "You... someone ordered you to kill Jerry..." Brittany didn't respond, giving her a sidelong glance. "You were the only person besides me, Sam, and Alex who had access to the cookies... you murdered Jerry, didn't you?"
"Orders are orders." Brittany repeated blankly, staring down at the serrated blade in her hand. "A little cyanide dust in your cookie dough... and the bomb started counting down." She looked over at Clover again, though her gaze remained blank. "We don't always have a choice in what we do... do we? Neither of us wants to be here. We're just pieces of debris caught up in the tsunami."
"Philosophical bullshit..." Clover stated more calmly than one would have thought. This was just another in a long line of betrayals and tragedies, realizations that the world was never so simple as she'd once thought. "You're a murderer. No amount of assuring yourself that you didn't have a choice will change that."
"Just remember I didn't want to be here." Brittany pushed herself away from the desk and approached Clover, still holding the dagger tightly in one hand. "I liked you guys, I always have ever since we met."
"Fuck you!" Clover leapt up suddenly, slamming into her and carrying her up against the mirror on the wall. The dagger fell from Brittany's hand as she was taken off guard, clattering uselessly to the floor. "You betrayed all of us! You murdered Jerry, and you've been playing Sam all this time! Where is she!?" Clover demanded.
"She's still in the hospital where your little girlfriend put her." Brittany replied calmly. "Now if I were you, I'd back off." Clover felt her press her fingers into her stomach. She could feel several sharp points sticking into her flesh, almost as if they were moving. The Retractable Razor Faux Nails... they could put several holes right through her.
Clover slowly backed away from her, never taking her eyes away from Brittany's. "So this is it... you're gonna walk away knowing that you betrayed us all... for what? Because some guy with a crooked nose told you to?"
"We all have our reasons for what we do." Brittany retorted. She looked over at the door when it opened and one of the British guards poked his head in.
"We heard banging and yelling in here. Do you need any help subduing the prisoner?" He asked.
"No thank you. I've got it under control." Brittany replied quickly. The guard nodded and left again, while the Asian spy turned back to Clover. "Now, if you don't mind, there's an important United Countries summit coming up in a few days. Me, Madison, and Sam were going to go make sure nothing happened to disrupt it."
"I thought Sam was in the hospital." Clover said.
"She is. But she takes her job seriously. She's dedicated to her country, she won't let an injury keep her from her duty." She turned away from Clover.
"So you just brought me here to taunt me?" Clover scowled.
"No. I brought you here to kill you." Brittany replied. "Orders, you know..." she began to walk toward the door.
"So why not? You have a chance now. You could tear my face off and feed it to me with those nails before any guard could come in, then you could claim self-defense. Why not go ahead and do it?" Clover asked.
"Some orders are easier said than done..." Brittany replied softly. With that she left leaving the guards to escort Clover back to her cell. Clover walked into it, seeing Mandy and Alex both up against the bars that separated them before the cell door even closed.
"Clover! Are you okay!? What did they want!?" Alex exclaimed worriedly.
"To talk... they just wanted to question me." Clover replied. She wasn't in the mood to tell her about Brittany's involvement with Jerry's death. She walked to the bunk in the back of the cell plopping down and curling up in a fetal position against the wall.
"Clover...?" Mandy asked worriedly. Clover didn't respond, staring at the floor with a blank gaze. Mandy sighed and turned away from her, leaning against the bars and sinking to the floor. Alex sighed and walked back to her own bed, throwing herself onto it and burying her face in the pillow. Clover ignored them both, wanting to just make it all go away.
The days passed, though the rain that beat down against the side of the prison did not. Clover said very little, though Mandy and Alex held regular conversations through her cell walls. There wasn't much else to do, so they spent the time talking about boys and the past and the events that had transpired since they got there.
Occasionally Mandy would beg Clover to talk, but she refused. Even when they brought them food in their cells, she took it silently to her bed to eat it. She was still wearing the same shirt she had been when she was captured, covered in Tassara's now-dry blood. It was difficult to eat while wearing that damned shirt, and after several days she'd begun to hate it with a fiery passion.
It seemed like they were waiting for their own funeral. They knew once they were finally transferred back to America, their lives would quickly become forfeit. Death row for trying to save the world. They were right, saving the world truly is the most thankless profession.
Finally one night Clover was trying to sleep, tossing and turning in her rock-hard bed when she heard a voice whisper in the darkness. "Clover... come here." She lifted her head and looked down to find Mandy standing beside the bars that separated them.
"What are you doing? We're dead anyway, we'd might as well just relax..." Clover rolled over.
"Please Clover... I need to talk to you." Mandy begged softly. Clover ignored her, staring at the wall. Mandy sighed. "Fine... you stay there. I'll talk." Mandy leaned against the bars of the cell and slid to a sitting position, draping her arms over her bent knees. "You know I was trying to find a way to beat you as this year's homecoming queen before this all started? I was thinking of trying to get my friends on the voting committee or something."
Clover remained silent, trying to block out her rambling but not succeeding. "And then you showed up at my door... looking all confused and mopey. To be honest it felt good to be able to make you so upset... at first. Then I realized how much I was really hurting you and... it didn't feel so good anymore." She tapped her hands on her knees idly in a steady rhythm. "Now after all this... seeing you hurting so much more... and hurting myself... it makes me feel... like..."
Clover rolled over, looking at the back of Mandy's head through the bars. "I don't know. Like we're the same or something." She wrung her hands in front of her. "I wish I knew where Madison was now... what that blue-haired witch was doing to her." Clover knew of course, they were on their way to the U.C. building by now for the summit. "I wish my dad... was..." she trailed off, then chuckled lightly to herself. "I guess I just wish none of this ever happened. We could still be happily beating the mental snot out of each other."
Clover pushed herself up from the bed and approached the cell bars. She knelt down behind Mandy and slid her arms through the bars, wrapping them around her torso. "Sam told me before this all happened that me and you had a lot in common..." Clover told her softly. Mandy fell silent, leaning her head back against the bars of the cell. "I didn't believe her of course... but it seems more and more like it..." Tears slid down Clover's cheeks.
"We both lost someone important during all this..." Mandy stated softly, turning her head to look back at Clover. "I'm sorry about Queen Tassara Clover... I wish I would've acted sooner instead of waiting... maybe I could've saved her."
"I don't think she wanted to be saved..." Clover sniffled, staring into Mandy's eyes sadly. "I think she wanted to die... like she believed the spirit of her country was already dead." Mandy turned around and reached for her through the bars, putting one hand on her cheek.
"Did you and Tassara ever... 'love' each other?" Mandy asked curiously.
"Yes..." Clover replied softly, staring into her eyes deeply. "Yes we did... before we had to flee Washington..."
"I'm so sorry Clover... but I'm glad you're still here." Mandy looked at her squarely. Clover quirked one eyebrow, staring back into her violet eyes. They seemed to have become deep pools that could suck any person into them with but a gaze, trapping them forever in the almost jewel-like depths. She smiled slightly, not taking her gaze away from Clover's for an instant.
"Why does it matter whether I'm here or not...?" Clover asked softly, Mandy reached her other hand up to gently hold her face in her hands, stroking it tenderly with the tips of her fingers. Clover stared at her, reaching up to cover one of Mandy's hands with her own, though she didn't pull it away. Mandy's face was silhouetted by the moonlight pouring in through the sole window in the cell behind her.
"Because I don't want to be alone right now..." Mandy whispered softly, pulling Clover's face slowly closer to the bars. Clover leaned in toward her, staring into those large violet orbs. Their lips met through the bars and they both closed their eyes. In Clover's mind she could see Queen Tassara watching her with an unreadable expression on her face.
'Keep hoping.' That was what she'd wanted Clover to do. It was so hard, hope seemed like nothing more than a fading memory. She forgot how to hope... she even forgot how to love... so why was she doing this? Was Tassara making her do this somehow? Was she reaching out for comfort in her grief? Or did she somehow really love Mandy?
When they pulled away from each other Clover blinked, staring into her former arch nemesis' eyes. "I'm glad I still have you now..." Mandy said softly. "If... if you want me too." Clover stared at her, then sighed and gave her an ever-so-slight smile.
"I need you too..." She pulled Mandy into as much of a hug as they could share through the bars of the prison cell that separated them. They both blinked when a pair of heavy boot steps approached Clover's cell behind her. She looked back to see a silhouette in a heavy trench coat looking through the bars straight at her.
"Do you need something?" Clover spat. The figure opened the cell and stepped into the moonlight. "Bob?"
"Yes, we do." Bob told her seriously. "We need you to save the world one more time."
TO BE CONTINUED