So this is the second ending I've written for this 'cause the first one seemed kinda forced in the happily-ever-after direction. If you wanna read it, lemme know. I don't know how this fits with the rest of the story in terms of atmosphere...I wrote it at about 1am last night and tweaked it a little today. Maybe people will review this one?
Finn stumbled through the swinging double doors of the back entrance of the hospital, his shoulders sagging, black dust smeared across his face. He trudged through the dim, white hallways, his footsteps echoing strangely in the night quiet. He clenched his fingers tighter around the cylindrical piece of metal he carried as he came closer to his destination. After six long, long days of searching…
He pushed open the thick door and crept into the isolated room, eyes travelling automatically to the person standing just off to the side of the entrance. The sounds of his boots against the off-white tiles of the floor were the only sounds in the room.
Finn stopped when he was standing beside her, close enough that their hands brushed momentarily. She shied away from the contact, taking a single step over, but she didn't look at him.
"We found it," he said, his voice just above a whisper. He offered her the metal rod.
Starling finally turned from what she'd been staring at. She looked just as terrible as he felt, her eyes slightly bloodshot with black circles underneath, and a pale, whitish tinge to her skin. The hospital lights probably didn't help.
The Sky Knight looked at him and nodded, and he passed her the rod. Her face oddly set, Starling slowly made her way across the room to the long, wooden box sitting in stark contrast to the rest of the room on a low table. Bracing herself internally she lifted the lid, and, bowing her head, carefully placed the retracted staff under Piper's clean, folded hands.
Finn looked away, closing his eyes. He flinched when he felt Starling's cold touch on his shoulder moments later, and stomped out of the room, his expression angry and determined. She didn't touch him again and so when Starling joined him in the hallway, Finn walked with her.
Deeper into the hospital, to a louder and brighter lit ward they walked, a silent pair bringing silence with them. People -nurses, doctors, and patients- stopped what they were doing and turned to watch them pass. But the stares slid off them easily, unimportant, trivial.
Soon they found Junko, and Stork lurking behind him. Both stood up as the two approached, and walked to meet them. They looked questioningly at Finn, through a black eye, and a slipping bandage.
"I found it," he confirmed sullenly.
Stork nodded, absently pushing the white cloth higher up his forehead. He gestured vaguely at the room outside which he and Junko had been sitting, and the window of which Starling was now frowning through, "There's still nothing."
Finn didn't have the energy to react; he seemed to have run out of emotions lately. He joined Starling at the window of the door, peering through at the single occupant lying prone on the bed.
They'd all been released from the trance at the same time. When Stork had woken up and seen both Aerrow and Piper falling through the clouds, hurtling toward a broken spire of Cyclonis' palace, he hadn't hesitated. Jumping to his feet, the Merb had leapt at the controls, steering the ship towards the
two falling Storm Hawks. The pilot had managed to maneuver the Condor under them, then slowed to just under their rate of descent, catching them without doing them any further damage. However, neither had moved. Finn and Junko, and the others on the flight deck had all rushed forward as one, surrounding both teens, checking wounds, and bones, and vitals. They hadn't found a pulse for Piper.
Aerrow was alive, but bleeding heavily through a wound on his chest, blood pouring out around the triangular blue crystal stuck in the wound. Small wisps of black mist swirled around the crystal, and dissolved completely when it was taken out.
He hadn't moved since. Not one twitch except for his steady breathing gave any sign that the young Sky Knight was still alive. The Council had ordered him to be bandaged properly and then sealed off. The room he lay in now was locked, and only the Head Councilman and one or two doctors had access. No one had been allowed in to see him; this was the best they got.
"I want to see him," Cyclonis demanded, "and I want to know what happened!"
Allowing himself the smallest of sighs, Oliver, the Head of the Sky Knight Council, slowly shook his head.
"You know I can't do that," he said in response to the girl's first request, "until he wakes up, and we know for absolute, 100% certain, that that boy is Aerrow of the Storm Hawks. As for knowing what happened, I can start at the beginning for you-"
"I know the beginning," Cyclonis said tiredly, putting her fingers to her forehead, "I want to know why P- she died, and why the Sky Knight hasn't woken up yet."
Oliver stood up, and shuffled down the steps of the large counter-desk. When he reached ground level, he reached up to put a consoling hand on Cyclonis' shoulder. He steered her to the back room, and sat her down in a hard-backed chair before pacing in front of her.
"I can only guess," he admitted, "not having been there myself, and not being in either of their minds. Piper died because that crystal she used needed a sacrifice to work, and it took her life's energy."
He paused, and turned old, tired eyes to the disgraced young queen before him. Breathing deep, he shook his head again, "As for why Aerrow hasn't woken…there are many possibilities. The first, most likely reason would be that the Darkness was not lying when it said it had killed him, and Piper sealed it in a body no longer alive. Or perhaps, Aerrow is still alive, but was not strong enough to break through the Darkness and was sealed with it. And then there is the possibility that Aerrow has simply been under too much stress, and his mind locked itself in an effort of self-preservation, and his coma will break whenever he's ready to deal with everything that has happened."
Here Oliver stopped, and sank heavily into the large chair opposite Cyclonis'. He hung his head and sighed.
"We just don't know," he mumbled.
When he showed no sign of continuing, or moving in the near future, Cyclonis stood silently, and, after a moment's hesitation, quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her.
Oliver looked up, staring at the dark paneled wood of the door, his mind on the other side of the Terra, in sealed room of the Atmosia General Hospital. In his head he saw a picture of an eager eleven year old boy, asking to become a Sky Knight, and compared it to the recent memory of same boy, fourteen years old, lying still and pale on a hospital bed, silent as the grave.
He wondered if, had he denied that bright eleven year old nobody the chance to train as a Knight, any of this would have happened. Would that same innocent boy be smiling on some far off Terra, blissfully unaware of the evil he harboured inside himself?
"Oh, Sky Knight," the Councilman moaned, "I know you can do this. Please, wake up!"
Finn stood on the edge of the Terra, looking out over the seemingly endless expanse of swirling clouds, watching the sun set. It bathed the entire world a brilliant orange, gleamed off the metal armour he wore, and it seemed to catch in his hair, giving it an overall fiery look. It reminded him of the night this whole thing started.
Radarr shifted on his shoulder, breaking his train of thought. Looking around at the others, Finn let himself worry about the future. What was going to happen to them now? Almost half of their family had been taken from them, and each of them had suffered some sort of damage at the Darkness' hands. Would they split up and try to recover on their own, in their own way? He vaguely remembered Stork saying something about only staying until something better showed up. Would a chance to run from this reality count as "something better"?
"What now?" he finally asked when he couldn't take not knowing any more.
He looked at each person in turn and, though no one directly answered him, Starling had an answer on her face. She smiled at them all, and gestured toward the Condor, and then she turned and led them back to the only home they'd really known. She walked with her back straight, and her head held high, silent tears running down her cheeks as she cried for the second family she'd lost, and the fears of the third she was building.
And all of them followed her.
Pff, yeah, how's that for an ending? Xd