A shorter one, but that's an action scene for ya! Hope you don't mind. :)
"Don't move," Delphine said, and while it had been part of the things that disconcerted me just before I'd left all those years ago, the commanding precision of her tone, the one Sarah and I had named Boss-Ass Bitch Mode one drunken evening back in the day, sent a thrill down my spine.
Charlotte froze, her gun still pointed at my face, and her features reassembled into a veneer of controlled calm, but then she spoke.
"Let's think about this a moment, Dr. Cormier. You have a gun pointed at me. You could very well shoot me. But my men and I have three guns pointed at your friends. Even if I don't pull my trigger on time, they could easily take out Cosima and one other person before you aim again, and I hardly think you have the training that they do."
"Think again," my beautiful heroine snarled, and she even scared me a little bit with it. "I spent a good amount of time working on military bases, and I made friends. After everything DYAD and Rachel put us through, I made sure to get trained in firearms and self defence. And I hardly think that scenario appeals to you, since it leaves you dead, either way. "
Holy shit. Bad. Ass.
Robert and his companion barely glanced at each other, but Delphine must have seen it, because she barked another order.
"I said don't move! That means any of you."
I caught Teo looking over his shoulder at me out of the corner of my eye. Bless him, he looked almost as delighted as terrified.
"And I'm not the only one here," my lover announced. "You should know that you're surrounded. I have two operatives in the woods and more arriving."
Charlotte's face began to twitch, the mask of control dissolving.
"You're bluffing," she insisted. "My men would have known. And I also have more operatives—"
Robert grunted.
His hand had risen to the back of his neck by the time my eyes turned to him. He swayed a bit, yanked at something, and brought his hand in front of his face, a small, needle-like object tipped with a gaudy pink feather on one end pinched between his fingers. His gun hand dipped, then he seemed to rally a moment, looking at Charlotte and tilting his gun back at Michael again.
"Shit," he said.
And then he crumpled.
"Angel!" Charlotte yelled, and for a second I'd thought she'd found religion, but then her eyes flitted to her other bodyguard, and I took the opportunity to collapse downward, shielding Sevvy with my body while shoving him down and under the carriage of the car. I have no idea where that move came from. Maybe it was the training Shay forced on me when we were on the run together, or you could call it mother's instinct.
I glanced up in time to see Big Angel begin to turn, while Charlotte ducked downward, her gun angling down to point at me. Then all at once there was a blur of movement as Michael crashed into Charlotte's side, grabbing her wrist and twisting it away from me, there was a grunt, and a BANG.
And then Charlotte was half on top of me, shrieking. Before I could push at her she had rolled off again, Michael scrabbling with her, then pinning her down.
"Get his gun!" I heard Delphine yell, closer than before.
And then I felt it. Warm, wet. I looked down at myself.
There was blood all over me.
What happened?
Where was it coming from?
"Fuck!" I heard, in a voice something like mine, but lower, rougher.
Then Sarah was leaning over me.
"Cos, are you okay?" Her eyes were wide.
"I dunno, I… where's Sevvy?" I managed.
"Here, Mommy," I heard beside me, and when I turned he was shimmying from under the car to grab my shoulder and cling to it. "I'm okay, Mommy, we're not hurt."
There was still screaming going on at my other side. I clutched Sevvy to me and turned my head. Charlotte was pinned under Michael, both of them bloody. It looked like he was just holding her down, but she was writhing.
Another figure appeared, kneeling beside them, crazy bleached hair springing out from under a furry hunting cap. Helena.
"Shh-shh-shh," she shushed at Charlotte, then her arm moved quickly, and there was a needle topped with a familiar pink feather sticking out of our younger clone's neck.
"Y-you… " Charlotte managed, and then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went limp.
"Fuuuck," I heard myself mumble.
From his spot on my shoulder, Sevvy giggled.
Sarah reached down her hand to me. I took it, and pulled myself up to a sitting position, my son cradled against me.
"Alright?" Sarah asked. I looked back over at Charlotte. Michael had clambered off of her, and Helena was probing at the unconscious girl's shoulder.
"Lodged in shoulder. No major vessels," Helena reported, then looked up past me. "She will need hospital."
"Can you bind it?" I heard from the direction she was looking towards, and my heart surged at the sound of that voice. Delphine.
Helena nodded, and as I turned, my love was lowering herself to kneel beside me.
She said my name, and then I was in her arms.
Her breath came fast just above my ear as I buried my face in her sweet smelling hair. I felt Sevvy cuddle into both of us, encircled by her embrace, too.
"Delphine," I breathed, and she squeezed me, before leaning back.
Her eyes roamed my face, confirming I was well. And then I heard another sound, a throbbing beat of air, growing louder.
"Is that—?" I looked up, and a helicopter came in over the treeline, hovering over us.
"I'm sorry, my love," Delphine said, close to my ear, and I met her serious, gorgeous, multi-coloured eyes again. "I'm afraid things are about to get a bit more complicated," she said. "I had to. I didn't have a choice."
I looked back at her. I took in my son, safe in our arms, and the people I loved around me: Helena, binding Charlotte's shoulder, Michael, crouching near me and now joined by Teo, who threw one arm around each of us, Sarah standing above us, the chop from the helicopter whirling her hair.
"It's alright," I finally answered. "I love you."
And it was all that mattered.