Episode 10:1- A Time to Live
"When you were a child, didn't you ever look at something ugly and think, 'I want to tear this down'?"
"Yeah," said Rose, thinking of her failures of Lego models.
"Yeah," said Calvin, thinking of his school.
"Yeah," said Ace, thinking of Gabriel Chase and snickering slightly.
"Yeah," said Hobbes, thinking of a can of tuna. It was unfair for the gorgeous meat to be imprisoned in a package.
"Well, these children actually have the power to do that. And they don't like the look of Earth, so..." He shrugged, as much as it was possible for a chicken to shrug. He paused, looking hopeful. "Can I be human, now?"
"Nope," Rose scooped him up underneath her arm. "Think of this as insurance."
"So, if they're trying to destroy it because it's ugly," Rose began, securing Jack the Chicken more carefully under her arm. "Why don't we just show them that it is beautiful?"
"How?" Calvin asked. "They communicate through poetry."
Hobbes nodded. "There you go, then?"
Ace looked up from where she was carefully fingering a can of Nitro Nine. "Hm?"
"Pretty poems," Hobbes elaborated. Not much, though.
"Pretty poems," Jack snorted. "We're going to save the world with the power of pretty poems."
Ace threw her hands up in the air and laughed sardonically. "Oh, yes! Let's use our pretty poems! And while we're at it, let's string daisies through our hair and skips in circles! The aliens will never be able to resist our flower power!"
Calvin ran a hand through his spiky hair. "Well, when you put it like that..."
"I think it's a pretty good idea," interrupted Rose quietly.
Calvin glanced at her in slight amazement.
She shrugged, suddenly defensive. "I studied poetry in school before I quit. I liked some of it."
"But the Earth isn't beautiful," Jack interjected.
Everyone looked at the chicken in surprise.
"It isn't?" Ace asked after a moment.
"No!" he exclaimed. "The seas are basically acid, and all the trees were destroyed centuries ago!"
Calvin was the first person to realize it. "Captain," he said. "What year is it?"
He flicked his head. "That's a silly question. It's 6021."
There was a long, long silence.
"You said your memories were missing, right?" Rose asked.
Up in Jack's spaceship, Charles the dinosaur had looked curiously at the two two-legs that had just disappeared.
The pink-and-yellow-one that he knew had lemon acid scent. Resentment, his dinosaur brain noted. He moved across to the console.
The one-that-smelt-of-leather-and-wood had the melted-plastic smell of desperation. That usually wasn't good. And they had both disappeared in a flash that tasted like...
...donuts.
The taste he had attributed to early-mornings on the bigger-on-the-inside machine and the pink-and-yellow-one when she was feeling nice.
He scurried across to the big-flat-object with buttons that went up-and-down, and pecked at a few, wanting donuts.
Donuts were good, he knew that.
Nothing happened, but the ship shuddered to the side and began to tilt.
He pressed some more buttons.
The ship tilted even more.
A big, rumbling voice came from the metal-cross-thing-that-wasn't-donuts. But he was a dinosaur, and couldn't understand it.
A loud clicking noise echoed over the ship, and it tilted even more dramatically before deciding to just be done with it and crash down.
It did, with great aplomb.
Charles was thrown all against the hard-and-pointy bits of the ship, and he squealed in pain.
Jack slumped to the ground in avine shock. "This is the 1900s?"
"Yeah," Hobbes said, a tad apologetically. "Sorry."
"Ugh." He buried his beak in a wing. "No, not your fault, but still..."
Rose glanced at Ace, and shrugged. It must be a huge culture shock to find out that you're from a completely different time period than the one you thought you were in.
"Right," Calvin apparently didn't care about emotions at this point in time. "Earth is beautiful. We've established that fact."
"Poems," Hobbes said.
"Jabberwocky?" Ace suggested.
"Why not?" Hobbes tilted his head. "Or... we could just improvise."
"Improvisation is a bad thing," Calvin warned. "Trust me on that."
Hobbes remembered something. "Are you talking about the onion-?"
"WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE ONION INCIDENT."
Elsewhere, a group of children, shrouded in black fuzzy darkness, glided along the streets like sentinels of death. They spread out in lines along the side paths, exuding an aura of hopelessness and despair.
People peeked out of the dilapidated windows of their houses, and quickly shut the curtains. But that didn't stop the children. They swarmed up the rooftops, and dropped down the chimneys.
Go to sleep, my darlings,
There are demons in your bed.
When they exited the houses, and moved on to the next one, there was not a single living thing in any building. No cats, no spiders. No humans. Sometimes dinner tables had been set out. Shattered remains of glass on the floor.
The children continued on their stalk of death.
Jack had been turned back into a human, after the others deemed it was appropriate to let him walk around by himself. And they had all come up with a plan.
Jack, needless to say, did not like the plan.
"You dragged me into this," he said. "I don't need to be a part of this."
"What if I told you that we could give you your memories back?" Calvin asked rhetorically.
Rose frowned. "Can you-?"
Calvin cut over her question. "We could most definitely do it, if you wanted them back. But you'd have to help."
"Calvin, can I talk to you for a moment." Rose dragged him over to the side.
"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed at him. "You don't know how to restore his memories!"
"Maybe I do," he retorted, then sighed. "But, no, you're right, I don't know how to."
"But that's..."
"Horrible, I know, but if you recall, he tried to kill you!"
"But, he doesn't know who he is..!"
"Excuse me," Jack interrupted calmly from across the room. "What are you talking about?"
"The best way to restore your memories," Calvin said quickly before Rose could respond, and ignored her glare. "We think we've got it."
He nudged her pointedly in the stomach, and she doubled over coughing. "Yeah," she managed.
"Let's go hunt Martians, then!" Ace said, clapping her hands together.
"Yes," Hobbes said, sending an inquisitive look at Calvin. "Let's."
He shook his head.
Rose scowled in the background.
"Sugar lemon iced tea!" Calvin exclaimed suddenly.
Everyone didn't even bother looking at him.
He had obviously gone insane, if it hadn't happened already.
"...what," Rose said.
Actually, Calvin hadn't gone insane in any sense of the word. He had used the nonsense words as a distraction tactic, so he could quickly sneak off.
And by the time the others had noticed, he was long gone.
"Right," he growled, dusting off his hands. "Come and get me. All this lovely fresh time energy running about my body, plus I'm a massive paradox just waiting to happen... you can't resist me, can you?"
As if in response, a steady stream of children from Mars trickled from nearby houses. A small stream which quickly became a flood.
Calvin grinned darkly. "That's right..."
My father sang this song to me,
But he slipped and fell on a landmine,
And the Demons underneath my bed,
Ate him up.
"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves," Calvin chanted loudly. "Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe!"
He held up his hands like force fields were emitting from them. The martians were telepathic, Jack had said. He really, really, really hoped he was right.
He concentrated.
All the good things in life.
Calvinball. Playing Calvinball is good.
Especially with best friends.
Right. Like Hobbes.
And Rose.
Yes.
Watching movies on Sunday nights, and riffing them while throwing popcorn at the screen.
We did that with Pitch Perfect last week, remember?
Pulling pranks.
Watching 'Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows' until Rose starts screaming at us.
Jumping from the top of a waterfall and diving into the water.
Pushing best friends from the top of a waterfall and watching them splash into the water.
Running through a forest on Earth.
Trees.
Animals.
Pink Fluffy Unicorns that dance on rainbows.
Wha- no. Every single living thing in the universe.
"I've seen the universe," he said aloud. "And nothing- nothing- compares to Earth. I am not going to let you destroy it."
It seemed to make the children pause for a moment. They glanced at each other.
Calvin grinned in triumph.
And then everything went wrong.
The children didn't back away. They kept advancing, almost as if Calvin's determination to keep Earth alive was giving them extra spirit to stop him.
"No," he said. "No. This isn't right. You're supposed to go away."
They ignored him.
Close your eyes, my darling,
There are demons under your bed.
"Rose," Ace said in a calm tone. A voice that was way too calm for the current situation. "Did you see Calvin leave?"
Rose glanced around. She had to admit that she hadn't. "We have a problem, I think."
No one was around. No children. Especially not creepy children.
"Do you remember what I said, when we first met?" Hobbes said suddenly.
When he says something like that, it usually means one of three things; one, there's an immense danger and he's being all noble and sacrificial; two, he's about to go work on a birthday surprise for someone and doesn't want us to see, or three, he's about to blow something up.
"He's being noble and sacrificial?" Rose asked.
In response, Hobbes broke out into a run.
Ace, Rose and Jack followed.
The blackness was starting, he knew it. It was misting around him, and gathering into clumps. Images filtered through the fog. Not nice ones, either.
A face, scarred, laughing at him.
This isn't good, the part of his brain that wasn't freaking out informed him. The rest of his brain that was freaking out agreed.
Then kept on freaking out.
"I banish you from the land of Latifah!" Calvin yelled frantically. "No, wait, that's not right..."
When did I become so determined to protect my friends?
"Go away! Back to the fiery pits from whence you came!"
He groaned in slight pain as part of his hand started to dissolve. Goodbye, cruel world.
Maybe not so cruel. Life was good.
I deserve to live.
I think?
He attempted to run. Running was something he was good at. Usually, at least.
The children had formed a ring around him, which made running away harder than usual. He knew, instinctively, that touching one of them in any way would be a Very Bad Thing.
"Right, I think the universe owes me a few favors," he muttered, dropping down to the ground. There really wasn't anything else his legs felt like doing. "Anything?"
He glanced around hopefully, past the darkening clouds. "Anyone?"
Nothing.
"I would like to take the opportunity to say a few words," he said, consciousness slipping away. "Rose wasn't such a slimy girl. Hobbes is a great friend. Sorry about lying to you, Jack. I wish I could've thrown a few more water balloons at you, Derkins..."
"Back away from our friend!" screamed Hobbes and Rose together, without any sort of prompting.
Calvin lifted his head. "...oh," he said after a moment. "You're here."
His head dropped down to the street again.
The children turned, in their unnervingly synchronised way.
Yes? they seemed to be saying.
"I hadn't really got past this point," Hobbes admitted.
"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition?" suggested Ace, who was standing slightly behind them with Jack.
There was a silent, awkward standoff.
"Apparently they don't have Python on Mars," Rose said.
Jack surprised them all by beginning to speak.
"There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins."
Rose recognised the poem instantly. It was one of her favorites while she was in school. She joined him.
"And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind."
Hobbes shot an inquisitive glance.
"Pretty poems, remember?" Jack said.
"Yeah, no," the tiger said. "It's just that... you know that poem? I thought your memories were missing?"
Ace interrupted with the next verse.
"Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow,"
Hobbes chorused the next line with her.
"We will walk with a walk that is measured and slow,"
Jack and Rose joined in.
"And watch where the chalk-white arrows go,"
"To the place where the sidewalk ends," Calvin completed, standing up. "Ha! I have friends! They're my secret power, like... I don't know, Spider Sense or something!"
"Yes, we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow," Jack murmured.
"And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
The place where the sidewalk ends."
The martian children, Children of Mars, gazed steadily at them for a moment, before looking up, and evaporating.
"What just happened," Rose asked emotionlessly.
"I..." Calvin looked to where they had disappeared. "I don't know."
Hobbes smiled, weakly, and patted the Captain on the back. "Congratulations, you just saved the world."
"Yay," he deadpanned, staring at the empty spaces where the martians had been. "I guess I did."
Calvin cleared his throat slightly. "Right, so..."
"So," said the older man, glaring at him. "I heard you. I heard what you apologized for. You lied to me. What about?"
Calvin opened his mouth and closed it. Several times. "Uh..."
He was saved from further explanations by Jack's ship crash landing on the street in front of them.
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...
(A/N-
Okay, I'm just feeling worse and worse because these are getting shorter and shorter. I need to work harder. -_-
So, tons of references to obscure things in this chapter. Even some things I don't specifically know.
Rose's Theme Music is up on YouTube, so check that out!
Plus, two new DW oneshots! SHARE THE LOVE.
And please review!
~Kitty)