A/N: Hi guys! So here it is; part 3! I won't be able to update so often, though, because I have a lot of stuff on my plate and work is a little hectic. I'll do the best I can, but I apologize beforehand if I don't update fast enough!
Enjoy!
xXx
CeruleanBlues
Roads Untraveled
Part 3
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 1130hrs (New Earth)
"Loosely translated, these four hieroglyphs mean 'the point of beginning'," Quinn explained, tracing her fingers over the circular Gallifreyan symbols.
Finn arched an eyebrow. "Loosely translated?"
"Unlike other hieroglyphs that usually comprises of logograms and complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, the Circular Gallifreyan writing system comprises of pure syllables and moras," she proceeded on to elaborate, gesturing animatedly with her hands in an attempt to aid her running commentary, not that it helped much because she had four sets of eyes staring blankly back at her.
It was Brody to the rescue.
"A mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight," he began, exercising his linguistic qualifications. "An English word is usually a coda, comprising of a consonant and a vowel, and thus represents a mora. In simpler terms, they're basically sounds."
"Exactly," the epigrapher nodded, visibly impressed. "Now, that's easy enough to decode. The only problem is that these Circular Gallifreyan are not in the English language. And without any logograms for reference, translating Time Lord scribes is a tricky business. We can only rely on the almanacs and our inference skills."
"And you're sure those symbols mean 'the starting point'?" Puck asked.
She grimaced. "Not really. It could be that or 'proceed beyond the horizon'."
"Well, that's helpful," Mike muttered. "What do we do now?"
Quinn smirked and once again pulled out her trusted journal, optimistically waving it in the air. "Now, we follow the directions."
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 1300hrs (New Earth)
They came to a halt in front of a wall; a dead end in a tiny crook between two boulders. The sun was positively sweltering, beaming down as though mocking them with its unbearable heat. Sam's T-shirt was now stuck to his back, is torso entirely drenched, and his blonde hair matted to his forehead and dripping sweat down the nape of his neck.
"What do we do now, Quinn?" he asked, propping his foot up on a stray rock. "Did we miss a turn or head in the wrong direction?"
Her nose was buried deep in her journal, a contemplative look on her face. "No, we're right where we're supposed to be and nothing else. I think I'll need to get started on translating the third volume."
"All right, then," Sam declared, turning to his men. "The rest of us will scour the perimeter, establish a baseline and do a quick sweep for threats. We can never be too careful. With our equipment malfunctioning, I don't trust that we're entirely safe. Something's telling me that it's not the planet's force fields that are causing the disturbances in frequencies. Brody, you're going to be Quinn's number two."
As the group dispersed, Sam gained some leverage on higher grounds. He scanned the terrain for anything that was amiss when all of a sudden, his wrist monitor began emitting a shrill, piercing beep. Brows furrowing, he glanced down at it, only to receive distorted images and a screen of static. And then he heard a sound that sent a chill up his spine.
He blinked up at the sky in time to see a ball of light break through the atmosphere and soar across with a trail of white smoke in its wake. Two more similar anomalies followed closely behind, a sight he was so attuned to, there was no mistaking what those unidentified objects were.
"Fuck," he hissed, spitting the words out like vermin as he sprinted back to base. "Motherfuckers."
Puck rounded on him halfway, having witnessed the intrusion as well, and Sam had him find the others while he went back for Quinn and Brody. Upon noticing his distress, they immediately shot to their feet.
"What's wrong?" she demanded to know, shoving papers haphazardly into her satchel.
He revealed nothing until his three other men were present.
"We're being compromised," Sam informed then as calmly as possible, and by the look on each of their faces, he knew that they were aware of it too. "Someone knows that we're here. My hunch is that they're intersecting our frequencies and sabotaging our equipment. We can't stay here; they'll just track us down. We also need to keep our communication to a minimal—the lesser we talk, the better—because our words are ammo for them."
"Do you know who they are?" Quinn whispered.
"It could be anybody and everybody in the whole freaking galaxy who wants to get their hands on our Holy Grail," Puck growled.
"Either way, it doesn't matter," Sam interjected tersely. "We need to get out of here before they could fix on our coordinates."
"I thought you said that our vests are able to camouflage our body's heat signatures?"
He turned to the female epigrapher, unleashing the full potential of his stunning green eyes. "Thermal scanning is not the only way to detect a person, Quinn." She swallowed hard, a flash of worry clouding her otherwise ethereal features, and he had to resist the urge to take her in his arms and protect her from harm's way. However, his duty as an agent was a first priority. Doing his job would ensure her safety. "So listen up, team. As of now, I want you to switch off each and every device that you carry. We need zero transmission of anything. The slightest emission of wavelengths could cost us in this mission."
When that was done, they began heading north-west, intentionally navigating through some tougher turfs as Finn did the important job of covering their footprints. Ten miles out, they stopped at a clearing, and as Sam surveyed the area, Quinn took the opportunity to continue with the tedious task of translating the rest of the fifteen pages.
"All right, here's what we're going to do," he announced. "We're going to split up."
Quinn bristled at his absurd plan, jumping to her feet and allowing the journal to tumble off her lap. "What? No fucking way, Sam."
"We have to," he spoke with a firmness of a team leader. "You and Brody are to stay here. The rest of us are going to scout the ships that have landed. If we can take them down, we will, or at least we'll buy you some time to figure out the rest of the codex. We'll distract them and lure them away. Brody, you're her cover; no matter what happens, you protect her. If we don't make it back in time, go ahead without us, understood?"
"That's the worse idea I've ever heard," Quinn spat out heatedly. "You're just feeding yourselves to the alligators."
"Quinn, trust me," he said with an impressive amount of patience considering the situation at hand. "We're highly skilled agents. We've been on more missions that you've set foot on Gallifrey; it's not going to be a problem."
"Why can't we just wait it out and see what happens?" she appealed. "That way, nobody goes and gets themselves unnecessarily killed."
His hand shot out reflexively to grab her forearm. "It'll be too late. Besides, nobody dies on my watch, remember?"
"But can't you just—"
He silenced her with a kiss instead—altogether disregarding public decorum, much to the amusement of his men—and effectively left her dazed and flustered. She tasted like honey and granola and everything about the barren land mixed into one, and he couldn't get enough. It took everything in his will to pull away, and when he did, the image of her chasing after his lips nearly undid him. The only thing stopping him from pulling her back in his arms and snogging her senseless was the sound of Finn pointedly clearing his throat.
"I'll see you soon," he murmured.
Her sweet breath came in warm puffs against his cheek as she turned to whisper in his ear.
"Not if I see you first."
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 1635hrs (New Earth)
"So," Brody began, attempting to sound casual, and Quinn stiffened slightly, realizing what he was about to say even before he said it. "You and Sam, huh?"
Using the oldest trick in the book—dirty shot or not—she feigned ignorance and continued scribbling notes in her journal. "I don't know what you're talking about, Weston."
He chuckled, ruffling the back of his copper-colored hair. "You're seriously going to sit there and play that card on me?"
She heaved a sigh and finally glanced up at him. "Yes, because it's none of your business, or anyone else's for that matter."
"Hate to break it to you, Fabray, but it kind of is."
"Oh, yeah?"
He nodded and gave her an empathetic smile. "As field agents, we were trained not to be too emotionally attached to our missions, and that includes the people we interact with and the places we go to; you see where I'm going with this, don't you?"
The weight of his words crashed down on her, at the implications of the complexity in her involvement with Agent Sam Evans, and though she didn't want to admit it, he was completely right. She could chalk it up on temporary insanity all she wanted—moral support during a stressful situation, if she could so much as fool herself to believe it—but the truth of the reality was that establishing a proximity at that moment could jeopardize everything that they came to Gallifrey for. Emotional entanglements would only make things harder for everybody.
"Sam and I are not involved," she mumbled, unsure whom she was really trying to convince. "We're not like that."
"Well, that kiss earlier kind of disproved what you just told me."
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 1650hrs (New Earth)
"They couldn't have landed too far off from where we did," Sam surmised, his voice biting and tight as he vigilantly kept his watchful gaze ahead of him. His guards were up, and with each calculated step, he grew more leery of the intruders. "Chances are, they've tracked our Void Pods and are checking it out for traces and stray signals."
"I have a bad feeling about this, Sam," Mike hissed closely behind him.
"I'm not chuffed about this either," the team leader growled, keeping his grip firm on the mini sonic blaster in his hand. "But if we can keep those motherfuckers occupied with us and throw them off Quinn and Brody's trail, at least it would slow them down."
A wide grin spread across Puck's face, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "We should totally snag some of their weapons and ammo, and if we're lucky maybe we'll even find a sweet ride to hitch on."
Finn glared at him. "Not a priority, Puckerman."
Sam spotted streams of white smoke rising from over the shallow plateau. He turned to the geographical field specialist for his expert opinion, and after Finn's nod of approval, they made the swift ascend up to the flat bed of rocks, darting in between the huge boulders for a proper vantage point. From where they were crouched, hidden and loosely camouflaged by the charred remains of some trees, they had a clear view of their interlopers.
"Three Void Ships from what I can see," Mike noted, craning his neck. "Fifteen to twenty people at least; they seem to be setting up base."
"Damn, Brody has the binoculars," Sam groused, miffed that nothing seemed to be going according to plan. It was, after all, supposed to be an easy mission. "Anybody has a spare?"
"That's a negative, dude," Puck replied.
"I have a Topo Ranger, if that helps," Finn offered, fishing a hand-held gadget from his thigh holster. "Minimal zoom and it'll just look like a bunch of lines to you but it calculates distance to the millimeter."
"It'll do."
Through the singular viewfinder, Sam was able to access the ballgame. He wasn't able to identify anybody, but he was certain the scornful-looking woman standing in the epicenter of it all with an intimidating scowl on her face was a key figure, as people scrambled fearfully around her. She had short-cropped blonde hair and a questionable choice in fashion for wearing a cherry red tracksuit and trainers. He took note of the academics and the bodyguards, analyzing their wit and firepower.
"A matriarch, her minions and her henchmen," he smirked. "That's just a classic, isn't it?"
"Any idea who she is?" Mike asked.
"Not a fucking clue," Sam said, until a sight caused him to freeze. "Shit, that's Mercedes Jones."
"Minion or henchman?" Puck questioned with a quirk of his eyebrow.
Sam observed the two women's interactions, noticing their similar air of authority. "I'd say that she's the co-matriarch."
Finn let out a long groan. "God, I hate those. One bitchy hussy intent on ruling the world is bad enough without a second one."
"I don't think they're actually planning to rule the world, Finn," Puck retorted sarcastically.
"What else do they have, Sam?" Mike enquired with his brows furrowed.
Sam did another quick sweep. "I'm seeing a couple of K-9s. That's going to be a fucking nightmare to deal with. They're slow-moving robots, but they can sniff you out like a damn Doberman."
"K-9s are black market shit," Puck snorted. "We can have them arrested just on illegal accounts alone."
All of a sudden, something whizzed by in front of his lens. He blinked, and then he was staring straight at a spherical object hovering in the sky, a laser grid pointing directly at them.
"Oh, fuck," he breathed. "Air Drones."
"Don't move a single muscle," Mike uttered through gritted teeth as the self-piloted object zeroed in on their location.
With bated breaths, the four men watched as the laser net grazed achingly slow over their heads. Sam pressed his lips into a thin line; his hands gripping Topo Ranger so tightly, his knuckles were turning white.
It was a good ten seconds later, after the drone had long buzzed off, that the agents simultaneously exhaled.
"Fucking hell," Finn croaked. "So what's the next plan of action, then, Sam?"
He grinned.
"We wait till sundown."
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 1800hrs (New Earth)
"I've got it!"
Brody, who was on the verge of dozing off, positively jumped at her outburst, narrowly falling off the rock that he had been perching on. Quinn, who had witnessed the entire ordeal—and felt for his bruised dignity—tried her best to stifle her laughter.
"You okay there, buddy?" she snickered.
He frowned as he dusted himself off. "Just peachy. Why are you trying to give me a heart attack, anyway?"
"I've figured it out," she gurgled excitedly. "Damn those Time Lords for being such a long-winded bunch, but the last five pages were all I needed." Practically shoving the journal into his chest, Quinn directed him to a clause of ten characters. "Right here—where the Time Lords were usually rather literal with their descriptions—this bit speaks of a riddle."
"Points to one, then points to another," Brody read her translations aloud. "Looks can be deceiving. Huh, that character spells two words? Really?"
Quinn scoffed and snatched the book back from his hands. "All of that and the one thing that stood out to you were the grammar and not the semantics?"
"Right, you're right," he sobered up. "'Looks can be deceiving' could be referring to the wall that we came across earlier. It could be something that we couldn't see or perhaps there's a perception filter placed on it."
She snapped her journal shut. "We need to go back there."
"What? Why?"
Rolling her eyes, Quinn refrained from sighing again. "Because we need to look for whatever it is that we're not seeing."
"Did you just hear yourself?" he countered. "We have no idea what we're going to be looking for. We could be stuck there for hours and not find anything, and we won't have any back up in the case that someone tracks us down. Sam would slay me alive just for considering your idea."
Her patience was fast thinning into miniscule atoms in the air. "He also said to go on without them if we find something before they do. Going back there is the only way and you know that."
She could tell that he was fighting an internal battle with his conscience and in a desperate attempt, she stuck her bottom lip out and gave him her best puppy-dog look, eyelashes fluttering for full effect, and she noticed the instant his resolve crumbled and his shoulders sagged in defeat. It was convenient times like these that she thoroughly enjoyed being a woman.
"Okay, fine," he relented. "But if I end up with Sam on my ass, you'll have to answer to it."
"Sure, I promise."
They were packing up their gear and double-checking the surroundings when he came up with the idea that they should probably leave an indication of their whereabouts, in case the other lads were to show up and panic over finding them missing. Nothing too forward, perhaps a coded message—preferably not in Circular Gallifreyan—and then Brody was wielding a sonic flashlight and carving light indents on the rock that they had been sitting on.
"You think they'll figure it out?" she wondered.
"Absolutely. Let's go."
It took a considerably lesser amount of time to head back to the aforementioned wall but the sun was already starting to set, casting the reddish sky into a darker shade of maroon, and bathing the rocky landscape in a rather morbid scene. Shadows of sharp-edged ridges protruded out like daggers from the ground, and the place looked like a death trap.
"Do you have the Infrared Goggles with you?" he asked when it became apparent that visibility was going to be a problem.
"Yeah, I do."
"Well, now is a good time to put it on."
"Can't we just use your sonic flashlight or something?"
He wrinkled his nose in objection. "And risk detection?"
The contraption was a little too big and heavy on her, and as she strapped it around her head, it became a chore to adjust it every single time it slipped down the bridge of her nose. Brody was none too helpful about that; he seemed to find her troubles entertaining, if anything at all. With her vision aided with greens and blacks, it became slightly easier to navigate through the harsh slabs of rocks.
She didn't notice anything different the second time round, not even with the state-of-the-art equipment, and she began to feel the weight of anxiousness settle in the depths of her gut.
"We'll just have to search for an opening," she murmured, running her hands gingerly over the slab of stone. "If there is indeed a perception filter placed on this wall, then we need to find a way to deactivate it."
"Why couldn't the Time Lords have made it easier?" Brody grumbled as he combed the bottom corners. "Place a signage or a button or an obvious lever for a trap door or something—"
"Wait, trap door," Quinn whispered, and then she was down on her hands and knees, sweeping away rubble and dirt with a newfound gusto that matched the warmth of her revelation.
"What are you doing?"
She was getting grime underneath her fingernails and her trousers were soiled, but those were the least of her worries. "Remember those hieroglyphs we saw on the ground?"
He sank down next to her and barely hesitated before he too was brushing aside gravel and sand. "Yeah, what about them?"
"They weren't on a wall."
Brody paused in his movements for a second, and when it was clear he understood, his efforts redoubled, scraping through the soil with enthusiastic fervor. A frenzy of excitement rippled in the air, the prospect of discovery making the epigrapher and the agent a little bit giddy.
A good fifteen minutes later, their next clues were revealed.
"Oh, wow," Quinn gasped.
"What does it say?"
"Look ahead."
When they did, all they saw were the gentle curves of the mountains. In the growing evening, they were nothing but mere humps rising above the horizon, but Quinn knew that in the bright daylights, those towering beasts of nature were one of the most beautiful sights in all of Gallifrey.
"The white wall."
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 1950hrs (New Earth)
He heard a yell, and then the first shots were fired. Sam grinned; it was his cue to move in. With one last peek at the roving spotlights guarding the area, he made a quick dash across the makeshift courtyard and ducked behind a tire of the nearest Void Ship. Rounds pierced through the stillness of the night; a perfect distraction.
Five feet away, he recognized Mike's silhouette stooping low behind a crate of supplies. The K-9s were nowhere to be seen, and there were three possible locations to find them. He stole a quick glimpse around his hiding spot and noticed an opening. With their headsets still malfunctioning, Sam couldn't afford his team to split up again.
He gave Mike a curt nod and signaled for the other agent to cover his back as he slipped into the ship. Glancing around, it became obvious that the vessel was used for logistics purposes. Storage units lined the short corridors until he chanced upon a room at the end of the hallway. With Mike following closely behind, he made a motion to enter. Dexterously prying the door open, he crossed the threshold and into the dimly-lit space, barely large enough to accommodate a person.
And then he heard the familiar pulsing of a sonic blaster.
"Who are you?" a voice hissed lowly.
Sam turned around, deliberately slow, with his hands in the air, only to face a rather terrified-looking man in his mid-forties shakily holding a weapon to his face. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, and if anything, the person reminded Sam of an uncle he never knew he had.
Too easy.
In one swift move, he had the man pinned to the floor, the firearm cluttering across the metal grating and disappearing underneath the desk by the wall.
"I think the question here is 'who are you'?" Sam growled in the man's ear. "And what are you doing in Gallifrey?"
"You're with her, aren't you?" he wheezed. "That epigrapher."
Sam felt the icy prickle at the back of his head at the mere mention of her.
"You have five seconds to tell me who you are and who you're working for," the agent demanded tersely, pulling out his own sonic blaster from his thigh holster and digging its nozzle into the nape of the guy's neck. Hearing him speak of Quinn ignited a protective fury in his being. "Five. Four. Three. Two—"
"All right," he blurted out. "I'm Jacob Ben Israel. I work as a TA at the UAS under Professor Sue Sylvester."
"The lady in the tracksuit?" he deadpanned.
"Yes, that's her," he babbled on. "She heads The Book of Rassilon Project at the university."
"What happened to Figgins?"
"She had him fired. After she heard about Torchwood's involvement in the search, she became interested—or obsessed—with finding it herself. She knew that Quinn Fabray is the key to deciphering the codex and the only way to find the book is to find her."
"And where do you come in, then?"
"I'm just a linguist. She wants me to figure out all that we have of Quinn's translations, and if I don't, my job and family are in jeopardy," he whimpered, close to sobbing. "And I can't let anything happen to my wife and two kids. They're all I have."
Sam darted his eyes up to meet Mike's apprehensive ones. In synchronized understanding, the other agent stepped into the room and as quietly as possible closed the door.
"Okay, buddy, here's what you're going to do," he said, asserting authority. "You're going to tell us everything—all of Sue Sylvester's plans—and then you're going to conveniently forget that we were ever here, because I can assure you that Torchwood has a bigger influence in your career path than a woman with a greed for power."
Jacob looked as though he was about to protest, but when it became apparent what his options were, he heaved a compliant sigh and began cooperating, spilling details in a tangled mess of words. It wasn't long until Mike and Sam had all the information that they needed and was heading for the main circuit boards to activate the frequency stabilizer.
"Can you lock it?" Sam asked.
"Give me a second," Mike replied, determination in his voice as he furiously tapped away on the system controls.
The overwrite triggered the alarm, alerting everyone of their presence. Knowing that they had but a couple of minutes before someone came for them, the two agents decided to split up. After checking that their headsets were working perfectly once again, Mike trudged down the corridor to locate the K-9s.
Sam heard heavy footsteps approaching and stooped behind a metal cabinet, weapon drawn and ready. And then there were voices—irritated and gruff—of two of the henchmen, and patiently he waited until they were within range before he attacked. Swift and effective—a couple of blows to the jaw, a hard kick to the midsection, another punt to the tailbone—and he had two unconscious thugs sprawled on the grating.
The headset crackled in his ear.
"Sam, you there?"
He chuckled. "Never thought I'd actually enjoy hearing your voice, Puck."
"Shut up."
"What's your 20?"
"Rappel drop zone," his teammate informed. "Finn and I still have incoming fire, but it'll be a while before those idiots realize that they're shooting at the wrong spot."
"Good job. Head back to first position," Sam instructed, turning at a junction that would lead him out the back exit of the ship. "Mike, how are the K-9s coming along?"
"One more circuit to fry and I'm done," the agent replied. "There are a couple of Air Drones in here too. You want me to tear them apart?"
"Think you can handle it?"
"Piece of cake."
Kasterborous Constellation, Gallifrey, Arcadia
13.04.2805, 2130hrs (New Earth)
They stood at the base of the mountain, both trying to catch their breaths.
"Do we really need to climb up there?"
Quinn tilted her head back to register the daunting task, and groaned internally, removing the goggles on her head. "God, I seriously hope not."
"So what do we do now?" Brody wondered out loud, copying her actions and pocketing the equipment into holster. "Is there something from the fourth book that we can use as a clue? Any more hieroglyphs that we're supposed to find now that we're here? You're certain this is where we're supposed to be, yes?"
She could feel an impending migraine creeping up. Never before had she been in such a stressful position, let alone have an entire human civilization depend on her to prevent a tragedy of cataclysmic proportions from happening.
"I don't know, Brody," she muttered, rubbing her temple. "Let me just sleep on it for a second, okay?"
"I'm sorry, Quinn, but we're really running out of time and—"
"I know that, Agent Weston," she snapped. "But I haven't slept in over thirty-six hours. I'm fucking exhausted. My brain is going to explode if I think for one more second. All I need is a quick nap, all right?"
He clicked his tongue, as though it was too much to ask of him, but then she was glaring daggers through his skull, and he must've realized how crucial her request was because he promptly shut his trap and granted her the short reprieve. Grumbling and cursing under her breath, Quinn made a pillow out of her backpack and had drifted off before much else.
It could've been hours, or possibly mere minutes, but then she was rudely awoken by gentle nudges to her shoulder and someone whispering her name in her ear. She stirred, eyelids still on half-mast and blearily aware of her surroundings, until Brody's face entered her line of vision, looking slightly perturbed.
"Hey, Quinn," he whispered harshly. "You need to get up now. I think we're being followed."
"What?" she croaked.
"Now, now, now."
Her body was barely catching up to the present before she was shoved into a tuft of dry shrubbery. She winced as the sharp branches scratched her skin, but then Brody was clasping his hand over her mouth and signaling for silence. Miffed, and still grumpy, she smacked his arm away, having enough of being manhandled one too many times that day.
And then she heard it; the sound of footsteps, like boots on the hard ground.
Every last trace of sleep left her after that as she turned to the agent on duty to protect her. He was cradling a sonic blaster tightly in his grip, guarded and ready to pounce. Among the quiet, the shuffling noises grew louder; there were more than one of them. Brody shifted, adjusting his stance, and between the cracks in the bush, she saw four silhouettes emerging from the shadows.
"Quinn? Brody?"
"Oh, thank God," she breathed, jumping to her feet.
The holographic projection on Sam's wrist monitor made his boyishly handsome face glow, and before she could think to keep her actions in check, Quinn was launching herself into his strong arms. He welcomed her without hesitation, enveloping her in his safe cocoon.
"Shit, you guys scared the crap out of us," she softly chastised against the column of his neck.
He chuckled apologetically and held on tighter, burying his nose in her hair. "I'm sorry; we didn't mean to do that."
"How'd you guys get here so fast anyway?" Brody asked, folding his arms across his chest. "Did you fly or something?"
"Teleport," Mike explained, looking exceptionally smug as he thrust an arm out. "We stole a couple of black market Vortex Manipulators from the ship. Went back and saw that little message you left for us, and it took little to figure out what it said. When we arrived at the wall and couldn't find you, we traced your DNA signature and locked it to the VM. Also, your equipment should also be working fine now, Brody. We've been right about the frequency disturbances; found the stabilizers and locked it. Should be almost impossible to decode the overwrite now."
"Did you find out whom those Void Ships belong to?" Quinn added to question.
"Professor Sue Sylvester," Finn announced.
"What?" she gasped. "But why would—she wasn't even interested in the project and—Figgins—what is he—"
"We had a run-in with a certain Jacob Ben Israel," Sam chimed in. "He told us everything; Mercedes Jones' involvement, Sue's plans to track you down—"
"Track me down?"
"Don't worry, doll," Puck drawled. "We took care of that. They're going to be blind and handicapped for a while."
"But now that we're aware that there's a legitimate threat to you and the book, we can't allow for this to drag on," Sam informed her solemnly. "Please tell me that you know what's next."
Quinn stepped back and released a shuddering exhale. "I don't."
"She needs to start translating the fourth book," Brody supplied. "We can't figure out anything until she does."
Gnawing on her bottom lip, she avoided their intense gazes and focused on the gravel beneath her feet. All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and not wake up till she turned sixty; she needed a break—a breather—just for one night.
"That can be done tomorrow," Sam decided. "We'll sleep in shifts and let Quinn rest her mind, okay? Mike and Puck, you'll take the first quarter."
After everybody had settled down, Quinn dragged her sleeping bag over to where Sam was prone atop his own makeshift mattress and staring up at the stars, and she chose to make camp next to him. Tucking her hands beneath her head, she peacefully studied his profile in the dim glow of the portable heater, watching his long lashes flutter each time he blinked.
"What is it?" he murmured without taking his eyes off the velvet sky.
"Thank you."
He turned then to face her, brows slightly furrowed. "What for?"
She smiled, something warm and grateful. "For understanding."
Instead of replying to her, he mutely unzipped her sleeping bag and wriggled under his own. Before she could question his intentions, though, he was reaching out for her waist and tugging her closer. Ensconced together in one single bedroll, she could feel his heat seep through the material of her shirt and trousers. Her socks-clad feet bumped against his; and as she readjusted to the proximity and how wonderful it was to be held in his arms, Quinn suddenly found herself lost in the sudden onslaught of blissful sensations coursing down her spine. The corner of his lips twitched in a lopsided grin a splitting moment before he leaned in to grant her a slow, lingering kiss.
"Go to sleep, Quinn."
"I'll see you soon."
"Not if I see you first."
Weep not for roads untraveled
Weep not for sights unseen
May your love never end
And if you need a friend
There's a seat here alongside me
A/N: So there it is! Part 3 of Roads Untraveled. I like how it's more action-packed in this chapter and that everybody is so involved in one way or another. Obviously, I've rated this story M for a reason, so let's see what the last part will bring :P
NileyOvergron: Hi there! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I really appreciate it! I'm glad you liked that Quinn made the first move! I suppose in this chapter you kind of realize the reason why (sort of). Hope you've enjoyed this update! Cheers!
RJRRAA: Hello there! Thank you so much for reading and leaving a review! You're very welcome! I'm glad you've enjoyed the previous chapter! And yes, more Fabrevans moments in this update too! Hope you like this chapter! Cheers!
Jason: Hi there! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'm glad you liked it!
FabrevansFTW: Hello there! Thank you so much for reading and leaving a wonderful review! I really appreciate it! Yeah, balancing sci-fi and romance is a bit tough, especially with so much action going on and a mission to complete! Truthfully, I had to do some research on time flux. I had no idea what it means, no clue how to go about understanding the science, so I made it up. I reckoned if it made sense to me, it should make some kind of sense to people, right? LOL! Hope you've enjoyed this update! Cheers!
OhHeyAl: Hi there! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Sci-fi actually boggles my mind to bits. Some of the lingoes were borrowed from Doctor Who (location, K-9, Vortex Manipulator, Rassilon etc.) but when I do need to invent something, I just go about naming something that makes sense to me. I love that quote! It's a great prompt for a Fabrevans story! Hope you've enjoyed this chapter! Cheers!
Song used: "Roads Untraveled" by Linkin Park