A/N:
Okay, I'm obsessed... There, I said it. ;)
Your reviews have been so sweet and if I haven't gotten to thank you personally yet, I soon will.
Please let me know if you enjoy what you read!
~
H8 is the one for me
It gives me all I need
and helps me co-exist
with the chill
~
She felt it even at her distance.
Stifling ire radiated off him in suffocating waves, leaving the air in the small space thick enough to slice.
He concentrated intently, shadowed lines faintly creasing his forehead. He murmured something under his breath as he pressed the buttons one after another in clearly practiced order, their blue lights turning his skin an icy grey as each section of the panel switched on beneath his touch.
He straightened, shifted a final lever, and the enemy ship rumbled to life.
Jane felt more alone at that moment than she ever had – even in Thor's extended absence. Even in her cell.
She braced herself internally, pushing the feeling as far away as possible. Now was no time to be distracted.
The air craft shook and trembled beneath her feet as it fought to free itself from the rubble. The cockpit tilted, causing her to throw a hand out to her side against the hard steel of the wall.
The motors whined in protest.
He shifted the lever further, and with one final shriek of metal tearing against rock, bright sunlight burst in through the front window, and the ship slipped free.
She stumbled sideways.
The sudden force of gravity pressed down against every inch of her, her vision flickering in and out as her head weighed heavy upon her shoulders. She could feel the blood pulsing through her ears. A knot twisted deep in her stomach.
Fear bit at her – but that wasn't the cause of her suffering. She'd faced much worse than this. It couldn't be motion sickness – no, she had always loved to be moving; flying high in the sky. Close to the stars.
She focused on breathing. Deep breaths, deep breaths. But even that grew difficult as the increasing speed pushed against her lungs like a boulder balanced upon her chest.
A groan rose in her throat.
She turned to rest her back against the flat surface of the wall and slowly slid down it, her knees pressing up against her and her head falling to rest between them.
"I can't…"
Jane's arms wrapped tight around her midsection as the pain there spread. She felt it ripping through her, stretching her veins as too much energy traveled along paths too small to house it.
A deep, scarlet glow inched down the visible skin of her arms. Her eyes caught it and she held them out in front of her. The Aether rose to the surface in in rosy splotches, languidly easing its way down the inside of her elbows – her forearms – her wrists, pulsing brighter with each beat of her racing heart.
She'd felt this before. When the police had tried to arrest her back in London… when the guards swarmed her.
It pooled just beneath the surface and she felt as if she were drowning in it. Pulling her deep down beneath a red sea as she fought with struggled gasps to break the surface.
"I can't breathe."
"Then do not waste your breath on words."
His low voice barely piercing the growl of the engines and the throbbing in her ears. She had not failed to miss the warning behind it.
Jane grit her teeth, refusing to look in his direction.
"What's happening to me?" The whispered question slipped from her as the glow reached her fingertips.
Though it had not been directed toward him, he answered her.
"The energy is attempting to protect itself… to defend its host from harm," he sneered, "but it is just as trapped as you are."
And she felt it. Burning every nerve ending. Wanting free from her skin.
Her hands sizzled and vibrated before her eyes.
"What ever you did to me – you have to make it stop," she groaned, the room spinning in circles when she lifted her head to find him. "It's burning."
His jaw set as a sudden burst of ferocity tightened his eyes. They fell slowly to her.
"I owe you nothing," the hissed words were laced in venom as they slithered from his teeth. "The Aether will stay right where it is until I can control it and rip it from you with my own bare hands. Until then, I order you silent unless you wish to rush things."
She could feel the synapses in her head fire off with his threat – the heat of the bubbling Aether coursing through her brain – begging her to react.
And so she did.
She drew a deep breath. Forced another – another.
Her heart rate finally began to slow.
And she fought back against the instinctive need to slap him across the mouth.
Seconds drew on into minutes as the space around her grew increasingly clearer to her eyes. She focused so much on calming herself that his words startled her.
"Grab the railing," he ordered her evenly.
Her brow furrowed.
"What?"
"Now."
She had just enough time to slide herself forward, away from the wall enough to take the steel bar into her grip. It was cool against her slick palms.
Without warning, the ship turned on its side and the space went dark.
Sparks flickered through her closed eyelids. Metal scraped against stone at slashing speeds. Her hands kept slipping no matter how tight she held on.
She could hear parts of the ship being ripped off – clanking and screaming as they twisted and snapped in two. Glass shattered and rained over her like piercing hail. Harsh wind slapped at her face, sending her hair furling out behind her. The floor fell out from under her feet. Her hands slipped free.
Then she was falling.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Her descent was slower than the ship's unearthly speed and the release of pressure was almost relieving. She felt light – weightless.
She took a deep breath, dragging it out until her lungs were filled completely, then inched her eyes open – to a sight she'd wanted to see again as soon as it had ended the first time.
Light refracted and shimmered along the walls of the conduit. Pure energy surrounded her, sending fragments of every color imaginable dancing across the painted sky. Her hand moved toward the wall in pure awe, her fingertips slicing through a liquid rainbow, the colors mixing together where her touch dragged them down.
And she fell and fell and fell.
A spray of mist seeped through her clothes as thick, dark clouds briefly surrounded her – then blurred past.
Something was different about this time than when she had traveled with Thor.
She wasn't slowing down.
A thrill of panic flipped her heart and she fought against the air to reposition herself. She clawed and twisted frantically, running her hands deep down into the flowing ramparts of energy, her feet dragging along behind her.
She turned, but did not slow.
She only had a second to glimpse the barren earth beneath her before she faced the sky once more.
A force struck her. Hard. Flipping her so fast that her hair stuck to her face with the sudden change of direction. At the same time, something slipped upwards under her left arm. A pressure pushed down diagonally across her chest.
She closed her eyes tight and for the first time in as long as she could recall, she prayed.
The sudden impact against the ground pulsated through every bone in her body. She skidded along the dirt, the rough terrain ripping at the heels of her hands as they dragged along at her sides.
Her breaths came in shallowly as her body slowed to a stop. Orange dust rose in a thick cloud. She choked and coughed with each frantic gulp of air.
It had hurt – but not as much as she thought it should.
A gust of wind swiftly swept the dust away and for a moment she stilled to catch her breath. Her eyes searched the sky. Her tongue dipped across her lip to taste the dirt there. It took her a moment to accept the fact that she still could.
The feeling was fleeting as the ground beneath her shifted – rose a fraction. Fell.
She flinched over onto her side, her shoulder falling to rest just under his outstretched arm.
She flinched again when she saw him.
He lay half cratered in the dirt, his right arm sprawled out to where her head would have landed – the other falling across him when she moved.
He gaped wide eyed at the sky above – giving it the same look she was sure she just had. His chest softly rose and fell, his battered green tunic lifting in the barest of movements each time he drew breath. He made no sound otherwise.
Blood inked his face in small, random scratches. Tiny shards of glass still remained in a few. The pale of his skin was bronzed, caked in rust colored earth.
Though, she could only truly focus on one thing. He had broken her fall.
"You…," she coughed to clear her scratchy throat, "are you alright?"
He blinked once as if snapped from a trance. His fingers closed to tight fists, relaxed, and then closed again.
He pressed his right hand and forearm flat against the ground in an attempt to sit up.
He struggled to complete the adjustment.
Jane almost moved to help him. Almost.
She scooted herself backward some instead.
A cringe crossed his face as his torso smoothly rose upward.
He leaned forward, hands resting up, open in his lap. A dark lock of hair swiped at his forehead in the gentle breeze as he took a while to appraise the surrounding landscape. She followed his gaze.
A few yards away rested the wreckage. The dark ship had been torn clear in half, one side facing sideways in the dirt; the other buried half into the ground as if someone had forcefully twisted it there.
Beyond it, the land was fruitless. Rust-tinged dirt stretched on all around them forever, rising to touch the skyline and dipping entirely out of view in various directions. It would have been called a desert on Earth, but something about it was off.
It molded with the blood in her palms, felt alive in her hands – the texture more liquid than solid. Palpable. Fascinating.
"Are you mad?"
His incredulous tone grabbed her attention. His eyes were already on her when she turned. His right eyebrow cocked.
She released the dampened grains into the wind.
"I feel like I should be asking you that question... Where in the world are we?"
He uncurled his torso to sit upright, sucking in a hiss of pain with the motion.
"If it's not one question, it's another," He spoke through clenched teeth as he adjusted up onto his knees. "You are insufferable."
"I have every right to be," she replied carefully, her vigor evaporating as he fluidly pushed off the ground to rise to his full height.
He took a labored step in her direction.
She twitched away.
He studied her, searching the plains of her face.
"Ah, but you're not entirely foolish, are you." His gaze rose beyond her. "There's still hope yet."
The edges of her fingernails found the cuts along her palms.
"If you wanted you hurt me you would've," she returned carefully, brushing some of the sand from her jeans.
He was silent for a long moment, unmoving.
She held strong.
"If I need to hurt you, I will," he acknowledged her with only his voice. The carelessness of his tone rendered her quiet. A threat laced in promise. "Now get up."
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the ship."
She shot him a mystified glance.
He missed it, his back already turned to her as he started for the mangled wreckage. On his third pace, she noticed he favored his right leg.
"What for? You've destroyed it."
He came to a short stop, his shoulders rising fractionally as they tensed. He did not turn.
"To search for provisions," he muttered, his tone thick with impatience. "I can't have my hostage going lifeless on me," he paused for a moment to send a passive glance over his right shoulder. "And you are bleeding… profusely."
She reached a dirt layered hand to the side of her head where it throbbed most. Her fingers came back drenched in coppery red. They matched her palms.
Without further protest, she slowly staggered to her feet and followed.
Epigraph: Space Dementia - Muse