Choices
Author: bassair
Challenge: Pineapple #22 (If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.) + Chopped Nuts
Title: Choices
Word Count: 1174
Rating: R (swearing)
Warning(s): Femslash.
Pairings/Characters: Lisa/Jesse
AU/Canon: AU (Evil!Lisa ‘verse. Yes, I have my own mini-verses now. Don’t judge.)
Beta: skullgirl013 ^.^
Story: White Scar
Summary: There comes a time in anyone’s life where you have to make a choice. Sometimes you can make the wrong one. And sometimes your choice is directly altered by the choices of those around you.
Author's Note: I don't know if this fits the prompt really, but eh, this is what I drew from it >.> (Oh, god, I hope my cut is going to work right now.)
Lisa’s never been particularly good at picking the right course of action. It’s something she’s accepted as a character flaw and tries to ignore as much as possible or - at least - work around. She didn’t choose the right course of action when she took the X5 job application off Danni and filled it in. She didn’t choose the right course of action the day she admitted she was attracted to Jesse and sleeping with her a week later? Definitely not the right course of action.
Fun while it lasted, yes. Still not the right course of action.
She gets that Jesse fucks with heads. She screws with minds and emotions to get her own way, but something tells Lisa, when she looks deep into those blue eyes of hers, that Jesse loves her. In her own sick, twisted, screwed up way; Jesse Durrell loves Lisa Warren.
Lisa’s never sat down and pondered what she once heard Alec refer to as the Trousers of Time. She’s never before wondered if maybe Jesse would be dead if she hadn’t run away with her that fateful night a year ago, if maybe Jesse wouldn’t be dead, but Lisa would be still at the X5 if she’d released her and let her run on her own.
There comes a time in anyone’s life where you have to make a choice. Sometimes you can make the wrong one. And sometimes your choice is directly altered by the choices of those around you. Lisa’s realising this, as she lies awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what would have happened, if Jesse hadn’t come to her that night, in the dark, and made her listen.
“Lisa?”
Lisa wakes slowly, eyes Jesse hovering above her and says, sleepily, “Jesse, it’s three in the morning...”
Jesse nods, sits Indian-style on the edge of Lisa’s bed and says, “I need to talk to you.”
Lisa sighs, runs a hand through her hair, yawns and sits up, propping her back up against her pillows, smoothing her duvet across her lap and looking at the blonde. “What about?”
“I have the plague.”
There’s a beat and Lisa just stares at her, then she says, quietly, as though any loud noise will break the fragile glass they’re standing on, the only layer between this perfect little life and the hell of the Scar, “But... you can’t. You...”
“Went into the Scar with Danni and Ben.”
“Yes, but...”
“I tore my suit,” Jesse says. “I inhaled the air and I’ve been... I’ve been ill. The last month. I know what it means, Lisa. I’m dying.”
“But... but you can’t.” Lisa sits up a little straighter, blinking hard, trying to work out if this is some horrible nightmare that’s so much more vivid than it should be. She thinks if she tries hard enough she’ll open her eyes and find she’s lying in bed, next to Jesse, who’s fast asleep and perfectly well and probably wearing pigtails knowing her.
“I am.” Jesse pauses.
Now Lisa’s upright, staring in horror at the girl - no, woman - she loves. The woman she’d die for. “There has to be something we can do!”
Jesse giggles. “You have a cure hidden up your sleeve, Doctor Warren?”
Lisa flushes, shakes her head. “No. I just... isn’t there something?”
“There’s a place.” Jesse isn’t looking at her now and there’s no humour left in her tone, instead only secrecy. “I grew up there.”
“Where?” Lisa says. “We can go there!”
Jesse looks at her. “No one knows it exists but us. We have a cure, but...”
“But?”
“If I go there, I can’t come back.” Jesse runs a hand through her hair, pushing it from her face, exposing her blue eyes for Lisa to gaze into.
“Why not?” Lisa whispers, as though fearful of the answer.
“You can’t tell anyone, Lisa,” she says. “No one at all. Not Danni or Alec or Ben...”
“I won’t,” Lisa promises, quickly, without even considering it. “You have my word.”
Jesse inhales. “I’ve... I’ve been working here undercover.”
“Undercover? For... for the government?”
“No, I’d never work for those bastards.” Jesse takes a breath and launches herself forward at Lisa, clasping her hands over her lover’s and saying, “There’s an organisation. We’re like the X5, but we’re not funded by the government and we’re not as...” She hesitates for a moment. “Humanitarian. We’re less reserved about killing people in our way.”
Lisa’s jaw drops open a little. “Jess-”
“Don't speak; just listen.” She looks down at their hands. “The S.E.F. have a cure for the plague...”
“That’s brilliant!” Lisa exclaims, cutting across her. “We can cure all the sufferers!”
Jesse puts her hand across Lisa’s lips and shakes her head. “It’s not foolproof. It kills more than it saves, but it’s worth a try sometimes. We’ve been trying to refine it... well, our doctors have... and we’re no closer than you are to actually getting a proper cure... But, Lisa. If I go back there, I could get cured.”
Lisa nods. “Yes... of course. But then... then you won’t come back? And the X5... it’s in lockdown...”
“I can’t come back. They wouldn’t let me. But...” She leans her forehead against the redhead’s. “I want you to come with me,” she breathes.
“Leave the X5? Leave Danni and...” Jesse just nods at her, so she stops. “I couldn’t come back either.”
“No. We’d have to leave for good. And you’d have to learn how to... be like us.”
Lisa pauses. “I... I don’t know, Jesse. It’d be hard enough to get you out alone, let alone both of us...”
Jesse pulls away a little, looking Lisa in the eyes. “I love you,” she says. “Please, believe me when I say that. And I don’t... I don’t want to be without you.”
Lisa closes her eyes. “I love you too,” she whispers. “Do we have to leave tonight?” she says, after a moment. “It’s just that it’s late... and I’ve had a busy day.”
Jesse smiles at her. “No, it’ll take a few days of preparation.” She lies down next to her lover and looks up at her. “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”
Lisa has no misconceptions about the situation even now. She knows that Jesse was sure - even back then - that Lisa would come with her. There was never any doubt in her mind, Lisa knows that. Jesse knew that even when she told Lisa that she’d have to learn to fight - and kill - for the S.E.F., to supplement her place as a doctor in their not-so-little gang of miscreants; Lisa would still follow her, because that’s what love is.
She knows Jesse isn’t a saint. She knows she kills and hurts and maims and tortures. She knows that one day, sometime in the future, she’s going to have to face that fact in the worst way: Jesse versus one of her friends from the X5.
The terrifying thing is she knows which side she’s going to choose when that day comes.
And it’s not going to be Danni’s.