Disclaimer: Any canon content belongs to its respective owners such as BBC and its writers. All original content, however, does belong to me and its contributors.
A/N: Sorry for the long wait guys! Vacation stopped me from publishing chapters.
So I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself into with going with him back to the Tower. It was scary, it was crazy, but it was also amazing! My blood had never rushed so bad before like it did that night. I was mad in the head, I had to have been to have followed so blindly. Yet I had, and to date I haven't looked back since.
After the lovely dinner, that I finally decided it had been, we had left the restaurant. At first I wasn't quite sure how we were going to get to the Tower, especially for after hours. John clearly didn't have a car that I could tell anyway. He seemed about as bus ridden as me. Yet what did I know, for all I knew he could have had a rental.
I was still wearing his jacket of course. He clearly didn't seem bothered by the night air what so ever, unlike me who was lightly shivering from the slight cold damp that filled the Seattle nightline. Wind lightly blowing, bringing the sea breeze into my face, I looked at John hoping for answers.
"So now what?" I asked.
"Now," he began. "We find a way back to the Tower. I'm sure there's some form of public transportation at this hour. Cab maybe."
"Yea, there is. Yellow Cab mostly." I gave.
"Great, um…maybe you could give them a call then eh." he stated letting the words roll of his tongue with the accent he had.
"What don't you have a phone?" I raised a brow.
"Well…." John gave a cringing face. "Even so, it's not like I know the area codes here."
"True, alright, I'll give one a call." I stated a waggled the phone at him. "I still say it's a lousy excuse though."
John gave me an exasperated look, but then smiled at me anyway. Gods, how could he. That smile could win an Emmy or something. I had to turn away from him while I made the call so as not to distract myself by his charms.
"Yes, I would like a cab please. How many? Two. Uh huh that's right. Um….near Ivor's on the boardwalk waterfront. Yeah that one. Okay great thanks. Yes this is a good number. Alright thank you. Bye." I rambled over the receiver part of the cell phone before hanging up and looking at John again.
"So?" he asked raising a brow.
"So, I got us a ride. Will be a bit. The soonest one they could get us was twenty minutes. That's actually pretty good for the end of the rush hour slot."
"That's alright. We got time." he offered, not worried in the slightest.
"I don't get it." I mused.
"Don't get wha?" his accent just a tad thicker that sentence than most.
"How it is you can be so calm over everything?" I stated. "I mean if it were me, which it is, I'd be a mess."
"What's there to worry over? It's like the idea of crying over spilled milk. No reason to." John shrugged. "Besides I'm used to it."
We walked over to the edge of the current pier area and looked out over the black ripples cast by the lights of the city onto the water's surface. Again he put an arm around me, probably noting I was cold and was trying to help the best he could. I was grateful. He really did seem like a nice man, even if a bit strange and awkward.
"I don't get it, but that's alright I suppose." I said leaning into his side, my eyes fixated on the water and its movement. It was almost mesmerizing. John didn't say anything more for those long fifteen or so minutes, except to ask if I was alright and not too cold, before I got a message saying the cab was on its way. I reassured him I was fine with just the jacket he let me borrow.
Eventually the cab came and we both got in, me first because apparently John had to go and be a gentleman about things. The moment he was in the cab though, I gave instructions for us to be taken to Cazrin Co. The driver acknowledged this and drove off away from the cozy safety of the wharf. A part of me felt like it had stayed behind somehow along with a specter version of John, still looking out over the water. As we got closer and closer to the Tower, my heart began to beat faster and faster.
John seemed to take note of this by taking my hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze as if to say it'll be alright. It forced me to actually breathe, which up until then, I had not realized I had been holding my breath at all. As hard as he tried though, it didn't stop my heart from feeling like it dropped into my stomach the moment we reached the building itself, its tall structure now feeling more like a looming omen rather than a familiar venue. I almost had imagined big streaks of doom and gloom lightening to accompany its intensity as I stared at it before getting out of the cab. This time I paid instead of John. I still wasn't quite sure how he had paid for our meals back at the restaurant, but I didn't argue that he had somehow.
I looked over at John who looked at me with a small smile and the leaped out of the cab on one side and then opened the door for me on the other. I took his outstretched hand and got out of the cab reluctantly. Why I was going with him at this hour, I was actually beginning to wonder. Sure I knew the place, but that didn't mean I had to get involved. I could have let him figure it out on his own.
Instead I stood there with him willingly and looked at the front doors with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if those things, those creatures, whatever they were, were in there right now? The sheer thought made me shiver.
"You can leave you know? You don't have to be here with me." John stated looking over at me.
"Nah, I gotta do this. If not for me, then for Aaron, and Sansa, and all those other poor people I never really got to know well." I stated as bravely as I could, trying to hold my head up high.
"You sure? Cause once you go-"
"I know, I know I can never go back, never undo button my life right. I get it." I breathed weakly. "I'm ….strangely okay with this."
"Alright, if you're sure." he emphasized.
"I'm sure." I gave a nod.
"Okay then, let's do this!" he let my hand go, which I really didn't want him to, but knew we couldn't get anywhere unless he did, and strolled forward like he owned the place. I stood frozen for a few more moments and then trailed up after him. By the point I got there, he had already found a way to infiltrate the main door. How I didn't find out, but whatever it had been it worked. Quickly he opened it and walked inside the darkened lobby.
The place was kind of spooky at night, and I never realized just how spooky it could have been until now. It's near to no sound silence almost made me want to turn tail and bail out of this arrangement. However, as John moved forward into the lobby itself I couldn't help but to be drawn his direction like an opposite charged magnet drawn to its other pole.
As I was trying to take in the surroundings, so as not to be caught off guard, I began to hear this strange buzzing whirling sound. What bothered me most about it was because of how the acoustics in the lobby were, I couldn't pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It had sounded like it had been coming from everywhere.
"Do you hear that?" I said quietly.
"Hmm? Hear what?" John said, but the noise had stopped.
"Sorry nothing." I brushed off not hearing the sound anymore. "Never mind."
He shrugged and went back too looking around. I crossed my arms over my chest as I just stared at the elevators. Those things had become my bane, especially the fact of going to that one floor. My mind was eating away at it so strongly that I hadn't even noticed John come up alongside me and spook me half to death by just suddenly being there and speaking.
"Yep, there's definitely something here." he stated matter of fact.
"How can you tell?" I raised a brow, there didn't seem to be any physical evidence.
"Energy, it's up and down all over the place in here. Like, it's kind of unstable." he mused, the stared at me. "Whatcha looking at?"
"Nothing really, just, the elevators." I stated taking a deep breath inhale. I knew we were going to have to go up there soon. I looked back at him, "What do you mean by energy?"
"Just as I said." he shrugged. "The energy levels in here is way off the scale."
"How can you tell?" I raised a brow.
"How can you tell when you're super cold?" he grabbed my arm and showed me my own goosebumps I was creating just then. "By the way your skin reacts. The same can go for energy in a room. That term when someone says they get goosebumps from the heebee geebee's, well that's that same reaction that people have when they get cold. That's how. Oh and of course having something handy on hand to measure it of course."
John held out a device that looked a bit like a jury rigged EMF meter, but weirder. John then pulled it back to himself when he heard a moan of a sound, that kind when a building would be settling if it were old and metal, and began to scan again with it.
"Yes, definitely fluctuations! This is amazing! Oh you brilliant clever whatever you are!" he stated with a bit of joy as he kissed the machine and began to move further into the building. I followed him away from the elevators.
We made our way through some of the first floor departments. He wasn't getting as much readings from in there as he was out in the lobby, which made sense, those things didn't congregate as much in the departments themselves. I showed him the lounge and some of the actual peoples cubicles I knew had been contaminated by whatever those things were. By having something to actually do, I felt more at ease even if I was still terrified quite a bit.
Luckily no one was on the main floor, not even a night shift guard, which was strange because most the time there was. However, John seemed pleased with the progress he had been making none the less. He sort of reminded me of a school child who had just gotten the best project out of the litter. Oh if only Aaron were here to see it. Thinking about him made me frown a bit as John checked another cubical.
"Found anything useful?" I asked trying to break the silence that had formed like a tense bubble between us.
"Plenty! But still not done sadly." he stated and then frowned. "Clearly whatever it is, is not down here much at all, which means…"
"Going up." I stated quietly.
"Exactly." John said with a nod. "As I said you can leave whenever you'd like. I won't stop you."
"I'm fine thanks." I said my arms crossed over my chest defensively. He walked over to me and looked at me with genuine concern.
"Alex, you've done brilliantly so far," he stated putting a hand on my face. "But that doesn't mean you have to be that brave. I'm sorry I forced you so harshly to believe in something you clearly aren't ready for. You don't have to stay and help me, I can figure things out."
I bit at my lower lip. The idea of leaving the whole time had seemed so tempting, but if I was going to leave, wouldn't I have turned tail already? I mean I should have by this point, knowing good and well with what I had seen earlier that day. Yet I didn't budge, not one bit. I stayed even after every urge I had to just bolt. I leaned into his touch and stared at him.
"No." I stated plainly.
"No?" he asked bemused.
"No I'm not going to leave." I asserted. "I can tell your trying to save me or get rid of me from what's to come, but don't. I don't need you to protect me from the big bad whatever. I just want you to help me get my friends back."
"Okay" he stated and that was that.
"Okay?" I asked in confusion.
"Okay I won't keep nagging you about it. I just, I don't want you getting hurt alright. I do care. It may not seem like I do. I've been known to come off that way to people sometimes, but I do. I really, really do. I just … I didn't want you to go on living your life clueless and then…"
"Become one of them?" I tried to help his trailing off sentence.
"Yeah, that's it. Like them." he said solemnly. It made my heart ache at those words and I gave a sigh.
"I won't end up like them….hopefully." I stated a pale look on my face, but I in return put a hand against his own concerned cheek. "And even if I did, at least I know someone will be out here on the outside still trying to fight the good fight to free and save everyone from this craziness."
"Yeah, your right." he nodded a little then tried to perk up a bit as if nothing was wrong, though I could clearly tell by Johns eyes he still wasn't. "Besides, I don't think your boyfriend Aaron would thank me for that now would he, letting something bad happen to you?"
"First of all he's not my boyfriend." I blushed.
"Meh coulda fooled me." John scoffed.
"Second as a friend," I emphasized friend as just general friend. "No he wouldn't, nor would Sansa I'm sure."
"I'm sure." John nodded. "Well then, I suppose we go do what must be done now then."
"What's that?" I inquired.
"Confront the dragon so to say." he stated dryly. "We go up the Tower and we face the beast whatever it may be head on and give it our two cents."
"Alright then. You seem like the man with the plan so, onward and upward then." I offered.
"Indeed." John said and ushered me towards the elevator.