Primordium Nulla Retrorsum
AUTHOR: TowandaBR, Thisbee, Lady Cris Krux
DISCLAIMER: All of the characters of the series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" are property of John Landis, Telescene, Coote/Hayes, DirecTV, New Line Television, Space, Action Adventure Network, Goodman/Rosen Productions, and Richmel Productions.
SPOILERS: After HEART OF THE STORM
To all people who keep TLW alive by any means.
Don't go back to the beginning.
Veronica was holding the tryon. While an unbelievable energy was cursing through all her body, the world danced in front of her eyes.
She saw the forest, the animals, innumerable things and finally her friends. One by one she saw they came back to the same place and in the same order that they had disappeared. First Finn, then Challenger, Roxton, Malone. She was surprised when she realized the journalist was returning to the Treehouse before being swallowed by the phenomenon. Finally she saw Summerlee falling in the waterfall two years ago.
Very slowly everything was becoming calm and, exhausted, she fainted on the floor. Moments later she noticed Finn's worried eyes close to her.
"Vee? Are you all right?"
Veronica made a slight movement.
"Yes. I just need a little rest. What about you?"
"A little shaken, but I'm great." – answered the girl from the future, rising up and going to the kitchen. She returned with some water and a wet towel that she handed to her friend.
Veronica drank and then she put the wet cloth in her nape. Slowly her tense muscles were relaxing. She started to remember the events and she became apprehensive.
"Finn?"
"What?"
"I didn't see Marguerite. She didn't come back."
"What are you saying?"
Veronica faced her with sadness.
"For some reason I couldn't bring her back, Finn." – She stopped – "Marguerite is dead."
"You're kidding, aren't you?"
Veronica could not prevent to shed some tears and when she looked at Finn, the girl from the future didn't need word confirmation of what she already knew.
In a mixture of joy to be alive and sadness to learn the unexpected news, Challenger was the first one to come back to the Treehouse, meeting Finn and Veronica waiting for him.
The untamed beauty was depressed and quiet due to exhaustion and mainly for the lost of the friend she had learn to love, as Marguerite had sad before, like a sister. Challenger and Finn still argued to make her get some rest, but she refused. Of course she would like to meet Malone again, who, she knew, was coming back, however he wasn't the main reason of the refusal. More than ever she needed to deeply look into Roxton's eyes.
When the noise of the elevator resounded in the Treehouse, Veronica was brought back to the real world. Observed by the scientist and the young woman of the future, she got up slowly to wait for their friend.
When he arrived, Roxton stopped with only a one-word question formed in his lips.
"Marguerite?"
Veronica didn't react. She only stayed there motionless, with the hunter in front of her, as static as her. No words needed to be said.
Roxton not even noticed the presence of Finn and Challenger. He only went downstairs straight to his bedroom.
Although they were shocked, Challenger and Finn realized that they had to manage the situation. They made a more than ever silent Veronica to go to her bedroom, where she immediately fell in a deep sleep.
Challenger went to Roxton's bedroom finding him very quiet in a corner. He concluded that it wasn't the right moment yet to talk or to comfort. John needed be alone.
Malone arrived at sunset. Intrigued, confused, he was the least informed person in the world – at least when considering present events. At dinner table with George and Finn, he ate almost nothing while astonished was becoming informed about the facts. After dinner was over, he headed to the room of the lady he was so anxiously waiting to see again. However, he wished that the circumstances could be different. He only intended to look at her for a few minutes, but after all that months that seemed eternal to him, he couldn't resist.
"Veronica, wake up." – he whispered by her ear – "It's me."
Slowly she opened her eyes until finally distinguishing the image of the man by her side.
"Ned?" - She sat down hugging him strongly, while she finally left the tears flow uncontrollably.
At dawn Roxton felt his chest hurting. He thought he needed, more than ever, some fresh air, and went to the balcony to finally conclude: what he really needed wasn't there anymore.
He looked to nowhere. What difference would it make? He also couldn't think about anything.
"Roxton?" - He listened to the sweet voice of his beloved and he closed his eyes, delighted. Certainly he had had a nightmare and now he would wake up.
"Roxton?" - He listened to his name being called once more, only to become sad once again - "I'm sorry, Roxton. I couldn't save her." - He didn't turn to her when, after a pause, he let the words flow very slowly, in a frozen and uncontrolled tone.
"You had your priorities, Veronica, and it seems Marguerite wasn't one of them. She never was, wasn't she?"
"Roxton, I..."
"At least you could have saved some effort and left me too."
Veronica felt a burden even bigger. John was being cruel, she knew it, but wasn't he right? Would she have unconsciously abandoned the heiress?
She felt somebody put a light blanket over her shoulders, somebody who had been there all the time.
"Come on, dear." – Challenger said. He took her to the kitchen, poured some tea in two cups and sat down by her side. The young woman sought for comfort leaning her head on his shoulder.
"Maybe he's right, Challenger."
"He's not and you know that. We all know, including Roxton. You loved Marguerite and you would never let her die if you had a choice."
"I saw the exit of the plateau, Challenger."
"You what?"
"I saw Summerlee falling in the waterfall and I saw him leaving in the other side."
"Is Arthur alive?"
"I don't know. The only thing I'm sure about is that the legend was right. The waterfall is the exit of the plateau."
In the morning, Roxton went out with Finn with the task of bring back the heiress's body.
Malone as well as Challenger had volunteered themselves to do it; however Roxton refused and still reluctantly allowed only Finn to keep company to him.
As she would describe later to the others, the hunter didn't say a word during the whole hike. When they arrived, he faced the static figure and kissed her lips slightly before wrapping her body very carefully, as if he was still afraid of hurting her, in the richest fabric that he had found in the Treehouse before leaving. He didn't cry, he didn't moan. He just did what he forced himself to do.
He buried her close to a place where Marguerite usually isolated herself whenever she wanted to be alone. The burial counted on their friends' presence: Challenger, Malone and Finn.
Veronica observed everything from a distance that John couldn't notice. Only after some time, when Roxton went back home, she finally got closer to put a ginger flower over her friend's grave. Then she walked some kilometers until the place where her father was buried and put some wild flowers on top of his tombstone.
"I'm sorry, dad. I know how much you like the ginger flower, but the only one I found today I gave to someone that is also very special to me."
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
Malone lowered himself down besides Veronica, helping her to pick the vegetables for lunch.
"Do you want me to stay?"
"This is my wish, but I prefer that you leave."
"Why?" - For the first time they diverted the eyes from the work at hand and looked to each other.
"I'm selfish, Ned. If you stay here I want you fully with me, with not a single doubt about what you've left behind."
In the following days they worked a lot collecting samples, packing their belongings. Almost all the time they were in silence and held a sad look.
Finn decided to stay in plateau. No matter how curious she was about the civilized world, although in another epoch, she had been born there and even if the rest of the group would leave and she was alone with Veronica, she finally had found her 'family'.
Nobody dared to speak with Roxton, remembering how unfair he had been with Veronica.
Ned, Finn and Challenger still tried, but at any sign of more serious conversation the hunter left.
When visiting Marguerite's grave every morning, he got used to always find fresh flowers from somebody that had been there before him, even earlier in the morning.
On the day before their departure, Roxton woke up earlier than usual, just to meet Veronica coming back from her morning walk. She was surprised when seeing him so early and even more surprised when he took the things that she was carrying from her, put them on the ground, taking her hands in his.
"I deeply thank you for having saved my life, and I ask you to forgive me because I truly hurt you." - his voice was firm, but gentle - "I would like you to know that here I lived the best years of my life and that you are the friend that only a few have the privilege to meet."
"Roxton..." - She looked at him, touched.
"I know..." - He took the small basket of fruits of the ground coming back with her to the Treehouse.
And that was how they threw themselves in the waterfall, believing it to be, on that moment, more profitable to believe in the unknown world that London had become, than to doubt what they knew so well: the plateau.
CONTINUE...
Please R&R