MEGA W.I.T.C.H. AU
By: FunahoMisaki
(A/N: I own nothing and read last chapter)
(A/N: Just so you're aware
"Hey what's up?" – Normal talking
"You okay?" – Telepathy or thoughts
"I warned you." – Surprise.
Okay Authors Note over)
"Ms. Vandom are you alright?" Knickerbocker asked looking worried when she saw Will at school a few days later. The girl looked like she hadn't slept in days, her skin seemed clammy, and she was walking as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulder (oh if only she knew). Will looked up and Knickerbocker backed up a step at the sight of the girls eyes.
Her normally bright and cheerful or serious if not wary eyes were now dull and she seemed haunted by something. Haunted by something she had seen that she could never un-see or something that only she could see perhaps.
"…" Will didn't answer. She just stared at Knickerbocker with those too dull too old eyes and then turned away to go to her classroom. Stopping in the hallway just a few feet short of the classroom door however, Will's eyes widened a bit as she darted to the bathroom almost as fast as Hay-lin could fly.
"H…How?" Will asked her voice hoarse and scratchy and she sounded over all terrible as she stared at the person in front of her. The younger form of the woman she had murdered.
The mere thought of what she had done had Will rushing to the nearest stall and heaving up her breakfast, what little she ate of it, and anything else up to and including pure air. Will shivered when she felt a touch on her back, a softy almost not there touch.
The touch of the ghost haunting her.
"I told you didn't I? I said I'd always be here watching…guiding." Nerissa whispered into her ear it seemed like, her breath soft as the wind and not as…evil…as she had sounded before back when she was… Will threw up again thinking about it.
"Deep slow breaths child. Keep your stomach down." Nerissa advised her voice just as soft as before as she rubbed circles on the girls back, her see through hand feeling very very light but definitely there to the red haired girl.
"This is punishment isn't it? The punishment for ending your life." Will asked her voice hoarse as she tried to keep down more bile, making Nerissa shake her head in the negative.
"No. This is me trying to guide you. The others have former guardians to learn from if they so choose. You should as well." Nerissa said moving to brush Will's hair out of her eyes, Will's eyes dully following her see through hands movement as the hair was pushed back behind her ear.
"The others…" Will repeated slowly a thought coming to her. Was she hallucinating? Was this all in her mind? Some twisted form of PTSD or Survivors Guilt like Halinor had warned her about?
"They won't be able to see me. I'm here solely to guide you. Not them. They have the other Formers. No one can see me except for you." Nerissa said shaking her head and making Will flinch a bit. Was it all a hallucination? A nightmare? If so please let her wake up from this one.
"Will are you in here?" A familiar voice called as someone walked into the girls bathroom, making Will's head snap up.
"Cassidy." Nerissa breathed out recognizing the voice of the woman that she had killed and revived.
"Cassidy?" Will asked causing the girl to appear at the stall-way door and look at Will.
"Hey. I got worried when Taranee sent a message of you missing History class. I'm not going to ask if you're okay. It's obvious you aren't, but do you feel up to staying here at school or do you want me to take you home?" Cassidy asked her voice gentle as she kneeled down and put a much more solid, much warmer, hand on Will's back.
Home? As in Kandrakar? Will hazily thought as she reached up to flush the toilet. The place where she…
"No not there I meant your mom's apartment." Cassidy said having heard Will's thoughts and quickly heading them off. The poor girl was nearly broadcasting her thoughts and even with the minor telepathic link the older guardians had with the younger ones, Cassidy wouldn't be surprised in the least if Kadma or Yan-lin had heard the girls thoughts as well. Halinor obviously did sense Cassidy could feel a familiar warm presence entering her mind softly.
"Don't drain your life force Hallie. I'll take care of her and later on I'll bring her to Kandrakar so you can check on her yourself." Cassidy thought to her friend who gave the mental equivalent of a nod.
"Thank you and I'll hold you to that Cass." Halinor 'spoke' softly in Cassidy's mind before she slithered out of the girls head, leaving their basic connection open just in case but not actively listening in.
Apartment? Oh with her mom. No. She didn't want to go there right now, not after the hour long lecture she had gotten last night for being gone the whole weekend without telling anyone except her friends anything. Not after she fell asleep only for the nightmare to start. If the choice was between going to class or going to the apartment…
"Get me something cool to drink to wash out the taste and I'll be fine." Will croaked out after a minute of just leaning into Cassidy's soothing warm presence. The woman may have been twenty two when she died but she looked more like a teenager, so she was starting school with them within the next week but for now she was just getting 'familiarized' with the school.
In reality she was just making sure Will was okay, she knew how hard it was to try and go back to normal after killing someone, even in self-defense. The new Guardians weren't blooded yet, not the way the old ones had been. By the time the C.H.Y.K.N. generation were twenty two they had all killed at least three people in their missions to save the universe. Some people you just couldn't take alive, either because of the circumstances or because of their own pride.
From what Halinor had told her, Cassidy figured that the new guardians didn't know that yet, or they didn't until Nerissa came around. Now she was left wondering how they were going to react, it was obvious that Will was definitely still feeling her first kill. She always would, Cassidy remembered her first kill vividly along with the three kills right after it. She knew Halinor could vividly recall all of her kills, Kadma could recall the ones she had seen, and Yan-lin could recall at least five of her own as well.
"Lucky for you I'm a water guardian. Open up." Cassidy said moving to use her powers and making Will shake her head in the negative.
"Cassidy you aren't a guardian anymore." Nerissa tried to remind her friend only to deflate slightly when she remembered that only Will could hear her.
"Using your powers will drain your life force." Will reminded the other red head who blinked before nodding and instead pulling out a bottle of water from her book bag.
"Sorry still getting used to…well…being alive again and not being a guardian." Cassidy said grinning sheepishly as she offered the water to Will who took it and swallowed it all down in one long gulp.
"Thanks." Will said beginning to stand up, with Cassidy supporting her on one side and Nerissa supporting her on the other.
"Anytime. Come on. Let's get you to class…or…rather lunch." Cassidy said grinning slightly as she stood by Will's side, keeping an eye on the girl in case she needed a hand or someone to catch her. Will had been blacking out recently or rather fainting. They weren't sure if it was her mind trying to cope with what she had done or what but the entire Council and the older Ex-Guardians were all worried about the young leader.
"Will? Are you okay?" Irma asked immediately after she saw her leader in the lunch room, not hesitating in the slightest as she walked over to check on the red head of their group who was at their usual table leaning against Cassidy slightly.
"Fine." Will said without even thinking about it, earning a snort from Irma and Taranee.
"Try that with someone who'll believe it. Here. I took some spare notes in History Class. You can study over it while I go grab you some lunch." Taranee said setting a notebook in front of Will before turning and walking towards the Lunch Line.
"Come on scooch over and let me see. I was sleeping and didn't take notes, besides Tara jots down everything so I might have missed something important." Irma said grinning as she sat down on Will's left side, Cassidy being on Will's right.
"Huh they're doing a class on the history of the LGBT community? Hallie would love that." Cassidy said glancing at the notes as well just in case it was anything she would need to know about.
"What really? Oh that's priceless! I can't believe it. Hallie is going to be over the moon." Nerissa said looking at the notes over Will's shoulder and nearly busting a gut laughing.
"Hey did Yannie ever tell you about the time where we had to go find Hallie cause she was kidnapped during a mission and when we found her she had converted over a dozen Lurden's into being hippies?" Cassidy asked looking at Will and making Irma look at her surprised while Cornelia and Hay-lin hesitantly sat down across from Will.
"Here you go Will. What are we talking about?" Taranee asked setting down her tray beside Cassidy, before moving the notebook and setting Will's tray in front of her.
"Halinor turned some Lurdens into hippies when they kidnapped her." Irma reported with a small grin making Taranee blink before looking at them in disbelief.
"Are you serious?" Taranee asked looking from Irma to Cassidy who quirked a grin and nodded her head rapidly.
"I got pictures of it too. A whole scrap book of our teams shenanigans when we were your age and a bit older, it's in my room at my mom's place. You should have seen the look on Kadma's face when she went charging in to save Halinor only to see her showing the Lurdens how to make flower crowns." Cassidy said making Nerissa bust out laughing from behind Will.
"I remember that! Halinor talked Kadma into growing some more flowers for them to make more crowns and I thought Cass was going to pee herself laughing." Nerissa said through her laughter while Will very carefully fought not to acknowledge the woman haunting her. Whether she was an illusion or real, and Will had a feeling she was very very real, Will didn't want to make her friends think she was crazy for talking to a dead woman.
"Halinor was a hippie?" Taranee asked while Irma was laughing on Will's other side. They never would have suspected calm wise Halinor of the Council of being a hippie in her youth.
"Oh I wouldn't be surprised if she still is. See her parents were very devout Catholics and back in those times everyone thought it was weird that three normal white girls like me, Hallie and Nerissa were friends with non-whites like Kaddie and Yannie. Of course my family was Irish so I got some weird looks too but none of us let that bother us, we were still friends. Kaddie and Hallie had been friends since before the whole…you know…guardian thing, and her parents didn't like that. Kaddie's parents thought it was strange but they were glad she was making friends with others her own age. Hallie first joined the hippie craze when we were teenagers, about fifteen or sixteen I think, and we all thought it was just to get back at her parents." Cassidy began regaling the girls with the story of Halinor the Hippie.
"That might be how it started with her but by the time we were twenty that's not how it was." Nerissa broke in making Will's eyes dart to her for a second before turning back to Cassidy who was poking Will into eating some of the spaghetti on her plate, although Will didn't have much of an appetite at the moment.
"By the time we were in our twenties and we were in college though it had changed a bit. She didn't seem to be doing it to get back at her parents anymore. She seemed to be genuinely into the hippie craze. I have a picture of her wearing a tye dyed dress to school one day, and I swear she got sent out of almost every class for wearing it of course the rest of us followed her out. Hippie or no Hippie Hallie was and still is our friend and sister, we'd all, those of us left and loyal that is, stand by her no matter what." Cassidy said her eyes flashing briefly to Cornelia and Hay-Lin who were avoiding Will ever since her battle with Nerissa. They seemed scared and shocked about what the red head had done even though they all knew it was self-defense and in defense of their families.
"But see her parents kept trying to break her of the Hippie craze and set her up with nice respectable catholic young men of…decent background. Yeah her parents were those stuck up rich snob types, I'm actually pretty amazed that Hallie was never as snobby as they were…but anyways. They kept trying to set Hallie up and if the other four of us didn't run the possible 'suitors' off then I guarantee you Hallie did. Most of them were misogynist or racist snobs so…well none of us said a word about it when she literally threw fireballs at one boy who was being an ass to Kaddie and Yannie because of their ethnicity." Cassidy said snickering and making Nerissa snort in amusement.
"Good thing that one had a nasty habit of drinking alcohol until he passed out or else we would have been in a heap of trouble." Nerissa said dryly and making Will's lip twitch upwards just a little bit as she ate a tiny bit more of her spaghetti at a look from Cassidy and Nerissa both.
"But anyways…eventually her parents got so fed up that they exploded on Hallie one night when we were all eating and studying at her place. They demanded to know why she insisted on being so caught up in the 'Hippie phase' as they called it and why she refused such 'respectable young men'. Of course we were all ready to have Hallie's back in case her parents got violent with her and we were all standing up in between her bedroom door and her bed where she and Yannie had been going over their Math books. Kaddie looked ready to deck both of her parents and bury them in the ground if they took one more step towards Hallie." Cassidy said snickering just a bit as she ate some of her pizza, recalling that night as if it were yesterday.
"I thought Kat was going to hit them with a tree." Nerissa piped up helpfully as she prodded Will into eating some more with a there but not there touch to her hand that was holding the fork.
"But Hallie…she just calmly marked her page in the math book, closed it, and stood up. She walked towards them until she stood in front of the rest of us, and looked them dead in the eye and then sweet shy little Hallie told them in no uncertain terms that, and I am quoting her here, 'the Hippies are the only ones who seem to allow me to let me love who I want to love instead of who I am expected to love.' Of course we were all telling her that we'd accept her no matter what and her parents demanded to know what that meant so guess what she did next." Cassidy said grinning while Nerissa was laughing like a loon behind Will.
"What?" Irma asked grinning as well and making Cassidy snicker.
"She turned to Kadma, grabbed her by her shirt and pulled her down into a kiss right there in front of her parents. Her mother fainted and her father's jaw went to the floor." Cassidy said making all of them stare at her.
"You're kidding?" Hay-lin asked staring at Cassidy who shook her head in the negative.
"Nope. Ask Yannie, Kaddie or Hallie if you don't believe me. Yannie was saying something in Chinese, I was trying to find my camera, and Nerissa was on the floor laughing her ass off. I swear the two of them were using tongue and they didn't separate for like five minutes." Cassidy said making Nerissa try and calm down a bit.
"They were using tongue and their kiss lasted closer to seven minutes." Nerissa corrected making Will glance at her curiously. What did Nerissa time it or something?
"Nah but there were some electronics in there and the clock timed it." Nerissa said grinning at Will, oh didn't she tell the girl that since she was tied to Will she could hear Will's thoughts as long as she didn't use telepathy? No? Oh well the girl would figure it out eventually.
"When they finally pulled apart Kadma was grinning and had a dazed look in her eyes while Halinor smiled happily…then she caught sight of us staring and blushed so red I thought she was going to pass out. She couldn't look any of us in the eye for more than a week afterwards. Poor shy Hallie." Cassidy said snickering heavily. The story served three purposes, first it let her remember some of the 'good ol' days' as Yan-Lin called them, second it helped the W.I.T.C.H. girls learn more about their predecessors, and finally…it helped distract everyone from the whole Nerissa thing.
Will actually finished at least half of her tray of food while listening to the story. That was more than she ate all weekend long when they tried to get through to her.
The progress on making sure Will would be able to get over what she had done seemed slow…almost at a crawl really…but it was there and that gave them hope. They hoped Will could pull through her guilt and other negative feelings. The Council of Kandrakar, the remaining Former Guardians, and from the looks of it Irma and Taranee would all be on Will's side to help her pull through this.
Cassidy had to let the others know that sharing stories of their past with Will seemed to distract her for at least a little while.
She didn't know that Nerissa had noticed the same thing and was going to use that to her advantage.