s*t*a*r*s 8 - pt 141
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Reality
JG Marie
7/10/04
My dream no longer my reality
The nightmare of my life
My world all one color
Various shades of Black
Tainted in grey
I’ve lost my mind
Insanity rules what is left of my world
Life is full of friction
World in perpetual motion
Tidal emotions ebbing away
Only to return to knock me back down
My one glimmer of hope
A distant memory of You
The only light left in my eyes
You step inside my dream
My reality of late
Come to me
I bleed, then I heal
We bleed, then we heal
Hush and scream against flesh
Until you’ve released it all
In one last breath
The cold shard of our reality
Quinn slams a fist into Natasha’s face, shattering her nose, the next blow she delivers to her throat, silencing any scream that may well be on its way to alerting Connor. Quinn rears her head back and sinks her teeth into Natasha’s neck. The hot blood flows. There are other ways to take life force, but this is the fastest and most efficient way of doing so. She feels the power, the absolute raw energy and power. And the spells! Quinn almost pulled away but she holds fast. Symbols and words tumble into her mind as she consumes all that is Natasha Summers.
Natasha fights, but its fruitless, Quinn is stronger and older, knowing just what the young woman will do. Natasha’s fists batter on Quinn’s back, and then they ceases, going limp at her side. Her heart stops beating.
Quinn holds her body close and then lowers her back to the couch, her eyes flashing a bright amber as she realizes just what needs to be done. She scrambles around the room. Of course, what she needs isn’t here, but instantly, Quinn knows just how to get everything that she does need. She silently locks the door.
She melts through the wall, a spell that she doesn’t need to say, just think. Amazing, how powerful she had been, Natasha Summers. It takes all of fifteen minutes and Quinn is standing atop the west building of Haven Island with all she needs to make the jump to the other reality. All she needs now is blood.
She slices the inside of her hand with the knife she’d acquired and drips it into the bowl. It beings to heal, but she cuts it again and again, until what looks like a gallon of blood shimmers in the bowl, also in the bowl is fresh grass, salt, rosemary and water. Quinn begins to speak in her native language, a long ago forgotten tongue, her fingers dip into the bowl and she begins to drawn on the flat rooftop. First a large circle, which she then fills with symbols and letters, all the while chanting. The blood beings to glow, first yellow, then orange, red, green and finally a heated, pulsing blue. Quinn removes her shirt and draws three new symbols on her body. On her left hand one for herself, on her left one for Jo and the final one for Spencer on her chest, right over her heart. “Bring me to her,” whispers Quinn. Stepping into the circle, weak from the blood loss she gets down on her knees, she whispers the final words and with the last of Natasha Summers’ power, she opens a gaping rift into another world.
J*A*D*E*S
Mike kisses Shelby’s cheek and she stirs. “Hey,” says Shelby.
“Hey yourself, beautiful woman,” says Mike. He lays down next to her. “Sorry I woke you.”
“I’m not,” says Shelby, stifling a yawn. “I’ve missed you, the bed is way to empty without you.”
“It was empty for a long time, I’m glad it’s full again,” says Mike seriously. “Where is Syd?”
“Staying with Spencer, I think they were laying down tracks,” says Shelby with a wry grin. “She sounded damn excited.”
“Her and her music.”
“Her and Spencer,” sighs Shelby. She pulls Mike into her arms and he drapes an arm over Shelby. “Do you think this will ever work itself out?”
“Yes,” says Mike softly. “I think that fate, that fate that we are all cursed with, does come with a price but the price is happiness, at some point. Always pain, but them complete pleasure.”
“When did you get so damn philosophical?” asks Shelby with a giggle.
Mike props himself up on his elbow, brushing a strand of Shelby’s dark blonde hair from her eyes, seeing a strand of grey and he smiles. “Since you came back, since by some grace of something or someone, you came back to me. Fate. Our journeys are all different but we end up in the same place, babe,” says Mike.
She rubs her thumb along his lips. “I kind of like this side of my husband.”
“Oh?” asks Mike, wiggling his eyebrows playfully.
“Get under the covers and I’ll show you other side of you I like.”
“Oh!” says Mike, “Now you’re talking!”
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Darci rolls over into Dathan’s arms, snoring lightly. Dathan smiles and kisses the top of Darci’s head. For centuries he wandered the earth, refusing to believe in the fable of soul mates. He had seen many proclaim it, many fake it and many simply ignore all of those around them who did love. Love and a connection that was deeper than anything else in life that is what this soul mate thing was all about. He’s had lovers, many lovers, but this is far beyond lovers.
How he had lived without Darci before now was beyond him, how he will live without her is something he does not wish to contemplate. Domestic bliss. They cooked together, they had lives. Oh, he’d had lovers, people he’d lived with for their lives, but never this. And then there was Abigail. He adored her as if she was his own. Darci shifts again and his thoughts turn to with her.
He settles down besides Darci, his arm drapes over hers and his cheek rubs against her shoulder. “You need to shave,” grumbles Darci in her sleep.
Dathan chuckles lightly. “I will in the morning.”
But she’s asleep again. He closes his eyes and just as he is about to fall into a dreamless snooze, he feels something powerful enter their realm. He eases up and out of the bed, Darci wakes. “Dathan?”
“Something odd just happened. I felt an energy and I have never felt anything like that before.”
“Energy?” asks Darci. She pushes the covers aside and stands next to him. “Call Spencer, she’s the dilithium cell around here.”
“What on earth is dilithium?”
“Star Trek?”
He shakes his head.
“You are so pop culture illiterate sometimes! Call Spencer, she’ll know if there is a disturbance in the force,” says Darci, a glint of a smile forming on her lips.
“Ah, this reference I know because Jo has used it often enough, Star Wars,” he hisses at her playfully. “No, it is gone now. Perhaps it was just the vestige of a dream.”
“Were you asleep?” asks Darci, arms crossed over her chest.
He pales. “No.”
“Then it wasn’t a dream! Call. Spencer.”
“No, it can wait. And if there is a disturbance in the force then I am sure that Spencer will contact us, or her mother, or her other mother. Back to bed with you.”
“God, you can be so demanding,” teases Darci.
He playfully slaps her ass and she squelches a yelp. “Dathan,” she says threateningly but before she can finish, her mouth is on hers and she forgets just what it was she wanted to say.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Tegan snaps up from her bed. Rylee’s bed actually. She scrambles out of the bed, her foot catching on the blanket and she goes crashing to the ground. “Dad,” she screams.
Dylan, shoving his glasses up onto his nose, barges into the room. “Tegan!”
“Dad, something is happening! I don’t know what, something – oh my god, I felt it. Time, time changed.”
“Time? Changed?” asks Dylan. He helps her to her feet and Tegan nods. “Slow down.”
“No, something really powerful, something on par with – a supernova just ripped a freaking hole in time. Bigger than what we did to get Spencer back, huge. Monstrous.”
“We need to call Natalie,” says Dylan. “Can’t we have a week of peace?”
“No, Nat’s not here,” says Tegan, her eyes wide. “No, we can’t have any peace it seems.”
“Spencer?” asks Dylan.
Tegan nods already gathering her clothes and getting dressed.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Emma stretches out on the couch that is against the far wall of the office she shares with Jo. Amy is curled up in a chair, sleeping lightly, and Alexandria has gone to Bev’s house to explain to her what is going on and why she’ll be hanging for a while.
“Get some sleep,” whispers Jo. She has five white boards going, pictures of the dead women are taped to the boards, Jo’s scribbled hand writing indicates names, dates of birth, dates of death, occupations and other facts.
“I keep trying to get a vision,” says Emma. “I keep failing.”
“They’ll be all shiny,” says Jo. Her eyes, now free of the contacts, glow a sinister amber. “I’ll find this guy and I will find a way to put him down.”
“Elder oak,” says Emma. She turns onto her side. “Amy asleep?”
“Out like a light,” says Jo in an almost normal tone. “That woman can sleep anywhere, reminds me of Spence.”
Emma’s eyes are heavy, but she fights the sleep. “You two doing okay?”
Jo looks up, surprised. “Yeah.”
Emma closes her eyes. “Good, at least something in this world is right.”
Jo smiles and watches Emma slip into sleep. She gets back to work. Her iPad at her left hand as she goes through thousands of pages of Kindred facts, trying to find who might be hunting, or rather, trying to get her and Amy’s attention. She hasn’t found anything yet. She has found a new fact in the murder cases, things that hadn’t been released to the public. The word “one” had been carved into the short haired women’s hand, in the middle of their left palm. And on the right hand of the partner with longer hair had the same word, but a mirror image of it, “eno”.
It takes Jo a while but she realizes it’s a ying and yang, a soul mate symbol. The one. Had these women been soul mates? It’s possible, not all soul mates are eternal and power soul mates, but there are other types of soul mates, true love, love that ran so deep that one simply couldn’t live without the other. He had looked hard, Jo figures. He or she, she has to remind herself. Susan had been a cold blooded killer, and she’d been a woman.
Chloe, Dathan, Eden, Felix, Keziah, Leah, Sara and Tirzah – all eternal, all suspects. What if there are eternals likes herself and Jayden and even Spencer and Sydney? Half breeds of sorts. Jo refuses to think of that right now, instead, she wants to find the source. She instantly rules out Dathan and Eden. Also Felix, who may well have been a hunter at one time, but was now simply a flamboyant if not fun loving man. Leah is still at the Legacy and Jo had checked, she’d not left there for years unless she was with Walter.
That left her with four unaccounted for eternals. All had disappeared, all gone from society, as far as Jo could tell. She would have to contact Eden, who was the one who had dwelled so seamlessly in society, might have insight on how to find the remaining four.
She reads up on each of them, and feels her own eyes growing tired. But she fights sleep. Her finger jabs at the iPad, her eyes burning. She finds an odd entry from goodness knows when about half breed children born fully grown. Another about twins, which she reads twice but it doesn’t give her anything new to go on. She rubs her eyes again. While she doesn’t need sleep, she does sometimes need respite from work. She curls her arms and rests them on the desk, then places her head on her arms and promptly falls asleep.
s*t*a*r*s
Sydney wakes up it’s a slow realization of her surroundings. A TV flickers in the room, and warm breath tickles her bare shoulder. It’s Spencer. The proximity of Spencer’s body jars her awake, but she doesn’t move. She’d been on the far side of the Queen sized bed, and Spencer had been way on the other side, but now, like the opposite ends of a magnet, they’d been pulled together to the middle. She wants to move but she can’t. Spencer’s leg is pressed against her own; her hand rests on Sydney’s hip. Sydney tries to wiggle away, but Spencer grunts as she does. Sydney turns and Spencer’s arm falls from her hip and encircles her waist. They are now face to face.
“Spencer,” whispers Sydney. She feels her warm breath bouncing off Spencer’s skin.
“The chocolate is in the fridge,” mutters Spencer.
Sydney laughs softly; she does have an affinity for chocolate. Whatever Spencer is dreaming of it’s of food at least that is safe. Sydney’s nose bumps Spencer’s and her blue and amber eyes flutter open.
“Did I wake you?” asks Spencer. Her voice holds no evidence that she’d been asleep five minutes prior.
“No,” says Sydney.
“We’re cuddling, aren’t we?” says Spencer in an almost teasing voice.
“I guess we are just attracted to one another,” says Sydney. “Or you were cold.”
“I don’t get cold,” says Spencer. She smiles. Each word light and breathless. “You don’t either.”
“You know, we aren’t eternal yet,” says Sydney with a twinge of a smile. “The gene only kicks in during our 20’s.”
“I still don’t get cold,” repeats Spencer. “What woke you?”
“I don’t know,” says Sydney. Her hand drifts up to Spencer’s cheek, and she rubs it with the back of her fingers. Spencer captures it and kisses it. “I guess I just woke up.”
“That happens,” says Spencer.
“Why is it you say a lot but really say nothing,” says Sydney.
“Actions speak louder than words,” reminds Spencer. “I guess that’s how I work sometimes.”
Sydney’s fingers follow Spencer’s jaw line, then down her neck, then back up again, tracing her ear, and she feels her pulse quickening. “We-We can’t do this.”
“Sleep? Like you said, that eternal gene hasn’t kicked in yet, so I guess we do need sleep.”
“No,” says Sydney, “this.” She eases the few inches closer and lets her lips brush Spencer’s. Warmth floods her and her hand pulls Spencer closer, deepening the kiss. This is no rushed kiss, no hurry, no awkwardness, but just a simple sweet kiss. Sydney pulls away and finds Spencer’s amber and blue gaze. “I hate what I’m doing to you, to Rylee, to me.”
“She already knows,” says Spencer. “That woman sees everything. It’s why she’s – why she’s Rylee.”
“It doesn’t make the hurt any less real. You’ll never pick me,” says Sydney. “I’ll watch you two get married, grow, well, Rylee grow old. Always waiting.”
“Have you ever thought,” whispers Spencer, her chest rising faster as if in a panic, “that you won’t pick me?”
“That’s absurd!” snorts Sydney. She rolls away from Spencer but Spencer grabs her and pulls her back to her roughly.
“Why? You’re eternal and you have a power. What if you bond with someone else who has a power? Or another eternal? Have you ever thought about that? I am not the only available option here.”
Sydney spins on the bed to face her. “Yes, yes you are!” snaps Sydney. “And Rylee is already your soul mate. I don’t have a chance in hell.”
“You underestimate how much power you have over me,” says Spencer. “I’m fighting this as hard as you are. I’ve been honest with Lee from the moment it started and it was long before you took Jay’s blood. She saw us touching, flirting, how at ease I am with you. You are an equal.”
Sydney kisses her, a hot, quick kiss then moves away. “I’m not ready; I’m not okay to be dealing with this.”
Spencer nods. “Okay….”
“Okay,” repeats Sydney.
They sit in silence for a while. Spencer inclines her head to the bed. “Sleep, warm bed, what is better than that?”
Sydney groans internally, oh what could be better than that? Instead she says nothing and goes back to her side of the bed. She dives under the covers, tugging them high, up to her chin.
Spencer giggles and piles some pillows between them. “See, here, we’ll make a wall of pillows so that our magnetism doesn’t drag us back into each other’s arms.”
Spencer is grinning brightly and Sydney sits up. “How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
“What were you thinking?” asks Spencer.
“When I woke up and found we were, well, latched together, I thought of a set of magnets.”
Spencer narrows her eyes; fine lines around her eyes appear. “I don’t know. That’s how – I think of this. You’re my north, and Rylee’s my south. You know, magnetic pole.”
Sydney wiggles down under the covers again and grunts. Spencer does the same. Silence overtakes the room. Spencer tucks her right hand under her head, feeling the shirt rising up, tanned flesh peeking out from between the boxers and shirt. She tugs it down. “Syd?”
“Yup, I’m here.”
Spencer feels her breath catching in her chest, she closes her eyes and then with courage that she’s been trying to muster for a while, she says, “I don’t want a wall between us.”
Sydney responds with silence. A hot shiver rumbles through Sydney, and she squeezes her dark green eyes shut.
“I don’t want silence. I don’t want anything between us,” says Spencer. “I have that with Rylee too, no lies, no secrets, and I want, no, I need it with you too.”
“Okay,” whispers Sydney. She tentatively bites her lower lip. “I’m not Rylee.”
Spencer chuckles. “I know that. I have no illusions that my relationship with you is the same as my relationship with Rylee.”
Sydney takes away the pillows, one at a time, and drops them onto her side of the bed. Now a new expanse, a new emptiness, a new wall stands between them. Sydney rolls onto her side, facing Spencer. Spencer mirrors her, and then she smiles.
“This is infinitely better,” whispers Spencer, her voice dropping lower, into that almost feral state that seems to affect Sydney by sending more heated shivers through her.
“You’re horny,” says Sydney. “That’s what that tone is all about, damn it, you’re horny!”
Spencer’s face turns into a mask of astonishment. “Yeah, actually, I am! I guess it was the cuddling.”
“Or the kissing?” asks Sydney tentatively.
Spencer nods. “That too.”
Sydney hears Spencer swallowing and a hollow, dry click echoes in the otherwise silent room. She realizes that Spencer isn’t as cool and collective as she’s making out to be.
“Tell me what you like?” asks Sydney her voice low.
“Grilled cheese, rice crispies with bana….”
“No! Not like that – what do you, you know, like?” Sydney’s eyebrows wiggle and a mischievous smile curls on her lips. Sydney watches as a hot red blush rises on Spencer’s cheeks. Sydney reaches over and rubs her thumb over Spencer’s cheeks. “You’re embarrassed? Why? You’ve been with – someone before. Don’t say her name!”
Spencer stammers. “W-w-we don’t talk that sort of thing, we just – you know, do stuff. And I’d never been with anyone before – I tended to zap things, remember?”
“Ohhhhhh,” says Sydney. She finds herself edging closer to Spencer. “No talking, just doing.”
Spencer nods quickly.
Sydney suddenly wants to rip Spencer’s clothes off and start exploring but she resists that feral urge. Instead, she says, “Take your boxers off.”
“You want me to what?” asks Spencer, her voice no longer deep and low, instead it’s high and squeaky.
“If you can’t tell me, show me,” says Sydney. Her tone playful.
“No way!” says Spencer with a wild giggle. “No frakking way!”
“Ugh! Exclamation marks!” says Sydney, rolling onto her back she pushes the PJ bottoms off and throws them at Spencer’s now pale face. Spencer tears them away from her line of sight. “Fine, I guess I’ll do the show….”
Before she can finish, Spencer’s hand is on her hip and pulling her close, her mouth feverously finding Sydney’s. The kiss is deep, bruising, the sort of kiss that leaves someone’s lips feeling swollen when the kissing is over and done with.
Sydney pushes Spencer onto her back and straddles her. Spencer’s hands, usually graceful and never misses a note on any instrument she plays, fumbles while trying to take Sydney’s shirt off. They break their kiss just long enough to toss her shirt aside and Sydney pulls Spencer’s off.
They find each other’s lips again; Spencer reveling in the sweet feel of Sydney’s heated flesh. Sydney’s tongue sweeps into her mouth, teasing, her teeth scrape Spencer’s lips. Spencer opens her eyes and the room is basked in a swirling glow of greens.
“Syd,” says Spencer breathlessly.
“No, no talking,” says Sydney.
“Open your eyes,” orders Spencer.
Sydney does and she gasps. “Wow, we’re doing that, aren’t we?”
They stare into each other’s eyes and Sydney swears that Spencer’s eyes are swirling with sweet colors of amber and blue. Sydney smiles and kisses her again. “Make love to me. No, fuck that, don’t – just show me what you like, what you want, what you need.”
Spencer doesn’t answer she kisses her again, rotating her hips, her strong arms holding Sydney close and she eases down onto the bed, pressing her into the mattress with her weight. Sydney’s legs wrap around Spencer’s waist and she pulls her closer. Her mouth sweeping along Spencer’s cheek and she nibbles her earlobe and Spencer growls. “Don’t make it sweet, Spence.”
“What?” asks Spencer. She tries to pull back to look at Sydney but Sydney holds her close.
“Don’t be gentle. Don’t think. You can’t hurt me.”
Spencer finds her mouth again and Sydney wraps her hands in Spencer’s hair.
Their interlude is cut short by a horrendous crash on the floor above them, then another crash and a resounding thud in the living room. The sound of glass, wood and sheetrock exploding from some sort of impact resonates throughout the room. Spencer feels the power of the impact, she instinctively absorbs the energy. Sydney feels the sweep of it against her own skin.
They both spring from the bed, scrambling to find shirts and pj bottoms, Spencer making a leg of energy without thought and Sydney sending out a GPS pulse, the glowing yellow ball returns almost as quickly as it leaves. “Holy shit,” says Sydney. She grabs Spencer’s hand and yanks her along.
“What is it?” demands Spencer. She can’t help but be pissed at what just happened at what was just interrupted.
“Not a what, a who!” says Sydney. They come into the living room to find a curled up being lying in the middle of the debris from a newly formed hole in the ceiling.
“Man, your contractors are gonna love you,” mutters Sydney. Oblivious to the nails and splinters of wood, they both go to the fallen person. A halo of blonde hair is evident, the body is broken and battered, and blood covers much of the person.
Spencer kneels, pulling off a few stray boards and gasps.
“Quinn,” whispers Sydney.
“Oh god,” whispers Spencer. She clears away the debris and pushes back the blonde hair from Quinn’s face. “Quinn?”
No moan, no evidence that Quinn is even alive. Spencer puts her hand to Quinn’s chest and feels it rise and fall. She ends a healing pulse of energy, kick starting Quinn's own healing and amping it a thousand fold.
“I’m calling Jo,” says Sydney. She scrambles over the wood to where she’d left Spencer’s phone. It takes a moment and a sleepy Jo answers the phone. “Aunt Jo?”
“Sydney?” asks Jo. “What is going…?”
“You’ll never believe who dropped in for a visit,” says Sydney in a calm voice. She turns to see Spencer lifting Quinn from the halo of wreckage.
“Who?”
“Quinn, Quinn from the other reality. Where are you?” asks Sydney.
“The FBI build…”
Before Jo can finish the sentence, Sydney appears, still holding the cell phone in her hand. “Come on,” says Sydney. “No time for niceties. If Quinn is here, then something big is….”
Sydney stops talking and looks at the boards behind Jo. A sweep of oddness washes over her. The commotion wakes Emma and Amy. Sydney is in a trance, staring at the dead couples on the wall. She edges closer to the white boards. “Jo,” says Sydney. She starts to breathe faster as the colors around the objects that Jo has put on the board, wedding rings, necklaces seem to – well, match up. “Why is he killing soul mates?” She takes a halting step towards Jo’s desk.
Jo’s eyes flicker to Emma, then to Amy. “How do you know that?”
Sydney swallows hard. “I don’t know.” Her face is a mask of confusion. “How do I know that? Their – origins are the same? I don’t know.”
“What is going on?” asks Amy. Her eyes puffy from sleep, she rubs them roughly.
“Quinn is here,” says Sydney, turning to her. “Like, the good Quinn, not Susan. The one we met when we went over to get Spencer and her new body.” She swallows. Body. Was it only five minutes ago she’d been naked with that body? Fuck, Quinn had bad timing, thinks Sydney.
“Take us there,” says Jo. She reaches into her desk, grabbing her gun and her phone.
“All of us,” says Emma.
They all disappear in a brilliant flash of yellow.