slayers_desire | trying to make the pieces fit ((Buffyverse plot))

I did. I failed everyone.

"Get out of here. Get somewhere safe," she tells April and Lorne. Containing the spread is no longer an option.

Panic spreads in her like a virus. Her heart is pounding so hard she feels like she's dying, and she's hearing a violent buzzing in her ears that's getting louder all the time. She pushes a PINpoint into April's hand and leaves for home.

She needs to save her children. Her family. Nothing else is true in her but that. And that buzzing, even louder now, a flushing to her face, she feels like she has hot wire in her veins.

She PINs home, yelling, "Code red, code red, this is not a drill!" They're moving worlds. Cutting all ties. Code red brooks no argument.

Cole comes out of the bedroom looking bewildered, but takes one look at her face and grabs the emergency bag she has packed at all times under the bed. Victor heads right to the nursery, picks up Anya and Athena, one child on each hip. They're three now and too heavy for her to cart around, but now's not the time to worry about her own physical pain. "Where's Jude?"

"He's at school." Cole wraps an arm around her, he's ready to go, but there's a fraction of a second before he can get his finger to depress the button.

The despair starts to press in, snuffing out all of the hope he'd had at the start of all this. SG-1 finally show up, with General Hammond in tow, and all of them freeze when they see Edward kneeling on the floor with his brother's lifeless body clutched against him. When Edward sees them, an uncontrollable rage boils up inside him, and he turns his head to face them, screaming, "Where the fuck have you guys been?!"

"Ed—" Daniel starts to say, before Edward cuts him off.

"You promised me you'd protect him!" Edward roars at his former apprentice. "One of your teams came back through infested with Goa'uld parasites! They killed my brother! AND YOU WEREN'T HERE!" The despair starts to overwhelm the anger once more and he slumps a little, reaching a shaking hand for the Zat he dropped and picking it up. For a moment it seems like he might turn it on SG-1... but then he turns the muzzle to press against the side of his neck.

"No!" Sam cries. "Ed, don't, please!"

"There's nothing left!" Edward half-screams, half-sobs. "My Soulmate is dead, and I will never be whole again!" He's still holding Alphonse against him, and as he turns away from SG-1, he lowers his head so that his forehead is resting against Alphonse's for a moment. "I'm sorry, Al..." he whispers. "I'll be with you soon..." Then he closes his eyes, lets the last of his tears fall...

And then, just as he's about to squeeze the trigger... there's Al's voice, in his mind, screaming at him. BROTHER! STOP!

He freezes. "Al...?"

That's not me, Ed! Al's voice says, and it's loud and clear, not faint like it was the last time Ed heard it. This isn't real!

And with that... Ed can feel the Bond again; he lets go of the false Al's body and drops the Zat. That bonfire of hope flares up again. "This isn't real..." he says, quiet at first. Then he repeats it, voice louder and angrier. "None of this is real." He rises to his feet and locks eyes with Daniel and Sam. "And you are not my apprentices!"

((Gaaaah, frelling bleedover... Also, heads up: I have a concert to attend this evening, so I'm only going to be able to keep threading until about 6:30 PM CST. I have no idea how long the concert's going to last, so assume I won't be back until tomorrow morning. >.>))

Edited 2013-01-05 16:28 (UTC)

((big thanks to Ed-mun for the edit. finally get to bring everyone back together))

Victor: Victor acted pretty quick calling the red alert. But she was followed by the quickest zompire. Her former best friend. That second that Cole takes is just enough for him to be grabbed by the infected Clark.

Cole is just about to get bitten... when a bright light flashes...

Clark: People were running away from the city. The blackness was getting quicker and quicker. Ed will be taken... and there is a moment where Martha stumbles and the blackness comes for her.

It comes for Martha and Jonathan... when a bright light flashes...

April: She growled at her mother. "What do you mean it is not my turn? They need me! They are in so much pain!"

"Poor little lamb, lost in the woods." Drusilla sings softly.

There is a bright light surrounding Clark, Victor and Ed.

Ed: A bright light flashes around Ed and when it is gone, he is in the white room with Clark, Victor and April. Both Clark and Victor are coming out of their experiences now.

A white glowing gem drops from the air into Ed's hands. It ebbs with hope. Looking into it for a second, he sees the true image of Al, and SG1. They are safe. They are laughing over supper. And for a second, Al looks up... knowing his brother is safe now.

((everyone awakens in the white room. Drusilla is visible to everyone too.))

For a moment, Clark feels even worse somehow when he feels Martha and his son disappear from his arms. Then he sees April... and hesitantly reaches out for the bond, afraid that all he'll feel is nothing. "April...?"

Victor backs away from Clark, shaking, and part of her brain is saying, something is not real, but she's not sure which something it is.

She's had her brain scrambled before. She can't trust this reality. She's looking hunted.

Ed has to momentarily shield his eyes from the harsh light; once his vision recovers, he's able to lower his hands and catch the white gem in both (it clinks against the bare steel palm of his right hand) just in time. He spends several moments staring at the image inside it, watching Al, SG-1, and General Hammond talking and laughing together at the dinner table at Hammond's house. It's... somehow both weird and overwhelmingly joyous, seeing his brother eating food again. After four and a half years of Al having to fake the act of eating so no-one the brothers stayed with would find out that the armor he was bound to was empty inside... well, Ed had kind of gotten used to it, even though it was incredibly awkward for both of them.

Al pauses in the middle of his meal, and turns slightly in his seat so that he's looking in the direction Ed's watching them from. For a moment... just a moment... it's almost as though the brothers are meeting eyes. Al gives his brother a wide smile, then turns back to his friends and resumes his meal.

"Thank you, Al..." Ed whispers, smiling gently and closing his eyes for a moment. "Love you." He presses the gem against his heart for a moment, then lets his left hand drop to his side, clutching the gem tightly in it. Then he looks up and joins his friends, expression becoming more neutral once he sees Drusilla, whom he immediately recognizes—he's been working his way through both of the Buffyverse TV series, currently in the middle of season 4 of BtVS and season 3 of Angel. Dru might be April's mother... but she's also a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal, and Ed's a little bit creeped out by her.

April rushes into Clark's arms. The bond is still very there. And very strong. She experienced his loss over the bond. And right now just wants to hold him and assure him that she wasn't taken.

"We are back in the White Room." She breathes. "They are testing us."

"Four little lambs have lost their way... will have to go into the woods today." Drusilla sways with her little song.

April glares at her. She can sense the distress from Victor. She remembers the pain that both Ed and Clark felt at losing their soulmates.

"We are not paying any more games!" She demanded.

"The wolves will come... there is no choice... take your path." Drusilla raises her hand and four doors appear on the far wall.

Clark is shaken more than he probably ever has been, and he holds onto her tightly, reassuring himself that this is real and she's really there. He can feel the phantom echo of their bond being cut off, persisting in memory, even though he can feel her now. He never wants to go through that again.

But he, too, fixes angry eyes on Drusilla, and steps forward towards her. "No. If we need to jump through hoops to get what we came for, fine. But you won't split us up. Not again."

She presses freezing cold fingers to her eyes, wiping away tears, and she turns to Drusilla. "Let me know... is my family safe. Then I'll do whatever you want."

Like Clark and April, Ed also glares at Drusilla, letting out a quiet growl before he says, "All four of us go together. Period. End of story. I don't care what's ahead, how bad it is; these are my friends, and we'll all face it together." He clenches his hand tighter around the white gem and lifts it up a little. "We're owed that much, after what we just had to go through."

"Not your turn anymore lamb." Drusilla is a surprisingly quick woman. And she is in front of Ed in a second. Touching his nose with her statement.

She glances down at the hope gem. "Too bright. Better show it to someone else."

Her attention returns to Clark and April. "A group of one. Pick the one. No seperation... just one."

Just one... one of what? It doesn't sound like she's going to let them stay together. "I'll go with them."

"My family," Victor demands, advancing on Drusilla, limping forward as the buzzing finally, finally fades from her hearing. She's feeling sick with adrenaline, her heart is still racing, she does not have time to waste. She has no assurance yet that this is real. No assurance that she isn't in some state of shock, that the world she left behind isn't the real world and she's dead or worse. "Are they okay?"

It comes down to the very scary question of how can you prove that life is real. If it's by feelings, by touch, by smell, by sight, what she just left was real. When she closes her eyes she can still feel the weight of her children in her arms. And she won't do anything until Drusilla answers her.

Ed reacts to Drusilla touching his nose by smacking her hand away with the flat of the blade on his right arm and taking a few steps back, raising his arm again so that the blade is guarding his neck and torso. "Don't touch me again," he warns her, venom in his voice. He holds the hope gem in front of him too, turning his left hand palm-forward so that the gem is readily visible; if it's too bright for her, then it might just keep her at bay.

Drusilla laughed. Even with Victor advancing on her and Ed raising the hope gem towards her. "Selfish little lamb. A friend in need... and you won't share?"

"Going to keep the truth to yourself?"

April frowns slightly. Her mother's madness is very close to the voices that are in her mind. And it takes her a second. A second where she feels foolish for not seeing it before.

"Ed... she is telling you to give the hope gem to Victor, who wants to ensure her family is safe."

"Hope gem..." Clark says quietly to himself, turning the thought over in his mind. He and April don't need to see that each other are all right, but the others have no such reassurance.

But if they already have this... how many more do they need? The test is obviously not over.

She takes the gem loosely in her hands, the weight of it so heavy against her palms, and she looks in it and Anya is toddling over into her brother's arms, who is probably complaining about his homework, but he looks happy, like he's glad that he even has homework. Victor was almost too protective to let him attend a real school... she would have homeschooled him in a heartbeat, but he begged and begged, and she didn't build him to keep him locked up.

Cole is cooking with Athena on his hip, and Athena is making the salt shaker float.

She doesn't know that this is real, either. A hope gem could project a false hope. But it's all she has to hold onto. All she has that she can believe in. So she forces herself to believe it. She must. "Thank you."

Ed's not sure what it is, but it feels to him like he should be the one to hold on to the hope gem for safekeeping. He's not used to acting only on little, intangible intuitive leaps like that—that was something Al was always better at. But still... he's also learned not to ignore his instincts, especially in recent months.

He goes over to stand by Victor for a moment, laying his left hand on her shoulder for a moment, squeezing, and then holding his hand out, palm up, in a mute request to return the gem to him. "Are you going to be alright?" he asks her, quietly.

Victor will only need to hold on the hope gem for a moment, before it returns to Ed's protection.

April clings to Clark while Victor checks on her family. "Whatever you see will be the truth. True hope doesn't lie... it doesn't deceive."

"But if we have hope... why the doors?"

"Little lambs must find what hides." Drusilla answers. She moves away from Ed and Victor. With a sweep of her hand, all four doors come together as one. "Choose one to lead. Go together."

Edited 2013-01-05 21:27 (UTC)

Clark doesn't wait for the others to volunteer. He'll face this, whatever it is. And he holds onto April's hand as he leads them through the door, not hesitating. He does not want to be separated from her again.

"No," she answers, honestly, as she returns the gem to Ed. "But I will be. It's not like I can pop over back home and check on my children. I just have to trust."

She offers him her arm. "Shall we? Onto the next big adventure."

Ed accepts the gem back and smiles at her as he snaps open an empty, hard-sided 'pouch' on his utility belt which he keeps on hand for just such an emergency and tucks the hope gem inside it. Then he holds up a finger in a 'one sec' gesture and seals the pouch with Alchemy before taking her arm, hooking his elbow around hers. "Onwards and upwards," he agrees. "Let's go."

Together, they walk through the door(s). They might notice that Drusilla is walking with them still.

The white light flashes, letting them know that they are somewhere different again. This time, they are in Smallville.

Or more appropriate near the Kent farm.

They can hear two men arguing ahead of them. Both voices will be very familiar to both Clark and April. One voice belongs to Lionel Luthor... and the other one belongs to Jonathan Kent.

This isn't the first time Clark has revisited this night, but it never makes it any easier. "Dad..."

He dreads going forward, and at the same time, he knows that he needs to see this again. Another chance to see his dad, to keep the memory alive...

It feels like it's happening now, like he's back at that night again, not just watching it. He lost April that night, for the first time. He thought he'd cheated death. And though he's since come to terms with it, and accepted that it was never his fault, this time he feels the guilt as strongly as it ever was.

He stops inside the barn, seeing Jonathan throw Lionel across the barn, breathing heavily already. And Clark knows the heart attack won't be far behind.

When they arrive, at first Victor isn't sure where she is, but after a moment or two she recognizes the farm. Smallville. This holodeck is very specific. She's sure it's in all of their heads, rifling through memories the way you'd rifle through a deck of cards to shuffle it.

Edited 2013-01-05 22:32 (UTC)

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