Broken Window by Denise Underwood c. 2006 Part Two Fire, burning, screams that were raw, primal, like flesh being ripped open again and again. Overwhelming agony. The end of everything. Alone forever. And still the screams went on and on. Blackness. Nothingness. Escape. A voice finally pierced the nothingness, his voice. "Are you okay?" If she opened her eyes, she'd be back in the hall, that first day they'd met. No, he was dead. She saw him fall. Crazy. Mad Dr. MacAlpine. She wanted the blessed nothingness back. The pain to go away. The voice of the dead man to stop. "Benjamin," she whispered. Then the screaming started again - her screams, she realized in some distant corner of her broken mind. This was hell. Punishment for her sins, for her failures. A cool sensation at her throat. "This will make you sleep for awhile," his voice said. He sounded concerned. There was a hiss, pressure, and a slight burning sensation where the coolness had been. Benjamin had always worried about her. Now he was gone. No one left... Then her precious blackness returned to wrap her in its cool embrace. @_________@ The blackness receded. The screams had stopped, so had the pain. It was quiet. Somewhere, there were birds, the sound of wind in the trees. The murmur of soft voices. Footsteps. A hand took hers. A voice, a new one this time, spoke to her. "Triona, it's Duncan. I know you're in there somewhere, sweetheart. Please come back to us." This voice sounded concerned too, just like Benjamin. Benjamin. Her heart contracted with remembered grief. "Methos is so worried about you, and Lucia needs her mother. She asks about you every day." Methos? Lucia? Triona felt she should know those names. An image of a little girl with red hair and bright blue eyes. A hand stroked her face, smoothing her hair back. "You promised Lucia she could go to the First Sunrise Ball this year and that you'd let her pick her own dress. You don't want to disappoint her, do you?" "Keep talking to her, Duncan," a woman with a French accent said. Another voice that somehow seemed familiar. There was a soft whir. "I'm registering more brain activity. It's not a lot, but more than we have seen. I'm going to decrease the dosage slightly and see what happens." "I've been teaching her to dance, and she can't wait to show you how well she's doing." His voice held a forced brightness. "My goddaughter is a natural. She takes after you, Triona." He squeezed her hand. "Anything, Gina?" The woman sighed. "No, I'm sorry." "There is no way to know what happened when grandmother was trapped in the quantum beam. It seemed like only an hour to us, but to her it could have been months, or even years," another female voice said. "Scans of her RNA show exposure to a quantum flux field, so not only might she have been out of time, but in another reality entirely if there was even the most microscopic fissure in the space time continuum." Quantum flux? Other realities? None of the voices made sense. Then she heard the one voice that she knew absolutely. "She's not going to get better, is she, Gina?" He sounded exhausted, his voice full of sadness. "It's been ten days and there's been no improvement. When you decrease the drugs, she gets worse." "I just don't know. We all know that Immortals are not immune to mental breaks. But I'm working with so little knowledge of what happened to cause hers; it makes it even more difficult to diagnose properly. I don't even know it it's truly all psychological, or if there's some affect from the quantum energies she was exposed to that we just have no way to monitor." "Don't give up on her, Methos," Duncan said. "She's strong and she has so much to come back for." "I'm afraid she's never going to come back." His voice broke. "What am I going to do if she doesn't? I can't leave her like this." "Don't go there, not yet!" Duncan said sharply. His voice softened. "You're exhausted, Methos. Don't think the worst. Whatever happens, you won't be alone." "When I got to the lab, and found her trapped in that thing, I was alone. She was gone from my mind for the first time in centuries. I thought she was truly dead." He took a shuddering breath. "And now, what I feel isn't really her. It's like looking into a fog and only seeing a faint outline with no real substance." Someone was crying. Benjamin was crying. Triona struggled against the confusion and the beckoning darkness. He shouldn't be crying - not for her. But he was dead. The dead don't weep. But he'd always comforted her when she cried. She had to do the same for him. She loved him so much and couldn't bear the fear and grief that poured down on her. She had to tell him she was okay, that he could go on with his life, just like she'd always wanted. For him, she would turn back from the void. She opened her eyes. Duncan was holding a sobbing Benjamin against his chest, trying to comfort his grieving friend. "Benjamin, don't cry. Please don't." She could barely hear her own voice, wasn't even sure if she were really speaking. "Please," she entreated. The two men rushed to her side. "Triona?" It was if Benjamin didn't really believe it was her. Hope battled against the anguish in his eyes as he touched her. She reached up to stroke his face to reassure herself that he was real. "Don't cry. Not for me." Her voice was stronger this time. She walked farther from the void. It was as if a flame were drawing her closer to its warmth. Closing her eyes, she let the warmth envelop her. She'd been so cold for so long. Then the warmth became familiar, as if a part of her she'd lost had returned. It was as if Benjamin was there with her, sharing the light and the warmth. No, that wasn't it. Benjamin, but not Benjamin. At least, not in this reality. The shattered shards reassembled themselves, the broken window into that other sad life now whole, blocking the darkness. Opening her eyes once more, she breathed his name, "Methos." He'd been right - there were always possibilities. * Denise * Ithildin@OnDragonsWing.com - * Ith * * Farscape SG1 - http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/FarscapeSG1/* * Tales From The Darkwood - http://www.ondragonswing.com/tales * * "Yeah, but I want to see me live happily ever after even more." ~Methos*