Wait! It's Monday! Why is there a post here? It's summer vacation, of course - I'm going to try, (emphesis on TRY!) to post on Monday and Friday (The finale is coming soon, very, very, very soon)
Jo Wheaton like you’ve never, ever, ever seen her before – oh and a few more insights to - JMG
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Sean, Jon, Laura, and Jayden are sitting around the TV set, watching intently. Jayden’s foot thumps up and down impatiently.
“I should have gone with them, I should have had Syd ‘port me there too,” mutters Jayden softly.
“I don’t want to lose both of my girls,” says Sean.
“Dad,” says Jayden, leaning into her father’s shoulder, “I’m going to live a long, long, long time. You’re not going to lose me.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t be hurt,” says Jon gruffly. “So hurt that it takes hours for you to heal. S’what they are doing to Spencer, isn’t it? You see the bruises on the Scott’s?”
Jayden sighs. “I think so. I can’t believe that she did that. Spencer just going after them, even after everything I told them that was happening at The Legacy.”
“It’s why she went,” says Sean. “This loyal streak doesn’t just come from being eternal, the Wheaton clan is pretty loyal and tough.”
Laura gasps as the train rocks on the tracks, and all conversation ceases.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Shelby, Mike, Sydney, and Natalie rush up the stairs to Jo’s office. “She has living quarters behind the mirror,” says Natalie. “I’m sure she has a computer or TV up here.”
Sydney shoves through the door and then gasps. “HOLY SHIT!” She stops, closing her eyes and praying she doesn’t vomit all over the floor, if there is a floor!
Mike lets out a chuckle and walks by his daughter. “Jo and her weirdness.”
Sydney hangs back and Natalie slips next to her. “You okay, Sydney?”
“I’m not scared of heights why is this place freaking me out?”
“Because you can’t teleport here?” offers Shelby. “It is like walking on air, though, isn’t it?”
“Found a TV, come on,” says Mike. “And it doesn’t look good.”
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Abby sits curled on the couch, watching the huge TV that her mother has installed in her living room. “God, I feel like I’m there, that TV is huge. It covers the whole wall.”
Darci rolls her eyes. Dathan sits on the edge of his seat, his fingers folded neatly under his chin. “I never understood the want for bigger televisions, but now I see the thinking behind it. This high definition technology is well worth the money.”
“You bought this?” asks Abby pointing to the TV.
Dathan nods.
Abby smiles widely and then catches her mother’s gaze. “Dad wouldn’t ever have splurged for a TV like that.”
“Your father had issues with size,” says Darci walking away.
Abby closes her eyes, shaking her head hard. “Mom, TMI, just too much information.”
Dathan looks down at the floor and tries desperately not to laugh.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Emma pulls on the rope, half expecting to see Jo on the other end, or Sam, but it is a blonde girl who looks about ready to pass out. The rescue workers have taken Emma’s rope and anchored it away from the train, but Emma is still perched on the last car, waiting to catch sight of Jo again. The EMT take the girl away before Emma can touch her, so Emma places a flat hand on the car, closing her eyes and concentrating hard.
“No…,” whispers Emma, Fate fights to right itself. “JO!”
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
“Sam, god damn it, you can’t die here. Shaun will never fucking forgive you,” grumbles Jo as she manages to move the door slightly. Each time she moves the door telekinetically the train car lurches, it’s as if the door is somehow hinged to the balance of the car. Her hands are cut badly, but Jo isn’t stopping, not noticing that the train is filling with smoke and the fire isn’t far behind. Jo has tried to use her ShadowWalking spell to phase Sam out of the wreckage, but she hasn’t been able too. When she tried a second time, her nose gushed with blood, drenching her upper lip.
Emma, I can’t ShadowWalk next to Sam. I think her redundant powers negates it. And I’m cut and I’m not healing. She’s a buffer power like Dylan.
Get the hell out of there, Jo! I can barely hear you!
“Jo…,” manages Sam. Opening one grey eye, the other swollen shut from the door slamming into her. She’d managed to push Daisy out of the way and gotten the brunt of the impact.
“Hey, hey, come on, help me push this thing…,” says Jo, tears streaming down her face, but Jo doesn’t know why. Her brain has processed that Sam isn’t going to come out of this alive, but her heart still holds that glimmer of hope.
Sam reaches up with her right hand, clumsily grabbing Jo’s, squeezing it. “It’s useless, save yourself, Jo.”
“No, no it’s not!” says Jo desperately. “I can’t leave you here Sam, I can’t… you know I can’t…” Jo grabs at the door again, her bloody palms slipping, crashing to her knees next to Sam. “I can’t”
Sam swallows hard. “You can, someone has to watch out for Shaun when I’m gone…
“You are NOT gone! Damn it, I’ve been in worse situations than this and…”
“Jo, don’t die here with me, please, or I’ll never be at peace…,” says Sam softly. “It’s okay, CJ’s there waiting for me, Jesse too… please Jo, go and don’t look back.”
“Jo!” yells Emma from the window, flames now licking up the side of the train. Jo looks back, watching as Emma scrambles into the car. “Oh god, Sam. Emma get her out of here!”
“Get… her out… of here…,” says Sam with the last of her strength, “Tell Shaun I love her.”
“No, you are going to tell her yourself,” says Jo as Emma wraps her arms around Jo, tugging at her friend. Emma sees the flashes of what is about to happen, but can she change it? She has seconds to act, dragging Jo away from Sam, knowing it is futile to try and save her now. “Emma let me go!” yells Jo desperately, her fingertips brushing Sam’s, not wanting to leave her. Emma drags her to the window and her powers kick in.
“ShadowWalk or we are going to die and leave our kids without mothers, do it for Spence and Rylee, now JO!” orders Emma, closing her eyes.
Jo feels Emma kicking back pushing them away from the car, Emma prays that Jo made them intangible.
Casting the spell, Jo hears the explosion that finally sends the car plummeting over the edge. Unable to keep the spell’s hold any longer, Jo solidified herself and Emma just as they slam against the ground, knocking the wind from both of them. The last image Jo sees before passing out is the fire ball of flame disappearing into the churning river below.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
The sun is beginning to turn the world golden again, but Jo doesn’t think she’ll ever feel the light in herself again. Jo, who’d always come through, who’d always seemed to be able to save the world, had finally failed. She’d left Emma an hour ago at her new home. Rylee had held her for a long time but Jo didn’t feel the hug. She got into her car and drove. She hadn’t been sure where she was driving to until she’d arrived there.
Dirty, grimy, covered in blood; Jo looks as if she’d just been through hell. She stares at Amy’s building, standing on the sidewalk, staring at the house, unsure if she even belongs here. Did she deserve to love someone like Amy after having failed so miserably today?
She had failed. For everything she’d ever done good in life, she had failed a friend. Good intentions be damned; Jo Wheaton wasn’t omnipotent, and she knows that, yet deep down, Jo had thought she would have been able to save Sam. The sole thought that had plagued her when she was on the flight back to LA was... If only….
If only they’d foreseen this, if only these insanities had never transpired, but she knows that no amount of wishful thinking will ever make things right. What if she’d been human today? What if Bev had never shot her up with the cocktail that turned her back into what she’d been meant to be?
Then Jo stops the thought short, no.
One of the truths of her relationship with Amy had been that Amy hadn’t accepted her for what she had been, a vampire, or a hybrid; something other than human. It had been a point of contention for years, but Jo had been what she’d been, and Amy had never been okay with it. Yet, when she’d been turned again, Amy was the one to tell her that this was who she should be. The cog of recognition between them clicking into place. That they were who they were, no ifs, ands, or buts and they did love one another.
Amy, the woman that was in that house right now, had accepted her, loved her, let her be who she is, even if that is this hodge podge of a human being. So that choice, of becoming human again, had been the right one, the only one to make if being turned again is what brought Amy back to her. Jo lets out a rueful laugh into the lightening day.
Jo takes a haggard breath and moves towards the back of the building, pushing open the door. Wrenching off her shoes, seeing blood on her left foot, but not caring, not wanting to wake Amy, Jo goes to the guest bathroom to try and clean up before she collapses. She takes in the fact that the place is almost done, the smell of plaster and fresh wood collided with the smell of fire and gas that clings to her.
Staring at herself in the mirror, not sure she even recognizes the woman staring back, dried blood on her upper lip, Jo put her mangled hands under the warm water, wincing at the pain. She’s not healing, her body acting as if it needs a new infusion of blood. Jo closes her eyes and tries to kick start that part of her but she can’t, maybe it’s psychological, thinks Jo. Splashing water on her face, she tries to scrub the blood off, but it seems rather futile, since Sam’s blood is on her soul also.
“Jo,” says Amy from the door, having heard the water running, and since Tegan had been sleeping next to her, she had known it was Jo. Or a very hygienic thief had broken into the loft. Amy rushes into Jo’s arms, almost lifting the tomboy off the floor. “I thought I’d lost you when I saw that train go over.”
Jo doesn’t say anything her voice failing her. Amy pulls away, looks Jo over, seeing how dirty and crestfallen she is. Amy sees the cut and torn hands of her former lover, tears threatening in her emerald eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall. Instead she reaches out and begins to undress Jo slowly, with careful and deliberate fingers. Tearing the tattered shirt off her, Amy takes long hard breathes, trying to keep herself calm. Jo is in a state of shock, and Amy just wants to clean her up and get her into a warm bed, let her sleep away some of the pain that she is harboring in her heart for the fallen Sam Vance.
Amy turns, gets the water in the newly installed tub going. She then continues to remove the soiled clothing from her friend’s body. Running a finger down Jo’s cheek, feeling the muscle quivering under her touch, Amy gets the rest of Jo’s clothes off and leads her to the tub.
They don’t speak, they don’t have to. Jo lowers herself into the tub, the water changing color as Amy lathers a sponge and methodically begins to wash away the grime of Jo’s experience. Amy washes Jo’s hair, kissing her shoulder lightly when she is done. Jo rests her head on Amy’s, both unmoving. They stay that way for a long time, Amy’s hand on Jo’s cheek, waiting. Finally, the water grows cold and Amy eases Jo from the tub and slowly begins drying her off, Jo’s hair instantly spikes, having a mind of its own. Amy takes her bathrobe from the back of the door, and wraps it around her, kissing Jo’s lips for the first time in a long time. Jo kisses back with equal gentleness.
Both women move to the bedroom. Amy wakes Tegan and the teenager gets out of the bed, staring hard at Jo. Amy nods, telling Tegan that Jo is okay. Tegan leaves the room. Amy turns off the ringer of the phone, not caring who might call, Jo doesn’t need the distractions. Turning, seeing that Jo has crawled into her bed, her blue eyes staring listlessly at the ceiling, Amy gets into the bed with her, Jo pulls her close.
For a long time, they simply lay there with each other, both knowing that if Emma hadn’t gone after Jo, she may well have died also. “I didn’t save her,” whispers Jo as the room began to grow light.
“I know,” says Amy. “You saved yourself, and as much as I wish Sam were alive, I’m glad that you’re not dead. It is such a fine line that you tread, such an awesome responsibility to harbor on your shoulders.”
Jo thinks about what she’d been thinking about when she’d been outside. “I had a thought outside,” says Jo. “That if I hadn’t become human, then if Bev hadn’t changed me back, that I wouldn’t have come here today. I’d have gone to Bev’s.”
Amy is silent. Jo was never going to get over Bev Potter, she closes her eyes and tries not to sigh. She hears Tegan in what will be the living room. The teenager is moving around but trying hard not to make a sound.
“Then, I realized that I am meant to be with you. It took you losing me and marrying Dylan to make you see that no matter what I was, that I was the one you loved,” whispers Jo. “Our road to each other was just longer than Spencer and Rylee’s.”
Amy swallows hard, turning onto her side to look at Jo, caressing her cheek. “As long as you are alive, I don’t care what or who you are, just no dying on me.”
“I can’t promise that,” says Jo softly. “I can promise that we’re going to go fight for our daughter, we are going to take down Iesous and we will stop this insanity once and for all. Then, after that, damn it I want to live. No more spells or powers, I want to go to work every day and I want to come home to you.”
“What are you saying?” asks Amy sitting up, looking at Jo, who looks deadly serious.
“I’m saying…,” pauses Jo. “Marry me.”
s*t*a*r*s
Spencer bucks up and down on the chains that hold her but to no avail. Sydney had been called away and obviously none of them thought that Spencer could get lose.
Well, they were right, she can’t. At least not yet. “Hue,” whispers Spencer. “Come on, Hue, I know you are listening and that Ship is being threatened. I can take care of this but you have to help me.”
Nothing.
Spencer swings back and forth, and then pulls her knees to her chest, her right hand grabbing her right foot. “Having one leg sucks when ya need momentum.”
She yanks her sneaker off. And drops her leg, the shoe in her hand, she digs into the sneaker, tearing at the side pocket she’d made and finds the small packet there. She lets the sneaker fall to the gleaming white floor. Her hands still over her head, she slips the small disc out of the packet. “All right, spell casting Rylee, you’d better have done this right,” grumbles Spencer.
She hurriedly swallows the small disc, grimacing as it makes its way down. She and Rylee had figured she’d be unable to use her powers here, so they’d used the disc and Jayden’s gifting potion, hoping that it worked. As soon as the disc begins to work into her system, Spencer should be able to use her powers. At least be able to use a fraction of her powers.
“Hue!” calls out Spencer. The wall ripples on the opposite side where the door is, a small hole opens up and Hue peeks in.
“Hurry, not much time you have,” says Hue.
“Is the tunnel to Haven still there?” asks Spencer.
Hue nods curtly.
Spencer smiles. “That’s all I needed to know. I can do the rest, Hue. Go.”
Hue disappears and the hole swirls, closing in onto its self and in a moment it’s as if it had never been there.
The door, or where the door had been, now swirls open and Sydney walks through it. She eyes Spencer, then her gaze falls on the shoe. “Want to play footsies?” asks Sydney. She kneels and picks up the shoe, almost caressing it in her palm. “Are you done fighting yet?”
“I’m not fighting I know what’s right, Syd. I know that if this baby is born, if we use that stone and take away a sliver of our soul and put it into him, well guess what, if we take away a part of our soul we might not be us! Do you want to risk that?” asks Spencer. “Do you want to not be Sydney Doyle?”
Something flickers in Sydney’s eyes.
“I know that you’re half of who you really are right now, but I love the whole Sydney Doyle, the one who would realize that this isn’t just dangerous, it could kill us or change who we are!”
“It won’t change us,” says Sydney, walking around Spencer. Her hand drifts out and she runs her fingers along Spencer’s spine. “It’s his soul, Spencer.”
“Do you know what it will do when you use that stone? Do you? Do you think he cares?” says Spencer. She struggles to turn to face Sydney. “He’s done this before.”
Another flicker in Sydney’s eyes and Spencer latches onto that flicker. It is Spencer’s turn to shove a wedge into a crack and break it open.
“With someone from our line, her name was Lindsay and it almost killed her. She was in a coma for years!” snaps Spencer. “Sydney, there is no such thing as good and bad parts of a person, you’ll never be whole. Where is Matt? The other half of Matt? I know I didn’t kill him, I killed his body, didn’t I? He can merge you again and then you, the whole you, can make this decision. If the whole Sydney Doyle makes that decision, then I’ll go along with it. He’s not dead, I killed the body but the soul is still alive.”
Sydney freezes. She says, “You will?”
“You merge and I promise that if you say you want to go through with this – I will. So will Lee. We will do this with you but I want the whole Sydney Doyle to make that choice. Lee will do whatever I do.”
“Don’t call her that!” snaps Sydney.
Spencer pulls in her emotions. “Syd.”
“Do you know what it’s like wanting something that you know you’ll never have?” asks Sydney. “I know that it’s wrong, that we’re related, distant enough that if I was a boy it wouldn’t matter, but it does matter to you. Do you know what it feels like? Do you?”
Spencer tosses her head back in laughter. “Oui! I know. How do you think I used to feel when I couldn’t touch Rylee? How did you think I felt when I thought I was damaged goods because I was a foster kid? An orphan with no one to love? Or that I lost my leg? Or that I failed my mom? I get it! But this isn’t you, this isn’t the true you.”
Spencer feels the chain letting go and she crumples to the floor, her leg and arms numb from the lack of circulation. She looks up and sees Sydney staring hard at her.