Broken Toy Soldiers [Firefly/Supernatural/Heroes/BtVS/Torchwood fic]
The story behind this fic is... well, it started out as two smaller fics, actually... I was thinking about crossover 'ships after reading a Sam Winchester/River Tam oneshot, and that started me thinking that it was an interesting pairing... oh, and Dawn Summers got mixed into there somewhere, though I'm not sure how. The other fic idea was a Heroes/Torchwood fic, looking what might happen if Claire Bennet a) was still around in 500 years and b) met Jack Harkness somewhere along the way.
Then I realised that the two ideas could potentially make one fic, and that's basically where Broken Toy Soldiers came from. (The title will make sense eventually, I promise!)
Title: Broken Toy Soldiers
Author: Trillianastra
Fandom: Firefly/Supernatural/Heroes/BtVS/Torchwood (Firefly 'verse)
Characters: River Tam, Sam Winchester, Claire Bennet, Dawn Summers, Jack Harkness, various other Firefly characters.
Rating: This chapter PG13. Later chapters may be higher.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Eric Kripke, Tim Kring and Russell T Davies own 'em. I'm just playing in the sandbox.
NOTE: This is AU with respect to Supernatural Season 4, BtVS Season 6, and anything after Heroes 3x10. This fic takes place post-"Objects in Space" for Firefly.
Prelude the First: Predestination, Of A Kind
March 5th, 2519
River sits by herself. Looks at the ordinary things around her, the objects - some homely, some more businesslike - that make the ship a home rather than a simple shell of metal. Simon is nearby. She feels the relief in him - he’s glad that she hasn’t had any outbursts recently, no “incidents” for him to deal with.
She can feel the rest of the crew too. All with their separate concerns and needs and thoughts. She doesn’t pry too much.
She thinks about a dream she had last night. A dream of people like her. She didn’t recognise any of them, but she believes that she will see them all soon. They’re an eclectic mix. Two teenage girls her own age, though they couldn’t be more different - one bookish and quiet, the other more outgoing. Two men - one is barely more than a boy, but has faced terrible things in his short life. The other she can’t see too well, which disturbs her because she’s never come across someone like that before. They are all different, they all stand out.
They all have a purpose, and that leads River to realise something.
“We were made for a reason, but the reason is lost.”
Simon looks up from what he’s doing. “What was that?”
She didn’t realise she’d spoken aloud. She smiles in a manner she hopes is reassuring. “Nothing important.”
Prelude the Second: There Can Be Only One (Or Then Again, Maybe Not)
June 10th, 2098
Jack walked into his office to find a plain envelope lying on his desk. There was no address or stamp - just his name written in familiar handwriting. As he went to open it, he saw that it wasn’t sealed.
Curious, he tipped the contents out onto the desk surface. What fell out was a shiny silver disc and a folded note. He picked up the note and unfolded it.
Jack
I had to tell you. You have to know who I am, where I came from. Watch the disc.
Claire.
He sighed. Cursed himself for not seeing it. He had tried to tell her that it didn’t matter where she’d come from, that who she was now was more important.
He picked up the disc, and inserted it into the player attached to the computer monitor. He pressed the play button, and sat back in his chair.
The first few seconds of the recording were black, but that was soon replaced with the image of the girl who’d left the envelope on his desk.
“My name is Claire Bennet, and I’ve got to tell you some things about myself. I was born on August 14th, 1991, in Texas. My parents were Nathan Petrelli and Meredith Gordon. When I was eighteen months old, I was adopted by Noah and Sandra Bennet, and I grew up with them in Odessa, that’s in Texas.
Everything was normal until the year I was sixteen. That year, I found out that I wasn’t like other people. I can heal from any wound almost instantly. The only thing that can kill me is if someone cuts my head off. I thought I was a freak.
That year was also the year I found out who my biological parents were. At the same time I found a whole new family - my father, Nathan, my grandmother Angela. My uncle, Peter. Peter saved my life the first time I met him - but I didn’t know who he was then.
So much happened after I found out what I could do… it’s not important now. Out of everyone involved, I’m the only one left. A year after I discovered my ability, there were three people who could heal - me, my grandfather Arthur, and a man who called himself Sylar. When I first met Sylar, we all thought he was the bad guy. He wasn’t, though. He’s dead now. My grandfather killed him. He wanted Sylar to work with him, and for a while he did, but Sylar rebelled. He tried to leave. And my grandfather killed him for it.
Arthur would have destroyed the world, if no-one had stopped him. He thought he was saving it, but he would have destroyed everything. One day, Peter and I, and a man I knew… I never knew his name, we always called him the Haitian… we killed Arthur Petrelli to save the world. Then we went underground, and did our best to disappear. I had to leave my family. Both my families, really, except for Peter. The two of us stayed together, survived together. That worked for a few decades. Then Peter got old, and sick, and he died.
After that, I was never in one place for long. Always moving, always hiding, never letting anyone get close. Until I found myself in Cardiff, and met you, Jack.”
Jack saw her sad smile on the TV screen, and sighed. He stopped the recording, pressing a button that ejected the disc. He looked at it for a second, then put it back into the envelope and left it on his desk. He walked to the door and opened it. She was sitting on the floor outside.
He reached down to touch her cheek gently. “You didn’t need to do that.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I did. Maybe you’re okay with carrying all your secrets around with you, Jack, but I can’t.” She looked up at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. “I had to tell someone.”
He can sympathise with that. The need to unburden oneself, to let go. A burden shared is a burden halved - who said that? He doesn’t remember. Maybe no-one did, maybe it’s just one of those sayings that gets passed around. He’s thought about telling Claire his own secrets, but he always decides not to.
There are some things that shouldn’t be shared. There are some things Jack will never tell anyone (unless I meet him again, he adds to himself).
Chapter One: Summoning
It had all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Sam had been searching everywhere for something, anything, that would help him get Dean out of Hell. He’d found mention of an old ritual, and then every waking hour had been spent looking for more details on the ritual.
It looked like his hard work had paid off. He knew the ritual, he had the ingredients he needed. He set everything up, checked it all (twice, in fact), and started to speak the unfamiliar words of the incantation. It summoned a demon to the room, and Sam explained what he wanted in very careful terms: Dean, alive, whole and unharmed, and out of Hell.
Later, Sam would reflect that the most unsettling thing had been the way the demon smiled at him before answering. He hadn’t really noticed at the time, he’d been so focused on his goal. He only heard the demon agreeing, saying that he’d get what he wanted… for a price.
And then the demon was gone, and Dean was there - gasping, shocked, but alive. Sam just had time to see that his brother was alive and safe and unharmed, as promised, and then everything went black.
***
Dawn Summers sat on the floor of her bedroom, with spell ingredients arranged around herself and a heavy book lying open on the floor in front of her.
She took a deep breath. She had to do this. The others were trying so hard to keep going, but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t have the strength or the skills that Slayers had. So she had to do this. It would be easy - say the words, do the ritual, make the bargain. Then Buffy would be alive, and it would all be all right again.
Dawn wiped the tears from her eyes, and started to read. She hadn’t really expected the… being that appeared to show up, but she didn’t let it know that. She stayed calm, and told it what she wanted. Buffy, alive, whole and unharmed, out of whatever Hell-dimension she was in.
She shuddered involuntarily as the being smiled at her, before saying that she’d get her wish, but for a price. She hardly had time to think, as the being vanished, and then Buffy was there, in her room, alive and looking shaken but otherwise okay. Then it all went black.
***
Sam Winchester felt someone shaking him, and muttered. “Go away, Dean…” But the shaking didn’t stop, and now he heard a girl’s voice say “Look, wake up, will you?”.
He opened his eyes, and saw a teenage girl - maybe fifteen or sixteen years old - crouched next to him. “Who are you?”
“Great, you’re awake. I don’t know who ‘Dean’ is, but I’m Dawn and we’ve both got to get out of here, because there are these really scary-looking guys with guns heading this way.”
“What? Where are we?”
“No idea, but we can worry about that later, now move!”
Sam scrambled to his feet, and followed Dawn as she ran down a narrow alleyway nearby. He almost ran into her when she stopped dead - he was about to ask why, but she pointed straight ahead and he saw the men in body-armour holding weapons pointed in their direction.
One of the men raised his weapon, aiming it at them just as Dawn started to turn back, grabbing Sam’s wrist to pull him along with her as she did. The man with the weapon pulled the trigger - Sam heard the click - and his leg hurt as if he’d been shot, but he couldn’t see any blood.
Dawn looked back and saw that he’d been hit by whatever those weapons were, and quickly helped him get out of the alley. They stopped after turning a corner, and Sam leant against the wall. Dawn pushed her hair back out of her face. “Where’d you get hit?”
“My leg.”
“There’s no blood. There’s not even a tear in the material. What kind of gun was that?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” He looked around. “I don’t even know where we are, or why those guys were chasing us. Can you… shed any light on that?”
Dawn smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I woke up back there… there were other people, they were running away. They knew those guys were coming and they were scared. One of them said something about severe punishments for being caught in a blackout zone. Maybe that’s what this place is, a blackout zone.”
“Yeah… not the most useful thing to know.”
“I know… wait, there’s something else… those other people, they were talking to each other in Chinese. At least it sounded like Chinese… but they weren’t, they looked like us.”
“So we’re in China? How’d we get here?”
“I don’t know. We should… find someone to help, somewhere safe, I guess. And those guys with the high-tech guns are going to find us eventually, so we can’t stay here.”
“Agreed. I think I’ll be able to walk, now.”
“Cool.” She straightened up, smoothing her hair back. “Let’s move.”
They moved quickly down the alley, though neither of them exactly knew where they were going. Soon they emerged into some kind of street market, busy with people.
Being careful not to lose one another, they slipped through the crowd to the other side of the market, where they found what appeared to be a large, somewhat battered spaceship. They both stopped in their tracks, each thinking Where ARE we?. Then, Sam glanced behind them and saw the men in body-armour on the other side of the market. He saw that the ‘door’ of the probable-spaceship was open, with a ramp leading down to the ground. It looked like there was no-one around, so he headed inside, Dawn following.
It was at that point that Sam collided with Kaylee Frye.
~~~
So... what do you think? Like? Hate? Worth continuing?
Then I realised that the two ideas could potentially make one fic, and that's basically where Broken Toy Soldiers came from. (The title will make sense eventually, I promise!)
Title: Broken Toy Soldiers
Author: Trillianastra
Fandom: Firefly/Supernatural/Heroes/BtVS/Torchwood (Firefly 'verse)
Characters: River Tam, Sam Winchester, Claire Bennet, Dawn Summers, Jack Harkness, various other Firefly characters.
Rating: This chapter PG13. Later chapters may be higher.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Eric Kripke, Tim Kring and Russell T Davies own 'em. I'm just playing in the sandbox.
NOTE: This is AU with respect to Supernatural Season 4, BtVS Season 6, and anything after Heroes 3x10. This fic takes place post-"Objects in Space" for Firefly.
Prelude the First: Predestination, Of A Kind
March 5th, 2519
River sits by herself. Looks at the ordinary things around her, the objects - some homely, some more businesslike - that make the ship a home rather than a simple shell of metal. Simon is nearby. She feels the relief in him - he’s glad that she hasn’t had any outbursts recently, no “incidents” for him to deal with.
She can feel the rest of the crew too. All with their separate concerns and needs and thoughts. She doesn’t pry too much.
She thinks about a dream she had last night. A dream of people like her. She didn’t recognise any of them, but she believes that she will see them all soon. They’re an eclectic mix. Two teenage girls her own age, though they couldn’t be more different - one bookish and quiet, the other more outgoing. Two men - one is barely more than a boy, but has faced terrible things in his short life. The other she can’t see too well, which disturbs her because she’s never come across someone like that before. They are all different, they all stand out.
They all have a purpose, and that leads River to realise something.
“We were made for a reason, but the reason is lost.”
Simon looks up from what he’s doing. “What was that?”
She didn’t realise she’d spoken aloud. She smiles in a manner she hopes is reassuring. “Nothing important.”
Prelude the Second: There Can Be Only One (Or Then Again, Maybe Not)
June 10th, 2098
Jack walked into his office to find a plain envelope lying on his desk. There was no address or stamp - just his name written in familiar handwriting. As he went to open it, he saw that it wasn’t sealed.
Curious, he tipped the contents out onto the desk surface. What fell out was a shiny silver disc and a folded note. He picked up the note and unfolded it.
Jack
I had to tell you. You have to know who I am, where I came from. Watch the disc.
Claire.
He sighed. Cursed himself for not seeing it. He had tried to tell her that it didn’t matter where she’d come from, that who she was now was more important.
He picked up the disc, and inserted it into the player attached to the computer monitor. He pressed the play button, and sat back in his chair.
The first few seconds of the recording were black, but that was soon replaced with the image of the girl who’d left the envelope on his desk.
“My name is Claire Bennet, and I’ve got to tell you some things about myself. I was born on August 14th, 1991, in Texas. My parents were Nathan Petrelli and Meredith Gordon. When I was eighteen months old, I was adopted by Noah and Sandra Bennet, and I grew up with them in Odessa, that’s in Texas.
Everything was normal until the year I was sixteen. That year, I found out that I wasn’t like other people. I can heal from any wound almost instantly. The only thing that can kill me is if someone cuts my head off. I thought I was a freak.
That year was also the year I found out who my biological parents were. At the same time I found a whole new family - my father, Nathan, my grandmother Angela. My uncle, Peter. Peter saved my life the first time I met him - but I didn’t know who he was then.
So much happened after I found out what I could do… it’s not important now. Out of everyone involved, I’m the only one left. A year after I discovered my ability, there were three people who could heal - me, my grandfather Arthur, and a man who called himself Sylar. When I first met Sylar, we all thought he was the bad guy. He wasn’t, though. He’s dead now. My grandfather killed him. He wanted Sylar to work with him, and for a while he did, but Sylar rebelled. He tried to leave. And my grandfather killed him for it.
Arthur would have destroyed the world, if no-one had stopped him. He thought he was saving it, but he would have destroyed everything. One day, Peter and I, and a man I knew… I never knew his name, we always called him the Haitian… we killed Arthur Petrelli to save the world. Then we went underground, and did our best to disappear. I had to leave my family. Both my families, really, except for Peter. The two of us stayed together, survived together. That worked for a few decades. Then Peter got old, and sick, and he died.
After that, I was never in one place for long. Always moving, always hiding, never letting anyone get close. Until I found myself in Cardiff, and met you, Jack.”
Jack saw her sad smile on the TV screen, and sighed. He stopped the recording, pressing a button that ejected the disc. He looked at it for a second, then put it back into the envelope and left it on his desk. He walked to the door and opened it. She was sitting on the floor outside.
He reached down to touch her cheek gently. “You didn’t need to do that.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I did. Maybe you’re okay with carrying all your secrets around with you, Jack, but I can’t.” She looked up at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. “I had to tell someone.”
He can sympathise with that. The need to unburden oneself, to let go. A burden shared is a burden halved - who said that? He doesn’t remember. Maybe no-one did, maybe it’s just one of those sayings that gets passed around. He’s thought about telling Claire his own secrets, but he always decides not to.
There are some things that shouldn’t be shared. There are some things Jack will never tell anyone (unless I meet him again, he adds to himself).
Chapter One: Summoning
It had all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Sam had been searching everywhere for something, anything, that would help him get Dean out of Hell. He’d found mention of an old ritual, and then every waking hour had been spent looking for more details on the ritual.
It looked like his hard work had paid off. He knew the ritual, he had the ingredients he needed. He set everything up, checked it all (twice, in fact), and started to speak the unfamiliar words of the incantation. It summoned a demon to the room, and Sam explained what he wanted in very careful terms: Dean, alive, whole and unharmed, and out of Hell.
Later, Sam would reflect that the most unsettling thing had been the way the demon smiled at him before answering. He hadn’t really noticed at the time, he’d been so focused on his goal. He only heard the demon agreeing, saying that he’d get what he wanted… for a price.
And then the demon was gone, and Dean was there - gasping, shocked, but alive. Sam just had time to see that his brother was alive and safe and unharmed, as promised, and then everything went black.
***
Dawn Summers sat on the floor of her bedroom, with spell ingredients arranged around herself and a heavy book lying open on the floor in front of her.
She took a deep breath. She had to do this. The others were trying so hard to keep going, but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t have the strength or the skills that Slayers had. So she had to do this. It would be easy - say the words, do the ritual, make the bargain. Then Buffy would be alive, and it would all be all right again.
Dawn wiped the tears from her eyes, and started to read. She hadn’t really expected the… being that appeared to show up, but she didn’t let it know that. She stayed calm, and told it what she wanted. Buffy, alive, whole and unharmed, out of whatever Hell-dimension she was in.
She shuddered involuntarily as the being smiled at her, before saying that she’d get her wish, but for a price. She hardly had time to think, as the being vanished, and then Buffy was there, in her room, alive and looking shaken but otherwise okay. Then it all went black.
***
Sam Winchester felt someone shaking him, and muttered. “Go away, Dean…” But the shaking didn’t stop, and now he heard a girl’s voice say “Look, wake up, will you?”.
He opened his eyes, and saw a teenage girl - maybe fifteen or sixteen years old - crouched next to him. “Who are you?”
“Great, you’re awake. I don’t know who ‘Dean’ is, but I’m Dawn and we’ve both got to get out of here, because there are these really scary-looking guys with guns heading this way.”
“What? Where are we?”
“No idea, but we can worry about that later, now move!”
Sam scrambled to his feet, and followed Dawn as she ran down a narrow alleyway nearby. He almost ran into her when she stopped dead - he was about to ask why, but she pointed straight ahead and he saw the men in body-armour holding weapons pointed in their direction.
One of the men raised his weapon, aiming it at them just as Dawn started to turn back, grabbing Sam’s wrist to pull him along with her as she did. The man with the weapon pulled the trigger - Sam heard the click - and his leg hurt as if he’d been shot, but he couldn’t see any blood.
Dawn looked back and saw that he’d been hit by whatever those weapons were, and quickly helped him get out of the alley. They stopped after turning a corner, and Sam leant against the wall. Dawn pushed her hair back out of her face. “Where’d you get hit?”
“My leg.”
“There’s no blood. There’s not even a tear in the material. What kind of gun was that?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” He looked around. “I don’t even know where we are, or why those guys were chasing us. Can you… shed any light on that?”
Dawn smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I woke up back there… there were other people, they were running away. They knew those guys were coming and they were scared. One of them said something about severe punishments for being caught in a blackout zone. Maybe that’s what this place is, a blackout zone.”
“Yeah… not the most useful thing to know.”
“I know… wait, there’s something else… those other people, they were talking to each other in Chinese. At least it sounded like Chinese… but they weren’t, they looked like us.”
“So we’re in China? How’d we get here?”
“I don’t know. We should… find someone to help, somewhere safe, I guess. And those guys with the high-tech guns are going to find us eventually, so we can’t stay here.”
“Agreed. I think I’ll be able to walk, now.”
“Cool.” She straightened up, smoothing her hair back. “Let’s move.”
They moved quickly down the alley, though neither of them exactly knew where they were going. Soon they emerged into some kind of street market, busy with people.
Being careful not to lose one another, they slipped through the crowd to the other side of the market, where they found what appeared to be a large, somewhat battered spaceship. They both stopped in their tracks, each thinking Where ARE we?. Then, Sam glanced behind them and saw the men in body-armour on the other side of the market. He saw that the ‘door’ of the probable-spaceship was open, with a ramp leading down to the ground. It looked like there was no-one around, so he headed inside, Dawn following.
It was at that point that Sam collided with Kaylee Frye.
~~~
So... what do you think? Like? Hate? Worth continuing?