Beginning Note: I was going to wait another week to upload this chapter, but since I_Amazon spammed me with comments yesterday, it inspired me to finish this chapter a little earlier. Although you might hate me more cause you gotta wait for the next chapter now.
While I'm at it, I wanted to thank all of you who are still reading this. When I started this I didn't think a single person would enjoy this or read this. Heck, I thought it would do the worst, but now it's one of my most enjoyed pieces. So thank you, for every comment, kudos, bookmark, and subscription.
My greatest joy is adding something positive to your day if you enjoyed reading this.
It is just their luck that they get thrown in a pit of walkers. The walkers not behind the gate slowly shuffle forward as Elyza frantically looks around for something to possibly use against them.
Evidently there isn't, so when the walker reaches within three feet of her, she grabs the rotting corpse and flings it to the ground, immediately leaping up and stomping on the head with as much force as she possibly can. It cracks under her feet with a sickening crunch.
A cry from the other side of the arena calls Elyza's attention. Lindsay is stuck under a walker, but as she watches, Lindsay manages to roll with the walker and the walker slams into the wall so hard it's skull cracks. To her horror she hears a creak as the soldiers open the gate. They look on in sick anticipation.
Elyza kneels down and hastily wrenches off her shoes. She tosses one at Lindsay who catches it with a yelp and a wrinkle of her nose. Holding it by the heel and brandishing the reinforced steel toe, Elyza turns to face the horde. It was better than no weapon at all. She charges forward and smashes the toe of the shoe straight through the skull of the first skull, and then whips around, kicking the next into the wall.
All Elyza knows is that she wants to see Alicia again. All the times that Alicia has laughed and smiled flashes through her head. Elyza smacks a walker in the jaw so hard with her shoe that the entire jaw shatters; when Alicia called Clarke on the pier flashed through her mind. Another two more walkers replace the one she just smashed and Elyza punches one in the face so hard her skin cracks open; when Alicia would pretend to be exasperated at all the pickup lines Elyza dropped played like a reel through Elyza's mind. She slams the boot into the other walker so hard the brain bits go flying.
She hears a growl from right next to her and whips to face it too late. Elyza has never wished to survive so badly because she wants to see Alicia smile again, because this was supposed to be their someday.
Then the walker jolts forward and topples over onto Elyza to reveal a blood soaked Lindsay behind who nods. From then on they fight back to back, kicking, punching, smashing. Even if it isn't enough to survive, they're trying because they've always defied the odds.
-0-
Alicia's blood turns cold as she creeps through the rows of parked cars. Two cries of help reach her ears. The first is her beloved brother Nick's. The second is from another life. The voice of her nightblood sister Luna echoes through the army camp. There is no question in her mind because it is engraved from Lexa's years training as a nightblood.
It sends Alicia racing to the grate. She peers in and sees Nick struggling to hold up two women who can barely hold themselves up, and Luna desperately, but whatever small metal glinting object is in her head isn't very practical against herds.
Alicia looks up frantically. A pile of tiny, slim, old, pipes sit in a discarded stack on the side. She grabs four of them and yells into the grate, "Loona, hir! (Luna, here!)"
The said woman's head whips up hair flying with her motion, eyes training onto Alicia. Her soulful eyes dawn in understanding as Alicia slips the pipes through the grates. She embeds the necklace weapon into the head of the walker immediately next to her and then whips around and starts to run, leaping off the wall as Alicia drops the pipes. She grabs the pipes midair over the top of Nick and the two women's heads and hits the ground on the other side swinging like a hurricane.
Alicia turns around towards the guards now approaching her to check out the ruckus. She gets up and hefts the pipes and spins them a few times, testing their weight. That's enough of listening to her mother. It's just too bad Alicia doesn't have her warpaint.
She speeds up with every step until she is sprinting at the guards and then ducks as they start shooting and takes out the first by the legs, whipping back up and smashing the pipe against the face of the second soldier. It was a pity that these weren't sharp.
-0-
Elyza hears screams but she can't afford to turn around because they are getting overwhelmed by walkers, and she can barely get a hit in with her shoe anymore because she's too busy pushing walkers away trying to avoid being bitten. Right now she really misses her guns.
Her limbs are starting to get exhausted and she knows she's almost at her limit. A particularly big walker jumps on Elyza and she struggles to push it away, fatigued muscles refusing to cooperate anymore. Slowly it's jaw gets closer and closer to her neck. She can smell her rotting doom getting closer and closer.
All of a sudden, she hears a fierce cry and crunching. Then the head of the walker is blown straight off by something that whips past her face so fast and precisely that it barely misses her nose. Alicia stands there with her small smirk. "Now who's saving who?"
Relief floods Elyza and she practically tackles Alicia, who staggers backward a step before catching her and wrapping her arms around Elyza.
In return, Alicia buried her face into Elyza's neck, sniffling and trying to suppress her tears. The action is so cute, Elyza's heart flutters. "God, you can't do that to me, 'Lyza. I'll die of worry and then who's gonna keep your horny ass in line?"
Despite what just happens, Elyza can't help but smile. This girl was going to make her heart burst, and surprisingly, badass and tough Elyza Lex was just fine with it. She would go out in an explosion of love. Love, leather jackets, and flirting. "Oh yeah? Who's the one who makes me horny?" Elyza teases.
Alicia laughs, the tension in her shoulders fading just a bit.
"Babe, I only have eyes for you", Elyza says, tucking a strand of Alicia's hair out of her face and behind her ear.
Their moment is ruined by a young white man in plaid and jeans, who awkwardly clears his throat. Alicia jumps back, blushing like a schoolgirl being given flowers, and Elyza decides that she doesn't like him. Not one bit.
Surveying the area, it is easy to say everyone is accounted for. A little worse for wear, covered in blood, and in Madison's case absolutely devastated, but alive at least. Alicia and Elyza step forward to boost Lindsay up from the ditch and up the ladder. Magna hands the asian woman over to some others before stepping forward to help, although her face is still set in a thin, unfriendly line. Magna hauls Lindsay up as they give a small push from below, and Lindsay easily hops onto ground level. She murmurs a thank you.
-0-
Alicia is the last one to scale the ladder. Magna stands there when she reaches the top, assessing her, and she does the same back. They stand chest to chest, two women equally as intimidating, squaring each other up despite several inches of height difference. The tension crackles like lightning between them, as if it held together by paper and the air is 451 degrees fahrenheit.
Magna is the one to break the silence in her soft, low, raspy voice, "It's been a while, jus-strisis (blood-sister)."
Then the tension breaks as Alicia throws herself forward eagerly, and Magna wraps her arms around her with a grin. She nuzzles herself into Magna, and surprisingly, Magna lets her. She is crying by now, tears streaming down her face, and she's not ashamed because she is allowed to be a child reuniting with one of the people who were closest to being her family. Even if it was an entire lifetime ago.
Magna pulls away, "Now tell me. Did you really just stop an entire war, just to impress a girl?"
"Hell yeah. You bet I did", Alicia smiles and nods, despite Magna knowing the truth. Perhaps it was just nicer coming from the person herself. Mourning had never been a viable option in the other world. The world had slipped by too fast for that.
Her strisis smiles this proud smile and in this moment she is a perfect mix of Lexa and Alicia within. She is Lexa in which she cares about Luna's opinion, and Alicia because she is able to bask in her approval. Approval is something that she was never given by Madison either. When she looks up from Magna at Elyza and sees her encouraging smile, everything feels right.
-0-
Elyza is checking on Magna's partner, When it happens. It had been a good excuse to get away from the nagging of that man. The one called Jake with the plaid and jeans said that they should follow him. The fact that Alicia seemed to consider it and had stayed to talk to him annoyed her further.
Magna hovers over them like a constant buzzing bee as Elyza shines her light into Yumiko's eyes and asks about other symptoms.
Elyza tucks the small flashlight back into the medical bag she had found and starts wrapping Yumiko's head. "It's just a small concussion. You need rest. Don't move around too much. It should heal itself if given the time."
"Are you sure?" Magna sported what Elyza was quickly learning to be her signature scowl. Not that she could blame Magna's distrust in her after what she'd done in the last world. Clarke Griffin had committed more atrocities than Elyza Lex wished to remember.
Out of the corner of Elyza eye she sees Lindsay step forward to start to calm her down, but Yumiko beats her to it. "I'm fine, Magna",she soothes. Then she turns to Elyza with a bright smile. "Sorry, she's not usually like that. She's just upset over Bernie."
"Bernie?" Elyza doubts it's that simple. It's how she knows that Magna hasn't told any of her friends that she is like Alicia. A soul reborn into another body, some could say. Before she can get her answer however, screams and telltale growling of walkers erupt through the air.
Immediately Elyza stands up, her blood running cold. She dashes out as they call after her, but it doesn't really register. The horde is already upon them, and she grabs a shotgun on the way out of her garage, blasting the head straight off the first walker. The next one is taken out with the butt of the gun.
She hears sickening crunches and knows that the others are fighting behind her. As she holds off the walkers, her blue eyes roam the field for Alicia. Finally she spots Alicia, defending a helicopter with a bat as the two darker skinned siblings that had introduced themselves as Kelly and Connie climbed in. They were screaming something, but over the growling, screams, and helicopter blades, it was impossible to hear a single word.
Lindsay falls beside her as they muscle their way toward the helicopter. Alicia surges forward, desperately trying to cleave a path through the walkers. She succeeds, partially. With Lindsay and Elyza working away on one end and Alicia on the other, they momentarily open up a path.
Elyza was so close, she could've reached out and touched Alicia's outstretched hand, but in that moment, she thought about all the things she'd done wrong in the last life, the wrongdoings that she wished never tainted her. She thought about the way Alicia looked at her like she was perfect and she wanted to live up to that.
So she grabbed Yumiko and Magna as Magna attempted to help a stumbling Yumiko through, and shoved them to Alicia. The gap in the walkers closes behind them. Elyza falls back so that she is back to back with Lindsay.
"Elyza!"her love's voice rips through the air as Elyza fells another walker.
She brings her eyes up to meet Alicia's panicked ones. There is only one thing to say. "May we meet again."