#the knowledge that she likes sunny has haunted me since the day I learned it

[macden]

if I had a nickel for every time that a celebrity I loved as a teenager for their work became increasingly insufferable via rich person brain worms that make them incapable of normal behavior and their previous creative talent seems to have kind of fallen off as a result and also they are very close with ryan reynolds and blake lively and recently became involved with sports in a way I find irritating, I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

[cuzwhynoth]

[Chapter 1 - A Dangerous Game]

Emily was being haunted by a ghost, or it seems like he is, for she couldn't tell any difference between him and the other ghosts she'd seen in movies as a young child.

He calls himself Sunny Day Jack, which Emily took as very strange, but who was she to judge a ghost by regular human standards?

Perhaps it was some nickname that he decided was more fitting of his seemingly upbeat personality, or an honorary title from his previous life; Emily had no way of knowing.

Nevertheless, it didn't matter as much.

That only meant she had a few options on how to call him, and she hadn't thought them all through.

The first month of acquaintance went by without much happening, except for the occasional startled look in Emily's direction when she happened to catch his gaze, involuntarily of course, while in the middle of something else.

As far as her knowledge of the paranormal went, ghosts shouldn't be able to move around or interact in any way with living beings, yet there he was– sitting on his favorite chair in the back room, reading the newspaper, looking as if he was truly alive.

Even the sunlight seemed to bounce off his body without leaving a reflection, which was a pretty strange phenomenon in and of itself.

This predicament Emily was in was a rarity; she wasn't sure if she was even supposed to be able to see or interact with him, much less be able to engage a conversation with him.

He didn't know anything that has happened since his death, much to her dismay and slight irritation.

Although she was able to gather a few information from this entity—she'd learned to call him that after that one month—by the end of each conversation, she would leave feeling as though she had learned nothing new.

Besides his overwhelming tendency to be chatty, Jack had some other quirks she couldn't quite grasp.

For example, when he answered a question she had for him, he would give a response that would make her wonder if he had some hidden meaning, or if he really didn't know the answer.

Naivety on her part, she supposed. The whole ghost thing was still pretty new to her, after all. She wasn't quite sure how to interpret that.

The day that month came to an end, Emily had accepted the fact that this ghost was not going to leave her home anytime soon, and decided to use her time to get acquainted.

Although she did not know what to do, or how to act around him, she had at least become comfortable enough to talk to him.

Although she did not know what to do, or how to act around him, she had at least become comfortable enough to talk to him.

His hand reached up to his neck every so often as if he were feeling for a necklace that wasn't there, or as if he were trying to remove a tight collar. A nervous habit, perhaps?

He would give her a quick glance every now and then, as if he were afraid she would disappear if he looked away from her too long.

"You like this place, don't you?" Emily asked him as she began flipping through some old photos. "My place, I mean."

"Of course I do," he spoke, almost too quickly. "It's home. The very place you live in," he continued, "is my home. I don't want anything to happen to it."

Emily cocked her head. "Why would anything happen to it?"

"I don't know. Things happen. Bad things," his tone held a tinge of sadness, but also something that sounded very much like fear. Taking in a quick breath, he continued, "I don't want anything to happen to you, either."

Emily decided to change the subject. "So what do you do for fun around here? I mean, you know," she leaned her back against the counter and watched him from the corner of her eye, "when you're not haunting me of course."

It was meant as a jest, and she was relieved that Jack didn't seem to find it any offense of that.

The corner of his mouth turned up into a smile, and he looked down at his lap, where he clasped his hands together.

"I don't know what I could do to pass the time if I didn't have you around here to talk to." He looked back up at her, and said, "All I've ever wanted to do since the day I died was to talk to somebody. To have someone to be with. A family, if only for a little while."

Well, she wasn't expecting such a sickeningly heart-felt response, but it was nice to know that ghosts could be lonely just like the rest of humanity.

It also explained why he lingered on after his death, a bit, at least. His eyes began to well with tears, and he quickly blinked them away.

However, he still seemed to struggle with his emotions.

"That's nice. I'm glad you feel that way, because... well," she attempted a quick smile, "I like talking to you too," she finished lamely.

That was probably the wrong thing to say. She had no idea why she said that, or how that came out.

Grabbing the photos off the counter, she shuffled them back over to the coffee table, and sat down. "So, do you know what your purpose is here, or anything like that?" she asked, changing the subject.

He took a moment to answer, and she could tell he was choosing his words carefully. Finally, he spoke, "I think I do."

Turning her eyes toward him, she watched as he paused again.

"I think that I'm supposed to help you," he said, a bit timidly, "it's the least I can do for saving me back there, don't you think? I mean," he looked down at his lap for a moment, and then continued, "I probably would have gotten mad from having no one to talk to for so long, and... well, I wouldn't have been any use to you like this, now would I?"

Well, if he wanted to get all sentimental on her, Emily wasn't going to stop him. Still, it was a bit odd, wasn't it?

"I'm sorry," she said, "but that's a little cheesy, don't you think? Even for you."

"Maybe," he laughed for a bit, "but it's true." It was already strange enough that he could touch the physical world, that he could converse with her, that he could be so... real.

This ghost, or whatever it is, has been haunting her in her daily life ever since she took a look at that tape, sticking around her, and occasionally touching her.

Although they were only light touches, a brush of a hand or shoulder here or there, it was still very noticeable. While she knew there was no pervasive intent in his actions, she could already tell that he was keeping tabs on her.

He was watching her, and she was in his sphere of influence, so to speak.

It was already unsettling enough that she could not rack her brain for any explanation for his existence, let alone his capability to even touch objects.

Poltergeists can throw things around, but it seems doubtful that they can actually grab someone and squeeze them gently to comfort them in their times of emotional despair.

Or is this just a symptom of senility?

She hoped that this is the case, for her own sanity would be very rattled if she were to find out that she was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's.

Sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, she couldn't help but wonder what her life would be like if she was diagnosed with this disease.

How would she even react to her parents knowing that she had to be put on medication to slow down the cognitive degeneration, and that there was little to no chance of her being able to go on without significant assistance?

And to think she would start to hallucinate a clown, of all things.

No, no, this was insane. She didn't want to think about it, and she sure wasn't going to dwell on it.

Emily was very much are just praying that she'd be able to slow down the decline long enough to find some sort of a cure before her mind completely goes. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease.

"A penny for your thoughts?" a voice says from behind her.

Looking over her shoulder, she turned to see that it was him, this strange, ghostly man.. thing, that has been following her around. She had tried to brush him off and he persists– it's as if he can't leave her alone for too long, for some reason.

"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just... I needed to know if you were okay," the ghost says, "or if something had happened to you."

"Go away. I'm having some thoughts of my own, and I don't need any nosy ghosts adding to them," she says, "let's leave it at that, okay?" It was frustrating enough that she could not find any results in searching for his name, let alone getting any helpful answers from this ghostly man.

He appears to be a little hurt by her response, but he nods anyways. "I can help you with that." Propping his elbows on the himself on the edge of the backrest of the couch, he leaned almost casually in.

Oh yes, she had almost forgotten. This entity was a kid's TV character of some sort; an 80's pop culture icon, perhaps?

A quirky, lovable, tall figure, this apparition seemed to have a sense of humor about it. How strange that a ghost from someone else's childhood could be alive today, in the present.

It really goes to show how the boundaries between lives can become blurred.

"I can see that you're pretty frustrated with all of this," he said, "I know I am. I mean, I've been stuck like this for who-knows-how-long. I get the impression that you're not feeling so lucky, either."

"Oh?" Emily tried to keep a casual, bored-sounding voice, turning her face so she was directly looking at the television, half listening to his spiel.

"Then what exactly do you plan to do in order to ease my frustration?"

Despite her sarcastic tone, his cheery demeanor did not falter for even a moment as he spoke, in fact, she was certain that she even saw a little smile form on his face when he had sat on the couch with her.

And as expected, the distance between the two of them was incredibly, almost comically, shortened.

"Well," he said, leaning in a little closer, " I could help you out in that area," he paused, as if considering his words, or perhaps just to look more cute, "But there's more to life than just that. I can teach you things. I can show you things..."

His hand held hers slightly, softly, gently; he leaned in just a little closer, "I can help you get rid of the negativity in your life. That's what I'm here for, you know."

This was a little... dangerous, wasn't it?

The fact that he was holding her hand and all, made it even more so.

It seemed almost as if he was trying to tempt her in some way, to see just how far he could go before she said something about how this was a little creepy, to which he would most likely deny.

And, Emily certainly had no idea what he's talking about.

Well, maybe she did, but she didn't really want to put too much thought into such ridiculousness.

A ghost, or at least a spectrum of one, whose job is apparently to help her out with her 'negativity', sounds a bit far fetched. Incredibly so.

The thought of it made her laugh, a little.

"Well, I'm all for that," she says, releasing his hand, "That does sound fun. I'm sure that you've got some tricks up your sleeve for this'magic', huh?" How tedious. She was going to have to put up with this for the rest of the month, at least.

"I'll have you know that there's more to it than just tricks and illusions." He says, almost defensively, "I can help you with your homework, too!"

"I doubt that," she replied, and despite her best efforts to show a bit of hospitality, there's a bit of hope that she might be able to find a way to get rid of him without much hassle. "I no longer need to do homework anyways."

Maybe she could get him to leave on his own.

"Really," he says, "There are many different ways I can help you. Like," he says, as if thinking of them, "I can help you with your house chores, if you'd like. I know it's hard to keep up with, since... well, you know."

"That's very kind of you, but I'm okay." A bit crazy, but the closer he gets, the more his words seem to feed some desperate need within her, some craving that she has yet to identify.

"Actually, I think I'll pass on the housework for now. I'm not quite ready for that." The words just flow out of her mouth now, almost without thought.

Fulfilling some need, she doesn't even realize it herself. "I appreciate the offer though," she says, "It's very generous of you."

It would do no good to antagonize him.

Despite the fact that she really didn't like him, it would be best to keep the peace.

"Well, if you change your mind," he spoke without looking away from her, as if he wasn't even concerned that she might reject his help, "Just let me know. I can always find more ways to help you."

Now it seems like she was the indecent one, for disagreeing so readily to his offer.

"Well, alright then," she said, shrugging her shoulders ease that tension even just a bit, "Let's get down to it, then." And there she goes, dragging it out again, that old familiar tic that drives her so crazy.

And there's that cheery attitude again.

"Great!" he says, beaming at her. Well, at least he seems kind of cute, like a puppy ready to go on a walk.

Darn, she's going to have to get rid of him soon.

"So, come on," he says, stretching his arms out a bit, "Let's get started, shall we?" He's just so darn happy, so downright joyful, that Emily couldn't help but be a little infected with such pleasantness.

It's contagious, that joy, and she'd oftentimes find herself smiling back at him even just for a little. Despite the fact that it's slightly disturbing.

Still, it can get uncomfortable at any moment if he does that thing that he does so out of the blue, where he gets super close to you and starts acting like he's about to hug you or something.

Touch starved as she was, she just doesn't feel comfortable in such situations.

Taking her hand out of his, she sat upright.

Physical contact seemed to make him happy enough, but she just wasn't quite ready to get that close to someone yet.

"I was wondering," she began, "If I could get some... guidance, on understanding you better, that sort of thing. I have a hard enough time understanding the living, let alone the dead."

If she was going to be haunted by this kids' TV show character, it was a better choice to know who he was and what he was capable of, than to have to tolerate his presence without any knowledge of his true identity.

"I see," he says, still looking down at her, "Well, I suppose that would be the next step, wouldn't it?"

The eagerness in his voice seems to have grown, his eyes still beaming with the same contagious cheer. "I mean, who better to understand a ghost, than a ghost himself?"

"Well, um..." she hesitated for a moment, unsure, "I guess, just tell me whatever comes to mind, you know?" Faking enthusiasm, her tone sounded anything but.

"Of course, of course! No problem at all!" He says, surprising her with his sudden giddiness.

She moved back a bit on the couch, keeping a good bit of space between them. He looks as if he's about to break into song, the eagerness in his face morphing into a wide grin.

That had been a very odd display of behavior.

She didn't know if she could label it as such, but it certainly felt like he was trying to close some sort of a distance between them, on purpose.

The subtle, fleeting look he gave her earlier in the day, for example, made her wonder if he might just be a little too familiar.

One could say that it was a presumptuous display of behavior on his part, and she found it to be so.

Despite all of that, however, there was still that tingle that she felt when he was near her. Emily felt a pull to him, as she had the first time she laid eyes on him. He was so very charming, so very... wholesome, if she was being honest with herself.

"Alright, let's start with some easy questions, alright?" He says, beaming, "I mean, I'm here to help you, you know? We can work through this stuff together, no problem!"

"Sure."

Just where does he keep all that cheerfulness, she wondered, that contagious enthusiasm of his?

Emily had always been under the assumption that ghosts were supposed to be sad, perhaps even vengeful, especially given how they have been portrayed in most movies and shows.

The wailing, angry spirits that grab hold of you whenever you walk in their direction, the ones that threaten you in the worst way possible?

Those are the ones that usually end up being the most trouble, that's for sure.

Or maybe that's just too presumptuous of her, to assume a ghost would only feel those emotions.

"Alright, uh... when was your first birthday?"

"My first birthday would have been... when was the year?"

Emily just hoped that this ghost will stay as harmlessly cheery as he was from the very start, even if that wasn't really possible.

There are just too many ghostly specters that have been depicted as miserable beings of the night, for her comfort.

It was best to start off with something easy, that much she knew.

[nevertheless-moving]

Unnamed Extremely Bad Plan to Defeat Darth Sideous AU - SW AU NO 9

Hopefully writing down this star wars au will help me exorcise the cringe demon that helped midwife it. Time travel au where obi-wan and Anakin come up with an extremely SPECIFIC and UNCOMFORTABLE plan to defeat Palpatine because it unfortunately, would actually work, as it capitalizes on one of Palpatine’s easiest to reach political vulnerabilities. This is not a unique plan- there are other au’s like this, but this one is mine. When searching for ways to explain exactly why this anti-sith strategy inspires such cringe and delight in myself I realized, with sinking dread, I have seen this in an Always Sunny episode...which yeah. I might be over reacting but hey, cringe is a personal phenomenon, everyone’s different.

Anyway! Uh here’s a bunch of plot that will eventually culminate in the plan. 

*Too much plot, aaaah*. **All plot actually.** ***Its 1 am and this is still a draft*** ****It’s 2am**** *****This post will be just be background I guess.*****

*******STAR WARS AU NO 9 LAZILY OUTLINED CHAPTER ONE*********

Force ghosts Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi have had time to yell at one another without need for breath, and have more-or-less come to terms with the trainwreck that was their shared life. I wouldn’t call them well adjusted, but they’re more stable then they were the last decade or so of their living existence. 

In haunting Luke, they end up encountering an artifact in an ancient Willis temple that offers spirits the chance to fix the mistakes they made in life. It doesn’t truly unwrite what’s been done, but it lets you create an alternate timeline. So this galaxy will still be what it is, but some alternate galaxy somewhere could at least have it better. Its almost never been used, because becoming one with the force usually lets you accept the past, but viewed objectively, Vader and Ben’s lives involved an extreme amount of yikes. They say goodbye to Luke and are flung backwards and sideways.

Anakin is holding his mother as she dies. Obi-Wan is landing on Genosis. 

Vader just barely manages to avoid slaughtering the tuskens. To be honest, he doesn’t really get why he shouldn’t- his moral compass is still pretty f-ed up. He’s fairly certain the force is just torturing him, but still he controls himself (for Padme for Luke for Leia).

I’m gonna say well-adjusted!Vader sees murder in general as more of a vice than a sin- on par with having a beer. And really well adjusted Vader is willing to admit to himself that he’s an alcoholic, he seriously cannot regulate, its a problem. He really can’t let himself go, because he’ll just end up spiraling. And so he restrains himself and only seriously maims a few of the adult raiders.

Vader figures he can always come back later and slowly torture them to death if this whole ‘save the future’ thing doesn’t pan out.

Obi-wan leaves his shuttle and hides under a rock for 30 minutes. He calculates thats just enough time for him to pretend he went on an extremely effective and sneaky fact finding mission- just in case anyone checks R4′s records. Gets back in shuttle and gets the fuck out of there, much to Dooku’s chagrin, who lost sight of him after the shuttle landed and is now going to have to switch to one of his alternate start-the-war plans. 

On the flight back he reports everything to the council- fallen Dooku and the separatist leaders, the trade federation and the massive droid army, Jango Fett the clone template of the republic army (?) working for the separatists. He briefly comms Anakin, but anyone hacking into their conversations would hear only a nonsensical, rambling conversation. Later, a hacker might turn over the idea that they were speaking in elaborate code, but why would Jedi invent such a thing during peacetime?

The war still starts; at this point in the timeline it was inevitable; the artifact was only designed to give them the chance to correct their own failings, not the galaxy’s. Palpatine still gets his emergency powers. 

The same day the armies are discovered, separatist war ships take off to engulf Ryloth. The Jedi are instructed by the senate to lead the clone army and provide immediate relief-this will not be a repeat of the republic’s inaction on Naboo. It’s both better and worse than the first Battle of Genosis. So many more civilians are caught in the crossfire. The first titanic battle is not contained to evacuated droid factories, but rages across an entire populated world. The battle lasts for weeks.

The main reason this fight is less deadly is solely due to the fact that General Kenobi manages to maneuver his way into high command of the entire army.

 “I believe assumptions were made since I was the first point of contact with Kamino, Masters,” the Knight explained apologetically to the arriving high council members. “I realize its not quite appropriate, but for right now I am the Jedi most familiar with our forces and the enemies. I would, of course, prefer to cede the role to someone else.” 

The assembled Jedi can feel the truth in that statement.

“For better or for worse, advance troops were directed by the senate to land planetside and have met heavy resistance. I managed to redirect them to a more defensible position, where they can provide surface based cover fire for incoming reinforcements. The battle has already begun.” He received a grim nod of approval from Master Windu.

“I feel the need to say now, that if there’s one thing I learned from my time as a general on Melida/Dann, or in working against Death Watch on Mandalore, its that having a clear chain of command is vital for a military to succeed. I don’t need to remind some of you that leadership breakdowns were what ultimately ended both the Stark Hyperspace War and the Yinchorri Crisis,” Masters Koon and Tiin exchanged looks before deliberately sending forth a small force wave of approval, understanding where this briefing was leading. 

“I believe that unnecessarily restructuring command before the battle is won here could do far more harm than good.” The reminder of Obi-wan’s unusually militaristic apprenticeship put some of the assembled knights at ease even as it inspired a twinge of guilt in the older masters. 

“In command you are, General Kenobi,” Master Yoda finally acknowledged. “A Jedi Master you will be, once done this battle is. Have us do, what would you?” 

The battle lasts for weeks, and when its over, the commanding Jedi and Troopers involved will openly acknowledge that had anyone else been in command, it would’ve lasted months, if not years. Facing down logistical, strategic, and tactical problems on a scale unheard of for a thousand years, High General Kenobi does not falter.

Enemy reinforcements seem unending. For all their preparation, every single trooper is new to war, and secretly concerned that should they fall, they will be replaced with cadets who hadn’t even finished their training.

Obi-Wan is putting out fires before they can start. Much to their shock, clone commanders are informed that they will, for the time being, remain in charge of their troops. With a handful of exceptions, Jedi ‘Generals’ were in fact, to be treated as a cross between highly skilled commandoes and advisors with abnormally sourced field intelligence. 

“All of you have spent your lives training to lead your brothers into combat. The Jedi Masters and knights who are being assigned to your divisions have not received such training.” 

General Kenobi addressed the division commanders, some in person, some over holocomm. All focused in rapt attention as their General reordered the shape of their lives using language they could understand.

“The command structure I am issuing is designed to maximize our ability to utilize our respective strategic capabilities, while minimizing potential loss of your life. It will be our great privilege to serve alongside such an army, and while I fully expect a complementary exchange of knowledge in time, for now, focus on survival.”

The Jedi received similar briefings, tailored for their broader array of combat and military experience. Some, including Jedi Master Pong Krell and Grandmaster Yoda, were pulled aside and tasked with the essential mission of infiltrating and destroying the Droid factories on Genosis. If they were to have a chance of winning this war, they they would need to cut off the seemingly unceasing flow of droid reinforcements. 

An elite squadron of Arctroopers and Jedi field operatives were covertly dispatched, Grandmaster Yoda himself in command. Considering Count Dooku had yet to appear anywhere near Ryloth...the grandmaster had the best chance of bringing in the fallen separatist leader alive for questioning.

Shortly after they left, Anakin arrived, having finally turned over Padme’s protection to her regular guard. With the military creation vote past, the assassination risk was considered minimal. The real delay in his arrival came from her repeated attempts to join the Grand Army of the Republic on Ryloth with the intent of coordinating humanitarian assistance. Eventually he managed to convince her that she could do more good in the senate. 

After all, he pointed out, someone would need to followup the military creation act with a bill to grant clones equal citizen rights. Otherwise, the legal grey area that cloning fell under and their non-republic origin would inadvertently make the clones slaves. 

His borrowed Nabooan cruiser entered the warzone with the grace and efficiency as a small neutron bomb.

Those close enough to see its flaming descent watched in horror, realizing that the high generals own padawan would likely be a war casualty before he ever engaged in combat.

The legion nearest to soon-to-be-ground-zero, under the command of Captain Rex of the 501st, were distracted by heated combat, as the temporary barricade they had put up to defend the civilian population gave way to droidika artillery. 

While reloading, several dozen troopers happened to look up to see a speck detach itself from the hull as at spiraled in the lower atmosphere. Hope spread that the Jedi had managed to activate some sort of eject hatch. A skilled shocktrooper could probably control and and survive such a fall with luck, which mean a Jedi almost certainly could. 

A few tactical scouts charged with watching the skies confirmed that the speck was indeed a humanoid. No chute was visible, but even 8 days into the war, rumors had already spread about how Master Windu had passed off his chute mid-air to a troopers who had been damaged by suppressing fire, cushioning his free fall solely with the tank he crushed upon landing. 

Only one trooper, stationed in the town clock tower specifically to track the Padawan’s arrival and issued with a high-resolution farscope, saw the whole thing. Fortunately for his credibility later, in its current setting, the scope automatically logged photos every 5 seconds, ensuring that for years to come Obi-Wan would have a flipbook as evidence that he was not the crazy one.

CT-3609 or Blink (as he was named after winning the division wide staring contest on Kamino two year prior) forwarded the trajectory of the vehicle to command, who confirmed his analysis that it would impact two clicks out from their makeshift fort and not present a risk to civilian or trooper lives. 

As it traversed the stratosphere a figure (desperate repair droid, Blink assumed) emerged from the cockpit to perch on the nose of the ship. As it entered the troposphere, it became painfully obvious that the figure jutting out from the hull of the ship was in fact not a humanoid droid, but an unarmored human. The Jedi stood on the prow of the ship, seemingly impervious to and oblivious of:

air resistance 

centrifugal force

normal space gravity 

Blink’s slack-jawed bewilderment

the flames engulfing the ship below him

At this range, the smirk on the man’s face was visible (man? boy? kriff is he even through puberty?). Several miles above the surface he leaped, diving towards the ground like a bird of prey. 

To the west, the ship made impact with the ground, sending a shockwave that shook the tower just enough for Blink to lose visual in the final moments of descent. Cursing, as while he was confident the Jedi would inexplicably survive, he really wanted to see how. The trooper scanned the droid-engulfed farmland to the north for a crash site, to no avail. Lingering smoke from the burnt countryside negatively impacted visibility low to the ground.

Rather than trying to articulate his report into words, he sent the 50-odd frames the farscope had saved, as well as the coordinates for the jedi’s projected radius of touchdown. A quick radio over to long range electro-ballistics ensured that his landing wouldn’t be marred by friendly fire.

He awaited follow-up questions on the absurd entry method, which, when they came, mostly consisted of variations on “...Is this for real?” and eventually “Can you set the scope to video for a little while?” and finally “Do you think that’s how he got the name Skywalker?”

There was a temporarily lull in fire from the west, likely a ripple effect from the ship’s explosion. From his vantage point Blink could see his batchmates using the opportunity to try and plug the holes in their barricade with broken droid pieces. Regardless of the itch to join them, he knew he couldn’t leave his post until the Jedi actually arrived in camp. Finally, a distant explosion and thick pillar of smoke gave the Jedi’s position away.

He tried to make out details, but the scope had a difficult time focusing through the haze. Manually trying to fine tune the scope’s settings, Blink caught a glimpse of what looked like half a hover tank sailing through the air to impact with a trade federation troop carrier in a fiery explosion. Several more explosions, flying droid artillery, and plumes of smoke were caught on record before visual contact with the source was established. He was mostly visible as a blue blur, lightsaber mowing a meandering path towards their location. 

It wasn’t until Skywalker braced himself in place to punch a droidaka into pieces that Blink caught actual sight of the man. Only his eyes were visible, nose and mouth covered by layers of cloth. He blurred, then reappeared on top a massive missile launcher attached to an absurdly heavily armored vehicle. A minute or so of rapid blue flashes passed, the longest he had seen concentrated in one area. Then Skywalker was gone, movement clearly visible as he for once he moved in a straight line, plowing a rapid path away from the launcher. 

Less than 30 seconds later, Blink had to wince away from the scope, as a burning white explosion temporarily overwhelmed the direct light filter. The trooper panicked for a moment, thinking he had gone both deaf and blind, but the abrupt, sucking silence ended after a moment with a deafening sonic boom. The shockwave rattled the farscope, nearly knocking it over, but Blink managed to steady it and himself in time. 

A cheer emerged from pleasantly surprised vod below. The entire droid legion that had been guarding the missile launcher and apparent ordinance bay was flattened. 

It took a moment for the realization to set in that the background noise of missile and and anti-missile collisions directly overhead had slowed pace. With the northern flank gone, artillery were able to redouble efforts to the east, and a second white hot shockwave ensued, signaling that the tide of battle had shifted. It was almost too easy for the republics electro-ballistics to tactically devastate the surrounding forces. 

Eventually some sort of win/loss programming must have set in and all forces outside of a certain radius began retreating southward, conceding the scorched land to the republic army. It was cadets work to clean up the final suicidal droid charge. 

A commotion ensued as Skywalker leapt the barricade with a mid-air flip. The vod greeted him with cheers, as they correctly assumed his appearance had something to do with the skirmish’s decisive victory.

Blink sent the video of the battle to command and quickly packed up his scope and assorted equipment. Hurrying down the battered tower, Blink thought to himself that this Anakin Skywalker was the best sort of Jedi a trooper could ask for.

uh sorry i got really sidetracked there moving on

Kenobi and Skywalker quickly become the face of the war once again

they grit their teeth a bit, but when they finally have a moment to really plan they eventually agree that to take down Sideous they have to cut off his political power in addition to everything else, and taking advantage of their public personas was the most accessible way to do so (*evil laughter*)

While Dooku wasn’t captured, Yoda heard the truth in his old student’s cryptic warnings about a Sith in the Senate, and the council begins carefully editing their release of tactical plans to the Chancellor’s office in the hopes of ferreting out the spy in their midst.

Pong Krell looses two arms in his duel with Dooku. Obi-Wan successfully hides his smug pleasure at the news. Anakin enjoys makeing comparisons between him and Grievous. 

Kenobi doesn’t allow the origin of the clones to go unexamined, although he agrees that if the public were informed that they don’t actually know who ordered them it would probably cause panic.

The ‘inhibitor chips’ are ‘discovered’ early on and Anakin leads the effort to ensure that they are phased out and removed immediately. This consists of reminding every Jedi who even hesitates about how how he as a child slave had some experience with control chips and unless you want to take a leaf out of the hutts books lets start doing brain surgery chop chop mmmkay?

(This isn’t to say that Vader doesn’t still a twinge of shame at acknowledging his slave roots. But it is eclipsed by the burning guilt that he knowingly acted as slave master to his troops for decades after Sideous wiped their minds. He tried to rationalize it to himself, after all he didn’t immediately understand what Order 66 had done to the troopers. But while the morality of murder was more of an intellectual concern than a personal one, treating people as things...)

The Kamonions are a little harder to budge, referencing contracts that they refuse to allow the Jedi to see

Finally Vader snuck into the Chief Medical Scientist’s home while she was sleeping and straight-up threatened to murder her and burn down her lab. At the risk of losing her life’s work, Nala Se complied.

Vader left with the final threat that in the event that Darth Tyranus caught wind and activated Order 66 prematurely, he would kill 100 Kamonians for every Jedi felled by troopers. Shaak Ti was pleased by the cloners sudden change of heart. Tyrannus, and by extension, Sideous, are in the dark. 

Obi-Wan frequently publicly confronts Palpatine about the troops citizen status, urging him make use of his emergency powers to grant them citizenship and full pay, with the option to leave the army should they so wish. 

Anakin manages to play off his avoidance of the Chancellor as disappointment in his perceived lack of dedication to anti-slavery efforts

Finally Palpatine gives in- regardless of what happens next, the troops will be looked after.

With 2/3rds of the troopers dechipped, Vaderkin is eager to kill Sideous again, but after several intense screaming matches and sparring sessions, the time travelers come to the agreement that even if they succeed in their duel, with things as they were, the perception of the Jedi military coop would cause mass civil unrest. The scattered sith apprentices, while individually weak, were more than capable of magnifying that fear and anger until the galaxy breaks. Darth Sideous wanted to ensure that if he couldn’t have the galaxy, no one would. 

(Vader knows this. Sideous enjoyed monologuing, and much of his plotting couldn’t be safely bragged about until after he had decisively won, leaving Vader as the unwilling receptacle for years of pent-up rants and self-satisfied gloats about the inevitability of his victory)

Continued Here

[sallytheseamstress]

HAPPIESTPLACEHQ Task 2 - Sally Finkelstein

Playlist you feel best describes your character

Touch In Mine (fingers) - Esperanza Spalding “Touching surfaces every day Feeling no spark of tenderness within” Sally is a very sensitive person, both physically and emotionally: loud sounds, bright lights, strong smells can overwhelm her easily, as well as angry words and open displays of aggression. That is partly why she keeps to herself, to her routines, to her little comfortable bubble; but as she has become older, Sally finds that this existence is now wearing her down, and has come to realize that, even with the friendship of Jack (who is so often locked up in his own world as well) and Zero (who, much like her, keeps to himself), she craves affection and love that, so far, hasn’t experienced neither from family nor friends.

Like Someone In Love - Björk “Each time I look at you, I'm limp as a glove And feeling like someone in love” Just a little love song that very accurately depicts Sally’s sort of clumsiness towards her own feelings, and how she feels she could express them towards a loved one. It is a beautiful, if rather awkward, way to feel for her, one that sticks to her mind and heart and colors her world, filling her with conflicting emotions -giddiness of being lovestruck, fear of being found out, sadness at the inevitability of vulnerability, hopefulness at the chance of being requited.

Your Woman - White Town “Now I know your heart, I know your mind You don't even know you're being unkind So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways Just use me up and then you walk away Boy, you can't play me that way” Even though this is a break up song between a romantic couple, this could very well reflect Sally and her father’s codependent relationship. With no family beyond him, no other place to go and with her low-paying job, Sally is basically dependent on her father for everything; and, similarly, her father, being in a wheelchair and stubbornly determined on never leaving Redwood Hollow, depends on Sally for everything he cannot do himself. Sally does recognize her father’s brilliant mind, his cultured thoughts, his well-read expertise and knowledge, but even though he spouts a philosophy of mutual aid, of small-town solidarity and community that he passed down to his daughter, Sally knows deep down this is pure bull -when he himself seems to regard her as a slave, something he owns and is in his right to mistreat, withholding any sort of affection or praise or kindness, treating her more like a robot than as a child.

Glory Box - Portishead “Sow a little tenderness No matter if you cry Give me a reason to love you Give me a reason to be a woman I just wanna be a woman” Going back to the first song, what Sally wants most is affection, and that means vulnerability both from her part and from whom the affection comes from. Since she was very little she has learned to keep her emotions in check, not asking for much, never be a nuisance. This has also led to her feeling somehow disconnected from her own self, from her gender and age, as well as from society at large. Now that she has arrived to her thirties, Sally feels like she needs to break out of this subservient position she has been chained to, and that means, in part, reclaiming her own self as a person with autonomy, as someone capable of and deserving of love, and as a woman with the capacity to socialize with others, to be nurturing, to be affectionate; and, as well, partly resenting her status as a woman as someone who needs to fulfill that nurturing role, to provide for her father, to cook and clean and do the domestic chores.

Sounds Of Blue - Morcheeba “A sort of stoned silence Sat on that boat floating out The waters left me open All my emotions fog my lenses” Despite acknowledging her own sensitiveness, Sally isn’t very good with emotions; she knows the basics of comforting, to leave her shoulder free for someone else to cry on, to be available and listen to someone in need; but she is awful at managing her own frustrations and despair, choosing instead to bottle it all. Sometimes, it can feel almost asphyxiating, to be so full with words she can’t pronounce, with nowhere to pour them. This often makes Sally feel even more alone, like a boat in the middle of the ocean. As she grows older, though, she has begun to try her best and be mindful of what she feels; instead of simply allowing the emotions to overwhelm her, Sally tries to question them, to dive deeper and find the root cause, even if that means giving in and having to have a good long cry about it.

Walking In The Rain - The Ronettes “When he's near me, I'll kiss him And when he leaves me, woah, oh, oh, I'll miss him Though sometimes we'll fight, I won't really care And I'll know it's gonna be alright 'cause we've got so much we share” Sally would like to think of herself as the practical sort; but, of course, this doesn’t mean she has a romantic side as well. Being raised by her father, homeschooled, with no distraction beyond books and constantly monitored TV watching, she grew up during her teens with a strong idea of what true love is like: it is instant, it is irresistible, it is everlasting, it is passionate, it is destined... As an adult, she knows this isn’t realistic at all (especially having witnessed, from a distance, the romantic troubles of the rest of the town); but a part of her still wishes she could be whisked away by a prince, somewhere far away, to an idyllic world of tenderness and freedom.

Good Morning Heartache - Billie Holiday “Stop haunting me now Can't shake you, no how Just leave me alone I've got those Monday blues Straight through Sunday blues” Kind of a byproduct of her buried-deep-down idealizations of love, and her repressed emotions and expectations, the weight of Sally’s loneliness can sometimes pull her down to periods of depression. As a full-time worker, both as her father’s caretaker and in her work at Jack’s Attic and in the Community Events Committee, Sally often has to put on a happy face to deal with the daily grind; but, once she has some time alone, she either tries to keep herself distracted, or gives in to that despair for as long as she can allow herself to.

Les Fleurs - Minnie Riperton “For all of these simple things and much more, a flower was born It blooms to spread love and joy, faith and hope to people forlorn” Most of all, Sally feels most comfortable in nature: as at home as she is in her own house, it also feels, increasingly so, as a place of repression, lack of change, and constant surveillance. Nature, especially Redwood Park and the surrounding woodland, feels to Sally as the place where change is required, where it is most clear, where it is most, well, natural. Whether it is a rainy day with the air thick with humidity and the tension of a coming thunderstorm, a sunny afternoon having a small picnic at the shade of a tree in full bloom, or a lovely, glittering snow morning, snowflakes falling quietly and magically from a cotton-clouded sky, Sally loves it when she can be outside, forget about her responsabilities and duties, and focus on the sensation of the world, the real world, around her.

Day Dreaming - Aretha Franklin “He's the kind of guy that would say Hey, baby, let's get away Let's go some place, huh Where I don't care” This is also a continuation of her own ongoing matureness and acknowledging of how she tends to idealize the idea of love. Sally tries her best to reject her old teenage conception of a prince coming to sweep her off her feet, but at the same time, especially when she can allow herself some time to doze off and daydream, she still nurses that little hope that, whoever it is that will come along and give her the affection she wants so bad, will wish, just as she does, to explore the world beyond Redwood -it doesn’t matter where, since they would be together, mutually helping each other in their struggles, loving and trusting each other, and that would be everything they would need.

Please Don’t Make Me Cry - Lianne La Havas “I'll try to let it go, my fingers are crossed I show you my pretty scars, they make us whatever we are” Sally knows fully well that she comes with a good deal of issues, and that’s what scares her most when considering pursuing a romantic relationship. She is, however, aware enough of her traumas that she feels she could be honest about it -of course, as long as she manages to not let herself be drowned by them. Honesty is a very important quality for her. The only problem, then, is that while Sally truly wants to confess just how much she feels what has happened to her, she is still afraid to intimidate someone else, to be seen as “high-maintenance”, as someone hard to love. Once more, while love is her goal, vulnerability is her greatest fear.

[imaginaryelle]

Turnabout and Start Again

Part 8

(aka, the soulmates role-reversal au)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7

Note: My knowledge of meridians, qi, acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine is based on incomplete personal research and wuxia tropes, and I am very likely to have gotten some things wrong in my presentation of the concepts Wen Qing uses in this chapter. I’m working mostly on the idea that this is a fantasy world based on a fantasy genre with some real world connections, and so accuracy is not my primary concern, but if I got something completely wrong, or present ideas in a way that is unintentionally offensive, I am happy to learn and edit in corrections.

Thanks again to @morphia-writes and @miyuki4s for the continued beta help!

*

They find Wen Qing tending to simmering pots of medicine outside a large, airy building that Wei Ying describes as part infirmary, part training hall. Three disciples are fanning smoldering embers and sorting fresh herbs under her direction, and the sunny courtyard smells so strongly of bitter tonics and woodsmoke that Lan Wangji has to swallow back a cough.

Wei Ying pauses just outside the arc of tables and stoves and lowers his voice to a murmur. 

“Wen Qing is trustworthy,” he says, “but if you don’t want to share your identity—”

“It’s fine.”

“—I know you didn’t tell Zewu-jun so I can probably—what?” Wei Ying blinks at him. 

“You trust Wen Qing.” It’s barely a question—the strength of their relationship is evident in how Wei Ying speaks of her—but Wei Ying takes it seriously.

“With my life. With—with anyone’s life.” he promises, so readily Lan Wangji cannot doubt him.

“And you believe she can help with the curse.”

“I hope she can,” Wei Ying looks over his shoulder at her. “She’s very good. I told you she saved Zixuan-jiefu and Shijie—if you remember—”

Lan Wangji could not have forgotten. The image of the Jin heir, pallid and barely breathing with the glow of a soulbond spilling out of his open chest, is one that haunted his dreams in the days he spent searching for Wei Ying afterward. Thirteen years past by the calendar; only months ago in his memories.

“She knows more about spiritual energy than anyone else I’ve met,” Wei Ying is saying, moving his hands for emphasis. 

“You trust her,” Lan Wangji repeats. “I will trust her.”

“You—okay.” Wei Ying blushes. He turns away and strides quickly across the courtyard and Lan Wangji can see the flush moving to his ears and down his neck. It’s distracting enough that Lan Wangji misses the start of their conversation, caught trailing a few steps behind and unable to look away.

“We have a schedule,” Wen Qing is saying. “We have appointments for people who aren’t actively bleeding. What’s so urgent that you’re ignoring all that?”

Wei Ying pouts, which clearly only makes Wen Qing more annoyed. “His spiritual power’s been damaged,” he says. “I thought you’d be interested.”

She manages to stare down her nose at him, despite the difference in their heights. She looks Lan Wangji up and down. He bows. 

“I apologize for the imposition.”

“It’s not your fault,” she says, shooting another glare at Wei Ying. Then she sighs. “I’ll meet you inside in a moment.”

Wei Ying grins, and bows, and drags Lan Wangji up the building’s steps. Wen Qing’s workspace is simply decorated and smells of incense, with only the faintest whiffs of the courtyard’s activities seeping through. The room is lined with bookshelves and divided cleanly into a study space, complete with three long desks, and an examination area, screened off from general view. Wei Ying guides him to the private side of a standing screen painted with willow trees and urges him to sit.

“Someone will bring tea soon,” he says, settling on a nearby cushion. “Not like your last visit. We can actually afford guests now. Wen Qing’s medicines are a much better source of income than radishes.” 

Almost anything would be, Lan Wangji is certain. It had been—unpleasant, to realize the depths of Wei Ying’s poverty at that time. Sleeping in a cave that smelled of death without even the cheapest of teas to ward off the damp chill. 

He wonders, again, what might have happened if he had stayed at Wei Ying’s side after that visit. If he had not let himself be convinced that his presence was only one more burden on people already carrying too much weight; if he had known his own mind well enough, then, to stand and lend open support before disaster fell on all their heads once more. How much difference might those months have made? Would his brother have understood? What would his clan have done then, if he had acted before all hope was lost? 

Such speculation can only lead to further unhappiness. He is about to ask if Yiling-Wei also collects payment for nighthunts, as most Sects do, or sells talismans, when a young apprentice arrives with tea. Wen Qing is only a few steps behind her. Her attention lands on Wei Ying again.

“Don’t you have better things to do than bother my patients?”

“I want him here,” Lan Wangji says before Wei Ying can respond. Perhaps the interjection will be taken as rudeness, but Wei Ying can explain the curse much better than Lan Wangji himself would. No other reason for desiring Wei Ying’s presence must be stated. 

Wen Qing sighs in the face of Wei Ying’s too-innocent smile, but does not comment further.

“I am Wen Qing,” she says after the tea has been served and the apprentice dismissed. “As Wei-zongzhu has likely already told you, since he can’t be bothered to make proper introductions.”

“I ...” Lan Wangji hesitates, pressing his lips tight together. “We have met before,” he clarifies. “I am Lan Wangji.”

Wen Qing hardly even blinks at him; her gaze shifts immediately to Wei Ying.

“It’s true.” Wei Ying looks earnest and sincere. He pulls the array drawing from a qiankun pouch. “He knows things only Lan Zhan would know. The original owner of that body was called Liang Feihong, but he gave it up.”

“You’re certain?” Wen Qing asks, her stare unwavering.

“Completely.” Wei Ying assures her. He does not mention the soul bond.

“Hm.” Wen Qing studies the array. “This is unfinished,” she observes, tapping the paper.

“But you can see the shape.” Wei Ying leans into her space, against her shoulder, tracing over the drawing, as if they do this often. Perhaps they do. There are probably many ways arrays and talismans can be used to promote healing. Lan Wangji makes himself drink more tea; it is fresh and green and light on his tongue. 

“Exchange,” Wei Ying is saying. “One soul spent to make room for another, in return for service. In this case, revenge. It’s designed for a vengeful spirit, but Liang Feihong called Hanguang-jun instead.”

Wen Qing stares down at the paper. “You’ve never mentioned this ritual before,” she says after a long moment of silence.

Wei Ying shrugs. “It’s ancient. I found it when I was working on Wen Ning, but it usually fails. I haven't thought about it in—” his eyes flicker over Lan Wangji’s face, “—years.”

Wen Qing stares hard at him. “You said you were going night hunting.”

“I was, I did,” Wei Ying stares back, unblinking, and Lan Wangji is no longer sure he’s following the conversation. “It was only a night hunt,” Wei Ying insists. “Lan Zhan found us last night. He walked for three days.”

Still, Wen Qing watches him.

“Is there a problem?” Lan Wangji asks. 

“No.” Wen Qing returns her attention to him. “Tell me how your spiritual power was damaged.” She holds out her left hand for his wrist. Her hand is cool on his skin.

He looks to Wei Ying as her fingers find his pulse, but Wei Ying just nods at him, apparently unworried by the tension that has filled the room, that can still be seen in the stern lines of Wen Qing’s posture. He does his best to answer the question despite the feeling that he’s missed something important.

“I believe it was a talisman. There is also a curse mark, from the ritual.”

Wei Ying produces the talisman and sets it beside the drawing of the array, But Wen Qing is frowning at Lan Wangji’s wrist. 

“Tell me about the curse’s effects.” She shakes her head to forestall Wei Ying’s words. “The effects you have experienced,” she clarifies, to Lan Wangji. 

“It drains spiritual power.” That much he knows to be entirely true. “I believe my physical weakness is due to imprisonment and inconsistent training.” Liang Feihong left the Lan Sect nearly fifteen years ago, after all. 

Wen Qing drops his wrist, her fingers moving to his middle dantian and then to his face. She turns his head gently, and then drops her hands to her lap and studies the talisman.

“It’s not only the curse,” she says after a moment. “Your core’s been damaged. Not by this,” she gestures at the talisman. “This can only produce temporary effects. Something else.”

Wei Ying leans forward, suddenly intent. “Damaged? Not—”

“Not destroyed,” Wen Qing shakes her head. “But it will take time and effort to restore it, and the curse will complicate the process. It will be difficult to re-establish the proper energy flow.” 

“But it can be done,” Wei Ying presses, concern clear on his face. Wen Qing nods.

Lan Wangji says nothing. He has known, since his first investigations on the first day of this new life, that if this body had ever formed a golden core it wasn’t functioning properly. A damaged core is a better prospect than no core at all, but he again feels like there is some piece of information he’s missing, carried in the weight of Wei Ying’s concern and the careful calm of Wen Qing’s words.

“I will prepare medicines and teas to aid the process,” Wen Qing continues. “And I would like to conduct a more thorough examination, if you’re willing.”

Lan Wangji nods. He has no reason to refuse, and could gain much from her expertise. 

The examination lasts over an hour, through to a light lunch and then after, and involves more needles, talismans and salves than Lan Wangji has ever before experienced in such close succession. Wen Qing inspects the wounds in his palm as well as the curse mark itself, and produces new ointments and bandages for each, and another of Wei Ying’s talismans for the curse mark, before moving on to other, more obscure avenues of investigation. Wei Ying stays for all of it, sometimes talking out theories and suggestions from the other side of the privacy screen, sometimes scribbling notes at Wen Qing’s desk. 

“The curse’s caster is dead,” he says, waggling an ink-wet brush between his fingers, “but could the curse be transferred?”

“No.” Wen Qing doesn’t even open her eyes to answer. The spiritual power she feeds into Lan Wangji’s wrist, apparently meant to help her better map the damage to his core, never wavers.

Wei Ying frowns. “Most curses—”

Wen Qing frowns, too, a furrow appearing between her brows. “This links to soul as well as body and spirit. Even if it could be transferred, I wouldn’t help you do it.”

“Not even if it was transferred to the curse’s target?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“Not even then,” Wen Qing says. She sighs and releases Lan Wangji’s wrist. “I need to see to my apprentices, and I have another patient soon.” She meets Lan Wangji’s eyes. “Come back in the morning. I should have more for you then.”

He nods.

“Don’t stress him in the meantime,” she adds, pinning Wei Ying in place with a look. 

“Of course, of course,” Wei Ying assures her as he rises to his feet and stretches theatrically. “Only the best of hospitality for Lan Zhan,” he adds, a smile spreading over his face.

Wen Qing shakes her head, and waves them out the door. Wei Ying continues his tour of the Yiling-Wei grounds, leading Lan Wangji on a winding path past dormitories, and kitchens, and a less martial training hall—“for talisman work and spirit lure flags,” Wei Ying says, “It’s no Lan seminar but we do classes for outsiders sometimes.”

Yiling-Wei is a smaller sect than Gusu-Lan, both in land area and in population, but the grounds are still busy. Lan Wangji cannot help but notice the eyes on them at each new turn. It’s only reasonable; he is a stranger, walking with the Sect Leader, after a night hunt that lasted several days. Wei Ying has not so much as read a letter or spoken with anyone but himself and Wen Qing since they arrived. Lan Wangji has seen his brother’s work, and his uncle’s. This attention cannot last forever. Should not.

“I am keeping you from your duties,” he says as they stand at the edge of an archery range and watch Wen Sizhui and Liu Weixin loose arrow after arrow under Wen Qionglin’s expert tutelage.

“Hm?” Wei Ying seems distracted. Unfocused.

Lan Wangji curls his fingers in his sleeves. He has been selfish enough, taken enough of Wei Ying’s time—nearly a day of it. Wei Ying has more responsibilities now. He cannot spend so much effort on a single visitor. 

“Do not let me take your attention away from important matters,” he says. 

“What?” For a moment Wei Ying looks as if he will protest, but then he glances away, back to the archery field. His expression smooths to neutrality.

“Right,” he agrees. “I should—show you the library, at least. I know we have a few texts you might find useful.”

The library turns out to be a small pavilion lined with shelves and desks, much like Cloud Recesses’ in design but clearly smaller and holding a less extensive collection of books. The texts Wei Ying means are tucked on a high shelf behind a finely-carved screen, and their contents largely concern either curses or talismans. 

“Wen Qing has more on core formation in her study,” Wei Ying says as he sets his half of the stack on a small, almost-secluded table near a window. The charmed covers of the remaining books tingle against Lan Wangji’s uninjured palm. “Not that you need much help there.”

If what Lan Wangji understood from Wen Qing’s examination is true, repairing his core will be a very different process from forming one new, but he does not correct Wei Ying. 

“Is there anything else you need?” Wei Ying asks, as a good host should. “I’ll ask the kids in the practice yard to try and keep their voices down, I know it’s louder here than Cloud Recesses...”

“It will be fine,” Lan Wangji assures him. 

“I’ll—see you at dinner then,” Wei Ying says, and bows, more formal than the situation demands. Lan Wangji returns the gesture, books still in-hand, and tells himself Wei Ying will not vanish to smoke and mist as soon as he leaves Lan Wangji’s sight. That he will be easy to find again, here in his home, among friends. That Lan Wangji has no right to demand even more of him.

Wei Ying hesitates another moment, then leaves. Lan Wangji watches him go and thinks again of that flush on the back of his neck. On his cheeks. Wei Ying hadn’t blushed when he hid pornography in Lan Wanji’s books at sixteen, or when he held Lan Wangji’s forehead ribbon in his hand at seventeen, or when he threatened to take off his clothes in the Xuanwu’s cave. 

It’s difficult to imagine that a simple statement, alone, could make him flush after so many years. But it did.

Lan Wangji sits at his appointed desk and opens the first text with careful fingers, and does his best to block out everything but the words on the page before him. The readings are, indeed, informative, and several of them document Wei Ying’s own studies into curse formation and removal; there is an entire treatise on the hundred-holes curse alone, though it is almost entirely theoretical. The curse is too rare, Wei Ying notes, and too costly for both victim and caster, for frequent or multiple experiments. Such is likely also true for the curse Lan Wangji himself bears, but the texts at least reassure him that following Wei Ying was the correct choice for more reasons than the pull of his heart.

It’s Zhou Xiuying who summons him to dinner, guiding him to a seat at Wen Qing’s table before joining her wife on the other side of a loud and crowded communal dining room. The dishes set before him are heavy with lotus root and mushrooms alongside roasted pork, and, he notes, heavily spiced. Wei Ying does not arrive at the evening meal until Wen Qionglin leaves to fetch him, and he settles down at the crowded table with a sigh, slipping onto the cushion next to Wen Sizhui and across from Lan Wangji. 

“Why aren’t you all eating already,” he asks, as if it is not obvious they were waiting for him. 

“You’re late,” Wen Qing informs him, adding fried lotus and mushrooms to his bowl even as he serves himself meat and soup stained red with chilies.

“Wei-zongzhu should eat on time,” Wen Qionglin asserts. There is no bowl before him, though he holds a pair of chopsticks. A fierce corpse does not need to eat. He adds lotus to Wen Sizhui’s bowl, and then Wen Qing adds stir-fried greens and then Wei Ying adds pork, proclaiming that the boy needs regular meals far more than he does, and a sudden pang strikes deep into Lan Wangji’s chest. 

He serves himself from the milder-looking dishes. It’s pointless to be jealous of Wen Qing and Wen Qionglin’s places at Wei Ying’s side, and in his heart. Of the easy, well-trod patterns and open affection Wei Ying gives them. It’s pointless, but that knowledge doesn’t stop the sour swell of frustration and ill-feeling within him. 

He pushes the feeling away. He is a guest. They are being much kinder than simple hospitality requires. He eats in silence—the food is not unpalatable, as he feared, and he cannot tell if it is due to the actual flavor or if Liang Feihong was more used to such things—and he listens in silence as Wei Ying talks and laughs, lit up the way he used to be, before the Sunshot War. Several times, that beaming smile is turned on him, paired with questions about the food, or his reading, and offers of new dishes tomorrow, despite his protests that he needs no such special treatment. But still, Wei Ying is guarded with him in a way he is not with the rest of the table. It is strange to hear ‘Liang-gongzi’ fall from his lips again, instead of Lan Wangji’s name.

Eventually, he retires to his guest quarters. It’s only then, as he prepares to sleep in an unfamiliar room decorated with red and black instead of white and blue, that he realizes the knot of feeling in his chest is not the same emotion he thought it was. Or not entirely.

It has been more than three months since he shared a meal with his brother, or a conversation with his uncle, and before that he was holding his blade against them. The thought that he doesn’t even know whether his uncle is alive—that he might never speak to him again—hits him like an arrow, a flash of remembered pain from wounds he no longer bears. In its wake, the knowledge: If he cannot find answers, or stabilize the curse, he may never speak with his brother again either.

For a timeless moment he is hollow and grasping white-knuckled at his robes, his ears ringing and his breath caught in this throat. But he has already made this choice. He chose Wei Ying. If this is the consequence he must bear, so be it. 

Slowly, the faint sounds of the night outside his room penetrate his senses once more, and he calms. 

Rest. Meditation. His body and spirit need both. In the morning he will resume his training, and meet with Wen Qing, and confront the problem of Jin Guangyao’s crimes with clear vision.

(on to part 9)

[redfoxwritesstuff]

Of Dust and Ashes, Chapter 29

Heeey, it’s not Friday and it’s a week late but, chapter 29 for you! I’m starting to write again, the routine and habits are still lost but we’re getting there. Please continue to be patient with me while I work on getting us back to biweekly updates. 

Chapter warnings: Non-graphic mentions of death, gore and dead babies. 

Series warnings: everything? 

Series rating: M for Mature. 

Clint Barton x OFC 

As a reminder, this runs the length of Endgame, filling in the 5 year time jump, shedding light on the environmental, economic, political and societal ramifications of removing 50% of the living population down to the bacterial level. In this series, we deal with topics such as suicide, mental health issues, depression, civil unrest, trauma, miscarriage and death. Not every character’s reactions will be logical however people don’t react logical to trauma. People make good and bad choices regardless of if they are a good or bad person. Every person has shades of gray and moral compasses can be swayed.

Masterlist

Chapter 29: Story Time

Clint nestled down on the ground. His back was propped against the wall and he was slouched over. Long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Dee watched in silence as he seemed to settle into sleep within seconds.

She could never fall asleep that fast. She’d always been a light sleeper but it’d gotten better since she’d joined up with him and they made it to the farmhouse. The firelight from the small propane burner danced over their faces as they sat.

Rachel seemed afraid to look at her or Clint, instead keeping her head down and her eyes on Elsa. No, her name is Elizabeth. Lizzy. That was her name and she no business holding onto the idea of Elsa the baby.

She knew better. She didn’t want the baby. She couldn’t stomach the idea of taking care of her. As much as she wanted to believe it was better that they found her, part of her mind still cried that Lizzy’s life would have been better if it had been cut short. She didn't deserve to live in this new world. It would have been better if she had died before they found her. Rachel didn’t have much milk and there wasn’t a lot of formula to be had. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t fair that her kids were not a part of the 50% that turned to dust in the decimation and yet, they were still gone. It wasn’t right that they had to experience the pain of burning to death. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t have comforted them in their last moments. It wasn’t right that the sounds of their screams still haunted her nightmares.

“Are you okay?” Rachel’s voice snapped Dee out of her thoughts. Relaxing her fingers, she felt the joints creak. She couldn’t remember grabbing her pack but she had curled herself in on it and was clinging to it. The corners of her eyes were damp.

“I just want to go home.” Dee whispered.

“You will, soon. You two will abandon us and go safe behind the fence while we die outside. While everyone dies outside.”Dee was silent for a moment. She’d not been kind to Rachel and even now, she felt the annoyance prickle at her.

“It’s not that home I’m crying for.” Rachel hummed, for once minding her tongue or she was too tired to keep up the attitude. “I didn’t always live there.”

“Why are you there then? How did you convince him to take you in?”

“You can’t.”

“Help me. Woman to woman. If you had a child- maybe you’d understand.”

“You think I’m not a mother? You want to ‘mother to mother’ have a talk?” Deanna’s whisper was harsh.

“I mean- if you were you’d”

“I had two. In this bag-” Dee ripped open the zipper and reached in, under the bottles and cans to the bottom. Her fingers curled around the worn fabric. A small part of her relaxed as she pulled out the small tired blanket and stuffed fox. “A girl and a boy.”

“So you understand. So convince him to let us in. He trusts you, right? You can-”

“No.”

“But we could die? She’ll die.”

“Maybe that’s better?” Dee snapped, checking her voice as she glanced at Clint. His foot twitched but he seemed to still be asleep.

“Do you know what I’ve seen in the last what, six months?”

“Did you not see what you just saved me from?”

“I’ll go from most recent to the start for you. I killed people to save you. Living people who had friends, families who may still be alive to miss them and who may have not had much of a choice in what they were doing.”

“Yeah, but-”

“I was attacked in front of a store, in a parking lot. I sprained my ankle and killed a man trying to protect myself. Trust killed another protecting me. Clint- He saved me. I didn’t trust him at first. He brought me to the farmhouse.”

“So, why won’t he-” Deanna kept talking, not caring that Rachel had spoke. Somehow, it felt good to say it. To tell her story to someone. How much she was going to tell, she hadn’t decided.

“Before that, I had stopped in Utah. I killed a man there, too. He scared me and seemed insane. I shot him and when I searched his backpack- there was cans of formula. Some were busted open. His ID showed a local address. God, I felt so guilty. I hadn’t seen formula when I’d go into stores for supplies.”

“You killed a man trying to feed his baby.” Rachel accused.

“That’s what I thought.” Deanna still wouldn’t look at her. “I went to the address. I don’t know, I expected the wife or mom to be there. Maybe I was going to beg for forgiveness or for her to kill me. I don’t know. When I got there, no one was there. I looked and looked. Then I found her.”

“What happened to her? Did you give her away?”

“She was already dead.”

“You should have been faster.”

“She’d been dead for days, maybe weeks. Before I killed her dad. I think- I think the grief drove him mad. She was in clean clothes in the middle of the bed. I don’t think he was willing to admit she wasn’t alive anymore.

That was a few months ago, closer to the beginning. Before that, I met up with a young man who helped me figure out how to survive. I don’t know if he was a doomsday guy or what, but he had a plan that seemed like a solid one. He helped me figure out how to start moving forward.

We stopped to get supplies before leaving our hometown in California. We were loading everything up in the motor homes we were planning to live in. His family had owned a dealership. He- we had a run in with a teacher from my daughter’s school. The teacher- he shot him. I was lucky to get away.”

“I’m sorry.” Rachel whispered. Dee wondered what Rachel thought the lives of people in other places were like.

“It’s a blur before that. There was a dead body in a gas station. The news TV station was taken over by someone calling themselves a king.”

“Another one?”

“There’s probably more than a few.” Dee glanced to Clint again. He still was sleeping, snoring lightly. “Before that, a news anchor’s sister committed suicide. Mr. Rick and Mr. Taft, teachers from my daughter’s school- the same ones who attacked us while loading the RVs- broke into my house to steal food and supplies.

That brings me to the start of it all. The moment the new world began and the old world ended. The sounds- god I can’t get them out of my head. The crunch of metal hitting metal. The squeal of tires. The smell- smoke thick. The sound of screams- god so much screaming and waiting for sirens that never came.”

“What happened?” Rachel’s face was pale as Deanna shook like a leaf while tears streamed down her face. In that moment, Dee was gone and all that was left was the woman she had been, Deanna morning the loss of the life she had once had. The strength she had learned was nowhere to be found.

“They went to a year around school- I was a single mother so it was easier and they were getting a good education. No summer slidebacks in their knowledge. Did you know that kids forget up to 20% of what they learned the prior year during summer break?

I put them on the school bus. It was sunny, a beautiful day. I should have kept them home and taken them to the beach or something. But I didn’t. I needed to go pick up her birthday cake and set everything up for the party. The bus turned and the fuel truck barreled through the red light. I’m pretty sure the driver had turned to dust.

I don’t know how many on that bus also were in the half that were decimated. But I saw their faces in the window as the fire spread. I couldn’t- people tried but the emergency exits were pinned. They couldn’t get out of the windows and the fire was hot- god it was so hot. The roar was deafening but I could still hear them. I could hear their screams. I could hear them yelling for me. I could see them and they could see me. I close my eyes and I see their faces.

I should have gone to them. I should have gotten closer. I should have tried to get them out. I should have done more than sit there, watching while others tried. I should have died trying.

But I didn’t.”

Rachel sat and picked at the blanket wrapped around Elizabeth as Deanna stopped and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. They should have survived. No one deserves to go through that.”

“I’m not sure.” Deanna whispered as she prepared to give voice to her greatest secret. “Maybe it was better that they died. I don’t know if I would have wanted them to live in this world. Maybe it’s better for all the kids that turned to dust to not have to know what came next. Maybe the next best thing for them is to die early, quickly and painlessly if possible and not watch their parents become murderers and thieves.”

“You don’t mean that.” Rachel said, holding Elizabeth tighter. A part of her wanted to believe that Dee hadn’t met what she had said but a larger part of her feared that she did. It occurred to her that this woman, who had been taking care of her baby, that she had been counting on for refuge and safety, was deeply broken.

“Maybe.” Deanna answered. “We’ve all lost things. It’s a dangerous idea to count on anyone.”

“You count on him.”

“And it could someday get me killed. Or I could get him killed. We cannot- will not be solely responsible for you. We can’t.”

“But-”

“I need him and he needs me. That is the only reason we are together. That’s the only reason you should band together and trust anyone right now. Without that need, there is nothing to stop them from turning on you. Nothing stopped teachers from turning on their values, their morals. Anyone can turn.”

“How do you know the nurse won’t turn on me? I don’t have anything to offer her. I don’t have anything to offer anyone. Should I just give up, kill Lizzy then myself? Is that what you think would be the solution, the best course of action for me? Just end it because I’m too useless to be helpful?” Rachel’s voice was climbing some but the withering look Deanna gave her brought it down again.  

“When did I say that?” Dee snapped. “We saved your life. It’s not that we want you dead, it's that you are your own responsibility. We gave you a second chance, a second start at this new crappy world.

As for Sasha- You should be safe enough with her. She didn’t want to let us keep Lizzy at first. What she seems to need is someone to take care of. I get that, I needed that too. It’s how I ended up with Trust. What you need is someone to help support you and band together with you. You both have needs the other can meet and she’s helped us before.”

“So you trust her?” Rachel’s fire was dying and Dee was thankful for it.

“Well enough, I think. She needs food too. We’re supplementing her supplies so she’s got reason to keep us happy. She saved Lizzy, she had formula for her, checked her out and helped us warm her up. I still can’t believe she was still alive when we found her.”

“And that is good enough?” Rachel looked timid, scared in the darkness. She lacked to fire that seemed to hold back fear.Tears welled in her eyes.

Dee reminded herself that the woman had been through a lot of trauma. They all had been and each reacted differently. Some semblance of normal would do her good and hopefully Sasha could offer that.

“You should get some sleep. It’s a long walk back to the truck but once we get to it, it’ll be easy going.”

For once, Rachel didn’t argue. She nodded and curled herself around Lizzy on the ground with her back to the fire. She was cold but there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. Dee was cold too but that would only serve to help keep her awake.

Silence stretched on around her. Her heart ached and felt raw. Part of her wished she had never told her story to Rachel. Another part of her felt a weight off her shoulders to have finally said it, all of it.

“You should sleep.” Clint mumbled as he reached out for her. “It’s my turn.”

Deanna almost jumped out of her skin. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there, watching the fire and lost in her thoughts. Tears had long dried on her face and she had repacked her bag.

"I'm fine." She whispered.

"Fine is good. But you won't be in the morning and it's a long walk. Come here."

She didn't argue. She didn't want to argue. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to be held by him. He was her sanctuary. As much as she wanted to be safe behind the gate at the farmhouse, what she needed to feel safe, to be safe, was him. Just him.

Curling herself around him, her fingers dug into the layers of coats that covered his body. He shifted and unzipped his coat and slipped it from his shoulders.

“You’ll get cold.”

“Take yours off too.” He answered with a sly smile.

With a sigh, she did. The bitter cold bit at her arms as she handed over her coat.  She watched as he spread it out on the ground and settled himself on it. When he again reached out for her, she went willingly enough. Her coat was still warm from her under them. She could feel the warmth of him as he spread his coat out over them.

“It’s not blankets but it’s better than nothing. We’ll be warmer this way.” He mumbled into the top of her head as he held her tightly to him.

“What if you fall asleep?” She mumbled, already dozing off.

“I won’t.” Clint promised as he watched her slip into sleep. Her protests were half hearted at best.

She felt so good pressed against him, warm and solid. He drank in the feeling. Even if he had nothing else, he had her. It wasn’t something he planned on giving up any time soon. It wasn’t something he’d be willing to give up, ever.

It was early when Clint nudged her awake. He didn’t want to, waking her meant facing the day. There was a deep ache in his back and shoulders, one he hadn’t felt in a long time. It’d been a few years since he’d been on a mission where he’d had to rough it this much.

“Come on.” He whispered when Dee’s groggy eyes blinked open. “Eat what we can and set out a share for her-” his eyes flicked over to Rachel, still sleeping and curled around Lizzy. “Get a bottle ready too and pack everything else up. We’ll let her sleep until we’re almost ready.”

“Will we make it back to the house tonight?”

“If we’re lucky.” Clint sighed. “Careful not to wake her- I’m not ready to listen to her yet.”

Dee laughed softly before leaning up and placing a soft kiss to his lips. Clint’s arms tightened around her, pulling her closer somehow. His breath washed over her. “If we’re not, I don’t wanna get up.” She mumbled against his lips.

“I know Babe, but we have to.”

She whined dramatically and he chuckled. He was right, she knew it but in that moment it was like they were in a little bubble. The bubble that seemed to surround the farmhouse was somewhere there, with them, in that abandoned office building. If the bubble could find them there, she decided it could find them anywhere. The bubble of happiness and safety wasn’t the farmhouse, it was him.

“I love you.” She whispered as if it was some great secret.

“I love you too.” He answered. “But up, now. I really need to piss.”

~~~~~<3

Tag List: @usedtobegoodfriend96​, @alcoholic-muffin​, @theoneanna​, @alexakeyloveloki​, @toozmanykids​, @j-u-s-t-4​, @missaphrodite23​, @winterisakiller​, @bambamwolf87​, @nonsensicalobsessions​, @tinchentitri​, @xoxabs88xox​, @queenoftheunderdark​, @carissime72​, @myoxisbroken​, @coyotesongwriting​, @wegingerangelica​, @faemapfae​, @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123​, @tnystrk-exe​

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[greekowl87]

Fic: When the Spirits Call

For the @xfilesfanficexchange​ October challenge for @BWJournal over on A03. Here is the @xfilesfanficexchange​ post here. This is a repost on Tumblr.

A/N: I had tackled this subject a bit before during a fic workshop. I almost forgot it. You can read that here. But for @BWWJournal, I tried to do something completely new. I hope you all like it. Thanks to @luiperlanegra​ over on Tumblr for giving me some great information about Dia de Los Muertos, including that lovely little legend about the holiday. Thanks to @clover-covered-hills​ for doing a quick beta for me. Sorry if the ending seems rushed. This was a challenge to write. 

Prompt: Dia de Los Muertos // between s9 and IWTB // Lighthearted, if you wanna get romantic that's great, would love maybe something along the lines of HTGSC type of mood, whimsical but with some reflection // MSR // DRR

It was Halloween eve in South San Diego and Scully found herself fidgeting in the chair as Mulder slide into the opposite chair across from her. He untucked the newspaper from under his arm and flapped it open. She crossed her legs and wrapped her arms around herself. “Well? Where’s the car?”

“Oh,” Mulder said. He tapped the palm of his hand sarcastically against his temple. “Four days.”

“What? You said the SUV had a loose spark plug. It shouldn’t take three days.”

“Four days,” he corrected quickly. “You know I’m not a mechanic anyways. But we’re in sunny San Diego. What could be bad about that? Hey, did you order food yet?”

“No, just water. You know what this means now, Mulder, right?”

“Yes, I do. What about this California King Burrito? We can split it, Scully. It comes with a guacamole salad on the side.”

“Mulder, why have to find a motel.”

“Already did.” He glanced at her and smiled. “We’ve been driving too much. Maybe a little air by the sea will do us some good, Scully. I can get you in one of those hot little bikinis.”

Scully rolled her eyes as he motioned for a server. A young woman came up with a smile on her face. “Finally decide on something, ma’am?”

“Yes,” he answered for them. He could feel Scully’s scathing glare. “We’ll have two margaritas and we’ll share the California King Burrito.”

“Excellent choice,” the server said. “I really would recommend the extra queso cheese. Makes the burrito even better.”

“We’ll have that on the side,” Mulder answered for both of them. “And oh, can I get a water as well?”

“Certainly. Ma’am, would you like a refill?”

“Please,” Scully answered tightly.

Mulder titled his head like a puppy. “What?”

“I don’t want to be here, Mulder.”

“We don’t have an option. Besides, I think I’m safe since your brother got transferred to Germany earlier this year. I’m not endangered of being drowned at sea.”

“That’s not it, Mulder.”

“Why? Are you worried about sticking out? We can dye your hair again if that is what you want?”

“No, no.” She sighed and pinched her nose. After a year of being on the run and dying her hair various shades, she was tired of being someone else. Somewhere between New Mexico and Arizona, she went back to being a redhead. “Mulder, I just have a feeling about this place. Our past few times in San Diego haven’t been ideal.”

He paused in thought. “Well, why don’t we do something? Tomorrow is Halloween. I’m sure you know some cool haunted house or something.”

“I don’t want to, Mulder. Remember Christmas and how well that turned out? No. I don’t want to deal with any angry ghosts that threaten to question our relationship or make us spend eternity with a murder-suicide. I already know we have forever and I don’t need us murdering each other to prove it.”

Mulder did not know whether to be touched or worried. She reached across the table to take his hand. “I’m not going to poison while you sleep.”

“That’s a relief,” he laughed. The server appeared with their drinking, skillfully setting them in front of Mulder and Scully. She also placed down a basket of salsa, chips, and the white sauce. Scully reached for her margarita and took a long sip. “Someone's thirsty, Dana,” Mulder said, using her given name.

It caught Scully off guard and she quickly averted her eyes. Not only a few sips, the margarita already working its magic

“My name is Luisa if you all need anything by the way,” the server said. “So, are you in town for a few days? You couldn’t come at a better time.”

“Halloween,” Mulder smiled. “We know.”

“Also it’s El Dia de Los Muertos starting tomorrow as well and it goes on through November 2nd. There is a lot of celebrations going on that are worth checking out if you’re in town for a few days.”

Scully was silent. “We’ll look into that,” he answered.

“Well, I’ll be here all week. Let me know if you need anything.”

Their server left and Mulder grinned at his partner. “That sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

“Whatever you say, Mulder.” She picked at their chips. “Whatever you say. Just no haunted houses.”

**************

It was near midnight as Mulder and Scully lay together in their seaside motel room. The lights were off except for the illumination of the television. She had her back to him and was gently playing with the golden cross that had only left her neck a few times. Scully jumped when she felt Mulder’s warm hand run up her back lightly and back down the length of her thigh. “Talk to me,” he whispered.

She shook her head and removed her hand from her cross. “I’m fine.”

“Scully, you and both know when you are fine and when you are fine.” He kissed her shoulder and encouraged her to turn so they could face each other. “Talk to me,” he repeated.

“It’s being here. I don’t know.”

“Or is the holiday?”

“What holiday?”

“We never had a case that involved the Day of the Dead. Why don’t we see what there is to see? Maybe there some celebrations we can go visit.”

“Why?”

“Why not? I know you don’t believe in that stuff but as that server said, it’s the Day of the Dead. Why don’t we partake in the holiday? It’ll be fun. I know we never had any cases connected to it but I thought it could be fun. You don’t have to answer right now. Just think about it.”

She shrugged and turned her back to him but turned back to face him. “I can’t sleep,” she whispered to him after a moment

Mulder held her close and closed his eyes. He scanned over his photographic memory of fables, legends, and paranormal knowledge to find a story to tell her. “I remember reading somewhere, long ago, about the legend of the cempasúchil flower.”

“The what flower?”

“The cempasúchil flower. Marigolds.” He sighed and began to rub her back slowly. He felt Scully’s breathing slow. “I just know they play a role in the holiday but do you know the legend about the flower isn’t a ghost story? It’s a love story.”

“What were you doing memorizing Aztec legends?”

“I read a lot as a kid, just like you. Do you want the story or not?”

“I’ll be quiet then.” She snuggled closer and pressed her ear against his chest, listening to his slow and steady heartbeat. She hugged him. “Aren’t you going to tell the story?”

“Ms. Impatient,” he teased softly. He kissed her fiery locks. “Okay, let’s see if I remember this.”

Scully closed her eyes and tried to will the thoughts over her deceased daughter and a lost son and listen to his voice. Mulder’s hand reached for the remote and turned off the television. He could make Scully out from the light reflecting from the parking lot.

“Okay, let me see if I can remember this.” He was silent for a second before starting again. “Okay, the lovers were named Xóchitl and Huitzilin. I’m pretty sure I am mispronouncing those names but anyways, they would travel up to the mountain and give flowers as an offering to the sun god. The god also showed his appreciation for his sunny weather.”

“I’m sure the legend doesn’t refer to ‘sunny weather.’”

“It’s been a while. Who’s telling the story, huh?”

She chuckled.

“Anyways, one day, it was particularly nice and they swore to each other that their love would last forever. Everything was good for a time but then war broke out. Huitzilin had to leave her to fight and protect their lands.” Scully winced slightly, thinking back to Mulder’s abduction, the months of uncertainty, and the pain of his temporary death. He rubbed her back to get her to relax. “But as most stories go, Xóchitl soon learned of Huitzilin’s death and she was devastated.”

“Mulder, I don’t think I want to hear anymore.”

“Let me finish at least.” Scully sighed and nodded against his chest. “She walked back up the mountain and begged the sun god to join her love for Huitzilin. And the god, moved by her words, turned her into a flower with fiery colors bathed in the sun’s rays. A hummingbird then appeared and touched its beak into its petals. The flower unfurled its pedals in all its glory. The legend goes that as long as the hummingbird and marigolds exist, the lovers will always be together.”

She smiled sadly. “It’s a lovely legend, Mulder. I wonder what it means.”

“It’s just the next step of the journey. Who knows, we might come back as a pair of dung beetles.”

“As long as we’re together.”

He laughed. “Go to sleep.”

*******************

Halloween. After a rousing breakfast of microwaved burritos, drip coffee, and a stale muffin, Mulder and Scully walked along the beach to gather their thoughts before the day officially began. It had become a morning ritual for them when they first went on the lam and they’d kept it up since then. “So,” Scully started, “what do you want to do today?”

Mulder took a deep breath, inhaling the sea air. “Why don’t we walk around downtown. Maybe go to little Italy? We can make our way back to where we had dinner yesterday. Maybe that waitress has someplace we could visit.”

“It’s Halloween,” she reminded him looking at him. “It’s probably going to be crazy tonight. People will be getting drunk, cops will be out, and I think the attention is something we can do without.”

“That hardly sounds like any fun. Did you grow up in San Diego? I bet you know all the cool spots to hang out and cause mischief.”

“You know I wasn’t that type of person, Mulder.”

“I know,” he chuckled. Scully looked away and focused on the distant horizon. “Scully? What is it?”

“Nothing, Mulder.” She smiled. Although she was a convincing actress, her eyes betrayed her. “Let’s head back to the motel, okay?”

“You can go ahead. I’m going to find a grocery store and pick up a few things.”

“We’re only going to be here for a few days. Why should you pick up a few things? We can just go out to get what we need as we need it.”

“Still, we both know it makes any drab motel room feel a little like home.”

“You can do that,” she told him. “I’m going back to our room.”

Mulder did not push the subject and simply settled for a chaste kiss on the cheek as she gathered her things and walked up the beach back to their motel room. He sighed and began to walk down the block towards the grocery store. As he got closer to town, he noticed the Halloween directions mixing with the skulls and skeletons from Dia de Los Muertos. He smiled as he entered into a small shop, the little bell by the door announcing his arrival. A woman smiled and greeted him. “Morning!”

“Morning,” Mulder replied. He took a basket and began to patrol the aisles in search of their food.

“Can I help you find anything, sir?”

“Um, I think I should be okay,” Mulder added after a moment. “What’s with all the skeletons?”

“Ah! Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos go hand and hand around here. We are right next to the Mexican border after all. Today marks the beginning of the day of the dead. On the 31st, children make little altars to invite the spirits of the children to visit. Families spend the time to clean up and tend to the graves, making little altars, and leaving gifts and offerings, including marigolds. The first and second of November are symbolic as well, the first being for adult spirits, and then the second the families go to the graveyard.”

“Sounds like a wonderful holiday.”

“It is. You’re not from here?”

“Um,” Mulder bit his lip before replying, “my wife and I are visiting the area. She grew up out here as a teenager.”

“Any family?”

Mulder was silent, berating himself for forgetting. “Not anymore. Hey, how late are you open till? We’re staying in a motel right down the block. The Sea Horse Inn.”

“Ah. Bill’s building. It looks like a shithole but it is a quaint little place. And it’s right on the beach. Yep, we’re open. We even got a deli offering delivery starting at lunch till close to there.” She produced a menu from behind the counter. “Here ya go, hun.”

“Thanks.”

“Is there anything you are looking for in particular?”

“Um, the basics but could you tell me more about the day of the dead?”

*********************

Scully drew the curtain to their motel room, closing her view of the Pacific Ocean. She did not know what it was being stuck in San Diego again that bothered her. Maybe it was the holiday. Maybe it was just being on the run for so long. All that she knew was that she felt uncomfortable and exhausted like she had been at sea for too long.

With the curtains drawn, Scully turned on the lamp near the little table that functioned as a desk and a dining table. She reached blindly for the television remote that she knew had placed there minutes before. But her hand grabbed only empty air. She frowned to see the television remote moved at the opposite end of the table. She frowned and quickly turned the channel trying to find something lighter. She settled on the Home Garden Network. As the hosts drowned on about finding the perfect house, Scully let her thoughts drift to Christmas 1997 and the daughter she never really had.

Emily.

Momentarily, she let herself believe it could have been possible. To be a mother. To have a daughter. She let herself dream of the possibilities that were far fetched. But those dreams were snatched away. In the same town of San Diego where her first nephew was born, her daughter had died at the same time. She remembered that night after the orderlies had taken Emily away to perform the hastily done funeral plans. Mulder had been there right by her side. First to hold her as she pounded her fists against his chest at the unfairness at all. He was the only there to hold her on her brother’s couch as she cried silently into his chest. Awkwardly, he was the only one at Emily’s funeral to have a proper boutique of flowers for her and he was the only one to never let her go.

But then came William.

William. Their miracle child. The child that represented all their hopes and dreams. The prayers of normal. She abandoned him because she didn’t know what else to do. She did not know how else to keep their son safe. So she gave him up.

She gave up on them.

Scully jumped when their motel door open with Mulder dragging one of those rolly carts that old ladies had when they did groceries. “Jesus, Mulder.”

“Scully! Did I scare you?”

“Yes! Be glad I didn’t have my weapon on me!”

Mulder chuckled and shut the door behind him. “I’m borrowing this cart from Louie.”

“Louie? Who’s she?”

“Louie is short for Luisa.”

“Must be a common name. So, if you run off with a woman with that name…”

“You have no fear because I have the same fear about you.”

“Haha. What did you come up with?”

She could smell the marigolds before he even walked in. Mulder produced the flowers, a Mr. Potato head doll, and some supplies for them. It was the child’s toy that made Scully flinch. “Why did you buy that, Mulder?”

“We’re in San Diego. I haven’t forgotten.”

“She wasn’t your daughter.”

“She should have been, Scully. She was close enough. She’s William’s big sister. She was my daughter too, even if I never had a chance to say it or prove it.”

At the mention of both of their lost children, she cried. He frowned and felt helpless. This wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting at all. He thought this would be something lighthearted that they could but now, he only felt bad for making her pain worse.

****************

Later that day, Scully finally summoned the courage to agree with Mulder’s plan. They walked along the beach with the sunset, drawing on each other’s strength, before they decided to take a taxi to the graveyard near Holy Mother Catholic Church. As the taxi sputtered away, Mulder dropped the plastic bag on the cement to take both of Scully’s hands. Her eyes were focused on the graveyard ahead. “Look at me,” he commanded.

The voice that had called her out of the darkness numerous times did so again. She forced herself to look into his hazel eyes and hold it. She drew in

“I’m okay.”

“Are you?”

She nodded and disengaged herself. She tried to find some semblance of the FBI agent she used to be but failed as Mulder took her hand. But she failed. Her face crumbled as she bit her lip in a vain attempt to keep a straight face. It was rare for her to let her emotions get the best of her in public.

“Scully, it’s okay.” He kissed the top of her head. “And we’re not going to honor just Emily. This holiday is also about honoring family. We’ll honor our sisters as well, okay? From what I learned, Halloween is for the children's spirits. The rest of the holiday is for the adult spirits.”

Scully hummed in acknowledgment, her eyes fixated on the many headstones in front of them. She tugged his hand and with renewed strength, they made their journey to Emily’s grave.

*****************

They spent the rest of the afternoon in silence in front of Emily’s headstone. They decorated with marigolds they had brought from a local store in honor of the holiday. Mulder had left there briefly and returned carrying a small Mr. Potato Head. Scully cried even more. That evening, they collected a pizza as parents began to emerge on the streets with various miniature versions of pirates, superheroes, and everything from all walks of life. She stopped made a second stop at a small convenience store to pick up a bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Are you sure that is such a good idea,” Mulder asked softly. Scully’s raised eyebrow shut down any other pending conversation. He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay.”

“I just need to take the edge off,” she whispered. “Today…”

“I know,” Mulder acknowledged. “You ready for some pizza and bad horror movies?”

“Sure,” she whispered.

Mulder frowned. Maybe visiting Emily’s grave was a mistake. Maybe celebrating the whole Dia de Los Muertos was too. Scully was just withdrawing into herself. By the time they got back to their motel room, the pizza was barely warm and Scully stuff it into their mini-fridge. She grabbed one of the plastic little cups near the empty ice bucket and poured a hefty serving of Jack Daniels. Mulder kept his mouth shut as he watched her sit at the edge of their bed and flip through the channels.

“Do you want to talk?”

“No.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you, Mulder?”

“I don’t know. Have I done something to warrant Scully wrath?”

“You okay, Mulder.” She sighed and downed the whiskey in one gulp. “I just don’t want to feel right now.”

“We could…”

She shook her head quickly. “Not even that.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just hold me? Watching crappy movies and pretend we have a normal life where William is passed out from trick or treating and we watch Plan 9 from Outer Space.”

“I can do that,” he answered.

The pizza was forgotten and left in the fridge. Scully changed into a pair of sweats and one of Mulder’s tee shirts and he left his clothes on. She poured another shot of Jack Daniels and downed it, making her Irish ancestors proud. They always excelled at wordless communication and they crawled into their respective sides of the bed. Mulder opened his arm as she knew how to melt against his side. He pulled up the blanket around them and whispered, “Comfortable?”

“I got a good buzz and you. The only thing missing is a bad movie.”

“I promise we’ll have a normal life one day, Scully.”

“I know, Mulder.”

“I love you.”

She looked up and kissed under his chin. “I know.”

Mulder hugged her close and switched on the television. “What do you want to watch? Friday the 13th or House on Haunted Hill?”

“Which version?” She mumbled.

Mulder smiled. “Which one do you want to watch?”

“Vincent Price. That 1999 version reminds too much of one of our cases.”

“You got it, Scully.”

As the black and white movie played, Scully listened to his heartbeat and let the alcohol ease her off to uneasy slumber. Mulder hugged her close and sighed, switching the channel to something else when he sensed Scully had drifted off to sleep.

***************

Scully knew from the instant that she opened her eyes that she was dreaming. The beach looked like something she had visited a long time ago from childhood. The sand was too white and the ocean too blue. It was too perfect. But she also knew something was off when she noticed Mulder standing next to her with the same confused look on his face. He looked surprised to see her. “Are we sharing a dream again?”

“We didn’t eat any hallucinogenic mushrooms did we?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, “but I think we are.”

Scully sighed. This was the last thing she needed on Halloween. “Fantastic. I thought this ended after that whole acid trip. I don’t recognize this beach.”

“I do,” he whispered.

Mulder looked down at his bare feet and glanced over to Scully. She was wearing jeans rolled up to her calves and a light tee-shirt, also barefooted. “Why is it that we are dressed for the beach?”

“I dreamed of this beach when I was locked in the hospital and you were in Africa. I saw our little boy here. I dreamed of him.”

Scully crossed her arms, unconvinced. “Then why are we dreaming of it now? What’s changed?”

“I don’t know.”

Over the crashing of the waves, they heard laughter from a nearby sand dune. Automatically, Mulder moved to stand in front of Scully as if to shield her. “Mulder!”

Over her protests, the laughter died away and a young woman with dark brown curly hair appeared on the dune. She couldn’t have been more than 15 years old. Mulder found himself star struck. “She looks like Samantha.”

“Mulder, Samantha died.”

“I know...how could we be dreaming this, Scully?”

The teenage girl laughed and retreated down the dune. “Mulder, it can be any number of things. Maybe we ate something or we were drugged.”

“Maybe it’s just Halloween and the spirits have come to call.”

“Mulder! There has to be a logical explanation for this.” She placed her hand on Mulder’s arm. “Maybe the mold in the motel room…”

From the direction of the sand dune, another voice called. Someone familiar. “There goes Dana, always finding a rational explanation for something.”

Scully stilled and her grip tightened around Mulder’s arm. Her blue eyes watered with unshed tears and she looked to Mulder to ground her. He shook his head, unable to come up with an explanation. “She’s dead. Mulder, that can’t be Missy’s voice. She’s dead.”

“I know.”

“This is a dream.”

“I don’t know at this point,” he replied.

Scully shook her head violently. “Mulder, this is a dream,” she insisted, stressing each word.

“Dana?”

It was Missy’s voice again but it was much closer this time. As Scully turned around to find the source of the voice, she screamed bloody murder. As he turned to see what his partner screamed about, he stood face to face with Melissa Scully looking the same as she did in 1994, vibrant and full of life. She smiled warmly. “Hi, Dana. Hi, Mulder. Happy Halloween, huh?”

“This isn't possible,” Scully repeated, backing away. “Mulder, tell me you are seeing this.”

“I am,” he replied. He stepped forward in front of Scully unconsciously as if to protect her. “What do you want?”

The Melissa Scully in front of her laughed airily and shook her head. “I knew you two would make a cute couple. Didn’t I tell you, Dana? It was only a matter of time.”

“Melissa! Are you tormenting Fox?”

The same teenaged girl from earlier appeared behind Mulder and Scully causing both of them to jump. “No, Sam, well not much.”

“I have to admit, Fox,” the teenage Sam sang, “I bet this is slightly better than dealing with those demented Christmas ghosts that tried to get you to kill each other. Kind of romantic though.”

“You would say that,” Missy countered.

“Well, I’m not the one going around saying Fox and Dana are cosmically connected.”

Neither Mulder or Scully could find a word to mutter between them and their deceased sisters carried on as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Did you leave my niece alone?”

“She’s my niece too,” Sam countered. “Maybe not by blood but she does call me Auntie Sammy. She’s fine right now.”

Scully took Mulder’s hand and pulled him away discreetly. “We need to wake up,” she whispered. “Mulder, we need to wake up.”

“I know but there isn’t a magical button.”

As Missy and Sam bickered, there was a chime somewhere in the distance. Both of the deceased sisters stopped and smiled at the confused pair. “That’s our time,” Melissa replied. “Till tomorrow night. Sam, why don’t you gather up Emily? It’s time for us to go.”

“Emily?” Scully whispered, not believing her ears.

“Of course, Dana. Don’t forget you invited her too.”

“Fox,” Sam smiled, shaking her head. “Till tomorrow.”

Mulder and Scully, speechless for once in their lives, watched their deceased sisters climb back up the dune and disappear over it.

***************

Scully woke up with a jolt, hearing a siren blaring over the distant crash of waves outside the seaside motel room. It took a moment for her to become aware of her surroundings after she realized she wasn’t on the beach anymore. The television was still on, playing an infomercial about indestructible knives. She heard someone outside their door. Mulder instinctively hugged her as he took a deep breath, waking up himself. He rubbed her back and whispered, “It was just a dream. It’s all right.”

“We dreamed the same thing, didn’t we?”

Early morning Scully was too blunt for his tastes. “I don’t know. I think so. Maybe.” She let out a shaky breath. “We don’t have to talk about it right now. We can forget about it.”

She did not reply right away but instead closed her eyes. “Were we asleep long?”

“Um? Maybe? I don’t.” He let her go and set up in bed to check the clock. “It’s at four a.m. Do you want me to make the coffee?”

She shook her head and drew him back to bed. “No, I just want to try and go back to bed.”

“Do you want to talk about the dream?”

“You already know what it was about.”

Mulder knew better than to push her to talk and he lay back down beside her. “Do you want me to turn the channel?”

“Do you think they have those music channels?”

“Like MTV?”

“No,” she yawned. “Like those channels that play music.”

“I don’t know. The alarm clock has a radio though.”

“No,” she shook her head sleepily. “Leave the tv on then. I just don’t want to think.”

“You’ve been on edge since we’ve come to San Diego,” he told her. She curled back up beside him and he readjusted the blankets. “Visiting Emily’s grave…”

“I know,” she whispered.

Mulder sighed in frustration. When Scully withdrew into herself, trying to get her to talk was worse than breaking into Fort Knox. He learned long ago she would talk to him when she was ready, Scully would talk. The most that he could do was be there for her in the meantime. He sighed and nodded. “What do you want me to do, Scully?”

“Just…” She sighed. “Just be here for me?”

“You know that. Of course.”

With her finally comfortable, he snaked his hand up underneath her pajama top and caressed her bare skin. She sighed contently. “Never could turn down a good back rub, could you?”

She shook her head against his shoulder. “Never.”

“I could…”

“This is good, Mulder.”

Okay.

“Will you ever talk about it?”

Scully hugged him and sighed. “Let’s see if we share another dream.”

He’ll take that. “Okay. We still got a few more hours…”

“Sleep, leftover pizza, walk on the beach, and we’ll see where we go from there.”

He hugged her tightly. “I love you.”

She was caught off guard by his sudden proclamation. Usually, they weren’t as vocal in regards to the vocal sentiments and each time it surprised her. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself back asleep. She was safe with Mulder and any dream that she had.

**************************

By that afternoon, Scully let herself enjoy the San Diego beach near their seaside motel room. Mulder was in town somewhere, probably procuring more food or checking in on the status of their car. All she knew was that she was ready to leave San Diego and move on. But then, she was also tired of doing that too. Running. Driving. Whatever it was she was doing with Mulder.

Scully sighed and pulled back the beach blanket slightly to bury her feet in the warm sands. The sounds of the beach lulled her into a false sense of security. Even though it was officially the first day of November, she could see surfers in the distance down the shoreline. “Is the sea whispering its sweet secrets to you?”

She jumped as Mulder sat down next to her and offered her a sip of the drink he had. “You’ve been awfully morose for the past few days.”

“What do expect me to be?”

“I just noticed ever since we came to San Diego, something’s been off.”

“Oh, really? What was it? Visiting my dead daughter’s grave? Us hallucinating the same dream about dead relatives? The better reminders of how I failed as a mother with our son?”

“I didn’t say any of those things, Scully and know I never would.” He was silent. “Are you not telling me something?”

She shook her head.

“Okay. You can be like that. Or you could tell me.”

“I don’t know what to say. Or believe. The dream…”

“Is probably nothing. Why don’t we go back and finish celebrating Dia de Muertos? We won’t have to go back tomorrow if you want. Our car will be ready by then.”

“Where?” she asked. “Some other town where we can’t be us?”

“Is that what is bothering you?”

“Maybe.”

“Scully, you got to open up sometime.”

“I’m tired of running. Seeing Emily’s grave...it’s just a reminder.”

Mulder nodded in acknowledgment. “Why don’t we go one last time. Pay our respects. We can go out to dinner one more time and start the drive back east to Virginia. We can talk about settling down.”

“You would do that?”

“We’ll make it work. We always do, Scully.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she nodded. “I just want to stop running, Mulder. They haven’t come after us in three years. We got the message from my mother that I am not of interest anymore.”

“We’ll talk about it then. Let’s go visit her grave one more time, okay? Then we’ll grab dinner somewhere okay?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

*****************

Scully slid the keycard into the motel door lock, swinging the door to their room open. Mulder was right on her heels, his hands resting lightly on her hips, lightly kissing the crook of her neck tenderly. She relaxed against him. “You feel different,” he whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“Lighter,” he murmured. “I noticed you seem to be at peace.”

She pulled him closer, thinking about their last visit to Emily’s grave. Her headstone was not the only thing that had been decorated. There were other families there honoring their deceased family memories. She remembered overhearing other families talk about the holiday, how death wasn’t necessarily the end but rather a continuation of the next step in life. “Um, just a change of mind,” she replied. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the holiday. Maybe it’s something you said.”

“What did I say?” He asked curiously.

“Doesn’t matter,” she whispered.

“You know, we could do something a bit more adventurous.”

“Not tonight,” she whispered.

“You keep shutting me down,” he teased.

“I find cuddling you right now just as good.”

“Cuddling. Did you go and become a nun when I wasn’t looking, Saint Scully?”

“Humor me. I’ll make it up to you when we leave San Diego.” She turned in his arms and pulled him back into the room. “I can’t explain it.”

“So, more scary movies, leftover pizza, and maybe?”

“Maybe,” she teased.

Mulder shifted suggestively against her and she laughed. He shut the door behind them and Scully turned on the television, changing it to HBO. She disappeared into the bathroom and he heard the shower running. He smiled to himself and quickly changed into a t-shirt and pair of sleeping pants. He took a moment to reflect on the past few days as he grabbed two cold slices of pizza for him and Scully. The past few years on the run had been thought between them, testing and pushing the boundaries of their relationship. William and her decision haunted each mile they traveled together. The pain that Emily’s loss had caused seven years earlier never healed either. But now, maybe a chance to lay things to rest and do what Scully wanted, settle down and start a life.

He heard the shower turn off and Scully emerged dressed in one of his tee shirts mismatched with a pair of her pajama pants. “Dinner, Mulder? You shouldn’t have,” she laughed.

“It’s just pizza.”

“Quit being a Debbie Downer.” She paused after a moment and glanced at him. “Are you hungry?”

“You need to eat, Scully.

********************

“This is the same beach,” Scully stated after a moment.

The sun was blinding the moment they both opened their eyes. In the distance, they both heard the waves crashing against the shore and a young child’s laughter in the distance. Mulder took Scully’s hand tightly. “I doubt the pizza is causing this.”

“We didn’t eat the pizza, remember?” Scully admitted. “Or maybe it’s something else.”

“Bout damn time you two got back. I was thinking you were avoiding falling asleep at all costs.”

In the distance, Melissa Scully wore a light sundress and sunglasses. She looked as beautiful as she did in 1995. Mulder could hear the children's laughter in the distance and he instinctively placed his hand over the small of Scully’s back. Melissa Scully waded down the sanddune and hugged Scully enthusiastically. Mulder watched her stiffen before returning the hug half-heartedly. “It’s the holiday,” Missy explained. “Makes it possible for the world to do whatever it is they do.”

Mulder arched an eyebrow reminiscent of Scully. “Sam was, uh…”

“The beauty of this world,” Scully’s sister answered, “we can appear as we want. Well, the dead anyways. She’s always changing. Something about a child’s spirit. Now Emily…” She laughed. “Keeps calling Mulder daddy.”

Scully held up her hands, having difficulty to process anything. Mulder licked his lips. “I’m going to leave you two. See my sister and… Emily,” he added carefully. Scully’s eyes burned into him. “It’s okay.”

Mulder ventured down to the beach where a younger version of his sister and Emily played in the surf. Scully glanced at Missy. “You would do this.”

“What?”

“Make a big entrance.”

“I didn’t go to medical school and make dad proud. Walk with me, Dana.”

“You don’t know how wrong this is.”

“Poor skeptical little Dana.” She laughed. “This is very much real. You know, Emily talks about watching over her brother...as much as a three-year-old can. I never thought you and Mulder....he looks so much like dad, Dana.”

“Do you think?”

“I know And I see Mulder as well in him. He’s safe, Dana. I loved too many people caring about him on both sides. Come on. Let’s watch them. Enjoy this memory.”

Melissa guided her sister to the tallest dune where Mulder chased his younger sister and Emily through the surf and Scully smiled, holding her elder sister close. “I know all this seems impossible but….”

“Let go of the skepticism and enjoy the moment.”

Both sisters sat on the dune and watched Samantha chase Emily. Halfway through, Mulder stopped his antics and looked for Scully. She waved half-heartedly. He bent down and whispered something to his sister who nodded in agreement. With Emily’s hand within hers, an eight-year-old Samantha Mulder appeared in front of her with Emily. Both of them smiled. “Thank you for not giving up on me, or Fox, Dana,” Samantha said.

Scully licked her lips, unable to answer.

“Love you, mommy,” Emily added with a smile. She tugged on Samantha Mulder’s hand with impatience of a three-year-old. “Sam, let’s go back to the beach. Come on!”

“Okay, beat you there!”

The two of them raced back to down to the beach past Mulder who was hiking back up to the Scully sisters. He took his partner’s hand and sat next to her. Melissa Scully smiled. “They’re okay. We’re all okay. Dad is too,” she added with a laugh. “But you know it’s him watching over mom. But unfortunately, the buck stops here you too. Our time is almost done.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s November 3rd,” Missy replied as if it was obvious. “Time for you to wake up and move on.” She smiled. “You always did make a cute couple.”

“Melissa!” Scully shouted.

Mulder grinned and acknowledged it with a sensual kiss to Scully.

“And here I was thinking the cosmically connected one,” she laughed. “You all need to move on, build and create the life you both deserve. You’ve suffered enough. Remember the past but don’t let it define you.”

“We were just talking about that,” Scully whispered, glancing at Mulder.

“Then you need to get a move on.”

“Think of it, Scully. We can go back to Virginia, buy that home we’ve talked about, and do stuff.”

Melissa rolled her eyes. “I will admit I do miss some earthly pleasures. I bet he’s fantastic, Dana from just looking at him.”

“Both of you stop it,” Scully laughed.

*****************

Two weeks later, halfway across the country in a Farrs Corner, Virginia, Mulder wiped the dust off a picture frame that had been in storage at Mrs. Scully’s home for the past three years. With their newly purchased unremarkable home, everything seemed possible. His partner smiled as she saw the picture of his younger sister and him. “Look how handsome you are,” Scully teased.

“I was mutant while going through puberty,” Mulder replied. “Unlike that cutey right there.” He pointed to a family portrait of the Scully siblings with Dana Scully smiling with pink hair and braces. “She’s gonna be my girl.”

Their newly purchased house promised a new future free of their painful past and fear of any government officials coming to arrest Mulder. They finally had a life they could start to build they wanted. Scully wiped the wooden shelf above their fireplace with Pledge and settled one of the few pictures of William they had and next to it, one of Emily. Mulder smiled and moved the picture of him and Samantha next to it. “Looking good,” she told him.

“We have a lot of work ahead.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.” She admired their work. “Remember the past as Missy told us.”

He hugged her from behind and rested his chin on the top of her head. “What do you say we make a future, Scully upstairs?”

She smiled and hugged him close. “Love you,” she whispered.

“Now and forever,” he added.

-End.

[gillian-ybabez]

The New Interview with a Vampire Part 3

<<Previous

“We are back talking to Monica the commander of the space mission to Kepler 186. Why don’t you tell us a little about Kepler 186,” the host prompted me.

“Kepler 186 is a star system about five hundred light years from Earth. We’re heading to the fifth planet out. It is slightly bigger than Earth so higher gravity but we think has a chance at being human habitable.”

“How habitable are we talking? Sunny tropical beaches?”

I chuckled. “Not that sunny. At noon, Kepler 186 is barely brighter than our sun is at sunset.”

“Sounds like a perfect place for vampires.”

“That’s something we’re going to find out. We honestly don’t know if it’s just our sun that will burn vampires or any sun.”

“The scientist at the space agency haven’t run tests? Have they tried using sun lamps?” The audience laughed.

“Ha, no most of the testing with sun lamps was done a couple of hundred years ago.”

“Was that when vampires became public knowledge?” she asked.

“Not exactly. There have calls to go public since before I became a vampire. I saw several during my first century but they always got shot down by older vampires afraid humans would try to exterminate all of us. It was a valid concern so no one went beyond suggesting we go public.”

“What changed?”

“IDs.”

“IDs?” the host asked.

“Yep. In 2234, the Global Identification System changed its encryption schema and made it virtually impossible to create new fake IDs. It was common at the time for vampires to change identities every forty to fifty years. Suddenly it looked like we were going to be locked out of human society and forced back into haunting abandoned buildings. Without the appearance of legal identification, we couldn’t own property, we couldn’t have jobs, we couldn’t receive mail, we couldn’t travel. It was the end of the world for us. Then someone suggested we go public. This time the idea wasn’t shot down right out of the gate. There was a year long debate weighing every possible pro and con. And in the end, enough of us said yes.

“I wish I could read those comments.”

“Actually you can. Someone compiled the discussion into a book after we were recognized as full citizens in 2262. It’s titled Road From Out the Coffin. Horrible title but the content is good.

“How did that lead to scientists running tests on vampires?”

“Right got sidetracked for a second. Basically, some of us revealed ourselves to doctors around the world and let them run whatever test they wanted on us to prove we weren’t vampires. Of course, they got odd to weird results back but couldn’t prove we weren’t vampires. With this wide range of doctors saying “I don’t know what these people are but they aren’t normal human,” we went to specialized labs and continued the cycle. We wanted scientific proof that we, vampires, existed. After several years, everyone was stumped on how our bodies worked but we had detailed reports that they did. Then began step two: petitioning the World Government to recognize vampires as legal citizens with all the rights and protections that entailed. We wanted to be people, not monsters anymore.”

“Is that how people saw you? As monsters?”

“It was ingrained in society. Except for some novels written during the early twenty-first century, vampires have been portrayed as blood sucking murderers. We were that at one time but over time we stopped killing and even stopped having to forcibly take blood from people. That was probably what helped our case the most.”

“You had blood donors?”

“Actually yes. In the 2100’s, some vampires established a worldwide blood bank.”

The host’s eyes widened. “Wait, the World’s Blood Bank is run by vampires?”

“Well, not anymore. It started as a small front to get people to donate blood that was then sold to local vampires on the side. It worked so well that they got vampires around the world to invest and opened a network of vampire controlled blood banks under the name World’s Blood Bank. Then a couple of years after they had started a series of hurricanes and tsunamis and an earthquake devastated local blood supplies around the world. Someone in a hospital somewhere remembered hearing about The World’s Blood Bank and called up to request some blood.

“There was mild panic online that our blood supply was going to be exposed. The vampires running the blood bank decided they couldn’t not help. They had been collecting world wide and felt like they had plenty to spare. Then more requests came and then more. It seemed like the whole operation was going to collapse but then people started donating in mass. Their false image as a blood bank for the world became reality. The vampires set up a corporation to control the blood bank’s finances and set up a board of doctors to monitor day to day operations. They set up small private clinics around the world that could request blood and distribute it to local vampires. Our detractors tried to use this against us, calling us leeches on the world’s blood supply but all the vampires in the world use less than one hundredth of a percent of the blood used in hospitals around the world.”

“Wow. I just donated blood last week.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Well, we’re almost out of time so do you have anything else you’d like to say about the Kepler 186 mission? What do you hope to learn or see?”

“I hope it is habitable. Earth is going to be here for a long time but humans might not. In the last five hundred years I’ve been alive, I’ve seen several man-made ecological disasters. Humans are getting better at cleaning up their messes but it just takes one mess too big to clean up to wipe us out. Too many eggs in one basket. So we’re heading out to find new homes for humanity. This is just the first of several vampire led missions to distant stars. We’re the first wave because we can sleep must of the hundreds of years it will take to get there. The hope is that by the time we get there and can send a message back new forms of transport will have been developed. My greatest hope is we arrive at an already populated planet.”

“You’re giving up your life for humans?”

“A few decades ago a conversation started about what would happen if all the humans died and only vampires survived. The discussion ranged from creating human farms to cloning blood to creating synthetic blood. There are many ways we could keep living if you wiped yourselves out but none of us want that world. Several of us were already in the space program and we suggested finding more worlds for humanity and us to live on. It seems very selfless but really we don’t want to be alone with only each for company.”

“Thank you, Commander Monica, for your time and service.

“Thank you for having me on.”

“That’s all the time we have today. Thank you for watching and don’t forget to donate blood.”

The show’s theme music blared one last time as the audience clapped.

<<Previous

  "The New Interview with a Vampire Part 3" was also posted on my website, Gillian's Notebook, home of my writing. Help support my writing by becoming a patron. Reblogs help to spread my writing to new readers.

[christafauxblog]

how grief can give you life

I vividly remember that sunny December morning. It was a Thursday, and I had stayed late at a friends house the night before watching American Horror Story, so I woke up out of a REM cycle, disturbed by my mother calling me when she should be an hour into work. I answer the phone, concerned, with good reason.

As she proceeds to tell me that my grandmother, the grandparent I was closest to, has passed unexpectedly about an hour ago, I feel a shock to my own body that sent chills down my spine. Everything was in slow motion. This was a familiar feeling, as my grandfather had passed only three months before. My mother asks “would you like to come with your dad and I to [your grandmother’s] house?” I told her yes, since the other family deaths I had endured I wasn’t there for. So, I threw clothes on, and drove to the house where I had partly grown up in for years.

Approaching the two-story, square home in a cozy neighborhood, where everyone was living their regular lives, it dawned on me that nothing felt real. Birds still chirped, the wind still blew and the trees still moved gracefully. Though, in the home off 74th Street, chaos ensued.

Walking up to the door with my mother, we knocked on the door, and it opened with my uncle greeting us. I hear screams from upstairs where my aunt laid in shambles, with a terrorizing wail of a cry that shot my soul. Everyone is dazed. Tears laid on the floor as a welcome mat. As I continued to the middle of the house, I chat with others, to find out that my grandmother was found on the floor by my uncle who was staying there from out of town. They say she passed from a probable heart attack. The police tell us that they’re about to lift her onto the stretcher, and politely inform us that if we are not trying to see her body, to vacate. I stayed. I had to say goodbye, regardless of how much it hurt. I didn’t cry much as she was brought out, cold and disheveled. I held her hand, kissed her goodbye and prayed over her. The same hands who prayed for me, cold to touch. Her arms lacked warmth. Her spirit missing. That moment still haunts me until this very day.

So, why am I telling this story? Because regardless of how much we love, how mad we get, or how sad we are, change is inevitable. Life ends. Things fade. Yet, it’s so beautiful.

I had a dream that day, when I went back home to sleep off the emotional trauma, about my friends and I hanging out, and my grandmother calling me. I answered and she said “Keep loving.” I woke up and, of course, just sat up and wailed for fifteen minutes. As life went on, I would get randomly emotional and go driving. I would find a parking space and get my mind right. I would talk to her and my grandfather. I’d ask them to tap on the window twice if they were there, and I’d hear a light, consecutive two taps on my windshield and I would proceed to talk to them. I came out to them. I let them know how special they were to me. How I missed my grandfather calling me seven times a week. Having three hour long conversations with my grandmother about nothing. How they helped me be proud of my blackness. When they used to tell me how proud they were of me. The times when my grandmother would tell me things will be okay, even when I felt they wouldn’t. My grandmother listening to me and understanding me, regardless of the topic. They mattered so much. I let it all out. I told her why I was mad at her for years. I talked about things I couldn’t have told them if they were still alive. And, for the first time, I felt the same warmth they gave me all my life.

It’s now almost three years later, and my life has been a rollercoaster. I’ve gone to amazing concerts, worked my ass off, felt like I’ve died and been born again, and countless other pretentious phrases. Yet, I didn’t understand the weight of my grandparents legacy until I felt so lost. The validation I needed from people sometimes was gone, the love for knowledge I had was wiped away, etc. Then, the next year after they passed, my other grandmother passed, just to make things more complicated. And death was brought back up when my roommates cat passed away a few weeks ago.

You will never be prepared for death, whether it’s yours or someone else’s. But, understand that everything you possess can be taken away. Material items, people, places, feelings, knowledge, life. Anything. You can’t get ready for any of this. You can’t save your happiness in an account and use it later for when these things happen. So let go.

This is why your appreciation for things must be set high at all times. Your gratefulness for the blessings you receive or continue to have must be set high at all times. Your love for life has to be found. Your love for others must be found. Your truth must be said. Your mind has to be open. Your heart has to feel abundant in love. All these things are so vital to feeling like the human you should be. Shit happens. Things die. It’s life, and it’s how things are set to be.

In learning to love myself more, in being self-aware, in having the courage to defend myself in situations I should, in fighting for myself, in giving more, in receiving more, in understanding more, in learning more, in everything, I found peace. I found a love for myself, albeit fluid, that keeps me grounded. These are all things I learned from the deaths of my surroundings.

From death comes life, from life comes living, from living comes love. Grab every lesson you can from death. Let that person go. Let that pet go. Let that situation go. Remember the beautiful memories. But, let go of the ugly that comes with death. It’ll always be hard. It’ll never get easy, just easier to manage. And that’s okay. Cry about it, get mad, get sad, but find the lesson in it. What did that thing teach you? How can you live out the legacy that person left behind? Be a branch to the tree of their life, and grow.

In this life of sin, you just grow from yourself and become new. Your old self dies at some point in your life and you grow from past things. Why not do it with things that are external from you.

To my grandparents that are gone, I love you. To my first dog, Big Boy, I love you. To my old, younger self, I love you.

And if you’re going through a death right now, just know that you are valid in your pain and hurt. Let it out. Lean on others. Take mental health days. Eat like shit a little. Then get up and keep going, because whoever just passed would want you to thrive.

Keep pushing, keep loving, keep thriving.

Much Love,

Christopher

[haley2017-scstudyabroad]

Halfway Point

It’s crazy to say my time in St. Petersburg is already halfway over. Life has definitely taken on more of a routine by now and is plenty busy. There is always something to study or practice or review or write, somewhere to go, someone to talk to. Of course, I still spend some nights completely chill, cooking and hanging out with friends because I’ll go crazy if I don’t, but when I think about it, life is bit frantic right now.

I’ll go ahead and be such a cliche by saying I can’t believe my semester abroad is slipping by so fast. I keep looking at the endless list of everything I still want to do–visit the Golden Ring, day trips to Vyborg and Repino and Yelagin Island, hiking in the Urals–not to mention everything I have to do for class, and the only thing I can think to eliminate from the equation is sleep (although after four hour long lectures every day, I want to do that all the time too.) This fall in St. Petersburg has been the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and I live somewhere where the leaves actually change. I think I’ve mentioned it already, but they call it золотая осень–golden autumn–and it really is golden. But already the temperature has been dropping (30s. I pulled out the parka) and this past weekend in Novgorod we saw the first snow flurries. Winter is on its way and my time here is growing as short as the days.

I think, there’s this idea that with a midway point supposedly comes some kind of higher knowledge, newly attained throughout the time already spent, but personally I am still such a novice at living in Russia. It’s constantly apparent. Today in my favorite cafe, I chuckled quietly at a woman, obviously foreign like myself, obviously knowing limited Russian like myself, who pointed at a pastry and simply said Я хочу–I want. Aw, she doesn’t know Russian, I thought. But when my time came to order, I still stumbled over the words I say almost every day. So obviously even what I think I know I don’t know. I only know what I feel and what I’ve learned about myself via a new environment and the liminal space that comes with that–what I try to share with you here each week.

Короче (what my friend Marina taught me to say in Russian when you basically want to say ‘long story short’), despite almost two months here I can’t pretend I have the answers, any of them. But when I reflect on how I’ve spent the last two months, I’m extremely grateful and satisfied. I hope I can do the next two just as much justice, even as the days grow cold and dark, the work piles high, and I’m constantly tempted to just curl up in my door room for a nap.

Since I’m unable to impart any formal advice, I’ll supplement a list of the things I’ve loved this far (not previously blogged about), which I highly insist on doing. Not just insist, demand:

Go to Pushkin in the fall and see the ground’s of Catherine’s Palace. It’s seriously beautiful. Like I cannot believe a place like that just sits there existing in the world.

Don’t let anyone tell you Novgorod is boring. It’s quiet. Go there and be still. See the oldest functioning church and the people still praying at it after everything the city has been through. Go to the monastery and just look in silence at all the green and white and silver and blue. Walk across the bridge and drink their sweet honey drink (sbiten, сбитень) and listen to a man play Katyusha on the accordion.

Go to the world’s largest mass grave, here in St. Petersburg from WWII and the 900 day siege. See Tanya Savicheva’s notes recording when each of her family members died, until only she, a little girl, was left alone, and the candy and toys left on some of the graves, showing that children are buried there. Sergey, our cultural guide, told us that brides and grooms often come to the memorial on their wedding days to pay homage to such loss on the happiest day of their lives.

Go to Moscow. See the Red Square at night and the view from Sparrow Hills (Vorobyovy Gory, Воробьёвы го́ры). Just walk around a lot at night in general. Go to Tretyakov Gallery and see Serov’s “Girl with Peaches,” Kramskoi’s “Christ in the Desert,” Surikov’s huge ��Boyarina Morozova,” and all the Repin. My favorite is “They Did Not Expect Him.”

Not necessarily very Russian, but go to Koreana and get the rice with fried kimchi. It’s my favorite.

Go to the Udelnaya flea market one weekend day and rifle through that half treasure trove, half super cheap open air goodwill. Buy a scarf for 50 rubles (essentially nothing) or some soviet era paraphernalia.

Go to the contemporary art museum Erarta. If you don’t have a phone with data, be prepared to spend awhile looking for it. Walk through the haunting and creepy cool exhibits. See the shrouded 3D model of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

Grab pyshki (пышки) and coffee. Russian donuts are just better. Also Russian ice cream. And notice how Russians keep eating ice cream even when it’s crazy cold outside.

Take a quick train ride to walk around lake 

Go to the Botanical Gardens some sunny day (before they close the grounds, if you’re there in the fall!).

Go sit in the park by St. Isaac’s where you can watch the sun set behind The Bronze Horseman. Also some night from the top of St. Isaac’s.

Eat all the pierogies and khachapuri (пироги and хачапури). Don’t be scared of street-side stands.

Go out late at night to watch the bridges open.

Go to the Hermitage one Wednesday night to watch the Peacock Clock unfold. Get there early (before 7 I think) if you really want to see it.

Drink coffee early one morning by the Neva.

Go sit at the “beach” outside of Peter and Paul Fortress. While you’re there go see inside the church where Anastasia is supposedly buried.

Check out Russia’s first eternal flame in the Field of Mars. The statue of Mars on the nearby bridge was left up during the siege because the citizens thought it was only right since Mars is the god of war. But when the siege was over the statue remained untouched.

Keep on exploring!

That last one is for me as much as anyone. My biggest regret right now is the amount of time I’ve been spending inside or in comfortable places. There is still so much to discover, but I’m getting complacent. I need to get myself back out and unfolding more of this city I have such limited time in. If only it wasn’t so cold and I wasn’t so busy. I’m still trying to master the balancing act of relaxing, experiencing, and staying on top of my work. But I’m making a new rule for myself here on out for the rest of the time to always be going somewhere new.

If you are coming and have any specific questions, please reach out and I can try to help. But for now these experiences are all I can say I know. I’m excited to say there will be plenty more to come.

View from the top of St. Isaac’s Cathedral

Bridge opening at midnight

Russia’s first eternal flame in the Field of Mars

Beach area outside of Peter Paul Fortress

The Bronze Horseman statue near St. Isaac’s Cathedral

One morning by the Neva

Botanical Garden

At the Erarta Contemporary Art Museum 

Saturday morning at the Udelnaya Flea Market

Inside the Kremlin

Red Square at Night

Sunny day at Pushkin at the grounds outside of Catherine’s Palace

Boatride in Novgorod

Novgorod Monastery