#and there were some other s1 spn episodes that had a very similar plot to a different horror

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

I'm slowly coming to the realisation that I would be the most annoying person to watch horror media with because at this point I could tell you exact scenes and movies that said media has taken inspiration from/copied/done an homage to. I watch so many horror movies that I just start recognising them in other stuff

[rupertgayesarchive]

That ask and your answer about what if Sam was out of hunting and never left Stanford because Gabriel wanted to stop the apocalypse and threw him into a pocket dimension and I’m like. Obsessed. primarily with gabriel and how Sam would go.

I think he would stick Sam in a like… you remember when Zachariah stuck sam and dean in the office job and it was a parallel universe but also it was real life? like coplanar planes, I think Gabriel would elect to do that instead of his you’re going in my alternate universe, because it’s less detail consuming and I think Sam would notice small things that were off like how he figured out it was him in mystery spot.

You said Sam deserves to have the apple pie life but if he was comfortable with that it wouldn’t like.. work he wouldn’t be ready to ever confront Lucifer or anyone. i agree but also I don’t think he would stick with his normal life. like in the zachariah episode he had a normal life and fake memories of that but he still wanted to hunt and help people and also figure out wtf was happening. I think in this scenario Sam would still be psychic because I love that but Gabriel would probably try like… suppressing his visions and such, because they would lead him back into possible angel business. I think he’d still get little snippets because that’s fun and having reminders in that that the supernatural like.. exists and ppl are getting hurt, I think that would overrule his want of complete normalcy and even his spite toward John.

I don’t think he’d go back into hunting like, completely because I want him to have something good and also be semi well adjusted. but like we saw in the terrible life episode I think he’d like.. if he got bored and started looking up strange deaths well now he has to go help them!!

also it is sooo fun to me if he starts realizing something is wrong but he doesn’t know what. like in mystery spot I love that trope sooo fucking much also in s1 sam gets back into hunting through John Winchester style revenge quest and I want to give him a reason to start poking around that is like.. for himself and not anybody else. he can have a little obsession over it as a treat because i like seeing him be a bitch <3

i think initially when Gabriel found out the apocalypse was like in motion and Sam was at Stanford he’d have an opportunity there to do something without revealing to other players that he is alive because he was pretending to be a trickster. like he’s very much in this for self preservation and if he did some time traveling shenanigans, or disappearing both Winchesters and maybe even Adam out of nowhere, I think he’d worry that the angels would take notice. Randy your vessels!! But Stanford gives him a natural window to hide a key player. he needs to do away with Adam too so Lucifer can’t possibly have a true vessel to fight.. maybe he can kill him in a freak accident because I find that funny. sorry this is long and it will be getting longer

anyway I think as time went on Gabriel would pay like less meticulous attention. he’d still keep away like key players but as other people also started trying to stop the apocalypse he would become more relaxed also he’d be overconfident in himself like in changing channels. I think this would lead sam to notice more stuff that just doesn’t make any sense and maybe start looking for dean or even his dad, or going out of his way to look for hunts. maybe get involved in magic because i think he deserves to be a witch. wait actually that’s how he should find Dean. i think Gabriel would hide Dean from Sam and vice versa, and he didn’t foresee Sam using magic or anything. Also at this point it’s been years and I think Sam is more invested in this than his like… normal life. he’s more well adjusted but I can definitely see him just impulsively quitting his job to figure out what the fucks happening. Also I think he’d feel animosity at dean during this for not being there and not helping him, even though that anger doesn’t make complete sense. sorry i like the early seasons salmon dean reconciling and learning to like each other and sam realizing Your Parents Are People and I would like to see it with them having like, completely different lives and also some fun miscommunication bc of Gabriel. also sam having to reconcile dean having cas OHRHDHJ also dean and cas trying horribly to cover cas being not human is so fucking fun to me. unless this happens during a cas is dead time period which is fun in a different evil way.

I also think dean would only stop looking if he though Sam was dead, but I think… Gabriel might have hidden him but other people ARE still meeting him even with like altered memories. so I think angels or something can sense that Sam is alive but they don’t know where and I think they’d gloat and use it to taunt dean that he is like.. suffering while his brother is living a perfect normal life. Also because this adds another miscommunication that can be discussed and end in reconciliation in a way I don’t think would feel contrived and is in line with it the characters. it’d be Amelia s8 but Sam would be like (Sam voice) I did look for you!!! where were you when I needed you! also I want Sam to find out John died and he’s in absolute despair while cas is standing there like oh yes that’s so awful your father was an. absolutely a man😔😐🏳️‍🌈

idk when this would occur and i think every season offers like… different flavors of enjoyment for an audience of just me. like s7 proto widower arc?? Sam reconnecting with Dean during TMWWBK when he is not familiar with the dean and cas dynamic and has to be witness to Trying So Hard To Be Loyal. additionally that would be fun because bobby is there and dean is like, covering his ears and back talking bobby regarding cas. and if they’ve taken pains to hide cas being an angel Sam being like .who is this to Dean. is suchhh a fun concept.

WAIT post goodbye stranger. or maybe Sam can show up pre goodbye stranger to watch dean go from clingy after cas gets back from purgatory to wrongfooted to like ANGRY. well not Angry… to dean having dean emotions. when cas is off with the tablet ignoring him and he feels betrayed. and this Sam isn’t as close to him so he doesn’t know ANY details until Dean stats divulging them as they reconcile. ALL GOOD OPTIONS..

also if this happens during s6 i think it would be nice if cas started collecting allies, and at the same time as Sam trying to figure out what was keeping him away from dean and the angel business Cas could figure it out FIRST and use Gabriel as an ally against Raphael but he’d feel like he has to hide it from dean and sam. like in this scenario. actually any time I talk about s6 hypotheticals Cas’ conflict IS the A Plot. the Winchester’s were on a side quest idc. s6 is a fun time for these reasons but i don’t like it as much because Cas is still in the process of like.. formative development.

okay one last thing I’m SOOO sorry for my essay. you said if Sam was dispossessed the apocalypse would just.. not happen. i agree to like, a certain degree, because I do think they could have found another way but all of them would have been dust compared to swan song. so maybe Gabriel semi succeeded but instead of stopping the apocalypse he just… prolonged it. this changes a lot but if either Michael or Lucifer didn’t have a viable vessel I think the angels would scramble to actually for real stop the apocalypse but others would still want it to happen even if it was like.. Perfect they just want it to be over. this provides angel politics which I am in love with and we can still have like TMWWBK development for cas. I don’t know where I’m going with this sorry

op this is a lot, this is so much. i love it, i hope you have a google doc open somewhere and are typing away furiously.

now i didn't rewatch a lot of spn past s3 (surprise) in part bc i can't handle the brain damage and some scenes are seared into my cerebral cortex in a way that induced a temporary bout of eidetic memory, meaning i'll never forget the crypt scene in Goodbye Stranger for as long as i live. that being SAID, my s6-s7 knowledge is not as firmly coalesced. so because of that i'm letting your thoughts roam free as i don't know how accurate my own takes would be? but i feel like without sam there, like... hm. would dean even be the same person... would the past however many seasons even OCCUR remotely similar with sam out of the picture for literal years? we might be looking at a completely different world at that point.

my other theory is that the s2 plot of special children - we know azazel was raising a new 'crop' of psychic kids. i think that was a plot thread that they ended up dropping anyway, but if they didn't i do wonder if we'd be dealing with a lot more shenanigans like in s1 and s2 except with kids? and dean and cas trying to figure out what to do with these young psychics that might be turned into a vessel for lucifer or - whatever they wanted to do with those kids. hm.

i also question if purgatory would be a thing. like it probably would come up and be on the table, but maybe the godstiel arc wouldn't, bc if like you're saying dean and cas are together at this point, like. cas might have grown to love humanity (not just dean but like 99% dean) to the point where he might not be doing this risky gambit for more souls. and if gabriel is still around, cas may start petitioning gabe to help throw his archangel weight around against raphael while he tries to do the actual strategizing.

i think sam would still have his visions, like you said, and then maybe those lead him to dean or to a case that dean is also on? or if angels are more well-known later on, he tracks one down, maybe cas, maybe not (if it's NOT and it's one that works on raphael's side. ohoho. the possibilities...)

[moonlayl]

So I’ve been thinking, how did the writers manage to make Sam not interesting enough to be the main character? Like it was obvious at first that that was what they were going for, but why didn’t it stick? Why did most people not find him main character material? It’s always been a question on my mind, but I never really knew how to answer it. Why was he not interesting to me? It wasn’t until recently that I figured it out. (Note: this isn't entirely Sam Winchester friendly. I’m criticizing the writing for his character)

A few weeks ago I began watching a turkish show. The main character’s story and background is VERY similar to Sam’s. He’s the youngest brother, there’s a family business involved in guns, violence, and helping people, the main character wants nothing to do with it and decides to go to college when he’s 18. His father tells him if he steps out of the door, he can’t ever come back. Years later something bad happens to the dad and the protagonist returns and joins the family business. Except, he’s my favourite character. That’s not case with Sam, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized the writers simply didn’t know how to write Sam and keep him interesting.

Here’s a few things that the turkish writers did to establish him as an interesting main character, who’s also a fan favourite.

1.) He actually got to show off his smarts and use his education. He wasn’t smart because he went to college, or because (in Sam’s case) good at research/enjoys doing it. No, we actually got to see him using his brain. He would come up with schemes and plans in the family business that would leave their enemies speechless. He would notice patterns that no one else does. (Sounds like Dean...) While everyone he knew were stuck on problem A, he would be on problem C, already having solved the previous two. He had contingency plans, and was great at problem solving, but NEVER used that to show off he was better than anyone else (except that one time one of his brothers were angry because they thought his plan wouldn’t work and he was smug when it did). He also got to use his degree in chemistry. He uses his scientific knowledge to come up with his plans and to help him and we SEE that. Sam was pre-law and that was the end of it until one episode in season 7. And I know it may sound like the protagonist could be “too smart” which is unrealistic and made to make him seem like a cool protagonist, but that’s not the case. he does make mistakes. He does get things wrong, and he asks for advice from his friends or brothers. He’s smart, not just book smart, but he also isn’t the only guy with brains (that cliche trope is annoying). Others contribute too, and we SEE that. Yes, he would be considered the smartest (more clever) but it isn’t written in a forced way. It doesn’t take away from the other characters.

2.) He’s still fun. Yes he’s serious. Yes he’s smart, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have other qualities. I don’t know what the SPN writers were thinking but someone with no silly habits, who NEVER acts in an immature way (which is completely normal) and everything about them is tied to them being a “nerd” like Sam is boring and it’s unrealistic. That protagonist is the younger brother, and we see that. Not just in one episode with the pranks like in SPN, but we continuously see it. He and his brothers tease each other and play games. He is obsessed with music and always listening to it. He and his siblings argue a lot over music and act like children sometimes, which is great. He sometimes plays soccer or games with lonely kids to make them feel better. he sometimes sings with friends and his brothers. He jokes around with them. He just radiates chaotic energy at times, and we’re all like that. Even the most serious people have their moments, and the turkish show makes sure to acknowledge that. SPN does that with Dean, but never with Sam. Sam was just boring to be honest. He was never fun or funny. Just your typical nice guy that went to college. He (to me) didn’t have any traits that jumped out.

3.) The main character in the turkish show struggled. When the last time you did something you were still a kid and you haven’t done it in years, it makes sense to struggle and to make mistakes. Sam didn’t seem to be that way though. Like he immediately began hunting again. He grieved Jess, which added a bit if depth to his character but ultimately he was just really good at hunting and never seemed to have proper struggles. To me that doesn’t really work. The character from the other show clearly struggled. he hated having to hurt people (even to save lives) and they actually showed you that. We would see him sometimes having flashbacks, flinching, nightmares, sweating, etc... Sam struggled with visions, true, but that’s because they were entirely new and they didn’t know much about them, so it’s different. I don’t know but seeing the protagonist struggling and fighting to not actually join the family business made him a compelling character. Like he was at war with both sides. with Sam, it seemed like the only reason he didn’t want to do certain things in s1 was due to him being pissed at his dad. Not wanting to follow his orders. Even him wanting a normal life was kind of erased after a bit because he lost Jess. he seemed like a child wanting to do things his way, whereas in the turkish show, the protagonist was seen as an outsider wanting to improve the way things were. That was the difference.

4.) Kindness and compassion. “Sam is really compassionate” except for the longest time his compassion was the “fake one” he used to get victims to trust him. Like maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t really recall an instance where he was actually genuinely comforting someone (a stranger) NOT in a way to gather more info? Didn’t they even say it? He’s the type to get people to trust him and open up, but it was more of an act?  Dean on the other hand, sometimes took time off from doing something important to try to talk or comofrt a kid or someone. After or before a case. The turkish character had that as well. He wouldn’t compromise a kid for the job, and sometimes despite him being very busy, he would help the elderly just because he wanted to, not for anything else. He would play with children, spend time with people, be willing to listen to anyone’s problems. I always felt like Sam lacked that.

5.) The way he treated his brothers. I know Sam had a falling out with his dad, which is why he never contacted him for four years, but I don’t understand why he (and their dad) dragged Dean into that mess. Why Sam decided to cut contact with Dean as well. To the point where Dean felt like breaking into his house was the only way to get him to listen. There was a four year difference between them. From what we’re constantly told, they were really close. So It doesn’t add up for me. In the turkish show however, (the main character has three brothers) all three brothers were much older than him. The closest one to his age was older by about ten years. He was actually constantly lonely. He never had friends or went to an actual school, and his brothers never wanted anything to do with him because he was so much younger. In fact, they constantly used to make fun of him and gang up on him (keep in mind they were three and all teenagers was he was in preschool). So when he got older and they would just bully him, he finally left and didn’t contact them due to that. Because they never treated him like their younger brother. We know that’s not the case with Sam and Dean because Dean was Sam’s protector (which is unfair to him but that’s a whole other thing). Anyway this point just kind of always annoyed me about Sam.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I feel like they used Sam’s story and plot but gave the character some characteristics that Dean had, lol. My biggest problem is just how bland Sam is. Seriously. He’s just there. His anger made him a bit interesting for a few seasons, and him not wanting to follow his dad’s orders,but that was quickly turned against Dean. Those traits became things he used against Dean, which just added to my frustration and dislike to Sam’s character. The Turkish character also seemed to dislike when one of his brothers blindly followed an order from their dad, but he was understanding. He seemed to understand where they were coming from and never used it as an insult or belittled them for it. he was kind to his siblings and treated them well (even when they sometimes didn’t deserve it). Whereas Sam doesn’t treat dean in a good way even when Dean deserves it.

[babygirl06301]

SPN S1 Review

I honestly have no idea if this post is about to be hella long or moderate, but I feel like a lot of my feelings got aired out when I was reviewing each individual episode, so I’m just gonna dump the rest of my thoughts that I’ve jotted down while watching this season here. This is basically gonna be me saying, “Wow, this was interesting,” or, “This is similar to/different from later seasons because…” These are all coming from notes on my computer, so they’re half-baked. Nothing too fancy or analytical, but I’ll be doing one of these for every season.

Random thoughts:

I don’t like the monster-of-the-week, episodic format that much, and a lot of those episodes this season felt average in quality for me. However, when you don’t have much else to focus on besides an arbitrary goal of the boys finding John to kill something they know nothing about, it isn’t so bad. Filler episodes suck more later because they’re often completely disconnected from the main story, which isn’t the case for most filler episodes in this season. Plus, the main stories later have more involved goals for the season than this one did, which made the filler episodes later more annoying. For example, if Sam and Dean want to hunt a Tulpa at a haunted house because John is off doing something somewhere, that’s fine. Kill the time. But if Sam and Dean really need to figure out a way to kill God, like, now before Chuck decimates every fleck of existence he’s ever created, maybe don’t waste my time with an episode about a wood nymph, you know? If the stakes are higher, then the quality episodes shouldn’t appear with less frequency. All I’m saying.

The tone, acting, and writing of these characters is so different. Like, when you know a show intimately, these kinds of differences between one season and the next are natural to you. It’s not like I wasn’t aware that the boys looking for their father feels a lot fucking different than the boys having a kid, but when you actually let yourself be aware of how much the show has changed, it’s kind of crazy. Like, if I just think about it offhand, I’m like, “Yeah, this is Supernatural.” But if I break the fourth wall a bit in my mind, it’s like, “Damn, I really did watch these characters and their actors mature for fifteen years, didn’t I?” Crazy.

There are so many episodes that end with the Impala driving down the road. Like, an aerial shot of it. And if the very last scene isn’t that, then it’s probably the scene right before the last scene. Until the last few episodes, that is.

I don’t know why I’ve written this down, but it’s easier to remember episode titles in season one because you can match it to the creature without having to remember the plot. Like, “Oh, the Wendigo episode.” I’ve also said in this same note that the folklore plots died out later on in the series, which is true.

A quote from my notes: “The show really does feel better with Cas, huh?” Look, I’m not gonna say that the S1 finale didn’t slap, because it did. However, I will say that Cas can brighten any episode up, so, had he been in the series from the beginning, the season finale may not have been the only S1 episode to slap. Not that there weren’t other episodes that were good, but you know. Also, this isn’t to say that Cas should’ve been around the whole time because him coming into Dean’s life when he did was exactly perfect.

They do this later, too, but a handful of episodes in the early seasons will be like, “Here’s a girl. Now, one of you Winchesters, go bond with her this instant.” And it’s weird? You don’t need to bring a girl in just to make googly eyes at one of the boys? You could just give her the story she was supposed to have but minus all the flirting?

So, Sam is meant to be the central character for the first five seasons, right? Yes, Dean is supposed to be his equal; yes, he went to Hell and had that whole storyline; yes, he’s Michael’s vessel, but it was always really about Sam, you know? Sam was the one who had the connection to the biggest, baddest thing imaginable (at the time), that being Lucifer. Sam was the one chosen for Lucifer. Sam was the one with the psychic abilities and the one to drink demon blood and the reason Dean sold his soul. Dean is obviously a main character with his own story, but Sam was meant to be the special one, yeah? But even so, Dean is such a beautifully complex character because he wasn’t special. You can see that, even in S1—that his specialness came from his lack of central focus. It’s almost like the plot was saying, “Sam,” and Dean went, “I’m gonna cause problems anyway,” and that’s awesome. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I just feel like Dean is the most interesting character in the entire series, and he wasn’t even the one S1 picked out as special.

Sam’s psychic abilities seemed a lot cooler when you didn’t know as much about them. Like, yes, Sam having those abilities for the purpose of housing Lucifer is cool and all, but it felt so much more mystical when it just seemed like something Sam could do for some reason. Not that that would’ve been a better payoff than what we get—it’d be stupid for the story to say, “I know a demon chose you to be the vessel of Lucifer himself, but the psychic thing you can do? Just a coincidence”—but it’s some food for thought.

John is barely fucking there even though his existence permeates the entire fucking season. I thought he was so much more present than he was in this series. They treated him like they treated Cas. “We said his name a few times, that’s good right?” No. No, it isn’t.

I hate the pattern the episodes have in S1. It goes: location name, bad thing happens in said location, Sam and Dean talk about said thing, they go to said location, they research and maybe flirt with some random girl, they fight, they drive away in the Impala. Like, nearly every episode is like that.

Without demons in the mix that often, the tone of S1 is really different when you compare it to every other season.

Dean is a lot more emotionally vulnerable in this season. I mean, he’s not sitting down with Sam to talk about his feelings all the time, but his emotions are definitely closer to the surface. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he hasn’t had to emotionally shut down to protect Sam yet. Obviously, he represses things because of the way he was raised, and because he had to raise Sam; however, he still had John to lean on at this point. So, he hadn’t developed that habit of hiding his feelings and leaning on no one but himself yet as he did when he lost John. Because of that, he was able to be scared and tell Sam that he was afraid of losing his family and stuff like that. He becomes a way darker character in after John dies, and he more or less only leans fully on one other person for the rest of the series, albeit in a different way.

John saying in 1x21 that he wants Dean to have a home after Azazel is killed is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. For one, because John is aware that he deprived Dean of a real home, and by extension, is aware that Dean is damaged because of that. But also, it’s sad because Dean has lived 26 years of his life up until now without ever having a home he felt safe and loved in.

Dean running from a potential fight with Azazel in 1x22 is super interesting because he’s fighting to be a part of his family rather than simply fighting for them to be saved. Dean doesn’t want to die, isn’t willing to die. That’s something that definitely changes later. Big time.

Filler episode rate:

By my count, which admittedly might be wrong, there were 7 episodes that were primarily main story episodes this season and 15 monster-of-the-week/filler episodes. 

Now, in the early seasons, it isn’t as easy to separate the filler from the main story because almost every episode will deal with character conflict that’s tied to what’s going on with the main story. However, I called it a filler if the primary plot was just a random hunt. For example, I called “Scarecrow” a filler because, even though Meg was introduced after Sam and Dean have a big fight, the main plot is hunting a god.

My bottom 5 episodes in order:

These next two sections are based on my ratings of these episodes from my reviews of every episode. I’ve just ordered them, with one being my least favorite/favorite episode this season.

5.) 1x07: Hook Man

4.) 1x03: Dead in the Water

3.) 1x02: Wendigo

2.) 1x13: Route 666

1.) 1x08: Bugs

My top 5 episodes in order:

5.) 1x14: Nightmare

4.) 1x06: Skin

3.) 1x15: The Benders

2.) 1x21: Salvation

1.) 1x22: Devil’s Trap

My top episodes for Sam:

This section and the next will just be me bringing up some good points of development for Sam and Dean throughout this season. I mean, of course they develop almost all the time, but these episodes are some of the best/most interesting. At least, in my opinion. If you want to read more about my reasons, check out my reviews. Just search for “spn s1 reviews” on my blog.

1x05: Bloody Mary - Sam’s psychic abilities got alluded to for the first time during this episode, but it also told us how much Sam blamed himself for Jessica’s death.

1x10: Asylum - Sam’s resentment for Dean is voiced, and though he’s under the influence of a ghost while he talks about Dean, some of it is supported by development in other episodes this season.

1x14: Nightmare - Sam bonds with Max over their shared abilities and pasts. We also get to see that Sam initially related his own trauma when growing up to Max’s, even though he acknowledged that Max had it worse at the end. It’s an interesting point of development that Sam saw his upbringing that way.

1x19: Provenance - Through Sarah being a part of this episode, Sam reveals that he sees himself as dangerous because the abilities he has has put the people he loves in danger in the past.

1x21: Salvation - Sam reveals that he’s willing to die, and by extension, risk his family to get the job of killing Azazel done.

1x22: Devil’s Trap - Sam has to choose between losing his family through getting his revenge or losing his chance at revenge to save his family.

My top episodes for Dean:

1x06: Skin - Dean’s abandonment issues are touched on for the first time.

1x09: Home - Dean shows fear when faced with returning home and dealing with the trauma of what he went through the night Mary died.

1x12: Faith - This is the first episode that we see a serious internal conflict in Dean about the worth of his life, which is interesting, because we can see in later episodes that he doesn’t want to die. However, his attitude in this episode seems to suggest that he doesn’t see his life as valuable.

1x18: Something Wicked - Honestly, this isn’t my favorite episode in the world, but it’s the first flashback episode of the series; in it, you’ll see the reason behind Dean’s feelings of responsibility regarding Sam.

1x21: Salvation - Dean insists that nobody will die to kill Azazel, showing that he wants to be a part of his family rather than just saving them.

1x22: Devil’s Trap - Dean shows a darker side of himself in an attempt to get John back, and his fears of being unneeded by his family are revealed as well as his fears of losing his family.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for this season’s review. I’ll rate this season in my series review that I’ll write once all this is over, but my impressions right now are that the first season of Supernatural was all right. It didn’t necessarily walk in a straight line, but it still felt like there was a definite destination. And, on top of that, the season ended in one of the most banger ways an SPN season has ever ended. The monster-of-the-week stuff has made most of the episodes this season ones I would probably not revisit, but S1 is definitely still special. 

We’ll see if this changes later, but for now, my rating (and average, based on my ratings in my reviews) for S1 is ★★★☆☆.

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 10: Endings

The posts that have been going around about all these bad, nonsensical, random tv endings we’ve been seeing recently (GOT, T100, SPN), have made me think about what makes a good television ending in my opinion.

I admit that concluding a series is probably quite tricky because most shows, if they’re not miniseries, are conceived without a known end point in mind. A show runner can build an idea around a 5-season arc, but he might not actually get 5 seasons. He might only get 1. Or he might get 10, if the show is popular. So unlike a movie or a novel, the first episodes need to set up a general premise, a universe, a theme, but not necessarily a specific plot with X number of specific plot points leading to a pre-ordained conclusion. There has to be a flexibility to the narrative. But when the whole thing is completed, it should feel, ideally, as if it WAS pre-ordained, as if the show was always meant to have as many seasons as it got and was working toward its conclusion the whole time.

So, roughly, I think shows that stick the landing do so because the showrunner knows what the show is, at its core, about, and crafts a finale that relates to the central theme(s) and brings the main narrative to a logical and emotionally resonant conclusion. 

This is very rough and very general, and it’s a formula that applies more to some shows than others. TV is incredibly varied after all. I mean, first off, not all shows know their last season is their last season going in. You can’t judge the final episodes of, to use two examples of shows I liked that were unceremoniously axed recently, The Society or Altered Carbon as “finale episodes” because they were never meant to be finales. Then you have a show like My So-Called Life, which does have a Classic ending, despite ending all too soon--mostly because every episode of that show was classic, and it only had one season, so its season finale being a fitting ending to the season automatically means its series finale was a fitting ending to the series.

(It’s such an outlier that I can’t really compare it to anything but honestly--this is how to do an open-ended cliffhanger and still make it feel like a conclusion. But that’s a whole different post.)

My formula above also doesn’t apply well to sitcoms, because they aren’t really about anything, in terms of plot. Like the name says, they set up situations: a group of people who are family, co-workers, friends, and then lets those situations play out in a funny manner for as long as there are jokes to tell. Sitcoms to me end well if they don’t overstay their welcome, if they remain true to the characters (because it’s the characters, not the minimal narrative, that defines the show), and if they hit an appropriate ‘ending’ tone. But the biggest thing for me is if the sitcom went on for too many seasons. Even if the final episode isn’t the greatest, it’s fine. But if the last 2-4 seasons were lackluster, it tarnishes the whole legacy.

‘Procedural’ type shows are yet another category, and I’m not entirely sure how to characterize those, or what makes a strong ending for that sub-genre. I’m using ‘procedural’ broadly to include, like, Bad Guy of the Week type shows--for example, Charmed, which I thought should have ended after S7. Again, I think it’s about not letting the whole thing go on too long, and then staying true to characters and tone in the finale itself.

So looking just at dramas that have a season’s warning before their finale--which, really, are the type of shows that are most likely to make people ANGRY with shitty endings, because they lure the viewer in with the idea that a singular, coherent story is being told. Maybe it’s convoluted. Maybe it’s winding. Maybe it’s hard to tell where they’re going with this. But if it all comes together in the end, none of that matters--and if it doesn’t come together, what was the point of all the seasons that came before? It becomes, retroactively, a betrayal.

The more plot-driven the show (if it has a mystery, a conspiracy theory, a quest), the greater the betrayal if all fizzles out. But I think the same feeling can arise from shoddy conclusions in dramas more generally. The L Word is one of my comfort shows but that last season is a MESS all the way down, the finale especially. There definitely wasn’t a point to anything, and it wasn’t even entertaining as, like, a dramatic soap.

But then I think about shows whose endings I really liked. For example, Six Feet Under had a great final season and one of the best finale episodes/ending sequences ever. The show up to that point had been about death, and that theme had always been centered most particularly on Nate: his fears of the family business, his previous brushes with death because of his AVM, etc. So of course the show had to end by killing one of its mains, coming full circle with the pilot, showing real grief hitting home--and of course Nate’s personal journey as the main character had to end with his death. Everything about the conclusion was fitting, not even counting the final montage.

I also really liked the conclusion of Big Love, for similar reasons: it was thoughtful, and it successfully teased out the main strands, both of plot and theme, that had run through the show up to that point. The most important thing had always been depicting this family, their problems but also their strength and their love for each other--so, as the showrunners said, it had to conclude by showing you that the family survives. They are strong, and their bonds endure. But the ending was, and had to be, bittersweet too, because anything less would seem to sweep under the rug the real tragedies of the last seasons. Not everyone gets happy endings. And the unhappy endings relate specifically to the toxic patriarchy that’s haunted all of the characters from the pilot. Alby has a chance to turn away from his father and the compound life--but the forces arrayed against him were too strong, so there was no deus ex machina for him, and he ultimately just became fully the evil villain. And Bill is taken out not by the state or by the compound but by an aggrieved man who feels he’s been emasculated, forgotten, who is raging against being so Unseen. What a way to make clear what the common denominator in all of the threats of the past 5 seasons has been.

I also give major points to shows whose finales feel like they’re trying, even if they’re imperfect, especially if the imperfections are because of factors outside the showrunner’s control. For example, I saw someone list Dollhouse as one of their ‘worst endings’ but I have to disagree. I like the ending of Dollhouse. It wasn’t supposed to be 2 seasons. That’s well known. But that’s how many seasons it got, and I think honestly they turned that into a plus rather than a minus. Dollhouse was its best when it was rushing to a conclusion, when it was fast-paced and exciting. Did it always make complete sense? No. Were there some pretty big holes in the plot? Yeah--S2′s Big Bad was absolutely and transparently a retcon instituted between S1 and S2 and I get that, and I forgive the show for that. I thought bifurcating the epilogue as two extra episodes after each of the two seasons was genius, and I liked that it allowed the show to have its cake and eat it too: a happy ending, with the main, immediate, singular Big Bad eliminated, at the end of S2, and a more bittersweet, more complicated, post-apoc ending in the bonus episode. Yeah, I can see the seams; I know there were a lot of constructed work arounds in there because the show was intended to be longer. I think the ending was presented in good faith.

I also, perhaps controversially, liked the ending of Veronica Mars (the original 3-season show; I didn’t see the reboot). The way the season aired was weird and didn’t do it any favors: having a long break before the last couple of episodes, which existed outside of the two Big Case arcs of S3, makes those final stories feel tacked on and random. Basically impossible to have a strong finish with that kind of structure. But the very end of the last ep had the bitter, dark feel of a noir, which is what the show was, a mash up of a noir and a high school drama. I liked that they leaned on the noir rather than the high school aspect, because it was the more creative way to go imo. Also, I appreciated that S3, in general, learned from S2′s mistakes. Yes, the college years are always going to be lackluster compared to high school, in any series that starts with its characters in high school. But VM recognized that no overarching mystery was going to compare to the Lilly Kane murder, so it split the Big Mystery into two Medium Sized mysteries, and I thought that was smart. All of which makes me inclined to think fondly of the conclusion. As with Dollhouse, its weakest points seem to be compromises it had to make, not really its fault but just an inevitable imperfection of the form.

It’s pretty easy to list aspects of a bad ending: a sense that events are arbitrary, a disrespect of characters, a rushed construction, a jarring tone, and most importantly a disconnect between the finale and what came before. If the show appeared to be a narrative (as opposed to a situation), but it doesn’t feel like a complete and coherent whole at the end, then the conclusion was bad.

I didn’t watch GOT or SPN and I stopped watching T100 at the end of S4 (though I do feel confident from tumblr that the ending was Bad), so I have somewhat of a hard time thinking of shows that I thought had really bad endings. I can think of dissatisfying endings that came from shows being cancelled without warning. I can think of shows that lasted too long in general or otherwise had fallen from their greatest heights by the time they limped to a conclusion (unpopular opinion: Friends fits in this category--that show should have been 4 seasons, maybe 5 tops; Boy Meets World and Dawson’s Creek are comfort show favorites of mine but they both should have ended with high school, like, pretty objectively speaking; iZombie started a slow downturn after S2 and by the end of S4 was kinda unwatchable. I literally stopped halfway through the finale.). I can even think of shows that lost me by the end even though objectively they probably had good endings (for example, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend--I couldn’t get through S4 and the finale sounded... technically well-constructed but like it would have driven me nuts).

But then I guess most shows with shitty finales technically had shitty last seasons in general. Truly notorious crash-and-burns don’t come out of nowhere. I mean I’m sure there are counter-examples to this (what’s that one with the kid and the snow globe lol?) but unless you try for a weird last-minute twist, or unless you’ve got your audience hoping against hope that an impossibly twisty story is actually very smart instead of very ill-planned, it’s generally clear before the last episode if a narrative has lost its way. I don’t tend to watch a lot of ‘twisty-turny conspiracy’ shows, and when I do I am supremely skeptical all the way through, so it’s hard for me to think of examples I’ve personally watched of a last minute “what the fuck was that” conclusion.

[shadowsong26fic]

The Family of Spies AU

AKA ‘Shadowsong should not have unsupervised access to multiple fandoms at once: Exhibit A.’

I kid. Mostly.

Anyway, it’s that time again--time for an AU Outline! It feels like forever since I’ve done one of these. …and by ‘forever’ I mean the last one was the SPN/Person of Interest crossover back in January.

This one is, uh, also a fairly niche crossover. It’s inspired and helped along by @tigerkat, who introduced me to one of the two fandoms and whose Star Wars OCs I’m borrowing to make it work. (Also, one or two bits in here are more or less lifted from our IM conversations on the subject

Basically, the short version is, I’ve been watching Nikita, and TigerKat and I have put together this whole extended family for Kallus and Zeb and one thing led to another, wires got crossed in my brain, and here we are.

Welcome to my Star Wars/Nikita fusion.

So, first, some relevant background:

In everything TigerKat and I developed, Alex and Zeb end up collecting/adopting four kids. (TigerKat, feel free to correct me on any details that are Off in any way!)

First kid they adopt is Mirah, shortly after the events of ANH.

Mirah is Human, and around three or four at this point; her parents were part of an extremely pacifist sect, of the kind where even defending yourself against someone trying to kill you is Not Okay. The sect was wiped out (probably not by the Empire, last I heard?) and Mirah was the only survivor; she watched her parents died right in front of her. Alex ended up there on an unrelated mission, and brought the little girl back to base.

Turns out, she’d gotten Attached and would not sleep without him close by.

(I mean. He’d gotten Attached as well but there is a Conversation to be had here, and he and Zeb haven’t actually had it yet, so…yeah.)

So, that’s how they get Kid #1.

Mirah later grows up to be essentially a mob boss/puts together a semi-legal syndicate. She doesn’t have a whole lot of faith in the law.

Second kid is Orryn, something like a year or two later, I think?

Orryn is a Donogh (species name subject to change; they’re basically like human-sized rabbit hobbits), and four or five years older than Mirah. His father and older brother were killed when he was born, and his mother eventually found her way to the Rebels after that. Donoghs tend to have very large families, so the fact that he’s an only child is a little Weird.

His mom is a friend of theirs, and when she dies, Alex and Zeb take Orryn in as well.

He is very Soft, both physically and metaphorically (like I said, rabbit hobbits), and like the sweetest kid you’ll ever meet.

(Mirah learns very quickly to weaponize her brother’s Sad Eyes. She’s very good at getting what she wants.)

The other three kids all end up taking Zeb’s last name; Orryn keeps his original one (his people are matriarchal and matrilineal).

He grows up to be a mechanic, and has a more typical family for his species with nine kids.

Third is Shamie, who’s roughly halfway between Mirah and Orryn; they get adopted a month or so before ESB.

I’ve written about them here; but the most important bits--

They’re Human, agender, and a former street thief/pickpocket. They help Zeb out when a mission goes sideways after his local contact fails to show up, and Zeb decides to keep them, because he really can’t leave them there for a long list of reasons. They’d been on their own for close to a year at that point, and were roughly eight or nine.

(The conversation where Zeb checks in with Alex about this is very entertaining, because he texts to confirm that a third kid is okay in the middle of a firefight. Alex is less than thrilled.)

Shamie and Mirah are basically platonic soulmates. There’s just a sort of click when the two of them meet.

They grow up to be a priest of a sun/fire deity.

Fourth is Hanula, better known as Hanny.

She’s a Lasat baby who they adopt a few months after Endor, after Zeb mentions to the elders on Lira San that he and Alex have been considering a fourth kid, maybe starting with an infant this time, and maybe someone of his own species this time…

Some time not too long after that, Hanula is placed in his arms and he’s told ‘good luck.’

She’s stabby, as in she likes to Stab Things as a baby (usually with, like, a fork), which later gets translated into cooking--she ends up as a Chef.

While she does turn up, of course, she’s not super relevant for this crossover, but she’s Delightful so I thought I’d share anyway XD

(There’s also Alex’s sister and her sons, plus, uh, the various grandchildren, but they’re also not super relevant to the crossover. I can share details about them if anyone’s curious, though.)

As a note, I’ve only seen like half a season of Nikita at this point; so while we’re starting from the same basic premise, I don’t really expect this to converge with actual future plot points like at all. So.

Also, as a result of that, this outline will probably also take on a certain resemblance to Alias and/or other similar Spy Dramas.

Anyway. So. Let’s get this show on the road.

Kallus takes on Nikita’s role in this--Death Faked For You; trained to be a super spysassin by a Shady Black Ops Group from his late teens/early twenties. Much like Nikita in her canon, he meets someone while on an extended cover assignment and falls in love.

Division is less than thrilled with this, and so arrange orders Zeb’s death.

(Obviously, this doesn’t take, because I am Not About That. But Kallus genuinely believes Zeb is dead, which is what pushes him to break free, much like Nikita’s reaction to Daniel’s murder.)

(Zeb also thinks Kallus is dead; he, of course, got picked up by the Ghost crew, but more about him later.)

Mirah will take on Alex’s role (which is why I started referring to Kallus that way, even though in my head and in this outline up to this point he’s mostly Alex XD).

Probably a blend of the two backgrounds--her parents/the sect she grew up in were taken out by Division; probably with the cover story that they were a Dangerous Cult, but the exact reason was more likely Profit or something. Since they mostly weren’t? At least not in the ‘need to be dismantled’ sort of way.

Kallus, like Nikita, was on hand and made sure that the little girl survived, but wouldn’t/couldn’t follow up since he was still a mostly-loyal Division agent at that point. He tracks her down after he breaks free, and they start working together.

She eventually talks him into the idea of her infiltrating Division, as that will better suit their plans to dismantle the organization.

(…really, most of this early part is not super different from Nikita and Alex. Mostly summarizing for anyone reading this who’s unfamiliar with the show.)

Shamie is an older/prior recruit; they’ve been here a few months. Their marksmanship is pretty much bottom of the barrel, so far as the current crop of recruits go, and their hacking skills could use some work, but they’re one of the best at hand-to-hand/other close-quarters combat, and they’re probably top third with explosives and other detail work. And they’re generally a pretty phlegmatic person. Not many of the other recruits keep cool under pressure as well as they do.

They’re probably fairly close to being evaluated and promoted to full Agent status when Mirah is brought in.

The two of them, as in their normal lives/timeline, immediately click. Mirah reports back to Kallus, confirming her infiltration was successful, and also mentioning Shamie.

“Remember what I told you about making friends,” Kallus warns her. “Losing them will be hard. And you can’t know how loyal this person is to Division. Be very careful.”

Mirah internally rolls her eyes, because she’s not dumb, she knows that.

A few more quick parallels, for the Higher Ups at Division:

Arindha Pryce stands in for Percy.

She just has the right blend of Genuine Competence buried under Not As Good As She Thinks She Is to match up with him.

Founding member and leader of Division.

Thrawn stands in for Amanda.

Like, okay. The two of them, for a variety of reasons, have vastly different management styles.

But in terms of his actual skillset and the role Amanda plays, at least on paper? Which is to say, supervising training/constructing covers/monitoring recruits and agents and their mental states?

(Plus, the whole…resident torturer/interrogator/etc. thing…)

Yeah, he could pull that off.

Pellaeon stands in for Michael.

Because I love him.

Also the Vastly Different Dynamic between the Head of Division, the Whatever Amanda’s Actual Job Title Is, and the 2iC/Head Field Operative with these three as opposed to Percy, Amanda, and Michael entertains me.

(Pellaeon is more loyal to Thrawn than Pryce, but only if it came down to an Actual Contest between the two of them would that ever be relevant. He’s extremely competent, but occasionally a little too involved with the recruits, in a fairly paternal sense. Especially since he’s probably a good twenty years older than Michael. But I digress.)

So, Mirah is successfully inserted. That goes pretty much the same as in Nikita canon, completely with Kallus making a splashy return to Division’s radars.

(Probably not at Zeb’s grave, though; if Zeb even has an actual grave.)

She starts interacting with other recruits, including Shamie. The two of them click pretty quickly, all things considered, but given the circumstances…yeah, they keep a certain level of distance, at least for now.

…well, at least on the surface, anyway. Mirah is even more determined to burn Division to the ground if they breathe harm in Shamie’s direction.

(For their part, Shamie may or may not start to notice a few anomalies, but they keep that knowledge to themself for now.)

For a few months, it’s pretty much the pattern the early S1 episodes have--Mirah will get details on an official Division op, pass them along to Kallus, he’ll be on hand to foil it. She gets activated briefly once or twice, but is mostly just working as a regular recruit for her cover.

Plus, you know, evading Thrawn’s suspicions; all that good stuff.

Pellaeon does take a liking to her--she reminds him of Kallus, who was one of the better recruits, and he keeps an eye out for her, much like Michael does for Alex in canon.

Shamie gets activated for their final evaluation/first kill mission about two or three months after Mirah gets recruited. They succeed, but some of the aftermath/followup confirms their previous suspicions about Mirah, and they’re left sort of struggling with what to do about it.

On the one hand, they’re a fairly loyal Division agent at this point, and what Mirah’s doing is probably going to get a lot of their fellow agents, maybe even some recruits, killed. And they know that probably some of what’s been reported as Kallus’s activities is exaggerated, or at least spun to make him look Evil and Division look better, but they know there’s a grain of truth to it.

On the other...they spent a few years, as a child, working for a thief-runner/gang. This was…not a good situation. Gotta keep the baby thieves in line. And they’ve seen other recruits get canceled before. As much as they don’t necessarily want to go against their superiors in Division (again, gotta keep the baby thieves in line; they know what the consequences of that would be), they also know that that loyalty does not go both ways. They are expendable. All of the recruits and agents are.

And they like Mirah. And if they don’t look out for each other…well, who will?

Besides. It’s not like they have any actual proof. Bringing this to Pellaeon, who likes Mirah, or Thrawn, who likes no one--let alone Pryce--seems like it’ll backfire.

So, they stay quiet about what they’ve guessed, and wait, and watch, and work.

Things change when Orryn is recruited.

Mirah and Shamie both take one look at this sweet, gentle boy and have the same thought--he won’t last. He’ll be cancelled within a month. Maybe sooner.

Pryce questions the choice of bringing him in, too; it was Thrawn’s idea. No, he’ll never make field agent, but the boy’s good with mechanics, and computers. If he can survive the training process, they can put him to use there.

Sort of considering him for Birkhoff’s role.

Shamie, even as a full agent, doesn’t have the access or the tools they need to spring Orryn, as much as they want to.

But Mirah--Mirah has Kallus, and a way to contact him.

“This isn’t about my friend. This is about a sweet kid, too sweet for Division, who will be killed or broken if we don’t do something,” she says. “And isn’t that part of what we’re doing here? Trying to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else?”

Kallus is torn. Because, on the one hand, she’s absolutely right--it’s why he was reluctant to send her in undercover (oh, yes, the thought had occurred to him) until she suggested it.

But on the other hand, getting a recruit out of Division without compromising Mirah’s emergency exfiltration strategy is going to be Hard. And as much as he wants to help this kid, he also wants to help/protect the one he has already.

He tells Mirah, eventually, that he can’t promise anything, but he’ll start working on a plan.

Mirah…

Remember what I said earlier, about Mirah tending to get what she wants?

Mirah gets to work on her end. The way she sees it, if she figures out a way to get Orryn outside somehow, whether it’s getting him temporarily activated like she was that one time, or some other excuse, then Kallus won’t have a problem rescuing him.

Of course, she’s just a recruit herself, and she can’t muck around with that without compromising her cover. She’s half-tempted to just shove Orryn out her escape tunnel, her own exit be damned, but Kallus specifically told her not to do that, so she holds back.

The opportunity comes when one of Mirah’s prior breaches is discovered, two or three weeks after Orryn’s brought in.

Possibly the shell program she and Kallus have been using to talk; possibly something else and she didn’t cover her tracks quite well enough (i.e., breaking into Pryce’s office). No one’s tied it to her, not yet, but things are Tense.

Kallus asks Mirah if she needs an extraction, and she again brings up Orryn. “I’m good,” she says. “But the sweet kid I was telling you about…”

“We talked about this,” he says. “And I am working on it, I promise.”

But before either of them can do anything, Orryn ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time, and one of the guards is convinced he’s the mole.

Thrawn points out that this doesn’t make much sense--the serious breaches started well before Orryn was brought in.

Pryce agrees, but insists on letting the situation run its course, to see if it can flush out the real mole.

And Mirah has a Thing about people she’s attached herself to getting hurt.

Mirah manages to somehow get Orryn out of wherever he’s being held. She sends a quick message to Kallus--“Sweet Kid coming out, they think he’s me”--and takes him to the exit tunnel.

They are pursued, of course. By the overzealous guard--and by Shamie.

Mirah gets Orryn into the tunnel and prepares to stand her ground.

Shamie catches up first.

And handles the situation Very Differently from the way Thom does in Nikita canon.

“I’m not turning you in,” they say. “You got Orryn out?”

“Yeah.”

They nod. “Good. Okay. They think he’s the mole, but they’re gonna realize someone helped him escape, unless--”

And then the guard catches up.

There is a Fight. The guard manages to shoot Shamie (not seriously; through-and-through in the upper arm), who tosses Mirah their gun, and she fires back, putting two in his chest.

“…we can work with this,” Mirah says, pressing her hands onto where Shamie’s bleeding. “If we…if we stage it so he pointed the finger at Orryn to cover his own crimes…”

“You have any evidence we can plant on him?” Shamie says. “M’good at that. Planting evidence.”

“Yeah,” she says. She has a key card, and a few other bits and pieces. Shamie, hands shaking slightly, positions them appropriately. “And Orryn…”

“Was also a plant,” Shamie decides. “Sent in when the guard’s cover got shaky, to extract him. But he managed to get away in the confusion. We underestimated him.”

Mirah thinks about this for a minute, then nods. “I think I can sell that,” she says, as more guards start heading their way.

“Good,” Shamie says. “…talk later.”

Mirah nods, and Shamie blacks out, leaving her to spin the lies they need to survive this.

A few hours later, Mirah touches base with Kallus to confirm Orryn got out safely, and to inform him he has another inside agent.

So, the situation has improved somewhat! Unfortunately, it’s also been damaged--since the shell program was found, Kallus and Mirah don’t have secure communications. That first message she got out, about Orryn and Shamie? Yeah, she can’t use that route again, or she’ll establish a pattern.

On the other hand, Shamie is a full agent, which means they have an apartment and the freedom to move around and set an in-person meet. Which Kallus wants anyway, to evaluate Mirah’s friend.

(And, if they check out, to spoof their tracker and give them freedom of movement. Always a plus.)

So, Shamie and Kallus use another one-off communicator to set an in-person meeting, so they can talk.

“You did help Mirah and Orryn,” Kallus acknowledges, after they’ve run through their prearranged confirmation signals. “That counts for something.”

“But you think it could just be me establishing a cover,” Shamie said.

“The thought occurred.”

Shamie doesn’t say anything right away. “I hear all kinds of things about you,” they finally say. “Some of it seems true. Some of it seems exaggerated. I know you’re Division’s enemy, but that…” They shrug. “I trust Mirah. And she trusts you. That’s good enough for me.”

“And Division?”

“I know how gangs work,” they say, flatly. “I used to work for one--they ran a bunch of kids, pickpocketing. Thing about gangs is, most of them do some good in their community--take care of external threats, or whatever. That’s how almost every gang started, anyway. Division may have more money and fancier gadgets and a bigger community, but they work the same way. And most gangs, even if they keep helping their communities sometimes…somewhere along the line, it turns out to be about profit and power more than anything else. But that’s not the issue. The issue is…you can tell, when a gang’s leadership, the loyalty they demand from their members…you can tell when they reciprocate.”

“And Thrawn and Pellaeon and Pryce don’t,” Kallus says.

“Pryce for sure,” they say. “Pellaeon does, but he’s more loyal to Thrawn than the rest of us. Thrawn…is harder to read.”

Kallus considers that for a moment. “You know, what we’re doing--it’s dangerous. I can’t protect you. I burned my one extraction route getting Orryn out.”

“All of my choices are dangerous,” Shamie says. “But like I said. I trust Mirah. She trusts you. I don’t trust Division.”

Another moment of silence. “Here’s our communication protocol,” Kallus finally says. Because Mirah trusts them. And I trust Mirah. If I don’t trust her--what am I even doing here.

Shamie also, as it turns out, has valuable information Mirah didn’t have access to. While not as successful as Kallus, there’s another group working to take Division down; getting involved and throwing off some of their ops.

“Should we reach out to them?” Mirah asks, when this filters back to her.

“No,” Kallus decides. “Most likely, they’re another mercenary group. Trying to be another Division, another Gogol, and take out the competition. There’s a slim chance that they’re actually on the level, but if they’re not…Best to stick to ourselves and avoid drawing in any outsiders.”

The kids agree, because he’s the expert, and drop the subject.

He does, however, ask Shamie to keep tabs on this other group as best they can without compromising their cover. Which should be easy enough.

(Of course, Shamie can only tell him as much as Division knows about them, which isn’t much. They’re a small group, probably a five- or six-person team, and they tend to ghost in and out of situations without leaving much evidence behind…)

The other new advantage they have is Orryn.

Remember why Thrawn wanted him recruited? He’s good with tech and gadgets?

Orryn gets a look at Kallus’s setup, particularly when he’s trying to figure out how to re-establish communications with Shamie and Mirah.

“I can fix that,” he offers.

Kallus blinks. “Plan was, establish an identity and get you out of the country, into hiding,” he says. “Which I will do, I’m working on it, but--”

“Division hurt me, too,” Orryn says. “And Mirah and Shamie are in trouble, and so are you. I want to help.”

Kallus eyes him. He knows, just as clearly as Mirah and Shamie did, that he cannot take this kid into combat. On the other hand…he would’ve been recruited for a reason. And Kallus is well-trained and skilled, but there might be something to said for raw talent and an expert touch.

“All right,” he finally says. “We’ll prep an exfil for you, just in case, but it’ll be some time for me to put it together anyway. We’ll see how things go.”

Orryn nods, and gets to work.

And so pass the next few months, with Mirah working her way up towards qualifying and passing the information she has access to, and Shamie and Orryn supporting Kallus in the field.

Eventually, Mirah goes on her qualifying evaluation, and passes with flying colors. She’s an interesting counterpart to Shamie--she’s a sharpshooter and just as deadly as they are in hand-to-hand, but she doesn’t work as well with the explosives and so on.

Meanwhile, Shamie is a very tactile person--if it’s a hands-on task, especially one that requires a lot of detail work (such as setting up a bomb), there are very few people who can match them. But they have issues with distance kills and with the computer stuff.

Mirah is set up in her apartment, not too close to Shamie, but enough that they can meet. They’re in the same city.

The two of them, on their own, are pretty terrifying assassins.

Shamie is fairly innocuous-looking; dark hair, dark eyes, skinny, blends into a crowd. They’re also the most chill/calm person in the known universe, so people tend to gravitate to them in a crisis. And they’re kind. Genuinely kind, in a way that invites people’s trust.

This is what makes them an excellent priest in another life. And in this one…Beware The Nice Ones is a trope for a reason.

Mirah, on the other hand, is much more overtly intimidating. Unless she’s making an active effort to pretend otherwise, she exudes Danger. She is ruthless and practical.

She is also extremely skilled, good at manipulating people, and very hard to convince to back down.

Now imagine the two of them working together.

Unstoppable and terrifying.

And Division (and Kallus) are both aware of this.

So, they actually end up partnering quite a lot.

The four of them are circling closer and closer to closing in on Pryce and taking her out permanently--Thrawn as well, and Pellaeon as a third priority, but Pryce is their top target--when things Change again.

Mirah and Shamie are put on a wetworks op that requires a team. Probably similar to that one prince dude and the museum.

They feed Kallus the intel, as always, and he comes up with a plan to foil it.

But there are a couple of issues.

He needs Orryn for this op, for one thing. And not just as background, on-site.

When he scouts around to do his own prepwork, there are some technobabble things he need handled, but they need to be within range. Twenty yards, twenty-five on the outside.

So, his first priority--well, maybe not first, but certainly Up There--is to plan out Orryn’s escape route if things go wrong.

The second issue is that Shamie thinks this might be another mission the Unknown Third Party may also crash. Since they still don’t have a lot of intel, that’s potentially another five or six people coming in.

And that’s if they’re correct in that it’s the mystery team, and not Gogol or someone already on the radar.

But the opportunity to interfere with Division and save a life or two is too good to pass up, despite these problems. Kallus plans his counter-mission, and they get to work.

Phase One of the mission goes fairly well. Shamie does confirm a third party is involved, but at first, their presence doesn’t cause too much difficulty for either Our Heroes or Division.

Shamie gets the assassination target pinned down somewhere Kallus and Orryn can extract them; Kallus gets the victim to the prepared escape route, and then returns to deal with the secondary objective; the one that required Orryn--some sort of hacking/virus/Planting Evidence type thing.

Well.

So my Art Skillz are far from up to par, but here’s a general overview of the layout of the scene where they do:

...so I can’t figure out how to make tumblr embed it without throwing off all the rest of my formatting so, click the link.

Where things go wrong is when Kallus gets a good look at the closest member of Team Unknown.

Who is very, startlingly, distractingly Familiar.

And he does the worst possible thing he can do in this situation.

He freezes.

Naturally, another member of the Division team sees the opportunity and takes it.

He gets hit three times in that second--chest, abdomen, upper thigh. Serious injuries.

Mirah immediately runs to him, laying down cover/suppression fire at her supposed Fellow Division Agents.

(���yeah, remember that whole bit about her parents dying in front of her? She’s. Uh. She’s come to view Kallus as a second father. This is Not Okay.)

Shamie follows, of course; she gets to Kallus.

They hesitate for half a second. “…get him out of here. I can handle this. Go.”

Mirah nods and drags Kallus back to the van--

--only to find that Orryn has been taken.

She can’t--she can only be in one place at a time. She’s good, but she’s not that good. And Kallus, her teacher, her unofficially-accidentally-adopted dad, is dying in front of her.

She gets into the driver’s seat and books it.

Shamie fires after her, but…well, marksmanship has never been their strong suit, so they fail to stop her.

This is basically Mirah’s worst nightmare made real.

Her dad is dying.

Her brother is missing.

Her other sibling is trapped and about to be probably tortured.

She is holding together by a thread and the only thing keeping her going is if she falls apart now, Kallus will die.

Okay. Time to do something about that. She can’t do much, but she can do even less about the other things, so. Time to do something.

She gets a tourniquet on his leg, pressure dressings on the other wounds, but she’s pretty sure his lung’s collapsed and she doesn’t know how much other internal damage there is. Her training in field medicine/dressings Will Not Cut It on this one.

Now, Kallus has a contingency--he always has contingencies, he loves contingencies--but Mirah doesn’t know his medical contingency and he’s too unconscious and bleeding-out to tell her.

She can’t take him into an emergency room, obviously, but there’s an urgent care center close by. And Orryn’s stuff is still in the van. Which means she can hack into their records find out who’s coming off shift--because there will be someone coming off shift--and stick a gun in their face.

Which is exactly what she does.

She drags the doctor into the van and points her at Kallus.

“Fix him,” she snaps, but she stops pointing the gun at her at this point--she needs her attention elsewhere to drive and fend off Division agents in pursuit, among other things, and surely this doctor will be overcome by that whole Need To Heal thing. Hippocratic oath. Whatever.

Doctor stares at him. “He needs a hospital, I can’t--” Even as she moves towards him.

(Because there’s that whole Need To Heal thing. Hippocratic oath. Whatever.)

Mirah starts the car. “I’m not gonna tell you again.” She tosses the doctor their first aid kit--which is pretty Extensive. Not on the level of the one at the safehouse, but still impressive. “Anything you need that’s not in there, I’ll get at a pharmacy. Now. Do your damn job or I swear to God.”

The doctor looks at Mirah one last time, then turns her attention to Kallus, and opens the kit.

“Good,” Mirah says.

(And then, while the doctor is stabilizing her dad, as soon as she can pull over for a second, she gets rid of her tracker. She has the standard one, in her thigh.)

(And probably kills a Division agent or two pursuing them along the way…)

When the doctor has finished patching Kallus up as best she can with the supplies on hand and what Mirah stole from a convenient pharmacy, she says, “He really should be in a hospital. He needs a transfusion, and should be on IV antibiotics. And I think there was damage to his femur I couldn’t fix without imaging.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Mirah says. Note to self: rob a blood bank. And a hospital. Saline won’t cut it. I wonder how hard X-ray machines are to steal…

“I’m guessing you know how to change the dressings, and how often to do it,” the doctor says.

“Obviously,” Mirah says. She grabs a handful of money, and shoves it at the doctor--she did her job, she should be paid for it; people should always be Appropriately Compensated for the things they do and in this case that means actual money--as well as the badge she’d pulled out of the doctor’s purse. “You can go. Oh, and, Doctor Sloane? This never happened. You never saw us.”

“Right,” she says.

“Because if you say anything,” Mirah says, “I will hunt you down and kill you. Clear?”

“…crystal,” she says, and takes the money and walks away.

Mirah takes a few more distracting turns (with a couple pit stops for those last few Necessary Supplies), a very roundabout route, and eventually makes it to the safehouse. She gets Kallus set up as comfortably as she can, under the circumstances, on one of the beds, manages to take thirty seconds to check for any messages from Shamie or Orryn, and then curls up in a corner and just…melts down.

Like I said Mirah’s Worst Nightmare.

Let’s check back in with Shamie, who is about to have an extremely rough several days.

Because they get to go spend some Quality Time with Thrawn in full interrogator mode.

And they get the works--torture, hallucinogens, manipulation, everything. To figure out how much they know about Mirah’s compromised loyalties, back to Orryn and everything.

When that comes up, they repeat their older story--that they spotted Mirah pursuing Orryn and the guard, and followed. They got there, there was shooting, and they were sure it was Orryn, or the guard, but maybe it was Mirah. They know she killed the guard, and Orryn was never good at combat skills, just tech…

After somewhere between three days and a week of this, Thrawn can’t get Shamie to admit anything incriminating, and leaves them in a cell to report back to Pryce.

“I would estimate there’s somewhere between a twenty and fifty percent chance that Mirah managed to turn them,” he says.

“So, we cancel them,” Pryce says.

“We could,” Thrawn says. “But that is not my recommendation.”

“Oh?”

“I recommend surveillance,” he says. “My prior sessions with Shamie indicate that they’ve had very little human connection or affection in their life. Even we, for all we provide them, have a tendency to view our recruits more as tools than as individuals. It is absolutely within their makeup to latch on to the first person to treat them and value them as an individual. Which may mean they joined Mirah and Alexsandr’s crusade--or may mean that affection blinded them to things they should have seen in Mirah. If the former, they will lie low for a while, but eventually grow complacent and reach out to their partners. If the latter, they will redouble their efforts to prove their loyalty. And their skillset is not one we can replicate at this time--there’s one recruit showing a certain promise, but they’re very new, at least a year away from graduation. Assuming that particular recruit actually lives up to their potential.”

“So,” Pellaeon cuts in, “letting Shamie live, either way, we gain something valuable.”

“Precisely,” Thrawn says.

Pryce considers for a moment. “Very well, I’ll bow to your expertise. Shamie can return to their prior status. Add more cameras to their apartment before sending them home. And I want to upgrade their tracker.”

“I agree,” Thrawn says. “This would be an excellent time to test out the kill chip program.”

So, Shamie is kept in medical for another day, to have the surgery for the new implant and patch up some of the more significant damage from their interrogation.

They use one of the Contingencies to send a quick message to Mirah and Kallus, confirming they’re alive, and that they have a new tracker and may not be able to keep in regular contact for a while.

So! Let’s see what became of Orryn in the meantime, shall we?

And to do that, we actually have to jump back five years, to the night that made Kallus leave Division and vow to bring them down.

Zeb was military, special ops. He met Kallus when the latter was living on extended cover, and Zeb was about to get out.

They met in some kind of dojo/gym/whatever, and had one of Those sparring matches.

(You know the ones I mean. Where it’s like 30% fight and 70% foreplay?)

They danced around the issue for a while; Zeb knew Kallus works for the government somehow, and is pretty sure he’s either CIA or NSA under some kind of NOC (non-official cover). Eventually, though, they get together.

They have about six months, with Kallus staving off Division as best he can, and Zeb going through the process of finishing out his military service/resigning his commission--as soon as he wraps up one last investigation--and then he proposes.

And, yeah, he thought about waiting until he was completely out, but then he figured--there’s only so much time in a life, and why waste it?

Kallus is getting everything together so the two of them can disappear, when the Cleaner comes.

I’m…not sure exactly how this all works, so we’ll handwave all this. Basically, each walks away thinking the other is dead, and can credibly believe this without a body.

I think probably Kallus saw Zeb go over a cliff or something after getting shot, and Zeb found a whole heck of a lot of blood when he climbed back up to where he’d fallen from, and figured it was Alex’s.

Ooooh, better idea--while he’s climbing back up to help Alex--he thinks this attack has to do with him. With that last investigation, which was actually into some kind of Hinky thing that was either Division or Gogol…

And now the building is on fire. And Alex was still in there.

He tries to run in, but the building is too unstable, and the entrance collapses in front of him. Burying Alex--or whatever’s left of him--completely.

Kanan finds Zeb kneeling in front of the rubble, and takes him home.

He and Hera patch Zeb up, and basically explain what they do--which is something to do with trying to uncover groups like Division; essentially terrorist/assassination/murder-for-hire organizations that operate under a thin veneer of government officiality.

“Modern-day privateers,” Hera says. “Only we’re not at war, and these people commit atrocities at least as awful as the ones they’re supposedly trying to avert.”

“We work in secret,” Kanan adds. “Because when we try to work out in the open…”

(Yeah, this is how Depa died in this AU. She started this operation, possibly with Cham Syndulla, and things went Badly.)

“We think you caught on to the operations of one of the groups we’re trying to identify,” Hera said. “We don’t have a name for them, but they’re US-based, with ties all over the world.”

“Most of…most of what I had on ‘em was in the house,” Zeb says.

“So, we start again,” Kanan says.

“But…at this point, Zeb, you’re legally dead,” Hera says. “We all are. You won’t have the access to intel that you used to.”

“I don’t care,” Zeb says. They killed my fiancé. What does it matter if they killed me, too? “I wanna bring them down.”

Kanan smiles, and offers him a hand. “Welcome to the Ghost Crew.”

So, for the next two years or so, the Ghost Crew, along with Zeb, does more or less the same thing Kallus has been doing--try to suss out Division operations and interfere with them as best they can.

Of course, they don’t have insider information.

They don’t even know the name of the organization they’re hunting.

Plus, Division isn’t their only target, even if it’s the one Zeb’s most interested in. They also interfere with Gogol when they catch on to their missions, and a few other organizations throughout the world.

So there’s only so much they can do, and while they are certainly a nuisance to Pryce et al, they don’t have the same level of impact that Kallus does when he comes out swinging.

Naturally, things shift a little when a mission goes slightly less than as planned.

It’s mostly under control--it was primarily surveillance at that point; Zeb was in a restaurant scoping out their target. Unfortunately, one of said target’s bodyguards ID’d him; maybe not specifically as Ghost Crew but certainly as a Threat to their principal.

That’s about when the shooting started.

Zeb can’t get to the front door; the bodyguards now actively trying to both kill him and extract their principal are in his way; so he heads for the kitchen instead.

Yeah, he could try to pursue and complete his objective, except it was a capture mission, not a kill, and he can’t get through that many guards and get out with the target. Not by himself.

He yells at the staff to get down and stay down, and most of them listen. There’s a couple of cooks, a waiter who was grabbing a couple plates to run out, and a kid washing dishes.

Of course, Zeb loses his footing somewhere along the line and skids. He recovers fast, but the closest guy chasing him did not have that problem and is too damn close for--

--or Bad Guy could get smacked in the face with a soapy cast-iron skillet, courtesy of Dish Washing Kid.

Split second to consider the consequences, but there are two other shooters in pursuit; so Zeb does the sensible thing and grabs the kid so she doesn’t get hurt, and finally makes it to the exit. Steals the first convenient car he sees, and books it.

Once he’s pretty sure they’ve lost pursuit, he turns to the kid, who’s--shit, he’s not good at guessing kids’ ages. Maybe twelve? Shit--anyway, an actual kid, which complicates things.

“Uh. Sorry about back there,” he says. “Listen, I’ll take you back to your parents in a couple hours, after the heat’s died down, I promise.” Pretty sure the bad guys aren’t gonna hunt you down if they couldn’t grab you right then and there…

“Foster parents,” she corrects. “They’re okay, I guess, but it’s not like they actually pay attention to me. They own the restaurant.”

“I should still get you back to them,” he says. “Better for you in the long run, kid.”

“Hanny,” she says. “My name’s Hanny.” She looks at him expectantly, but he doesn’t respond in kind.

“Right,” he says instead. “In the meantime, uh…” He pulls off--they need to switch cars anyway--and takes a second to text Hera.

“So I accidentally kidnapped someone.”

“…accidentally.”

“Yeah, there was shooting, had to run through the kitchen, she hit a guy with a frying pan, couldn’t leave her there.”

“Right,” she responds, after a few seconds where he can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “How much of a fuss is she making?”

“Uh. None at all, actually.”

“All right. Bring her here, we’ll figure out how to handle this later.”

“Thanks, I owe you another one.”

He gets Hanny back to the safehouse he and the Ghost Crew are currently using.

Hera glowers at him for a minute, then makes sure Hanny is settled in an inner room before going out to have A Word.

“Zeb? That’s a child. An actual child.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zeb says. “Still couldn’t exactly leave her there. I’ll take her back to her parents…well, foster parents…”

“Our rule is, we don’t hurt kids!” Hera says.

“Does she look hurt?” Zeb says. “Look, this wasn’t my fault. I went through the kitchen, she got involved all on her own. Not like I told her to bash the guy over the head with a skillet!”

“I know,” Hera says, and takes a breath. “I know, sorry. I shouldn’t’ve snapped at you. But you need to take her back sooner than later. Tonight, if you can.”

Zeb nods. “Uh. Soon as I get her to actually tell me who her parents are. She said they own the restaurant, but…”

“Yeah, you probably don’t want to go back there.” She considers a minute. “I’ll see what I can dig up, get you an address.”

“Good,” he says.

“Why can’t I stay here?” Hanny asks, from the door.

“…because you’ve got parents--”

“Foster parents.”

“Who are probably worried about you,” he finishes.

Hanny snorts. “No, they’re not. They’ve got six of us, and mostly use the money they get from the state to keep their shitty restaurant afloat. They won’t miss me.”

“That’s a shitty situation, I get it,” Zeb says. “It’s still better than staying here.”

“Why?” she demands.

“Because I’m legally dead, for one thing,” he says.

“But you’re not actually dead,” she points out.

“I also do a lot of really dangerous things,” he says. “What you saw in that kitchen back there? Ordinary Tuesday for me.” Which is, yeah, a bit of an exaggeration, but…

She rolls her eyes. “Not like I’m asking to come into another shootout with you. Just stay with you instead of the Smiths.”

“Why do you want to stay with him?” Hera cuts in. “And ‘because he’s not the Smiths’ isn’t a good enough answer.”

Hanny chews that over for a minute. “I like him,” she says. “He actually gives a damn about something other than his stupid restaurant, or self-image, or whatever. And he apologized for kidnapping me, which is sort of weird, but nice, I guess? I don’t know, I just do.”

“…that whole bit about doing dangerous things,” Zeb says. “I can’t really look after you.”

She rolls her eyes again. “I’ve been looking after myself for ages anyway. Besides. I’m seventeen.”

He and Hera stare at her.

“…would you believe fifteen?”

Zeb’s less sure about that one, but the look on Hera’s face is answer enough.

“Okay, thirteen, but still. Plus, I cook. I’m really good at it, too. Especially when I have access to decent knives. I’m guessing that’s not a problem here?”

Well, okay, it’s not like they have a lot of kitchen knives floating around, but he could--

…shit.

Zeb turns to Hera. “…sorta running out of counter-arguments here…”

Hera looks from him, to Hanny, and back again. “…fine. I’ll babysit when you’re out in the field.”

Jumping back to the present!

So, Zeb doesn’t actually spot Kallus at this point.

Or, rather, he sees that another party is involved, and does out of the corner of his eye spot the guy going down and then Division agents running at him, but not enough to actually identify him.

He alerts his team to the presence of the Third Party--who they’ve been aware of, since Kallus and his team went active a few months ago.

(It was Sabine’s idea to nickname the team Fulcrum. Since they seem to be a pressure point that really gets to the Shadow Agency they’re chasing, and might be enough pressure to move the lever and make actual progress…)

(Look, it made sense in her head at the time, whether or not the others bought the reasoning, and it stuck.)

Of course, they’re not sure if Team Fulcrum is actually on their side, or just looking to cause Generalized Chaos. Or take Shadow Agency down to take its place. After all, they seem to have an almost personal vendetta against the Shadow Agency and some of the tactics they’ve used…

Ezra and Kanan slip around to the Fulcrum van, and find Orryn inside. They see this sweet kid, assume he’s a hostage, and extract him. There’s no way their team will get through the firefight between Division, Mirah, and the reinforcements intact, so Kanan calls Zeb back, they get Orryn into their vehicle, and they go.

They get Orryn back to their base, and he makes it Very Clear that he was not, in fact, a hostage.

“The people that had you in that van--”

“Were not Division,” he says. “They’re the ones who rescued me from Division, after I was recruited.”

“…I’m sorry,” Hera says. “We made a mistake. Division--they’re the government agents who were attacking that building back there?”

Orryn blinks. “…you didn’t know that?”

“We’ve never had a name for them,” Kanan says. “Maybe we should start from the beginning. I’m Kanan, this is Ezra, Hera, Zeb, Sabine.”

“Orryn,” he says. “…you’re trying to bring Division down, too?”

“Damn right we are,” Zeb says.

“…okay,” he says, and fills them in on what he knows.

Which is, comparatively, not all that much. He didn’t see too much of the internal structure--he wasn’t there for long enough--but they have names and so on to attach to them.

He tells them how Division recruits people in their late teens/early twenties, and trains them as assassins. He tells them how Mirah went in as a double agent, and she and Shamie and Kallus broke him out. He tells them how they tried to get him into hiding, but he offered to stay and help with their tech, which is what led them here.

(He doesn’t, of course, know Kallus’s real/full name--not something shared readily; and even if it was, that might not be the full name Zeb knew him under, so Zeb remains in the dark.)

(Part of why Orryn’s being so open about this is because he’s gotten a pretty good idea of the kind of team Hera and Kanan are running here; he also…it’s something to focus on other than the Very Strong Probability that Kallus is dead, likely Mirah with him, and Shamie, and…)

(On the other hand, if his new family is somehow still alive, they could use all the help they can get. And maybe Kallus would’ve been more cautious, and Mirah would’ve been more suspicious, and Shamie would’ve held back a little more, but Orryn knows how hard this fight will be, and how much they need genuine allies. And so he makes the first move/takes a leap of faith.)

So, to sum up the last few sections before we move on, here’s where we stand after the FUBAR mission where Kallus finds out Zeb is still alive:

Kallus has been badly hurt--near-fatally--and is more or less out of commission for the foreseeable future; not to mention whatever long-term/permanent damage he might have sustained.

Mirah’s cover is blown, and while she pulled herself together after her meltdown once Kallus was safe, she’s still teetering a little on the edge, especially as more and more time goes by without hearing from either of her siblings.

Shamie is fighting desperately to maintain their cover, still deep in Division, but now with little to no support.

Orryn is with Zeb and the Ghost Crew, with no idea if any of his family is still alive, and missing a few Key Pieces of Information that might help smooth things over.

(Yeah, this day went Super Well for everyone.)

After a couple days, though, a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel--Kallus wakes up.

Okay, technically, he’s sort of half-woken up a couple times, but this is the first time he’s been lucid enough to actually process being awake and/or interact with Mirah.

She sees him trying to sit up and is instantly there.

“Stay down, you’re hurt.”

He sinks back without too much argument, and she takes a second to make sure he’s really awake, really back with her, and then, as people with her particular personality and background are likely to do, covers up her fear with “How dare you.”

“Mirah…”

“You got yourself shot! You froze!”

“I know, I--”

And then the look on her face, she’s clearly just barely holding back from bursting into tears (which, she’s done enough of that over the past three days damn it) and he just…wordlessly holds out his arms, offering a hug.

Very, very carefully, she curls up next to him and clings, and she does burst into tears at that point, and stays there until she’s cried herself out.

“…sorry,” she says, when she gets her breath back.

“It’s fine,” he assures her. “And…so am I. For scaring you.”

She nods. “I know it wasn’t on purpose.”

He laughs a little, which is a mistake, because that hurts, but manages to get out, “when I get shot on purpose, it’s generally not this…bad.”

“I know,” she says, then hesitates before blurting out, “Iloveyou.”

He’s taken a little bit by surprise--he was her handler as much as her friend, and that’s not exactly conducive to…but he can’t deny that he’s come to think of her as a favorite niece, or maybe even a daughter, and…

Between being caught off guard, and the pain, and the bloodloss, and the drugs she’s probably got him on, he can’t find the words to respond.

So, of course, she tries to backtrack.

He cuts her off, “love you, too, Mirochka.”

(LOOK fandom has decided he’s a Space Russian ANYWAY so for this AU either one or both of his parents was a first-generation Russian immigrant so FAKE RUSSIAN DIMINUTIVES FOR EVERYONE. Also it makes me smile. So there.)

She brightens and clings again. Very, very carefully.

But he can already feel the room start to spin and blur at the edges. “Probably gonna pass out again. Don’t be afraid.”

“Okay,” she says. “Just don’t die.”

“Of course not,” he says, already fading. “Still have work to do.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not allowed to die when we’re done, either.”

“Right,” he manages to say, before he’s out again.

The next time he’s fully conscious and lucid is just after Shamie finally managed to send word they’re alive.

Which is, naturally, his first thought. To ask about Shamie and Orryn.

Mirah tells him--Shamie’s at least alive and free enough to make contact, but Orryn is still missing.

Kallus, at this point, is half-convinced he hallucinated Zeb--it would make more sense, obviously; Zeb is dead, he knows that, he saw him die, and yet…

On the other hand, he finds himself desperately hoping it wasn’t a hallucination, for more than just his personal needs. If Zeb has Orryn, then he knows Orryn is safe.

“I tried to get him,” Mirah says.

“I know,” he says. “It wasn’t your fault. None of this was.” It was mine.

“What happened?” she asks, and the question had to come sometime, but he’s not sure he can explain. Not sure he should, as on-edge as she is already.

But she’s asking, so he does the best he can.

“I thought I saw…someone,” he says.

“…interesting pause there…”

“A ghost.”

“…cryptic. Are you gonna keep doing that, or…?”

He looks away. He can’t bring himself to say his name. “It couldn’t have been…I know it couldn’t have been, but I saw him, I was sure, and for a moment, I…I lost control. Again.”

I let you all down.

“…again?”

He struggles for a moment, then says, “I told you, before you went into Division…I told you why I left, didn’t I?”

It takes her a minute to get it. “…oh.”

“I only…I only saw him for a moment, and I may have been seeing things.” He takes a shallow, shaky breath, and blinks rapidly for a moment. “But if it was real, and Orryn’s with him, then he’s safe. I am certain of that.”

Mirah nods. “Then I’ll go find out.”

“Be careful,” Kallus cautions. “Division will be out in force, looking for you. And Shamie can’t--they have to keep their head down. Even if they’ve managed to satisfy Thrawn for now--” He starts to get up, because he needs to hit the ground running on this one, pain and shakiness be damned--

“Don’t you dare,” Mirah snaps, pushing him back. “I’ll be careful. Trust me. Papa.”

“I do,” he says; his head is spinning again and he’s gone chalk-white. “Just…don’t get overconfident.”

“I won’t,” she promises. “Go back to sleep. I’ll text every hour.”

“Please,” he says.

“I will,” she promises, and by the time she’s out the door he’s unconscious again.

Of course, by the time she gets back, he’s somehow managed to muster the strength to get himself over to the computer.

“What did I say?” she says, annoyed.

“I did sleep, for a while,” he says. A little breathless, but he’s still conscious, and it doesn’t look like he’s torn any of his stitches, which is probably a goddamn miracle.

(Of course, they are long overdue a miracle or two.)

“I found footage of the incident,” he says. “Target had security cameras all over. I wanted to see if…see if I could track Orryn that way.”

“And?”

He shakes his head. “But I can be sure Division didn’t take him. I accounted for all of them.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes,” he says, then hesitates. “Nothing more from Shamie, which…I don’t know. You find anything?”

“Maybe,” she says, and hands him a blurry photo, of Orryn--with Zeb.

The world spins around him again, just like it did back in that firefight, because there’s no mistaking it this time.

Mirah mistakes his reaction for him being about to pass out again; he vaguely hears her mention going to kidnap Dr. Sloane again; he cuts her off.

“No, it’s…it’s him.”

“Oh!” She considers for a moment. “Good. I’ll go get him.”

He nods; he can feel his heart beating erratically and knows he should probably do something about that--relaxation exercise, get horizontal, something--but first thing’s first. “Tell…no.” He can’t think of a good verbal code, but he has something even better.

Using the chair to hold himself up and keeping as much weight off his injured leg as possible, he starts over to the wall.

“Let me--” Mirah starts.

“Wall safe,” he says. “Keep forgetting to program your fingerprints.”

She makes a face. “And you’ll go to bed as soon as you get whatever it is?”

“Yes, fine,” he says. He makes it to the safe, and opens it, pulling out a fist-sized stone and handing it to her. “Show…show him this. He’ll know you’ve seen me.”

“I will. Now, bed.”

“Right,” he says. But his head is spinning and it seems so very far away right now. I possibly overdid it. “I’m just going to…sit here for a moment first. Catch my breath.”

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I know.”

There is, of course, a slight problem with sending the meteorite instead of some kind of verbal message. One that, if Kallus had been firing on all cylinders, so to speak, he would’ve figured out.

A verbal message can’t be pulled off a dead body, after all.

…yeah, Zeb pulls a gun on Mirah when she shows up.

She restrains herself from responding the way all her training has told her to respond to a gun in her face, because she knows how important Zeb is to Kallus. “Rude,” she says instead.

Zeb snarls at her. “Where the hell did you get that.”

“From Papa,” Mirah says, like it should be obvious. “Are you going to let me in?”

Papa? Zeb had never imagined the monsters that killed Alexsandr--who did the kind of things Orryn described--would have children. “…no,” he says. “You’re going to take me to Papa.”

It’s the best, most solid lead he’s had in forever, more concrete than Orryn in terms of tracing back to the specific people who killed his fiancé, he finally has an actual agent, a string to pull to unravel Division and end them.

“Well, yeah,” Mirah says, because that is the plan. But not right now.”

Zeb glares at her. “No. Now.”

Mirah sighs. “ORRYN!”

Orryn, who heard the commotion and was already on his way, joins Zeb at the door. “She’s okay, Zeb. Really. This is Mirah, I told you about her?”

Zeb is…not at all sure what to make of all this. But he lets her in while he tries to figure it out.

(Keeping her covered with the gun, of course. As much as he can when the first thing she does is wrap Orryn in a flying tackle hug.)

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Orryn says, clinging back so hard. “I was worried.”

“You were worried!” Mirah says. “You know what you’re supposed to do in a firefight! Keep your head down, and wait for Papa to come get you!”

“I know,” Orryn says. “But I saw him go down, and then…” I got grabbed, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do.

Mirah nods. “I already yelled at him about that.”

Which is not what Orryn would’ve done, but he knows his sister, so he’s not surprised. “And…and Shamie, are they with you? Are they okay?”

“They’re alive,” Mirah says. “They got in touch. But they’re still undercover. We’re working on it.”

“Touching as this reunion is,” Zeb interrupts, “you need to tell me where the hell you got that rock.”

“I already told you.”

“Not enough.”

“Well, then ask,” Mirah says. “I don’t know what you know.”

“Who the hell is Papa, and how the hell did he get that meteorite?” Zeb asks.

“No idea where he got it,” she says, which is true. “He just told me to give it to you.”

Zeb stares at her, for a long moment. “What the hell kind of sick joke--”

“What?” Mirah says. “Explain, because I have no idea what the hell you mean.”

“He’s taunting me,” Zeb says, flatly. “Whoever he is.” ...on the other hand, that means I’m close…or they know I have Orryn. He frowns, then shakes his head. “But to use this to lure me out…”

Now it’s her turn to stare. “Lure you? You’re the one who demanded I take you places!”

“Because you turn up, out of the blue, on my damn doorstep, holding that!”

“Because Papa told me to!” she says. “What’s so important about it, anyway?!”

“It’s something I gave to--” He stops. “Your people, Division, they took it off him after they killed him. I’ve spent the last five years trying to track down the bastards who did it.”

And SUDDENLY EVERYTHING IS CLEAR.

“You didn’t see him,” Mirah realizes.

“…what.”

“Okay,” she says. “We can go see Papa now. But leave your gun behind, he’s been shot enough this week.”

“No, seriously, what the hell,” Zeb says. “Saw who?”

“Papa,” she says. Obviously.

“You still haven’t told me who that is!”

“Because I love him, but he’s sometimes a secretive jerk and I don’t know his full name and that’s embarrassing, okay?”

Zeb just stares at her for a moment.

Mirah sighs, exasperated. “Orryn, do you know Papa’s full name? I don’t have any pictures, and I don’t want to wake him up by calling.”

Orryn shakes his head. “Never had that much access to Division’s computers, and you know he doesn’t talk about that stuff. …Shamie might know, but…”

“I’ll text,” she decides. “They won’t get it until it’s safe.”

“Like hell I’m waiting for that,” Zeb says. “Take me to him. Now.” “First, leave the gun behind,” Mirah says, and there is No Room For Argument in her face or her tone.

Zeb considers this for a moment.

He’s dealing with one guy who’s apparently been shot all to hell, and one baby agent…he’s got the raw physical strength to overpower her if it comes to that. Besides, she didn’t say anything about other weapons.

“Fine,” he says, and ostentatiously puts both the gun he already had out and the backup from his boot on the table.

“Thank you,” she says. “Orryn, you coming?”

Orryn hesitates for a second. “…someone should probably stay with Hanny.”

“Who’s Hanny?”

“My kid,” Zeb says. “…kinda. Long story. Can we go?”

“Sure,” Mirah says. “Hanny can come, too.”

“Hell no,” Zeb says. “I don’t bring her into potential danger if I can avoid it.”

“If you say so,” Mirah says. “Just a suggestion.”

So, Orryn and Hanny stay back at Zeb’s place. Mirah texts Kallus to let him know they’re coming.

He. Uh. Wakes up on the floor by the wall safe when his phone buzzes. Never quite made it back to bed…oops.

Part of him thinks he should probably correct that, but on the other hand, standing up sounds like Work right now. He’ll just…wait here. Gather his strength.

Oh, right, I should text back. “Fine, see you soon.”

As they approach, Mirah once again warns Zeb that Kallus has been shot, so he is not allowed to get him worked up or let him out of bed.

“Yeah, you mentioned.”

“It bears repeating,” she says. “And he is not allowed to die.”

“Copy that,” Zeb says, though he makes no promises. Whoever Papa is, he had Alexsandr’s meteorite, which means he Knows Something about the people who killed him.

She opens the door to the safehouse. “PAPA YOU HAD BETTER BE IN BED.”

…well, at least he hasn’t moved from where she left him last?

Mirah gives him her best Aggrieved and Disappointed Face.

“…I think I fell asleep here,” he says, wearily.

And then Zeb has a Moment.

Because he couldn’t quite see Mirah’s papa from this angle.

But he knows that voice.

“Did I or did I not tell you to go back to bed,” Mirah says, but she knows it’s gonna be a lost cause for at least a few minutes. “…I’ll lecture you later.”

“Alex?” Zeb says. Whispers. It takes him a few seconds to actually get the name out and it comes out strangled and disbelieving.

And even though he already knew Zeb was alive, he’d seen him in person and then the picture, something about it…he’s here now, it’s real--

Fortunately, before Alex can try to get up, Zeb is right there.

“You were…you were dead, I thought--”

For his part, Kallus cannot form words right now. He just reaches up, hand shaking, to touch Zeb’s face.

(Mirah, in the background, discreetly texts her siblings with an update.)

(Orryn, upon reading the text, asks Hanny if she’s ever seen The Parent Trap.)

(“Because I think your spy dad and my spy dad used to be together. Wanna go join them?”)

(Hanny doesn’t need to be asked twice.)

Zeb, at that point, just scoops Kallus up and, very gently, puts him back in the bed.

“Oh, good,” Mirah says. “Now we need to keep him there.”

“No arguments here,” Zeb says.

And this had better not be a dream, he adds, in the privacy of his own mind.

Of course, there’s a lot more catching up to do from there, and a creepy organization of spysassins to take down, but I think we got enough here for one outline, lol. XD Future developments, of course, involve Team Fulcrum (who keep the nickname because Why Not) teaming up with the Ghost Crew to actually take down Division and shoot Pryce in the face; getting Shamie’s kill switch removed; and then…whatever adventures the Family of Spies might have in the future. Maybe head down to Miami, run into another team of former spies. Or up to Boston, run across a team of thieves…

The point is, they’ve found each other again. The rest…well, the rest is just Details.