#logged in the computer lab to report my important finding

[damonalbarnsgf]

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[chronicler-harrington]

Log 5, Foreign Music

Have you ever thought about music? Humming and bobbing along to a melody you sing in your head, or that rings through the air. The gentle rush of emotions with each note and melody. I have never been a singer, nor have I ever had the desire to write a song, but music is something I will always appreciate.

Hersia, as she requested I call her in my log, is a scientist that I occasionally find myself working with. Unlike myself, who usually jumps from ship to ship, Hersia has stayed with the same crew and ship for the last several years. Hersia however is very, very private. She rarely talks about anything other than work, which, as a scientist, it's often assumed that her life and her work are close to one.

Incorrect on so many levels, not the least of which being the professional face Hersia adopts when speaking of her recent discoveries. One may assume she is a hard working and stoic individual, and not realise she is sarcasm in human form.

Hersia had, on this particular day, been working on something small and inconsequential. Report logs of her findings that day. Nothing mind shattering or important. As such, in her usually locked and sound proofed cabin, Hersia took to a simple hobby she has been doing as of late. Putting on music was nothing new, she had been doing it for years with no real consequences.

Verenche, however, was one of the new recruits, replacing one of the electricians who had left the vessel at the last port. Being a new hire, and more used to working on cargo ships rather than the more research tuned vessel on which Hersia had chartered, he had little idea of the unspoken rule. Never disturb Hersia when she is working.

Simple maintenance checks are routine, and often done in sections, not unlike patrols. It's not a question of waiting for something to go wrong, it's of making sure that it doesn't. Verenche was already aware of this system, having done it a few times before. Never before however had Verenche had to patrol sector 5, where Hersias lab was located.

The patrol started as normal, doing routine checks that anyone else would. When he came across a door that seemed to have worn out its locking mechanism resulting in it being essentially useless, his concerns were warranted. Daily checks should have ensured that this issue was caught before it ceased function entirely.

When opening the door to further investigate the locking mechanism, the otherwise soundproof lab in which Hersia was currently blasing music loud enough for the entire cosmos to hear was breached. In the three seconds it took for Hersia to realise her door was open and effectively smack the pause button on her computer hard enough to break, Verenche was amazed by the sounds he could hear.

Being of a more insectoid race, Vereche had an innate interest in music. His people, the Bentras had a set of wasp-reminiscent wings, once used for flying, now small enough that their only real function was noise. Music in much the same way Humans sing. The primary difference between the two species' music is that while humans add other instruments, Bentras generally have such a wide variety of sounds they can make that they didn't find the need to develop it.

If Hersia had to find a word to describe the expression on the aliens face, it would likely be amazed bewilderment.

Hersia herself had always thought that music made by races similar to the bentras had held its own unique charm, much like how the sound shifts when a different instrument plays the same song. To see someone discovering a whole set of new music instruments and sounds was like watching someone discover their favourite song.

“Never heard human music?’ Hersia asked, fascinated by the reaction she got from the strange new member of the crew she had only seen a few times.

“Is that what that was?” Vereche asked, lovestruck and lost in his own fascination like a lovesick teenager after his first kiss.

Hersia chuckled at the reaction, ushering him inside and closing the door behind him. Quickly sitting him on the stool by her desk, Hersia pulled up her list of favourite songs, wanting to amaze him with something he had never heard before.

A simple piano song was the answer, faint pipings of violins in the background and a hauntingly beautiful voice that sang of woes and sorrows. As soon as the first note was tapped on the instrument and the sound echoed, Vereche found himself once again surrounded by a strange new music.

What is that feeling when you discover something so amazingly wonderful that you simply can't find the words, when you feel your heart and being rise with the melody. You can almost hear your blood pumping and struggling to catch up, as your chest feels lighter and you can only focus on the vibrations in your ears. That moment as the song begins to rise and you are left waiting in anticipation until at last, like a breath, there comes a slow, drawn out pause that leaves you waiting for the moment the music is a blur in your mind and all you can say for sure is that you are swaying with the rhythm.

Imagine hearing your favourite song for the first time again, feeling the breathlessness in your chest once more, and understanding what it means to be fully and completely absorbed in your music.

Now imagine you had never even heard anything remotely similar before that moment.

To say that Vereche had never heard music like that before would be a correct statement, but to say he had never before had that feeling of being one with the rhythm would be a lie. His eyes were filled with stars, and his mouth hung agape as the last song came to a slow end.

“Do your people dance?” He asked suddenly, as the music came to a stop.

Hersia was surprised by the question, thinking on it for a moment before she nodded.

“Yes, although there are a lot of different ways in which people dance. Ballroom dancing, rodeo dancing, ballet, I know there are more than a few different sports that involve it. Do yours?”

“Very much so. They say that to get the sound just right, you have to feel the wind in your wings. You shared with me your music, may I share mine?’ Vereche asked as he stood up, giving a slight bow.

Hersia smiled, bowing back and moving to shove an empty table up against a wall, and leave a large open - if slightly dusty in places- space for Vereche to perform.

“By all means!” She grinned, hanging back and watching with a keen interest. She had always been curious about Bentras music, and how it was traditionally made. While not a historian, or anything focused on different cultures, a fascination with learning is something that plagues all in the field of science and academics.

Vereche began with a slow tap, tapping his thin feet against the floor as his wings fluttered, creating a low droning that shifted, everytime he moved his feet. His slow, rounding steps quickened, as did the rhythm. It took him less than a minute before he at last seemed to find the moment of acceleration, and within an instant both he and the melody were soaring and spinning, shifting so quickly that Hersia was barely able to catch a glimpse of him, but the song that filled the air was like none she had ever really heard.

Like a thousand small pianos playing in perfect unison at once, no one instrument drowning out the other. There was only one instrument, one sound, but to say it was simple would be a disservice to an entire race. A complex melody of shifting tones and smiling faces met Hersias ears, and much like Vereche before, she was fascinated and enthralled.

When at least, Vereche came to a stop, both parties were left with much to think about. A longing to hear such foreign music again came over both of them, and in the echoing silence, Hersia spoke first.

“I don't think I’ve ever heard something quite as lovely as that.” She smiled

“I would say the same of your music.” Vereche nodded.

“Really? Well then… I’ll tell you what.” Hersia stood from her seat, striding across the room that had been ablaze with movement and song just a moment before. “Work is slow, I can spare a couple minutes between making reports. You ever want to hear something from my personal collection, feel free to knock first.” She grinned, tossing the alien a small disk, a digital music box. “In the meantime, there are about maybe a hundred twenty songs on there? Smaller collection from when I was younger. Give it a listen in your free time. I only got one request.”

“What would you want?”

“Next time you decide to pop in, I wouldn't mind watching another performance.”

Vereche went quiet for a long moment, before nodding. “Yes, I would enjoy that.”

[btsmakesmehappy]

Sweet Scent | 2

Genre: Agent au. Colleague au. Mutual pining. Angst. Fluff. a little thriller.

Pairing: Agent!Jungkook x Forensic Doctor!reader

Word Count: 5,6k

Rating: 18+ (M)

Warning: Shy boy Jungkook. A lot of flirting and teasing. Mention of death (murder case). Threats using human organ (Not explicit)

Chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |  completed

Summary: Why does he always look so nervous in front of you? Is it because of your excessive flirting? But how come you don’t tease him when he looks so incredibly cute every time he blushes?

Series Masterlist: The Company

A/N: wew, It took me longer to write this. Thankyou @arizonapoppy​ for cheering me up and beta reading this story. and again: this writer doesn’t know how agents work.

Send me an ask if you want to be added in the taglist!

The smell of coffee sneaks into your nose, waking you up. You open your eyes slowly, stealing a glance at your watch on your wrist. 8.13 am.

Immediately you sit up on the mattress, stretching your body. You blink as you realize Jungkook is standing in front of the coffee machine with his back to you. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” you ask groggily, rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand. It’s so weird how your throat feels so dry when you only sleep for an hour.

Jungkook turns away from the machine and walks over to you, handing you a cup of hot coffee. “I did, fifteen minutes ago. But you didn’t even move a bit. You were literally sleeping like a log there.”

You hum as you drink the coffee. It’s weird how the coffee is perfectly to your taste, but that’s not important right now. “So what do you need again? I told you that I’ll call you as soon as I get the lab results, right? I swear, if you want that right now, I am gonna-”

“No. That’s not what I want right now.” He walks to your desk and sits on the chair, facing you. The nervousness can be seen in his doe eyes. “I think we also need to check the victim’s belongings again.”

You sigh and take a big gulp of coffee. “Fine, but let me finish checking the specimens first. I am afraid they will be damaged if I don’t work fast.”

The corners of Jungkook’s mouth perk up. “Thank you. That’s fine.”

You rise from the mattress and walk over to him, putting one of your hands on your hips. “You are asking this much and I only got a hamburger?” you pout.

Jungkook’s eyes wander anxiously, avoiding your eyes. He lets out an awkward laugh as he sips his coffee. “What do you want then? Pizza?”

“What about dinner? Preferably date-style?”

Your suggestion makes him choke in his coffee. A faint blush painted on his cheeks. “Wh-what?” his coffee drips from his chin to his shirt, leaving a trace of black liquid on the blue shirt. You are almost sure that it will leave a stain.

The panic he showed seems like a rejection to you and it somehow leaves a sting in your chest. You reach his shoulder and pat it lightly. “Just kidding; I am okay with that hamburger. And well, this is my job also.” You laugh awkwardly as you grab your lab coat. “So let’s get to work then.” You walk to the lab beside your office as you tie your hair into a bun.  

Jungkook watches your receding back as he takes a deep breath. Your scent is still lingering in the room, the scent of lavender mixed with something musky. Relaxing and intoxicating. He always wonders what makes you smell like that, how unique it is that he can notice it with just a small whiff. How your scent is so you.

The scent that makes his hands turn clammy. The scent that makes his heart beat faster. The scent that always takes his breath away.

Thankfully for him, you didn’t ask him any further. Never occurred in his mind to go on a date with you. Just the thought of him being with you in the same room has already bothered him so much, he can barely think. If only he would admit that deep down he wants to go on a date with you. And just like that, gratitude turns into regret.

You let out another sigh as you massage your sore neck. The smell of substances fills the lab, all mixed together, making you nauseous. And the lack of sleep doesn’t help either. “Do you remember anything from the crime scene? Anything could help.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “You can’t find anything?” he asks. Jungkook lets you work by yourself as he watches you from afar. Not because he wants to stay as far as possible from you and the conflicted feelings you give him, or because he’s already felt comfortable sitting at your desk, but he doesn’t understand any of it and he doesn’t want to disturb you. True to be told, he loves seeing you working.

You shake your head weakly. Maybe it is because of your lack of sleep, your brain is not functioning well. You silently regret your decision for doing this alone. This is literally going nowhere.

“Good morning, guys!” A man dressed in what seem to be plaid pajamas enters your lab suddenly. “Geez, Y/N! Could your face be anymore tired?” His smile plastered on his face, in contrast with your own face.

You roll your eyes. “Fuck off, Tae.” It’s one of Taehyung’s traits that you dislike, how his bubbly exterior just somehow gets on your nerves, especially in times like this. Not that you hate him. Hell no. He’s an amazing friend. He might be the first agent that you’ve become friends with, but only God knows why whenever you’re with him, you just feel tired after. You really think that he’s absorbing all of your energy into him.

He lays a brown bag on the table and gives you a light hug. “Cranky. Did Jungkook make you stay up late?” he says, winking to both of you.

Jungkook stutters as the blush creeps on his cheeks. “Wh-what. Well I sort of did…” You shoot Jungkook a glare to stop him from saying anything that would make Taehyung make fun of both of you, which makes him cough awkwardly. “But that’s not.. anyway, why are you here, Hyung?”

Taehyung chuckles. “I’m just dropping off some pieces of bread from my girlfriend. She wants to say thanks.”

“Woah, thank you so much, Hyung.” Jungkook’s eyes twinkle as he walks faster to the bag. “I don’t think she’ll return to the bakery this fast.”

“Hey, my girlfriend is a strong woman! Although I also hope that she takes a day off. Anyway, just share them with Y/N, okay?” Taehyung waves and walks to the door. “I’m going to drop this other bag of bread off for the others, and maybe help them too. I don’t think Jungkook would want me here.” Taehyung says as he smiles meaningfully to him and walks away.

“Hyung!” Jungkook whines, his face is reddened.

You giggle at Jungkook’s antics. “Why don’t you want him here, Kook?”

His eyes turn shaky with you looking directly into his face. “No reason.” He avoids your gaze again. He rummages through the brown bag and pulls out a piece of bread. “Just eat some if you want to.“

He bites his bread and slowly chews it. Today, he is eating a piece of cream-cheese and almond bread. It is his most favorite bread from the bakery, Palate Cleanser.

It is a bakery that Taehyung has been talking about for several weeks. Not only does it belong to his new girlfriend, it serves delicious bread. Sure, Jungkook has never been a picky-eater, but he loves it. So after Taehyung gave him a tester, he became a new loyal customer of that bakery. Well, the bakery is just a few blocks from the Company too, so it is rather convenient.

You are still working with that huge-ass machine that whirrs like a washer. He perches on one of the desks,  while he watches you from behind. And suddenly he smells something.

A smell that is familiar to him.

A smell that he noticed when he was in the crime scene.

"Do you smell this?”

You turn your head to him, confused. “Huh, what?”

He hops off the desk and walks around. “This smell. I smelled it in the crime scene. What is it?”

His statement perks your interest and you take a big breath. “I don’t smell anything.”

Jungkook takes a bigger sniff. “It’s there. Why can’t you smell it?”

“Well, sure that bread of yours is smellier than you think. I can only smell your bread.” You shrug as you turn again to face the machine.

“What?” Jungkook looks at the bread in his hand and takes a sniff at it. His eyes widen as he is realizing something. “This is it. This is what I smelled. Well, kinda.” He yells as he pushes his bread to you.

You raise one of your eyebrows as you hesitantly sniff his half-eaten bread. “This sour thingy?”

“What? No! It is the cream-cheese. What I meant is this bittery smell,” he picks some pieces from the bread and hands it to you after he smells it.

Your eyes widen as you see what is in Jungkook’s hand.

Almonds.

“Cyanide…” you whisper.

Jungkook tilts his head. “What?”

You walk quickly to the computer. “It must have been it. It just makes sense now.”

“Cyanide? Why can’t you smell it too?” Jungkook asks as he follows you from behind.

“There’s only a handful of people that can smell it. It is not specific, actually. Oh my God, I totally forgot about it.” You tap on the keyboards and hit the enter key. “Yes. It is cyanide poisoning.”

Jungkook looks at the screen, “so he was poisoned?”

You nod. “Yes. I need to check his toxicology report first. Will you tell Jin about it?”

“Got it. I’ll tell him and get a warrant to search the hall.” Jungkook walks quickly and grabs his phone from his pocket. He taps his phone to call and puts it on his ear. Jungkook stops in front of the door and turns back to face you. “Thank you, Y/N.”

You clear your throat. “Just go already!”

After Jungkook leaves, you still have the weird feeling that has accumulated in your chest from proximity to him. Just a mere sentence from his mouth is enough to leave your chest in turmoil. It took you just ten minutes to finally function normally again.

Well, you are lucky enough to find out the poison as soon as you did. If you had let the body lie in that room without any investigation, the evidence could have been lost. You wouldn’t have found the truth.

Still, after you know how he was killed, your work doesn’t get any easier. There’s no other trace of cyanide in the victim’s belongings.

It’s another roadblock.

That’s why you have been dialing Jungkook for the thirteenth time. And in the midst of your fourteenth call, you decide to end your call sooner. It’s no use calling him right now.

You close your laptop and gather all of your lab papers. After making sure that you have everything, you walk out to the door to find Jungkook. The sooner you finish this work, the sooner you’ll go home.

You hop into the elevator with much difficulty, given your full arms. Why didn’t you use a bag for all of your stuff? Your elbow hovers next to the “7” button, and after a moment you resolutely bump it.  Your mind wanders. Was this the right idea?

Well, why wouldn’t you?

This floor is for elite agents only. You have never stepped foot on this floor until now. It is not that you were curious, but you know that this mission, or rather this case, is an important one. If Jungkook wanted the report as soon as possible, then he should want it as soon as possible, right?

It’s your job.

It’s not because you want to see Jungkook.

It is not.

At the sound of the “ding,” you step out of the elevator. Which way to his desk? The floor is huge and there’s no map or anyone who can help you. It’s Sunday, after all. You close your eyes to sharpen your hearing, but you still can’t hear anything.

You sigh in defeat as you shuffle your armload of paper to reach into your coat pocket to find your phone. Your fingers have just grazed it when you are jostled by someone bumping into you from behind. You barely avoid spilling your report file and you turn around to face the one who has collided with you.

“Oops. Sssowry.” A skinny man with fair skin apologizes as he bows to you, slurring his speech. The fumes of his breath threaten to pickle you like one of your cadavers. His eyes are kinda reddish, too. Still, his walking posture is as you saw him in the past, ignoring the fact how he has turned this giddy.

“Min Yoongi?”

He raises his eyes to meet yours as he straightens back up. He squints, trying to remember your face. “Oh!” He beams. “You are the hot forensic doctor. What’re you doin’ here?”

Your cheeks feel hot as you hear the awkward nickname. Sure, you know that your appearance is above average, but that doesn’t mean that you deserve that name. You let out an awkward laugh. “I’m Y/N. I need to see Jungkook, he didn’t answer my call…”

Yoongi nods in understanding and points to a blue door with his thumb. “He must be at the meeting then. I’ll let him know, or you know what, just come along, I’m already late too.”

You raise one of your eyebrows, but still walk behind him closely. “Is it okay? I don’t want to disturb the meeting.”

“Nah. It is actually about your case too, so what’s the harm?” He knocks the door rhythmically and after hearing a permission he goes in. Yoongi’s eyes travel to the young man sitting in the corner. “Jungkook-ah. You got a visitor.”

Jungkook raises his eyebrow and sneaks a glance to the door. When he sees you, his eyes turn wide in panic. “Y/N? What are you doing here?” He stands up quickly and walks toward you.

You smile awkwardly. “I called you several times but I got no response so here I am.” In the silence, you finally look around. There are five other men sitting around the conference table looking back at you and Jungkook, intrigued. The tension in the room gets less serious than before as you look around the meeting. “Sorry, guys, for interrupting.”

A smaller man with plump lips sends you a mischievous smile as he nodges Taehyung’s elbow. His eyes turn into crescent. “Nonsense! Great to see you again, Y/N.”

“Hey, Jimin. Long time no see. Sorry, it won’t take long. I just need to hand off this report.” You set your case file on the meeting table and start searching for the report you mentioned before.

“You can join us, if you want. It will be helpful, too.” Jin, a wide-shouldered-man, the leader of this mission, speaks without looking up from the laptop in front of him.

“Yeah! Join us. It sucks to only see these brats all the time.” Jimin says as he indicates an empty chair.

You clear your throat awkwardly. “Sure, if you say so, but I think I’ll go grab my other stuff too from my office. I also think I left a machine running.” You take a few steps back as you laugh dryly. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, I’m coming with you too.” Jimin rises from his seat and follows you.

The meeting room turns silent as Jimin closes the door behind him, there is only the sound from the projector on the table.

Jungkook freezes, not knowing what to do. His eyes just stare at the spot where you stood before. This action somehow attracts the attention of the older agents as they all share knowing glances between them.

“You know, Kook. If you really like her, you should just say so,” Taehyung says as he smiles softly to Jungkook. He props his chin on his hand, studying Jungkook’s response.

Jungkook’s doe eyes widen and turn shaky with the sudden suggestion. His cheeks turn bright red. “Wha-what? No. I don’t like her. I mean, I don’t like her like that…”

“So it’s okay if Jimin likes her then?” Yoongi speaks up abruptly, making all of the other agents turn his head to him. The agents hide their smiles and then turn again to Jungkook who is looking more nervous than before, anticipating his answer.

Jungkook casts his head down, looking at the floor. He bites his lower lip harshly, trying to hold his lips from muttering a word that he’ll regret.

“What’ll you do, Kook?” Hoseok asks again, softly. This time it sounds like a reassurance rather than a question. The way Jungkook acts is a new thing for him. He’s never seen Jungkook like this and it needs no licensed therapist to see how whipped Jungkook is for the doctor. If only Jungkook himself knows it.

Just the time Jungkook is about to open his mouth, Jin slams his hand to the table. “Sure, maknae’s love story is very exciting, but we have a job, okay? Let’s resume our meeting.”

Taehyung snorts as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Party-pooper.”

Jin turns his head to Taehyung. “Yah. You have been a pain in my ass since you joined this mission. What do you want to do then?” he throws his hand in the air in frustration. Their conflict from the night before is still hot in his mind.

Yoongi pats Jin’s shoulder softly. “Just think of this as a break, Hyung. You’ve been working non-stop. I also suggest that we should just call it a day and get some sleep. We won’t get anything more if we force ourselves like this.”

“But, still…”

A sudden ring fills the room. Hoseok pulls his phone from his pocket and puts it on his ear. “Hey, Jimin. What’s up?” His eyes widen and his expression hardens as he listens to the rest of the call. “Okay, we’ll be there soon.” He says as he ends the call and puts the phone into his pocket. The other agents look at him quizzically.

“What happened?” Jin asks warily.

Hoseok sighs and says quietly, “Someone broke into Y/N’s office.”

You stand quietly in the elevator with Jimin still smiling weirdly beside you. “Why are you following me?”

“No reason. I’m just bored.” He hums. He’s not as bulky as Jungkook, and, compared to Jungkook, Jimin is like a thin child, even though Jimin is two years older than Jungkook. Well, you do recall that Jimin has just started his field mission just for a several weeks, and he worked as a handler before.

You snort. “Sure.”

Jimin turns his head to you with his hands clenching his chest. “What? You don’t believe me? I feel hurt!” he widens his eyes comically.

“Sure.” you say, rolling your eyes.

Jimin pouts and sighs in defeat. “Fine. I just need to put something inside Sehun’s drawer.” He pulls a black-leathery curled thing from his pocket and shows you. “I want to get my revenge.”

You laugh and to think that he brings it everyday to find a perfect opportunity is amusing to you. “And you think I won’t tell him that you put a fake snake in his drawer?”

“Y/N, don’t tell him, pleasee~” he whines cutely as both of you step out of the elevator. Sure, you know that he’s cute, whining like that, but Jungkook’s cuter for you.

Why the hell do I keep thinking of him?

“Just give me a reason not to tell him then.” you walk past him as he stands with a pout on his face.

He puts his hands under his chin, thinking deeply and suddenly he smiles knowingly. “I can tell you anything you’d want to know about Jungkook.”

It’s your turn to freeze on the spot. You turn your head slowly to meet Jimin’s eyes, giving him the widest smile you can give. “And why would I want that?”

Jimin shrugs and walks again to the office, still his smile doesn’t leave his face. He looks confident, overly confident. “I don’t know. I just thought that maybe you’d want it.”

You stomp ahead of him as you approach your office’s door. “Fine, I won’t tell Sehun about the snake.” You turn back and point your index finger at him. “Only because I know how Sehun hates snakes and his reaction is hilarious.” Your narrow your eyes as you continue. “Not because of Jungkook.” you whisper.

Jimin hides his smile. “Sure.”

You tap your card on the door and open it. Your eyes widen as you step inside your office. The sight inside your office makes you shiver immediately. Papers are scattered everywhere. The chair is thrown into the corner of the room. The glass cabinet’s shattered to pieces. “What the-” Color drains from your face as you proceed further, carefully stepping around the glass shards on the floor.

Jimin turns pale as he stands in front of the door, not knowing what to do. “Y/N, I think we shouldn’t enter for the time being. I’ll call the others first.” He grabs his phone and rapidly taps it. “Just don’t go any farther!”

His voice however doesn’t register, as your feet draw you closer to your desk. A burglar? What would a burglar want to steal in this office? There’s no expensive things in the office, well, except your coffee machine. But they didn’t need to trash this place in the first place, right?

At the sight of your desk, your knees weaken. Your eyes widen in fear and shock as you struggle to hold your body upright. Finally your legs give away, and you collapse to the floor. Your hands scrabble to regain any strength and hold your upper body from falling.

You breathe faster. You want to scream as loud as you can, but there is nothing left from your lips. Your hands tremble. You try hard to stop it by pushing them harder on the floor, pushing the glass shards right into your palms. The pain doesn’t make it to your mind right now, when what lies in front of you has every power to take your mind away.

Tears trickle from your eyes. Your vision turns blurry covered by your tears. As you blink them away, you also hope that the sight is gone too. But no matter how many times you blink, you still see the same thing.

And it is nauseating.

Pounding hurried footsteps in the hall outside your office finally helps you  regain some of your senses. You open your mouth slowly, trying your best to gather as much sound-air-or anything as you can as the breaths come too quickly to be of any use. “Help…” you whisper.

The other agents barge inside your office. Their faces have a mixture of expressions: mad-shock-confused-worry, and somehow you can see all of it on Jungkook’s face when he sees you slumped on the floor with bloodied hands. “Y/N?” Jungkook calls cautiously, trying to gain your attention.

“Kook…” you sob harder, which makes Jungkook immediately run to your side.

Jungkook holds your shoulders softly and studies your face, his eyebrows frown in worry. “Are you okay?”

Instead of answering him, you weakly lift up your arm to point to your desk. The agents all turn their heads to your desk, and terror overtakes their faces.

There’s a heart stabbed with a scalpel on your desk.

“What the..” Jin whispers.

Taehyung steps backward, hand to his face as he fights the urge to vomit. “Is that a fucking human heart?”

Jungkook doesn’t say anything, he just pulls the blanket from your makeshift bed to wrap your wounds. Gently supporting your elbow, he helps you stand. He doesn’t leave your side, holding you close to him to prevent you from falling. He turns your face to his chest, away from your desk, while Yoongi examines the heart.

Insistent tears keep falling from your eyes, even though you try your hardest to hold them back. What the hell is that? What does that mean? Why on my desk? Why?

“Hey…” Jungkook whispers into your ear. “Don’t think of anything. Just take a deep breath. Count in for four, out for four, slowly.”

You follow his instructions, looking up from his chest, searching deep into his eyes. Those brown eyes don’t run away from you this time, instead they look back into yours softly, calming your nerves. Those eyes travel to other parts of your face as well, making sure you’re okay.

Jungkook tightens his hands into fists, trying to stop himself from brushing your tears away from your face. How he hates to see you crying; He’s never realized it until now. He hates it. He always sees you with a smile on your face, and it always makes his heart beat faster. And now? With tears falling from your tired but still beautiful eyes, his heart aches.

“…. It’s just my opinion.” Yoongi’s voice breaks through your reverie as you calmed down. You turn to the speakers, giving them both of your attention again.

“So it’s from a dead body?” Hoseok asks warily.

Jin runs his hand through his hair, “Alright, someone please take a look at the mortuary. Jungkook?”

Jungkook looks at your wet face once more, hesitant to leave your side. Finally he nods and moves his body away from you.  

“I’m coming with you…” you whisper as you grip his shoulder, forgetting that your hands are still covered in glass shards wrapped in the edge of a now-destroyed blanket.

Jungkook turns back to face you, glancing at your bloodied hands. It must have hurt. He holds your shoulder softly. “No. You should treat your wounds.”

“But…” I want to be with you.

“Jimin-hyung, please help Y/N?” Jungkook asks Jimin, ignoring your protest. Jimin stands by your side, slowly and gently gesturing you to follow him out of the door. You sigh in defeat as you follow Jimin, your eyes keep stealing glances to Jungkook.

Jungkook’s eyes are still lingering on your back when you walk away and his heart aches harder. I want to be with you too.

“What’ll you do, Kook?” Hoseok asks again. This time it sounds like a reassurance rather than a question.

“You know, Kook. If you really like her, you should just say so,” Taehyung says as he smiles softly to Jungkook. He props his chin on his hand, studying Jungkook’s response.

Does he like you?

Maybe.

Actually, he has never thought of this.

Feelings. They have never been programmed as part of his routine. He is an agent, a soldier. Feelings make him weak. Feeling is messy, messier than blood splattered on the wall when he bombarded a body with bullets. He once told himself not to trust his feelings. That’s why it was so hard for him to talk or be with you. His feelings are growing stronger after time and it’s suffocating him.

And the harder he denies his feelings, the stronger they get.

What is this feeling? Why is it so painful to see her like that?

No matter how many times he repeats his question in his mind, the answer is the same. It is the only rational reason for such an irrational topic.

He swallows the four-lettered-word that almost slipped from his lips and shakes his head to clear his mind.

He’s gonna investigate this case quickly. Just so he can see you. Just so he can look after you. And with that thought, he runs from your office.

You sit on the bed in the infirmary, gazing on the white wall. This room is supposed to smell like an antiseptic, just like a hospital, but instead it is just dusty. Everything is cleaned every single day, but it is just like there’s no one working here for a long time.

Jimin rummages in the cabinet beside you trying to find what he needs. After he finds the disinfection solution, tweezers, and some gauzes, he puts them on the metal tray and sets it on the bed.

Jimin reaches for your hand, opening the ruined blanket softly. You wince as the movement shoots another pain through your hand. “Sorry.” He purses his lips.

You shake your head weakly, tears threatening to fall. Why am I only feeling the pain now? “It’s okay.”

He looks at your both hands, examining them carefully. “There’s a lot of shards. It’s gonna be painful.”

You gulp. “I know.”

“We still don’t have a new doctor assigned here, so would you mind if I do it instead? You can tell me if I do it wrong.”

“Okay,” you answer.

He pours the disinfection solution over your hand. The pain starts accumulating as you bite your lips to stop yourself from screaming. He takes a pair of tweezers with his right hand and using his other hand to hold your wounded hand gently. Slowly, he begins to pick the shards from your hand.

After fifteen minutes working on the wounds, Jimin smiles in satisfaction and rises from his seat to get a bandage.

A knock on the door fills the room and Jungkook walks inside slowly and stops just before you. His eyes darted to yours immediately, looking worried. “How’s her wound, Hyung?”

Jimin returns with some rolls of bandages. “There’s a lot of wounds, but luckily they weren’t too deep.” Jimin begins to cover the cuts slowly.

“Whose is it?” you whisper to Jungkook. You’re not gonna lie that it’s been bothering you. To think that someone stole an organ from supposedly protected cadaver sends shivers to your spine.

Jungkook clears his throat and looks at your face hesitantly. “It’s from Baekho’s body. That body is ruined now.”

Your eyes glisten with new tears as your hands begin to tremble. The sight of a human heart stabbed on your desk filling your mind. You see organs everyday, it’s part of your job, you are used to seeing it. But it’s a different feeling when that organ was stabbed unknowingly to your desk. “What’s happening? Wa-Was that a threat?”

Jungkook hesitates, you can see it in his brown eyes. He sits beside you and reaches for your now-bandaged-hand and holds it gently, afraid of hurting you any further. “I’m sorry.”

His honeyed-voice, that you love, sounds as if he is in pain, and it somehow pains you even more. “That’s okay. I’m the one who agreed to it in the first place. And besides, I chose to work in this field, it’s only a matter of time that I get something like this, isn’t it?” you laugh dryly, but deep inside, you’re afraid. Well, how can’t you?

Jungkook’s hand tightens. “Still, I shouldn’t put you in any danger.” He sighs. “Which is why I’m gonna take you home after this.”

Your eyes widen. “What?”

“If they don’t want you to investigate about Baekho, then you shouldn’t do it.” He looks straight at you. “It’s for your safety.”

You turn your palm to meet his, holding him back. “Kook, I must finish it.”

“No. This is a dangerous case and it was stupid of me to ask your help. I don’t want you involved any further.” He closes his mouth for a moment, trying to mutter appropriate words. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Y/N.”

You shake your head profusely. “I don’t want to. I have to finish it. It’s my job.”

“Y/N…”

“See, I’m fine! It’s just a few cuts.” You desperately move your bandaged hand; you can still feel the pain shooting through your hands, but it’s not the point right now.

Jungkook holds your hand tighter and looks deep into your eyes. “I know, you’re not okay. Your hands are still trembling, Y/N. Please listen to me.”

You sigh. You know that Jungkook is stubborn, it won’t be easy to persuade him, but you know that he’s right. Maybe this case is too dangerous for you. “At least until I finish the report for today, please?”

He bites his lower lips, deep in his own thoughts. Jungkook lifts his hand to bring your bandaged hand to his lips, grazing your knuckles softly. “Are you sure?” His eyes never leave yours.

It takes your breath and your mind away, his hot breath against your skin and his brown eyes looking straight into yours. You can still feel his soft lips, hot on your skin when he puts your hand down, still holding it gently. Your heart thumps inside your chest and down to your wrist. Can he hear it? How does it feel so right with your hand in his? You nod. “I’m sure. I have you, right?”

“Yes.” Jungkook squeezes your hand gently one more time to reassure you. “You have me.”

A cough interrupts your interaction with Jungkook. “Well, this is awkward.” Jimin puts your other bandaged hand on your thigh as he rises to clean up the mess. “I’m just- I’m gonna take this call. Bye.” Jimin points at his phone, even though the screen is dark, and hurries out of the infirmary.

Heat rushes to your face; you forget that Jimin was still beside you. You look at Jungkook’s reddened face, completely sure that he also did the same. With that thought, the smiles slipped on your faces.

He releases your hands immediately and scratches the back of his neck. “Sorry, I ruined your blanket.”

You tilt your head in confusion. Then your eyes dart to the blanket on the floor.  “Ah… That’s fine. It was good first aid.”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

You nod and smile. “Sure, thanks Kook.”

“I-I also want to buy you dinner.” He clears his throat, his eyes travel to the wall in front of you. “Not in this building. I’ll take you to a proper restaurant.”

Your eyes widen with the sudden invitation. It’s weird but somehow it brings a smile to your face. Your smile turns into a wider one and you hide it by biting your lower lip. “I’d love that.”

Taglist: @kb-bangtanenthusiast​ @w0lfqu33n​ @gee-nee​ @jaienn​ @nctssidehoe​ @codeinebelle​ @kali-20 @mygalaxysupernova​ @jeoncookie-bts​ @kookunot​ @1-in-abillion​ @beingbeings​ @enchantingbrowneyedgirl​ @yiyi4657​ @jinsalpaca​  @giadalin​ @spring2787​

Taglist open!

[capricornsims]

Strangetown Mystery: Mother!

The Strangetown Syndrome continued to take over the small town and panic spread as quickly as the infection. The only thing that the government could do to ease the tension was to assure the townsfolk that everything was “under control” and that Buzz Grunt heroically contained the culprit within his bunker. Details were vague but enough to ease the chaos around them, though the conspiracy theorists were skeptical about the General’s scripted speech. 

Buzz: Good afternoon, citizens of Strangetown. I know the struggle that everyone is going through right now, my soldiers are right on the front lines fighting the syndrome as best we can. Our scientists are doing their do-diligence to make sure that this cure will protect everyone from this disease and make sure that this never happens again. I swear on my grave that we are closer to destroying this thing, and it is thanks to our government that we have this under control. Remember your duties as citizens of SimNation and look out for each other in these trying times. On a lighter note, I have captured the traitor that has infected our people and he is currently in our custody. The Alien menace, Pollination Technician # 9 can no longer manipulate and harm you good people of Strangetown, Now that he is gone, you will all be saved! 

At first the crowd was invested in his speech but once the General broke his script and discredited PT9 in front of everyone, they started to murmur. They had no idea that the elderly alien was  the cause of all this havoc. Questions were thrown at the general, asking if it was all true and if they were truly safe. “ This town has a bunch of aliens, how could it just be him?” “ Are there more out there working for him!?” “ Can we really trust the government?” 

Buzz glanced at the Dudes in Black hesitantly before he turned back to his microphone.

Buzz: You must trust the government. 

He left the podium, leaving any more questions to the sheriff and the mayor, making his way back to the underground bunker with the Dudes in Black following behind. 

---------

Erwin: Hey I got your hazmat suit assembled, and that filter you got is more than enough to withstand those spores. 

Pascal: You have no Idea how happy I am, I can finally continue this investigation without any dumb plant spores getting in the way! I’ll be invincible in this suit. It is a pleasure to work with you, Erwin, it’s not every day someone listens to my conspiracies. 

Erwin: It’s no big deal, you were the one crazy enough to start this whole investigation.

Pascal brought the handshake into a hug. He was overwhelmed by emotions, unable to contain his excitement over finding out the truth. With this discovery he could save his sister, cure Strangetown and expose the Dudes in Black for being alien conspirators. Erwin, on the other hand, gave Pascal a few awkward pats on the back before shoving himself away from the unwanted contact. 

Erwin: Alright dude, let’s just get your brothers and go! 

Pascal, Erwin and his brothers made their way to the [ Redacted ] lab, memorizing their steps and making sure to avoid detection by the numerous cameras and traps set around the perimeter. The humming of the machinery around them filled the tense silent atmosphere as they stood outside the backdoors, waiting for Pascal to get into his hazmat suit. Lazlo and Vidcund watched on as their brother fumbled with the neon yellow suit, hiding their disapproval with fake enthusiasm. 

Pascal: Alright gang, we are finally going to break this case wide open! 

Vidcund: Like what you did to the lab doors and let all the spores escape? 

Pascal: That is totally not going to happen again! Geez, the spores are out, nothing can get worse than this. As I was saying, if we find out the source of all these plants, we can give this info to Buzz and he can release our sister. 

Lazlo: Are you sure it’s that easy? The Dudes in Black are covering these plants up for a reason. If we aren’t careful we could end up just like Jenny. 

Pascal: What’s important now, is this investigation. Let’s get it over with. 

The sealed doors of the [Redacted] lab swung open, releasing another cloud of spores into the air before the crew could step inside. After a long coughing fit they trekked down to the sublevel of the lab, gazing around for any more cameras that could catch them snooping around. All they could hear was the beating of their own hearts as they approached the shrouded corridor, beckoning Pascal to go inside. Before he could even step foot into the cloud, Erwin grabbed his arm and yanked him away. 

Erwin: O-okay, before you go in, you gotta know that whatever is in there can get you killed if you aren’t careful. If it’s not a monster, the Dudes in Black will come after you. 

Pascal: Move away, Erwin. I know what I am doing. We have come too far to back away now. I Am Not A Coward. 

Pascal pushed passed him, giving his friend a salute as he stepped into the toxic cloud, disappearing into the great unknown.

Vidcund: Good luck, Pascal! See you on the other side! 

Lazlo: You got this bro!

The purple spores engulfed him as he moved further down the corridor, obscuring his vision. His breathing quickened as he continued on, the beating of his heart matching the rapid pulses of the laboratory's ventilation. What was he thinking? This was stupid, he should be home with his alien baby working on his lab reports and talking to his friend Nervous...oh yeah Nervous was missing! Not only that his sister was in danger, his family was torn apart, the town was in chaos! He had to keep going, he could not let his intrusive thoughts get in the way of this investigation. He needed to solve the Strangetown mystery. 

Beneath the sublevel, behind the pair of sealed doors there was another laboratory. How deep the facility went was a complete mystery, but the large hall of computers and contained bizarre plants revealed that this was the main part of the lab. Whatever this lab contained it was never meant to be found, let alone by a curious lab assistant. Upon investigating the computers and machinery, Pascal found a report from one of the scientists: 

Ħ€Ř Ň€ŞT IŞ ĆŁØUЀРIŇ β€ΔUŦ¥ Ŵ€ ĐØ ŇØT Đ€Ş€ŘV€ Ħ€Ř

β€ΔUŦ¥β€ΔUŦ¥β€ΔUŦ¥β€ΔUŦ¥β€ŁŁΔβ€ΔUŦ¥β€ΔUŦ¥β€ΔUŦ¥β€ΔUŦ¥

ĴØIŇ UŞ ĆØŇŞUΜ€ ŦĦ€ FŘUIŦ ØF ŦĦ€ ΜØŦĦ€Ř ΔŇĐ KŇØŴ P€ΔĆ€

ŦĦ€ ΔŘβØŘ€ΔŁ ΜIŇĐ ĐŘ€ΔΜŞ ŦĦŘØUGĦ ØUŘ FŁ€ŞĦ¥ €¥€Ş

ŁØØK ŦØ ŦĦ€ ŞK¥ IŦ Ŵ€ŁĆØΜ€Ş UŞ ΔŁŁ

ŦĦ€ ΜØŦĦ€Ř ĆΔŁŁŞ ΔŇĐ I ΜUŞŦ Ř€ŞPØŇĐ

ØUŘ €¥€Ş ΔŘ€ ØƤ€Ň

Pascal quickly closed the log and backed away from the monitor, a chill ran down his spine as the floor trembled beneath his feet. He held down whatever fear he had left in his body and shuffled towards the last stretch of hallway. The walls were moving, the vines flinched every time he stepped on them, and the leaves rustled loudly around him as he drew closer to the vault doors. Taking a breath, he carefully retrieved his key card and swiped it.

He reeled back as spores burst into his face and a low growl shook him to the core. The animalistic sounds were nothing he had heard before and  he was not prepared to see what lay behind the doors of the vault. The bizarre plants were scary on their own but the creature before him was beyond comprehension. 

Before him was the Mother, in all of her glory, swaying inside of the electrified fence that attempted to contain her god-like figure. His anxiety went away as he approached it, fascinated by the glowing monstrous plant. His eyes widened as the plant looked down to face him and its pedals opened up to reveal its bone crushing maw. The growls grew louder as the building shook around them, pieces of rubble falling from the ceiling and crashing down on the floor. 

Before Pascal could turn around and run, it grabbed him by the ankles and flung him into the air and slammed him down on the platform! He let out a shrill scream as it thrashed him around, and roared out in anger. Was this the end?! 

Pascal: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH 

Erwin: Did you guys hear a lady screaming? What the heck is all that noise?! 

The men stumbled to grasp their footing as the Earth rumbled and quacked around them. The lights flickered as they yelled out and held onto the crumbling walls. The vast roar of the creature echoed across the crater, making them pray for their lives as they held onto each other

 Suddenly the noise stopped and silence hung over them as they struggled to their feet, sniffling. Lazlo and Vidcund looked at each other and back at Erwin, fearing the worst for their fallen brother.

Vidcund + Lazlo: PASCAL!!

The brothers whipped their heads around when they heard footsteps making a mad dash through the corridor! Pascal was alive and frantically running for his life…or limping for his life. 

Pascal: HOLY MOTHER OF WATCHER WEGOTTAGOTHEREISAMONSTERPLANT ANDIT’SSCAry! 

Erwin: CALM DOWN YOU ARE MAKING ME PANIC 

Pascal: * panting* Mother...plant...big monster..almost...killed. We gotta go! 

Lazlo: You did it ! You found the truth! Heck I didn’t think you’d actually live! 

Pascal: Heh hehe yeah..live. 

Vidcund: What was all that noise? Was there an earthquake?

Pascal: No I just really pissed the Mother plant off and it made that whole lab shake.

Lazlo: That is so cool! We are going to team up and kill this thing! Right Vidcund? 

Vidcund: I don’t know about you but killing big monsters isn’t really my thing...anyways I have a meeting to go to. 

Pascal: See you around Vidcund, the gang is headed to the bunker to run some tests if you want to join later. 

Vidcund: Yeah...see you around…

-----

Pascal stood in the town plaza, feasting his eyes on the raging tempest he had created. The town was a husk of what it was, everyone sheltered within their homes fearing each other and the infection as it spread like wildfire. The disappointment was much greater than the pain he felt in his ankles, all the work he and his team had done had just blown up in their faces. Things were escalating too quickly for Pascal to handle, he needed to find the cure for the syndrome fast and a way to defeat the evil he just awakened.

It was all hopeless. 

[transdonaldduck]

*KICKS IN UR DOOR* I would love to hear more about ur tmnt universe stuff

okay!!! you dont gatta ask me twice. I drew these last night at 3 am and lost steam halfway through and gave up on donatello bc i wasn’t happy with any of my sketches and that’s that! forewarning: im edgy so this is edgy

the rest is under the readmore

The setting: It’s new york babey! We’re following our protagonist April O’Neil, 17 years old, as she navigates the confusing waters of high school, first jobs, and accidentally stumbling upon a mutant underworld. This samples a lot from rotmnt and 2012 bc i have no creativity

characters i’ve thought out

Irma- 18, senior, about to go to college to major in Architecture. She’s aloof but she actually cares about people deep down, she just doesn’t like to show it. She’s trying to let her natural hair color grow out from the years she dyed it black. She likes documentaries, chess, hanging out at graveyeards, and writing horror short stories. Seems sorta doom n gloom but is more apathetic than negative. She’s the president of the journalism club (who runs the school newspaper and morning news segment.) She’s looking for someone to take over the club after she��s gone, and has the perfect candidate in mind… if only April had the skill to match her enthusiasm.

April O’Neil- 17, junior, and aspiring journalist and reporter. She’s upbeat, determined, confident, and a real bright spot ot the people that know her. Her favorite things to do are listen to music, sing, take pictures, and take walks in the sun. She’s a go-getting, very self driver to acheive her goals, and her ultimate goal is to be the greatest reporter that has ever lived. Unfortunately, april doesn’t have the knack for reporting, and every piece she’s submitted to her schools newpaper has been fluff pieces… Irma tasks her with writing a front page headliner for the paper so she feels confident passing the club onto her, and in Aprils attempt to come up with the greatest story ever, she sutmbles upon a gang war and 4 mutant turtles…

Casey Jones- 18, Junior, and barely passing. Casey’s the kind of boy no one really expects anything of, so he doesn’t bother trying bc at least then he won’t fail. April inspires him to be better. He likes bad jokes, terrible coffee, and hockey- he’s hoping that April will tutor him enough to be able to bring his grades up enough to be allowed back on the school’s team. He seems sorta prickly and rude at first, but he’s just got a spiky outer shell and he’s really sweet inside. He loves horror movies and extreme sports competitons. He makes a point to walk april home whenever she stays late working on school stuff,

turtle time

the setting: They still live in the sewers, Splinter is still their dad but he’s very old when he gets the turtles, making him even older now. He does a lot of meditating and watching tv and doing crosswords, yknow old people stuff. He relies a lot on Leo to be the head of the house now that he’s old enough. He still trains the boys to learn martial arts bc he thinks it’s important they can defend themselves, considering what they are. He can kick ass when he needs to, tho

leo- 19, red ear slider, silent and stoic leader, raised as a child to be responisble for his brothers. He’s pretty socially awkward and weird bc he was divided from his brothers at a young age and didn’t get a lot of chances to grow and play with other kids his age. He doesn’t do much outside of train, study, and chores, and April is appaled by the fact that he doesn’t have like, ANY hobbies. she takes it upon herself as a personal mission to find something for him to do. He doesnt know the meaning of the word fun, but he tries not to always be a stick in the mud (mostly by removing himself from the fun situation in a misguided attempt to make everyone happier…)

raph- 18, Snapping turtle, and he’s got a short fuse and a big appetite. He’s a bit resentful of his families situation stuck in the sewers and darkness, and he hates being looked down upon. He’s only rebellious bc of how confined and trapped he feels, and though he can act like a grump and lash out he has a heart of gold. He likes wood carving, it’s actually how he made his little sun pendant he wears, it’s something to remind him the sun will rise soon and he’ll be there to see it.

donatello- 17, softshell turtle, bookworm and tech wizard. he likes to read for fun and he’s super into mechanics and computers. smarter than his brothers but thinks WAY too much, often holes up in his lab for hours trying to work out some particularly tough programming problem and will only come out for tea or pizza. he can be snooty/superior in situations where his intellect can be flashed. the worst ninja of the bunch (he thinks more with his head than with his body and never practices)

mikey- 15, box turtle, goofy gooey heartfelt younger brother. He cant draw for shit but still tries because he thinks it’s fun. He’s good at writing and poetry, he likes words and keeps a daily diary he writes in every day. He also keeps a dream journal and a log on all the tunnels in the sewers they’ve explored. He like to keep notes. Comic books are his favorite reading material but he’s picky about the art styles he enjoys, and he is very naturally talented with anything physical. good at easing tension but has 0 common sense, just a round angel

Leo is the shortest and lightest, agile and quick. Mikey is second shortest but he’s fat, which doesn’t detract from his natural flexibility. Raph is second tallest and broad shouldered with big arms, a powerhouse. Donnie is tall and lanky, a little uncoordinated but still strong.

[deafeningnightcollection-things]

Hidden Lives ~ Winn Schott

Chapter 1 -- New Hero

The day everything changed Liliana had been sitting at home. Enjoying a nice book on a comfy couch. She had the news running like always in case something interesting popped up. She'd glanced up absently to check the headline and tossed her book to the ground in shock.

"Flight 237 bound for Geneva, is experiencing some loss of altitude. The pilot seems to be circling the city after apparent engine failure."

Alex's flight. A wave of ice-cold dread hit her.

She cranked up the volume as the newscaster continued. "We are receiving reports that the pilot is signaling for assistance. Air traffic control is scrambling to find a safe landing place. Though if the plane can make it that far remains to be—" He stopped as someone tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. "The plane appears to be leveling off. More with Leyna Nguyen, live at the scene."

The TV switched to a shot of Otto Binder Bridge. Where the plane appeared to have landed safely in the water. A woman stepped in front of the camera, speaking quickly.

"The passengers of Flight 237 appear to have a guardian angel. When, what many report to be a female flying form rescued them from certain death..."

The woman continued to speak but Liliana had stopped listening, the knot in her chest eased slightly but she had to make sure Alex was alright. After 3 unsuccessful calls, she sent a quick succinct text.

I just saw the news. Are you ok?

The reply came a few minutes later, short and sweet.

Yes. I'll explain at work tomorrow.

It was formal, but then again all of Alex's texts seemed to be. She had never seemed to master the art of texting informally.

Liliana knew that was all she was going to be out of Alex tonight. So she slipped off the couch and decided to call it an early night. She curled up in her hoodie and shorts and tried not to think about how much work that flight was going to give her in the morning.

———

Morning seemed to come early the next day. Despite Alex being perfectly fine, her rattled nerves had kept her awake for another few hours. Silently cursing every bird twittering outside of her window, she rolled out of bed and fished a fresh outfit out of her closet. There was no point in anything very nice because she'd just change when she got to work.

She shuffled into the kitchen, more grateful than ever for the coffee maker her sister had insisted on giving her when she moved out.

"At list this way you won't go broke financing your coffee addiction." Kiera had said, laughing as she always did at her own jokes.

"Why would I pay for coffee when I could just use our trust fund?" Though Lily had intended the reply to be scathing, it sent them both into another fit of giggles. They never used that money if they could avoid it. It had too much dirt on it.

Liliana smiled at the memory even now. Most of her family was better left in the best, but her elder sister would always be a source of joy and inspiration. She flicked the coffee maker on before retreating to the bathroom to make herself more presentable. She grabbed her purse off the counter and poured the coffee into a thermos before heading downstairs onto the bustling streets of National City.

The walk to the DEO wasn't a hike, but it wasn't short either. She enjoyed a nice breath of fresh air in the morning as she people watched so the 30 minutes walk was perfect for her. Swiping her key card at the gate she made her way to the locker room. As she pulled on the tight black garb that most agents were required to wear, she couldn't help staring at her face in the mirror. The eyes that were so like her brother's, a dark sad brown. Lily glanced away, not wanting to be pulled into memories of Lex. Even the good ones had been tainted by his madness now...

She threaded her way through the building to Alex's lab. She knocked lightly on the doorframe as she entered, so Alex wouldn't almost slice her with a laser. It had been an accident and Alex had apologized profusely, but ever since Liliana had been careful to announce her presence when entering the lab.

Alex didn't even look up from the microscope. Instead, mumbling, "Hey, Lily."

"Hey, Lily. You almost died and all I get is 'hey, Lily'. Unbelievable." Anyone else would've missed the eye roll at the end of that statement. But, Alex was the closest thing she had to a sister, after Kiera. They knew each other's secrets. Alex knew her real last name, and Lily knew about Alex's sister.

So, she wasn't entirely surprised when Alex said, "I'm perfectly fine Kara swooped in and saved the day..."

There was an indiscernible grumble at the end, but Lily had little doubt about what she'd said. She smiled to herself in spite of everything, Alex's fierce protectiveness was one of the things Lily loved most about her.

"You know she just wanted to help."

"I know, I know." Alex responded smiling a little sadly, "but now she's on the DEO's radar, and who knows who else might come after her now."

"They'd have a tough time getting through you."

Alex laughed at the comment, thankful for the genuine support in her friend's voice.

Lily nudged Alex's shoulder playfully, "now are you going to show me your latest scientific discovery or what?"

Technically Lily was IT, keeping the firewalls up to date and making sure no one hacks the DEO. But her dual degree in computer science and biochemistry meant that she'd ended up helping Alex on more than one occasion.

Alex immediately launched into an explanation about a new genetic marker she'd found in one of the alien prisoners. A particularly unruly Cerulian, who kept trying to use his head to knock down his cell door. So there was a lot of DNA available to analyze.

"Larken, my office!" Hank's shout rang through the building.

Lily hopped off the counter she'd taken up residence on. "Guess that's me. If the warden kills me, send flowers." She placed a hand to her heart dramatically.

Alex's eyebrows quirked, her attention already returning to her experiment.

"Remember to get some sunlight once in a while, Doc." She tossed the words over her shoulder as she made her way toward Hank's office. Alex waved her off absently.

Hank's office was sparsely decorated. A few generic landscape pictures on the walls, file cabinet in the corner, and a standard-issue desk, were the only objects in the room. It was common knowledge that Hank hated it in here. He preferred to be out in the central hub, barking orders and pouring over the files of the Fort Rozz escapees. If he was meeting her in his office, it had to be important.

"Sir?" She called as she knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Lily stepped into the room cautiously, hoping she wasn't about to be reprimanded for going to Alex's post instead of her own. There was a file on his desk marked 'classified'.

"Shut the door behind you, Agent."

She did as she was told and sat down across from him.

"If this is about me going to the lab, I was about to—"

Hank held up a hand. "I'm aware of your track record, Agent, and I don't care what you do in your free time." He motioned towards the file, "I have an assignment for you."

Now she was even more confused, why hadn't he just left the assignment in her tray.

"I'm sure you watched the news last night."

She nodded, hoping this wasn't leading where she thought it was.

"We need to bring in Agent Danver's sister for a threat assessment, and I would like to know all the facts before doing so."

He handed the file to her. She didn't bother to open it, she was shocked about this assignment, to say the least.

"Sir, surely Agent Danvers would—"

But again he cut her off. "Agent Danvers will be informed when the time comes. Is that understood, Agent?"

Lily nodded mutely. Her stomach churning with the guilt of having to lie to her best friend.

Hank continued, "I need to know if she has any accomplices, if there are any outside factors, is the plane her first act of heroics, etc... I expect a full report by the end of the week."

"Yes, Sir."

She tucked the file under her arm and left. Making straight for her office.

A medium-sized room, it was the complete opposite of Hank's office. Exploding with personality in every direction. The walls were a vibrant blue, covered in posters of everything from musicians to books. A beanbag chair sat in the corner, currently stacked a few feet high with papers. There was a large white board shoved against the back wall. The desk was littered in bobbleheads, colorful cups of pens, and a three-piece monitor set up.

She pulled her rolling chair out and sat down heavily. Lie to my best friend for a week, what could go wrong? She glared at the file, wishing she had a dog to feed it to.

Might as well start now, the sooner I finish, the sooner I can stop lying to Alex.

There was little in the file she didn't already know, the only thing Alex loved to talk about as much as science was her sister.

"This was a few weeks after she'd landed, right. So, she didn't know too much about Earth foods," Alex had doubled over giggling. "I managed to convince her that a ghost pepper was a desert." Lily had begun to giggle too, "she wouldn't eat anything I offered her for months after that without asking our parents first. And she's still apprehensive about new food I give her, it's almost like she thinks I'm not trustworthy"

Lily had punched Alex playfully, "that's evil." She said between giggles.

She shrugged, "perks of an alien sister."

Lily shook her head, "after a story like that, I don't I'll be accepting food from you."

Lily slammed the file shut.

———

The week passed slowly, and try as she might she couldn't bring herself to open that file. Finally, she just decided to bite the bullet. It was late Thursday and if she weren't careful she'd have to log a lot of weekend hours just to finish the report.

After skimming the file just to confirm she knew all of its contents, she tucked it into the top drawer of her desk, determined not to look at it again.

She pulled the white board to the center of the room. Hoping to organize the jumble of thoughts in her head.

Supergirl facts

Same abilities as Superman

Similar costume

Superman's cousin

Saved a plane

Ugh. Those were all things that they already knew, what has she done recently?

Stopped petty crimes

That was it, it had to be. How did Kara know about those crimes? Super hearing maybe, but was Kryptonian hearing that good? It couldn't be the news, no petty crimes would make the news fast enough to stop. Police scanner maybe? But those were much harder to come by in National City, too many journalists sniffing around for a story.

Lily shot up from where she'd been laying on the floor staring up at the whiteboard. The NCPD mainframe would have to digitize every officer dispatch, and in a city as on the ball as National City. That could happen minutes after the call. Fast to enough for a super to act, but how did Kara get access to those. Nothing in Alex's many Kara stories had mentioned any sort of technical background.

Her eyes trailed back to the assignment she'd been given. Her finger ran down the paper before hovering on the word 'accomplice'. That had to be it, some tech person in the background telling Kara where to go.

Lily checked the NCPD signal for a hack, thankfully this hacker, whoever they were. Didn't think enough of the NCPD security protocols to bother hiding their identity very well.  It took only minutes to follow the signal back to a local IP address in National City.

She grinned wildly, fist-bumping the Hermione bobblehead on her desk. "Booyah."

She was tempted to go straight to Hank with her findings but knew that if she did that Hank might very well bring Kara in tonight. She wanted to give Alex another day.

Lily decided to investigate the address herself and bring whatever she found to Hank the next day. It was late enough to clock out so she wasted no time in grabbing her bag and heading to the locker room. As she slipped on her civilian clothes, a thread from her shirt caught on the small gold pendant around her neck. Cursing in greek, she wrestled with the shirt for a moment before the thread slipped off.

She held the necklace in her hand a moment longer. Running a thumb over the elegant script engraved on the back.

Kóri,

With love,

Lionel

She smiled, even as her eyes brimmed with tears. Her father never could sign anything just 'dad' or 'papa', he always had to remind the world how amazing he thought his own name was. She missed the days when her father was still alive, Lex was crazy yet, and Kiera hadn't left. They'd been a happy family once. Many many years ago.

That was how Alex found her only minutes later as she clocked out of her own shift. Clutching a necklace and sobbing uncontrolably. Alex didn't say anything just immediately wrapped her arms around Lily comfortingly and rocked her gently.

Alex pet her hair gently, "shh."

"Thank you," Lily whispered. "It's easy to pretend that it was always bad, but Lex was kind once, and Lionel was a good father."

Alex didn't say anything, just continued to hold her until she stopped shaking.

"How about we get takeout and head back to my place for the night? My treat." Alex coaxed gently, trying to bring a smile to her friend's face.

Lily cracked a watery smile, "I never could resist free food."

"That's the spirit," Alex nudged her gently, making them both giggle.

By the time they'd picked up the food and made their way to Alex's apartment, Lily was feeling considerably better.

"You know there's only one thing that would make this better." She smiled slyly at Alex.

Alex laughed, already reaching over to pop in the Star Wars dvd.

"If you tell anyone I've seen this, I'll kill you." Alex had a great threatening face, but it didn't really work with a mouthful of noodles.

"Promises, promises." Lily chided as she stuck her tongue out, already moving into the kitchen to grab a wine bottle.

"Make it sure its a red one." Alex called over the opening credits.

Lily laughed as she opened the cabinet that had only red bottles.

"God forbid we drink white wine for once, Alex."

"Hey," Alex defended as Lily walked back into the living room with the glasses and the bottle. "You love that and you love me. So, what are you complaining about?"

The evening was full of light chuckles comments about Han's looks (mostly Alex) and comments about Luke's looks (all Lily). Lily knew she'd have to check out the address in the morning, but for now she chose to enjoy a nice movie with her best friend.

[flawlesspeasant]

Could you please repost the fanfic about jo’s Mom visiting her at the hospital pretty pretty please with a cherry on top ?????

Sure! Here you go! :)

~~~~

"His vitals are stable for now and he should be fine on the morphine drip for a few hours." I use my index finger to type in his last blood pressure check into his electronic chart and inherently bark orders at the bedside nurse. I feel sorry for ordering her around in such a rude, unmannerly fashion but I can't really help it. Stressed isn't even the word for today. A trauma came in about an hour ago and guess who's the only resident who didn't get paged? I'll give you a hint: her name starts with a J and rhymes with "So". I close out of the electronic chart and tuck it underneath my arm. "Page me if anything changes." After the nurse nods at me to let me know she understands, I take my gloves off and toss them in the trashcan on my way out the door and walk over to the nurses' station to see if I have anymore of Dr. Grey's patients to round on.

Being the only resident that didn't get paged to the trauma, I get all the scut for the day. Steph and Ben get to log all the trauma hours they need for the day and here I am, stuck logging hours on General that I don't need. I have enough hours to go around being that I logged seven hours on trauma yesterday after pulling a leech—yes, a leech—out of a woman's nose, but come on. A huge trauma just came in! A bus crashed into a church building a few blocks down the street and caused a major traffic pile-up. No casualties have been reported so far but lots of blood, guts and glass stuck in people's faces that Steph and Ben get to treat. Sighing, I reopen the electronic chart and scroll around to see if there's anything hands-on left for me to do. If I don't find a patient to treat, I'll be stuck running labs, scheduling surgeries and charting for the rest of the day and I'd rather have explosive diarrhea than run labs, schedule surgeries and chart. I'm a third year resident. I'm above all of this scut.

It doesn't seem like I'm needed anywhere else, unfortunately. I'd better go get a head start on these labs. "Page me if anything changes on the patient in 103, as well as 105. I'm gonna go run-" I'm interrupted by the persistent ringing of my pager and excitedly, I grab it so quickly that I probably seem like I was waiting for it to ring. I sort of was waiting for it to ring, in hopes of giving me something better than scut to do but the nurses at the nurses' station don't need to know that I was waiting on pins and needles for my pager to ring. It makes me seem desperate. I turn my pager around and leisurely read it, in a half-desperate attempt to make myself seem cooler than anxiously waiting for my damn pager to ring. I'm being paged to the first floor! Maybe they actually need me in the pit! I smile in satisfaction to myself and slyly put my pager back into my pocket. "I'm gonna go run some labs...page me if anything changes with my patients." I give the nurses a smile and turn around to go to the pit.

Whatever I'm being paged for probably isn't very important since I wasn't paged 911 but oh well, it's a page that doesn't include scut and I'm taking it. I walked away from the nurses' station so quickly that I forgot to put the electronic chart back on a charger, so I hope that it doesn't die. It's a shame how desperate I was for my pager to ring. I put my hands in my pockets and lightly jog down the steps to get off the second floor and onto the first. I go over to the first floor nurses' station and lean against the counter. "Someone paged me down here?" I ask the blonde haired nurse that's sitting in the chair behind the counter, typing something on the computer. She stops typing and looks up at me like she doesn't know who I am, even though I've worked here for three years and I've seen her all three years I've been here. "Dr. Wilson." I blatantly tell her my name, emphasis on the Dr. part.

"Oh...sorry, hon." She seems genuinely apologetic. She clears her throat and leans forward to get closer to me. "Woman in bed three...asked to see you." She points me to bed three as if I don't know my way around the pit. I appreciate her apologizing me though. Okay, but a woman in bed three asked to see me? What woman? I don't really think I've treated anyone that could possibly want me to treat them. Unless...Maybe Andrea is back. Andrea's the girl who's nose I pulled Herbie the leech out of. Maybe she found some other issue, like her nose is falling off or she's half brain-dead from having a leech chomping on her temporal lobe. I'm a horrible person because part of me really believes that her nose falling off or being brain-dead could be fun for me. With a sneaky smile on my face from reveling in my thoughts, I grab the pastel blue curtain that seals off bed three and pull it back.

The woman sitting on the bed isn't Andrea like I expected it to me, so I'm surprised to say the least. I reach behind myself and shut the curtain to maintain this woman's privacy. She's very pretty, I think. She has short, shoulder-length blonde hair and pale white skin. I can tell that she's a box-blonde because her brunette roots are coming through towards the crown of her head; she's obviously naturally brunette. She's a little bit on the heavier side but I wouldn't call her obese. She's sitting down on the bed but the way her legs touch firmly on the floor lets me know that she's rather tall. "Good morning." I plaster my friendly smile across my face and open up a new file on the electronic chart. "I'm Dr. Wilson and I'll be treating you today. Now, can you tell me your name?" I hold the chart against my stomach and look her in her eyes to seem humane. Her light hazel eyes are low, soft and sympathetic. She seems to be nervous for some reason. I actually get patients like this all the time. Patients that are automatically nervous once they enter a hospital, I mean. I think it's sort of strange how there are people out there that are genuinely afraid of hospitals when hospitals have always been my sanctuary.

She crosses her legs and squeezes her ankles together as she runs her stubby fingers through her wispy, thin blonde hair. She's wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt so her arms are exposed and since getting her to talk to me seems like a bit of a stretch, I quietly examine her with my eyes to see if I can pick out what might be the issue that brought her here. Her legs are covered with loose fitting blue jeans so I can't see them but her arms are quite revealing. In both folds of her arms, the skin is badly scarred with small, red circles. To a normal person without medical training, it would look like this woman has hives and to a certain extent, I'm sure some of these red circles really are hives. But there are some scars that are too deep red to be hives. Some of the scars are needle marks from shooting up. I keep my smile on my face in hopes of calming this poor woman down and walk over to the glove dispenser to grab myself a pair of gloves. "What's the weather like out there?" I start a conversation with her just to be mannerly as I pull on my gloves. "I was thinking about going out there to get some fresh air but it's probably raining, isn't it?"

She runs her left hand along her right arm and shifts her legs in an uncomfortable fashion. "It's actually a beautiful day out there." Even her voice sounds nervous. She sounds like she's not-so-sure if she should be here or not. "Is..." Her voice trails off so I put the electronic chart down and stand in front of her with a smile still on my face so she knows that it's okay to tell me anything because I'm going to help her. At this point, it's pretty clear to me that she didn't request to see me. I've never seen this woman a day in my life and we're perfect strangers to one another, so it's virtually impossible for her to have requested me as her doctor. I'm thinking that maybe the nurses got me mixed up with someone else or she just asked to see a surgeon and I'm the only available one. There's no possible way that she went to the nurses' station and asked for Dr. Jo Wilson. "What is your name?" She tilts her head and wrinkles her eyebrows, as if she's asking me to teach her trigonometry.

"Jo." I keep politely smiling and take my hands from my pockets. I slightly turn my body and pull up the flap on my white coat to expose my name. "Josephine...but everybody calls me Jo 'cause Josephine's a mouthful." I fold the flap down and put my hands back in my pockets. "You can call me Jo. You don't have to call me Dr. Wilson." Careful not to alarm her, I slowly grab her arm so I can take a look at her hives. "Are these hives?" She nods her head, refusing to look me in the eye. "Um... Do you get these all the time? Are you allergic to anything?" I turn her arm so I can get a better look at them. She doesn't say anything. "You know, I get hives sometimes." She cracks a smile so I smile too. "When I'm stressed out or nervous about something." I take a look at her other arm as well. She's smiling and holding back laughter. "No, seriously. Last year, I overheard my boss saying something about a member of the staff getting fired. I went crazy thinking it was gonna be me. My back looked like a political map of the United States when everything was said and done. Big mess of red down the middle..."

"I guess that's one way you and I are alike." She nods her head again and gently slides her arm backwards so it's out of my grasp. She grabs onto my arm and starts pulling up the sleeve of my white coat. I'm a little bit uncomfortable now, I won't lie. Why is she trying to look at my arm? I was taught to do anything to make a patient happy though, so I help her pull up my sleeve. She starts running her thumb along the hair on my arm. I don't know what else to say to her. I can't even smile anymore. Alex is always telling me how pretty I am and you wouldn't believe how many patients have complimented my looks as well. I know I'm not ugly but I never really thought that a patient would actually hit on me. Maybe I'm neurotic because I have some residual issues from things that have happened to me in my past but generally, people rubbing your arm like this—male or female—can only mean one thing. I know how to defend myself against someone that tries to take advantage of me and this woman doesn't seem like she's much of a fighter; even though she has a good 100 pounds on me. If this woman tries to do anything to me, I'm going to fight her off as best as I can. Then I'll go find Alex...he'll know what to do. "...I'm sorry, baby." She called me baby. I feel my nervousness starting to take over. I snatch my arm away from her and try to even out my breathing. "You're just...you're beautiful." She finally looks up at me and for the first time, our eyes meet.

When our eyes meet, I feel like someone just opened up the back of my shirt and dumped a gallon of ice water down it. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand up and chills rocket all over my body. I don't know who this woman is. Like I said, I've never seen her a day in my life. So...why does my body feel like I know who she is? My heart feels some kind of connection with her and I don't know why. I've never felt connected with somebody like this. I've never felt this natural feeling that someone knows me and I know someone. I don't know her. But there could only be one reason as to why looking at her feels like I'm looking into a distorted mirror. You know those mirrors in the funhouses at carnivals, festivals or freakshows? The ones that make you look skinnier than what you are or fatter than what you are? I feel like I'm looking into one of those. One of those mirrors that gave me haunting hazel eyes, bushier eyebrows, forehead wrinkles and laugh lines in my cheeks. Those mirrors have the ability to make it seem like you're seeing something that you're not but they can never take away the features that make you...yourself. The wide forehead is still there, the hazel eyes are still there, the thin nose is there and the big, puffy lips are there. If you don't know someone but you look like them, there's only one reason why you could look like that person, right?

I close my eyes and shake my head to clear my thoughts. I've had a pretty rough, busy week. I think I'm just tired. There's no way this woman could be anywhere close to who my heart thinks she is. She wouldn't know who the hell I am, just like I don't know who the hell she is. If this woman is who my heart thinks she is, the last time she saw me was when I was two weeks old, 28 years ago. She wouldn't know who in the hell I am. She can't be her. "So...what's your name, ma'am?" I pick up the electronic chart again and pop open the new file, completely dismissing the awkward moment of her stroking my arm and calling me pretty. "And what brings you here today?"

She remains silent, which sort of annoys me. I'm ready to just pass her case off to someone else. Maybe I can act like someone else paged me and give this woman's case to another person, like a nurse or whatever. It doesn't seem surgical, whatever's wrong with her. "You don't know who I am, do you?" Instead of answering my questions, she dives into another topic. I shake my head and pretend to be busy typing something into the chart when in reality, I'm not typing anything. I don't like this feeling I have. This sinking feeling in my chest that's making my stomach ache. I feel nauseous. "I didn't expect you too." She sounds disappointed. "You're gorgeous, though. Look at your pretty, pretty hair and your eyes..." She shakes her head. "So pretty." I have half a mind to tell her "thank you" but if I talk, my voice is going to crack and I'm going to cry. "Can I still call you Jo?"

"...I have to go. I have other patients to..." I swallow a lump in my throat and close out of the new file on the electronic chart. "Good luck, ma'am."

"Jo, wait!" She stands up from the exam table and calls after me. "Wait, honey...just wait." My brain is telling me to keep going; to pull the curtain back and get the hell out of this room before I start crying so hard I can't stop or letting my emotions take over and end up cursing this woman out. But my heart won't let me go. My heart won't let me leave her. "I'm so sorry to...freak you out and stuff. You're just...not what I expected. I don't know what to say to you."

"...So you did page me?" I ask her.

"I found out you were working here and I just asked if you were available..I didn't ask them to tell you that I was sick." She holds her hands out like she's trying to diffuse the situation. "I just want to know you..."

"I'm working." I shake my head and turn to leave again.

"Josephine."

"I have to go...I'm sorry." I feel a tear creep down my cheek and tickle me as it falls. "I...I..." I can't even say anything. "I have to go." I pull the curtain back and leave the exam room. You know, I've always dreamed about this moment. I thought about the things I would do and the things I would say. I would ask her why she left me, I would try to understand why she did it because after all, nobody leaves their two week old baby unless they absolutely have to. I would hug her and tell her that I forgive her for everything and I would tell her that I'm not angry that she was never there to teach me how to deal with my period, how to cope with boy troubles, braid my hair or help me dress up for the prom. I would want to start over and have a relationship with her. I would introduce her to Alex and tell her that I think he's the one. And she would be there for the birth of her grandchildren, if me and Alex decide to have them. I always thought about this moment and I had it planned down to a perfect tee. I look like her, which was a shock. My eyes, my ears, my nose and my mouth all belong to her. And I immediately felt that connection. Crazy how your body just knows that you're related to someone because you feel that connection. I didn't think I'd have any connection with her, even though I came from her. I never thought that I would be the one to apologize to her. I never thought that meeting her—meeting my mother would be so nerve-wracking. I never counted on feeling so nauseous.

I need to find the nearest bathroom, because I'm going to throw up.

[skyfallofcybertron-blog]

Transformers: Skyfall. Bonus Chapter: There’s a Light That Never Goes Out

He didn’t witness it. After their mission; Night Glide and Skyfall went their separate ways. He had to report to Thundercracker. Skyfall had to go and upload the files she stole into to the ship’s computer for decryption. It was standard procedure. It should have been simple.

On the commanding deck; the young Seeker’s meeting was interrupted by a panicking Vechicon drone. One stationed in the labs. Night Glide didn’t need a further explanation and, luckily, the member of Megatron’s top commanding trine he was speaking to was the sensible one. Thundercracker excused him to go to the medical bay.

The Convent’s medic, Echo, hung by the ceiling; working away quickly by the time Night Glide got there. Echo was an incredibly small two-wheeler. So, to make her medical skill set useful to patch up bigger sized bots; the engineering team aboard the ship constructed her a harness so she could be suspended over the injured. Working completely obstructed above all those who entered her base of operations.

However, even Echo’s small servos where nothing compared to the patient she was working on. Skyfall layed on her side. Wires attached to the Minicon’s spinal strut criss-crossed all across the medical berth she was nestled in as she struggled for every intake.

‘She just collapsed.’ The Vechicon that reported her explained, ‘She just hooked herself up for the download and collapsed.’

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the Autobots’ files had implanted a virus into Night Glide’s small Deployer.

He ghosted a servo over Skyfall’s helm only to be surprised by not only the external damage done to it when she fell, but the extreme heat that was coming off her plating. Night Glide pulled his servo back quickly. His talons fidget slightly. Night Glide’s processors was trying to come to grips with the thing on the berth was in fact his partner.

“Report.” He broke the silence in the chamber.

Echo turned from her screen that she was working on to swivel in front of her commanding officer. The femme lacked a voice box. It was damaged in the Exodus. However, her visor screen lit up with the medical report as requested.

Virus: Trojan. Disguised as Autobot base schematics. Activation upon log-in to Decepticon networks.

Function seems to target Decepticon Deployers to eliminate spies within the system.

Virus attacking neural net.

Symptoms: Fever, respiratory impairment, lack of response, fainting and seizure. Continuing observation.

Unrelated symptoms: Helm denting, minor lacerations do to fall. Damage stabilized. Will repair once virus is neutralized.

Working on Antivirus: 15% completion. Awaiting more tests.

Night Glide could feel his denta grind just reading Echo’s report. He hissed at the little medic.

“Speed it up.”

Echo tilted her helm. The diagnostic disappeared. Replacing it was a single, deep red optic. The Seeker glared at the video of Shockwave.

“Speeding up the process is illogical. The Minicon is the first to contract this virus. Further studies must take place to insure the safety of Decepticon spies.”

Night Glide could feel his energon boil up through his tubing. Shockwave made a habit of only referring to Skyfall as ‘Minicon’. Simply because, he didn’t she her as anything else, but a disposable waste product. Of course, Shockwave never had the pleasure of actually spending time with her. Getting to know here. Making her laugh.

The Seeker’s wings twitched.

“And risk having my communications officer die?!” Night Glide spat.

“The Convent is under Thundercracker’s command, is it not?”

“Skyfall is an important member of this crew and I am not going to stand idly by just so you can use her as a lab animal-”

“You’re attachment to the Minicon is irrational. You’re anger is also misguided. If the Autobots are planning to use this virus in a wide scale attack; having data on how it operates and how to nullify it is the best course of action. The Minicon will provide that data. Also, if you are insistent on overstepping your rank; I will pull mine.”

The optic barely moved as it addressed the medic, “Echo, continue your work. Upload all of your findings to my personal storage. I will continue my work from here.”

Shockwave ended the call. Night Glide wanted to fling the closest object across the room.

Echo’s screen flickered once again.

(ง •̀_•́)ง

The Seeker felt the slimmest smile on his face. The Convent was a ship filled with the Decepticons that Megatron didn’t want. Cast-offs of the greater Decepticon good. In a way, they all looked out for each other. Night Glide was happy for the allies he had found himself with.

Deep down, he knew that Echo was going to sped up the process as fast as she could. Without getting caught by Cybertron’s top scientist.

The medic swiveled back towards Skyfall; hooking in a cooling unit to at least stabilize her. Judging by the report Echo just gave, Skyfall had burnt through her own supply of coolant. Night Glide caught himself subconsciously running the base of his thumb along the tips of his digits upon the memory of feeling the radiation off the femme’s body. He frowned softly at this.

“Echo.”

The medic’s screen turned to face him, displaying a question mark.

“Keep me post.”

She nodded.

He paused for a moment and added, “Do not lose her.”

Echo’s screen flashed one more time.

(ง •ૅ౪•᷄)ว

***

He wasn’t a social butterfly by any account. Quite the opposite really. Unlike most of this Seeker kin, Night Glide didn’t find keeping friends much of a use. He lacked a Trine. Something that the rest of the Seekers mocked him for. However, in solitude he found himself at peace. An understanding of himself that the others never did.

Then, suddenly, Skyfall entered his life like a blazing comet.

At first he didn’t understand her. She was fussy; terrified of everything around her. The full grown Minicon clung to his plating like a panicked sparkling more often than not. She cried all the time too. Often she was huddled up in her alt. mode., ready to jet off as soon as somebot even came close to intaking near her direction. Skyfall also, at first, could barely hold the gun she was given; let alone shoot it an a reasonable target.

She was a civilian. Barely.

Night Glide couldn’t fathom why the higher command would steal her to begin with and to be completely honest, he hated her. In the beginning at least. He was civil about it; allowing her to make a fool out of herself and keeping a good arm’s length from her at all times. No need to stoop to her level when he didn’t need to be.

Skyfall was hardly the partner he was promised when they said they had found a Deployer for him. If Night Glide was honest with himself, he expected someone like Ravage. Sleek. Elegant. Knew how to handle itself.

What he had was Skyfall.

He remembered one night, before they got their transfor to the warship, he caught her singing. It was almost unhearable. Too light in voice and too heavily buried under the collective snores of 20 young Seekers. Yet, Night Glide’s audios picked up the sounds of a Vosian lullaby that he had long since buried in his memory. Along with the rest of his childhood.

“I’m sorry…” She murmured.

The little femme had chosen to stare at one tiny bolt on the floor. Skyfall lived under his berth. Probably the safest place for her not to crushed under the excited heels of Seekers. Dim maroon optics barely lit up her face in the darkness of the barracks. The other Seekers there barely notice her little voice that deep into recharge.

“...I’m sorry…”

Night Glide simply watched her from his berth. She dipped out of sight. Hiding once again in the safety of her hold. The Seeker rolled onto his back. His optics found a seam in the wall and he traced a claw through it.

“...Who taught you Vosian?” He asked quietly.

It was a moment before he got a reply, “...I did…”

“You learned it yourself?”

“I know. I’m not- wasn't allowed.” Skyfall was quick to lower herself even more, “I went to school- I was paid to- Calloway…” She paused and somehow her voice was even smaller, “I can stop…”

The dorm filled up once again with snoring; Skyfall seeming deciding for the two of them not to continue.

Night Glide frowned. He didn't like the silence now. The Seeker continued to stare at the ceiling. Vos now seemed so far away.

“Keep singing…” He asked, “You sound like home…”

Skyfall remained silent for a moment. Night Glide could hear her breathe beneath the frame of his berth. The Seeker could practically hear her swallow as she took a deep breath and picked up in the song where she had stopped.

The wilting lullaby raise up through the thick, stuffy air of the dorm. Night Glide continued to look up at the ceiling; trying to picture Vos’ towers through the shadows of his wingmates.

The proud Seeker wasn't ready to accept that he was homesick.

He still wasn't. Eons later. Though, his home wasn’t even crystalline towers anymore. It wasn’t the pale blue skies. Nor was it The Convent. Or even Cybertron, if he was honest with himself. No, home to Night Glide shifted to a small femme clinging to life in the medical bay.

When he returned to check on Echo’s progress, the femme was wrapping Skyfall up in an insulator blanket. Echo had striped Skyfall down to her protoform in what he could only assume was to keep her cool. Skyfall, herself, didn’t have much protoform to began with. Most of it encased her spark chamber. While her limbs were just basic framework and bare wires. A by product of being ‘low quality’.

“How is she?” Night Glide dared to ask.

Echo tilted her helm towards him; gathering the swaddled Skyfall in her arms.

Status: Unconscious, but stable. Last seizure reported: 2 hours ago. Overheating is still an issue, but fever as leveled.

Working on Antivirus: 87% completion. Awaiting final test results and Shockwave’s approval on formula.

Skyfall is very strong.

The Seeker let go of the intake he was holding. With a weak smile; he nodded in agreement.

“Good work, Echo…”

(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

The medic carefully transformed Skyfall’s tiny form into his arms. It was only in that moment when Night Glide really realized how fragile Skyfall was. She easily could stand in the palm of his servo, but seeing her all bundled up like this only reminded Night Glide of a freshly ignited sparkling.

Echo tilted her helm once more and added to her text.

Shockwave is expected to call in 21 minutes.

Requesting: Energon break?

“Yes, of course. You’ve done more than enough. I’ll COMM. you if he calls early.”

Shockwave never calls early.

“True.” Night Glide chuckled lightly. A rarity, but he was in much better spirits now that he knew that his partner wasn’t going to be murdered by an Autobot virus. Echo was the best medic he could have ever asked for. “Go have supper.”

✲ﾟ｡.(✿╹◡╹)ﾉ☆.｡₀:*ﾟ✲ﾟ*:₀｡

Echo’s harness lowered her to the floor; transforming and pulling away as her peds swung around. They landed on the floor with a muted ‘thud’. The tires on her heels keeping her steps light. Again, Night Glide was reminded that he was a giant among grounders. Echo’s small motorcycle frame made her out to be about half his height. Not that anyone would ever notice with her strung up most of the time.

The medic gave Night Glide a thumbs up, before disappearing down the darken halls of The Convent. Night Glide felt his wings slowly sag down his back. All that tension and the automatic Seeker provado that was drilled into him since his sparking. He was exhausted. In more ways than one.

He sighed. Sitting on the edge of the medical berth. He cradled Skyfall close. He watched his partner’s small spark chamber rise and fall. Her breathing was much better than before. He was thankful for that. It pained the Seeker. Every Seeker valued the movement of air; be it on their wings or in their lungs.

Night Glide stroked the back of Skyfall’s head as it lulled to one side; nuzzling into his cool chest plates. Night Glide felt his spark swell. She was so tiny. Just a toy to most that had seen her. Yet, she was the most Cybertronian creature he had ever met; kind and compassionate. Even through this war.

And she was his. He was honored to have been paired with her.

Now, he just needed to wait until she was awake for him to tell her that.

[themurphyzone]

Absolutely Disastrous Ch 5

AN: Eileen and Marcus Underwood are underused. We need more Underwood family!

Ch 5: We’ll Call it a Day! Everybody Rest Up!

Once they’d taken the path back to Littleroot, it was only a five-minute walk to Zack’s house. There wasn’t much to the residential area of town. All the houses were painted in simple, earthy shades that blended perfectly with the forest.

“Lee’s got the beanie. Lance does not,” Zack repeated for the fifteenth time. “Don’t mix them up unless you want to find whoopee cushions in your beds.”

Melissa rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry so much. Milo and I have plenty of practice differentiating between Absol. Twins are a piece of cake.”

Milo stood out of range so the door didn’t splinter into pieces while Zack turned the doorknob. He kept a lasso at the ready in case a stampede of wild Pokémon tried to carry anyone off.

Zack frowned, jiggling the doorknob a few times. “Weird. We don’t lock it during the day unless nobody’s home.”

Giggles erupted from inside the house.

“Who is it?” a child’s voice called.

“It’s me, Zack!” Zack sighed irritably. “Open the door!”

“Sorry, that’s not the password! Please try again at the sound of the beep!”

“Lee, I have something important to tell Mom and I’ve had a long day already. I’m not in the mood for pranks.”

“It was Lance’s idea!”

“Was not!”

“Was too!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Lee! Lance! I want to see those hands squeaky clean before dinner!” a woman scolded. “And don’t lock your brother out of the house!”

“Yes, Mom,” Lee and Lance chorused. They continued to bicker as their voices faded away.

The door swung open, revealing a woman in comfortable house clothes. Zack looked a lot like her. Her eyes flicked over to Melissa and Milo.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you two before,” she said kindly. “Not from around here?”

“I’m Milo and this is Melissa!” Milo exclaimed. Diogee huffed at being left out. “And my partner, Diogee. Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about you!”

Diogee snorted.

“We’re from the Mt. Chimney area. And we all just became Pokémon Trainers!” Milo continued.  

The woman blinked in surprise. She studied Zack for a long time, who shrank back from the sudden scrutiny. Then she smiled. “Zack, I know you have better manners than this! Milo, Melissa, come inside for dinner. I want to hear how you two managed to convince my boy to become a Pokémon Trainer in the span of one afternoon. Oh, and you can just call me Eileen. Dr. Underwood is a mouthful for house guests.”

Eileen’s tone left no room for argument.

“Marcus called when you left the lab, but all he said over the phone was ‘Zack’s a Pokémon Trainer now’ before hanging up,” Eileen remarked as she set two extra places at the table for Milo and Melissa. “I love him, but that man always forgets to explain the important details. When he got his first Pokémon, he left home without telling his parents goodbye and they filed a missing person report for him! Sometimes he’s just the epitome of absent-minded professor.”

“We had to rescue Dad from a swarm of Magikarp. Some pirate guy was dumping them into the lake and disturbing the ecosystem,” Zack explained. “Milo and Melissa did most of the work on that.”

“You’re the one whose friends with a wild Gyarados,” Melissa said, gently punching Zack on the shoulder. “Stop selling yourself short.”

“Is it true?” Lee demanded, rushing out of the bathroom. His hands were still dripping wet. “Are you a-whoa!” He stared up at Diogee, mouth open in shock. He turned around, cupping his hands to his mouth. “LANCE! GET OUT HERE! THERE’S A COOL POKÉMON IN THE DINING ROOM!”

Diogee growled slightly as Lee tried to touch his fur with still-wet hands.

“Lee, go dry your hands and don’t let me catch you touching someone else’s Pokémon without permission again,” Eileen warned.

“But, Mom-“

“Argue and you won’t have cherry pie for dessert.”

Lee scampered off immediately.

“Mom, can you look over our Pokémon after dinner? We want them checked before we start training,” Zack asked, scooping up a handful of silverware from a drawer and setting them next to every plate. “Oh, and they need a place to stay the night.”

“It’s no issue,” Eileen said. She stirred a large pot of soup on the stove. “Dinner’s almost ready. Melissa, why don’t you take the spare room? There might be a few boxes you’ll have to move aside, but it’s cozy enough. And Milo, we don’t have another bed, but there’s an air mattress we can set up in Zack’s room.”

Milo showed her a deflated air mattress from his backpack. “It’s okay. I have five air mattresses in my backpack! As my dad always says, it’s always good to have one on hand for sleep emergencies and random Ducklett attacks!”

Eileen’s nose scrunched up in thought as she tried to figure out how an average sized backpack fit five air mattresses. “But Ducklett aren’t native to Hoenn.”

Melissa shook her head. “With Murphy’s Law, any species of Pokémon can appear anywhere at any time. Doesn’t matter if they’re native to the area or not.”

The flames on the stove suddenly flared up, almost engulfing the bottom of the pot. Eileen hurriedly turned a dial, and the flames sputtered out with a click.

“Oh, and random fires may crop up too. I’ll just leave this fire extinguisher here. Comes in pretty handy,” Milo said, placing a fire extinguisher in the corner.

After a few minutes, Eileen recovered. “Alright. You seem used to handling these…situations. Just go put down your things and I’ll have everything plated when you come back.”

The twins spent their dinner watching the Pokémon eat. Eileen had to remind them several times to take a bite of their own food.

“-and that’s why Sara swore off secretly watching weight-lifting competitions between wild Machop!” Milo finished. “So, what’s Littleroot like?”

“Not gonna lie. It’s boring. But just ignore my personal bias. I’ll always prefer the city myself. Did Zack tell you we lived in Olivine before?” Eileen said. “It’s sort of the Johto equivalent to your Slateport. Zack’s grandfather runs a Miltank farm just outside there.”

“My big brother fell into the Magikarp pond,” Lee giggled.

Zack almost choked on his soup. “Don’t tell them that!” he squeaked.

“It’s not exactly news to us,” Melissa said. “Besides, you’re not the only one with irrational fears. Take Milo for instance. He’s afraid of Ranseinese fingertraps.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “Ranseinese fingertraps?”

“They’re a fiendish, diabolical trap that limits one’s dexterity while slowly suffocating the poor little capillaries,” Milo said. He was adamant that they were the worst traps known to mankind.

Melissa rolled her eyes. “Milo, you’re supposed to push your fingers in, It loosens the binding.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

“Um, Milo?” Lance piped up. He shifted in his seat when everyone turned to him. “I just wanna know…what’s the stuff in Diogee’s food?”

Diogee growled protectively, nudging his food bowl away from prying eyes.

“Don’t worry, he wasn’t trying to steal your food,” Milo said soothingly. “Anyway, the red splotches in his pellets are Razz Berries. In addition to flavor, their hard shells also prevent an Absol’s fangs from growing too sharp. You don’t want them cutting their gums.”

Lance jumped out from his seat. “Sorrymomberightback!” he called over his shoulder as he rushed off.

Eileen placed a slice of cherry pie on Lance’s plate. “He wants to be a Pokémon Researcher like Marcus. Always writing down Pokémon facts and care tips in his notebook.”

Noticing that Mudkip and Torchic were trying to climb up the empty seat to get to the pie, Milo gently pulled them off. They protested as he deposited them next to their food bowls.

“No,” Milo said sternly. “That pie is for Lance.”

Torchic’s feathers puffed out, and Mudkip chewed on his wrist.

“They’re a handful,” Eileen remarked. “You might as well relax tonight because you’ve got some serious training to do on the road.”

Since Eileen said she worked better when people weren’t watching over her shoulder, nobody would be allowed in the house’s clinic while she conducted the Pokémon’s checkups.

Milo and Melissa took the opportunity to freshen up before joining Zack and the twins in the living room.

“What’s it like living around a bunch of Absol? What do they like to eat? What kind of disasters do they sense?” Lance fired all the Absol-related questions he could think of at Milo.

Milo answered him the best he could, pausing every once in while to make sure Lance had enough time to write his responses in his notebook.

Melissa, Zack, and Lee passed the time with a game of Poképoly. The Underwood siblings only had a few bills each, while Melissa had no shortage of money. Zack rolled the dice, then moved his Bellsprout piece to a space that had a plastic replica of the Indigo Plateau.

“I own Mt. Silver. That’ll be 2500 please,” Melissa smirked, holding out her hand expectantly.

“Extortionist,” Zack muttered, grudgingly forking over his remaining money. Because he didn’t have enough, Melissa took the remaining amount from the bank.

“First lesson of Poképoly, Lee. Show no mercy, not even to family. Crush ‘em. Make ‘em weep,” Melissa said. “Oh, and you wanna aim for the spaces around the jail area. More bang for your buck.”

Lee nodded vigorously, while Zack was less than pleased about Melissa teaching about the ways of ruthless corporatism.

“Zack, could I use your desktop to call my family?” Milo asked. “I promised them I’d call after we visited the lab.”

“I wanna meet your family!” Lance exclaimed.

“Me too!” Lee agreed.

“Okay, but try not to blow anything up,” Zack warned as he logged into the computer.

Milo shrugged, knowing that he couldn’t promise anything since Murphy’s Law would always find a way to surprise them. “I’ll try, but no promises.”

“Melissa, were you gonna call home too?” Zack asked.

Melissa shrugged, folding her arms defensively. “I already texted Dad. Besides, he’s probably got something at the fire department right now.”

After the fiasco in the helicopter, Milo couldn’t blame Melissa for wanting her space. But she and her dad would have to face each other in Lavaridge. Maybe the journey would give her time to think things over.

While Milo entered his username into the video chat service his family used, Eileen and the Pokémon came into the living room. Mudkip pawed at Milo until he was settled in his lap. Diogee laid by his feet, watching Mudkip from the corner of his eye. Meanwhile, Torchic and Treecko climbed all over Melissa and Zack.

“Your Pokémon are all healthy. After a hectic day, all they need is rest,” Eileen reported. “My only concern is Mudkip’s tendency to put things in his mouth. While it’s natural for young Pokémon to explore the world through taste and texture, your Mudkip is old enough to be a starter and should’ve outgrown that habit by now.”

Milo glanced down at Mudkip, who nibbled at a pocket on his shorts innocently. “I’ve noticed,” he admitted. “Can I train this out of him?”

“I suggest teaching him what he can or can’t put in his mouth. Yes for designated toys or food. No to body parts. You can probably find some toys at the Poké Mart in Oldale Town.”

“Okay, we’ll get some toys!” Milo agreed. “Thanks for the tip!”

“It’s my job,” Eileen said.

Sara answered the video call within seconds. “MOM! DAD! MILO’S CALLING!” she bellowed.

“Are things boring without us?” Milo teased.

Sara kicked back in her chair, sighing dramatically. “Boring’s an understatement. Now I don’t have anyone to gush about Dr. Magnezone with.”

“Don’t you have your friends in Mauville?” Melissa asked.

“Not the same! I’d be a laughingstock if I told them I shipped Dr. Magnezone with Clefablebelle!”

“You like Dr. Magnezone?” Lee gasped. “He’s the coolest person ever! I liked the episode where he tricked the evil Trubbishdroids into destroying their own fortress!”

“Sweet! Young fan! Always good to see the young people enjoying Dr. Zone!” Sara exclaimed. “So how do you know my brother?”

Lee pointed to Zack. “My brother brought him and Melissa home! We’re having one big sleepover tonight!”

Lance jumped in, obscuring Milo’s view of the screen. “Do you live on an Absol farm too? Are they just as cool as Diogee?”

Milo let the twins dominate the conversation, content to hang back for a while as he tried to gently dissuade Mudkip from chewing on his pockets. There were already several tiny holes in them, and he wanted his shorts to last.

After ten minutes, Brigitte and Martin joined in. “Sorry. Martin’s tie got stuck in the sink. I told you not to lean over the disposal, honey.”

“I got my guitar pick back though. Besides, I still have six more ties for the week,” Martin said. His tie hung in ribbons around his neck. “I see you’ve already made some friends.”

“We helped Zack rescue his dad from a pirate guy’s plot to release Magikarp into the local ecosystem,” Milo said. “You should’ve seen us! Zack’s friends with a Gyarados and Melissa’s really good at commanding two Pokémon at once!”

“Now this I gotta hear,” Sara said.

Zack tilted the camera to give them a better view of the Treecko on his head. “They forced me to run away from a giant boulder within five minutes of meeting me.”

“In our defense, we didn’t have time to explain certain details,” Melissa added.

Martin glanced outside, then held up a hand to stop Milo from retelling the story. “Sorry, can you hold on for a few minutes? I need to shoo some wild Geodude away from the outdoor furniture.”

Milo agreed, and the conversation shifted to Sara gushing over how adorable their Pokémon were. Torchic jumped onto the desk, peering into the camera curiously. Melissa pried Torchic off, accidentally knocking the computer mouse to the floor.

Before Zack could put the mouse back, a Linoone snatched it out of his hands.

“Hey!” Lee protested.

“Don’t let him out!” Melissa shouted. “Torchic, use Peck!”

Torchic darted towards Linoone, who jumped over her with the mouse clutched in his teeth. She rapidly pecked at the couch while Linoone continued his getaway.

You’ve never seen him before, this is just his debut!

He’s Recurring Linoone!

“I didn’t know you had ghosts,” Milo said. The Underwood house didn’t seem like the kind to hold any supernatural creatures.

Eileen hit the fleeing Linoone over the head with a broom, forcing him to drop the mouse. Then she opened the front door, sweeping Linoone outside before locking him out of the house. Melissa plugged the mouse into the computer, shaking it to make sure it worked.

“We don’t have ghosts. I have no idea where those annoying commercial jingle guys came from,” Zack said.

Wait, is this Pokéstar Studios? We’re supposed to be disembodied voice actors for a movie.

“Completely wrong region, man!” Melissa shouted in exasperation. “That’s in Unova!”

“How do you mistake a house in Littleroot for a studio?” Zack asked.

That’s the last time we let Disembodied Reggae Space Voice give us directions. Dude still can’t let go of how we forgot the marshmallows on our last camping trip. Sorry for the intrusion. Thanks for your help!

“We must never speak of this incident again,” Melissa swore.

Milo turned back to the computer screen. Brigitte and Sara took the interruption in stride.

Then Martin returned, plucking a mustard-covered branch out of his hair. “So, you mentioned stopping a guy who talked like a pirate?”

AN: I used imaginashon’s art and notes of Lee and Lance as a base for their personalities. They’re both really adorable and I really wish they’d appear in MML because I’m sure they’d be a riot.  

As much as I love fanfiction, a downside of this medium is how cartoon gags don’t translate well to text. Sometimes I feel like Murphy’s Law doesn’t happen as often as it should because I can’t just have random things explode because Milo happens to be there. So I try to include it in the situations the characters get into instead.

Ransei is the region in Pokemon Conquest. I know it’s based off feudal Japan but there isn’t a direct equivalent of China.  

Melissa has a 133-0 winning streak in Poképoly. She’s keeping it that way.  

[blueyesandleatherjacket]

Ghost of you, 17/?

Volume: 1.

Number of parts: 17/?.

Pairings: Human!Nine x Rose; Human!Ten x Jack; Clara Oswald x Olivia Baxter (OC).

Synopsis: “Be thou spirit of health, or goblin damn’d, Bring thee air from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com’st in such questionable shape That I will speak to thee.”

A/N: I've started writing this fiction last year after I had a particularly weird dream (as usual) and after I wrote the prologue, I've put it aside to work on other stuff. I've gone back to it not so long ago and decided that it would be the fiction I would post next, after not posting anything for a while. I must have watched I am legend and Game of thrones way too much to come out with something like this but I hope you will like it. I am not a scientist, nor did I have a particular knowledge of sciences. I do my researches on the internet like everyone to make sure everything is as close to the reality as possible. I have a literature degree only. Writing is what I do and it makes me explore next fields, and learn new things.

“Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you? / Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. / If charnel houses and our graves must send / Those that we bury back, our monuments / Shall be the maws of kites.” - Macbeth, Shakespeare.

CHAPTER 17:

Eleventh day of October. Day 1755 since the infection. Jack Harkness video log. Our researches are finally leading us somewhere. We have all this different information scattered and we’re trying to make them fit together like pieces of a huge puzzle. The noctiagus isn’t a simple deadly virus like the pest or the cholera. Unfortunately. We have the necessary weapons against those. The noctiagus is more like a cancer. A corrupted cell corrupting everything around it until the body gives in. It seems like nothing since we can’t cure most of the cancers yet but knowing how the virus works is a huge step still. We can adapt our researches to it. That’s what we’ve done already. The doctor Clara Oswald and myself are currently trying to find a way to fix the DNA and stop it from changing to the contact of those corrupted cells. This would be a great improvement for the sick people. And for our friend. The doctor Martha Jones helped us synthesising this sort of temporary cure. It has the form of a tiny pill that can be swallowed with a bit of water. Nothing too complicated. Except we’re afraid of testing it. Our only living subject is Maxence and the latest report on his health isn’t great. Testing it on him can be too dangerous. I don’t want him to suffer more than he does at the moment. And none of us wants him to… we want him to hold on. It wouldn’t be fair if he was dying now. The thought of Maxence dying forced Jack to stop speaking for a moment. He didn’t turn off the recording. He just needed a moment to breathe deeply and pull himself back together. He looked down, moved away, took deep breaths. Maxence being infected was a hard blow on him but there still was that hope to save him. Maxence fighting the virus had been a good thing at first but now… he was dying and Jack couldn’t handle that. He was putting his brave face on when he had to face everyone but deep down… deep down, he wished for this nightmare to be over. With all the geniuses gathered in this place, how could this cure still be unreachable? Jack ended up turning off the recording. This entry to the video log was over. He couldn’t say more. There wasn’t anything more to say anyway. The main information was inside. He sent the video to their common server. He didn’t mind what would be murmured behind his back for being so emotional. They could say whatever they wanted. They could even go to hell. His friend was dying for fuck’s sake! His best friend, the man who saved him from the consequences of after war. It couldn’t end like that. It couldn’t end before Jack found a way to thank him for this. He let himself fall on his desk chair and rubbed his face. It was hard to focus and worry at the same time. He hated this situation as much as everyone else in this building except for Colin. Colin who couldn’t harm anyone anymore thanks to Tegan. “Last time I’ve seen you looking so defeated, you were refusing my job offer.” For a second, Jack thought he was hallucinating, that the lack of sleep had finally gotten to him, but his brain was telling him that Maxence was speaking to him. He raised his head. His boss was sat on the chair on the other side of the desk, his legs crossed, and was observing him. Jack was a former soldier. Consequently, he knew that hallucinations came to him in his moments of weakness and guilt. The guilt to still be alive, the guilt not to have been able to save the men and women and children around him, the guilt to have killed in order to survive. Right now, he was feeling guilty for not working faster, for not finding a concrete answer, for not being able to save his friend and he was beyond exhaustion. All he needed was damn good news and days of sleep. Which he wasn’t gonna get this time again. He was clever enough to ignore the image of his boss. Last time he had spoken with an hallucination, he was in the psychiatric unit of a military hospital. Weeks after he was sent back home, he had lost his mind. He had broken down and his boyfriend at the time had had to have him locked up for his own sake. They had broken up because of that decision but Jack now had forgiven him. It had been the best decision at the time and he couldn’t see it. After that, he had gone back to his first love: sciences. That’s how he had met Maxence, how he had arrived here today. “Good thing I’ve insisted.” “What are you here for this time?” The words had blurted out of his mouth before he could hold them back. He stared at his boss straight in the eyes and folded his arms on his chest. He was aware that he was talking to someone that wasn’t there but it was too tempting to answer, to have a proper response to his questions. However, this time, Maxence remained silent and his image flickered. He looked at his hand that was almost translucent and frowned. A usual reaction when something wasn’t going the way he thought it would. “I came to say goodbye, Jack.” The former captain felt his heart furiously beating against his ribcage as if it was gonna come out of his body at any time. It was painful but the physical pain was nothing compared to the psychological one these words caused in him. ‘I came to say goodbye’ could only mean one thing and Jack didn’t like the meaning of it. He didn’t wait for the next sentence this fake Maxence could say. He jumped to his feet and rushed out of his office. He ran to the underground part of the lab, to the place his painful heart and the stabbing alarm resounding through all the building was leading him: where everyone was gathered to watch the worst happening under their eyes…

x

Tegan had thought that now that he had figured out who was behind this worldwide mess, things would be easier. He just needed to transfer the information to his team and they would be able to work harder on the noctiagus. With a copy of all the researches done by Myrtle Appleton that he had found in Colin’s computer, they had everything in hand. They couldn’t fail now. He was done typing the mail. The attached documents were done charging in the mail. He clicked on the ‘send’ button, closed the messaging service window and moved from his chair to his couch. He barely had his eyes closed for a bit of rest that he was getting a call on his phone. He groaned, pressed a pillow on his face and tried to ignore the call. How was Maxence doing this job? Worse, how was Harvey dealing with this whole building so well? The phone stopped ringing and he felt guilty for being so relieved. What he wanted was just a little bit of rest. Like the rest of his team, he was way beyond the exhaustion. They were all holding on to the nerves to find that cure and it wasn’t a good thing. Saving Maxence was becoming very urgent – more urgent with every minute – but working in these conditions was pushing them to make mistakes. Or to miss someone who was sabotaging their researches. Tegan was still feeling like an incompetent idiot for almost killing his boss. His boss… The words felt strange now that he was the boss and Maxence was a simple patient in his special unit. A patient with very worrying scans. The virus was winning but Maxence refused to let go. This was killing him, and Tegan wondered if the mistake he had made hadn’t sped up the process. His phone rang again and he couldn’t ignore it anymore. It could be important. It could be a life or death question. It could also be nothing. There were still blokes who thought that they were funny by calling people and scaring them. The communication means were almost all down. The CRCD had its own aerials that were giving the whole building a constant access to internet and phone lines. It was a real blessing in times like this. They were rarely getting calls from the exterior but it sometimes happened, especially through radio frequencies. Usually, they were coming from survivors that were looking for loved ones or for help. Everything was written down in a notebook and transferred to the appropriate security services. The normal police had long lost this battle and Tegan ignored if the messages they were transferring were helpful to the persons who launched them. He finally picked up his phone on the third attempt of his caller to reach him and mumbled something in the speaker. He hoped that it was for something important because he wouldn’t move from this couch if this was just for a fight that had occurred somewhere in the building. It was up to the security to deal with that. He had had enough to do with Colin already. The news he was given was far more interesting though. He sat up quickly. “Say that again.” The man on the other side of the line repeated his words. “Let her in. Lock her in a crate and take her to one of the sterile rooms.” He ended the call and pushed the pillow away. He also pushed the fatigue away. It wasn’t time to sleep. Not anymore. Myrtle Appleton had decided to come into his realm and it was his duty to go and welcome her in person. She was infected but, unlike Maxence, she had all her abilities. It was another sort of sick person and he was willing to work on this. He would take care of her case personally. Scans, blood tests, saliva tests. Everything that would enable him to find the answers they were all craving for. If he hadn’t lost his trust in Adam, he would have taken him as his assistant. He would have learnt a lot but he had chosen Colin and Colin had ruined him. Now, Adam had been transferred to a lesser job and he had been advised to shut up about Maxence’s case or worse could still happen to him. Being fired, having this behaviour mentioned in his file and he was done in the job. He stopped by the lockers room and pulled on a hazmat suit. He wouldn’t lose any time. He would start working as soon as he got there. He was closing the door of his locker when he heard someone behind him. He jumped and turned around to find no one. Once again, he called himself an idiot for being so easily scared of a small noise, for being paranoid. “I’ve always known you would make a great boss for them all. You just needed someone believing in you and the necessary push.” This time again, Tegan jumped and turned back around. A pale image of Maxence was leaning against the lockers and looking at him. He had that smile a father would have after his kid told him about an achievement they would have done. Tegan was a scientist and didn’t believe in spectres. So, he just rubbed his eyes to get rid of their fatigue and passed through the ghost as if it wasn’t there. When it appeared again before him, he thought that maybe some help for this new case would be needed because he was really tired. “Be thou spirit of health, or goblin damn’d, Bring thee air from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com’st in such questionable shape That I will speak to thee.” Tegan was quoting Hamlet in the beginning of the Shakespearean play when the young prince faced the spectre of his father for the very first time. His own ghost, the ghost of his mentor, seemed amused by the reference. If Tegan had believed in supernatural stuff, he would have been terrified by this. He had read enough Shakespeare to know what spectres could push you to do in their names, or just because they were the manifestation of a deep guilt. The Macbeths once experienced it and it led them to madness and death. “I am thy mentor’s spirit, Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confin’d to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purg’d away – Are you a man?” “Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appal the devil.” From Hamlet to Macbeth, there was only one verse and they had crossed the line. Tegan thought that he might have fallen asleep in the end. This was too unreal for his liking. He had no time for such fantasy. He needed to wake up and quickly! “I’ve got no time for this.” “I’m proud of you, T. Keep up the good work.” “What?” The image faltered and, with a bright smile, it disappeared and Tegan was left alone in the corridor he had stopped in. For a couple seconds, he remained still, unable to move or think. Until the alarm went off. An alarm that made his blood speed up in his veins and fear crush his heart. He completely forgot about Myrtle Appleton, about her researches, about everything that wasn’t Maxence and he ran, ran like crazy toward the current disaster of the building.

x

Amy was standing in front of the wall of pictures. She was still in Maxence and Rose’s room but she was alone now. Rose had thought that taking a shower would do her a world of good after this failed nap – for her at least – and she had left Amy to observe her surroundings. The therapist wouldn’t say no to a shower. After such a deep sleep, she felt rested but she needed to refresh herself and to change clothes to feel even better. Rose had allowed her to have that shower here when she would be done and she would also lend her some clothes. It felt weird to Amy to have a friend willing to do so much for her. From what she could see on this wall, Rose was quite the popular girl. Her childhood might not have been one of the best but she had managed to beat fate and to build herself this life she could be proud of. These pictures were showing the story of Maxence and Rose’s life. It almost looked like a fairy tale to Amy. There was so much love between those two human beings that she was almost jealous. Her husband never loved her the way Maxence loved Rose. He never did any of the things Maxence had done for her. The scientist seemed like the perfect man that every woman was dreaming of. He wasn’t as handsome or sexy as those photoshopped playboys you could find in magazines but he had something. Charisma. Gentleness. Intelligence. A rare combination in a man. Rose had found the rare gem and everyone could be jealous about it. She hadn’t let the opportunity disappear thankfully. She had grabbed it and kept it and her knight in shining armour was now the damsel in distress. Funny how things could change quickly. Her eyes stared at another picture. A friends’ picture that looked almost like a family picture. Taken around Christmas time. Maxence and Rose were gathered with Allegro, Jack, Tegan, Clara and Olivia around a small barbecue on the balcony of some flat. Maxence was roasting some chestnuts on the fire. Amy regretted not having friends like this to share such a moment. Her last Christmas… When was it already? What had she done? Probably gotten drunk and been sick for the next few days. She used to love this celebration so much before. She was always overexcited when Christmas time was rolling around. But with William’s death… “It was our last Christmas.” Amy jumped. She hadn’t heard Rose coming out of the bathroom. She turned to face her. Her brown hair that she was usually colouring into blonde or red were falling on her shoulders, wet. She had pulled on clean clothes but hadn’t finished with her hair yet. That was why she had a towel around her shoulders so it wouldn’t soak her T-shirt. “Sorry. Thought you’ve heard me.” “It’s okay. I’ve got lost in your story.” “Almost a fairy tale.” “Definitely a fairy tale.” Rose sighed and sat on the bed. She used the towel on her shoulders to dry her hair the best she could without using a hairdryer. She would just do a quick ponytail. No need to do anything fancy for work. She needed to go back to Maxence. She needed to find this cure. “You can use the bathroom. I’m done with it.” She grabbed the brush on her bedside table and started brushing her hair slowly. She would dye it in any colour Maxence would like to if she managed to save him. If it was the contrary… She would certainly die. She wouldn’t have the strength to keep going. Amy didn’t move. Not yet. Her eyes were still on the pictures. She wished she had such a wall, such memories. It was never too late to start. Maybe when the virus would only be a bad memory. Maybe Rose would take her in that sweet band of friends. She turned around when she heard Rose gasp and drop her brush. Her face had gone pale and her eyes were wide open. She was staring at something beside Amy. The therapist looked at the wall but couldn’t see what was scaring her patient so much. “What do you see?” “Not in the mood for therapy,” retorted Rose. She suddenly was up. She walked to the spot right next to Amy and raised her hand much to the therapist’s astonishment because she couldn’t see what Rose was seeing: the pale figure of her husband standing there with an apologetic look. He avoided her touch. “I’m just an image,” he declared sadly. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks silently as her hand fell back by her side. She never saw a ghost before but she knew how to tell that what was before her was real. His voice was distant, almost like an echo of lost words, and he was so pale she could see the wall and the pictures through him. As if he was nothing but a veil before her eyes. “Rose?” hesitantly called out Amy. “Why?” The question came out of her trembling lips. She had read enough books and myths to know that ghosts only appeared to the persons they loved. They were coming to say goodbye. A one last goodbye. There were people down there. They could save him before she even left this room. What were they doing? “I’ve never been that strong. My brain went through a lot when I was a boy. It couldn’t handle the virus any longer.” “You can’t…” Rose couldn’t form full sentences and Amy was watching her patient talk with a wall. Her attitude was clear enough: she was seeing her husband. It was her exhaustion and her anxiety playing tricks to her, making her hallucinate. She put her hand on her shoulder but Rose shrugged it off. She had no time to waste. Once again, she tried to touch Maxence. His image flickered and almost disappeared. She swallowed a sob. “I’m sorry, I wish our song wasn’t ending this way.” “I…” “I love you, Rose. In this life and all the others if they ever exist. Be strong for me, my love. Find this cure. Become the hero I’ve always known you were.” He bent over and she closed her eyes, thinking she would feel the ghost of his lips pressed against hers but there was nothing and when she opened her eyes, he was gone. She could have collapsed and cried but she swallowed the sobs again and rushed out of the room. She didn’t want this to end like this. Amy would have followed her if she hadn’t been facing the very same spectre Rose had been talking to. She opened her mouth but considering that he was barely visible now, that the image was fading away, she wouldn’t have time to say anything before he disappeared. He had one last thing to say and it was for her. “Take care of her for me. She’s the best woman you’ll ever meet.” “I will,” Amy promised. The next words he pronounced struck her. They were like a stab in her heart but in the good way. If a stab could be good in any way. ‘William wants you to know that he misses you and he’s happy you’re making friends again.’ Was he…? Her son… Was he around like Maxence? Could he see her and watch over her? She wanted to ask but Maxence was already gone and, the weight of these new words on her heart, she followed Rose’s path.

x

Liv was in Allegro’s cage when the alarm went off. Both of them raised their heads. Liv rushed to the interactive wall and checked Maxence’s vital signs. They were almost inexistent. She glanced at Allegro and mouthed a sorry before she rushed out of this cage to go to the other one. She dragged Maxence away from the broken bowl and spilled food and turned him on his side. The fall hadn’t hurt him badly but it was clearly not the matter now. She didn’t have time to lose. His heart was giving up because his brain was suffering from a severe pressure. The reason was unknown at the moment but they would find it later. Right pupil blown, cerebral fluid flowing through his nose. How had they missed the signs? They should have seen it long before this happen. She ran to the airlock and grabbed the medical bag she left there earlier. It would be very needed. She hurried back into the cage and knelt down beside him. She pulled out disinfectant and cleaned the area she was gonna work on. She hated this. She wasn’t a neurologist but she knew the process. She took the medical portable drill and cleaned it off quickly. Then, she pulled on latex gloves above the gloves of her suit and took a deep breath. Three fingers above the ear, two on the side of the blown pupil. A quick vertical cut. Ignore the blood. Place the drill in the middle of the cut. Drill a first hole. Behind the hairline, a bit off the midline. Second hole. Drill around the hole. Remove as much blood as possible. It was the process but she didn’t know what to do anymore now that the holes were pierced, now that the brain pressure was relieved. Tegan would know. That was his specialty. And she was just a simple doctor. Her eyes were clouded with tears as she was taking off as much blood as possible with gauze. Maybe a derivation would have been the best way but she hadn’t had time to do things properly. She was trembling. The life of her friend was between her hands and she was lost. “You can’t leave, Max. Not now, not when we’re so close. You gotta hold on. For Rose, for me. What will happen to us if you die?” She sniffled. Her tears were flowing. She didn’t hold them back anymore. “Rose will survive. She’s strong, she can do it but me? I need you. I need my friend. I need the man who saved my life and got in troubles for helping me. I need the man who gave me a second chance, the man who healed me with his kind words and hugs and support. I need to hear you tell bad jokes and I’ll laugh along even if it’s not funny. I need to see your smile again to think that the world is a good place. I need your presence to stop thinking that I’m unworthy, to think that I have my spot in this world. I need you to keep me above the water because I can’t do this without you, Max. Do you know how many times I’ve thought about dying and you’ve just come around and get this out of my head? Do you know how many times I’ve told myself that I couldn’t disappoint you after all you’ve done for me? Now is not the time, Max. This is not your time. I won’t let you.” She wiped away her tears. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t see a thing because of them. She was still cleaning that blood. There was too much, way too much and she was afraid that she might have done wrong. What if she had killed him instead of saving him? Rose would kill her this time. She would be so angry and devastated that she would kill her for ruining her husband’s last chance. “Please,” she begged. “Please, don’t die on me now.” Maxence had come to her too but she wasn’t seeing him. He was standing beside her, beside his wrecked body and was sadly looking at the scene, at his friend. She couldn’t see him because he was too translucent, couldn’t hear him because he was too weak but he was there. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I believe you’re stronger than you think you are, Olivia.” He was the only one able to use her full name, a name she hated for reasons only Rose and him knew now. “I believe you will go on with your life without me. And it’s gonna be fantastic.” He gave a small sad smile at the scene. He wished she could have heard him. He wished she could see how strong she was. He had been their cornerstone for so long and now, they were gonna have to learn how to live without him. It would be hard at first, but with time, it would be okay. He would find a way to stay around them, when he would be less tired. He closed his eyes. Now was his time to go…

To be continued...

Ghost of you © | 2017 - 2019 | Tous droits réservés.

×××

In the next chapter:

She could hear his voice now but she didn’t react to it. It was her grief speaking. Just a memory in a spectral form. It was no way to remember this fantastic man. She preferred keeping the precious memories of him smiling and laughing, the priceless image of the man who took her out of the orphanage when she was sixteen, the picture of him bruised after he got involved in a fight with his biological father who was responsible for her rape, for her miscarriage and her now inability to carry children. She remembered the many nights spent on the phone with him because she couldn’t sleep without nightmares, the many times he came over so she wouldn’t be alone and do something she would regret later.

×××

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Chapter 21: Stay Strong

Links: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

The shapeshifter stopped off at Tambry’s house just long enough to drop her off, then hid Robbie’s van in the woods and continued through town on foot, wearing a disguise that would draw no attention: that of some random out-of-towner.

He was somewhat at a loss of where to start his search for answers, so he stopped by the GF Gossiper to pick up a copy of the local paper. NEW SPECIES OF FUNGUS DISCOVERED IN LOCAL REPORTER’S ARMPIT! The headline read. He turned to the next page. RAIN EXPECTED DURING BAKE SALE! LIKELY WATER! He flipped a few pages ahead to the sports section. DEATHBALL TRIBUTES CHOSEN! Remember kids, next year it could be you!

Geez. The shapeshifter wondered. What kind of sad, pathetic sack of human waste would actually consider this news?

But then, one headline caught his eye. INVESTIGATION CONTINUES INTO MYSTERIOUS KILLER ROBOT! If you are the evil mad scientist responsible, please turn yourself in!

Ah yes…

That whole thing… The Shifter read through the article. Apparently, nobody really seemed to know where this ‘killer robot’ came from, what happened, or why. The inept police force was getting less than nowhere with their “investigation”, and local coot/genius/former mad scientist Fiddleford McGucket was indisposed to answer questions, even though he was the one handling the machine’s autopsy, over at the former NorthWest manor.

With nothing more pressing to do, the Shifter decided he may as well pay McGucket a visit. After all, the old human was one of those who’d trapped him in that bunker all those years ago. A little payback had been a long time coming, and really, who would miss one eccentric old man? Besides, he might know something about the Shifter’s origins.

He asked a passerby on the street if she could point him toward the manor, and followed her directions down the road and up a hill.

Twenty minutes later, he found himself disguised as an ordinary deer, standing just outside the property. The front entrance was currently being blocked by a gigantic human in a gigantic pickup truck, whose combined bulk didn’t look to be moving it anytime soon. The deer glanced about, annoyed and impatient. Climbing over the wall would draw too much attention… Is there a way around the back? Just as he turned to search, movement by the gate caught his attention: a human girl had just exited the mansion.

But not just any girl.

THE girl.

Wendy. Wendy Corduroy. One of the few humans who actually did know something about the robotic life, and one of the most likely to know anything at all about alien life. Coincidentally, also one of the humans which had made an enemy of him.

He stared, and smelled, and listened.

The girl was looking tired and weak; overly pale, with rings under her eyes, tangled, unkept hair, and bringing a faint smell of unwashed sickness in her wake. Her walk was comparatively stooped and sluggish as she loped down the steps and opened the passenger-side door of the large man’s truck. The Shapeshifter wondered at his luck at finding her so helpless. In this state, she would be all but helpless before him, and all he had to do was wait until she was alone…

She closed the truck’s door behind her, and began to talk with the man inside. He couldn’t hear what they were saying…

“Wait feller!” A cackling southern accent entered the scene, and the Shifter saw Fiddleford scamper out of the building, a few tools in his hands.

Wendy rolled down the window to address him. “S’up?” The shifter enlarged and focused his ears to make out the distant conversation.

“Eh… Wull, uh…” McGucket scratched his scalp. “This little mission a yers… Who’s all goin’ with ya?”

“I don’t know…” Wendy shrugged. “You, me, Stan 1, Stan 2… And how ‘bout you, dad? You in?”

The gigantic man spoke up, his voice booming as if it had no lower volume. “YEAH.”

“Okay, yeah, I think that’s all…” Wendy nodded. “I… don’t really wanna drag Soos or Mabel into this after what happened…”

“Uh-huh…” McGucket glanced down the road. “Uh… Yeh ain’t goin’ now, is ya?”

Wendy shrugged again. “Well… Yeah, close to now. Like, an hour? What do you have to do to prepare?”

“Oh, okay, uh… Just need ta charge up me robo-legs… And get the plasma beam ready for a field test… And reviewify some of my notes…”

“ROBO LEGS?” The large man frowned.

“Plasma beam…?” Wendy asked.

“Eh, ye’ll see…” McGucket waved a hand dismissively. “Gimme two hours?”

“Okay… I think the Stans are at the Mystery Shack now, so meet us there then.”

“Right gab-smack tootin!” McGucket turned to head back indoors.

“WAIT.” Dan stopped him. “SO… SO WILL THIS SUPERWEAPON THING OF YERS DESTROY ALL THE ROBOTS? THAT HOW IT WORKS?”

Wendy opened her mouth to answer ‘yes’, but then closed it again. She looked at McGucket. The old man shuffled uncomfortably. “Wull, I… Most of ‘em, I’ll warrant… Tidal forces’ll rip the larger things apart, and a lot of the smaller things’ll be crushed in the mix… But there’s a swell chance a few critters might find a safe place, underground or in a shell…”

“Ugh.” Wendy glanced back at her dad. “Job for another day then.”

Dan considered this for a moment. “WANT ME TA GET A POSSE TOGETHER? MY CREW, SOME BIKERS, THE GLEEFUL GANG? THEY’VE GOT A SOFT SPOT FOR THINGS LIKE THIS.”

“A posse…? To do what?”

“TA HEAD INTA THE FOREST. Y’KNOW, WHILE THE REST OF YOU ARE DOWN IN THE SHIP, WE COULD BE CLEANIN’ UP STRAGGLERS”

She thought about it, then nodded. “Sure, uh… Just remember to stay… Stay… Hey, how far from the blast should they stay?”

“Eh… Lesse here…” McGucket twiddled his fingers like the beads of an abacus. “If we tune the ol’ banjo right, it’ll only completely overpower the Earth’s natural gravity within a mile radius. I’ll reckon much further than 2 miles, ya won’t feel nothin’ but a hiccup… So… Keep yerself 3 miles out ‘till it’s done firing, and you’ll be safe as corn puddin’.”

“Okay…” Wendy dug around in her pockets and produced a map. The shifter saw her draw a circle on it, and then hand it to her dad. “Just at least outside of here until we shut down the field. We’ll give you a call when it’s safe…”

“RIGHT… WHAT KINDA WEAPONS SHOULD WE BRING…?”

“Umm… Magnet guns would be great, but we only have, like, 3 of them…”

“I got the parts ta hootinany up 4 more’a them jiggers.” McGucket suggested. “Want me ta bring ‘em?”

“…Yeah.”

“AND IF THEY DON’T WORK?” Dan asked.

“Uh, if they don’t…” Wendy scratched her head. “If they don’t, go in with axes, shotguns, or… I don’t know, get creative. If it’s one of the lions… We killed a small pack of them earlier, so that may have been all of ‘em. I don’t know. But if you run into one, they’ve got a weak point in their armor. In the back of their neck beneath their antennae. Once you stun them, drive a steak or something far enough in there, and it’ll sever their spine… Also, if anybody has logging chaps, those work pretty well against saws… That’s… Oh geez, that’s how Dipper killed the last one… Uh…” She turned to her dad. “Am I forgetting anything?”

“THINK WE’RE GOOD. I’LL DROP YOU OFF AT THE SHACK THING, AND GO GATHER PEOPLE.”

“Okay… Oh yeah, it’s also kind of a secret that aliens exist.” Wendy reminded her father. “You kinda just found out, but this should stay between as few as possible.”

“I’LL TELL EM IT’S ALL MAD SCIENCE.”

“Great…”

The truck drove off down the road, and McGucket returned indoors.

The deer that had been watching the exchange tilted its head. ‘Mission.’ ‘Superweapon.’ ‘Ship.’ ‘Aliens.’ What mission? What superweapon? What ship? WHAT ALIENS? These tidbits all sounded very interesting; much more interesting than revenge. Perhaps for now, his part was but to wait and watch… After all, revenge was easy; he would always have a chance for something small like that. But to steal their knowledge and their secrets would be so much more important…

He morphed into a much faster animal, and was able to keep up with their truck with relative ease.

Fifteen minutes later, Dan left her at the Mystery Shack, and turned his truck back toward town.

Wendy glanced over her shoulder at the machine in her backpack: The computer system they could use to reactivate the UFO’s engines and destroy the Forest of Daggers. Today’s the day… Ugh, today’s the day… We’re closer than ever to finishing the mission.

But then she thought back to the robot lying dissected in McGucket’s lab, and to the answers its autopsy hadn’t answered… All the possibilities and trains of thought she’d chased to dead ends over the past few days, all the secrets and dark knowledge hidden in her mind. It seems she’d tried everything… We’re still further than ever from saving him.

She looked around at the trees, standing tall and indifferent around her. Somewhere deep in these woods, hidden in the dark, weird shadows beneath the trees, was there an answer? Was there a way to save him? This was Gravity Falls, after all; a solution to undo death wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they’d found out here. No… Definitely not the weirdest.

She would find something.

Or something would find her.

She felt like she was being watched.

But feeling like you’re being watched was nothing new around these parts, so she continued up the drive toward the Shack without giving it another thought.

She was almost there when the door flew open, and Stan stumbled out, across the porch, and off through the grass in the direction of the forest. He had a large electric jackhammer tucked under one arm, and a can of diesel under the other.

Wendy waved an arm and called for his attention. “Hey Stan! Need to talk about stuff; you got a minute? Where’s Stan 2?”

“Wendy…?” He turned around and saw her. “What…? Shouldn’t you still be in bed? Radiation poisoning and all that…?”

She frowned, utterly tired of people pointing this out. “Oh yeah, I probably should.” She went on the defensive. “Just like my dad should probably be at work, Stan 2 should be in a hospital from what I hear, and you should probably be in jail if this world were fair. But here we are, and there’s more important stuff than us, so do you have a minute or don’t you?”

Stan sighed, considered it for a second, then shrugged.

“So you mean business.” He remarked.

She nodded. “We’re gonna kill the robots today. Could use your and Stan 2’s help. You in?”

“Uh… Ford’s pretty sick…”

“Okay, well—”

“Hey, uh… Hold on.” He interrupted her and pressed the gas can into her arms. “Tell me on the way. I found something you’ll want to see.” And he led the way off into the trees.

Wendy’s curiosity won out over her impatience, (if barely) and she followed.

On the way, she told him the whole plan, and he listened with weary ears. From the woods not 10 meters behind them, the shapeshifter walked on silent feet, listening with ears that were very interested indeed.

Wendy finished telling the plan for what must have been the third time today, and Stan nodded slowly. “Probably for the best… Moving out now?”

“Soon as McGucket gets here with tools.”

“Hmm.”

Five minutes of silent walking later, Stan’s pace slowed to a stop near the center of a grove of birch trees. His eyes peered around the environment, searching for wherever he’d last seen their item of interest. Finally he found it. “Well, it’s still here… Uh… Good.” He sighed.

Wendy turned and saw it too. She recognized the shape instantly of course, but spent the first couple seconds wondering who would build such a thing, and why. But then the truth slowly dawned on her: that no man had made it. That somehow, it was the real deal. Before she even gave the command, her right hand had already drawn and readied her axe, and her eyes were sweeping the surrounding trees, looking for fires, smoke, monsters, eye-bats, or whatever madness this creature’s continued existence might spawn.

Seeing nothing but sunshine and grey/green trees, her eyes returned to the statue. “Is that really Bill…?” She asked.

“Yeah…” Stan cut her off, as if saying his name was somehow taboo. “It’s him.”

“How—”

“Remember when he left his body to enter my mind?”

“…Yeah…?” (She was a tapestry at the time, but she always left that part out when recounting the tale.)

“Yeah… Well… I think… I think this is that… This is what he left behind. Same size. Same pose… I don’t know what the whole story is, but… It’s him.” Stan hesitantly lifted a leg, and kicked the statue’s upraised arm.

No reaction.

“’Kay then…” Stan took out the jackhammer, and locked a large chipping bit into the end. “Help me with this.”

“Wait…” Wendy held up a hand. “Wait, umm…”

“’Wait’?!?” Stan spun on her. “Whaddaya mean ‘wait’?!? What, you wanna spare whatever’s left of him? give him a chance? Wanna shake a hand? Try and buy your little ‘boyfriend’ back?!? That it? HUH?”

“WHAT?!?” Wendy snapped. “NO! DIPPER WOULD RATHER HAVE DIED! I… I mean… I mean he would rather stay dead than… Than have us do that… I mean… What I meant was… Never mind. Never mind. Let’s do this.”

Wendy turned her axe around, gripped it with both hands, and used the flat part on the back like a hammer to strike the statues’ hat.

Stan hefted the jackhammer level with the statue’s eye, pressed it in, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of its metallic tapping seemed to fill the forest, echoing between and through the trees as if the entire forest could hear. The eye chipped, then chipped more, then cracked in two, then the bit was through the eye and deeper into the statue. Wendy’s axe finally smashed through the hat, and the item fell to the ground.

Thus did the dreaded thing slowly, slowly come apart.

Stan didn’t expect it to be hollow.

Wendy didn’t expect its insides to reek like a rotting animal.

No matter. Once they were through breaking apart the ‘shell’, Stan reached for the gas can, and poured diesel over the whole thing. While he did, Wendy used her axe to chop down a small tree, and cut off a few smaller limbs. She stacked the wood in a flammable way over the rubble, and Stan tossed a lighter.

The pile ignited instantly, and the wood kept it burning. In the heat, the last large chunks of stone cracked and chipped, until there didn’t remain much to see at all. The stink faded, and the smoke turned from black to grey, as if some small burden had been lifted from the natural world.

Wendy leaned back against a tree and crossed her arms. Stan sunk the tip of the jackhammer into the ground, and leaned against it like a walking stick. Both their eyes stayed fixed on the statue’s remains, while their hearts nursed hatred. The flames quietly flickered and hissed as the minutes stretched on, the only sound in the forest.

“How’d you find it?” Wendy finally asked.

“Just…” Stan shrugged. “Just… Goin’ for a walk… Found it.” His mind was far away, and didn’t bother to make his mouth lie well.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere…” Wendy frowned.

He opened his mouth, and closed it again.

Stan’s previous objection came back to Wendy’s mind: why would he think she wanted to shake its hand…? Where would that terrible idea have come from? “…Was it Mabel?” Wendy theorized, hoping she was wrong. “…Did she find it? …Did she shake his hand?”

Stan rubbed his hands through his eyes, and sighed. “If… Ugh, oh geez… Well, if she’d been about to… I woulda promised not to tell.”

So it really IS that bad. Wendy thought. This really IS our darkest hour. “Oh… Okay…” She said. “Right. I didn’t hear nothin’ from you…”

“No ya didn’t.”

They watched the fire for a minute more.

Suddenly Wendy let out a little yell, stepped up, and threw her axe at a nearby tree. The blade sank into the bark almost halfway. “Everything’s just falling apart!” She yelled at nobody in particular. “Everything! We… We all want him back so bad, but we don’t know how, and now that he’s gone… It’s like we’re not good people anymore! We’re not heroes! Does that make any sense? Like… Like remember Weirdmageddon? We all survived, but none of us did anything… It was only when Dipper came along… He found me, sitting on my butt, and he brought me along… And then we found Mabel, sleeping in a dream, and brought her along… And then we found you, hiding in the shack, and brought you along… And then we found Stan 2, helpless and trapped, and we brought him along… Dipper was the one that saved us all, because he was the only one who knew how to stand up and be a hero… Without him… It… It all started and ended with him…”

Stan scratched his neck.

“And now… Now it’s looking bleaker and bleaker... No way to beat death… Now all we’re doing is trying to avenge him… Now we’re getting desperate… It’s all. Falling. Apart…”

Wendy returned her axe to her belt and fell silent. She had more words to say, but didn’t want to let them out.

Stan thought about it all for a while.

“Who was he to you?” Stan finally asked.

Wendy glanced at him, then back to the flames. She shrugged. “A friend.” Then answered, then amended it. “My best friend.”

“More than a friend?” Stan asked.

She nodded. “More than a friend.” She admitted.

He thought about this too. A tiny, bittersweet smile tickled the corner of his mouth, as he realized he was hearing the things that Dipper would once have longed to hear. “…A lover?” He asked.

“No… Yeah…” Wendy shrugged. “I mean yeah… No.” She glanced at Stan, who’d had many shallow, fleeting lovers over the years. “No…” She said. No, not the way it means to you. “What’s more than a lover?”

“…A brother?”

“What’s more than a brother?”

“Nothing’s more than a brother.”

“…Then he was my brother.”

Stan pursed his lips, and decided to change the subject. “…You know…” He said. “When I lost my brother… When I let him fall through the portal, when it seemed like he was gone forever… That was somethin’ else. That was when I remembered how much I loved him. How much I needed him. How much I missed him… And also when I realized how much I could do on my own, even without him; the sacrifices I was able to make, the things I was able to learn, and do, and say… I learned the lengths I could go to save him. There were 30 years in there… 30 years of hopelessness. 30 years staring at a broken machine, all alone, lying and stealing and putting on smiles and pouring over confusing old books. 30 years when all evidence and logical sense in the world told me he was gone forever, except I kept on trying… To believe like I did? To keep on hoping? To try and be his hero? That was a work of faith on its own…”

Wendy nodded, feeling these same things herself. “Why… Why did you keep that faith?”

“Well… I figured he couldn’t be gone forever. And I knew… I knew I still had a debt to pay to him. I knew I’d wounded him, that I’d let him down… I knew that that was my… Redemption…”

Wendy considered this for a minute in silence. Her eyes drifted to the ground, and it held their attention while she thought.

“Why… Why do I keep my faith…?” She asked out loud, even though nobody but her knew the answer.

Stan looked at her with a frown. He knew as well as anyone that her faith was probably empty; there was no point in hoping. Death was final. But she couldn’t hear that; it would be too harsh. So instead he repeated her question back at her. “Why?”

“Why…” She echoed again. “Well…It’s… It’s funny… Well… No… No, it’s not funny… But… But… Ooookay.” She finally decided that she had to tell somebody. “There was one secret I kept from Dipper.” She blurted. “We promised not to keep secrets from each other… But I told him there was one I had to keep, and he was okay with that, so I kept it.”

“Oh really.” Stan folded his arms.

“I… I guess there’s no point keeping it a secret anymore, because now it isn’t even true… Is it? I don’t know… But… But can I tell you? Just don’t tell anyone; especially not him, if we ever do bring him back… I just need to tell somebody to make sure I’m not going CRAZY… Could you please keep this a secret?”

Stan nodded. “Sure.”

Wendy hesitated one more time to gather her wits, then said:

“Time travel is a thing.”

Stan wasn’t necessarily surprised. “Ford mentioned that at one point.” He admitted. “He ran into it here and there in his… Dimension-hoppin' days. Way I hear it, there's a few 'advanced civilizations' out there who've dabbled…”

“Yeah, well, news flash: mankind is one of them.” Wendy told him. “And more than dabbled; a couple hundred thousand years in the future, it'll be borderline commonplace. Policed and regulated fiercely though, which I guess is why we don't see more of them around these times…”

“Great.” Stan shrugged. “So time travel is a thing, but not anywhere close to yet. What does that have to do with—”

“I MET MYSELF.” Wendy told him.

Stan frowned.

“It was last Fall.” She explained. “After Dipper, Mabel, you and Stan 2 left… I was sitting in my room not doing my homework… And she showed up. She was maybe 25… 30? I don’t know… But she was a warrior of some kind apparently, had a suit of armor, some weapons, a funny cyborg eye doohickey, a time machine… But… But she was ME, there was no mistaking it… She was chill, we were both like ‘hey, how’s it going?’ or whatever; shared a soda… And then she gave me some advice on how to live my life; to apply myself in school, to love my family, defend the town, stop being lazy, never lose my integrity, never roll over for all the boyfriends I’d one day have… Basically she remembered the thoughts and the mistakes that I would one day make… And told me the things she remembered I’d need… And she’s the reason I’m so deep into these adventures and mysteries and crap nowadays, she’s the reason I’ve been doing better in school. Because that’s the path to the life I know will one day make me happy and fulfilled… The… The day she showed up was one of the biggest days of my life…”

“Umm…” Stan scratched his head. “Not gonna lie, that’s pretty weird…”

“But you believe me? It’s not impossible?”

“Well… No, I mean… There’s been weirder things around. But… But this super-secret-time-warrior-future chick; did she tell you that Dipper was gonna die? Or tell ya how to save him…? Or—”

“NO.” Wendy ran her hands through her hair. “No, that’s the weird part. SHE DIDN’T. In fact, you know what she did say? You know why I hold on to faith right now? You know why I never told anybody about this ever? You know why this was the only secret I had to keep from Dipper? You know why I’ve been confused and divided and conflicted and determined for 7 months now?”

“…Why?”

“Because.” She said. “Dipper’s not really ‘like a brother’ to me. And he’s not just my best friend either… Someday… Someday Dipper was gonna be my husband…”

About 50 feet back in the trees, something that looked just like an ordinary mountain lion had been crouching for the past half-hour, listening. Now its paws grew fingers, reached through a fold in its skin, and removed Robbie’s phone. He shook the slime off it as quietly as he could, and opened a web browser. He searched ‘time travel’, then ‘husband’, and read briefly through the articles that popped up.

Putting the two sets of knowledge together painted a very strange picture, and he considered the implications with confusion and interest.

Then he realized the humans were talking again.

“Shut up.” Wendy was saying.

“I didn’t say anything.” Stan put his hands up.

“Yeah, but you’re thinking it. You’re smiling.”

“I--! Hmm… Okay…” The old man scratched the grizzle on his chin to hide the smile he knew shouldn’t be there. “What do I say here?”

“What do you say? What do I say? This isn’t funny, it’s weird! I’m not crazy, am I? Am I crazy? Why would I make this up? And why wouldn’t it be true anymore? What happened?”

“I… Okay…”  The old man gave it all as much thought as he could muster. “Okay… No, you’re not crazy. I believe you… And no, I don’t know anything else. I really don’t know how time travel works.” He admitted. “I don’t know if we changed the future somehow, or if this is all a dream, or if that was all a dream, or if that even was you from the future, but…” He shrugged. “Is there a way to bring him back? For real and good? That’s the real question, isn’t it? A way that doesn’t involve flirting with ancient evil…? Something that doesn’t just… Just make the pain longer and worse…? Heck if I know. But if he really means as much to you as you said… If you really believe you can do this thing, and really will do anything for him… Then… Then if there’s a way, I’ve a hunch you’re gonna find it. And… God help whatever stands in your way.”

She made a noise with her nose, about halfway between a laugh and a scoff.

“Seems to me.” Stan put a hand on her shoulder. “This is the part of the story where the world finds out who Wendy really is… And I think we’re all looking forward to it.”

She took a deep breath, and tried to smile. “Thanks…”

He gave her a pat, and turned away. “’Kay, hey, let’s head on back then. McGucket will be here before too long, right? We’ve still got some bots to flatten today, and we can’t keep your dad and his posse waiting.”

“Yeah, yeah… Uh… I’ll be with you in a minute…” She nodded.

Stan turned and started back toward the Shack, leaving Wendy staring at the last dying embers of Bill’s pyre. Once he was out of sight, she walked over to a nearby tree, pulled out a knife, and began carving shapes into the trunk. What were those, numbers? She seemed to have given the task all her attention.

Here we are, little girl. The shapeshifter thought. Alone in the middle of the forest. You have your back turned, and your brain preoccupied… I could kill you right now, it would be so easy.

Forget killing, I could HURT you. Disturb you. Torture you. Take anything I wanted from your body and brain, however I wanted.

I could.

I should.

But he didn’t.

Instead he watched silently for a few seconds as she finished carving whatever those shapes were. Then she flipped her knife closed, and stood back, allowing the shifter to get a good look at them. Was that a time and date? Suddenly Wendy turned her face upwards. “IF I EVER BECOME A TIME-TRAVELER!” She announced to the skies, and pointed at the numbers. “I PROMISE I’LL COME BACK FROM THE FUTURE TO RIGHT NOW, 11:03 AM, JUNE 12, 2013.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, startled.

Then Wendy looked left. The shifter looked left too. There was nobody there.

Then they both looked right. There was nobody there.

Behind, in front, up, down…

They didn’t see anyone or anything. They waited a minute or so…

But nobody came.

A single silent tear glinted in the light as it rolled down Wendy’s cheek.

Well. The shifter thought. I suppose that answers that question. Yes, something changed, indeed. Your plans, your dreams, your precious little friend… Everything concrete in your life really IS dead for good, isn’t it? And now… It seems without your partner, without your hero… You have nobody left to lean on. You’re so weak, I could kill you now…

But he didn’t.

Wendy turned and started back into the trees toward the Shack. The shifter decided he had other business too, and started back toward Robbie’s van.

Once they were both out of sight, the dark figure crouching high in the branches disappeared in a flash of blue light.

Ow, that hurt.

Dipper didn’t wake up, because he was already awake.

He didn’t open his eyes, because they were already open.

He didn’t stand up, because he was already standing.

It’s strange; he hadn’t feel any sort of lapse or discontinuity at all, yet he’d been lying down, hadn’t he? Something had been wrong with his body, and the pain had been incredible, and he’d been lying down. But now, an unmeasurably long instant later, he was just standing…

Hey I don’t hurt anymore. He realized.

But… Wait… Wait, what happened? Why aren’t I itchy? And why can’t I remember?

He tried to move, but he didn’t move… He tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t… He tried to speak but… Why can’t I feel my tongue?

It’s true, his own body seemed to be missing entirely. And whatever was left was still here, staring ahead, all alone… Wait… He couldn’t seem to remember much, but shouldn’t someone be here with him…? Somebody… WENDY! Where’s Wendy? Wendy was here with me, just a second ago! I need Wendy. I like Wendy. Wendy is nice. Wendy is pretty. Wendy. I need Wendy. Where’s Wendy?

He looked around.

He appeared to be in some kind of forest, deep beneath the overhanging shadows of the Pines. In fact, it wasn’t dissimilar to the woods of Gravity Falls; that familiar, wild environment wherein he felt most at home in this world. He didn’t see any buildings around, though now that he looked, there did seem to be some kind of hatches and doors built and hidden into the landscape; in hollows in the trees, in the gaps between roots, beneath bushes on the forest floor. Quite a lot of hatches… That was his first hint.

But the world was also grey, perfectly grey. The shadows were deep, the light was uncertain, even flickering, and everything bore the unmistakable marks of decay and neglect. But it was all grey; not even a hint of color… That was his second hint.

Oh… He put it together. This is the mindscape. When we were in Stan’s mind, it took the form of his home, with memories locked behind creaky wooden doors. This takes the form of my home… Or at least, the place I love the most… With memories sealed beneath shadowy hatches, deep in the forest… Somehow, I must be inside my own mind…

What happened? Why am I here? Is Bill around? Does he have something to do with this? I thought he was dead. Who put me here? And why can’t I remember what happened? Is there anyone else here?? Wendy!

In answer to his questions, loud, omnipresent words suddenly echoed through the trees. The words had no voice, no form or language. As if the words had not been spoken at all, but rather their meaning had been carved directly into his brain.

-INPUT: This is a test. Can you receive and respond to stimulus?

Dipper found he couldn’t speak. Huh? He thought. What does that mean? Who is that? What ‘stimulus’?

-INPUT: Think about the color purple.

Huh? Why would I think of the color purple? He wondered. Many pretty flowers are purple. Purple lightsabers are cool. Pacifica wears a purple dress. Purple lightsabers are REALLY cool. But Wendy wears green. Her hair is not green. Also trees are green. There are no green flowers. Why aren’t there any green flowers? I guess it makes sense that there are no green flowers; the bright colors are for bees to locate them. How would they locate a flower that blends in, huh? All the green flowers would die out…

-INPUT: You appear to be thinking almost normally. Are you capable of memory and learning?

What’s this loon talking about?

-INPUT: Try to remember this phrase: the ball is yellow.

Which ball are we talking about? Everything here is grey, and I don’t see a ball.

-INPUT: To demonstrate that you can learn, repeat the phrase back to me.

I can’t really talk, so how am I supposed to repeat? Wait, was the ball red or yellow? It seems like red is the most likely primary color for a ball to be. Unless they’re tennis balls, or the Pixar thing with the lamps.

-INPUT: Good enough, I suppose.

Wait a minute, somebody’s reading my mind! The words are responding to my thoughts!

-INPUT: That is astute. Now, can you remember your name and other basic information?

My name…? Uh… My name is Pine Tree something… Dipper! Yeah, Dipper… Dipper Pine Tree. Right? Man, that’s a stupid name. Did my parents just hate me or something? A dipper is an old-timey ladle for serving soup. They call me dipstick when they want to be mean. Sometimes Wendy calls me dipstick too, but that’s kind of more like friendly mocking. Not mean really.

-INPUT: Can you recall your real name, your current city and state of residence, and your sister’s hair color?

Her hair was reddish-pink… But it changed from week to week. She was always knitting new hair. And I’m in California of course. Gravity Falls, California.

-INPUT: What is your REAL name?

Dipper…

-INPUT: The decay is extremely severe…

Decay? Dipper glanced around his mindscape, suddenly worried at the implication. And he saw craters in the ground, gaping beneath splintered, fallen trees. Hatches and doors shattered off their hinges, or buried in rockslide. Words and labels and maps blurred or burned or defaced. And he realized he was looking at a place of utter ruin. This is my brain… Good grief, has it always been like this? What memories are lying there smashed? What pathways are now unwalkable…?

I used to be the smart one…

If I’m not the smart one, who am I…?

-INPUT: Do you feel ready to understand complex ideas?

Complex ideas? Well… I don’t know, look at this place… Does this mean I need to go back to kindergarten? Am I retarded now? Wait, if this thing is reading my thoughts, did it hear that? And that? It did! It’s hearing everything I think! This is creepy! I can’t think about embarrassing things like Wendy! Wendy is nice. Wendy is pretty. Where’s Wendy? Is Wendy the one reading my mind? Oh no! Is Mabel the one reading my mind? If that’s Mabel, then no matter what I do, I cannot think about dead kittens.

-INPUT: This is your Great Uncle Ford, and you deserve an explanation.

-INPUT: You died, Dipper. You died in battle defending Wendy Corduroy. I recovered your body before it underwent cell death, and used the brain scanner in my study to make a backup copy of your consciousness. I didn’t tell anybody besides Stan for fear of raising false hope, and neither of us were optimistic. And… Honestly, my plans didn’t go further than that; than maintaining a copy. I’m not sure where to go from here. And seeing as how the copy is only partial, and how rapidly it decays, I doubt I can go very far.

-INPUT: You did not perceive any passage of time between your death and now because I did not have a computer powerful enough to accommodate a living mind.

-INPUT: However, I found a temporary solution in the form of your sister. She is currently in a coma in the lab, and her brain is being used to host both of your minds. She is thinking for both of you. However, she is only thinking a fraction as fast under the load; already half an hour has elapsed since I began this interface.

-INPUT: Your sister has been extremely troubled since your death, and Stanley brought her to me hoping I could heal her or cheer her up. That is the only reason you’ve been activated at this point. After I uninstall you from her mind and deactivate her coma, you will not remember any of this, although she will. She needs you. And this will double as a viable field test for further tentative experiments with your copy.

-INPUT: Do you comprehend all this information?

It took a little while, and it put some stress on the borrowed corners of Mabel’s mind, but Dipper did slowly ‘comprehend’ the situation. Evidently, Ford saw when he’d finished his understanding.

-INPUT: Good. Now, there’s somebody who wants to see you. I’ll leave you two alone.

In the corner of his eye, he saw something that wasn’t grey. Something colorful, picking its way towards him through the rubble. Something with a reddish-pink sweater, and brown hair. “D… Dipper?”

…Mabel?

“And you brought this WHY?”

“Wull…” McGucket fished his own mind for an adequate explanation. “We gave all them magnet guns ta Dan’s posse, so I gist thought we might need somethin’ if we ran into some ‘drones’ or somesuch down there… An I just built this, so I figured we could give it a go!”

“Well, yeah!” Stan shrugged. “But how far are we planning on carrying this? It’s like the size of my…!”

“Is that the ‘plasma beam’ you mentioned?” Wendy came walking up.

“Ye reckon straight!” McGucket’s robo-pants whirred and clattered as he did a little jig, the massive sci-fi weapon cradled in his arms. “It uses these here magnetic containment thingums ta fire a six-million-degree trickle of deuterium-helium hogwash with an effective range of 50 meters, half-meter penetration capability into all types of material and armor, as well as tank capacity for 200 some-odd shots, and it even hambones yeh a tune while it charges!” He pressed a button and the weapon began to emit a country song from an onboard record player.

“…Why.” Wendy blinked. “You have a death ray. Why did you build a death ray.”

“Wull… I started fiddlin’ with it back when we first met them robit’s, as a weapon ta punch through ‘em instantly if push ever came ta shove… I…” The joy left his voice. “I guess I invented it too late.”

“Hmm.” Wendy grunted, trying not to sound too mean, but maybe sounding mean anyway by accident. “It’s okay. It’ll still be useful for the… Alien drone things though, right?”

“Aww, it’ll punch right through ‘em, surefire. The thermal expansion strain from even a near miss oughta be enough to crack their outer shells…”

“It’s still way too big.” Stan repeated. “You sure you can haul that stupid thing all the way down the ladder?”

“Ehhhhhhhh…”

“You do you then.” Stan grunted. “But I’ll be hauling some good ol’ fashioned ray guns.” He patted his bulging pockets. “You want one, Wendy?”

She took two. “And Ford isn’t coming?” She clarified.

“Can’t. He’s… He’s got work ta do. Plus he’s lookin’ after my other great neice…”

She shot him a glare that promised to carve out his kidney stones with a belt sander.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, an edgy, gothic van came rolling up the driveway behind them. As Wendy tucked Ford’s blasters into her belt, she glanced over her shoulder. “Ugh.” She sighed when she recognized the vehicle. “I’ll deal with this, guys…”

She met Robbie face-to-face before he’d even made it around from the driver-side. His slouching lope came to an abrupt stop when she demanded. “What are you doing here, dude?”

“Well, I just, like…” He looked almost as confused as he did sour. “I wanted to help…?”

“We’re fine, dude. Plus it’s kind of top-secret what we’re doing, so…”

“Well, I’m, like, prepared!” His slouch straightened just slightly, as he gestured to a weapon across his back. “I’ve got a sawed-off shotgun, some gnarly knives, a van, a skateboard…?”

“We’re fine.” She repeated. “We don’t really need… We’re fine… And hey, how did you even know we’re doing anything at all? This is kind of secret…”

“Well, I wanted to go with your dad’s gang out to the forest, but your dad doesn’t really like me, so I didn’t ask… And I didn’t see you with them so I thought I’d come here to… You know. What are you doing? I can totally keep a secret, I promise…! Like, I kept Tambry’s secret!”

“What’s Tambry’s secret?”

“Ha ha. Nice try.”

Wendy glared at him for a moment. “Why?” She asked.

That took him off-guard. “Well… Whaddaya mean?”

“Why are you so dead-set on coming with someone? To do something? What does it matter to you?”

“Well… Well, everyone wants to help… And… Especially after what happened, I just felt like I should—”

“Ooh-HOO, after what happened, huh? Yeah?” She challenged him. “You wanna tell me you’re sorry he died?” She stuck a finger in his face. “You wanna tell me he was a good man, that he died a hero, and that it’s really such a shame, and all that? It would be a nice gesture from anybody else, but from you, it’s dishonest! I’m dealing with so much crap right now… All of us, all of this, everything we’re doing, it’s all for him! So a little sympathy from his personal nemesis, a little kind word from you, that’s the last thing I need… Just… Just leave…”

Robbie hesitated for a moment, and his eyes fell, for he knew all this was true. “…But…” He set his jaw, seemed to draw some kind of determination, and tried again. “What if I said I was sorry?” He growled, as if angry at nobody in particular. “Not just ‘sorry’ as in ‘man, that sucks, sorry’, but ‘sorry’ as in ‘I… I seriously boned it… And I know it. Through the year I’ve known him, and the years I’ve known you, all I’ve done is just mess up and I haven’t given you or him the respect you deserve, and… And… I could have been there for you guys. At any point I could have. But I didn’t… So… So I’d do, like, do anything to make it up… I’m just… This is my chance to prove I’m not a loser. Like… Redemption, right? …I’m just sorry.”

Wendy understood that much.

She sighed and glanced at the other 2 men.

McGucket shrugged.

“My vote says scram…” Stan glowered. “But you know him best.”

Wendy turned back to Robbie. Ugh… Robbie… She sighed to herself. Why the heck did you have to get wrapped up in this? You’re the one person I DON’T want getting underfoot… But…

But he’s just trying to help. He said he’s sorry for what he’s done, and… He wants to clear his name. In my sight, and in Dipper’s posthumously. He’s seeking honor. Seeking redemption. Who am I to keep him from that? We all want redemption. We’ve all done countless wrong things that we long to repay for.

Perhaps he and I are in this for the same reasons. We want to prove ourselves. We want to cry out to the world that we’re not screw-ups… We want to become like Dipper: Somebody worthy of love.

But I’ve got a weird feeling in my gut that tells me he doesn’t really mean it. When I look deep into his eyes, something seems off, just slightly… There’s something here I should be paranoid about, but I have no clue what it is…

Something’s not being said here.

For a while after, Wendy wondered if she would regret saying “Sure. Fine.”

[moonbelt]

»if by chance

↳ soulmate au | college au

⇢ pairing: mark tuan | reader

⇢ genre:  fluff + soft angst 

⇢ word count: 8.825

author’s note: uh, so it turns out i’m a sucker for soulmate aus. thanks anon for requesting! hope this is as fluffy as you wanted!!

It was a stupid idea, you admit, to have a random name permanently inked on your wrist just because you wanted to dodge the bullets that came with not having a soulmate in modern society. It also didn’t help that the name you’d chosen had little to no importance to you and every time you thought of it, it seemed to be mocking you.  

Like right now, as you hastily type the concluding lines of your final lab report and flip through your notebook to find a sentence you planned to quote, it sat there in full black swirling letters.  

Mark, you didn’t even know a Mark. The only Mark you’d ever known was back in fifth grade, and you were sure he wasn’t your soulmate because for whatever it’s worth, the both of you had hated each other. Before he moved across states the day of your birthday, never to be seen again. Even though you were skeptical to this whole soulmate for life thing, you were absolutely sure that the system wouldn’t pair the two of you together.  

You'd picked the name on a whim — it was the first thing to filter through your mind. The tattoo artist had asked you, repeatedly, if you were sure you wanted it but it felt wrong to choose anything else. So you walked out of there with your first ever tattoo.

Raising your head to examine the work you’ve typed up you’re met with a blank screen with a small loading signal as the computer begins the process of shutting down. Frantically, you bang your fists on the keyboard praying to a higher power that what you think is happening is not.

“No, no, no!” You watch as the device completely shuts down, dragging your unsaved hard work along with it. “You can't do this to me!”  

But indeed it does, and for the second time in the span of ten minutes, your eyes fixate on the writing on your wrist. Again, Mark seems to be sneering at you. Your face falls into your palms, just the thought of redoing your report is enough to bring you to the edge of tears. You’d already forgotten to do the last online quiz, so this was supposed to bring your grade up to your standards, but it looks like the Universe was conspiring against you.  

You don’t realize when the first round of waterworks start to fall from your eyes until they land on your hands. God, you’d just dedicated two and a half hours of your life to this lab and to be honest, you’re still in shock that the computer crashed. So here you are, seated at one of the computers sparsely stationed around your dorms study lounge, crying yourself out.  

It is times like this that you wish you had a soulmate that you were inexplicably attuned to. The stories your friends had relayed down to you about theirs always seemed to borderline with them balancing each other out. How if one of them was sad, the other could always find ways to lug them out of their slump. You harrumph at that. What an absolute lie. There was no way someone like that existed, especially for you. When everyone else was busy getting stamped with names on their hands, you got imprinted with static silence.  

High school had to have been the worst four years you could’ve endured. Being embarrassed that you were the only person you knew to not have any sort of mark on your body that tied you to someone else, you remember actively wearing sweaters that covered your entire arms. And it had worked, at first, but then mistakes happen. Suddenly, you were serving as the token soulmate-less in your classmates jokes.  

The recalling of these events brings you to the second round of waterworks. Ah, you hate this. On a good day, you aren't a crier, but you believe it to be justified at this point. Just thinking about the number of words you have to re-write is enough to send you into a fit of madness. At least the study lounge is empty, and no one can see as you break down.  

"I'm sorry but, are you okay?"

Your head whips up from your hands, and through your blurry vision, you observe the person standing in front of you. It's a guy, you think. Your mind is in such a state of disarray that nothing particularly makes sense.  

"Oh my god..." You choke out completely mortified by the turn of events. Great, it was bad enough that you were crying in the study lounge, but it just had to be the icing on the cake that someone would walk-in on you while doing it.  

You're sure he feels awkward by the situation as well, and your thoughts are reaffirmed by the little glances he keeps taking around the room. "Are you okay?" He clears his throat, repeating his question.

"I'm fine. Great actually," you say forcing a smile into your voice. Lifting your hands to your face, you furiously wipe the strains of the tears off, but they keep coming against your will. "I'm not usually like this," you offer a justification. 

He chuckles nervously, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "You don't look too good though. Did the computer crash?"

"How did you know?" Your eyes widen in surprise, and you practically jump in your seat.  

"Two days ago, I was the same situation," he says softly. "Did you save what you were working on?"

You shake your head, sniffling from the aftermath. "No. I was so stupid; trusting technology."

"Eh, don't beat down on yourself. It happens to the best of us." The boy offers you half a smile as he reaches behind him to produce a canned coffee and a packaged granola bar. "I don't know if this would help but here you go." He passes the snacks to you.  

Gratefully you accept them but don't tell him that you're not a fan of caffeine, but you appreciate his efforts. You smile at him, a lesser strained one than earlier. "Thank you. You really didn't have to get this for me though."

He shrugs, his smile widening a bit. "It's no problem. I couldn't just leave you to cry all by yourself  — I was raised better than that."

There’s a pause as you take in his appearance, now without blurry tears clogging your vision, and you’re thrown aback by the faint recognition like maybe you've seen him before ages ago. A red bandana tied around his forehead, a pen planted behind his left ear. You have the insane urge to stretch out and touch him. Check out for yourself if his hair really is as soft as it looks. Shaking your head, you scatter the thoughts away and blame your feelings on the lack of sleep.  

"Thanks," you place the drink to the side of your notebook. "I would have preferred if you didn’t see me cry at all.”  

He waves your gratitude away as he slinks into the computer station next to yours, a grin still gracing his face. "I can pretend I didn't if that's what you want."  

"Do what you like. I doubt I have a say in your actions." You say seriously, pushing the power button on the Computer.

"True," he replies as he cocks his head to the side. "You remind me of someone I used to know."

"Isn't that a song?"

"Yes..." he laughs through his sentence, and you find yourself joining in. "But I swear you do remind me of someone. Don't remember who exactly, but someone."

You flex your shoulders, releasing pent-up tension. Maybe the cry fest you just had was a needed evil. "If you don't remember them, then they're probably not important." The computer screen lights up to the login page, and you quickly type in your credentials.  

There's a slight pause as he logs in to his computer before turning his attention back to you. "Not necessarily. But I guess I see your point."

Ripping the granola bar open, you take a bite of it and relish in it. It had been hours since you'd eaten anything, focusing all your energy on completing semesters work in a few hours. And now you had to rewrite a whole essay in an hour, you didn't have the time to sit around thinking about how much time you'd already wasted. So you crack your knuckles and pull open a new file to begin working on.  

He must sense that you're in no mood for small talk because instead of continuing the conversation, he allows it fall into comfortable silence. Choosing to rather drag his phone from his pocket and resume playing a racing game. Sticking by his promise to keep you company for the next hour. You're not sure why he feels the need to do it, but at the same time, you can't find it in you to complain.  

The both of you spend your time together majorly in silence that’s decorated with your occasional screams of agony every fifteen minutes when you check the time. He laughs every time but still manages to get you to calm down, you don’t know why but his unblemished honesty and somewhat witty humor does the trick.  

As it turns out, he's an English major — something you don’t expect because for some reason he doesn’t look like one. To that, he asks "what is an English major supposed to look like?" And even though you're tempted to tell him you'd always pictured your high school English teacher as the standard, you instead bite your lip before steadily going back to your work.  

When you finally finish the paper, three minutes before it's due and still bedridden with grammatical errors you're too tired to realize exist, you jump up from your seat with hands raised to the heavens.  

"Yes!"  

The boy jumps alongside you, you find yourself grasping his arm and jumping ecstatically unable to hold in your happiness. Your semester isn't ruined, your hard work wasn't for nothing, and most importantly you'd completed the damned lab.  

"It's done, it's actually done." You say, still in a state of shock. "I'm not gonna fail."

"I doubt you'd ever fail but, it is amazing that you finished within the hour." The smile on his face, if possible, widens. "Somehow I feel proud of you. I could never do that."

"Given normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to either. I guess you're like my lucky charm."

He scoffs at that, a look of disdain crossing his features. "Nah, that title is reserved for your soulmate. Is it not?"

Your train of thought falters at his words, and you're tempted to scoff back at him. Maybe the title would be reserved if you had one. The system had fucked up, and you knew better than to hold out hope for someone that wasn't going to appear. Unconsciously, your fingers wrap around your wrist in an attempt to hide Mark. From the boy or from yourself, you don’t know.  

"Not really," you mumble. "I mean who does that? Reserve stuff for people you don't even know?"

"You'd be shocked," he offers you a small smile. "Anyways, it was nice meeting you. Hopefully, if we meet again, it wouldn’t be with you crying."

"Don’t you ever get tired of being honest?" You refrain from scoffing at his bluntness by grabbing your backpack from the floor and throwing it against your back.  

Shrugging, he stuffs his hands deep into his pockets. "Not really. If you're honest about things, people know what to expect from you."

"Bet your soulmate loves that." You say with laughter in your voice. Bending down a bit, you log out of the computer and click the restart icon.  

"Mm, maybe..." His voice trails off. "Anyway, I'll see you around," he says, turning on his heel and starting the walk to his room.  

You have no idea why you reach out and latch onto his arm with a sort of vigor you don’t recognize. But once you’ve done it, you can't remember why you decided to hold him back. You stutter a little before the words fall out, beginning and ending with one another.

"Thank you for staying with me. I really do appreciate it."  

"Don’t sweat it," he flashes you a lopsided grin. "Like I said; I was raised with basic manners."  

Prying your fingers from his forearm, you let out a nervous laugh. He cocks an eyebrow at you, maybe he can tell that you still have something you want to say? Whatever it is — that look in eyes — pushes the question out.  

"If you don’t mind me asking. What's your name?"  

He's not expecting such a mundane question, and if you're honest with yourself, you don’t quite understand why you have the overwhelming urge to know what it is. The universe isn't your best friend, it never has, so you can't fathom why all of sudden it feels like the strings of your safely created world are in his hands.

Just as he opens his mouth to answer you, his cell phone lights the room with a ping! And on cue, he pulls it from his back pocket to examine the text message. Quickly he types his reply, and you move to stand at the side wondering what exactly, in the name of all hell, are you doing? This isn't you. Well, to be frank, nothing that has happened so far is you. You don’t cry in the study lounge, you don’t allow someone you don’t know keep you company, and most importantly, you don’t go around asking people for their names because they bestowed one act of kindness on you.  

When he finishes the conversation on his phone, he angles his body your way. An amused smile on his face.  

"Mark."

Now you’ve had your fair share of heart-stopping moments. Once in fourth grade when you fell down a flight of stairs and broke your jaw. Another was in seventh grade when you accidentally mailed your love letter to everyone in your class instead of the one person that mattered. But none of that could compare to right now. Time becomes an inexplicable concept because regardless of how much rationality you have, it stops.  

He doesn’t give you the chance to say anything, not that you have the words anyway before he's waving at you and rushing out and down the hall. Leaving you alone with your thoughts, Mark, and an empty study lounge. Your mind must be in a delusional state because for some reason Mark seems to heat up. You don’t know why you don’t know how. But for everything you do know, you don’t want this feeling to stop.

"I know you said you don’t like parties, but I'm begging here," Jackson says as he pulls you into a hug from behind.  

"If you know what I said why are you making me repeat myself?" You roll your eyes, reaching above your head to the cupboard and pulling out a pack of microwaveable popcorn. "I hate parties Jackson, you know this."  

He pouts, resting his head on your shoulder and tilting it up at you. "But if you don’t come with me I'll be all alone. Is that what you want?"

"You have other friends," you don’t want to laugh at his words, but you do. "Yugyeom would love to go with you."  

"It's different. You're my best friend [y/n]. What kind of friend would I be if I allowed you to wallow in pain alone on a Friday night?" He doesn’t wait a second for your reply. "A bad one, that’s what."  

"But today’s movie night."

"We can have the movie night tomorrow," Jackson releases you from his death grip to flip your body to face him. "But today is the last party of the semester."

You wave the popcorn sachet in his face. "You want me to choose a party over Moana? Do you not know me?"

Sighing, he rolls his eyes and moves closer to the counter to pick up his glass of water. Ah, you know what he's doing. A master of guilt-tripping you into doing stuff you'd never do otherwise. You can already imagine what his next words are going to be.  

"What if you finally meet your soulmate there? You act like you don’t care if you find them, but I know you, and I can tell that you want to."

That’s not quite right. You despise the fact that you haven't told your best friend the truth about the name on your wrist and how it was all made up, but you think you’ll despise his pity even more. The whole reason as to why you got it inked in the first place was because everyone always looked at you some way when they realized that you didn’t have a soulmate. It wasn't quite prejudiced but more 'thank God, that’s not me.' And even though you've had Mark for two years already, you know better than to think it to be the same as the real thing.  

"Plus even if you don’t find them, you get to spend the night with the actual love of your life; me." He says with a smug look as he tosses the empty cup into the sink.  

Throwing the sealed popcorn paper bag on the counter, you admit your defeat. "I'm only going because I know you're gonna get drunk off your ass and call me to drive you home."

He nods his head in mock agreement. "Yes, yes. Thank you for being amazing."

Parties have always had a weird imbalance in your heart. Most times you thought them to be ridiculously loud and all people used them for was to justify why they hooked up with the resident bad boy on campus. On the other hand, it did give you access to free booze and give you a window to human interaction. Albeit a slurry and impaired one.  

And today your body is leaning towards the first half. On a good day, you’ll mingle a bit and get slightly buzzed, but the music is throwing you off. You can’t stop thinking about how your man-made mark had reacted, slightly, to human Mark. The rational part of your brain knew it was simply an illusion but the fanatical part of you was clinging to it like it was the key to life.  

You groan as you grab a solo cup from your friend’s hand and down it in one gulp.

“Whoa, slow down tiger.” Naru laughs as she rubs your back lightly. “I thought you said no drinking tonight.”

Wincing as it goes down your throat, you hiss out. "I thought so too."

She snickers at you, taking the empty cup from your hands and placing it neatly on the table next to her. "Jackson owes me 10 bucks."  

"You guys bet on me?"

"Of course. How long before [y/n] cracks? I said 30 minutes, Jackson said not at all."

You twist your lips up at her. "Really Naru?"

Naru shrugs at you, a smile still on her lips. "What? You looked stressed out. Do you have a crush or something?"

"No..." You don’t exactly know what it is.  

"You do, don’t you?" Naru pipes up with interest. "Did you find The One?" She nudges her shoulder against yours, wiggling her eyebrows.

You shake your head. "Not yet."  

At this point, you’re willing to crawl down a hole and die. No, scratch that. You want to hurl yourself at the sun. You’re ready to go play beer pong, which you suck at, in hopes of getting stupidly drunk, so you don’t have to remember anything for the next hour or so.  

“I need a drink. Do you want any?” You change the topic as you push yourself off the wall. Turning your gaze to the crowd of people littering between the living room and kitchen.  

The place isn’t packed from wall to wall, but there are still enough people around that it makes you feel queasy just thinking about the struggle to get there.  

Naru shudders at your offer. "I feel like I'm about to pass out so no." After a beat, she adds. “Do you know where Jackson disappeared off to?”

"Beer pong, I think."  

She pats you on the shoulder and shoots you a wink as a goodbye before she’s weaving her way down the stairs and into the basement. You take a deep breath before you dive into the swarm and begin navigating your way, avoiding as many elbows as you possibly can.

It takes you more than six minutes to get to the kitchen, and you’re immediately reminded that this is Jaebum's party. He’s the center of attention, bickering with a group of people. Some you recognize from hasty glances in hallways, some you don’t. You catch his eye on your way to the cooler station at the back, and he gives you a small nod of acknowledgment.

You’ve been to a handful of Jaebum hosted parties all because of Jackson’s friendship with him, but you’d never actually hung out with him. Now that you think about it, you never really spent time with any of Jackson’s other friends. Mainly because the few first times you’d met them it had been so awkward that you willingly uninvited yourself to other events they planned.  

Waving at him, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Maybe you should’ve connected better with Jackson's friends, perhaps then you wouldn’t be stranded in a house party with such a weary way out.  

“Well, don’t you look bored,” the voice comes out in a drawl. “Let me guess Jackson dragged you out again. You’ve got to learn to say no [y/n].”

You roll your eyes as you reach past Yugyeom to grab a canned drink from the cooler. Yugyeom is a friend. You aren’t that close to him, but whenever you stayed over at Jackson’s apartment, he always seemed to be there. Filling up space. He even dragged you along to a dance practice once because he didn’t want to be alone and Jackson had been busy doing… stuff.  

“I did say no. For the past two months actually,” you answer as you pop open your can and take a swig.

He doesn’t say anything after that. Instead, the two of you stand in solidarity and drink. After a while when you’re more than considerably tipsy, the both of you engage in small talk which continues until a guy across the room beckons Yugyeom over. After a minute’s indecision, he obliges. “Anyways, I’ll see you around. We should hang out more often.”

Since you don’t disagree with the idea, you make sure to smile extra wide, so it doesn’t seem like you're faking it. “Sounds good.”

Once he’s slipped past you and gone over to his group of friends you are thrown back to reality. The bass music is pumping at a deafening volume, you wouldn’t be surprised if the cops showed up to shut the party down. People are everywhere. Bumping into you, giggling, dancing, hooking up. You start to feel insignificant compared to everyone else here. All these people trying to make moments in their life while you’re standing in the corner of the kitchen right next to the trash can.  

Your feet have begun to ache. The time on your watch reads 12:04 AM, you let out a strained sigh. You know for a fact that neither Jackson or Naru will be leaving until at least 1 AM. Turning on the heel of your foot you make your way out of the kitchen and try to find the back door. You’ve been to Jaebum’s house enough times to know that his parties never extended to the backyard. There really wasn’t any space there anyway, and you guess it made it harder to manage if people were everywhere.  

Outside the air is fresh and frigid against your skin and you’re tempted to call it a night and just head back to the dorms on your own. You’re so focused on the weather that you don’t notice the figure sitting a good foot from you. Your feet are planted steadily on the back porch, you feel somewhat elevated. Maybe you could just waste time here until you had to leave.  

You plop down on the porch’s steps with a thud and then a scream as you come face-to-face with the one very thing you’ve been trying all night to forget. You're thrown away by how different he looks up-close and with a spark in your system. Almost like you’re staring at a painting. The urge to run your hands through his hair has returned, you thought you had won that war in the study lounge, but apparently, you had not.  

“W-what are you doing here?” It’s a miracle that you don’t fumble your words.  

Mark offers you a slight smile, takes a long gulp of his beer, coughs a little bit before he raises his hand up and waves a little. “You look awfully familiar. Have we met before?”

You try to return his smile, but in the back of your mind, you’re positive that it most likely comes out as a grimace.  

“Uh, yeah we had —” Your sentence is cut off by Mark snapping his fingers. He reminds you of a light bulb with electricity constantly flowing in.  

"You're the crier, aren't you?" He seems pleased with his answer. "It's been what? A week? Since we met, how you holding up?"

There's a stone wedged in your throat at his nickname for you. Fuck, why did it have to be crier of all things? It brings back a memory you had almost forgotten. The Mark from fifth grade had incessantly called 'crier' day in day out. All because you had tripped on air, fell down a set of stairs and broke your jaw. You were pretty sure if you ever came across the Mark from that time, you were going to blow a major blood vessel.  

You nod, not trusting your voice as another breeze sweeps past and you drag your arms closer to your chest.

He sighs as he leans back on his arms and raises his face to the stars. “So, what are you doing out here?”

“Nothing really. I’d just rather be out here than in there.”

Nodding in agreement, he finishes the rest of his beer before he crushes the can to half its size. You look down at your folded fingers. The silence cascading around you is comfortable, and you don’t feel the need to make conversation. It dawns on you that the silence you experience around him has never been awkward.  

“Ah, this feels nice,” Mark breathes out. “Still. Quiet. Sometimes everything just gets so loud, and I can barely think.”

“To be fair, you are at a party.”

He grins at that. You can tell he’s drunk by the asymmetrical smile on his face, but regardless, you can’t help but smile back. “True. Promise not to tell anyone, but I hate these parties. I only show up out of obligation.”

You raise your drink to your lips. “Relatable. Honestly, I came for the booze.”

His laugh is honestly like a barricade of brick walls crashing into each other. So profound and sonorous it makes the hairs on your back stand up straight. You catch yourself laughing along with him. You don’t want to, but you tell yourself to slow your roll, after all, Mark is the epitome of a nice guy. He most likely laughs at all his friends jokes — out of obligation.

“So that’s why you’re here? Not because my sparkling personality drew you in?”

You realize that although Mark is a man of refreshing candor without alcohol lighting his system, he's more if it were possible, honest to a fault with it.  

“I didn’t even know you’d be here.”

The back door swings open right at that moment and a girl stumbles out. Hair wild and untamed. She’s smiling broadly but at the same time looks confused. You watch as her eyes illuminate as soon as they fall upon Mark. She reaches down and flicks his forehead with her forefinger and thumb.

“Have you been here all night?” She rolls her eyes to all heavens. “C’mon, we gotta go.”

In the midst of this, Mark doesn’t lower his focus from you. He seems, for the most part, bent on pretending the girl behind him isn’t here. You drop the empty can from your mouth and place it gingerly beside your foot. With a grunt, Mark lifts his head up and squints his eyes at the girl, you assume to be his friend.  

“Why? This party is finally getting fun. You’re ruining it.”

She scoffs, flipping her hair. “Uh-huh. You’re having so much fun, I’m jealous,” her eyes cast sideways to you. “Jinyoung’s drunk off his ass and keeps asking for you.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before he pushes himself up on the balls of his feet. His gaze is unwavering. It feels surreal just being near him, you don’t know if this feeling comes from how many drinks you’ve had or if it’s something deeper. But you don’t want to question it.  

“In case you don’t remember, I’m Mark,” he says, and immediately you forget the girl behind him. He smirks down at you.

“[y/n],” you quickly stand up as well. All your choices this night catch up to you, and you waver a bit, his hands reach out to stable you. You can feel embarrassment creep up your neck by the second.

"[y/n]," he airs your name out.

He licks his lips, you’re sure he’s not doing it sexually however that doesn’t stop you from interpreting it that way. “I would ask you for your phone number but my phone died,” Mark says, running a line through his hair vigorously with his hands. It falls down in waves over his eyes which hold a semblance of confusion.  

You’re about to offer your phone and get his number instead when he snaps his fingers. Eureka! He has a knack for snapping his fingers when he's drunk, you observe. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and brings out a blue pen. Handing it to you he says, “would you do the honors of writing your phone number down?”

“Where?”  

The girl — his friend — is becoming more agitated as the minutes tick on. She keeps tapping her foot and muttering incoherent words under her breath. You focus your attention back on Mark. You don’t know her, and you don’t want to. You cock your eyebrow at him. He chuckles, thrusting his palm forward. Carefully, like maybe he’s glass, you hold his hand and fastidiously write down your phone number. His fingers are slim and long, you kind of want to trace it with yours, but you control yourself.  

Once you’ve finished, he beams at you. Your eyes fall on his lips. You are curious about how they would feel on yours. They look like they could crush you, and you feel like maybe you’d like it.  

“I promise to call you,” his words are almost drowned out by his friend dragging him by the arm.  

“Let’s go, Mark! What am I? Your babysitter?!”

He puts one foot through the door. “Guess, I’ll see you around [y/n].” His grin doesn’t slip away from his face, but it does shift into something smaller.

Before you can even find the words to say the door slams shut and you’re thrown back into the dead air. Confounded, you sit down on the steps once more. There’s a giddy feeling in your chest. Actually no, it's something more. Something you don’t know how to explain. It feels like you’ve reached the peak of a mountain. Exhilarating but scary. A compulsion to run straight through the party and relay everything that transpired back to Jackson and Naru runs through your veins.  

You cover your face with your palms. The smile on your lips threatens to crack your cheeks open. Time seems to, again, have stopped. Your heart beats so loud you wouldn't be surprised if it were louder than the music thumping through the house. For the second time that day you want to crawl in a hole, but it's for an entirely different reason. This time it's because you're afraid, afraid you wouldn't be able to hide how bubble-headed and flustered you feel.

Winter break comes and goes without human Mark calling you, and Mark smirks smugly every time you hold your phone out and wait. You try to push the situation to the farthest point of your mind by drowning yourself in books. But even then, you find yourself researching on the soulmate-less. From what you know, and from what you gather, the population without soulmates is a rarity. And contrary to what your high school peers had told you they do not, in fact, die alone.  

However, that does nothing to lift the weight on your chest and you must not be doing a good job of hiding your emotions because Naru decides, after days of deliberating, to lay down the truth. 

"Are you still worrying about your crush? [y/n], come on, it's a crush it'll fade away." She says now as the two of you move the last of your boxes into your dorm.  

"I'm not thinking about him." 

"Yes, you are. I know you." 

"Honestly, Naru. I'm not," you lie. "I'm just thinking about all the work I'll have to do this semester." 

She rolls her eyes at you as she dumps a box near your bedside table. "Whoever this crush of yours is, it will never compare to the name on your wrist. So, don’t get invested." 

You mutter under your breath while you squat down to tear open one of the boxes. "I'm not." 

"Whatever you say," Naru raises her hands up in surrender and lets the conversation go. "You hungry? I am." 

Abruptly you stand up to your full height, thankful that Naru can read how awkward you get whenever someone brings up this whole soulmate business. You grab your wallet from the table. "I'll go to the vending machine and get something, yeah?" 

Naru flops down on your bed. "Can I get a Cheetos?" 

You nod your head before you're dashing out the room and out to the hallway. You won't lie. The more you hear the word soulmate, the more the weight on your chest seems to cave in. You take a sigh of relief when you realize the pathway is empty and begin making your way to the Laundry room where the vending machine is located.  

It's when your debating what item you want that the door swings open and in comes Mark. He looks stunned to see you there in your Spider-Man shirt and jeans and then he looks quite happy to see you. For reasons, you don’t know. The smile on his lips is full on frontal, and you have to remind yourself that he probably has a soulmate out there and whatever this is between the two of you isn't going to last.  

"Oh God, you're not ignoring me are you?" 

"W-what?" You stutter a bit.  

He moves a little closer, still smiling but wary at the same time. "I don’t know if you didn’t get my messages, calls or if you’ve been avoiding me. So I'm giving you an out if that’s what you want." 

"Well, I did not get anything from you. I thought you were ignoring me," your sentence ends with your nervous laughter as you grab the nape of your neck. 

"Do you think maybe I was texting the wrong number?" The reality of it settles in, and he lets out a wimpy sound. "They probably think I'm a weirdo. Oh God." 

You laugh at his antics as you make a random decision on the vending machine, clicking the first thing you see. "What did you say?" 

He sighs, devastated. "I basically asked you out on a date and got turned down by radio silence." 

You choke on air. "You what?" You give up on trying to constrain your laughter, opting to allow it flow out to the point it brings tears to your eyes.  

"Hey, I made a promise to call you. Even as a drunk, I wouldn't make a promise I can't keep." 

"Honest to a fault." You say as you bend down to grab your paid item only to find an empty slot. "Did it just eat my money?" Hastily you stand up, scoffing at the machine. "Really?" 

"Try hitting it?" Mark offers his suggestion, and soon enough the both of you are frantically smacking the life out of the inane vending machine that refuses to give you your money's worth and laughing so loud that you forget that you're in a laundry room in a dorm housing three hundred other people.  

Once you've let it all out of your body a vertiginous feeling washes over you as you take a deep breath. You don’t know how it happened, or maybe you do, but without warning, you're beyond close to Mark. So close you can feel his little releases of breath that fan against your skin. Your eyes latch onto his lips and for a second time you know he probably doesn’t mean it to be sensual, but regardless your body reacts to it.  

The person to break the silence is him. "Would you find it highly inappropriate if I kissed you right now?" 

"I don’t think I have a problem with that... but your soulmate might." 

"I doubt that," he bites his lower lip and you watch as his eyes light a fire you can't contain. "I don’t believe in assigned soulmates. Some higher power shouldn't tell me who to love." 

You agree, closing the space between the two of you by etching forward. "Right. We should be able to decide who we love and who we don’t." A burning feeling chases up your arm, and even though it stings, it feels strangely calm. 

"I think I'm probably going to scare you away." 

"How?" 

"Because it scares me, how attracted I am to you. It's not even a crush, maybe it is, I don't care. All I know is that life is too short to be classifying the way someone who likes another person into categories. I just want to be around you and make you smile. Maybe I'm exaggerating and giving you too much credit, but it scares me how the most trivial things around you don’t seem that way. It scares me how my body responds to you. It's really fucking scary." 

You can hear the unrhythmic beating of his chest. You can feel the heat emitting from his body. You like the feeling of his heat hitting your skin. And with the expression on his face, you wish for a moment that you could tell him the truth behind your predicament. 

You clear your throat. "If you're gonna kiss me and then say you just want to be friends, get it—" 

Without a second thought, he puts his hands on either side your face and your heart spikes up as the rest of the room fades to dust.  

And when his lips come crashing down on yours, you forget how to breathe. He tastes like butterscotch and mint, and you never knew those two were the best concoctions the universe could've created. He traps your waist in his hands and squeezes once, twice, and sets your lips apart and ablaze simultaneously. It became an urgent need to feel him. You clamp onto his hair and get taken aback by how soft it is. It feels like you're being burnt alive. Butterflies set a nest in your stomach and flutter up to your neck before they break out from your mouth. He feels like the ocean; calm, gentle and serene yet deadly like it could sweep you off into the distance at any time. There's a silent gasp as the two of you broke up for air. 

You're breathing so loud the ramifications hit your skull and fizzle back to your toes. Contrary to other kisses you’ve had, your eyes aren't dazed. No, they are alight. Sparked up with a new flame. You swear to yourself that even soulmates can't feel something like this. And for the first time, you're not hung up on finding that non-existent person. You can't get your heart to stop pounding, and by the look in Mark's eyes, you don’t doubt that he's doing the same thing.  

"That was... interesting," you finally say when you've caught your breath. You remember now that Naru is probably wondering why you haven't returned from war and you burst out in giggles. 

"Wow, you really do remind me of crier," Mark says joining in your laughter.  

Something dies in your throat. "Crier?" Your mind goes back to weeks ago when you'd first met him. "The person you said you couldn’t remember?" 

Running a hand through his hair, he grins at you. "Yeah. We were best friends for two years but I had to move without notice, so I'm pretty sure I'm hated now." 

"What year was that?" 

He upturns his head in thought. "I left after eight grade." 

Your eyes widen in alarm and not from the all-time high that you're on. Your chest fastens up again. "Did this crier trip and break their jaw?" 

"Yes," he snaps his fingers. "And once they even mixed hot sauce in my ketchup. I kinda wonder if I'll ever meet crier again." 

"A-are you Mark Tuan?" 

As much as you don’t know how to feel about this turn of events, you can't deny that a little part of you hopes it's real. It's now when the air seems electrified that you fully recall the details that led to the Mark of fifth grade leaving town.  

You hadn't always loathed him, of course, you hated his nickname for you, but he had been one of the few friends you had back then. And you'll be honest, you did cry a lot when you were younger, and kids made fun of you for that. The Mark from that time had always stood by you, during lunch every day, the two of you walked home together almost every day. Every day had become slightly better with him on your side. 

Then one day, he was gone. Suddenly your birthday that you'd been looking forward to became one of the worst times for your 15-year-old self. You'd decided then and there that you’ll hate him, forget about him, do anything in your power—

"Do you remember me now?" 

"I thought you left," the words come out in a whisper.  

He takes a step back from you, casting a downward look to his converses. "I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that, but I didn’t know I was leaving until the day of. I--I tried to call you but it never went through, and when I finally came back, your family had already moved someplace else..." 

"What about now? Why didn’t you tell me who you are? If you knew who I was why did you hide it?" Your tone is accusatory, but your mind is running laps against each other. Nothing is making sense. And despite the fact that you don’t blame him for what happened or how you handled the situation, you still very much feel... cheated? 

"Because you didn’t even remember me [y/n]," Mark lets out an exasperated sigh. "We had a History class together during Freshman year, and you didn’t recognize me—we sat next to each other. I called out to you in the cafeteria once, maybe you didn’t hear me. Who knows. I thought you were ignoring me and then I saw you crying in the study lounge and—" 

"—and the cycle started all over again." 

Are you okay? 

The possibility of crying is becoming a more likely outcome as the second's pass on. And the more you blink your eyes to keep them at bay, the more your eyes start to glisten.  

"Were you never gonna tell me that it was you?" 

"I wanted you to like me for the me now. Not the me that was your best friend years ago. I've changed, you've changed. I just wanted you to not like someone that may never come back."

You scoff at that. "What's the difference between the two?" 

Mark finally looks up to connect his eyes with yours, and the impression on your chest breaks way. "Me then had a soulmate. Me now does not." 

Scrunching your eyebrows, you cock your head at him. "I don’t understand." 

"I had one, but it didn’t feel right. I had already met you, and they couldn’t compare to it. Not even a little. And I guess when I decided that I could never love them like how I do you, the mark just faded. Everyone acts like predestined soulmates are the best thing but, sometimes they are not. I haven't got a new one since then, so I guess that means the system accepted my begging." 

You throw your arm out and show him Mark. The Mark that you created on your skin. It wasn’t given to you by the higher-ups. Instead, it was something you unknowingly had wanted.  

"I got this done two years ago. I never knew why but it seemed like the only thing I would like permanently."  

He tries to hide the shit-eating smile on his face, but really he can't. It's such a broad smile that you kind of wonder how his cheeks survive the expansion. "Maybe the universe is actually on my side." 

"You think I got this because of you?" You ask incredulously as you fold your arms across your chest.  

Mark shrugs. He doesn’t particularly care why you have his name tattooed on your wrist, the truth is he's beyond ecstatic that his prayers, by some miracle, have come to life. "I pleaded to a deity that you and I get matched up. I don’t need a stupid mark to tell me who I love, but it feels great when you see it stamped in concrete." 

"So what, were you planning on getting my name tattooed on yours? Are you insane?" 

He grins slyly at you as he pulls up his shirt's sleeve to show you his wrist, wherein medium sized letters your name sits proudly. "Maybe so. I got this two years ago too before I started college, and then I met you." 

"You're so fucking insane." 

"So are you. Crier, you got my name on your wrist. I don’t know about you, but I'm claiming you as my soulmate."  

"We're gonna have to start from scratch, you know. Sure we have physical attraction and what not, but that fades away. You have to actually love me. To put in your words: not the me from then but the me now. If I'm taking you as my soulmate, then I don’t want to let you go. Ever." 

In your head, you can list all the problems that come with this. It's a game of tug of war. If you pull too far, then the other person lets go. If you don’t pull at all the other person still let's go due to lack of effort. Either way, there's no winner and— 

Mark moves closer to you. "If you have me now. You have me forever, I promise. I'm willing to change fate with you [y/n]. If that’s not soulmate material, then what in this world is?" 

Change fate, he says. You realize you've started crying when he reaches up and uses a thumb to erase the path the tears are making. But it keeps coming. This is why you hate crying, once you start it just doesn’t stop. Like a waterfall, it pulls and pulls. Mark chuckles at you.  

"What's the thing you're doing right now, crier?"  

You want to punch him. Strike him so hard he feels all the misplaced but warranted hate you harbored towards him for years. How dare he just waltz into your life and try to reclaim the very thing you didn’t want anyone to have?  

"Screw off." 

"I know I've made some mistakes. I thought it over and I want to make it up to you by being honest. I love you [y/n] even if it's a little spark right now, I love you. And our marks might be human-made, but I'd do anything for you."

"Anything?" You ask, looking at him through blurry glasses.  

"Anything." He reaffirms, resting his forehead against yours. "We'll work through anything. I already cheated the system once to get you, and I'll do it again and again and again as long as it means I'll get to spend my better part of forever with you." 

A/N: oh my gosh, i hope people like this and tell me what they think. thank you very much for reading! ahh, please do tell me if you liked this :)

⇢ masterlist

©️ 2017 kai, high-on-food. 

[webrootsafe86]

download Kaspersky antivirus setup

How to download and install Kaspersky Internet Security

To download and install Kaspersky Internet Security, first of all, we have to visit https://www.kaspersky.co.in/downloads/thank-you/internet-security-free-trial. From here you can download it. Kaspersky Internet Security is available for Windows, MAC, and Android, you can download and install it.

Once the download is complete you can install and activate your Kaspersky Internet Security with the help of a valid Activation Code. When the installer is download in your computer run it to install. Follow the instructions carefully and put the Activation Code when it asks for that.

Enjoy!download Kaspersky antivirus setup on your computer.

Activation Code of Kaspersky

An activation code is a code you get when you purchase a license to use a Kaspersky product. It consists of 20 Latin characters and is divided into blocks in the following way: ХХХХХ-ХХХХХ-ХХХХХ-ХХХХХ. This code is required to activate the application.

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[half--agony--half--hope]

Hiii! Just found your blog & I love it!! I see that you're a med surg/tele nurse & that's where I'm leaning towards being after I (hopefully) graduate and pass in May. Do you have any advice? I'm extremely nervous because the patient to nurse ratio is about 6/7 per one nurse and since I'll be a new nurse I'm extremely intimidated!

Awww thanks!

Congrats on almost being done with school!

Yes, I currently work on a combined med/surg/tele unit at a small community hospital.  In general, I really have been enjoying it.  I know many nurses really want to specialize more, but I enjoy the randomness and chaos of the patient population we get.  

I am not sure how much I can set your mind at ease.  6/7 patients seem like a lot!  Luckily, I am in California where we have mandated staffing ratio laws.  So if you are taking med/surg patients you can have a max of 5 and if you have tele a max of 4.

However, about being a new nurse.  Just remember to cut yourself some slack.  You are going to be slow at everything at first.  That is natural.  Do not try and rush yourself, that is how you make even more mistakes.  Over time you will find your rhythm and way of prioritizing tasks.  

Here is how I go about the start of my shift.  I get my report and depending on the nurse it may be good or bad.  We have a shift to shift written report so that has my diagnosis, assessment overview, general lab/test info etc and is extra helpful if I get a bad report.  Based on diagnosis and report I am already thinking in my head who I will see first based on who seems sickest.  Before I go see anyone I log into the computer and fill in my own brain sheet I created (many nurses I work with just start with a blank paper, but I found I just work better with something printed that has spots for everything I find to be important.)  I look at the EMAR to see what kinds of meds are coming up.  I work nights so usually people will have 2100 and/or 2200.  I decided what order to give my meds based on that.  If a patient only has 2100s they go first because I can get them done right after 2000.  If they have 2200s then they go later so I can give everything together after 2100.  Unless you have multiple antibiotics to hang, then I take note so I know what time I should hang each to get them all done.  I do my best to limit the number of times I have to give meds to each patient.  I also make a note on my brain of what PRNs they have and when they can have them again so when I go do my assessments I know the answer since at least one patient will always ask.  I feel like it sets a great tone and the patient feels I know what is going on if I don’t have to say oh I am not sure let me go check.  I do my assessments, in general, it’s pretty focused, not at all like the in-depth stuff we had to do for competency in nursing school.  Most people are there of one specific issue.  Tele patients for sure get more time, but a 25yo cellulitis does not need that.  Usually, by then it’s 2000 and I can start med pass.  I try and cluster my HS care for any dependent patients along with the meds since unless our census is above 19 we do not get a CNA on the floor.  Since I have 2 hours and only 4-5 patients it works out most times and makes more sense to me than passing meds and then going back to bother patients.

After med pass, I just try to go with the flow.  With admits and stuff, you never know how it will really go.  I try and get my charting out of the way ASAP so that if I do have admits or patients who go downhill I am caught up and ready for it. 

Anyone who works in a state where you get more patients feel free to chip in with advice for one of our future colleagues. 

[luovita]

Boost Twitter Engagement 10X - Newsletter September 2019

          The rivalry between Google & Bing has been on for around a decade now, with each search engine carving their niche in the market. However, it seems like the rivals have now joined forces as two crucial spots within Bing’s properties are now directly tied to Google.   Heart of the Matter   It started with a new beta feature that allows you to import your website into Bing’s Webmaster Tools without a hassle if you are already verified within Google Search Console.  

  Later, on August 30th, we saw a reporting of a new Sync option (Sync with Google My Business) being available within Bing Places Accounts. You can make use of this option once you have logged into Bing Places for Business and picked a location to work on.  

  The feature is currently enabled only for users who have a maximum of 10 businesses in their Google My Business Account. This means the feature is not for those who manage more than 10 businesses in their Google My Business Account.   Actionable Strategy   This partnership between Google and Bing might seem weird to many, but the latest features are a step in the right direction. It is now less time consuming and hassle-free for users to verify businesses as well as easier to research within both sets of Webmaster Tools. Although the feature is still in its initial stage, we expect some more features, like Syncing for users who manage more than 10 businesses, to be launched sooner than later.  

  Businesses with multiple locations often have a hard time managing their customer reviews. Responding to each and every review, from each and every location can be taxing. Google My Business’ recent local updates roll out revealed that now you can easily manage your reviews on the same page.  

      This new inclusion will enable seeing and replying to reviews across multiple listings on a single page. This might seem like a tiny little addition but it will drastically reduce the time needed for review management for multi-location businesses.   Things to Note   Organization accounts do not have this feature as of yet. Replying to reviews from third-party sources isn’t allowed. You can respond to reviews and see them organized into location groups only after your listing is verified.   Final Takeaway   Getting started is quick and easy. All you need to do is visit https://business.google.com/reviews and follow the instructions given.      

    Now here’s some really good news for hotel owners with verified Google My Business (GMB) listings. Google recently announced that they have now added support to enable hotel owners or those working with hotels to update services and amenity details in the “Hotel Attributes” section.   How this will help hotel owners   One of the major reasons for keeping hotel services and amenities details up to date in the listings is that Google pulls the hotel’s highlights from here. These highlights, in the form of bright and colorful icons, appear next to the amenities in the Placesheet. They give potential customers a quick overview of all the amenities offered by the hotel such as ‘Free Wi-Fi’, ‘Free Parking’, ‘Pet-Friendly’, etc.   Steps to add new features   Sign in to Google My Business (using a computer, not mobile) If you have multiple locations, open the location you would like to make changes to Click on Info Click on ‘Edit’ next to “Hotel Attributes” Search for the attributes you want to add and fill in the necessary details Click on Save   For all those who are yet to start out   In case you are one of those hotel owners or SEO professionals who haven’t yet gotten on board with GMB for hotels, then it’s high time you get on with it. Here are 3 simple steps to start the process   Sign Up for GMB for Hotels Engage With Customers Manage Hotel’s Details  

  While many may have noticed the ‘Google Guaranteed’ label that appears with some Local Service Ads, not many are aware of the fact that only certain industries qualify for this label. You need to go through a quick 3-step process to see if you do or don't qualify for this label. Professionals such as attorneys, financial planners and real estate agents are amongst those who do not qualify for the Google Guaranteed label.    

  However, Google has now decided to roll out a new “Google Screened” Local Service Ad label for such professionals. Just like Google Guaranteed, the Google Screened label also comes with its own set of license and background checks. What differentiates the two labels is that there is no money-back guarantee with the Google Screened label businesses.   Know whether you qualify for this label   In order to get the Google Screened label, a business must have a rating of 3.0 or above. Moreover, there are business-level as well as business-owner background checks. Also, every professional in the business is required to pass a license and background check for the Local Service Ad to be labeled as “Google Screened”.   Final takeaway   Having your Local Service Ad labeled as Google Screened is bound to give your business more credibility and authority in the industry. If you are amongst those who represent an attorney, a financial planner or a real estate agent, then it’s best that you check out the Google Screened label and start the process of getting it added to the Local Service Ad.  

  Twitter mentioned in their blog post, create video content with your phone using these 4 ingenious ideas, that all you need for a campaign to be successful is good content and it can even be created using your phone. The post included some worth mentioning stats to help the users.   “On Twitter, brands need to create fresh and engaging visual content on a near-daily basis. Why? Because that’s what your audience wants. Tweets with video attract 10X more engagement than Tweets without video, Tweets with images attract 150% more Retweets than Tweets without images, and even Tweets with a GIF gain 55% more engagement than Tweets without a GIF.”   Remember, Twitter audiences love authenticity more than they love creativity. Give them something engaging and they will surely keep coming back to your page. Retweeting other people’s content isn’t going to take you far. Twitter’s blog post will help you out in creating impactful videos, GIFs and images specific to your audiences. Here’s a simple video created using a phone that Twitter shared.    

  Improve the performance of your Google Ad campaigns with Google’s newly introduced seasonality adjustment for smart bidding. Now you can ensure you don’t go over your media spend budget with advanced Google Ads script. Google launched a new smart bidding strategy at Google Marketing Live to help you maximize the conversion value of your campaigns. Amazon advertising makes a few updates to Sponsored Products automatic targeting & product targeting to help you maximize your campaign results. Learn how to see and control the data the apps & the website share with Facebook. Here’s your guide to find out how your conversion rate compares with Conversion Rate Benchmarks. From September 17, 2019, all search & shopping campaigns will be switched to standard delivery. Do you think Google Text Ads are being truncated more often than not these days? Get all the insight here. Google makes in-app inventory more measurable through the IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement standard. Google announces support for price extensions in Google Ads scripts that will allow adding details about your business’s offerings. Want to know how to add availability countdown to your Google Ads? Click here. Here are three tactics to fine-tune your keyword strategy for Advertising on Amazon. Google Ads introduces new improvements in its recommendation tab, making it much more user-friendly & sophisticated. Google makes Google Ads more user-friendly with newly introduced gallery ads (beta) available in 11 languages. PromoteIQ – An e-commerce advertising vendor is now acquired by Microsoft. Here’s everything you need to know about the latest updates to several of Facebook’s campaign creation & management tools. Here is your guide on how Google Ads’ new keyword selection preferences work.     Read the full article

[pettywisestories]

Chapter 2: PMT-42

a/n: we’re getting more into the story and i love it !!!

word count: 1,670

I woke up the next morning to the usual sigh of Mondays. I didn’t hate Mondays like the rest of the world, but it wasn’t my favorite day of the week. By this time, Abigail had already left to go back to her apartment because it was the end of Thanksgiving break. I checked the time on my phone and saw that it was 7:32 am and I was going to be late for class. I noticed I had a notification from the local newspaper that said something about the recent news the government had told us.

I was reading it while walking down the steps to exit out of my front door when I noticed two men in black suits standing outside on the porch. I looked to the left of them and saw my brother Noah, the scientist who had been in all of my dreams recently. I opened the door letting them in, seeing Noah’s expression. He wasn’t nervous, just in a hurry. I followed him into my grandfather’s part of the house and saw him walking into Charlie’s room. The last time I entered Charlie’s room, I had helped him with sorting the files on his computer. His room was undergoing renovations into this really cool techy laboratory. He had four monitors, a mini-fridge, and three gaming consoles that he had set up into his own software. When I saw Noah exit Charlie’s room, he was carrying this small 8x8 silver box that had indents in it. Inside it was a black material that cushioned the important green substance inside of the vial.

The green substance was an opioid that was safe to humans. It didn’t contain the things that got you addicted to it, it had the ability to disguise you from the other existence of life. It blocked out your movements, what you were wearing, and the words you spoke. My brother had created this when he was 18 just in case of an invasion. My mother, Elizabeth, had been proud of him because he had the one thing that was able to protect us from these horrible creatures everyone talked badly about.

I had left the house, making my way towards school and the only thing I could think about while walking was life. I thought it was weird people wanted to disguise themselves from people they’ve never met. The substance allowed you to see the “aliens” but they showed up in a different color. It showed you the people who also took the substance normally. The government was quick to assume about these aliens, but I had always thought that if aliens were to exist, they would have humanity. Which is why I’ve never took the vial.

My mom didn’t know that the vial remained in my favorite book under my bed. Noah had developed a system from his lab and replicated it in my brother Charlie’s room. The two guards in black suits were  just coming by to get their weekly supply of the vials. They started giving it out to people in an order. First, they gave it to the government and all of its high ranking officials. Then the military, officers, and doctors. After the doctors, they moved on to teachers and students. They gave the vial to everyone in the middle class and above. They never gave it to the homeless people and it bothered me. Which is why at night time, my friend Elvin and I went and gave it to them. If the government were to find out what we were doing, there would be a serious penalty but Elvin and I didn’t care.

I reached school and things were different. I went to go into my normal entrance by the back door but it was locked and the lights were off which never happened. I made my way around the school to the main doors and went inside heading straight to my locker. It was a Monday day which meant that I had 3rd period first and all of the books I needed were in my locker. The hallways were very quiet but filled with students. Something didn’t seem right, as if I missed something because everyone had their eyes on me. I had markings on my locker but I didn’t understand what they meant. I started making my way to my class when I saw Melody and Elvin walking together holding hands. I stared at Elvin and he nodded his head which meant that he had free time to help give out the opioid with me. Elvin normally had soccer practice after school and I had homework so we normally went out around eight.

It was finally the end of the day and I was walking home when something weird happened. A gush of green covered the sky causing my head to start hurting. I adjusted my glasses to see if I was just seeing things but then a clear dome covered the town. I started running home, my knees growing weak when I almost tripped over the cracks in the street. I quickly unlocked my door heading inside and shutting it immediately. I ran up the stairs to see my family gathering in the dining room. It was as if I wasn’t informed of what was going on. My cousin, Abigail had been over which was odd because she never came over on school nights. My brother Charlie signaled me to walk over to him. I then followed him as he got up making his way back downstairs. We walked passed my grandfather’s room heading into his.

His room was cold but more organized than ever. There was a gray conveyor belt that had smoke coming out of it but it didn’t look hazardous. His room was way more organized than the last time I saw it. He now had stairs in his room leading to a floor below the house. I guess he slept there because his bed was nowhere to be found. He walked towards the conveyor belt and picked up a case. Inside of the case was a pair of glasses which looked like they were designed to fit me.

“Here,” he said handing me the case. The glasses were an exact replica of the ones I was wearing now. They were the same shade of blue and had thick lenses which I prefered because they covered my hideous face along with my blonde hair. They had two dots on the side which he noticed that I noticed and explained to me that there were special controls on them. “Noah and I worked on these for you because you-”

I interrupted him because I knew they knew that I didn’t take the substance in the vial which Noah now named PMT-42, “Thank you” I said with the sound of sincerity in my voice. A beeping came from my pocket and I realized that I still had my phone in the left back pocket of my jeans. It was another article from the news site explaining the dome above our city. I showed the phone to my brother to get rid of the look of confusion on his face.

He said, “Don’t worry, it’s just another attempt of scaring the aliens away. Thornes thinks that if he places this clear dome over our city, we’ll send them a signal that will stop them.” He went to log into his computer and pulled up a security camera. He had gotten access to the camera on the dome and it didn’t bother him knowing the consequences of it. He looked at me and stood up, “You’re not afraid of them aren’t you?”

I shook my head and looked out of the window. I saw my neighbor trying to grab her dog because he wouldn’t stop barking. Then it hit me. The green gush of gas that was making my head hurt earlier while I was walking home was a chemical fatal to animals. I stormed out of Charlie’s room and ran up the two flights of stairs leading up to my room and pulled out a journal off of my bookshelf. There it was, the green gas my father had created. I remembered it from when he concocted it with Noah. I walked downstairs and saw my Abigail taking an aspirin for her headache too. I admired Abigail because we were practically the same person. She taught at a high school twenty minutes away from us which was the reason she moved out.

I walked into the living room turning on the television and sure enough, there was a news reporter on the screen talking about the gas surrounding the the city. “Why are they using Dad’s gas?” I asked.

“They want to clear the pollution in the city and it’s killing everyone who didn’t take the PMT-42,” responded Abigail after she gulped down the whole water bottle.

I stared at her for a while and then got up. I walked over to her. “You didn’t take it.. Why?”

“I’m not letting a substance control my life. I’m an adult, I can make my own decisions. But you, hiding it in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is hilarious.”

I gave her a look and walked away heading towards my room. I took my phone off of charge and saw the messages from Elvin and Melody’s group chat. Too lazy to read the previous messages, I typed:

“You guys finally made it official?”

“We had to make it look like we weren’t involved with you anymore Ev.” Melody responded.

“What?” I replied

“The markings on your locker???” Elvin replied.

I shut my phone off and went to my computer. I got out a piece of paper and a pen and started drawing the symbols that were on my locker on the paper. I started searching them up on the internet. “What?” I thought to myself as I stared at the computer.

It was something my fellow mathletes had drawn, insulting my family.