Fic: Lost in Space (2/2)
Fic: Lost in Space (2/2)
Summary: A story to fill in the missing years in the Immortal!Dean/Meta!Chloe shared universe that Strangevisitor7 and I share. When an accident leaves Chloe with amnesia, some ugly truths come to light. Takes place in between Gestalt Therapy Courtesy Chloe Sullivan and The Rescue of Richie Ryan.
Author: pen37
Fandoms: Supernatural/Smallville/Highlander
Rating: G
Beta:Strangevisitor7
Ch. 1, Ch. 2
Dean followed Methos into the cafeteria, where both Duncan and Richie were already sitting. The two Immortals took a seat, and then everyone stared at Methos.
“I would rather go through this quickly. So please don’t ask questions,” Methos said. “But the crossing was a painful time for Chloe. She hasn’t remembered it yet, but she will. And when she does, you need to be ready.”
“What happened?” Duncan asked.
“She was married,” Methos said.
Richie shifted and cast an uneasy glance at Dean. The hunter started to rise, but Duncan clasped a hand to his shoulder and forced him back into his seat. Dean gave Duncan an angry look. But Duncan shook his head. Then he looked back at Methos and nodded for him to continue.
“She’s never mentioned it because it ended badly,” Methos said.
“Then he was human,” Richie concluded.
“He was a mechanic on the Noah,” Methos said. “You have to understand that for the longest time it was just the two of us. The other immortals and her longer-lived vigilante friends had stayed behind to help prolong the last dying gasps of Earth-that-Was and help with the evacuation. We tried not to form attachments to those around us, and tried to keep moving jobs so that we remained unobtrusive. “
He looked down at his hands. “Liam reminded her of home.”
“He was your friend too,” Duncan observed.
“Despite my best efforts to the contrary,” Methos’s voice was filled with self mocking. “The damned Irishman could charm the grouse from a Scottish moor.”
“What happened,” Dean’s voice held a grudging edge to it.
Methos looked up to catch his eye. “Sometimes the antique machinery emitted toxic fumes. Caused dementia. We transferred to the Safina when his ravings threatened to expose us. By that point, he’d aged so that everyone thought we were his kids. Chloe stayed with him until he died, and everyone thought she was the dutiful daughter.”
“Why?” Dean clenched and unclenched his fists.
Methos fixed him with an even stare. “Wouldn’t you do the same for your brother?”
Dean looked down in response.
“I’m going to go see her,” Methos said. As he passed Dean’s chair, he leaned down to look Dean in the eye. “She put it behind her once.”
Dean looked away.
Duncan nodded. “Thank you, old friend.”
Methos gave Duncan a sad smile before turning and walking out the door.
#
The engine of the Noah made an awful racket that always hurt Chloe’s ears whenever she came down here looking for Methos. She was about to give up when she rounded the corner, and heard 'Raggle Taggle Gypsies'.
She smiled, enchanted by the song. She hadn’t heard it since her father sang it to her as a little girl.
She rounded the corner in search of the singer, and came across an oil-stained mechanic. As soon as he realized she was there, he broke off singing.
“Please continue,” Chloe said. “I haven’t heard that song since I was a little girl.”
“Really?” The mechanic said. His voice held a vague Irish lilt, diluted from growing up as a second generationer on the Noah.
‘His parents must have been Irish,’ Chloe thought.
“My . . .” Chloe stopped. Her cover story was that she was Eva Pearson, a medic and the sister to the mechanic Adam Pierson. “I had a good friend named Sullivan who liked to sing me old Irish songs. I’m Eva, by the way.”
“Pleased to meet you, Eva. You can call me Liam. And if you don’t mind a little dirt on your uniform, I’ll sing as I work,” He said. “Do you know anything about engines?”
She found herself smiling in return. “No. But I wouldn’t mind learning.”
#
When Dean returned to the med bay, Chloe was curled into a tight ball on her bed, evidence of abject misery on her face. She looked up at him, and gave him that ‘brave little soldier’ smile.
Dean climbed in the bed and curled around her.
“Apparently, I know how to rebuild an engine,” she said without a trace of humor.
“First time I met you . . . this time around, you were complaining about how Methos screwed up all your hard work.”
“Clark is gone, isn’t he?”
Dean knew that she wasn’t as concerned about Clark as she was about this mechanic she married.
“I think you already know,” he told her.
“I do,” she said quietly. “It’s coming back.”
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Why are you here?” Chloe countered. “This can’t be easy for you.”
Dean sighed. “Because when I lost Sammy, you called Richie.”
“I was a coward,” Chloe said.
“You knew what I needed,” Dean said. “You made sure that I had it.”
Chloe responded by laying her cheek against his chest. “Tell me about us. I want to remember something good.”
Dean stroked her hair as he talked. “We’re not allowed into this one bar in Persephone, because this dancing girl got a little personal with me and you started a bar fight.”
“I did not,” Chloe said.
“Oh, so you remember now?”
“No . . . That’s just out of character for me.”
“Who is telling this story?”
#
At some point in the night, they both drifted off to sleep. When Dean woke, Chloe was staring intently at his face. Her eyes held the familiar spark of recognition that told him that she was his Chloe again.
“Hey,” he smiled at her.
“There wasn’t any dancing girl,” Chloe grinned as she lay her head back on his chest.
“Good to have you back.”
“Good to be back.”
“Chloe?”
She stiffened against his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“You miss him?”
Chloe sat up, and studied Dean’s expression. Then she nodded slowly. “Sometimes.”
Dean looked away, fighting the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.”
In response, she took his face in both her hands, forcing him to look at her. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. You aren’t in competition, and I didn’t want you to feel like you were.”
Dean nodded at that. He wasn’t sure if they were okay yet. But by the determined way that Chloe's gaze held his, he was pretty sure that she wasn’t going anywhere until they were.
Just take things one day at a time. He thought. After all, time was something they both had plenty of.
-30-
A/N: I acutally thought up this story right after watching PS I love you in the theatre, so Liam is slightly based on JDM's Irishman. Which makes a weird kind of sense when you think about how he also played Papa Winchester. Chloe apparantly has a type.
This was conceved as one of those long, angsty and gut-wrenching tragedies with the story of Chloe and Dean pushed off into the background as she suffered through her memories. But when I started to write this, Dean refused to take a back seat to some OMC that I made up. So the story focus is more on Chlean. Which is really where it should be.