FIC: Wisdom to Know the Difference, chapter 7
Part 8 of 11.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Wisdom to Know the Difference
byline: bipolypesca
Chapter 7
Lex opened his eyes and gasped, glancing slightly away in surprise.
The previous night came rushing back to him, explaining why his gaze was lighting on Clark Kent's closed eyes and lax features, and his heart slowed to a normal speed. He glanced slightly up and found Lexx had been hitched upward on the bed as Kal had used his chest as a pillow. Kal was nearly eye level with Lex where he slept.
Lex watched him in silence, trying to imagine opening his eyes every day to the sight of Clark sleeping next to him, and unable to. A little beep came from the ceiling and Lex glanced up, wondering if it was their alarm. It didn't go off again, however, so he ignored it.
He was given another start when Kal's eyes suddenly popped open a few seconds later. As Lex stared, Kal smiled warmly in recognition before his expression became somewhat confused. He searched Lex's face, looking on the verge of asking a question, and then suddenly seemed to realize where he was. He glanced up and saw his sleeping companion above him, looked back to Lex and smiled in a friendly way that wasn't nearly so warm.
Lex waited for him to make some comment as to why Lex had shared their bed when he'd had the A.I. prepare a separate one for him, but it never came. What he did say was considerably more surprising.
"I don't mind telling you," he said, grinning, "I've had dreams like this."
Lex's eyebrows arched severely.
Kal nodded. "Very pleasant dreams."
Momentarily uncertain what to say, slightly concerned that Kal was making some kind of illicit and very weird offer, Lex suddenly fell into laughter when Kal did something comical and familiar with his eyebrows that told Lex he was just kidding around.
As he calmed, the A.I. made that same quiet beep. Kal stilled, his grin softening. "A.I.? Why are you beeping?"
"Analyzation and purification is complete. I am prepared for the second round of cellular samples."
Despite his recent good mood, Lex felt his heart begin to race, his palms growing rapidly clammy.
Surprising him once again, Kal reached out and touched his shoulder with a warm hand. "I'm sorry it has to be so unpleasant. It's just," he shrugged, "we haven't used that technology since Lexx first began his treatments. We had no reason to update or improve it until recently, and when we realized what we needed to do, figuring out how to get back in time was more important."
"I understand. But... it is very unpleasant." He shrugged and Kal took his hand away, leaving his skin burning. Lexx had not been exaggerating much when he'd referred to him as a furnace. "Perhaps now that I know, when I come to live here with my Clark in the future, I'll work on updating it." He paused, considering. "On the other hand, since I know the stasis field is going to break down more than ten years before now, perhaps I'll just mention that to you and the A.I. and we'll fix the problem ahead of time. Then none of this will have happened and I won't have to go through any of the gatherings."
Kal's eyes widened throughout Lex's words, and he remained silent for a few seconds after he'd quieted. "I can't be certain," he finally said, "but I think that's impossible."
"What is?"
"If... you stopped all of this from happening," he said uncertainly, "then you wouldn't know to stop it from happening."
"I will if I continue to keep the memories from each timeline."
"Lex, we think the only reason you have memories from both timelines is because you were out of your time when they changed. If you change something while in your own time, and there is no earlier version of you out of time, then I think you'd change along with time."
"I see. And you think that would mean...?"
"I think that would mean you can't change it so that you never came here. Something else would just go wrong to get you here and-look, this is worrying me. How about you just let things happen as they happened? This is working out fine, right?"
Lex scowled. "You wouldn't say that if it was you in that chamber five more times-‘give or take.’" Kal began to look even more flighty, and Lex allowed a smile to let him know he was mostly joking.
Kal smiled back, looking very relieved, a slight colour rising in his cheeks. Then he suddenly turned and rolled out of bed and to his feet. He was dressed just the same as Lexx, in form-fitting black undershirt and shorts. Lex was surprised at the lack of bright colours, but more intrigued by the long, lean, well-defined lines he made as he walked away, muttering something about a shower.
He sighed, lying his head back on the pillow once Kal was around the partition, and was given yet another start by a voice from above his head.
"Still looking for some way to change the past, I see."
Lex glanced up to find his double with his eyes closed, and then he slowly opened them, focussed on Lex, and smiled.
Lex sighed wearily. "I have no intention of changing things so that I never come here. I know that would be self-sabotage. I was just... giving him a hard time about the chamber."
"Glad to hear it. And what we were talking about last night?"
Lex met his double's eyes stubbornly, getting a little sick of being spoken to like an errant child.
Nothing further was apparently necessary, Lexx sighing heavily at his expression. "Come on." He rolled over Kal's side to get out of bed. "I think we both need some coffee and conversation."
~
Lex lowered his voice to a hiss as Kal emerged from the shower, padding toward them in what appeared to be a fresh leatherlike outfit. "What are you guys whispering about?" he asked, helping himself to the cream cheese bagel and coffee Lexx had prepared for him only minutes before.
Lex considered putting the conversation aside while in Kal's presence, but then rethought his plan when he saw Lexx glancing worriedly at him out of the corner of his eye. He wondered if Kal would be his ally, and perhaps Lexx knew that. "Well, I'm trying to figure out how I can cut out fifteen years of antagonism, and he's trying to talk me out of it."
Kal choked into his coffee and slammed the crystal cup onto the crystal table. He didn't wince when hot liquid sloshed over his hand. "What?" He turned incredulously to his companion. "Lexx, you told him?"
After a pause, Lexx very slowly turned his head to look at Kal without expression. "Nooo..."
Kal quickly flushed and looked away. "Oh." He sighed sharply, plainly irritated with his other self. "Well. You can't change it," he said to Lex. "You know that, don't you?"
Lex's lips parted in astonishment. "I don't believe this! You, too? If I didn't know any better, I'd think the two of you enjoyed being enemies. Is that what you want? For it to happen all over again?"
"No, of course not," Kal said, blinking as if disconcerted by Lex's outburst. "It wasn't a pleasant time. But... things must happen as they happened."
"Oh, really?" Lex spat. "And why is that?"
His double sat forward, beginning to explain something he'd already explained half a dozen times. "The timeline must be preserved as-"
"Don't you talk to me about the sanctity of the timeline!" Lex interrupted angrily. "You're supposed to be dead!"
Both Lexx and Kal gaped, and then their mouths clicked closed in shock.
"Not just now, or in a year, but a hundred years ago! When you grew old like everyone else. You and he changed the future with these treatments of yours, and you're changing it again by having me here now to fix what went wrong. The only reason you don't want me to change the future is because it's your past. Well, here's a news flash for you: Your present is someone else's past! Why aren't you worried about affecting that?"
"Well, they must not mind," Lexx answered sarcastically, "because they haven't come back and told us to cut it out." He gestured toward the display he and Kal worked at so often. "They certainly have the means."
"Because they haven't come back to tell you?" Lex scoffed. "That's very subjective reasoning."
"We're subjective creatures," Kal countered. "We can only go by what we see, what we know, what we've been told. And I don't think Lexx is meant to die now."
"No, he isn't. He was meant to die one hundred years ago. And yet here he is, with you and healthy just because you don't think he should be otherwise. Well, I don't think I should have to spend the next fifteen years of my life being hated by someone I-" Lex broke off suddenly, unable to say another word, not sure what the next word should be.
Kal gave him a moment to continue, then spoke softly when he didn't. "The very fact that we exist proves that you are. I know it's not fair. But that's how it is."
"No," Lex shook his head. "That's how it was. But it doesn't have to be. I'm going to cut out those fifteen years-I know I can. There's no reason for either of us to suffer like that."
"What exactly do you think you're going to do?" Lexx asked.
"I'll tell Clark what's happened here. I'll tell him we're meant to reconcile. I'll make him understand me."
"But he can't understand you," Kal said gently. "He can't understand anything about you-not yet. He sees you in an unflattering light and that's not going to change overnight. You have to give him more time to grow."
"He won't be able to deny this!"
"Deny what? You'll be returned to the same moment you left. There will be no evidence of this, and Clark would be hard pressed to believe in time travel for any reason."
"Much less coming from you," Lexx added. "Hell, in a week, you'll be questioning if it was real."
"All right-all right! Fine. Then why don't you go see him? Talk to him? Tell him what's meant to be?"
"Well, let's see," Lexx said sarcastically, "maybe because we don't want things to change?"
"Lex," Kal broke in before he could bite back at his other self, "he wouldn't believe us even if we did. He doesn't trust you, so he wouldn't trust Lexx."
"But he'll trust himself, won't he?"
Kal shook his head, sympathy etching his face. "No. Clark was having some... dealings with a kind of doppelgänger."
"Doppel-?" Lex sat back into his seat with sudden understanding. "That man... that man who came to me."
"Yes. Anything I say to him that doesn't fit his image of how things are or should be would only make him think I was him."
"Then you can bring him here!"
Again, Kal shook his head sympathetically. "That would mean nothing to him. He already knows of this place, but doesn't know enough about it or how to use it to recognize the changes time has made."
Frustrated, Lex let out a heavy sigh. "All right, what if I tell him everything you've told me? Everything I now know about you-about what you can do and where you come from?"
"All the times you've tried to confront him about his abilities, what happened? He'll only mistrust you all the more, Lex, wondering how you really found out about Krypton, and certain you're still spying on him. And you know he'll deny every word of it."
"Damn it!" Lex's fist came slamming down onto the table in frustration, but its makeup allowed no vibration and the A.I. softened it just enough to protect his hand, so he felt almost no pain. It was very unsatisfying.
"Lex... you have to give him time. Only time will bring you together. You can't force it or shorten it. It is going to take a lot of anger and struggle and changes before you find common ground with him. That's just the way it is."
"I promise you," Lexx added, "the rewards will be worth the wait."
"That's easy for you to say!" Lex shouted, getting suddenly to his feet, his anger and frustration boiling out of him. "Both of you! You have a hundred and thirty years of friendship and happiness behind you! Well, I have a decade and a half of nothing but more despair before me, and I can't just accept it like that!"
Lexx sat up more fully in his seat, his lips setting in a thin line. "I swear to god, if you do not drop this, we will keep you here until we find some way to safely remove all of your memories of this place and then we will put you back where we got you with no knowledge of what happened here."
Lex sneered, satisfaction pumping through him at the impossibility of carrying out that threat. "You can't remove all my memories of this place," he shouted. "If you did, I wouldn't know to move the stasis chamber out of Shiar-Da's reach, and then only the other timeline will exist, and you will suffer agonies for months, wither away like burnt paper, and DIE!"
He straightened his back, a momentary beat of victory pumping through him, until he realized that the shocked look on Lex's face had turned to regret. He glanced at Kal and found him positively crestfallen. All expression fell from Lex's face and he took a step backward.
He watched as Lexx bit his bottom lip, his head inclined slightly, and Kal stared wide eyed at the side of his face.
"Lexx...?" he said, his voice small.
Lexx rubbed a hand over his mouth and didn't respond. He met Lex's eyes hard.
Lex shook his head, stunned by the weight of what he'd done, sure he couldn't have, wouldn't have. He took another step back, then another.
Kal, becoming more and more distraught by Lexx's lack of response and what that likely meant, rose to his feet, breezed by Lex, and crossed the room, standing at the control panel without using it, his head bowed.
Lex continued stepping backward, driven away by the blank blame in his double's eyes, as if he was on the verge of saying, ‘I knew you were going to do this.’
Finally, he turned, unable to stand it any longer, and walked briskly toward the entrance.
"Lex-" Kal called as he hurried by.
Lexx's hard, angry voice cut him off. "Let him go."
A few steps more, and Lex stumbled into the freezing cold. He walked several yards into the swirling snow, until he felt separated from the crystal building and its reminders, and then fell to his knees in the deep, white ground.
How could he have?
He punched his fists deeply into the snow, his knuckles scraping raw and stinging with cold.
How could he have?
All he'd wanted was to hurt himself, that other smug, superior, happy self, and instead he'd managed to hurt Clark... again. Why did this happen? Why was it that even when he wanted something good, something real and beneficial, it only ever led him to hurt the people he cared about?
He fell to his side in the snow, shivering, gasping for breath against the wind.
It seemed so easy for them-for all of them. They obtained the simple things they wanted, they got life-loves and families and purpose, but it seemed the more he tried, the more these things were dangled just out of his reach. Like hanging from the edge of a cliff-a beautiful rock face he had no choice but to destroy lest he fall-that really was it.
And he'd really jammed it in this time, hadn't he? Jammed it in and watched a huge section come loose and fall. And was he still clinging? What the hell for? Surely he'd broken it beyond repair-surely he'd broken it all down long ago.
~ ~ ~
To be continued...
Feedback: The natural high.
bipolypesca
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Wisdom to Know the Difference
byline: bipolypesca
Chapter 7
Lex opened his eyes and gasped, glancing slightly away in surprise.
The previous night came rushing back to him, explaining why his gaze was lighting on Clark Kent's closed eyes and lax features, and his heart slowed to a normal speed. He glanced slightly up and found Lexx had been hitched upward on the bed as Kal had used his chest as a pillow. Kal was nearly eye level with Lex where he slept.
Lex watched him in silence, trying to imagine opening his eyes every day to the sight of Clark sleeping next to him, and unable to. A little beep came from the ceiling and Lex glanced up, wondering if it was their alarm. It didn't go off again, however, so he ignored it.
He was given another start when Kal's eyes suddenly popped open a few seconds later. As Lex stared, Kal smiled warmly in recognition before his expression became somewhat confused. He searched Lex's face, looking on the verge of asking a question, and then suddenly seemed to realize where he was. He glanced up and saw his sleeping companion above him, looked back to Lex and smiled in a friendly way that wasn't nearly so warm.
Lex waited for him to make some comment as to why Lex had shared their bed when he'd had the A.I. prepare a separate one for him, but it never came. What he did say was considerably more surprising.
"I don't mind telling you," he said, grinning, "I've had dreams like this."
Lex's eyebrows arched severely.
Kal nodded. "Very pleasant dreams."
Momentarily uncertain what to say, slightly concerned that Kal was making some kind of illicit and very weird offer, Lex suddenly fell into laughter when Kal did something comical and familiar with his eyebrows that told Lex he was just kidding around.
As he calmed, the A.I. made that same quiet beep. Kal stilled, his grin softening. "A.I.? Why are you beeping?"
"Analyzation and purification is complete. I am prepared for the second round of cellular samples."
Despite his recent good mood, Lex felt his heart begin to race, his palms growing rapidly clammy.
Surprising him once again, Kal reached out and touched his shoulder with a warm hand. "I'm sorry it has to be so unpleasant. It's just," he shrugged, "we haven't used that technology since Lexx first began his treatments. We had no reason to update or improve it until recently, and when we realized what we needed to do, figuring out how to get back in time was more important."
"I understand. But... it is very unpleasant." He shrugged and Kal took his hand away, leaving his skin burning. Lexx had not been exaggerating much when he'd referred to him as a furnace. "Perhaps now that I know, when I come to live here with my Clark in the future, I'll work on updating it." He paused, considering. "On the other hand, since I know the stasis field is going to break down more than ten years before now, perhaps I'll just mention that to you and the A.I. and we'll fix the problem ahead of time. Then none of this will have happened and I won't have to go through any of the gatherings."
Kal's eyes widened throughout Lex's words, and he remained silent for a few seconds after he'd quieted. "I can't be certain," he finally said, "but I think that's impossible."
"What is?"
"If... you stopped all of this from happening," he said uncertainly, "then you wouldn't know to stop it from happening."
"I will if I continue to keep the memories from each timeline."
"Lex, we think the only reason you have memories from both timelines is because you were out of your time when they changed. If you change something while in your own time, and there is no earlier version of you out of time, then I think you'd change along with time."
"I see. And you think that would mean...?"
"I think that would mean you can't change it so that you never came here. Something else would just go wrong to get you here and-look, this is worrying me. How about you just let things happen as they happened? This is working out fine, right?"
Lex scowled. "You wouldn't say that if it was you in that chamber five more times-‘give or take.’" Kal began to look even more flighty, and Lex allowed a smile to let him know he was mostly joking.
Kal smiled back, looking very relieved, a slight colour rising in his cheeks. Then he suddenly turned and rolled out of bed and to his feet. He was dressed just the same as Lexx, in form-fitting black undershirt and shorts. Lex was surprised at the lack of bright colours, but more intrigued by the long, lean, well-defined lines he made as he walked away, muttering something about a shower.
He sighed, lying his head back on the pillow once Kal was around the partition, and was given yet another start by a voice from above his head.
"Still looking for some way to change the past, I see."
Lex glanced up to find his double with his eyes closed, and then he slowly opened them, focussed on Lex, and smiled.
Lex sighed wearily. "I have no intention of changing things so that I never come here. I know that would be self-sabotage. I was just... giving him a hard time about the chamber."
"Glad to hear it. And what we were talking about last night?"
Lex met his double's eyes stubbornly, getting a little sick of being spoken to like an errant child.
Nothing further was apparently necessary, Lexx sighing heavily at his expression. "Come on." He rolled over Kal's side to get out of bed. "I think we both need some coffee and conversation."
~
Lex lowered his voice to a hiss as Kal emerged from the shower, padding toward them in what appeared to be a fresh leatherlike outfit. "What are you guys whispering about?" he asked, helping himself to the cream cheese bagel and coffee Lexx had prepared for him only minutes before.
Lex considered putting the conversation aside while in Kal's presence, but then rethought his plan when he saw Lexx glancing worriedly at him out of the corner of his eye. He wondered if Kal would be his ally, and perhaps Lexx knew that. "Well, I'm trying to figure out how I can cut out fifteen years of antagonism, and he's trying to talk me out of it."
Kal choked into his coffee and slammed the crystal cup onto the crystal table. He didn't wince when hot liquid sloshed over his hand. "What?" He turned incredulously to his companion. "Lexx, you told him?"
After a pause, Lexx very slowly turned his head to look at Kal without expression. "Nooo..."
Kal quickly flushed and looked away. "Oh." He sighed sharply, plainly irritated with his other self. "Well. You can't change it," he said to Lex. "You know that, don't you?"
Lex's lips parted in astonishment. "I don't believe this! You, too? If I didn't know any better, I'd think the two of you enjoyed being enemies. Is that what you want? For it to happen all over again?"
"No, of course not," Kal said, blinking as if disconcerted by Lex's outburst. "It wasn't a pleasant time. But... things must happen as they happened."
"Oh, really?" Lex spat. "And why is that?"
His double sat forward, beginning to explain something he'd already explained half a dozen times. "The timeline must be preserved as-"
"Don't you talk to me about the sanctity of the timeline!" Lex interrupted angrily. "You're supposed to be dead!"
Both Lexx and Kal gaped, and then their mouths clicked closed in shock.
"Not just now, or in a year, but a hundred years ago! When you grew old like everyone else. You and he changed the future with these treatments of yours, and you're changing it again by having me here now to fix what went wrong. The only reason you don't want me to change the future is because it's your past. Well, here's a news flash for you: Your present is someone else's past! Why aren't you worried about affecting that?"
"Well, they must not mind," Lexx answered sarcastically, "because they haven't come back and told us to cut it out." He gestured toward the display he and Kal worked at so often. "They certainly have the means."
"Because they haven't come back to tell you?" Lex scoffed. "That's very subjective reasoning."
"We're subjective creatures," Kal countered. "We can only go by what we see, what we know, what we've been told. And I don't think Lexx is meant to die now."
"No, he isn't. He was meant to die one hundred years ago. And yet here he is, with you and healthy just because you don't think he should be otherwise. Well, I don't think I should have to spend the next fifteen years of my life being hated by someone I-" Lex broke off suddenly, unable to say another word, not sure what the next word should be.
Kal gave him a moment to continue, then spoke softly when he didn't. "The very fact that we exist proves that you are. I know it's not fair. But that's how it is."
"No," Lex shook his head. "That's how it was. But it doesn't have to be. I'm going to cut out those fifteen years-I know I can. There's no reason for either of us to suffer like that."
"What exactly do you think you're going to do?" Lexx asked.
"I'll tell Clark what's happened here. I'll tell him we're meant to reconcile. I'll make him understand me."
"But he can't understand you," Kal said gently. "He can't understand anything about you-not yet. He sees you in an unflattering light and that's not going to change overnight. You have to give him more time to grow."
"He won't be able to deny this!"
"Deny what? You'll be returned to the same moment you left. There will be no evidence of this, and Clark would be hard pressed to believe in time travel for any reason."
"Much less coming from you," Lexx added. "Hell, in a week, you'll be questioning if it was real."
"All right-all right! Fine. Then why don't you go see him? Talk to him? Tell him what's meant to be?"
"Well, let's see," Lexx said sarcastically, "maybe because we don't want things to change?"
"Lex," Kal broke in before he could bite back at his other self, "he wouldn't believe us even if we did. He doesn't trust you, so he wouldn't trust Lexx."
"But he'll trust himself, won't he?"
Kal shook his head, sympathy etching his face. "No. Clark was having some... dealings with a kind of doppelgänger."
"Doppel-?" Lex sat back into his seat with sudden understanding. "That man... that man who came to me."
"Yes. Anything I say to him that doesn't fit his image of how things are or should be would only make him think I was him."
"Then you can bring him here!"
Again, Kal shook his head sympathetically. "That would mean nothing to him. He already knows of this place, but doesn't know enough about it or how to use it to recognize the changes time has made."
Frustrated, Lex let out a heavy sigh. "All right, what if I tell him everything you've told me? Everything I now know about you-about what you can do and where you come from?"
"All the times you've tried to confront him about his abilities, what happened? He'll only mistrust you all the more, Lex, wondering how you really found out about Krypton, and certain you're still spying on him. And you know he'll deny every word of it."
"Damn it!" Lex's fist came slamming down onto the table in frustration, but its makeup allowed no vibration and the A.I. softened it just enough to protect his hand, so he felt almost no pain. It was very unsatisfying.
"Lex... you have to give him time. Only time will bring you together. You can't force it or shorten it. It is going to take a lot of anger and struggle and changes before you find common ground with him. That's just the way it is."
"I promise you," Lexx added, "the rewards will be worth the wait."
"That's easy for you to say!" Lex shouted, getting suddenly to his feet, his anger and frustration boiling out of him. "Both of you! You have a hundred and thirty years of friendship and happiness behind you! Well, I have a decade and a half of nothing but more despair before me, and I can't just accept it like that!"
Lexx sat up more fully in his seat, his lips setting in a thin line. "I swear to god, if you do not drop this, we will keep you here until we find some way to safely remove all of your memories of this place and then we will put you back where we got you with no knowledge of what happened here."
Lex sneered, satisfaction pumping through him at the impossibility of carrying out that threat. "You can't remove all my memories of this place," he shouted. "If you did, I wouldn't know to move the stasis chamber out of Shiar-Da's reach, and then only the other timeline will exist, and you will suffer agonies for months, wither away like burnt paper, and DIE!"
He straightened his back, a momentary beat of victory pumping through him, until he realized that the shocked look on Lex's face had turned to regret. He glanced at Kal and found him positively crestfallen. All expression fell from Lex's face and he took a step backward.
He watched as Lexx bit his bottom lip, his head inclined slightly, and Kal stared wide eyed at the side of his face.
"Lexx...?" he said, his voice small.
Lexx rubbed a hand over his mouth and didn't respond. He met Lex's eyes hard.
Lex shook his head, stunned by the weight of what he'd done, sure he couldn't have, wouldn't have. He took another step back, then another.
Kal, becoming more and more distraught by Lexx's lack of response and what that likely meant, rose to his feet, breezed by Lex, and crossed the room, standing at the control panel without using it, his head bowed.
Lex continued stepping backward, driven away by the blank blame in his double's eyes, as if he was on the verge of saying, ‘I knew you were going to do this.’
Finally, he turned, unable to stand it any longer, and walked briskly toward the entrance.
"Lex-" Kal called as he hurried by.
Lexx's hard, angry voice cut him off. "Let him go."
A few steps more, and Lex stumbled into the freezing cold. He walked several yards into the swirling snow, until he felt separated from the crystal building and its reminders, and then fell to his knees in the deep, white ground.
How could he have?
He punched his fists deeply into the snow, his knuckles scraping raw and stinging with cold.
How could he have?
All he'd wanted was to hurt himself, that other smug, superior, happy self, and instead he'd managed to hurt Clark... again. Why did this happen? Why was it that even when he wanted something good, something real and beneficial, it only ever led him to hurt the people he cared about?
He fell to his side in the snow, shivering, gasping for breath against the wind.
It seemed so easy for them-for all of them. They obtained the simple things they wanted, they got life-loves and families and purpose, but it seemed the more he tried, the more these things were dangled just out of his reach. Like hanging from the edge of a cliff-a beautiful rock face he had no choice but to destroy lest he fall-that really was it.
And he'd really jammed it in this time, hadn't he? Jammed it in and watched a huge section come loose and fall. And was he still clinging? What the hell for? Surely he'd broken it beyond repair-surely he'd broken it all down long ago.
~ ~ ~
To be continued...
Feedback: The natural high.
bipolypesca