Thermopylae - So many candles (part 10)
Mar. 19th, 2005 01:59 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsNow, it's over.
~*~
"The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us.
A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds
us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out,
it's gone forever. And there will never be another quite like it. So
many candles will go out tonight. I wonder some days if we can see
anything at all."
--'All My Dreams, Torn Asunder', Babylon 5
~*~
A rock to the shoulder made her scream then it went numb which was probably worse. Havel's blast clipped the edge of her shield; she shied away automatically and slammed his next blow back at him. Gustafson was close enough to touch when Lorna wrenched her attention back. The best she could do was kick the woman in the head. This wasn't going well at all.
No sooner had she thought that, than both of them dropped. Like puppets whose strings had been cut. Havel fell out of the air and hit the ground hard, and Gustafson just crumpled, unmoving. Farther away, Fraser stopped struggling. All the other operatives on the field in front of the barracks, whether they had been on their feet or in the process of getting back there, had hit the ground as well. Were just as still. As if whatever had been driving them was gone.
And the sounds of battle decreased, then vanished almost entirely. Some scattered gunfire was all that remained, and then even that fell silent.
Her ankle and shoulder ached, there was blood on her face from a cut she didn't remember getting and she suspected it wasn't alone. Looking down at her hands--her gloves were shredded to pieces, she saw her fingernails were green and her skin was edging that way. Time enough to worry about that later though. Lorna bolted back to where she'd left the medics and Piers, praying they'd gotten him out. That they'd gotten themselves out.
The two had managed to get Piers back behind the barricade. One was still working over him, while the other was listening to his coms. "They just dropped," he said to Lorna, astonished. "All of the operatives who were triggered. Something... one of the telepaths must have done something." He shook off the shock, focusing on her. "You're hurt. Do you need help?"
Lorna shook her head, ignoring rather than answering the question. "How's he doing?" she asked looking down at Piers. She figured she had time to get that answer before finding out what the hell had just happened. She suspected Nathan.
"Depends," the other medic said grimly, putting an oxygen mask over Piers' face. "He's obviously got a healing factor, but there's a lot of damage." He looked back over his shoulder, grimly. "The other - Nolan? He's gone."
"Keep him alive." Lorna started to say something else then shook her head, "I have to figure out what's going on." She took off for the training barracks. ~Polaris here, what's the status?~
She heard Alison answer, her voice unnaturally calm. And even as other voices came over the coms, trying to ascertain the status of all the different teams, the hush remained.
~*~
There were bodies everywhere. Most of them in front of her and many were in fact alive, she realized blankly, answering something to the voice talking to her far too calmly on the comm channel, reassuring Haroun that she was still alive, and just fine in a deadened and blank voice. She looked down, and then to the side, following the length of a woman's body, noting the absence of the claws that had winked out of existence just as Alison had sidestepped the first attack only to see her would be killed fall to the ground as though stuck by lightning. Everything was in shades of black and white and wreathed in silence except for the voices on the comm, it seemed, until her gaze reached a bright scarlet pool, life slipping out from between fingers clenched against a body.
Mick. Time settled in again and somehow Alison was no longer standing, but instead kneeling by Mick, too much blood spread around him now and the knowing look in his eyes briefly making her want to howl a protest, the rapid and unsteady panting somehow suddenly too loud and real. Instead she reached forward, hands moving gently to cradle him close.
"The kids are safe. We held out long enough." The words were steady somehow, her voice soft and controlled - reassuring, even.
"'S good," he managed in a broken, barely audible whisper. He slumped against her almost gratefully. "... okay?" he forced out. Willing her to know that he meant was she okay, after he'd poured that much sonic force at her. Remembering what had happened in the fall - his memories seemed so much more vivid than the world around him now - he needed to know that she was all right. Very much.
"Not a scratch on me," she murmured softly, one hand brushing against his cheek lightly, words meant purely to reassure him until she realized that they were true. "I'm fine." Somehow, despite all that had happened, she had made it through unscathed. Carefully she shifted, to make him more comfortable, the unsteady fluttering of the vein on the side of his throat telling her far more than she wanted to know. Voices queried for her on the comm channel and a short, flatly sub-vocalized message told them she would be with them soon - but not now, not just yet.
The memory of the lost, hopeless look he'd given after they'd brought him back hovered near the surface, and for a moment she thought she might break. But the look in his eyes now, despite everything else, held something far grander within. "We did it. They're taking the surviving directors into custody now. The kids will be all right."
"Ani...? Nate?" He'd seen Tim go down, knew he was dead, and even with everything getting increasingly hazier, the knowledge was like a raw ache in his chest. But Nathan had still been on his feet, still fighting. And Ani healed.
Nathan had fallen and she remembered the sight only too well. But he'd also unleashed the Trojan Horse, which meant he wasn't dead, and Alison clung to that knowledge with quiet desperation. "Nathan isn't far away. He's alive." She'd just have to find him, once Mick was gone. "I'll find Anika." Taking a light, feathery breath, she continued somehow, watching as his eyes grew steadily distant. "You're all coming home. I promise."
"Tell her... love her? And Nate... " He trailed off, his eyes fluttered. "Alison... t-thanks..." It wasn't loud enough to be a whisper, even. "For finding me..."
The scream that had lodged in her throat when she'd turned around was gone, having ebbed away between then and now. "I will." Quiet acceptance colored her voice, and Alison rocked him gently without realizing what she was doing. "Thank you for letting me find you." Words whispered as lowly as his own had been, the steadily decreasing rate of his breathing the only sound she could hear.
Until there was nothing left to listen to.
~*~
It had all happened within the space of a few minutes. More of the triggered operatives had appeared, until there were better than a half-dozen attempting to force their way into the training barracks from the rear, shrugging off Kylun and Forrester's attempts to incapacitate them and coming back for more, over and over, as relentless as if they'd lost human weakness along with all rational thought under the influence of the trigger.
Forrester had fallen, caught in a vulnerable semi-phased state by an energy-projector, just before the dome of light had gone up, encompassing the entire barracks within its protective light. Even then, the mindless operatives had tried to blast or hammer or simply claw their way through, following the urging of their imperatives, trying to get at the children inside.
Then the shield went down, almost as quickly as it had come, and scant moments later, every operative in Kylun's immediate vicinity dropped as well, like puppets whose strings had been abruptly cut. Flyers, those who had been climbing up the rock face and down from above, all of them fell or tumbled back to the beach below, where Breslin and her men ventured out from cover to check on them.
The children. The need to make sure the children were safe burned in Kylun nearly as deeply as the Mistra operatives' conditioning had. Some of the government troops had made it into the barracks before him, and he brushed past them with murmured apologies, moving into the dormitory area.
The only ones inside already were a handful of medics, most of them busy trying to get the doors on the cells open. One, an older man, looked up as Kylun approached. "Start at the other end of the hall," he said hoarsely. He looked exhausted already, his fatigues liberally splashed with blood. "I don't know what shape the kids will be in. I think it was that Trojan Horse thing..."
"Better condition than they would have been in had we not come," Kylun said quietly. "Now at least they have hope." He offered the man what he hoped was a reassuring smile and moved quickly down the hall. When he heard movement from inside one of the cells, he stopped short, trying the door.
Inside, once he got the door open, Kylun found himself confronted by a blank, bewildered stare from a boy of perhaps twelve years, with startling indigo eyes and hair to match. The boy was in the corner of the cell farthest from the door, and shrank back a little as Kylun entered.
Kylun spread empty hands, acutely aware that he was not particularly good at appearing nonthreatening--especially now, with his uniform scored, his fur matted with sweat and in some places blood. Still, this was not the first time he had encountered frightened and traumatized children; he pitched his voice low and soothing, smiling without baring his teeth. "You are safe now. No one will harm you now. I am Kylun, and I have come with others to take you out of here. Can you tell me your name?"
"Rob," the boy said haltingly, after a long moment's pause. "What... something happened. I can feel things again. It all came back." He looked up at Kylun, focusing on him, though still looking confused. "My head hurts. How come you opened the door? They're the only ones that open the door. When they come to take us to the white room." His jaw trembled for a moment, his gaze unfocusing again.
"There is no more white room," Kylun replied, and he was unable to keep the barest hint of a growl from coloring the undertones of his voice. "We have stopped it. No one will ever take you there again. We will take you home, if you wish it, if you have one to return to." And oh, was this speech familiar, echoing back in time. "If you do not . . . there is a place for you, if you wish it. A safe place, and a peaceful one. But only if you wish it. You are free to choose, free to live."
The boy was staring at him as if his words were incomprehensible, but slowly, something close to understanding was dawning in those vividly colored eyes. Understanding, and hope. "I get to go home?" he asked, his voice breaking. "Really? They said... they said we didn't have homes anymore, that we were here and we'd always be here..."
"They lied," he said quietly, grieving a little; whatever hapened now, the boy's innocence was a casualty he was far too late to save. "They lied, Rob, about everything they said." He smiled again. "Tell me about your home?"
"I... it's hard to remember," Rob said. But he was shifting forward, out of the corner where he'd been huddled. He cast a longing look at the door behind Kylun. "It's all fuzzy in my head. But it's all back, now." He looked up at Kylun, the hope definitely winning out over the confusion. "It'll be okay? Really?"
"Really and truly. My oath on it." Kylun spread his hand over his heart, a formal gesture, then offered it to Rob. "We can leave this cell right now, if you like, and never come back. You and all the other children."
Rob stared at him for a long moment, almost blankly, as if his mind was still having difficulty processing the idea. But then he swallowed, visibly, and reached out, his hand only slightly unsteady, to take Kylun's. "Okay," he said, his voice hoarse, breathy, tears just beneath the surface. "I believe you."
~*~
There was someone at her elbow, speaking to her insistently, but Alison ignored the woman and instead turned another body. "Alive." It was one of the second gens, nose obviously broken and she gently eased back to his side. "Take care of him." The protest was met with a flat look and somehow any further resistance melted away. Unable to care enough to wonder why, Alison moved on, methodically searching through the bodies, working her way towards where she recalled seeing Nathan in the corridor which was nothing more than a few panels of wall by now, open entirely to the sky. Sunlight streamed from above, bathing the world below in warm glow, dust motes floating in the air slowly. It failed to warm Alison though, the chill in her bones matching the numbness in her soul.
She stopped suddenly in her search, recognizing the edge of a profile, the cast of a high cheekbone and a nose which had been broken many times before, giving it a unique outline. Forgetting to breathe she closed the distance, knowing already that he was dead. Kneeling down, she hesitated for a moment, before closing Tim's eyes gently. One of the soldiers who had been following her was finally acknowledged, Alison turning to give him a calm look. "He comes back with us as well." Mick's body had already been carefully placed to the side, someone standing by it until she could come back to bring him to the Blackbird. A short nod answered her, and two more were called to help, though Alison was already ignoring them by then. She rested one hand on Tim's chest, head bowed and lips moving in silence briefly, before simply pushing up again to continue her search, to keep her promise to Mick.
Part of the weight was shifted off him, and Nathan gave what would have been a choked cry, if he'd been able to draw enough air into his lungs to give it any volume. He heard soft, urgent voices, felt a cool hand touch his throat, checking his pulse. Someone tugged at his psimitar, trying to take it from him. He held onto it stubbornly. Might need it still, he thought dazedly, and cried out again, this time more audibly as the people around him tried to move him.
Alison's head snapped to the side as she heard the cry, locking down on the direction of the sound instantly, spotting a few soldiers bent over someone - Nathan, she knew. It wasn't so much about moving them out of the way as simply placing herself between them and the man on the ground, one hand placing itself above Nathan's on the psimitar. "Leave it." Something finally stirred inside - a brief moment of clear joy, the feeling bright and clear as a bell before it subsided under the numbness once more. Ignoring the men hovering nearby with weary concern etched on their features, she kneeled down, never noticing the blood covering the floor, tarnishing her already blood stained leathers further. "Nathan?" The sun beat down on her back, warming her skin. She looked him over rapidly, hands checking for broken limbs, noting that something was simply wrong in how he lay there. "Nathan, it's Alison." A voice called out behind her, hollering urgently for a medic's assistance.
He tried to say her name but he still couldn't breathe properly, couldn't find his voice. #Ali...# he thought weakly, wondering why he could still reach out telepathically, after that. Hadn't he sprained his brain again? His head hurt, but then, everything hurt, so he really couldn't tell. #Ali... can't move...#
"Don't try to move." It was the simple, logical thing to say, even as the medic suddenly kneeling on the other side said the same thing, in a far sharper voice. Something burned brightly in the back of her mind, but she pushed it aside and it was easy to fall into nothing but the here and now, to think only of what was at hand. "It worked. The children are safe." She couldn't bring herself to say 'we won', however. "It's over, now."
#Over...# Disjointed images of Tim crumpling to the ground, of Mick dragging himself over bodies, flickered through his mind. #Gone... they're gone...# He couldn't feel them anymore, just fading echoes, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears.
"I know." The whisper was unsteady, Alison skittering on the edge, nearly to breaking at that point. The medic spoke softly, touching Alison's arm, mercifully distracting her even as she tightened her hand over Nathan's, still holding the psimitar.
"We're looking at a spinal injury here, I think, on top of what's obvious. I'm having a stretcher brought over but we're going to be very careful here. He has to stay still and not try to move."
A slow nod answered that, and Alison turned her attention on Nathan once more. He was alive. And she still had to another to find. "We're bringing them home," she murmured, feeling helpless, clinging to the one thing she could do just now. "I have to find Anika, now."
#Ani...# He could still feel Ani, and he forced his eyes open. #Wall... by the wall. Where Mick fell first...# She was alive. Weak, but alive, and he tried to reach out to her, pull her back. But the pain was winning again, and his eyes drifted shut, the voices around him dying to a distant buzz.
She watched as Nathan slipped into unconsciousness, then looked up to meet the eyes of the medic, who was still holding the now empty needle. "We'll contact your people and get him prepped as they require," the man said, with a gentleness that seemed odd to Alison.
She was already rising to her feet, however, eyes looking searchingly in the direction Mick had been, before they'd moved him. "I need help from another medic. There's another. She's still alive." The last sentence could barely be overheard, as Alison sprinted off.
The bodies over by the wall where Mick had first fallen had been untouched as of yet. They seemed to have fallen together, in one jumbled pile of tangled limbs. None of them were moving, most appeared dead or very close to it. But as Alison approached, sunlight glinted off pale golden hair, towards the bottom of the heap of bodies.
"Anika?" It was a stupid, senseless thing to do, but Alison couldn't help but call out her name, even as she carefully checked over the person lying over the feral. Dead, no worries as to injuries, which meant hauling the body off Anika as quickly as possible while making sure not to aggravate any of her injuries. Helping hands were there soon, Alison taking notice of them only so much as they helped to clear away things quickly.
Anika, even when she was uncovered, didn't move or respond to Alison's call of her name. She just laid there, looking incongruously small beside the bodies of the other operatives, with visible, ugly wounds - deep lacerations and burns - all over her body. Her eyes were closed, her skin deathly pale.
Taking a deep breath, Alison set to doing what she could, not even bothering to pretend her sentences weren't orders, not realizing people were doing as she asked without question or doubt. Get the living help, set them on the path homeward. And then make sure their dead were escorted back as well.
~*~
"Summers?"
Scott looked up, blinking, and managed a nod for Colonel Catano. "Sir," he said hoarsely, shifting with a wince. He was rightfully low-priority in triage - the medic had offered him a painkiller and then moved on to someone more desperately in need of medical attention.
"We can skip the formalities," the older man said with a faint, exhausted smile as he crouched down beside Scott. "You all right?"
"Just the knee." Well, that was glossing over a few things, but it was the knee that had disabled him, so that was all that was important. Scott looked out over the triage tent, swallowing. "It's over, then." His com was still functioning; he'd been able to keep track, give a few last orders, even as he'd been evaced.
Catano nodded slowly, his eyes roaming the crowded tent as well. "Didn't go quite as planned, did it?" he asked, and the gruffness in his voice was a cover for something else. "Still," he said, his voice briefly unsteady. "We did well. All of us." He reached out and laid a hand on Scott's shoulder, squeezing for a moment. "Remember that."
...when you look around. The unspoken words hung there in the air between them, but Scott swallowed and nodded.
"I'm going to go check things out at the training barracks," Catano said, and for a moment there was a flash of longing in his tired eyes. "Seeing them bring those kids out... that'd go over mighty well right now."
Scott envied him suddenly, overwhelmingly. "I imagine it would," he said a bit hoarsely.
There was understanding in Catano's eyes. "We'll have footage of it," he offered softly. "You stay here, son. You did your part." He paused, then offered a hand. Scott took it immediately. "Tell your people, Cyclops. One hell of a job."
"Thank you, sir."
~*~
It seemed like it had taken forever to reach the barracks. While there had been no further attacks along the way, Wanda had to pick her way through a battlefield of rubble and bodies. Turning a corner, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the massive mount of dead and injured that littered the floor. There were government troops there already, picking through the bodies, trying to sort those still breathing from those who were gone. Something hard and cold settled in her stomach as she picked her way over and around, nearly slipping on the puddles of blood.
Forcing it into the back of her mind, she stepped through the front door. White cells lined the lines, too small to fit more than one person in them. Not that that would have stopped them. Seeing someone inside, she darted over to the first one.
The government medic was bending over a small boy, no more than nine or ten, checking his vitals. He looked up at Wanda sharply, then relaxed, recognizing her. "There are so many," he said hoarsely, turning his attention back to the boy. "We're trying to get more personnel over to help, but there are so many wounded, everywhere..."
The boy whimpered a little, thrashing, and the medic drew back sharply, a look of real pain on his face before he reached out again, soothing. "The drug cocktails they gave them are going to have them all pretty messed up," he said hoarsely. "Above and beyond whatever the hell just happened. We need to make sure their vitals are stable, reassure them that they're safe..."
"I can do reassuring," Wanda replied, focussing past her own physical pain. Tugging off her gloves, she reached down and softly touched the boy's forehead. A part of her wanted to cry and wail but now was not the time. "Who needs help the most? Are there any that don't speak English?"
"I don't know. We haven't even finished assessing them all yet. One of your teammates is here, too." The medic looked as exhausted as she felt. "Go down the hall, pick the first door that hasn't been opened yet? About the only thing I can suggest."
Nodding, she pushed herself back up to her feet. Heading back out she noticed there was a door on the left that had not yet been entered. Pushing it open, she bit her lip. A girl, no older than ten, if that, was curled up in a ball on the floor, crying and holding her head as if to protect herself.
Kneeling next to her, Wanda reached for her slowly. "It is okay now, you're safe, little one," she said quietly.
The little girl shrank away from her with a wail. "~Don't hurt me,~" she pleaded, sounding a little more coherent than the boy in the other cell had been, if still very confused. "~Please don't hurt me...~"
It seemed her question to the medic about non-English speakers had been correct, though she was startled to find one that spoke Russian. The reach of Mistra really had gone far...too far. It was a dialect but one that she could speak. "~I am not going to hurt you,~" she soothed, slipping easily out of English. "~We're here to help you, help you leave.~"
The girl actually focused on her, blue eyes bleary but suddenly intent, drugs or no drugs. "~Promise?~" she asked brokenly, after a moment. "~I can leave...? Out of the white room?~"
"~Promise. Out of the white room. The people who put you were are gone.~" Careful not to spook her, Wanda held out her hands to the girl, allowing her to make the first move. ~No more white rooms, I promise.~"
The girl abruptly uncurled from her protective ball and all but threw herself at Wanda, crying. "~I wasn't scared before, my head was all empty, but now everything's back again and I don't know why,~" she
sobbed.
Wincing, even that slight impact hurt, she nevertheless wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl. "~It's all right now, it'll be all right,~" she told her, carassing her hair and back soothingly. "~You'll be taken care of and no one will hurt you again.~"
"~I want to go home, please...~"
There were movement behind her and the medic she'd spoken to first appeared, kneeling down beside them. "We've got more help arriving," he said, his voice low. The girl shrank away from him and he winced, pain flashing across his face for a moment. "Any injuries here?"
Gathering her back to her side, Wanda shook her head. "Does not seem to be. Physical anyway. Hang on a second." Peering down, she smiled. "~My name is Wanda, what's yours?~" Screw code names.
"~Anna.~" The girl peered up at the medic, then huddled closer to Wanda, holding on as if she had no plans to let go anytime soon.
"Her name is Anna," she told the medic. "And...I don't think she's going to want to want me to leave her alone. Are there any other kids that are unhurt, relatively speaking, but scared? I'll see if I can get that group together." Meaning she wouldn't have to let Anna out of her sight until it was necessary.
He rubbed at his jaw. "Why don't you stay in here, with her," he suggested tiredly. "I'll try and funnel the ones who are more mobile in here, get you some more help with them."
"Perfect, less tramua on these poor things. And, um, could you get me a towel please?" Wanda glanced over her shoulder at the claw marks, which were still bleeding. Unfortunately. "I'll get medical attention once this is over, they need it more, but at least something to stop up the blood?"
The medic looked at her injuries and grimaced. "I think, actually, I'll get someone in here to take care of those, too," he said, and his tone didn't suggest he was going to brook any disagreement. "If you're going to help them, you can't be passing out from blood loss."
She thought about arguing but judging from the fact that sitting down felt _too_ good (she was fairly positive she had a slight concussion on top of that) she sighed and nodded. "All right." Looking down at Anna, she smiled a little. "~We're going to stay in here and some of the others are going to join us soon.~"
The medic laid a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze before he rose. "Someone will be in shortly," he said, giving her an approving look and Anna a small smile before he went back out.
"~There was singing in my head,~" Anna whispered, still clinging. "~I didn't understand the words, but it was pretty. Sad, though.~"
Wanda shifted to a more comfortable position, bringing Anna actually onto her lap as she leaned sideways against the wall. Ah, the Trojan Horse, she'd been briefed about that. "~That is what made everything better,~" she said. "~It was designed to help.~"
Anna sniffled. "~So sad,~" she muttered, and closed her eyes.
"~Sometimes even the sad things can help us,~" Wanda said, holding the little girl closer as she felt her relax. Softly under her breath, she started to hum a Russian folk song as they waited for the others to start arriving.
~*~
The pile of rubble had only settled for seemingly a moment, as the dust ceased to move and everything took on the appearance of a calm portrait of destruction, a building that had stood for literally centuries, collapsed into nothing but ruin. A few brief seconds of violent motion, and all was static and still again.
Then, once more, motion occurred. Rocks began to shake and move, as a large chunk of rubble lifted from the dirt, carried on the back of a mountain of a man. Cain Marko sucked in a dry breath, heaved, and spread his arms out towards the sky. Rolling his shoulders, he looked around. Uniformed soldiers ran about, tending to the wounded and restraining the injured Mistra operatives. Rasping words of encouragement, he smiled and stepped aside from the basement passageway that he'd blocked with his own body. From beneath him, grey-suited Mistra trainees covered their eyes as they walked out into the dusty air, making their way to the medics and soldiers.
Every one. I saved every one of 'em. Cain thought to himself. I did that.
Touching his comlink, he heard only silence. Popping it into his hand to inspect it, he realized that it must have been damaged in the collapse of the building. He grabbed the arm of one of the teenage trainees as he was being attended to by a medic.
"Trainee barracks," he rasped out, throat still coated with dust. "Where?"
Following the boy's gaze, Cain looked over to the shell of the barracks, nearly invisible with all the medical personnel rushing in and out. Stretchers were being carted around like a steady stream of parts on a conveyor belt, laden with both the injured and the dead.
And one black-uniformed man, face streaked with blood, holding a … spear?
Psimitar, Nathan had called it.
Nathan.
"NATE!" Cain bellowed, rushing to his feet and stomping through the rubble. No, no, NO, his mind raced. You did it RIGHT, you made the good call, he can't have died for your mistake, don't let it be a mistake…
Pushing medical personnel to the side, Cain practically charged the barracks. "NATE!" he screamed again, voice cracking. He blinked back the red creeping into his vision. This couldn't happen, this wasn't supposed to happen, someone was going to pay for this. If Nathan was dead, if one of his only friends was dead and gone because of his decision, then someone had to pay. Someone always had to-
A hand against Cain's chest gave him pause, and he stopped. Clearing his vision, he looked over into the slate-gray face before him, one eye swelled shut with massive burns, the skin around his temple and cheek streaked and smooth in that peculiar way burned tissue had. Nash grimaced at the effort, going as super-dense as he was able and standing firm in front of Cain.
"Y'wanna go nuts," he hissed through a mouth partially held shut by burned skin and slurred by painkillers, "this isn't the place. Got too many injured here. Stand down."
Cain's head slowly turned, taking in the destruction, and then Nash's injuries. How the man was able to stand was a testament to his strength. Cain glanced down at himself, shirt hanging in tatters, one leg of his jeans torn away at the knee – but his skin unscratched, unblemished. Untouchable.
"Stand down?" he growled. "They're carting my friend off into a fucking body bag, and you want me to STAND DOWN?" His bellow echoed off the remaining buildings. "I gotta see him, I gotta let him know-"
"You'll see him," Matsuda answered curtly, stepping out from behind Nash. Slowly, she walked forward, placing a hand on Cain's forearm. "Nathan's injured, but he'll pull through. He held them off, he and Dazzler and Foley. Just like you kept those kids alive. Good work, Mr. Marko."
Her professional tone struck a chord in Cain's mind, as did the important words that he'd hoped to hear. "Alive? He's alive." Holding stock still for a moment, Cain dropped down to a kneeling position in the dust and gravel, running his hands over his head and staring at nothing. "We… we did it, then. We beat them, and brought everyone home, yeah?"
The sudden pained looks from Nash and Matsuda told Cain differently. "No…" he breathed, sadness suddenly hitting him like a tidal wave. "Who'd we lose?"
"None of the X-Men," Matsuda answered, her demeanor starting to soften. "Our people, though…"
"Me an' Isabel. Cole, Piers… Anika made it out, too. That's…" Nash's voice caught, and he slumped down across from Cain, prompting Matsuda to go to his side, throwing her smaller arms around the big man's neck and holding tightly.
"Ani," Cain smiled, then paused. "Oh shit. Tim? Mick? They gotta… tell me they didn't…"
The nod from Matsuda said it all. Cain pounded a fist in the dirt and swore under his breath. "Fuck. Just… fuck." Closing his eyes, he steeled himself. "It's worth it, right? Tell me it was worth it."
No answer came.
~*~
They were bringing the injured and the dead out of the building. As necessary as the job was, the young medic truly wished she was on the team helping the kids. Especially as the injured were being hustled rapidly away - she'd seen some of the X-Men escorting some of their own back to the evac area, even - and she and the others were left with the dead.
The medic's thoughts could have been Madelyn's own as they moved through the pile of dead. 'Should have been here sooner', she kept telling herself. Her shoulder was throbbing insistently despite the painkiller she'd taken earlier, and it was only the driving anger that was keeping her on her feet. That and the need to see the job done. There was a flash of white among the predominantly black uniforms of the operatives, and she awkwardly heaved at a woman's body, uncovering the still, white face of Bourne, the white of the cast on his arm startling bright.
The medic spotted her, standing over one of the bodies and staring fixedly downwards, and hesitantly - she'd met Madelyn Bartlet only once, last night, at the final briefing for the taskform teams - came over to join her. "Doctor Bartlet?" she asked uncertainly. Madelyn didn't look at her. "Uh... I'm Roberts, one of the medics? Can I help you?" She looked down at the body of the young man, not recognizing him at all.
For a second Madelyn didn't realise she was being spoken to, having gotten used to being called by her first name at the school. Then the presence of the young medic registered, and she blinked hard, stooping to close Bourne's eyes. "I knew him," she said at last. "Hell, I treated that broken arm for him a month ago. Just... a little too personal." Ignoring her shoulder for the moment - she'd managed to shrug the jacket back on properly once the painkillers kicked in, so there wasn't anything to notice, she straightened. "We can't help him, but there might be others in this mess we can."
Roberts noticed the stiffness with which she was moving. Her eyes narrowed a little, but she simply nodded, and knelt to check the pulse of the woman next to him. "She's gone, too," she said quietly, sighing as she rose again. "What a mess."
"Scorched earth," Madelyn murmured bitterly. "We backed them into a corner, and this was their last backup plan. Destroy the evidence." The next body was clearly dead - no-one could live with their neck on that angle - and she moved to another, who she recognised as Pulaski, one of the first gens. Had they all... A certain dread was growing in her now, and she moved on, searching for specific faces now. "Come on, don't let me down, please be okay..." she muttered under her breath.
Roberts looked at her worriedly, then spotted the two men the X-Men had insisted on carrying from the building themselves. Their bodies were set a little ways apart from the rest; the blonde woman had made it very clear that they were coming back for the both of them, as soon as they got their wounded treatment.
"Doctor Bartlet?" she asked hesitantly, touching the older woman's arm and gesturing uncertainly in that direction. "Are they..." She trailed off abruptly. If they were who Bartlet was looking for, who she wanted to be okay...
"No." The word came out strangled, Madelyn's throat seizing up around it. "No, no, oh God, no..." She stumbled unseeingly towards the two bodies, jarring her shoulder with every misstep. "Oh God, no, Mick, not you, it can't be..." Clumsily she fell to her knees beside Mick's body, hand automatically going to the pulse point in his neck. "Not after everything, not you too..." His skin was still slightly warm, maybe there was a chance... She forced her right hand to move, to pinch off his nostrils as she breathed into his mouth. "Help me," she ordered hoarsely at the staring Roberts. "I can't do this on my own!"
Roberts watched her for a shocked moment. "Doctor Bartlet... Madelyn," she said softly, coming closer. "He's gone." Even if she hadn't watched him being carried out, heard the orders the X-Men's field leader had given, one look at his wounds... She reached out tentatively, laying a hand on the older woman's shoulder.
"Don't say that!" Madelyn retorted, shrugging off the hand and moving to do the cardiac massage herself. She had some adrenaline in the untility belt Hank had made for her, she could use that... Pain sheared through her shoulder as she pushed down on Mick's chest, the blood from his stomach wound sticky under her hands. "You don't understand, he can't be gone, not after what it cost to bring him out, how much he fought..." She pushed through the pain, again leaning on Mick's chest, but her shoudler gave out and she collapsed across his still form. "It can't end like this..."
"Madelyn..." Her stomach twisting in sympathy, Roberts knelt down beside her. "I'm so sorry. He was one of the first-gens working with the X-Men?"
"Vermont," Madelyn managed, lifting her head, her cheek smudged with concrete dust and blood. The injury was screaming at her now, and she couldn't help cradling the arm against herself. "He was at Vermont, when the X-Men went in. His conditioning cracked, and he ran... Alison and Nathan brought him back." Tears spilled over, leaving tracks in the dust. "He was just getting it together, life without conditioning. He did it the hard way, like Nathan." A chuckle that was more like a sob escaped her. "He kept me company on night shifts. He's a lousy card player." Something broke in her then, and her head bowed, blood-stained hands resting in her lap.
She was hurt; Roberts couldn't deny the visual evidence any longer. Arm injury of some sort? She pursed her lips, but chose not to pursue it right now. Sometimes the invisible hurts took precedence. "I've read enough about the conditioning," she said softly. "He must have been a remarkable man to have been able to come here and fight them."
"He was. They all were, all of the reclaimed." Madelyn's devestated gaze took in Tim lying there beside Mick. Brothers in arms. She hadn't known him as well, but she'd liked the gruff manner, so much like Nathan. "How many of their team survived? Do you know? My comms got damaged, I've been pretty much incommunicado for the last hour..." Since she'd been thrown into the wall, she realised vaguely.
"The X-Men took two wounded back to the evac area with them," Roberts said. "One with a spinal injury. I think they said he was a psi? The blonde woman in charge was telling the medics to be careful about what kind of drugs they gave him." She paused. "The other was another blonde woman. I don't know how she could possibly survive, from the look of her injuries."
"She's got a healing factor, so there's a chance." There had to be. "She and Mick..." Madelyn stopped herself. There was no need for Roberts to know that. With a trembling hand, she reached out and touched Mick's slack face, the skin cooler now. "Sleep well," she whispered, remembering their talks when sleep was eluding him. The small goodbye said, she looked up at Roberts. "We should get back to it. Someone could need us while I'm..." Laboriously she began to push herself up with her good left arm, but the world greyed out around her for a moment.
Robert caught her, as gently as she could, supporting her. "I think you need to head back to the evac area yourself," she said, gently but firmly. "You can check on your friends there."
Madelyn held onto consciousness by the sheer inconvenience of it all, acknowleging the other woman's point with a small nod. "Thanks... what's your first name? I'm kind of old fashioned - anyone who sees me in hysterics I prefer to call by their Christian names."
"Lara," Roberts said, coloring a little as she helped Madelyn up. "And don't worry about it... Madelyn. You were hardly hysterical." Her eyes were bright with sympathy as she got the other woman to her feet. "I'll... keep an eye on them," she murmured. "Fallis over there got told to do it already, but I'll... well, I'll make sure they're looked after until the X-Men come back for them."
"Thank you for that, Lara. MacInnis might come by - you know him, don't you, from the briefings? Older man, cranky, not exactly a people person? Don't let him take them, okay?" It was important. Madelyn squeezed the other medic's arm, briefly. "We look after our own, you see."
~*~
There were people around her, doing what they should be doing and occasionally pausing to ask her if she needed anything, though this happened less and less now. Alison leaned on a wall, a smooth curve sliced into it from where she'd burned through it while setting up the shield to protect the training barracks, and waited, keeping guard. Two body bags were nearby, waiting to be carried back to the Blackbird. There were no piles of bodies left, anymore. The wounded and the dead had been sorted out and taken away, living first, dead last. Only she remained now, with Tim and Mick.
It was then that she heard the door being opened, an odd deafening sort of sound despite the fact that it was far from silent with everything going on around her. Looking up slowly, she saw soldiers stepping out - and then a young girl, eyes wide and uncertain, following. And then another, a boy this time, older than the girl and holding the hand of two children, leading them with barely managed surety.
There was a woman with them, dressed in civilian clothing. She stared as she saw the body bags, turning to shake her head to the soldier who looked helpless, for a moment. But the boy frowned a bit, then looked at both bodies on the ground, and at Alison in turn and then pushed forward, others following him as he cleared the doorway.
"No." The voice carried through clearly to her. "We're not going to pretend. We should know."
Throat tightening more than she could bear, Alison bowed her head, unable to look anymore. The hushed silence was made only more obvious and in it the sound of the children walking by impossible not to hear. She stood and waited, the blood marring her uniform and the bodies at her feet a small testament to the price which had been paid for their freedom.
Haroun was, in a word, exhausted. Emotionally and physically spent. For once, he wasn't all that physically chewed up - just some bruises and what had the makings of a possible tendon strain in his left elbow. But there was someone else he needed to check on - someone else who he had to know whether or not she had crossed over or not. Haroun forced his way past the bewildered survivors of the massacre, the children that so many had fought and bled and died to protect. Doesn't mean a damn thing if she's not there to share it with me. he thought bleakly. He had seen the dome, and knew full well what that kind of power expenditure had to mean.
It was the way the children all kept looking back, which cued him in, the taller ones sometimes reaching down to lift up the younger ones, all of them with solemn and sad expressions, not a word or whisper escaping them the entire time. On the far end, leaning on the wall near the door to the training barracks, was Alison. It was the stir in the line of children which cause her to look up, not a word being spoken but something about the way their attention shifted as Haroun broke though was enough for her to notice. She saw Haroun right away, eyes locking on him instantly, his name on her lips though no sound came out.
Haroun lowered his khaffiyeh, raised his goggles, and showed Alison his ear-to-ear grin of relief. "Hey, Chief." he said with a friendly smile and a wave. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. Traffic was a real bitch." he said with a laugh. "You know how it is."
She didn't say a word in answer as he neared her, instead raising one hand to rest it on his chest, slowly. Checking. He was moving well, showing no signs of injury. The hand on his chest was joined by another for a brief moment, which then went higher, touching his cheek. Alive and well. He was fine. Alison tried to speak, to repeat some of what she'd told him earlier, when she thought it might be all she could ever say to him - and instead, finally, brushed her fingertips down along his jawline, pressing them softly to his mouth.
Silence.
Haroun closed his eyes for a second, to revel in the sensation of her touch. When he opened them, he proceeded to study her as best he could. "Hey, you shredded your uniform. Here, take my jacket." He said, shrugging out of the blood-drenched and sulfur-stinking garment and handing it to her. "You need it more than I do."
She slid on the jacket slowly, the leather hanging off her loosely. Looking up at Haroun meant also seeing the children, from the corner of her eyes, seeing the grave solemnity as their eyes went from the two adults still standing, and the body bags. There were only a few left now, the end of the line already out of the building and edging further away. One smaller child, skin a light shade of orange and with no visible features to see, lifted one hand up to where his mouth might have been, then stretched it towards them, slowly, palm facing upwards towards the sky.
Thank you.
Alison's hands twitched, a gesture starting in return - and she hesitated, at a loss of what to reply, before finally settling on the only thing that seemed possible to reply. The only thing that was acceptable, and what those who had fallen would have wanted.
Live well.
With that she took a deep breath and focused on Haroun once more, taking one shallow breath, and then another. The smell of the sulfur permeating his coat was reassuring, somehow. "Love you." The whisper was hoarse, perhaps, but steady. Stepping forward, just a bit, just enough, she lifted her arms and slid them around his neck, holding on tightly.
Haroun touched his fingertips to his lips, then to his forehead, then made a gesture towards the sky in return to the little orange boy's gesture. "Allah akbar." he said quietly. To Alison, he hugged back just as tightly. "Be careful with that jacket," he warned her as he looked down at her. "They're expensive."
He had done this before, seen it before, she knew. And though everything seemed removed somehow, distant, the quiet solidity about him was an anchor, one Alison wasn't afraid to draw strength from. She still had things to do. Promises to keep. "I'll be careful." It wasn't about the jacket, of course.
A faint scuffing sound to the side drew their attention. Elliot, leaning to the side slightly in pure exhaustion stood nearby, a heartsick look in as he focused on the body bags. With him was a government agent, one Alison recognized from earlier - the one who had held down Caffrey, rather than just shoot her. Instead of a gun he now held two stretchers.
Alison looked down as well, the two body bags bizarrely pristine on the ground. It was time to take them home.
~*~
Gone.
All of them. Except Elliot and Anika, and Nathan.
Gone.
MacInnis found himself sitting on a chunk of what had once been a wall, staring blankly at the ground beneath his feet.
All but three of those he'd brought here. So many... so many of those they'd come to save. So few survivors. He'd seen Nash and Matsuda, out at the front of the barracks, Nash on his feet when he shouldn't have been, Matsuda right there to support him. Of course.
Piers and Cole had been back at the triage tent. Alive. And he'd seen Lense, of course. That Lense had survived, when so many of the others who'd fought had died...
He didn't know how many of the second-gens had survived. Whether any of them had survived in anything but body, after what had been done to them.
Masada. Carmella, you murderous bitch...
His head was spinning with it. All he'd done, over the years, all he'd tried to do.
All the bodies.
All his kids...
Everyone was occupied elsewhere, with the injured or the prisoners. No one saw him sink his face into his hands, or his shoulders start to shake with silent sobs. No one was there to offer comfort, had they even been inclined to do so.
And for the first time in countless years, part of him wished it could be otherwise.
~*~
Noise, all around him. Voices he didn't recognize, the buzz of thoughts in minds totally unfamiliar to him. There was pain in so many of those minds, too, pain that he couldn't separate from his own, as if he was just afloat in a sea of it, slowly drowning. Nathan tried to open his eyes, caught a blurred glimpse of what looked like canvas, above his head, before the weight on his eyelids was too much to fight.
"Nathan?" Hank caught the increased beeping of the monitors and hurried over. "Nathan, are you conscious?" He touched Nathan's forehead lightly, trying to project soothing calm the way Charles and Jean had taught him.
Nathan managed to open his eyes again, and thought he recognized the large blue blur. "Leave my pants alone," he muttered faintly, the words coming out slurred. Dimly, he realized that he couldn't move - literally, couldn't move. There was something keeping his head still, and the rest of his body, too...
"I didn't touch your pants," Hank said cheerfully. "You're doped to the gills, mind you, but you still have pants. And all your body parts are, if not intact, still attached."
Big... cheerful... not pants-stealing. Still probably Hank, though. Nathan tried to take a deep breath, and a whimper crept out. "Ribs hurt," he murmured weakly. "Everything hurts..."
"I'm not surprised." Hank nodded, and looked around. Aha. Water. "I've never seen you so thoroughly beaten up, and that's saying something. Are you thirsty?"
"Yeah..." His eyes tried to flutter closed again but he forced them open, wanting very badly to stay conscious. Just long enough to have some questions answered, if nothing else. "Hank... the others?"
Hank sighed. "The children are safe, and being cared for. Anika survived, and will recover. So will you, eventually, with care and patience. But it will take time." He remembered something that might comfort him, a tiny bit. "The conditioning team... and the white room... were dealt with," he said softly. "And the child who was in there with them should be all right, in time."
White rooms. Nathan managed to take a sip of the water as Hank held it for him. "Over," he whispered, his voice perhaps a little stronger. "Alison told me... over?"
"All over." Hank dripped water between his lips, very slowly, wary of letting him choke. "And gone. There were losses, but we saved the children, and destroyed Mistra."
The water helped. A little. "'S good," he muttered, his eyes trying to close again. "Why... can't move, Hank...?"
"Because you can't be trusted," Hank said, a little amused despite the devastation. "You're badly hurt, Nathan, although you will recover, and one of the injuries was to your spine. You're off moving-privileges for a while."
"Bully..." There was some fear there, amid the haze of pain, even with Hank's reassurance. "Pants... not enough for you?" Was he trying to joke? Apparently. Better than weeping. Better than thinking about all the minds he should have sensed and hadn't, when the Trojan Horse had gone off.
"Moira likes to keep your pants for herself, when she's around." Hank smiled. "You haven't done any permanent damage, especially not with Amanda's healing magic to call on... and even if spinal injuries didn't count as sufficiently serious, I don't think there's anything we could do to stop her."
Moira and Amanda. They'd be there, waiting for him, back at the mansion... Nathan closed his eyes, helpless tears trickling down his cheeks. "Want to go home," he whispered brokenly, trying not to think about all those missing minds. All the dead. Tim and Mick...
Hank wiped the tears away gently with a clean end of bandage. "You'll be home very soon," he said gently. "With them."
~*~
"You carried me through the war, and now I need you to carry me a little bit further..."
–'The Message', Firefly
~*~
"The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us.
A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds
us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out,
it's gone forever. And there will never be another quite like it. So
many candles will go out tonight. I wonder some days if we can see
anything at all."
--'All My Dreams, Torn Asunder', Babylon 5
~*~
A rock to the shoulder made her scream then it went numb which was probably worse. Havel's blast clipped the edge of her shield; she shied away automatically and slammed his next blow back at him. Gustafson was close enough to touch when Lorna wrenched her attention back. The best she could do was kick the woman in the head. This wasn't going well at all.
No sooner had she thought that, than both of them dropped. Like puppets whose strings had been cut. Havel fell out of the air and hit the ground hard, and Gustafson just crumpled, unmoving. Farther away, Fraser stopped struggling. All the other operatives on the field in front of the barracks, whether they had been on their feet or in the process of getting back there, had hit the ground as well. Were just as still. As if whatever had been driving them was gone.
And the sounds of battle decreased, then vanished almost entirely. Some scattered gunfire was all that remained, and then even that fell silent.
Her ankle and shoulder ached, there was blood on her face from a cut she didn't remember getting and she suspected it wasn't alone. Looking down at her hands--her gloves were shredded to pieces, she saw her fingernails were green and her skin was edging that way. Time enough to worry about that later though. Lorna bolted back to where she'd left the medics and Piers, praying they'd gotten him out. That they'd gotten themselves out.
The two had managed to get Piers back behind the barricade. One was still working over him, while the other was listening to his coms. "They just dropped," he said to Lorna, astonished. "All of the operatives who were triggered. Something... one of the telepaths must have done something." He shook off the shock, focusing on her. "You're hurt. Do you need help?"
Lorna shook her head, ignoring rather than answering the question. "How's he doing?" she asked looking down at Piers. She figured she had time to get that answer before finding out what the hell had just happened. She suspected Nathan.
"Depends," the other medic said grimly, putting an oxygen mask over Piers' face. "He's obviously got a healing factor, but there's a lot of damage." He looked back over his shoulder, grimly. "The other - Nolan? He's gone."
"Keep him alive." Lorna started to say something else then shook her head, "I have to figure out what's going on." She took off for the training barracks. ~Polaris here, what's the status?~
She heard Alison answer, her voice unnaturally calm. And even as other voices came over the coms, trying to ascertain the status of all the different teams, the hush remained.
~*~
There were bodies everywhere. Most of them in front of her and many were in fact alive, she realized blankly, answering something to the voice talking to her far too calmly on the comm channel, reassuring Haroun that she was still alive, and just fine in a deadened and blank voice. She looked down, and then to the side, following the length of a woman's body, noting the absence of the claws that had winked out of existence just as Alison had sidestepped the first attack only to see her would be killed fall to the ground as though stuck by lightning. Everything was in shades of black and white and wreathed in silence except for the voices on the comm, it seemed, until her gaze reached a bright scarlet pool, life slipping out from between fingers clenched against a body.
Mick. Time settled in again and somehow Alison was no longer standing, but instead kneeling by Mick, too much blood spread around him now and the knowing look in his eyes briefly making her want to howl a protest, the rapid and unsteady panting somehow suddenly too loud and real. Instead she reached forward, hands moving gently to cradle him close.
"The kids are safe. We held out long enough." The words were steady somehow, her voice soft and controlled - reassuring, even.
"'S good," he managed in a broken, barely audible whisper. He slumped against her almost gratefully. "... okay?" he forced out. Willing her to know that he meant was she okay, after he'd poured that much sonic force at her. Remembering what had happened in the fall - his memories seemed so much more vivid than the world around him now - he needed to know that she was all right. Very much.
"Not a scratch on me," she murmured softly, one hand brushing against his cheek lightly, words meant purely to reassure him until she realized that they were true. "I'm fine." Somehow, despite all that had happened, she had made it through unscathed. Carefully she shifted, to make him more comfortable, the unsteady fluttering of the vein on the side of his throat telling her far more than she wanted to know. Voices queried for her on the comm channel and a short, flatly sub-vocalized message told them she would be with them soon - but not now, not just yet.
The memory of the lost, hopeless look he'd given after they'd brought him back hovered near the surface, and for a moment she thought she might break. But the look in his eyes now, despite everything else, held something far grander within. "We did it. They're taking the surviving directors into custody now. The kids will be all right."
"Ani...? Nate?" He'd seen Tim go down, knew he was dead, and even with everything getting increasingly hazier, the knowledge was like a raw ache in his chest. But Nathan had still been on his feet, still fighting. And Ani healed.
Nathan had fallen and she remembered the sight only too well. But he'd also unleashed the Trojan Horse, which meant he wasn't dead, and Alison clung to that knowledge with quiet desperation. "Nathan isn't far away. He's alive." She'd just have to find him, once Mick was gone. "I'll find Anika." Taking a light, feathery breath, she continued somehow, watching as his eyes grew steadily distant. "You're all coming home. I promise."
"Tell her... love her? And Nate... " He trailed off, his eyes fluttered. "Alison... t-thanks..." It wasn't loud enough to be a whisper, even. "For finding me..."
The scream that had lodged in her throat when she'd turned around was gone, having ebbed away between then and now. "I will." Quiet acceptance colored her voice, and Alison rocked him gently without realizing what she was doing. "Thank you for letting me find you." Words whispered as lowly as his own had been, the steadily decreasing rate of his breathing the only sound she could hear.
Until there was nothing left to listen to.
~*~
It had all happened within the space of a few minutes. More of the triggered operatives had appeared, until there were better than a half-dozen attempting to force their way into the training barracks from the rear, shrugging off Kylun and Forrester's attempts to incapacitate them and coming back for more, over and over, as relentless as if they'd lost human weakness along with all rational thought under the influence of the trigger.
Forrester had fallen, caught in a vulnerable semi-phased state by an energy-projector, just before the dome of light had gone up, encompassing the entire barracks within its protective light. Even then, the mindless operatives had tried to blast or hammer or simply claw their way through, following the urging of their imperatives, trying to get at the children inside.
Then the shield went down, almost as quickly as it had come, and scant moments later, every operative in Kylun's immediate vicinity dropped as well, like puppets whose strings had been abruptly cut. Flyers, those who had been climbing up the rock face and down from above, all of them fell or tumbled back to the beach below, where Breslin and her men ventured out from cover to check on them.
The children. The need to make sure the children were safe burned in Kylun nearly as deeply as the Mistra operatives' conditioning had. Some of the government troops had made it into the barracks before him, and he brushed past them with murmured apologies, moving into the dormitory area.
The only ones inside already were a handful of medics, most of them busy trying to get the doors on the cells open. One, an older man, looked up as Kylun approached. "Start at the other end of the hall," he said hoarsely. He looked exhausted already, his fatigues liberally splashed with blood. "I don't know what shape the kids will be in. I think it was that Trojan Horse thing..."
"Better condition than they would have been in had we not come," Kylun said quietly. "Now at least they have hope." He offered the man what he hoped was a reassuring smile and moved quickly down the hall. When he heard movement from inside one of the cells, he stopped short, trying the door.
Inside, once he got the door open, Kylun found himself confronted by a blank, bewildered stare from a boy of perhaps twelve years, with startling indigo eyes and hair to match. The boy was in the corner of the cell farthest from the door, and shrank back a little as Kylun entered.
Kylun spread empty hands, acutely aware that he was not particularly good at appearing nonthreatening--especially now, with his uniform scored, his fur matted with sweat and in some places blood. Still, this was not the first time he had encountered frightened and traumatized children; he pitched his voice low and soothing, smiling without baring his teeth. "You are safe now. No one will harm you now. I am Kylun, and I have come with others to take you out of here. Can you tell me your name?"
"Rob," the boy said haltingly, after a long moment's pause. "What... something happened. I can feel things again. It all came back." He looked up at Kylun, focusing on him, though still looking confused. "My head hurts. How come you opened the door? They're the only ones that open the door. When they come to take us to the white room." His jaw trembled for a moment, his gaze unfocusing again.
"There is no more white room," Kylun replied, and he was unable to keep the barest hint of a growl from coloring the undertones of his voice. "We have stopped it. No one will ever take you there again. We will take you home, if you wish it, if you have one to return to." And oh, was this speech familiar, echoing back in time. "If you do not . . . there is a place for you, if you wish it. A safe place, and a peaceful one. But only if you wish it. You are free to choose, free to live."
The boy was staring at him as if his words were incomprehensible, but slowly, something close to understanding was dawning in those vividly colored eyes. Understanding, and hope. "I get to go home?" he asked, his voice breaking. "Really? They said... they said we didn't have homes anymore, that we were here and we'd always be here..."
"They lied," he said quietly, grieving a little; whatever hapened now, the boy's innocence was a casualty he was far too late to save. "They lied, Rob, about everything they said." He smiled again. "Tell me about your home?"
"I... it's hard to remember," Rob said. But he was shifting forward, out of the corner where he'd been huddled. He cast a longing look at the door behind Kylun. "It's all fuzzy in my head. But it's all back, now." He looked up at Kylun, the hope definitely winning out over the confusion. "It'll be okay? Really?"
"Really and truly. My oath on it." Kylun spread his hand over his heart, a formal gesture, then offered it to Rob. "We can leave this cell right now, if you like, and never come back. You and all the other children."
Rob stared at him for a long moment, almost blankly, as if his mind was still having difficulty processing the idea. But then he swallowed, visibly, and reached out, his hand only slightly unsteady, to take Kylun's. "Okay," he said, his voice hoarse, breathy, tears just beneath the surface. "I believe you."
~*~
There was someone at her elbow, speaking to her insistently, but Alison ignored the woman and instead turned another body. "Alive." It was one of the second gens, nose obviously broken and she gently eased back to his side. "Take care of him." The protest was met with a flat look and somehow any further resistance melted away. Unable to care enough to wonder why, Alison moved on, methodically searching through the bodies, working her way towards where she recalled seeing Nathan in the corridor which was nothing more than a few panels of wall by now, open entirely to the sky. Sunlight streamed from above, bathing the world below in warm glow, dust motes floating in the air slowly. It failed to warm Alison though, the chill in her bones matching the numbness in her soul.
She stopped suddenly in her search, recognizing the edge of a profile, the cast of a high cheekbone and a nose which had been broken many times before, giving it a unique outline. Forgetting to breathe she closed the distance, knowing already that he was dead. Kneeling down, she hesitated for a moment, before closing Tim's eyes gently. One of the soldiers who had been following her was finally acknowledged, Alison turning to give him a calm look. "He comes back with us as well." Mick's body had already been carefully placed to the side, someone standing by it until she could come back to bring him to the Blackbird. A short nod answered her, and two more were called to help, though Alison was already ignoring them by then. She rested one hand on Tim's chest, head bowed and lips moving in silence briefly, before simply pushing up again to continue her search, to keep her promise to Mick.
Part of the weight was shifted off him, and Nathan gave what would have been a choked cry, if he'd been able to draw enough air into his lungs to give it any volume. He heard soft, urgent voices, felt a cool hand touch his throat, checking his pulse. Someone tugged at his psimitar, trying to take it from him. He held onto it stubbornly. Might need it still, he thought dazedly, and cried out again, this time more audibly as the people around him tried to move him.
Alison's head snapped to the side as she heard the cry, locking down on the direction of the sound instantly, spotting a few soldiers bent over someone - Nathan, she knew. It wasn't so much about moving them out of the way as simply placing herself between them and the man on the ground, one hand placing itself above Nathan's on the psimitar. "Leave it." Something finally stirred inside - a brief moment of clear joy, the feeling bright and clear as a bell before it subsided under the numbness once more. Ignoring the men hovering nearby with weary concern etched on their features, she kneeled down, never noticing the blood covering the floor, tarnishing her already blood stained leathers further. "Nathan?" The sun beat down on her back, warming her skin. She looked him over rapidly, hands checking for broken limbs, noting that something was simply wrong in how he lay there. "Nathan, it's Alison." A voice called out behind her, hollering urgently for a medic's assistance.
He tried to say her name but he still couldn't breathe properly, couldn't find his voice. #Ali...# he thought weakly, wondering why he could still reach out telepathically, after that. Hadn't he sprained his brain again? His head hurt, but then, everything hurt, so he really couldn't tell. #Ali... can't move...#
"Don't try to move." It was the simple, logical thing to say, even as the medic suddenly kneeling on the other side said the same thing, in a far sharper voice. Something burned brightly in the back of her mind, but she pushed it aside and it was easy to fall into nothing but the here and now, to think only of what was at hand. "It worked. The children are safe." She couldn't bring herself to say 'we won', however. "It's over, now."
#Over...# Disjointed images of Tim crumpling to the ground, of Mick dragging himself over bodies, flickered through his mind. #Gone... they're gone...# He couldn't feel them anymore, just fading echoes, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears.
"I know." The whisper was unsteady, Alison skittering on the edge, nearly to breaking at that point. The medic spoke softly, touching Alison's arm, mercifully distracting her even as she tightened her hand over Nathan's, still holding the psimitar.
"We're looking at a spinal injury here, I think, on top of what's obvious. I'm having a stretcher brought over but we're going to be very careful here. He has to stay still and not try to move."
A slow nod answered that, and Alison turned her attention on Nathan once more. He was alive. And she still had to another to find. "We're bringing them home," she murmured, feeling helpless, clinging to the one thing she could do just now. "I have to find Anika, now."
#Ani...# He could still feel Ani, and he forced his eyes open. #Wall... by the wall. Where Mick fell first...# She was alive. Weak, but alive, and he tried to reach out to her, pull her back. But the pain was winning again, and his eyes drifted shut, the voices around him dying to a distant buzz.
She watched as Nathan slipped into unconsciousness, then looked up to meet the eyes of the medic, who was still holding the now empty needle. "We'll contact your people and get him prepped as they require," the man said, with a gentleness that seemed odd to Alison.
She was already rising to her feet, however, eyes looking searchingly in the direction Mick had been, before they'd moved him. "I need help from another medic. There's another. She's still alive." The last sentence could barely be overheard, as Alison sprinted off.
The bodies over by the wall where Mick had first fallen had been untouched as of yet. They seemed to have fallen together, in one jumbled pile of tangled limbs. None of them were moving, most appeared dead or very close to it. But as Alison approached, sunlight glinted off pale golden hair, towards the bottom of the heap of bodies.
"Anika?" It was a stupid, senseless thing to do, but Alison couldn't help but call out her name, even as she carefully checked over the person lying over the feral. Dead, no worries as to injuries, which meant hauling the body off Anika as quickly as possible while making sure not to aggravate any of her injuries. Helping hands were there soon, Alison taking notice of them only so much as they helped to clear away things quickly.
Anika, even when she was uncovered, didn't move or respond to Alison's call of her name. She just laid there, looking incongruously small beside the bodies of the other operatives, with visible, ugly wounds - deep lacerations and burns - all over her body. Her eyes were closed, her skin deathly pale.
Taking a deep breath, Alison set to doing what she could, not even bothering to pretend her sentences weren't orders, not realizing people were doing as she asked without question or doubt. Get the living help, set them on the path homeward. And then make sure their dead were escorted back as well.
~*~
"Summers?"
Scott looked up, blinking, and managed a nod for Colonel Catano. "Sir," he said hoarsely, shifting with a wince. He was rightfully low-priority in triage - the medic had offered him a painkiller and then moved on to someone more desperately in need of medical attention.
"We can skip the formalities," the older man said with a faint, exhausted smile as he crouched down beside Scott. "You all right?"
"Just the knee." Well, that was glossing over a few things, but it was the knee that had disabled him, so that was all that was important. Scott looked out over the triage tent, swallowing. "It's over, then." His com was still functioning; he'd been able to keep track, give a few last orders, even as he'd been evaced.
Catano nodded slowly, his eyes roaming the crowded tent as well. "Didn't go quite as planned, did it?" he asked, and the gruffness in his voice was a cover for something else. "Still," he said, his voice briefly unsteady. "We did well. All of us." He reached out and laid a hand on Scott's shoulder, squeezing for a moment. "Remember that."
...when you look around. The unspoken words hung there in the air between them, but Scott swallowed and nodded.
"I'm going to go check things out at the training barracks," Catano said, and for a moment there was a flash of longing in his tired eyes. "Seeing them bring those kids out... that'd go over mighty well right now."
Scott envied him suddenly, overwhelmingly. "I imagine it would," he said a bit hoarsely.
There was understanding in Catano's eyes. "We'll have footage of it," he offered softly. "You stay here, son. You did your part." He paused, then offered a hand. Scott took it immediately. "Tell your people, Cyclops. One hell of a job."
"Thank you, sir."
~*~
It seemed like it had taken forever to reach the barracks. While there had been no further attacks along the way, Wanda had to pick her way through a battlefield of rubble and bodies. Turning a corner, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the massive mount of dead and injured that littered the floor. There were government troops there already, picking through the bodies, trying to sort those still breathing from those who were gone. Something hard and cold settled in her stomach as she picked her way over and around, nearly slipping on the puddles of blood.
Forcing it into the back of her mind, she stepped through the front door. White cells lined the lines, too small to fit more than one person in them. Not that that would have stopped them. Seeing someone inside, she darted over to the first one.
The government medic was bending over a small boy, no more than nine or ten, checking his vitals. He looked up at Wanda sharply, then relaxed, recognizing her. "There are so many," he said hoarsely, turning his attention back to the boy. "We're trying to get more personnel over to help, but there are so many wounded, everywhere..."
The boy whimpered a little, thrashing, and the medic drew back sharply, a look of real pain on his face before he reached out again, soothing. "The drug cocktails they gave them are going to have them all pretty messed up," he said hoarsely. "Above and beyond whatever the hell just happened. We need to make sure their vitals are stable, reassure them that they're safe..."
"I can do reassuring," Wanda replied, focussing past her own physical pain. Tugging off her gloves, she reached down and softly touched the boy's forehead. A part of her wanted to cry and wail but now was not the time. "Who needs help the most? Are there any that don't speak English?"
"I don't know. We haven't even finished assessing them all yet. One of your teammates is here, too." The medic looked as exhausted as she felt. "Go down the hall, pick the first door that hasn't been opened yet? About the only thing I can suggest."
Nodding, she pushed herself back up to her feet. Heading back out she noticed there was a door on the left that had not yet been entered. Pushing it open, she bit her lip. A girl, no older than ten, if that, was curled up in a ball on the floor, crying and holding her head as if to protect herself.
Kneeling next to her, Wanda reached for her slowly. "It is okay now, you're safe, little one," she said quietly.
The little girl shrank away from her with a wail. "~Don't hurt me,~" she pleaded, sounding a little more coherent than the boy in the other cell had been, if still very confused. "~Please don't hurt me...~"
It seemed her question to the medic about non-English speakers had been correct, though she was startled to find one that spoke Russian. The reach of Mistra really had gone far...too far. It was a dialect but one that she could speak. "~I am not going to hurt you,~" she soothed, slipping easily out of English. "~We're here to help you, help you leave.~"
The girl actually focused on her, blue eyes bleary but suddenly intent, drugs or no drugs. "~Promise?~" she asked brokenly, after a moment. "~I can leave...? Out of the white room?~"
"~Promise. Out of the white room. The people who put you were are gone.~" Careful not to spook her, Wanda held out her hands to the girl, allowing her to make the first move. ~No more white rooms, I promise.~"
The girl abruptly uncurled from her protective ball and all but threw herself at Wanda, crying. "~I wasn't scared before, my head was all empty, but now everything's back again and I don't know why,~" she
sobbed.
Wincing, even that slight impact hurt, she nevertheless wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl. "~It's all right now, it'll be all right,~" she told her, carassing her hair and back soothingly. "~You'll be taken care of and no one will hurt you again.~"
"~I want to go home, please...~"
There were movement behind her and the medic she'd spoken to first appeared, kneeling down beside them. "We've got more help arriving," he said, his voice low. The girl shrank away from him and he winced, pain flashing across his face for a moment. "Any injuries here?"
Gathering her back to her side, Wanda shook her head. "Does not seem to be. Physical anyway. Hang on a second." Peering down, she smiled. "~My name is Wanda, what's yours?~" Screw code names.
"~Anna.~" The girl peered up at the medic, then huddled closer to Wanda, holding on as if she had no plans to let go anytime soon.
"Her name is Anna," she told the medic. "And...I don't think she's going to want to want me to leave her alone. Are there any other kids that are unhurt, relatively speaking, but scared? I'll see if I can get that group together." Meaning she wouldn't have to let Anna out of her sight until it was necessary.
He rubbed at his jaw. "Why don't you stay in here, with her," he suggested tiredly. "I'll try and funnel the ones who are more mobile in here, get you some more help with them."
"Perfect, less tramua on these poor things. And, um, could you get me a towel please?" Wanda glanced over her shoulder at the claw marks, which were still bleeding. Unfortunately. "I'll get medical attention once this is over, they need it more, but at least something to stop up the blood?"
The medic looked at her injuries and grimaced. "I think, actually, I'll get someone in here to take care of those, too," he said, and his tone didn't suggest he was going to brook any disagreement. "If you're going to help them, you can't be passing out from blood loss."
She thought about arguing but judging from the fact that sitting down felt _too_ good (she was fairly positive she had a slight concussion on top of that) she sighed and nodded. "All right." Looking down at Anna, she smiled a little. "~We're going to stay in here and some of the others are going to join us soon.~"
The medic laid a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze before he rose. "Someone will be in shortly," he said, giving her an approving look and Anna a small smile before he went back out.
"~There was singing in my head,~" Anna whispered, still clinging. "~I didn't understand the words, but it was pretty. Sad, though.~"
Wanda shifted to a more comfortable position, bringing Anna actually onto her lap as she leaned sideways against the wall. Ah, the Trojan Horse, she'd been briefed about that. "~That is what made everything better,~" she said. "~It was designed to help.~"
Anna sniffled. "~So sad,~" she muttered, and closed her eyes.
"~Sometimes even the sad things can help us,~" Wanda said, holding the little girl closer as she felt her relax. Softly under her breath, she started to hum a Russian folk song as they waited for the others to start arriving.
~*~
The pile of rubble had only settled for seemingly a moment, as the dust ceased to move and everything took on the appearance of a calm portrait of destruction, a building that had stood for literally centuries, collapsed into nothing but ruin. A few brief seconds of violent motion, and all was static and still again.
Then, once more, motion occurred. Rocks began to shake and move, as a large chunk of rubble lifted from the dirt, carried on the back of a mountain of a man. Cain Marko sucked in a dry breath, heaved, and spread his arms out towards the sky. Rolling his shoulders, he looked around. Uniformed soldiers ran about, tending to the wounded and restraining the injured Mistra operatives. Rasping words of encouragement, he smiled and stepped aside from the basement passageway that he'd blocked with his own body. From beneath him, grey-suited Mistra trainees covered their eyes as they walked out into the dusty air, making their way to the medics and soldiers.
Every one. I saved every one of 'em. Cain thought to himself. I did that.
Touching his comlink, he heard only silence. Popping it into his hand to inspect it, he realized that it must have been damaged in the collapse of the building. He grabbed the arm of one of the teenage trainees as he was being attended to by a medic.
"Trainee barracks," he rasped out, throat still coated with dust. "Where?"
Following the boy's gaze, Cain looked over to the shell of the barracks, nearly invisible with all the medical personnel rushing in and out. Stretchers were being carted around like a steady stream of parts on a conveyor belt, laden with both the injured and the dead.
And one black-uniformed man, face streaked with blood, holding a … spear?
Psimitar, Nathan had called it.
Nathan.
"NATE!" Cain bellowed, rushing to his feet and stomping through the rubble. No, no, NO, his mind raced. You did it RIGHT, you made the good call, he can't have died for your mistake, don't let it be a mistake…
Pushing medical personnel to the side, Cain practically charged the barracks. "NATE!" he screamed again, voice cracking. He blinked back the red creeping into his vision. This couldn't happen, this wasn't supposed to happen, someone was going to pay for this. If Nathan was dead, if one of his only friends was dead and gone because of his decision, then someone had to pay. Someone always had to-
A hand against Cain's chest gave him pause, and he stopped. Clearing his vision, he looked over into the slate-gray face before him, one eye swelled shut with massive burns, the skin around his temple and cheek streaked and smooth in that peculiar way burned tissue had. Nash grimaced at the effort, going as super-dense as he was able and standing firm in front of Cain.
"Y'wanna go nuts," he hissed through a mouth partially held shut by burned skin and slurred by painkillers, "this isn't the place. Got too many injured here. Stand down."
Cain's head slowly turned, taking in the destruction, and then Nash's injuries. How the man was able to stand was a testament to his strength. Cain glanced down at himself, shirt hanging in tatters, one leg of his jeans torn away at the knee – but his skin unscratched, unblemished. Untouchable.
"Stand down?" he growled. "They're carting my friend off into a fucking body bag, and you want me to STAND DOWN?" His bellow echoed off the remaining buildings. "I gotta see him, I gotta let him know-"
"You'll see him," Matsuda answered curtly, stepping out from behind Nash. Slowly, she walked forward, placing a hand on Cain's forearm. "Nathan's injured, but he'll pull through. He held them off, he and Dazzler and Foley. Just like you kept those kids alive. Good work, Mr. Marko."
Her professional tone struck a chord in Cain's mind, as did the important words that he'd hoped to hear. "Alive? He's alive." Holding stock still for a moment, Cain dropped down to a kneeling position in the dust and gravel, running his hands over his head and staring at nothing. "We… we did it, then. We beat them, and brought everyone home, yeah?"
The sudden pained looks from Nash and Matsuda told Cain differently. "No…" he breathed, sadness suddenly hitting him like a tidal wave. "Who'd we lose?"
"None of the X-Men," Matsuda answered, her demeanor starting to soften. "Our people, though…"
"Me an' Isabel. Cole, Piers… Anika made it out, too. That's…" Nash's voice caught, and he slumped down across from Cain, prompting Matsuda to go to his side, throwing her smaller arms around the big man's neck and holding tightly.
"Ani," Cain smiled, then paused. "Oh shit. Tim? Mick? They gotta… tell me they didn't…"
The nod from Matsuda said it all. Cain pounded a fist in the dirt and swore under his breath. "Fuck. Just… fuck." Closing his eyes, he steeled himself. "It's worth it, right? Tell me it was worth it."
No answer came.
~*~
They were bringing the injured and the dead out of the building. As necessary as the job was, the young medic truly wished she was on the team helping the kids. Especially as the injured were being hustled rapidly away - she'd seen some of the X-Men escorting some of their own back to the evac area, even - and she and the others were left with the dead.
The medic's thoughts could have been Madelyn's own as they moved through the pile of dead. 'Should have been here sooner', she kept telling herself. Her shoulder was throbbing insistently despite the painkiller she'd taken earlier, and it was only the driving anger that was keeping her on her feet. That and the need to see the job done. There was a flash of white among the predominantly black uniforms of the operatives, and she awkwardly heaved at a woman's body, uncovering the still, white face of Bourne, the white of the cast on his arm startling bright.
The medic spotted her, standing over one of the bodies and staring fixedly downwards, and hesitantly - she'd met Madelyn Bartlet only once, last night, at the final briefing for the taskform teams - came over to join her. "Doctor Bartlet?" she asked uncertainly. Madelyn didn't look at her. "Uh... I'm Roberts, one of the medics? Can I help you?" She looked down at the body of the young man, not recognizing him at all.
For a second Madelyn didn't realise she was being spoken to, having gotten used to being called by her first name at the school. Then the presence of the young medic registered, and she blinked hard, stooping to close Bourne's eyes. "I knew him," she said at last. "Hell, I treated that broken arm for him a month ago. Just... a little too personal." Ignoring her shoulder for the moment - she'd managed to shrug the jacket back on properly once the painkillers kicked in, so there wasn't anything to notice, she straightened. "We can't help him, but there might be others in this mess we can."
Roberts noticed the stiffness with which she was moving. Her eyes narrowed a little, but she simply nodded, and knelt to check the pulse of the woman next to him. "She's gone, too," she said quietly, sighing as she rose again. "What a mess."
"Scorched earth," Madelyn murmured bitterly. "We backed them into a corner, and this was their last backup plan. Destroy the evidence." The next body was clearly dead - no-one could live with their neck on that angle - and she moved to another, who she recognised as Pulaski, one of the first gens. Had they all... A certain dread was growing in her now, and she moved on, searching for specific faces now. "Come on, don't let me down, please be okay..." she muttered under her breath.
Roberts looked at her worriedly, then spotted the two men the X-Men had insisted on carrying from the building themselves. Their bodies were set a little ways apart from the rest; the blonde woman had made it very clear that they were coming back for the both of them, as soon as they got their wounded treatment.
"Doctor Bartlet?" she asked hesitantly, touching the older woman's arm and gesturing uncertainly in that direction. "Are they..." She trailed off abruptly. If they were who Bartlet was looking for, who she wanted to be okay...
"No." The word came out strangled, Madelyn's throat seizing up around it. "No, no, oh God, no..." She stumbled unseeingly towards the two bodies, jarring her shoulder with every misstep. "Oh God, no, Mick, not you, it can't be..." Clumsily she fell to her knees beside Mick's body, hand automatically going to the pulse point in his neck. "Not after everything, not you too..." His skin was still slightly warm, maybe there was a chance... She forced her right hand to move, to pinch off his nostrils as she breathed into his mouth. "Help me," she ordered hoarsely at the staring Roberts. "I can't do this on my own!"
Roberts watched her for a shocked moment. "Doctor Bartlet... Madelyn," she said softly, coming closer. "He's gone." Even if she hadn't watched him being carried out, heard the orders the X-Men's field leader had given, one look at his wounds... She reached out tentatively, laying a hand on the older woman's shoulder.
"Don't say that!" Madelyn retorted, shrugging off the hand and moving to do the cardiac massage herself. She had some adrenaline in the untility belt Hank had made for her, she could use that... Pain sheared through her shoulder as she pushed down on Mick's chest, the blood from his stomach wound sticky under her hands. "You don't understand, he can't be gone, not after what it cost to bring him out, how much he fought..." She pushed through the pain, again leaning on Mick's chest, but her shoudler gave out and she collapsed across his still form. "It can't end like this..."
"Madelyn..." Her stomach twisting in sympathy, Roberts knelt down beside her. "I'm so sorry. He was one of the first-gens working with the X-Men?"
"Vermont," Madelyn managed, lifting her head, her cheek smudged with concrete dust and blood. The injury was screaming at her now, and she couldn't help cradling the arm against herself. "He was at Vermont, when the X-Men went in. His conditioning cracked, and he ran... Alison and Nathan brought him back." Tears spilled over, leaving tracks in the dust. "He was just getting it together, life without conditioning. He did it the hard way, like Nathan." A chuckle that was more like a sob escaped her. "He kept me company on night shifts. He's a lousy card player." Something broke in her then, and her head bowed, blood-stained hands resting in her lap.
She was hurt; Roberts couldn't deny the visual evidence any longer. Arm injury of some sort? She pursed her lips, but chose not to pursue it right now. Sometimes the invisible hurts took precedence. "I've read enough about the conditioning," she said softly. "He must have been a remarkable man to have been able to come here and fight them."
"He was. They all were, all of the reclaimed." Madelyn's devestated gaze took in Tim lying there beside Mick. Brothers in arms. She hadn't known him as well, but she'd liked the gruff manner, so much like Nathan. "How many of their team survived? Do you know? My comms got damaged, I've been pretty much incommunicado for the last hour..." Since she'd been thrown into the wall, she realised vaguely.
"The X-Men took two wounded back to the evac area with them," Roberts said. "One with a spinal injury. I think they said he was a psi? The blonde woman in charge was telling the medics to be careful about what kind of drugs they gave him." She paused. "The other was another blonde woman. I don't know how she could possibly survive, from the look of her injuries."
"She's got a healing factor, so there's a chance." There had to be. "She and Mick..." Madelyn stopped herself. There was no need for Roberts to know that. With a trembling hand, she reached out and touched Mick's slack face, the skin cooler now. "Sleep well," she whispered, remembering their talks when sleep was eluding him. The small goodbye said, she looked up at Roberts. "We should get back to it. Someone could need us while I'm..." Laboriously she began to push herself up with her good left arm, but the world greyed out around her for a moment.
Robert caught her, as gently as she could, supporting her. "I think you need to head back to the evac area yourself," she said, gently but firmly. "You can check on your friends there."
Madelyn held onto consciousness by the sheer inconvenience of it all, acknowleging the other woman's point with a small nod. "Thanks... what's your first name? I'm kind of old fashioned - anyone who sees me in hysterics I prefer to call by their Christian names."
"Lara," Roberts said, coloring a little as she helped Madelyn up. "And don't worry about it... Madelyn. You were hardly hysterical." Her eyes were bright with sympathy as she got the other woman to her feet. "I'll... keep an eye on them," she murmured. "Fallis over there got told to do it already, but I'll... well, I'll make sure they're looked after until the X-Men come back for them."
"Thank you for that, Lara. MacInnis might come by - you know him, don't you, from the briefings? Older man, cranky, not exactly a people person? Don't let him take them, okay?" It was important. Madelyn squeezed the other medic's arm, briefly. "We look after our own, you see."
~*~
There were people around her, doing what they should be doing and occasionally pausing to ask her if she needed anything, though this happened less and less now. Alison leaned on a wall, a smooth curve sliced into it from where she'd burned through it while setting up the shield to protect the training barracks, and waited, keeping guard. Two body bags were nearby, waiting to be carried back to the Blackbird. There were no piles of bodies left, anymore. The wounded and the dead had been sorted out and taken away, living first, dead last. Only she remained now, with Tim and Mick.
It was then that she heard the door being opened, an odd deafening sort of sound despite the fact that it was far from silent with everything going on around her. Looking up slowly, she saw soldiers stepping out - and then a young girl, eyes wide and uncertain, following. And then another, a boy this time, older than the girl and holding the hand of two children, leading them with barely managed surety.
There was a woman with them, dressed in civilian clothing. She stared as she saw the body bags, turning to shake her head to the soldier who looked helpless, for a moment. But the boy frowned a bit, then looked at both bodies on the ground, and at Alison in turn and then pushed forward, others following him as he cleared the doorway.
"No." The voice carried through clearly to her. "We're not going to pretend. We should know."
Throat tightening more than she could bear, Alison bowed her head, unable to look anymore. The hushed silence was made only more obvious and in it the sound of the children walking by impossible not to hear. She stood and waited, the blood marring her uniform and the bodies at her feet a small testament to the price which had been paid for their freedom.
Haroun was, in a word, exhausted. Emotionally and physically spent. For once, he wasn't all that physically chewed up - just some bruises and what had the makings of a possible tendon strain in his left elbow. But there was someone else he needed to check on - someone else who he had to know whether or not she had crossed over or not. Haroun forced his way past the bewildered survivors of the massacre, the children that so many had fought and bled and died to protect. Doesn't mean a damn thing if she's not there to share it with me. he thought bleakly. He had seen the dome, and knew full well what that kind of power expenditure had to mean.
It was the way the children all kept looking back, which cued him in, the taller ones sometimes reaching down to lift up the younger ones, all of them with solemn and sad expressions, not a word or whisper escaping them the entire time. On the far end, leaning on the wall near the door to the training barracks, was Alison. It was the stir in the line of children which cause her to look up, not a word being spoken but something about the way their attention shifted as Haroun broke though was enough for her to notice. She saw Haroun right away, eyes locking on him instantly, his name on her lips though no sound came out.
Haroun lowered his khaffiyeh, raised his goggles, and showed Alison his ear-to-ear grin of relief. "Hey, Chief." he said with a friendly smile and a wave. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. Traffic was a real bitch." he said with a laugh. "You know how it is."
She didn't say a word in answer as he neared her, instead raising one hand to rest it on his chest, slowly. Checking. He was moving well, showing no signs of injury. The hand on his chest was joined by another for a brief moment, which then went higher, touching his cheek. Alive and well. He was fine. Alison tried to speak, to repeat some of what she'd told him earlier, when she thought it might be all she could ever say to him - and instead, finally, brushed her fingertips down along his jawline, pressing them softly to his mouth.
Silence.
Haroun closed his eyes for a second, to revel in the sensation of her touch. When he opened them, he proceeded to study her as best he could. "Hey, you shredded your uniform. Here, take my jacket." He said, shrugging out of the blood-drenched and sulfur-stinking garment and handing it to her. "You need it more than I do."
She slid on the jacket slowly, the leather hanging off her loosely. Looking up at Haroun meant also seeing the children, from the corner of her eyes, seeing the grave solemnity as their eyes went from the two adults still standing, and the body bags. There were only a few left now, the end of the line already out of the building and edging further away. One smaller child, skin a light shade of orange and with no visible features to see, lifted one hand up to where his mouth might have been, then stretched it towards them, slowly, palm facing upwards towards the sky.
Thank you.
Alison's hands twitched, a gesture starting in return - and she hesitated, at a loss of what to reply, before finally settling on the only thing that seemed possible to reply. The only thing that was acceptable, and what those who had fallen would have wanted.
Live well.
With that she took a deep breath and focused on Haroun once more, taking one shallow breath, and then another. The smell of the sulfur permeating his coat was reassuring, somehow. "Love you." The whisper was hoarse, perhaps, but steady. Stepping forward, just a bit, just enough, she lifted her arms and slid them around his neck, holding on tightly.
Haroun touched his fingertips to his lips, then to his forehead, then made a gesture towards the sky in return to the little orange boy's gesture. "Allah akbar." he said quietly. To Alison, he hugged back just as tightly. "Be careful with that jacket," he warned her as he looked down at her. "They're expensive."
He had done this before, seen it before, she knew. And though everything seemed removed somehow, distant, the quiet solidity about him was an anchor, one Alison wasn't afraid to draw strength from. She still had things to do. Promises to keep. "I'll be careful." It wasn't about the jacket, of course.
A faint scuffing sound to the side drew their attention. Elliot, leaning to the side slightly in pure exhaustion stood nearby, a heartsick look in as he focused on the body bags. With him was a government agent, one Alison recognized from earlier - the one who had held down Caffrey, rather than just shoot her. Instead of a gun he now held two stretchers.
Alison looked down as well, the two body bags bizarrely pristine on the ground. It was time to take them home.
~*~
Gone.
All of them. Except Elliot and Anika, and Nathan.
Gone.
MacInnis found himself sitting on a chunk of what had once been a wall, staring blankly at the ground beneath his feet.
All but three of those he'd brought here. So many... so many of those they'd come to save. So few survivors. He'd seen Nash and Matsuda, out at the front of the barracks, Nash on his feet when he shouldn't have been, Matsuda right there to support him. Of course.
Piers and Cole had been back at the triage tent. Alive. And he'd seen Lense, of course. That Lense had survived, when so many of the others who'd fought had died...
He didn't know how many of the second-gens had survived. Whether any of them had survived in anything but body, after what had been done to them.
Masada. Carmella, you murderous bitch...
His head was spinning with it. All he'd done, over the years, all he'd tried to do.
All the bodies.
All his kids...
Everyone was occupied elsewhere, with the injured or the prisoners. No one saw him sink his face into his hands, or his shoulders start to shake with silent sobs. No one was there to offer comfort, had they even been inclined to do so.
And for the first time in countless years, part of him wished it could be otherwise.
~*~
Noise, all around him. Voices he didn't recognize, the buzz of thoughts in minds totally unfamiliar to him. There was pain in so many of those minds, too, pain that he couldn't separate from his own, as if he was just afloat in a sea of it, slowly drowning. Nathan tried to open his eyes, caught a blurred glimpse of what looked like canvas, above his head, before the weight on his eyelids was too much to fight.
"Nathan?" Hank caught the increased beeping of the monitors and hurried over. "Nathan, are you conscious?" He touched Nathan's forehead lightly, trying to project soothing calm the way Charles and Jean had taught him.
Nathan managed to open his eyes again, and thought he recognized the large blue blur. "Leave my pants alone," he muttered faintly, the words coming out slurred. Dimly, he realized that he couldn't move - literally, couldn't move. There was something keeping his head still, and the rest of his body, too...
"I didn't touch your pants," Hank said cheerfully. "You're doped to the gills, mind you, but you still have pants. And all your body parts are, if not intact, still attached."
Big... cheerful... not pants-stealing. Still probably Hank, though. Nathan tried to take a deep breath, and a whimper crept out. "Ribs hurt," he murmured weakly. "Everything hurts..."
"I'm not surprised." Hank nodded, and looked around. Aha. Water. "I've never seen you so thoroughly beaten up, and that's saying something. Are you thirsty?"
"Yeah..." His eyes tried to flutter closed again but he forced them open, wanting very badly to stay conscious. Just long enough to have some questions answered, if nothing else. "Hank... the others?"
Hank sighed. "The children are safe, and being cared for. Anika survived, and will recover. So will you, eventually, with care and patience. But it will take time." He remembered something that might comfort him, a tiny bit. "The conditioning team... and the white room... were dealt with," he said softly. "And the child who was in there with them should be all right, in time."
White rooms. Nathan managed to take a sip of the water as Hank held it for him. "Over," he whispered, his voice perhaps a little stronger. "Alison told me... over?"
"All over." Hank dripped water between his lips, very slowly, wary of letting him choke. "And gone. There were losses, but we saved the children, and destroyed Mistra."
The water helped. A little. "'S good," he muttered, his eyes trying to close again. "Why... can't move, Hank...?"
"Because you can't be trusted," Hank said, a little amused despite the devastation. "You're badly hurt, Nathan, although you will recover, and one of the injuries was to your spine. You're off moving-privileges for a while."
"Bully..." There was some fear there, amid the haze of pain, even with Hank's reassurance. "Pants... not enough for you?" Was he trying to joke? Apparently. Better than weeping. Better than thinking about all the minds he should have sensed and hadn't, when the Trojan Horse had gone off.
"Moira likes to keep your pants for herself, when she's around." Hank smiled. "You haven't done any permanent damage, especially not with Amanda's healing magic to call on... and even if spinal injuries didn't count as sufficiently serious, I don't think there's anything we could do to stop her."
Moira and Amanda. They'd be there, waiting for him, back at the mansion... Nathan closed his eyes, helpless tears trickling down his cheeks. "Want to go home," he whispered brokenly, trying not to think about all those missing minds. All the dead. Tim and Mick...
Hank wiped the tears away gently with a clean end of bandage. "You'll be home very soon," he said gently. "With them."
~*~
"You carried me through the war, and now I need you to carry me a little bit further..."
–'The Message', Firefly
Tags:
- c: scott summers,
- z p1: c: .retired: alison blaire,
- z p1: c: .retired: cain marko,
- z p1: c: .retired: hank mccoy,
- z p1: c: .retired: lorna dane,
- z p1: c: .retired: madelyn bartlet,
- z p1: c: .retired: nathan dayspring,
- z p1: c: .retired: wanda maximoff,
- z p1: c: haroun al-rashid,
- z p1: c: kylun,
- z p1: p: gtts: thermopylae
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