The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

"Hey yourself" I softly said back to her.

She then commented about my armored form & I chuckled.

"I'll remember that the next time I watch over you. You OK? You were sleeping pretty hard."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie

"All we can do is our best, Marcy," Ceri confessed gently. "That's the only guarantee I can offer you, as a parent and as a human being. I've never really been a sensei before, but my family had a certain emphasis on... tradition. And that tradition included passing it on. I'll give Merick the best of what I have, just as you've given him your own best. All we can do is hope for the best, and put our trust in the next generation.

"It's important to be aware of our limitations as a race," Ceri suggested. "It's important to realise that we do tend to consume and we do tend to be greedy and we do tend to fear what we don't understand. (I don't understand that my daughter is dating already; it really doesn't matter who she's dating, I fear that concept because I can't understand it.) ...but even as we realise our shortcomings, we discern our greatest traits. There will always be voices crying out against the darkness. What we must do as human beings, as Earthlings, is strive to make sure that those voices are never wholly drowned out."

She finished the rest of her beer and set the empty bottle down in the grass.

"As for Nature versus Nurture," she mused. "That's a pretty thorny truth. And there's certain Truths that it's only given to God to know. The Buddha Himself refused to answer certain questions put to Him, ostensibly because wrestling with such concepts distracted people from more practical matters of day-to-day enlightenment.

"I can only say," Ceri noted, with a wry yet somehow reverent smile, "that I have ever been a fan of Tilopa's Sixth Word of Advice: 'Relax, right now, and rest.'"

She glanced over at Jamie, who was still sitting with his eyes closed.

"What about Science, James?" she prodded him in the shoulder with a finger. "What does The Scientific Community have to say on 'Nature versus Nurture?'"

Jamie sat there for a moment, and then opened one eye.

"Are you asking for a consensus?" Jamie asked, with a hefty note of incredulity. "Are you asking for a consensus of opinion from The Scientific Community? The last time Science wholeheartedly agreed on anything, it was that if you bang rocks together, sometimes it makes Fire. And then everything degenerated into a row about which rocks were better for it."

He reached up and tugged the tie down from his forehead, over his eyes like a blindfold, keeping out the brightness of The Sun.

Then he lay back on the blanket, laced his fingers behind his head, and seemed very much to have said all he was going to say on the matter.

Ceri blinked.

Normally, one could just wind James up and watch him go. That seemed to be the shortest answer he'd ever given to a question. Ever.

After a long pair of moments, blindfolded Jamie opened his mouth anew: "But, if you're asking me what I think..."

Ceri grinned, and shook her head. Ah, I shouldn't have doubted. Here it comes.

"Well," Jamie began: "Funny story. My branch of the Hamilton bloodline actually traces its origins back to a rather infamous affair Lord Horatio Nelson had with a married woman named Emma Hamilton. Childbirth out of wedlock, big hullabaloo, British Powers-That-Were kicked Nelson back out to sea because he couldn't behave himself on land. But ever since, we Hamiltons have been brilliant, and we've been bastards. So what does that tell you?"

He didn't really wait for an answer.

He sat up, and, blindly, reached into the basket of beverages, and came up with the Sauvignon Blanc. He fumbled with the cork for a minute but shortly grunted.

"No, no," he muttered. "This stuff's rubbish without sushi."

He sighed and let the bottle clunk back into the basket, and lay back down again, this time with his hands folded on the middle of his chest.

"Talking of upbringing," he faux-grumped in Marcy's general direction. "Your young lad raided the entire vineyard illegally, and he couldn't grab us a nice box of Merlot?"

Ceri rolled her eyes at Jamie, and then shrugged apologetically to Marcy. 'So rude,' she mouthed.

"Anyway," Jamie gathered his steam back, "once upon a time, in the A.D. 1960's, a very nice gentleman named Lovelock postulated a scientific rationale for The Earth being a living thing. 'Gaia' states that every single creature on its surface, that every single geothermal burp and whinny, that every single gram of The Earth is part of an organism.

"If that's the case," Jamie mused, "(and I'm not saying it is, and I'm not saying it isn't, and don't get me started on the involvement of extradimensional white mice) then even our Nature is the product of Nurture, as even Nature nurtures us, shapes us and makes us as part of its very amalgamated 'biology.'

He sat up again, found a pack of orange-flavoured Craisins entirely by feel, and began to nibble on these.

"The Fundamental Forces of The Universe," he suggested, with his mouth full, "conspire to shape and mould us. After all, we've got the same number of cervical vertebrae as giraffes, only theirs are bigger, and they're generally peaceable herbivores. I mean, outside of an Eddie Izzard routine, have you ever heard of an evil giraffe? Maybe we'd be relatively gentle plant eaters too if we'd evolved with longer necks."

He chewed, and he swallowed, and he gesticulated with the Craisins packet.

"My point," he pontificated, "is that Nature feeds Nurture and Nurture loops back on Nature. It doesn't matter if we're Nature or we're Nurture because we're both and, eff it, they're the same thing in the end."

He tugged the tie back up away from his eyes and he grinned and his eyes were dancing.

"The best part is," he noted, puckishly, "and I think Ceri will agree with me? That no matter how hard Nature and Nurture strive to confound us, we've got a say in the matter. We roll on out with our Free Will and, to a certain extent, we can change who and what we are, gritting our teeth and shaping our own destinies, as a species and as individuals."

"Quite right," Ceri grinned, surprising herself and toasting Jamie with a fresh beer. "That is the best part."

Jamie grinned, and he grabbed one of the remaining bottles of ale. He winked at Marcy, and he twisted the cap off of the bottle with a flourish.

"You needn't worry about rambling," he pointed out, devilish and delighted, switching to his making-fun Appalachian accent even as he spoke: "When it comes ta lunatic ramblin', yer duelin' wi' th' champ."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose curled up a bit as she sat, hugging her knees to her chest and smiling softly.

"Yeah," she murmured. "I'm okay, I think. Thank you for... thank you for asking. I've never pushed myself like that before. Not in a... not in a sustained sort of way. My batteries are all tapped out; I can probably sleep for a week straight at this point and still be a little woozy at the other end.

"(But then again,)" she contemplated, "(I only slept for a day or so after The Accident. Maybe just a day would do it.)"

She blinked, and her superhumanly blue gaze focused on Kyle anew, focused on his own bio-luminescent eyes.

"Do you consider yourself fortunate, ever," she wondered, gently, "that you don't need to sleep?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I blinked.

Fortunate??

"Well, sometimes, if I've procrastinated something and have to get it done before school, but otherwise it would be nice to just shut down. Slip into oblivion and recharge. But once i stopped sleeping the nightmares stopped, and I never want to wake up to those again."

"Besides, in the dark is where bad people try and do bad things, and sometimes my scary bad self is there to point out the error of their ways. Though I think we may have just moved up to something beyond spanking gangbangers."

I stood up then and reached into my back pocket. "Oh, I got this off the guy that went into the cave. Not sure what it is, maybe you have an idea"

I walked over and sat back down next to Rose, and handed her the silver disk.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Marcy

Marcy sat trying to listen and take it all in. "I think I only really understood about half of what you said. On the other hand you both are very soothing. Thank you for taking me down. You know, I think Merick and Rose will both be fine. I mean, not only do they have us, they have each other. Friendship has a way of binding you. Keeping you strong."

Marcy finishes her second beer and lays it down. "I will have to remind Merick that if he is going to pillage the local vineyard, to make sure he gets the Merlot. Or at least a nice chardonay, or shiraz. Well one makes due, I suppose." Marcy checked her watch, realized it was getting toward supper. "Tell you what... as fabulous a feast as Merick layed before us, there is this little shack down by the beach. Best grilled pork I have ever had. Dale said they had a mean Mahi Mahi too. My treat. Whatta ya say?

 

[AmenRa]

He sat down with a sigh, placing the steaming, frothy concoction of cafe mocha on the table in front of him. He looked around for a minute, catching the faces of the other patrons of The Talon. He saw no one he knew, no one that knew him.

John Jones pushed the old, dusty, brown felt hat back on his forehead a bit. He pulled a worn looking and leather bound journal from a pocket of his equally worn leather jacket. He placed the journal on the table, opened it, and with a black fountain pen, he began to write.

The words were English. The glyphs were Kryptonian. The meaning was all Martian.

He wrote about how his friend, Var-Sen, had fell into the Phantom Zone. He wrote about how the end of things was near, and even he feared that another planet would fall prey to an evil greed. He wrote about how he, J'onn J'onzz, the last surviving member of a long vanished race, saw fire and terrible pain in Earth's future.

And he finished the journal entry with one Kryptonian symbol that many now knew very well.

Hope.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"It all seems so cosmic," Rose murmured as she ran sensitive fingers over the disk, over the octagon. "So much for saving kittens from trees, right? I kind of wanted to start little and ramp up. I'm scared of so much. (Like I'm scared of going to sleep at night, scared that when I wake up, everything will be different, and I'll be utterly alone.) But this is almost so big..."

She shook her head incredulously, squinched her eyes shut for a moment.

"...this is almost so big," she mused, "you can't get scared of it. It's too incomprehensible to be frightening."

She held up the disk.

"Speaking of incomprehensible?" she noted. "Kryptonians were really otaku about their geometry, huh? 'Recreational mathematics.' This is octagonal. And there's that thing that keeps cropping up. That symbol with the 'S'-type thing. (Look, there's even a little version of it here, on one edge... except that looks more like an '8' numeral in the middle than it looks like an 'S.') ...that's inside a five-sided figure. I wish I could take just one Kryptonian math lesson. Just one. I bet their math was transcendent."

Rose closed her eyes, and touched the disk to her forehead.

Cool. Cool to the touch.

"Supermath," she mumbled.

And then she sat back and stared at the thing, before darting her gaze back across to Kyle with a puzzled look on her face.

"You know what this looks like?" she murmured. "I was only in The Cave like one and a half times, but Bruce and Chloe and Pete were all talking about this indent in the wall. And it was totally octagonal. Just like this. I think the diameter matches, too, but... I'm not good at putting puzzles together. I might just totally be making it up."

She ran her fingers over its cool surface one more time.

"...also? It kinda looks like a data disc from Serenity," she whispered. "Like the kind that held the secret of Miranda. Like you could... insert it somewhere, rightplacerighttime, and it would change the course of a solar system's history."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie

Jamie tugged the Kryptonian Crystal of El out of his coat's inner pocket and stared at it quietly. Ran his thumb over The Symbol.

And stared to nowhere.

Rose's Darksome Boy had been right about one thing, one very true thing.

It was important to know for sure for whom it was that this Crystal was meant. He had heard John Smith before he'd vanished into oblivion...

'Kara.'

Jamie had met a Kara. Just recently. He wondered if they were one and the same.

He stared to nowhere... but then he realised someone was talking to him.

Ceri was standing, and she shoved him in the shoulder with the sole of her boot to get his attention.

He blinked. "What? You what? With the-- ...what?"

Ceri smirked her wry little smirk and put her hands on her hips.

"Marcy's just invited us out for supper," she explained to him. "'While you were out.' Are you coming?"

He blinked at her. "Time zones. Is it even teatime yet, here? Is it even lunchtime?"

Ceri stared at him, a little aghast. "Well it's no time for you to be rude, if that's all right?"

"Oh," Jamie blinked, and then leaned over to look at Marcy, past Ceri. "Sorry. Erm. Thank you, but no."

Ceri arched her eyebrows at him, and her spine got a little stiffer. She was worried that Jamie's madman tendencies were going to undo all the 'soothing' they had done...

Jamie gestured to the downward slope. "No, really," he suggested gently. "I'm not being antisocial. You go have a good time with your friend. And I'll stay here in case Merick comes back looking for us."

He held up The Crystal. "Got some thinking to do. Meditating, of a sort. I'll eat dried cranberries -- they're even better than Jelly Babies. (Well. Almost.)"

Ceri seemed dubious. But what he was asking, really, wasn't that unreasonable. "I'll bring yeh some chips."

She turned to Marcy, and grinned softly.

"Shall we go, then?" she shrugged. "Leave oul' Puddleglum to his contemplations. You can tell me about this band of yours. Punk covers? Did you ever cover a group called 'Mucous Membrane?' Something of a... of a favourite of mine."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gabe

...a few hours later, Gabe Sullivan awoke in a cabin in the woods not far from Crater Lake.

And he had no idea how he'd gotten there.

The last thing he remembered was sitting in his sedan on Main Street with Chloe.

And hearing the sirens.

"What the Hell?" he muttered, totally bewildered, and wondered why his head was killing him.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

"Well, it is more like a key. I saw .. whatever that was put it in that hole in the wall you mentioned, which opened up a door. Once I made it inside I saw it drop the disk into a slot on a pedestal in that chamber. Then I sorta blasted whatever that thing was and stuck the disk to the wall. Things got a little exciting for a few seconds."

I looked into Rose's eyes. They were still the most captivating thing about her. I could loose days staring into them.

"This means something, and that crystal the green guy gave your father means something. This is a big puzzle, and we are just pieces in it."

I sighed again and closed my eyes, resting my head against the wooden wall.

"I also think we just passed the easy part. Now the tests will get really tough. Sunset is in 47 minutes, so lets get out of here and go find this "Chosen One". We are probably gonna need her."

 

[ChasNicollette]

(Bill Ross trundled past Miller's Bend driving Ceri's Saab, and spied his son standing out in the underbrush, staring at the sky.

He parked hurriedly, and ran to his son, and they embraced. They hugged tightly, with great strength, and they loved each other very much.

Ben Hubbard stood beside the car feeling a little out of place.

He glanced out at Smallville, out at the town, and wondered if Jonathan and Martha were okay.

Ben had long nursed something of a crush on Martha, and he had nothing but respect for Jonathan. He wondered if they were okay.

Bill and his son Pete walked back over to the car, holding each other tightly by the shoulders.

"Dad," Pete muttered, one eyebrow arched, "did you steal a car?"

"Borrowed it," Bill corrected him. "And now I know you're alive and well, we're takin' it back to where we found it.")

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose sat quietly and watched Kyle with his head leaned back against the wall. Rose sat quietly and watched him and adored him with a clutching feeling around her heart.

Are we in such a hurry to leave? she wondered, with a pang of regret, a little bit of resentment aimed at The Universe. We could. Just hang out. For a little bit longer? It could be like a date, almost.

We could sit here and pretend we're not cosmic jigsaw-pieces in a puzzle vast and bleak. We could pretend we're just a boy and a girl and we could hold hands and you could kiss me goodnight and we could be almost normal.

Almost.

...later. Later for the normalcy.

Rose stood, and she dusted herself off a bit, which was sort of a joke...

She shouldered first one laptop bag, then the second, and she shoved The Key into her back pocket.

She grinned gamely.

"Where to from here?" she wondered, not unreasonably. "I don't really... I don't really know where to find The Chosen One. There was sort of a... there was sort of a bet going that she'd be blonde."

Rose trailed off a bit, went away in her brain.

"Also," Rose murmured, "I think she might be warm. Var-Sen was really kind of... warm. Like, thermally."

She blinked, and came back, and had a worried, agonised look on her face.

"And what if she doesn't want to be Chosen?" Rose breathed. "She didn't come when Var-Sen said she would. What if she doesn't want to be Chosen?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Alfred (with special thanks to Superman1496)

Wayne Manor's library was expansive, and it looked out on the back of the house with big wide windows.

It was through one of these windows, opened for the purpose, that Alfred Pennyworth chased the errant bat.

"Off you go then," he encouraged the little black bit of leather and fuzz as it flapped off into the gathering night, chirping that eerie, nauseating sound. "I'll not have Thomas Wayne's collection of first editions survive a bloody meteor shower just to serve as a resting-place for your excrement."

He set the broom down and took a deep breath, and shook his head with a lopsided grin before reaching up to close the window.

"It's not bad enough," he lamented roguishly, "that we have raccoons rummaging through our dustbins..."

A knock sounded down the hall from the front, and Alfred arched an eyebrow.

"Who could that be," he wondered, setting the broom aside and dusting his black sleeves off as he headed in that direction, "at this time of night? Not those Third Species duffers again, I hope. I've had just about enough of their codswallop."

He swung the door open wide, and blinked with surprise to find a young man standing there in a jacket and a hat, looking not entirely pleased to be there.

Alfred arched both eyebrows now, as this boy was entirely unfamiliar to him. "And what can I do for you, Young Master?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Marcy

Marcy starts down the path. "Mucous Membrane? Our old drummer, she was from Liverpool, she used to rave about this one boot leg she had, only got to here it once then her dog ate the damn thing. Huh. Mostly we covered a lot of The Ramones, Sex Pistols, and any The Stooges. Nothing transcendant or any thing. Ceri, I want to thank you again. You have made this day almost bearable.

Marcy continued to lead the way.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick was tired, he was sore and he was very uncomfortible. People weren't his schtick. Not really anyways.

Merick froze for a second as the older gentleman stood before him.

"Uh...mm.. well, see this is very odd really. But I was supposed to meet Chloe Sullivan here at 7 for a little shindig, and see, with everything going on I am having a bit of trouble find this other friend of mine, but I figured maybe she was supposed to be here too, so I came over, and I was kinda wondering if Chloe or Rose were maybe here, ya know? Um... Sir.
Merick by this time was again kneading his hat furiously in his hands. Looking mostly at his feet he added, "Um... yeah, I am Merick. Merick Tennylson, sir. Nice to meet you. Merick made no move to extend a hand, rather he continued to play with his hat and find the floor of the porch incredibly interesting.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri

"The Sex Pistols may or may not have been over-rated," Ceri chuckled as they picked their way down the ridge, "in either incarnation. But you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that The Ramones weren't transcendent. James swears by The Blockheads or Kilburn and The High Roads (but he's just as likely to pop on a Buddy Holly CD or Janis Martin)."

She smiled faintly. "...we both loved Mucous Membrane. Living proof, they were, that a quartet equipped with more than one Liverpudlian can somehow make magic. (You know, after that first lot.) Night James and I met, we wound up at a Mucuous Membrane concert."

A little bit of bittersweet pain found Ceri's face. "Rose should really be hearing this. She really should."

...but the pain was fleeting, and Ceri resumed her smile, though less faintly this time. "And what're'yeh thanking me for? We've gotten through this together, we have."

She gave Marcy a quick, firm hug, and grinned at her.

"Nothing like friends to get you through a Ragnarok, hand in hand."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Alfred

Gently, but firmly, Alfred reached out a hand with an up-turned palm and pushed Merick's chin so that his eyes were more level.

Alfred's eyes were stern, but not unkind.

"Begging your pardon, lad," he suggested, "but unless you have some remarkable facility for conversing with knotholes, it may serve you better to talk to me rather than the floorboards."

He withdrew his hand, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"It does so happen," he informed Merick, "that while I don't know this Rose? ...a certain Miss Sullivan has just graced this dark doorstep with her presence. She seems, however, a bit in a state of shock. She doesn't seem injured in any fashion, but I fear that someone directly near to her must have been terribly wounded.

"She's in the kitchen," he continued, "convalescing and chatting with the master. And the master has just requested privacy."

Alfred's eyes crinkled around the edges somewhat, and he sniffed lightly, as if testing a change in the wind.

"However," he declared, relenting, "since you've apparently come all this way on foot, I shall not be inhospitable. (Far be it from me.) Why don't you have a seat on the settee, here in the sitting room, while I make your presence known to Master Bruce. It'll be up to him, really, if you get to stay or go."

He backed away from the door, and indicated the sitting room off to one side.

"Come along then," he prompted with a good-natured sort of impatience, "we've none of us got all night."

 

[camerindrake]

SMALLVILLE 0130, Seigel Estate

Damian and Dinah pull up to the Seigel estate. The black Charger and navy blue Harley Davidson a striking contrast against the old Seigel Manor.

Dinah Looks up to the old estate and says, "Lovely house, Damian. Though I think that i would rather it would have been in better condition."

Damian looks at Dinah as he begins to walk up to the Manor and smiles, "It just means we have a bit of work to do. I am sure its not that bad." Damian grabs the door nob and the door falls against him. ",or maybe it is.."

Dinah shakes her head and gets back on the bike. "I think that it would be best if we hit up the local Motel 6 tonight then we can get working on the manor tomarrow."

Damian nods and gets to his car and they take off to Smallville to get to the local hotel.

 

[AmenRa]

John Jones took a sip of his mocha.

It tasted like....something else.

Ah, yes. That!

As he opened the package of Oreo cookies, he also closed up the journal and put it back in the pocket of his jacket. He took a bite out of a cookie, and held it slightly aloft in a silent toast to Var-Sen of Krypton.

"Only the blood of the house of El can open the Gate from the inside."

Of course, the only known surviving member of the House of El was here, on Earth. In the Phantom Zone? Var-Sen was surely alone.

Unless.....

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick sheepishly smiled at the stately gentlemen before him. "Th-thank you Sir. I appreciate the hospitality.

Merick takes the seat as directed, trying his best not to stare at the floor. His face a slight pink. Somehow, this place reminded him of El Paso. Stately, sophisicated, but somehow warmer.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I chuckled and looked up at Rose.

Have a seat O' Valkyrie of my dreams. I want to wait until sundown. If any more bad guys poke there... whatever's out I want it to be on MY turf!! And we only have about fourtyfive minutes to go.


I kept looking at Rose, who sorta shrugged and looked down at me, still wearing that worried look.

"Darlin," I drawled in my best Texas accent (which being a Texan I could do very well), Remember we are looking for a fellow teenager. When do we ever do as we are told?"
I stopped a second to smile up at her.

"Warm huh? Sounds like she and I are about polar opposites. Bekka always said that in my armored form i was always a bit soul-chilly. Comes with the territory, but I'm never going to be a superhero spokesperson."

I patted the floor of the tree house next to me.

" Sit down. There has got to be something you want to know about me? Ask and I shall answer."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe, Bruce, and Alfred

Alfred nodded firmly. "All right, lad."

And then he turned and made for the kitchen. With a light, rhythmic, prim rapping of knuckles, he paused a reasonable-- if brief --interval and opened the door.

He saw Chloe Sullivan, stretched out on the kitchen table, and Master Bruce holding her hand.

Bruce almost looked like he had been going to say something. He had that look on his face, the face he got when he was trying his best to be human. Being human was difficult for Bruce.

Alfred winced as both of them looked at him.

"Begging your pardon, sa'," he inclined his head briskly. "Terribly sorry. Only there's a young gentleman here enquiring after Miss Sullivan."

Chloe sat up, tugging the damp cloth from her forehead, and steadied herself by clutching Bruce's forearm, as evidently she'd sat up too quickly.

"Looking for me?" she blinked, rubbing her head. "Here?"

Alfred nodded firmly. "One Merick Tennylson," he explained.

Bruce gave Alfred a bewildered look, glanced back at Chloe. "Never heard of him. Do you know this guy?"

Chloe's face was a mixed mask of bemusement and chagrin.

Oh, Merick. What a sense of timing.

"Yeah, I know him," she confirmed. "He's a... he's a friend from school. Tends to sort of pop up. Very unpredictable. I don't think he can help it."

A kind of scaly hardness flickered across Bruce's dragonslayer eyes. "Is he... is he bothering you?"

"No, no, nononono," Chloe shook her head and slithered down off the table. "He's a friend. He means well. He means very well. But you know what they say about the means and the ends? He doesn't always end well."

Bruce seemed dubious. Seemed half-ready to tell Alfred to break out the ol' shotgun and chase this guy off into the sunset.

"Is this the same guy you were talking about bringing with you earlier?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah," Chloe nodded vigorously, though she had to lean a little bit more on Bruce than she ordinarily might. "He's a decent guy. And his situation... pertains to our situation."

Bruce's brow furrowed, as if he couldn't really tell which situation she was referring to, exactly. But then, that wasn't his fault-- there was the situation with the now-lost Professor Smith, mysterious powers and terrible artefacts; and then there was the situation with him and Chloe, so many things left undefined --and it really wasn't Chloe's fault, either.

He turned his head to examine Alfred, who awaited his reply with patience seemingly bordering on the infinite.

"Yeah," he nodded. "We'll see him."

"Of course, sa'," Alfred nodded firmly, and then led the way down the hall. "I've set him down here in the sitting room. And I daresay, if the young lady is capable of sitting up and taking nourishment, the sitting room might be a sight more comfortable than that rickety old kitchen table."

Bruce smiled, a mysterious little dancing smile, a ghost of mirth that wasn't quite sure how to materialise. "Thank you, Alfred."

He and Chloe walked together, holding hands. It was another point of unresolved tension in their thus-far-brief, bewildering romance-- another ghost that wasn't quite sure how to materialise --that they were holding hands, perhaps for comfort, perhaps just to help Chloe walk in her weakened state.

Alfred stood in the big archway to the sitting room with its various ancient but surprisingly comfortable chairs and such-- Alfred had once claimed, dryly, that these couches were the very ones mentioned by King David in The Old Testament Psalms --and presented both Bruce and Chloe to the young lad sitting on the settee.

"Mr. Merick Tennylson," he proclaimed.

Chloe went to Merick's side instantly, leaving Bruce a little bit in the lurch, just a little, as Chloe took the cushion next to Merick with wide wide eyes.

"You okay?" Chloe wondered, looking slightly paler than she already had done. "Looks like you've been to the same war I have."

Bruce made to sit down himself, but then he brought himself up short.

Hat. Jacket. Hair.

Facial structure. Cheekbones, nose, eye colour.

This had been the same boy "popping up" all over the battlefield that he'd just barely escaped with his life. Masked or not, Bruce instantly knew this for a fact.

That teleporting boy and Merick Tennylson were one and the same.

(Actually, there had been two of him.

No wonder Chloe thinks his situation is germane to ours.)

Alfred touched Bruce's arm, and murmured to him gently. "Are you quite all right, Master Bruce? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Bruce shook his head slowly. "No, Alfred," he murmured. "Ghosts have trouble materialising. This kid doesn't have trouble materialising at all."

He then left Alfred's side, and sat across from Chloe and Merick, facing them from his perch on the loveseat.

"You can't half be cryptic sometimes," Alfred muttered ever-so-softly, shaking his head at Bruce, but then cleared his throat, clapping his hands together as he spoke aloud: "Now, then. We're a bit ramshackle at the moment, but that's no excuse as much of the town is in the same ramshackle state. I would hardly be worth my salt as a Gentleman if I didn't offer everyone liquid refreshment. What'll it be, then?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose grinned brightly at him, her worry melting somewhat.

Glad was she that they didn't have to go anywhere yet. She was still very much pooped. Gently, she set down the satchels and resumed her place by his side.

After a moment she blinked, swore softly in Klingonese, and wriggled as she reached under herself and tugged that Key out of her back pocket.

She grinned at Kyle ruefully as she fiddled with the disk in her fingers. She'd worried for a moment that she'd damaged it, but no, no. It stood to reason that this thing was pretty much indestructible.

And here Kyle was, giving her carte blanche to enquire as to the intricacies of his life, and she had no idea where to start.

(At least he was asking her in a thrilling little Southern accent... she'd always loved Southern accents. Accents of any kind, really. ...and he'd called her 'valkyrie.' Why did that sound so. Why did that sound so perfect?

She felt like she had dreamed that word recently.)

No idea where to start...

...oh. No. One idea.

"Okay, um," she mumbled, then blinked and sat up a little straighter. "Who's 'Bekka?' You mentioned her before... she has a 'team' that makes ginchy ubertech sunglasses."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I chuckled.

"Bekka would be short for Rebecka, my older sister. I couldn't say her name when I was little so I shortened it, and it just stuck." My tone sobered up then and my voice dropped to almost a whisper. "She's the only other survivor of my family."

I looked Rose in the eyes and continued.

"I already told you my full name, Kyle Alec Greystone. What you probably don't know know is my family founded and owns Gen-Tech, and we are at least as rich as the Luthors, probably better off since Bekka won that major contract with the government."

I closed my eyes, bringing back memories I didn't want, but could never forget.

"A little over four years ago someone hired a professional to kill all of my family. He got my parents, and my little brother and sister. Twins, and only seven years old. Mom screamed and woke up Bekka and me, and we came in when he was just leaving their bedroom. He cut Bekka up pretty bad, thats why she is in a wheelchair now. The only reason we lived is because my powers manifested. I shifted us to Shadow, and then back to my Grandparents ranch, which was in Spain at the time. Bekka almost died. If the vet hadn't done what she did for her, she would have died."

"I had nightmares about that night until about a year ago, when I stopped sleeping. I don't need to eat or drink either. Hell, in my other form I don't even breath. I used to think I had died that night, and this is Hell, but I've learned different. I'm different."

I chuckled and looked into Rose's eyes again.

" And besides, when I turn eighteen I inherit forty percent of the company, which from what I am told is worth about seven billion dollars. Not really sure what I will do, but I an damn sure afford to do it when I do figure it out."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose didn't really have the words.

She'd long lamented her own family situation. But she'd never had any brothers or sisters to lose... and both her parents were still alive. Heck, they were even both living with her again, even if they were constantly snipping at each other.

She felt. Ill-equipped. To respond to that sort of tale, to deal with the real-life notions of hired killers and that sort of thing.

All she could do, really, all she could do was reach out and simply take his hand and squeeze it firmly but gently.

Rose squeezed his hand, and she smiled, and she blinked back a sympathetic tear.

"Isn't it weird," she murmured, surprising herself, "how life can get? To take so much from you and give you so many other things in return?"

She pondered, her eyes blinking a little too rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. "My family's been scrimping and saving for so long. Seven billion dollars. That's another one of those things that's too big and incomprehensible to be scary."

Rose ran her thumb over his palm, tracing his life-line, and watched her thumb as it moved before glancing up at his face.

"I guess I'm," she began, faltered, tried again, "I guess I'm supposed to say something here, about money not being able to buy wisdom? But I guess you know that already. And I guess none of us are really wise... but I think I can see in you the place that wisdom's supposed to go when you have it. You'll be ready for wisdom when that comes.

"And for all you've lost," Rose murmured, "wisdom's really the best thing to get in return."

Rose squeezed Kyle's hand harder for a moment when she bit the inside of her cheek because almost against her volition she could feel more words coming, and they were some of the hardest, most agonising, most heartfelt words she'd ever said to another human being:

"You should introduce me sometime," she whispered, "to your parents, and to the... the twins. If that's okay. We could go and visit them where they're... they're buried. I'd like to meet them. If that's okay."