fic: wake up and give me what I know I deserve
wake up and give me what I know I deserve
He is no hero.
Terra Nova. Lucas Taylor (Skye/Lucas + ensemble)
5080. R.
[AN: accompaniment of sorts to so sink or swim. Reading that is not neccessary, but encouraged, as there are parallels and gaps that are filled in by one another. I've been working on this on and off for seven months and it just feels good to have this finished. So enjoy. title taken from blame by Right Away, Great Captain.]
“There’s an old philosophical thought experiment,” Lucas twirls the tip of his knife on his finger, Mira playing the role of captivated audience with less enthusiasm as he would have liked, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Mira stares at him like he’s crazy. And he is, of that there is no doubt, but how crazy is always the question they ask.
Answer: crazy enough.
“Yes,” she states, matter of fact, “obviously.”
“Why?”
Lucas twirls his knife and waits for her answer.
Act 1
Weaver complains to the point that Lucas wants to take a knife to his throat.
“You look like you want to kill me.”
He looks up in surprise. Weaver wears an odd smirk, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Oh, Doctor Taylor, I haven’t gotten to the position I am now without being able to recognise when a man wants me dead.”
“Of course.” Lucas hisses.
“Our employers wouldn’t like it if I were dead,” Weaver chuckles, “seeing as we have a meeting in 2149 next week and as brilliant as you are, your people skills leave something to be desired.”
This truth, like most truths in his life, rubs Lucas the wrong way. He glares at the man instead, who motions towards the door where a waiting Skye stands, flanked by two bodyguards.
“We need each other, Doctor,” Weaver stands, “like it or not.”
Lucas chooses not.
She is so beautiful.
He wants her and he hates her, all at the same time.
In a blue dress, she flutters through his kitchen, like she belongs there. And he decides she does belong there, forever.
“I want you to move in with me, dear sister.”
A look of horror flashes across her features before she masks it with the same solemn expression she wears around him.
So beautiful. So sad.
“I don’t think so, Lucas.”
He feels the rage building inside him, looking for an outlet. In a swift movement, he grabs her by the wrist.
“Let go, Lucas,” her defiance makes him grip her tighter, “you’re hurting me.”
“Yes I am, Bucket,” he smirks, “and I could hurt a lot of people, remember?”
“I can’t leave my mother, Lucas,” Skye says through gritted teeth. He loosens his grip.
“She’s still sick?”
She nods sadly.
“I can’t leave her, Lucas. Not until she’s better.”
He plants a kiss on her wrist where his fingers left bruises.
“Once she’s better,” he murmurs. It is a promise and a threat.
Skye forces a smile. She is so beautiful.
“Ever been to one?” Weaver gestures to their surroundings, and Lucas scowls. Ornate ceilings, made to replicate history that mankind has destroyed. Marble, that might be real, but would have come at a price.
Rooms and rooms of paintings and sculptures, from an age where mankind flourished instead of floundered.
“I have not.”
“Most art galleries are privately owned,” he elaborates, much to Lucas’ chagrin, “my business associate, who owns this, was a defence contractor. Made his fortune during the European war.”
“And smuggled art out of the continent while the bombs dropped,” Lucas quips dryly. Weaver chuckles.
“The buildings were already burning. No one was going to notice.”
There’s no cleaver retort because, let’s face it, Lucas doesn’t actually care.
“You’re a rich man now, Doctor,” Weaver comes to a standstill in front of a painting of a dark haired woman wearing a hint of a smile, “might be useless back in Terra Nova, but here? You can buy anything that darling sister of yours could possibly ever desire.”
“And what about revenge?”
Weaver laughs.
“That too. For the right price.”
He likes to surprise her.
“We’re going on a trip,” he brushes a stray curl behind her ear and smiles when she does not flinch.
She is full of questions but he is determined to keep her in the dark. It’s when they reach the portal when he let’s his secret slip.
“2149, sweet sister. Don’t you want to see the future?”
And the future is an ugly mess that she was not prepared for. She is so wild, so free and she struggles with her breather and he is quick to assist her, keeping her safe and close in the face of curious eyes.
Weaver’s hotel takes her breath away; glass and marble and gold. Structural materials that he could care less about it, but her? Skye runs her hand across the golden banisters like it’s the most perfect thing she’s ever seen.
(In reality: she’s the most perfect thing the world has ever seen.)
Her room is immaculate; he’s made sure of that, stressed to Weaver the importance that his sister is comfortable during her stay. The finest foods, the finest drinks, the finest clothes. Anything less would not be tolerated in the slightest.
He has much to do; sorting through papers to show his employers and the like, that he regrettably hasn’t the time to show her the sights. Not that there were many; he watched as she stood at the window, looking out over the modern world that she is far too good for.
“I can’t remember much of the future,” she murmurs and he listens for the emotion in her voice.
There is none.
“That’s probably a good thing,” Lucas says with uncharacteristic quietness.
“My father - my actual father,” she glances at him pointedly, “he took me to a planetarium once, one owned by the military. I remember being so excited - it was all I could talk about for days, the fact that I would finally be able to see the stars. When I peered through that telescope, all I saw was black. I’d imagined - I’d dreamed of such a wonder that reality was, in fact, underwhelming. Reality is often underwhelming.”
“That’s generally been my experience,” Lucas says dryly.
Skye glances at him angrily, like he said the wrong thing.
“I just want to go home.”
“Soon,” he promises, “very soon.”
“Happiness suits her,” Weaver muses and Lucas frowns. He’s sick if this, finding himself in little mind games with this glorified middle man. He refuses to get riled up; he refuses to snap.
“She’s drunk,” he scoffs instead. Weaver only laughs.
“She’s a delight.” He raises a glass in the direction of a group of men, “Our employers find her precocious. And she has such a way with their sons.”
Lucas resists the urge to punch him in the face.
Skye laughs and drinks and dances and her smiles are bright and her eyes brighter. She is beautiful and he feels that familiar twist of lust and resentment growing in his gut.
“They will talk about her, Doctor,” his colleague does not know when to shut up. “The wild girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a few offers.”
“Offers?”
(Lucas takes the bait.)
“Of marriage, of riches, of escape, take your pick.”
A champagne flute breaks in his hand.
“What do you want?”
She sighs, stumbling as she kicks off her heels. Lucas watches her carefully and for once she meets his gaze, unflinching.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
The city glows below them; the noise from the street merely muffled through soundproof glass. It reminds him of the movies his mother once watched; that moment when the hero took the damsel in distress, before the music swelled and the credits start to roll.
But he’s no hero, that’s for sure. And she can hold her own, much to his distaste. And as he slips the straps of her dress from her shoulders she does not flinch, oh no. Her stare is hard as her dress pools around her feet and, dear god; she is more perfect than he could ever have dreamed.
“Is this what you want?”
He answers her whispered question with a kiss; long and hungry and her hands grip his shoulders and he struggles to remain upright. Her skin is on fire; he is on fire and long after the act the embers still burn.
“Skye.” He moans.
This is what he wants.
ACT 2
He grows to hate a happy Mira.
It’s not hard.
A happy Mira smiles. A happy Mira laughs with her comrades. A happy Mira pries.
“I see you let that kid go.”
Lucas shoots her a glare.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I just didn’t know you were in the business of showing mercy.”
Mira flashes him a grin.
“Terra Nova is all about second chances,” he deadpans. Mira laughs.
“Is that the line your precious little spy sold you?”
His mind slips to Skye, her shaking hand on his thigh, pleading for her friend’s life with lines right out of his father’s handbook.
“I showed him mercy - a mark of a true leader.”
“Your father teach you that?”
Lucas clenches and unclenches his fists, rage flashing behind his eyes.
“Oh, Mira, my father taught me a lot of things; sacrifice and redemption and the like. Doesn’t mean they stuck.”
Mira chuckles.
“She’ll destroy you,” she smiles, “just you wait.”
He lets her leave. This is not a prison, it’s her home and he makes sure she knows the consequences if she runs.
I’ll kill them all, he murmurs in the middle of the night, when the world is silent and her breath is sharp. His touch is gentle yet his words sting. Your friends, their families. Your mother.
He never doubts she’ll come back.
Nevertheless, he gives her clothes and shoes and rings and knows that if she were to run into any of his enemies, they’ll know who she rightfully belongs to.
In the future, he is equivalent to a god.
Gods, he scoffs, for old world deities lie in the rubble, destroyed by bombs or man or nature herself. He stands tall and strong and real.
His employers smirk as they watch the zeroes fill his bank account, part payment, they laugh and he laughs because he’s getting all he wants and then some.
All great men succeed their fathers, one murmurs, that’s what makes them great.
Lucas believes it because it is so.
“The mercenaries need to start paying.”
She doesn’t knock and his guards don’t stop her. They know better; the last one to make a crude remark about his sister found himself in a very unpleasant situation.
“For what, Bucket?”
“Everything!” she cries, exasperated, throwing her hands in the air, “They take what they want, when they want it. Boylan can’t keep up with production, what with the amount that they drink. And they seem to think that they don’t have to pay a Terra!”
Lucas smirks, walking over to her. Brushing a curl behind her ear, he plants a kiss on her forehead.
“My Bucket, the peoples’ champion.”
She frowns, pulling away.
“Don’t mock me, Lucas. Without a proper economy, Terra Nova will fall apart before you finish destroying it.”
He pulls her back towards him, holding her tight.
“Less that 200 people live here. Billions live in 2149. You paint me as a villain when millions see me as a saviour.”
“You’re a profiteer,” she whispers.
“As are you,” he snarls, “after all, you do benefit from my profiteering.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
He strokes her cheek oh so gently and she meets his eyes, her expression defiant.
“No,” he relents, “you didn’t.”
“I’m asking for this, though,” she places her hand on his arm, “please let me have this.”
He thinks of the way she accepts him into her bed, the way she moans his name, and the way she always curls into his arms. He thinks of the way she chose him over his father.
He thinks about what his father would do.
“Okay,” he says firmly, “only for you, Bucket. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Where’s your sister, Doctor Taylor?”
Lucas scowls at the young businessman. He hates dealing with these cocky bastards, whose idea of succeeding their fathers is the same as killing them. It seems every day he’s introduced to a new CEO, placed there simply because of their last name.
He recognises this particular breed of dirt bag as one who paid Skye attention during her last visit.
Too much attention, as it happened.
“At Terra Nova.” He replies, calmly. The other man simply grins.
“Sounds like a wonderful excuse to pay a long overdue visit. I’ve always been curious about where my family’s money was being spent. No doubt you and your lovely sister would be happy to show me a good time.”
“She’s not my sister,” he mutters darkly and the man has the gall to fake surprise.
“Really, Doctor? That was how we were introduced.”
“They were mistaken.”
“And what is she, then? Your prehistoric version of a whore?”
Lucas slams him into the wall, the crowd growing silent as his rage grows more intense. Weaver shoots him a look that Lucas chooses to ignore, slamming his head against the wall a few more times.
“She’s mine.”
The future gets the message, loud and clear.
Unfortunately, his return to the past does not go smoother.
There’s an ambush, his father’s army taking out half his security team and he barely escapes a nearby blast.
They rush him back to Terra Nova, he’s bleeding badly but he doesn’t feel the pain. He laughs in the rover and his soldiers look at him like he’s crazy.
Maybe he is. Maybe this is all a dream and he’s really dead.
But her soft hand slipping in his reminds him that he’s very much alive. And she’s looking like she might cry and lying there, bleeding in the medic center, might be the happiest he’s ever felt.
“I didn’t want you to go back there.”
He squeezes her trembling hand.
“I had to,” he murmurs, ignoring Weaver and the soldiers and the medical staff, all trying to see to his wounds.
“I had to buy you a ring.”
Lucas watches her read the books he brought her, enthralled in histories greatest stories. Love and revenge and redemption; her eyes follow the words on the page and his follow her finger; as she gently licks it before delicately turning the page.
Here, in this moment. Everything he feels is just so clear.
ACT 3
Weaver doesn’t know when to mind his damn business. This, he notices, as the man walk through his house, prying disguised as business, trailing his fingers over typewriter keys as he worms his way into his private affairs.
“I saw your sister crying the other day.”
Lucas throws him a glare.
“What did you do to her?”
“Oh, it wasn’t me.” Weaver smirks, tapping a few keys absently. “Wasn’t anyone, as far as I can tell. She was sitting in the Eye, watching a video. Her parents, by my guess.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Lucas demands through gritted teeth.
“She’s a liability,” Weaver is serious, “instability can lead to drastic measures. You let her go OTG, she’s in contact with the Shannons. Your father. I know this because I, unlike you, don’t trust her in the slightest. She has you wrapped around her finger and you, dear Doctor, you like it that way.”
Lucas is silent.
“You like that she does anything to you at all.”
Lucas clenches and unclenches his fist and Weaver flips through an open book, absently.
“She’s fucking you for her freedom. You give her an inch and she turns it into a mile and when the time comes - and it will come, don’t think I don’t know what the Commander is planning in that jungle - she will not choose you.”
He slams the book down with a bang.
“Should we talk about this?”
She hovers in his doorway, dripping wet. She shies from his touch, but lets him wrap a towel around her shoulders. She puts more space between them, sticking close to the walls.
“Talk about what?”
“Oh my God!” she cries, exasperated, “where to start? How about your outburst during the chess game? Or Maddy Shannon’s engagement ring? Or what happened in 2149 that put you more on edge than that explosion?”
“Maddy Shannon’s engagement ring?” he echoes and she huffs.
“Of course that’s what you take away from this.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Lucas mutters darkly and Skye simply scoffs.
“You don’t frighten me,” she says, voice measured, “I used to think you did, used to run through all the possible scenarios of how you would you snap if I weren’t there to placate you. I used to think I was so fucking weak, how I would just let you into my bed, how you would use me as a trophy to show off to the future while you destroy everything I love. But you know what I’ve discovered-”
She’s inching closer, which unnerves him. Her hand on his cheek, her smile dark and reminiscent of the time betrayed him before he ultimately won.
“-that you’re the weak one. Every time you lash out at me, Lucas, it’s because you’re afraid. You’re afraid that I’ll leave you or you’ll lose me and that ring…giving a ring doesn’t mean that you’ll own me. It’s gotta be more than that.”
“What does it have to be, then?”
So gently, she leans her forehead against his, hair still soaked from the rainstorm. She smells fresh and free and he closes his eyes and breathes her in.
“It’s got to be love. And until you’re capable of that, my answer won’t be the one you’re looking for.”
She pulls back and walks away.
“Another drink, Doctor?”
Boylan’s manner is cheerful, but his eyes are wary and Lucas spares him a curt nod as the bartender pours him another drink.
“Haven’t seen young Skye around lately - she’s well, I presume?”
Lucas’ turn to eye the other man warily.
“Lately?”
“She usually comes in after her shift at the med centre - hasn’t been in for, oh, a few weeks now.”
“She’s fine.” Lucas replies curtly and Boylan nods.
“Good. I’m glad.” He gestures to the jug in his hand, “Another drink?”
“Sure.”
“It takes me a month to make this stuff,” Boylan states absently, “people think it’s something that happens over night, and sure, I could probably speed up the fermentation process like they do in 2149, but it never tastes the same.”
“You don’t hear me complaining-”
“My father, Doctor,” Boylan interrupts him with a wave, “my father owned this bottle of 100 year old whiskey. For births and deaths, he used to say. Two drinks, he had. One when his father died and one when I was born. Both the saddest and happiest days of his life.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Boylan laughs.
“The day I got my ticket, I tipped it down the sink. My father was a bastard, young Taylor. Didn’t give a shit about anyone. I hated him about as much as you hate your old man-”
“Doubt it.”
Boylan smirks and Lucas regrets coming off as petulant.
“Probably not. And I wouldn’t call your father and myself best ‘mates’ either. But Corporal Tate, that girl’s father, he was a good man. Hell, he was a great man. Would challenge the Commander when he thought that he was being rash, wasn’t seeing the full picture. It’s rare gift, the ability to see the full picture before the pieces are in place. Probably why he never lost a chess game. And probably why he would have taken over leadership of the colony too.”
“If anything were to happen to the great Commander,” Lucas mutters dryly.
“Probably,” Boylan downs a drink, “and probably why, despite the bad choice that girl has made, despite the … predicament we are in now, there are still people that watch that girl as if her daddy were still alive. Because if he were alive-”
Boylan pauses, refilling Lucas’ mug.
“-he would have slit your throat the second you looked at her.”
Lucas’ eyes narrow, hand reaching for his holster
“Is that a threat?”
“No.” Boylan chuckles, “just a scenario.”
Lucas might hate him more than Jim Shannon.
Sometimes, he looks at the life he’s created with awe. Yes awe.
He surveys his world in the early hours of the morning, when the sun is creeping through the shutters and she lies in his bed, deep in slumber. So peaceful, so innocent.
And he doesn’t care about things; not the books and the antiques and the jewels. He doesn’t care about the money or his army or the power he wields.
He doesn’t care about his father.
He cares about her.
But the sun always rises; and clarity is granted when the haze clears and he remembers his purpose and he remembers his goals.
Yet still, she is one and the same.
“Remember when I beat up the Shannon boy?”
Skye moans beneath him, his lips attacking her neck and her nails digging into his back, clawing for traction.
“Why are you bringing this up now?”
“Remember when you begged me to spare his life?”
Her breath hitches as he strokes her; she grasps his hair, trailing her fingers across her scar.
“You stood in my office, trying to seduce me. It was cute, Bucket, a couple of buttons undone and your hair loose and the way you tried to play to my ego.”
He plunges a finger in, then two, all the while his strokes gaining faster in rhythm.
“Lucas,” she murmurs.”
“I could have had you. I would have had you. But I didn’t want it to be like that. That moment when you came undone, I didn’t want to be because you were fucking me for another man’s freedom.”
“Lucas.” Her cry is louder and he replaces his fingers with his cock, moving in clear, fluid thrusts.
“I wanted to make you scream because you wanted to. So do you, dear Bucket, do you want to scream for me?”
She screams out his name and bites down on his shoulder and he comes undone.
The good guys win. Much to his extreme dissatisfaction.
The good guys win; with a contradiction of bullets in the name of peace and his soldiers fight a losing battle and Weaver falls to pieces.
Skye stays silent.
“They’ve destroyed the portal! They’ve destroyed Hope Plaza. We’re cut off from the future!”
Good riddance, Lucas thinks, 2149 being nothing more than a wasteland; a cemetery of human achievement. Weaver panics, throwing useless items into knapsacks, muttering under his breath.
“We’re leaving,” Lucas snaps - there’s a rover hidden behind Boylan’s. He starts shoving his own papers into bags, sparing a glance at Skye.
She has not moved. Instead she bites her lip and stares at the door.
“Bucket!” he yells and she flinches, tearing her gaze away from the door to meet his, “Are you with me or against me?”
Her silence haunts him as his father’s men burst into the room, destroying his world.
ACT 4
“What did you do to her?”
His chains are heavy, but not as heavy as his father’s words; sad and distraught and frightened.
Yes, frightened, and Lucas relishes all the ways in which he could break him.
He knows what he looks like, with his hands in chains and his eye swollen shut, courtesy of a Shannon. He knows he looks weak.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, father.”
“I could make you tell me,” the Commander mutters darkly, “don’t think I wouldn’t.”
Lucas laughs.
“You really want to know? You want to know about all the times I made her scream, dear father? Oh, she fought at first, she is a wild one. Taming her was one of my greatest accomplishments. Making her scream for other reasons-”
He’s cut off by his father’s fist connecting with his face. Lucas chokes, spitting out blood.
“You asked, old man.”
“I think you’re full of shit son,” the Commander snarls, and he throws something small in his lap.
It’s the ring. It’s his mother’s ring.
“How did you do it?” his father questions, “Did you plan the perfect romantic moment, with candlelight and trinkets? Or did you take her to the future and shower her with promises?”
The Commander looks him square in the eye.
“Or did you get down on bended knee, your heart in your throat and declare every emotion you daren’t share with the world?”
He laughs.
“Or, better yet. Did you threaten everything and everyone she holds dear so she didn’t even have a choice?”
“SHE CHOSE ME!”
Lucas’ yell bounces off the walls of the small room, yet his father doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, he smiles.
“Maybe she did. But if you think she’ll ever be yours, then you’re more delusional than you already are.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know that she’s getting her life back on track,” the Commander says, his tone serious, “I know that she’s moved back in with her mother and resuming activities that girls her age should be doing. None of them being some sick and twisted version of a wife.”
Lucas is silent. His father crouches beside him.
“It could have been different, son. I would have welcomed you back with open arms and you could have courted her without making her fear for her life, and yes, you could have married her.”
The Commander sighs, running a hand across his face.
“And now you never will.”
He awakes to the rattle of chains. Lucas stirs, his face throbbing and opens his eyes to see Skye crouching over him, removing his restraints. She touches his face gently, he flinches and she looks pained.
“Bucket…”
“You have to run,” Skye murmurs seriously, “Shannon’s going to notice that his keys are missing and they’ll know immediately that it was me.”
“Bucket-”
“No, Lucas!” she exclaims, “Listen to me! I packed you a rover, about ten clicks north-east of the gates. You have to take it.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
She looks so broken and he hates to think he could have been the one to break her. He hates that the truth is that he is.
She presses her lips to his; the angle is wrong and they bump noses awkwardly and there’s too much pressure to the point where it hurts.
She breaks away and breaths I can’t.
He explodes with a string of harsh words and gestures and she’s quick to interrupt him.
“They won’t stop looking for me,” her touch is gentle and sad, “they’ll kill you.”
This too, is true.
“I wish I’d never met you.” And he does, he honestly does. As much as he loves her, she has destroyed him from the inside out, for better or for worse. Which one, varies day to day. Which one, varies when he’s with her.
“I know.”
He kisses her and it’s so different from the one before. It is every feeling he’s ever had for her. It’s all her fears and all her dreams and all that she knows they’ll never had. It’s perfection. It’s them.
Then he runs.
A miserable Mira is worse than a happy one.
Much to his annoyance.
He snaps and snarls and stomps through the camp, barking orders and making plans. She talks about the Badlands like it could solve her problems, mutters about what she saw out there. How it could change everything.
“You need to open the portal.”
She is stubborn and determined and there’s no pretense. He knows why this matters to her; she knows he knows and everything else is irrelevant.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes. It is.” She snaps, “Your spy left you with your formulas and equations. Rebuild the fucking portal. Don’t just surrender.”
“Who said anything about surrender?” He snarls and Mira doesn’t react.
“You.” She replies simply, “every single day when you sit there and deny the obvious. Fuck Weaver, fuck the Company. You want your father dead? I will go in there and personally kill him if it means you will get my daughter back.”
Mira is not miserable. Mira is desperate.
“Just,” she sighs, exasperated, “what do you need to get this done? I will get it for you, I swear.”
He pities her and he is disgusted with himself.
“You have nothing that I want.”
“If you want her, go and get her. It’s not rocket science.”
No it’s not. But it’s not that simple either.
Lucas dreams of another life where his mother is still alive and he never resented his father and Terra Nova is his home. He dreams of a bright young woman with brighter eyes who loves him, not because he’s the Commander’s son or the brilliant physicist, but because he is simply him. And he can walk with her in the square and he can laugh with her mother over coffee and her father will give him his blessing and she will be his and him hers because that is who they are; two halves of a whole. Stronger together then they are apart.
They’ll be happy. Yeah, happy.
EPILOGUE
He stands at the gates and demands to see her.
They send his father.
“I want to speak to her.”
“Why?” his father asks as his soldiers aim their weapons at him, “I thought we agreed you had nothing to say.”
“SKYE!”
“Walk away, son,” Shannon warns, forever the voice of reason, “don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
“SKYE!”
She is a flash of brown curls, coming to a halt in the square, parting the crowd and there are people murmuring her name; her friends and Boylan and her mother, but she meets his gaze, her eyes wide with surprise.
She looks away, wrapping her arms around her small frame, looking anywhere but at him. His heart is in his throat; he wants this so bad and has imagined this scenario a million times in his mind.
The only possible outcome is her.
But she does not meet his gaze, instead looking to her family and friends and he wants for her to make up her own mind.
“Bucket!”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice breaks with her apology and his heart sinks as he turns to slink away. Her movement catches his eye and she throws a glance behind her.
And she takes a step forward.
And everything is perfect.
He is no hero.
Terra Nova. Lucas Taylor (Skye/Lucas + ensemble)
5080. R.
[AN: accompaniment of sorts to so sink or swim. Reading that is not neccessary, but encouraged, as there are parallels and gaps that are filled in by one another. I've been working on this on and off for seven months and it just feels good to have this finished. So enjoy. title taken from blame by Right Away, Great Captain.]
“There’s an old philosophical thought experiment,” Lucas twirls the tip of his knife on his finger, Mira playing the role of captivated audience with less enthusiasm as he would have liked, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Mira stares at him like he’s crazy. And he is, of that there is no doubt, but how crazy is always the question they ask.
Answer: crazy enough.
“Yes,” she states, matter of fact, “obviously.”
“Why?”
Lucas twirls his knife and waits for her answer.
Act 1
Weaver complains to the point that Lucas wants to take a knife to his throat.
“You look like you want to kill me.”
He looks up in surprise. Weaver wears an odd smirk, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Oh, Doctor Taylor, I haven’t gotten to the position I am now without being able to recognise when a man wants me dead.”
“Of course.” Lucas hisses.
“Our employers wouldn’t like it if I were dead,” Weaver chuckles, “seeing as we have a meeting in 2149 next week and as brilliant as you are, your people skills leave something to be desired.”
This truth, like most truths in his life, rubs Lucas the wrong way. He glares at the man instead, who motions towards the door where a waiting Skye stands, flanked by two bodyguards.
“We need each other, Doctor,” Weaver stands, “like it or not.”
Lucas chooses not.
She is so beautiful.
He wants her and he hates her, all at the same time.
In a blue dress, she flutters through his kitchen, like she belongs there. And he decides she does belong there, forever.
“I want you to move in with me, dear sister.”
A look of horror flashes across her features before she masks it with the same solemn expression she wears around him.
So beautiful. So sad.
“I don’t think so, Lucas.”
He feels the rage building inside him, looking for an outlet. In a swift movement, he grabs her by the wrist.
“Let go, Lucas,” her defiance makes him grip her tighter, “you’re hurting me.”
“Yes I am, Bucket,” he smirks, “and I could hurt a lot of people, remember?”
“I can’t leave my mother, Lucas,” Skye says through gritted teeth. He loosens his grip.
“She’s still sick?”
She nods sadly.
“I can’t leave her, Lucas. Not until she’s better.”
He plants a kiss on her wrist where his fingers left bruises.
“Once she’s better,” he murmurs. It is a promise and a threat.
Skye forces a smile. She is so beautiful.
“Ever been to one?” Weaver gestures to their surroundings, and Lucas scowls. Ornate ceilings, made to replicate history that mankind has destroyed. Marble, that might be real, but would have come at a price.
Rooms and rooms of paintings and sculptures, from an age where mankind flourished instead of floundered.
“I have not.”
“Most art galleries are privately owned,” he elaborates, much to Lucas’ chagrin, “my business associate, who owns this, was a defence contractor. Made his fortune during the European war.”
“And smuggled art out of the continent while the bombs dropped,” Lucas quips dryly. Weaver chuckles.
“The buildings were already burning. No one was going to notice.”
There’s no cleaver retort because, let’s face it, Lucas doesn’t actually care.
“You’re a rich man now, Doctor,” Weaver comes to a standstill in front of a painting of a dark haired woman wearing a hint of a smile, “might be useless back in Terra Nova, but here? You can buy anything that darling sister of yours could possibly ever desire.”
“And what about revenge?”
Weaver laughs.
“That too. For the right price.”
He likes to surprise her.
“We’re going on a trip,” he brushes a stray curl behind her ear and smiles when she does not flinch.
She is full of questions but he is determined to keep her in the dark. It’s when they reach the portal when he let’s his secret slip.
“2149, sweet sister. Don’t you want to see the future?”
And the future is an ugly mess that she was not prepared for. She is so wild, so free and she struggles with her breather and he is quick to assist her, keeping her safe and close in the face of curious eyes.
Weaver’s hotel takes her breath away; glass and marble and gold. Structural materials that he could care less about it, but her? Skye runs her hand across the golden banisters like it’s the most perfect thing she’s ever seen.
(In reality: she’s the most perfect thing the world has ever seen.)
Her room is immaculate; he’s made sure of that, stressed to Weaver the importance that his sister is comfortable during her stay. The finest foods, the finest drinks, the finest clothes. Anything less would not be tolerated in the slightest.
He has much to do; sorting through papers to show his employers and the like, that he regrettably hasn’t the time to show her the sights. Not that there were many; he watched as she stood at the window, looking out over the modern world that she is far too good for.
“I can’t remember much of the future,” she murmurs and he listens for the emotion in her voice.
There is none.
“That’s probably a good thing,” Lucas says with uncharacteristic quietness.
“My father - my actual father,” she glances at him pointedly, “he took me to a planetarium once, one owned by the military. I remember being so excited - it was all I could talk about for days, the fact that I would finally be able to see the stars. When I peered through that telescope, all I saw was black. I’d imagined - I’d dreamed of such a wonder that reality was, in fact, underwhelming. Reality is often underwhelming.”
“That’s generally been my experience,” Lucas says dryly.
Skye glances at him angrily, like he said the wrong thing.
“I just want to go home.”
“Soon,” he promises, “very soon.”
“Happiness suits her,” Weaver muses and Lucas frowns. He’s sick if this, finding himself in little mind games with this glorified middle man. He refuses to get riled up; he refuses to snap.
“She’s drunk,” he scoffs instead. Weaver only laughs.
“She’s a delight.” He raises a glass in the direction of a group of men, “Our employers find her precocious. And she has such a way with their sons.”
Lucas resists the urge to punch him in the face.
Skye laughs and drinks and dances and her smiles are bright and her eyes brighter. She is beautiful and he feels that familiar twist of lust and resentment growing in his gut.
“They will talk about her, Doctor,” his colleague does not know when to shut up. “The wild girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a few offers.”
“Offers?”
(Lucas takes the bait.)
“Of marriage, of riches, of escape, take your pick.”
A champagne flute breaks in his hand.
“What do you want?”
She sighs, stumbling as she kicks off her heels. Lucas watches her carefully and for once she meets his gaze, unflinching.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
The city glows below them; the noise from the street merely muffled through soundproof glass. It reminds him of the movies his mother once watched; that moment when the hero took the damsel in distress, before the music swelled and the credits start to roll.
But he’s no hero, that’s for sure. And she can hold her own, much to his distaste. And as he slips the straps of her dress from her shoulders she does not flinch, oh no. Her stare is hard as her dress pools around her feet and, dear god; she is more perfect than he could ever have dreamed.
“Is this what you want?”
He answers her whispered question with a kiss; long and hungry and her hands grip his shoulders and he struggles to remain upright. Her skin is on fire; he is on fire and long after the act the embers still burn.
“Skye.” He moans.
This is what he wants.
ACT 2
He grows to hate a happy Mira.
It’s not hard.
A happy Mira smiles. A happy Mira laughs with her comrades. A happy Mira pries.
“I see you let that kid go.”
Lucas shoots her a glare.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I just didn’t know you were in the business of showing mercy.”
Mira flashes him a grin.
“Terra Nova is all about second chances,” he deadpans. Mira laughs.
“Is that the line your precious little spy sold you?”
His mind slips to Skye, her shaking hand on his thigh, pleading for her friend’s life with lines right out of his father’s handbook.
“I showed him mercy - a mark of a true leader.”
“Your father teach you that?”
Lucas clenches and unclenches his fists, rage flashing behind his eyes.
“Oh, Mira, my father taught me a lot of things; sacrifice and redemption and the like. Doesn’t mean they stuck.”
Mira chuckles.
“She’ll destroy you,” she smiles, “just you wait.”
He lets her leave. This is not a prison, it’s her home and he makes sure she knows the consequences if she runs.
I’ll kill them all, he murmurs in the middle of the night, when the world is silent and her breath is sharp. His touch is gentle yet his words sting. Your friends, their families. Your mother.
He never doubts she’ll come back.
Nevertheless, he gives her clothes and shoes and rings and knows that if she were to run into any of his enemies, they’ll know who she rightfully belongs to.
In the future, he is equivalent to a god.
Gods, he scoffs, for old world deities lie in the rubble, destroyed by bombs or man or nature herself. He stands tall and strong and real.
His employers smirk as they watch the zeroes fill his bank account, part payment, they laugh and he laughs because he’s getting all he wants and then some.
All great men succeed their fathers, one murmurs, that’s what makes them great.
Lucas believes it because it is so.
“The mercenaries need to start paying.”
She doesn’t knock and his guards don’t stop her. They know better; the last one to make a crude remark about his sister found himself in a very unpleasant situation.
“For what, Bucket?”
“Everything!” she cries, exasperated, throwing her hands in the air, “They take what they want, when they want it. Boylan can’t keep up with production, what with the amount that they drink. And they seem to think that they don’t have to pay a Terra!”
Lucas smirks, walking over to her. Brushing a curl behind her ear, he plants a kiss on her forehead.
“My Bucket, the peoples’ champion.”
She frowns, pulling away.
“Don’t mock me, Lucas. Without a proper economy, Terra Nova will fall apart before you finish destroying it.”
He pulls her back towards him, holding her tight.
“Less that 200 people live here. Billions live in 2149. You paint me as a villain when millions see me as a saviour.”
“You’re a profiteer,” she whispers.
“As are you,” he snarls, “after all, you do benefit from my profiteering.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
He strokes her cheek oh so gently and she meets his eyes, her expression defiant.
“No,” he relents, “you didn’t.”
“I’m asking for this, though,” she places her hand on his arm, “please let me have this.”
He thinks of the way she accepts him into her bed, the way she moans his name, and the way she always curls into his arms. He thinks of the way she chose him over his father.
He thinks about what his father would do.
“Okay,” he says firmly, “only for you, Bucket. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Where’s your sister, Doctor Taylor?”
Lucas scowls at the young businessman. He hates dealing with these cocky bastards, whose idea of succeeding their fathers is the same as killing them. It seems every day he’s introduced to a new CEO, placed there simply because of their last name.
He recognises this particular breed of dirt bag as one who paid Skye attention during her last visit.
Too much attention, as it happened.
“At Terra Nova.” He replies, calmly. The other man simply grins.
“Sounds like a wonderful excuse to pay a long overdue visit. I’ve always been curious about where my family’s money was being spent. No doubt you and your lovely sister would be happy to show me a good time.”
“She’s not my sister,” he mutters darkly and the man has the gall to fake surprise.
“Really, Doctor? That was how we were introduced.”
“They were mistaken.”
“And what is she, then? Your prehistoric version of a whore?”
Lucas slams him into the wall, the crowd growing silent as his rage grows more intense. Weaver shoots him a look that Lucas chooses to ignore, slamming his head against the wall a few more times.
“She’s mine.”
The future gets the message, loud and clear.
Unfortunately, his return to the past does not go smoother.
There’s an ambush, his father’s army taking out half his security team and he barely escapes a nearby blast.
They rush him back to Terra Nova, he’s bleeding badly but he doesn’t feel the pain. He laughs in the rover and his soldiers look at him like he’s crazy.
Maybe he is. Maybe this is all a dream and he’s really dead.
But her soft hand slipping in his reminds him that he’s very much alive. And she’s looking like she might cry and lying there, bleeding in the medic center, might be the happiest he’s ever felt.
“I didn’t want you to go back there.”
He squeezes her trembling hand.
“I had to,” he murmurs, ignoring Weaver and the soldiers and the medical staff, all trying to see to his wounds.
“I had to buy you a ring.”
Lucas watches her read the books he brought her, enthralled in histories greatest stories. Love and revenge and redemption; her eyes follow the words on the page and his follow her finger; as she gently licks it before delicately turning the page.
Here, in this moment. Everything he feels is just so clear.
ACT 3
Weaver doesn’t know when to mind his damn business. This, he notices, as the man walk through his house, prying disguised as business, trailing his fingers over typewriter keys as he worms his way into his private affairs.
“I saw your sister crying the other day.”
Lucas throws him a glare.
“What did you do to her?”
“Oh, it wasn’t me.” Weaver smirks, tapping a few keys absently. “Wasn’t anyone, as far as I can tell. She was sitting in the Eye, watching a video. Her parents, by my guess.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Lucas demands through gritted teeth.
“She’s a liability,” Weaver is serious, “instability can lead to drastic measures. You let her go OTG, she’s in contact with the Shannons. Your father. I know this because I, unlike you, don’t trust her in the slightest. She has you wrapped around her finger and you, dear Doctor, you like it that way.”
Lucas is silent.
“You like that she does anything to you at all.”
Lucas clenches and unclenches his fist and Weaver flips through an open book, absently.
“She’s fucking you for her freedom. You give her an inch and she turns it into a mile and when the time comes - and it will come, don’t think I don’t know what the Commander is planning in that jungle - she will not choose you.”
He slams the book down with a bang.
“Should we talk about this?”
She hovers in his doorway, dripping wet. She shies from his touch, but lets him wrap a towel around her shoulders. She puts more space between them, sticking close to the walls.
“Talk about what?”
“Oh my God!” she cries, exasperated, “where to start? How about your outburst during the chess game? Or Maddy Shannon’s engagement ring? Or what happened in 2149 that put you more on edge than that explosion?”
“Maddy Shannon’s engagement ring?” he echoes and she huffs.
“Of course that’s what you take away from this.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Lucas mutters darkly and Skye simply scoffs.
“You don’t frighten me,” she says, voice measured, “I used to think you did, used to run through all the possible scenarios of how you would you snap if I weren’t there to placate you. I used to think I was so fucking weak, how I would just let you into my bed, how you would use me as a trophy to show off to the future while you destroy everything I love. But you know what I’ve discovered-”
She’s inching closer, which unnerves him. Her hand on his cheek, her smile dark and reminiscent of the time betrayed him before he ultimately won.
“-that you’re the weak one. Every time you lash out at me, Lucas, it’s because you’re afraid. You’re afraid that I’ll leave you or you’ll lose me and that ring…giving a ring doesn’t mean that you’ll own me. It’s gotta be more than that.”
“What does it have to be, then?”
So gently, she leans her forehead against his, hair still soaked from the rainstorm. She smells fresh and free and he closes his eyes and breathes her in.
“It’s got to be love. And until you’re capable of that, my answer won’t be the one you’re looking for.”
She pulls back and walks away.
“Another drink, Doctor?”
Boylan’s manner is cheerful, but his eyes are wary and Lucas spares him a curt nod as the bartender pours him another drink.
“Haven’t seen young Skye around lately - she’s well, I presume?”
Lucas’ turn to eye the other man warily.
“Lately?”
“She usually comes in after her shift at the med centre - hasn’t been in for, oh, a few weeks now.”
“She’s fine.” Lucas replies curtly and Boylan nods.
“Good. I’m glad.” He gestures to the jug in his hand, “Another drink?”
“Sure.”
“It takes me a month to make this stuff,” Boylan states absently, “people think it’s something that happens over night, and sure, I could probably speed up the fermentation process like they do in 2149, but it never tastes the same.”
“You don’t hear me complaining-”
“My father, Doctor,” Boylan interrupts him with a wave, “my father owned this bottle of 100 year old whiskey. For births and deaths, he used to say. Two drinks, he had. One when his father died and one when I was born. Both the saddest and happiest days of his life.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Boylan laughs.
“The day I got my ticket, I tipped it down the sink. My father was a bastard, young Taylor. Didn’t give a shit about anyone. I hated him about as much as you hate your old man-”
“Doubt it.”
Boylan smirks and Lucas regrets coming off as petulant.
“Probably not. And I wouldn’t call your father and myself best ‘mates’ either. But Corporal Tate, that girl’s father, he was a good man. Hell, he was a great man. Would challenge the Commander when he thought that he was being rash, wasn’t seeing the full picture. It’s rare gift, the ability to see the full picture before the pieces are in place. Probably why he never lost a chess game. And probably why he would have taken over leadership of the colony too.”
“If anything were to happen to the great Commander,” Lucas mutters dryly.
“Probably,” Boylan downs a drink, “and probably why, despite the bad choice that girl has made, despite the … predicament we are in now, there are still people that watch that girl as if her daddy were still alive. Because if he were alive-”
Boylan pauses, refilling Lucas’ mug.
“-he would have slit your throat the second you looked at her.”
Lucas’ eyes narrow, hand reaching for his holster
“Is that a threat?”
“No.” Boylan chuckles, “just a scenario.”
Lucas might hate him more than Jim Shannon.
Sometimes, he looks at the life he’s created with awe. Yes awe.
He surveys his world in the early hours of the morning, when the sun is creeping through the shutters and she lies in his bed, deep in slumber. So peaceful, so innocent.
And he doesn’t care about things; not the books and the antiques and the jewels. He doesn’t care about the money or his army or the power he wields.
He doesn’t care about his father.
He cares about her.
But the sun always rises; and clarity is granted when the haze clears and he remembers his purpose and he remembers his goals.
Yet still, she is one and the same.
“Remember when I beat up the Shannon boy?”
Skye moans beneath him, his lips attacking her neck and her nails digging into his back, clawing for traction.
“Why are you bringing this up now?”
“Remember when you begged me to spare his life?”
Her breath hitches as he strokes her; she grasps his hair, trailing her fingers across her scar.
“You stood in my office, trying to seduce me. It was cute, Bucket, a couple of buttons undone and your hair loose and the way you tried to play to my ego.”
He plunges a finger in, then two, all the while his strokes gaining faster in rhythm.
“Lucas,” she murmurs.”
“I could have had you. I would have had you. But I didn’t want it to be like that. That moment when you came undone, I didn’t want to be because you were fucking me for another man’s freedom.”
“Lucas.” Her cry is louder and he replaces his fingers with his cock, moving in clear, fluid thrusts.
“I wanted to make you scream because you wanted to. So do you, dear Bucket, do you want to scream for me?”
She screams out his name and bites down on his shoulder and he comes undone.
The good guys win. Much to his extreme dissatisfaction.
The good guys win; with a contradiction of bullets in the name of peace and his soldiers fight a losing battle and Weaver falls to pieces.
Skye stays silent.
“They’ve destroyed the portal! They’ve destroyed Hope Plaza. We’re cut off from the future!”
Good riddance, Lucas thinks, 2149 being nothing more than a wasteland; a cemetery of human achievement. Weaver panics, throwing useless items into knapsacks, muttering under his breath.
“We’re leaving,” Lucas snaps - there’s a rover hidden behind Boylan’s. He starts shoving his own papers into bags, sparing a glance at Skye.
She has not moved. Instead she bites her lip and stares at the door.
“Bucket!” he yells and she flinches, tearing her gaze away from the door to meet his, “Are you with me or against me?”
Her silence haunts him as his father’s men burst into the room, destroying his world.
ACT 4
“What did you do to her?”
His chains are heavy, but not as heavy as his father’s words; sad and distraught and frightened.
Yes, frightened, and Lucas relishes all the ways in which he could break him.
He knows what he looks like, with his hands in chains and his eye swollen shut, courtesy of a Shannon. He knows he looks weak.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, father.”
“I could make you tell me,” the Commander mutters darkly, “don’t think I wouldn’t.”
Lucas laughs.
“You really want to know? You want to know about all the times I made her scream, dear father? Oh, she fought at first, she is a wild one. Taming her was one of my greatest accomplishments. Making her scream for other reasons-”
He’s cut off by his father’s fist connecting with his face. Lucas chokes, spitting out blood.
“You asked, old man.”
“I think you’re full of shit son,” the Commander snarls, and he throws something small in his lap.
It’s the ring. It’s his mother’s ring.
“How did you do it?” his father questions, “Did you plan the perfect romantic moment, with candlelight and trinkets? Or did you take her to the future and shower her with promises?”
The Commander looks him square in the eye.
“Or did you get down on bended knee, your heart in your throat and declare every emotion you daren’t share with the world?”
He laughs.
“Or, better yet. Did you threaten everything and everyone she holds dear so she didn’t even have a choice?”
“SHE CHOSE ME!”
Lucas’ yell bounces off the walls of the small room, yet his father doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, he smiles.
“Maybe she did. But if you think she’ll ever be yours, then you’re more delusional than you already are.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know that she’s getting her life back on track,” the Commander says, his tone serious, “I know that she’s moved back in with her mother and resuming activities that girls her age should be doing. None of them being some sick and twisted version of a wife.”
Lucas is silent. His father crouches beside him.
“It could have been different, son. I would have welcomed you back with open arms and you could have courted her without making her fear for her life, and yes, you could have married her.”
The Commander sighs, running a hand across his face.
“And now you never will.”
He awakes to the rattle of chains. Lucas stirs, his face throbbing and opens his eyes to see Skye crouching over him, removing his restraints. She touches his face gently, he flinches and she looks pained.
“Bucket…”
“You have to run,” Skye murmurs seriously, “Shannon’s going to notice that his keys are missing and they’ll know immediately that it was me.”
“Bucket-”
“No, Lucas!” she exclaims, “Listen to me! I packed you a rover, about ten clicks north-east of the gates. You have to take it.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
She looks so broken and he hates to think he could have been the one to break her. He hates that the truth is that he is.
She presses her lips to his; the angle is wrong and they bump noses awkwardly and there’s too much pressure to the point where it hurts.
She breaks away and breaths I can’t.
He explodes with a string of harsh words and gestures and she’s quick to interrupt him.
“They won’t stop looking for me,” her touch is gentle and sad, “they’ll kill you.”
This too, is true.
“I wish I’d never met you.” And he does, he honestly does. As much as he loves her, she has destroyed him from the inside out, for better or for worse. Which one, varies day to day. Which one, varies when he’s with her.
“I know.”
He kisses her and it’s so different from the one before. It is every feeling he’s ever had for her. It’s all her fears and all her dreams and all that she knows they’ll never had. It’s perfection. It’s them.
Then he runs.
A miserable Mira is worse than a happy one.
Much to his annoyance.
He snaps and snarls and stomps through the camp, barking orders and making plans. She talks about the Badlands like it could solve her problems, mutters about what she saw out there. How it could change everything.
“You need to open the portal.”
She is stubborn and determined and there’s no pretense. He knows why this matters to her; she knows he knows and everything else is irrelevant.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes. It is.” She snaps, “Your spy left you with your formulas and equations. Rebuild the fucking portal. Don’t just surrender.”
“Who said anything about surrender?” He snarls and Mira doesn’t react.
“You.” She replies simply, “every single day when you sit there and deny the obvious. Fuck Weaver, fuck the Company. You want your father dead? I will go in there and personally kill him if it means you will get my daughter back.”
Mira is not miserable. Mira is desperate.
“Just,” she sighs, exasperated, “what do you need to get this done? I will get it for you, I swear.”
He pities her and he is disgusted with himself.
“You have nothing that I want.”
“If you want her, go and get her. It’s not rocket science.”
No it’s not. But it’s not that simple either.
Lucas dreams of another life where his mother is still alive and he never resented his father and Terra Nova is his home. He dreams of a bright young woman with brighter eyes who loves him, not because he’s the Commander’s son or the brilliant physicist, but because he is simply him. And he can walk with her in the square and he can laugh with her mother over coffee and her father will give him his blessing and she will be his and him hers because that is who they are; two halves of a whole. Stronger together then they are apart.
They’ll be happy. Yeah, happy.
EPILOGUE
He stands at the gates and demands to see her.
They send his father.
“I want to speak to her.”
“Why?” his father asks as his soldiers aim their weapons at him, “I thought we agreed you had nothing to say.”
“SKYE!”
“Walk away, son,” Shannon warns, forever the voice of reason, “don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
“SKYE!”
She is a flash of brown curls, coming to a halt in the square, parting the crowd and there are people murmuring her name; her friends and Boylan and her mother, but she meets his gaze, her eyes wide with surprise.
She looks away, wrapping her arms around her small frame, looking anywhere but at him. His heart is in his throat; he wants this so bad and has imagined this scenario a million times in his mind.
The only possible outcome is her.
But she does not meet his gaze, instead looking to her family and friends and he wants for her to make up her own mind.
“Bucket!”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice breaks with her apology and his heart sinks as he turns to slink away. Her movement catches his eye and she throws a glance behind her.
And she takes a step forward.
And everything is perfect.