A/N: Despite the show being over now and me not even liking it for the past two seasons, I can't stop thinking about Bess and her ridiculously tragic backstory. I really can't. I especially think that Bess running off with the crystal and leaving George to die in 307 should have been explored more, especially when related to her backstory. So here's me exploring what might have happened if Bess actually got away.
Also, I'm completely ignoring the existence of Temperance because she was boring nonsense with motives that made no sense and I don't care 3
Finally, you may be wondering if the name of this fic is based on the Jon Bellion song of the same name. It's not. It's based on the Warrior cats animated music video set to the Jon Bellion song. Because I am cultured.
/
"Okay. So. Yeah, you probably think I'm a horrible person for this. I know it probably looks like I just abandoned George while her life hangs in the balance." Bess let out a little laugh that was bordering on hysterical. "But let's not think of it as leaving her for dead, okay? Let's think of it as splitting up to save you both. Nancy looks for a way to save George's life while I look for a way to bring you back. Teamwork! Yay!"
She wasn't convincing herself, and the glowing blue crystal in her hands didn't seem convinced, either.
She had no idea whether Odette could see from inside the crystal where her soul was trapped, but if she could, she wouldn't exactly have seen the picture of an innocent woman. Bess was frantically rummaging through her old stuff for something she hadn't thought she'd need: an escape kit.
Bess had once heard that people who lived through the Great Depression spent the rest of their lives hoarding food and resources in case they needed it later, that the period of uncertainty and fear had shaken them to their core and impacted them for the rest of their lives. This was sort of like that. She didn't hoard food—apart from the two boxes of energy bars in the pack—but she'd been thrown out of enough places in the last ten years to know to always be prepared.
The escape kit really wasn't much: An old backpack filled with her favourite mementos, the energy bars, a phone charger, some extra clothes, her driver's license and passport bearing the name Bess Turani (both of which were expertly made fabrications from her time in London), and all the cash she could squirrel away.
She told herself that she would be back for the rest of her stuff soon—because she would—once Nancy had saved George and Bess had saved Odette.
Yeah.
Still, she hated leaving everything else behind.
It would have been nice to take her van, to have everything, to leave behind nothing, just in case, just to feel a little less like she was leaving home, but that would've been asking to be found. Detective Nancy Drew was certainly armed with her photographic memory of Bess's license plate and model number, and with that knowledge, she would catch up to Bess in no time.
Then, there was the matter of her phone. Ace would certainly be able to track it, wouldn't he? She waffled a bit on leaving it behind, on having no contact with her friends. She'd be back soon, she told herself, and it wouldn't be hard to get a new phone.
So ten minutes later, Bess was waiting anxiously at the bus stop, with no clue as to her friends' whereabouts, begging Horseshoe Bay public transit to be on time just this once. She kept stealing dodgy glances over her shoulder—another thing that made her look guilty as hell, but she kept expecting Nancy or even somehow an angry George to come crashing through and drag Odette to her doom.
By some miracle, that didn't happen.
The bus rolled up. Bess cast a few more cagey glances behind her.
No one was going to stop her.
Bess got on the bus.
Not many people were taking a bus to the airport in the middle of the day on a Tuesday afternoon, so Bess was able to sink down into an isolated seat and mutter to a rock like a proper crazy person.
The bus was moving. She was saying goodbye. Again. Only for a short time, she told herself as an afterthought.
She gripped Odette tighter. Even through the glassy prison of the crystal, she could feel Odette's soul, her beautiful and powerful and fateful soul that had stroked her face and spoken French terms of endearment to her and who would care for her when she was free again. Bess couldn't bring herself to destroy it. It was an impossible situation, she explained quietly to Odette. Either way, she would endanger someone's life: leave George or smash that soul in the crystal. She couldn't do that.
The bus stopped for a torturously long time at a light just outside of Nancy's neighbourhood, where George was undoubtedly still dying and Nancy was certainly scrambling to put together a Plan B, but she would find one; it was what she did.
Still, the stop made Bess uneasy, every second unbearably drawn out. It was as if the bus was giving her a second chance, asking if she was really sure she wanted to do this…
Some people made a habit of eating too much or biting their nails or smoking. Bess's habit was running off and leaving people screwed. It had been well-ingrained during her teenage years, and it turned out even the power of friendship wasn't enough to break a habit that deep.
The bus moved on soon enough.
And then came the great addictive glory of leaving, of getting out, of fresh starts and open roads, just Bess and her ill-gotten treasure riding into the unknown.
/
"George Fan."
The words pulled George out of a deep sleep, the most peaceful rest she had ever known. For a moment, she resisted, tried to burrow herself deeper into the warmth enveloping her, but it was futile. Her rest had been broken.
George opened her eyes. What she had believed to be warm nest of blankets turned out to be the wet embrace of a waist-deep bog. She raised her arms, trying to untangle them from the strings of algae that were stuck to her.
And that wasn't even the worst part.
The bog extended as far as her eyes could see, completely devoid of movement and life, all gray fog and dead plants stock-still in the water.
"George Fan."
George turned and leapt; behind her on a tall rock perched a crouching and shriveled corpse with wrinkled bronze skin. Like the rest of the bog, he was unmoving. When he spoke, his mouth did not move and George heard his steady and melodic words only in her head, but his beady blank eyes glowed a piercing milky blue.
"Wh-what the hell?" George steeled her voice, tried to sound angry or annoyed instead of lost and small, but the waver in her voice betrayed her.
"Do not be afraid," the corpse said evenly, making George grit her teeth.
"I'm not."
"You are safe here. But, regrettably, you are also alone."
"I can see that." George was starting to sweat. The stillness and the loneliness was starting to get to her; time seemed to stretch out. She needed answers. "Where exactly is here?"
"The Fen of Psychostasia."
"Okay," George said, unimpressed. "It's kind of a dump."
The corpse seemed to have neither a sense of humor nor any kind of skin George could get under. It said evenly, "The Fen has been long lost to time since I, its Sentinel, was forgotten by mortals centuries ago."
"How does that track?"
"The Fen is a respite after life that I shepherded my worshippers to. My influence once spread far and wide, and my followers feared not death. They spread my name far and wide so that when they passed, they could be reunited here as gentle souls in the Fen. It was once quite beautiful."
George's stomach turned. "Wait… Are you saying that I'm… dead?"
"You leave behind three grateful sisters and mother who loved you more than you realize." There was a moment of silence before the Sentinel added, "It is always sad to see a child depart before her parents."
George tried desperately to remember what happened, and only fuzzily remembered fading away as she, Nancy, and Bess prepared to disentangle her soul from Odette's. "The spell." She staggered backwards. "Something went wrong with the spell, didn't it?"
"There were some unforeseen complications with the soul who shared your body. She was to die, and her lover fled with the soul in hand."
Bess? Bess… betrayed her? "That's not right. Bess would never do that," George said, sounding more confident than she felt. "I don't know what your game is, but you're lying."
"I have no reason to lie," the Sentinel said simply "In death, all answers are revealed, and all pretensions stripped away. In the Fen, your soul is free; it is a part of the world instead of a force working against it."
George bit down on the inside of her lip. It didn't feel that way. She wanted to resist. So she was dead now, and trapped in solitude for eternity? Because of Bess, who, after all of her enthusiasm and loyalty and talk of the power of love and friendship, had left her to die? She tried to picture it, Bess looking at George's limp body and just… leaving.
That couldn't be right. That wasn't Bess.
And yet, George was still dead. And she didn't see why the Sentinel would lie.
"Why? Why am I here? And not… wherever everyone else goes?"
"Your other friends were there for you. They were willing to try anything. They brought you to me, the subject of esoteric folklore about death… and second chances. I am a shepherd of souls. So, I retrieved yours before it could be lost to the universe forever. Your friends suspected I could somehow bring you back."
"But you can't? And now I'm alone here? Forever?" George stared straight down at the muddy bog underfoot. She hoped the Sentinel couldn't see the tears falling one by one from her eyes.
"That is just it. You are alone. The Fen remains desolate, and it brings no glory to either of us desolate."
George spared a glance upward. It was possible that she was finally going to be offered a break, that maybe the world, that a god, would be on her side for once.
"I can send you back."
Yes.
"But you must first do something for me."
Of course there was a catch. George inwardly chided herself for being so naively hopeful.
"What do you want from me?"
"You are the first mortal to step foot in the Fen of Psychostasia in centuries. And you are the only soul remaining in this modern world that knows of me, the Fen's Sentinel. You alone are my chance to restore the Fen to its former glory, to a paradise of freed souls."
"A paradise? Seriously? Somehow, I don't see that happening," George said candidly, looking out again at the endless expanse of grime and muck.
"With souls breathed into it, it can happen, I assure you." He continued his explanation, "I will bless you with my Mark. And with one touch, you will be able to send anyone you choose here, to my domain."
"…You want me to kill for you."
"I want to repopulate my Fen and bring justice and peace." The Sentinel's tone had not changed; he was still even, logical, simple. "There is peace in the Fen. Souls become one with the world, with nature. There is no fighting or war or betrayal, only contentment. So, you may cleanse the Earth of souls who make the mortal world a Hell. With death, they and their victims will find peace."
George said nothing. Fuck. This was all too much. She wanted to be cooking dinner with Jesse at home, Charlie watching some annoying anime music video on the TV and Ted yelling at her to turn it down so she could read. She didn't want to decide who lived and died. She didn't want to be trapped in this pit of solitude for eternity. She didn't want to be abandoned and left for dead.
"George Fan. I am a watcher, a god. I am helpless to interfere directly with the affairs of the living. I have witnessed the hardships you've endured and the lengths you've gone to help yourself and others. I have seen you be neglected by your parents who were supposed to care for you, I have seen you protect your younger sisters at great personal sacrifice. I have heard your worst thoughts and desires, and saw, too, how you never succumbed to temptation. I have witnessed the injustices against you and your unending resilience. I believe you are a righteous instrument, that you will not only help my domain, but make the mortals' as well."
George stood, slack-jawed, unable to process.
"Please. I ask only for two human souls. Do not let me be forgotten, do not let my paradise remain dormant. Do not let yourself perish unjustly, in vain. Take your fate into your own hands. Change the world."
Something in George felt like it was breaking. This was what she wanted, but the whole prospect still felt bitter.
She didn't have to feel cheated, helpless anymore. But to kill felt too extreme…
"I'll do it."
"I thank you, George Fan."
"Send me back to my family," George said, not wanting to imagine how they would feel if Nancy and her friends took her body to be buried.
The Sentinel unfurled himself, and the movement made George leap.
"Do not be afraid."
The Sentinel, who moved slowly and smoothly, extended one bony arm and clasped George's hand in his.
Warmth rushed from the rotted, slender hand into George's. It coursed up her arm and flooded her whole body with a blinding heat.
"You are in control now."
/
When she woke up, three horrified faces were hovering over George.
"George?" Nick asked, in total disbelief, as if he was afraid that she wasn't real.
"Where are we?" George brushed her body, her arms and legs, and was relieved to find that she was free of the stringy dead moss from the Fen.
She saw Nancy sit back, chalk-white and shaking. "I can't believe that worked. I can't believe that worked," she breathed as Nick pulled George into the tightest hug George had ever felt. Ace rubber her shoulder reassuringly.
George quickly pressed her branded hand against her own leg. She could feel the pulsing hot power of the Sentinel's Mark. She knew that to touch any of them, even by mistake, would be catastrophic.
"Easy there," George rasped, pulling out of Nick's embrace and catching her breath. (How wonderful to breathe!) She looked around, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. "Seriously, though, where are we?"
"Museum of Natural Science," Nancy answered, gesturing to the glass case behind them.
George looked. There, behind glass and awash in the little exhibition lights, still curled with his knees to his chest, lay the wrinkled corpse from the Fen. He looked smaller, less imposing here in the mortal world.
"The Sentinel," George whispered. "How did you know he would offer me a second chance?"
"We pretty much didn't," Ace said, obviously trying to keep the emotion out of his own voice.
"It was a total shot in the dark," Nick said shakily.
"We found this weird, cryptic folklore about a magical bog body that used to be worshipped for bringing justice and life. Thank God the traveling exhibit is here in Maine."
"And now we can read all about how bogs uniquely preserve corpses," Ace said, nodding to the informational panels.
"Thank you," George whispered, moved by her friends' devotion. Still, it had not escaped her notice that one her friends was conspicuously absent from this heartfelt reunion.
"Of course," Nancy said. "Of course."
"You have no idea how hard it is to sneak a dead body into a museum after hours," Ace added. "So, you know, you're welcome."
George decided to pretend like she didn't already know. She needed to hear it all, hear it from her friends. So, she asked innocently, "Where's Bess?"
The joviality that had come with George's reawakening vanished. Now, Nick, Nancy, and Ace exchanged uneasy glances.
The silence was overwhelming.
"Um, about that…" Nancy started. She took a deep breath and continued when it was apparent that no one else was going to help explain. "We found out that if we wanted to save you with the Soul Splitter, we would have to destroy Odette."
George waited. A flicker of heat pulsed on her palm, where she could feel every line of the Sentinel's brand. She pushed it harder against her leg.
"And, um," Nancy said hesitantly, "she couldn't do that."
Why wasn't Nancy just saying it?
"So…" Ace tried to finish Nancy's story, but immediately trailed off.
Nobody continued.
"So, she took off," George finished for them. Leave it to her to have to be the bearer of bad news, even for herself. She clenched the Mark in a tight fist. "So, she left me to die. To save Odette."
"But you didn't," Nancy assured her. "You're still alive. We got you to that old world god before—"
"Before I died. Because she abandoned me."
Ace swayed his head. "Let's unpack that on the way out of here, before we get caught."
"And don't worry," Nancy said, helping George to her unsteady feet, "finding her is our next priority."
Don't worry? George wondered on the ride home whether that was supposed to make her feel better. Did Nancy expect that when they found Bess, everything would be merrily swept under the rug? Would they help Bess bring Odette back and then pretend Bess could be trusted again?
The truth was that part of George wanted that. It was true, she hadn't died. She was still alive. And maybe they could forget, go back to normal after they dealt with Odette and the Sentinel. She didn't want to lose a friend. But that all felt easier said than done.
For now, she was in no hurry to welcome Bess back into her life.
In the car, while George turned over the concept of forgiving and forgetting, Nancy basically confirmed that this was the plan.
"It was an impossible situation," Nancy said sadly.
"She left me soulless."
"I was asking her to kill someone she loved," Nancy said. "She couldn't do that."
The spot where George had been branded burned once, aching and hard. She told herself that she wouldn't have to kill to save herself, either, that they would figure something out.
A part of her understood the decision that Bess had made. Another part of her knew that Bess had chosen Odette's life over hers, that she was killing either way.
"It's okay if you're mad," Nick said. "I am, too."
"We all are," Ace said. "But we didn't give up on you and we're not giving up on Bess, either."
Somehow, this was less than comforting.
For now, George wanted to find Bess, too. She wasn't sure how it would all end, but she had a lot to say to her.
/
Nancy was a skilled multitasker. She had already theorized, based on the fact that Bess's van was still at the Historical society, that she had taken a bus out of town. And she'd already examined the bus routes and considered the fact that Bess had seemingly fled as far as possible with no intent of being followed, leading Nancy to believe that Bess had gone to the airport. (All this reasoning while sneaking a dying body into a closed museum.)
The airport. This was damning. Innocent people don't run, George knew, and she also knew that people who run don't typically have the tendency to come back on their own.
Which was why George was now hurriedly packing a bag and trying to convince her sisters not to let the house go to ruin while she was gone.
"Seriously, Charlie, you shouldn't need me to remind you to do your homework every day. If you get a note from your teacher while I'm gone, I will mount your head on a stick."
George knew she was being mean and that it was unfair to take her anger out on her sisters, but she was seething. Bess skips out on her and now George is expected to drop all her responsibilities, leave her sisters who already feel unloved and unstable, and, what? Forgive Bess?
Another pang of heat shot up her arm, reminding George to dig through the Fan box of secondhand winter clothes and cover the Mark with a glove.
She took a good look at it before putting the gloves on: The Mark was burning orange, a fire under her skin. Perhaps it had really been branded into her, and it was still red-hot. The Mark itself looked like an upside-down tree, or maybe just the roots of a tree. One straight stalk on top, then a series of dendrites spreading down her palm.
George hadn't told the crew about the Mark and her deal with the Sentinel. She had no plans to follow through. She was no killer, and she knew that after finding Bess, she would figure something out with Nancy, Nick, and Ace.
They always figured something out.
George pulled the thinnest glove she could find over her left hand, the one that had been marked, and then decided that gloving her right hand looked less conspicuous than having just one covered.
If Bess was going somewhere that wasn't cold, George would look like a complete idiot.
"Why are you leaving?" Ted asked. Unlike her sisters, she wasn't whining. She was fascinated, no doubt because this adventure would look good on her Fan Fans blog.
George hesitated. She was gripped by a sudden memory of one day when she'd been swarmed at The Claw and Bess had agreed to pick up Ted from school. She'd spent the rest of the afternoon keeping Ted company, reading and drawing, since the house was empty when they got there.
What the fuck kind of friend does all that and then leaves the kid's sister for dead?
"I'm… not even really sure," George lied. She didn't want to break it to Ted what Bess had done. "You know how it is with these supernatural mysteries. I'm sure I'll have answers when I get back." Another lie.
Ted gave her a hug before she left. She'd been more affectionate since finding out about George's secret life. George wondered if Ted was worried that she wouldn't return.
She almost hadn't.
/
"Do we have a plan here?"
"Working on it," Nancy said.
"Work. Faster," George said. They were already at the airport, already walking through the doors, and they were still stumbling blindly. Bess was getting away.
"Okay, how's this: You and Nick create a distraction, Ace and I will break into the security booth and snag the surveillance tapes from today." She gestured toward the employees only section down the hall. Fortunately, the Portland airport was small.
"Or we could anything else," Nick offered.
"Sorry, what was that?" Nancy said with feigned innocence, already running off. "I couldn't hear you, but good luck!"
Jesus.
George had clear, recent memories of once finding this kind of mystery-solving mischief thrilling and, secretly, fun. But she wasn't really seeing the fun in it today. She had pretty much died today. What was fun about putting her safety and legal record on the line just to catch a rat?
George found no joy pretending someone had stolen her bag right from her arms. She found no joy in luring the security guard out of his booth, claiming the thief had just passed by while Nick shouted that a man that didn't really exist had just rudely pushed past him. Buying time with Nick by weaving contradicting stories for the officers out by baggage claim was mind-numbingly tedious.
By the end of the ordeal, the Mark was burning warm on her hand, the heat steady and unrelenting.
"You okay?" Nick asked as they sat on a bench in the airport, Ace combing the surveillance footage.
"Fine," George said through gritted teeth.
"Got it," Ace said finally, sparing George from talking about her feelings. "She went to Gate 4 and got on a plane four hours ago."
"Where was it going?" Nancy asked.
"Let me check." Ace pulled up a list of flights leaving Portland, and everyone huddled around to see.
The tension was making it hard to breathe. George felt herself tremble, and she hoped no one else had noticed. She had to do something, had to get a grip. Quietly, while everyone was looking at Ace's laptop, George whipped off her left glove and grasped the potted plant next to the bench as hard as she could.
She could feel the vibrant monstera's life force against her own, surging with pure energy. It cooled entire body, sating the hunger of the Mark.
In seconds, the plant was gray and dead, sent to the Sentinel's Fen. She drew a breath, relieved.
"Got it," Ace said, turning George's attention back to the main issue. "Vegas. Bess went to Las Vegas."
/
We were ROBBED of more con artist Bess in the show! Of course I'm sending her somewhere her illicit abilities can shine!