Terra Nova - Things Lost in the Fire ch20 [Skye/Lucas]
Title: Things Lost in the Fire
Fandom: Terra Nova
Ship: Skye/Lucas
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: bad language, sexual situations, AU
Chapter: 20/?
Summary: AU story. Skye meets a strange man at Snakehead Falls and ends up falling in love. But can happiness built on anonymity last, when the world around them is on fire?
Author's Note: And after mini-hiatus, I'm back. The final third begins...
Things Lost in the Fire
20. Adagio
Mira had offered to ride with Morris while the others occupied the second rover. She couldn't quite shake this incredibly bad feeling in her gut: this inkling that something was wrong. Morris instead seemed relaxed and comfortable with their nighttime drive and the company he was keeping. He leaned against the door, resting his head a bit while he tried to make sense of the glimpses in the dark scenery. Mira only saw the headlights: an endless road ahead of them, a nightmare she lived daily.
"I'm surprised with how well you and Lucas play together," Morris commented suddenly. He'd cast his intent eyes on her again, something she realized he did a lot, almost enough for her to have become accustomed with the stare.
"We have an understanding," Mira explained calmly. Morris had approached this subject quite a few times already, looking for cracks and weaknesses in their truce, yet finding none for the time being. It had to frustrate him that out of all the people he was focusing his energy on, she was the one who didn't get flustered because of his attention and hints.
"Are we going to have an understanding?" Morris asked next. He wasn't acting petty though, merely somewhat disillusioned. He sounded like he actually wanted to be friends with her. Of course Mira had to consider it a mind fuck for the time being.
"I hope so," she responded honestly, really needing no more complications to the situation. If Morris could turn around and play nice with them, no one else needed to suffer.
He shifted in his head, rubbing his beard a bit and blinking his eyes to rid him of the tiredness. The past days had been rough. The people at camp stared at him curiously, their eyes begging for good news, for a break of some kind. But the more Morris loomed about in the Sixer camp, the clearer it became that the stragglers were settling into the jungle, into this timeline. They resembled a tribe rather than a ragtag group of mercenaries. It was unsettling.
Of course the real worry was Lucas Taylor, the man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He seemed unwilling to finish what he had started. He'd given this jungle five years of his life along with his juvenile wishes and his passions. Now he was beginning to feel something again, something for this girl. And Morris figured it was only a matter of time before Lucas would refuse to fulfill his end of the bargain. That made Lucas Taylor an enemy, someone who wanted to trap them in the past.
"Do you have the spot marked I told you about?" Morris asked quietly, yearning to rid himself of these people and this strange vivid world that clashed with his memories of the dead future.
"The spot where we're headed? Marked by the coordinates your henchmen gave us?" Mira asked spitefully, having learned that Morris wasn't the only infiltrator who'd arrived to Terra Nova. "Yes, I have it," she then added.
Her protest was largely a quiet one. She'd known the man had leverage, and other spies placed in Terra Nova certainly fit the bill. Only God knew what they were ordered to do in the event of Morris' untimely death. But it further proved her point about simply ambushing him being a bad idea.
Morris noticed her displease; it shattered the illusion that perhaps this woman was the only trustworthy in the bunch. Mira wasn't overly clouded by emotion like the rest of them; she still had the ability to look at things from a business perspective. But even her sight was suffering from the fear for the wellbeing of others.
"Please," he noted with distaste, "Don't pretend such precautions aren't necessary."
Mira stiffened at the sound of his voice, the contempt, the hurt. How easy it would've been just to drive the rover off the road and leave him behind wounded? Her reason prevailed though. She knew better, so she settled to fantasize.
"You're really some kind of new breed of asshole, aren't you Morris?" she mumbled back at him, gripping the wheel a bit too hard. It wouldn't surprise her if he was doing all of this just because he liked to screw with people, not because their superiors had requested it.
They didn't speak again until they stopped for the night.
The following morning was a haze to Skye. She remembered everything with too many vivid details, with too much color and emotion, too much clarity. Carter had had one of the Sixers, a woman by the name of Kiaya, drag her to bed and hold her hand until she fell asleep. He'd excluded her from the speculation, the backwash, for the night. Any other time she might've felt angry, but now she was grateful.
They had washed her hands together, trying to clean the blood, rubbing it off her skin violently. For the most part they had succeeded, but it didn't make her feel any less dirty. She didn't know what to do anymore. Everything was in pieces. This was the price of her lies: someone always got hurt, and it wasn't her.
Now, as she stood in the tent that was lit by the breaking dawn, the signs of the struggle seemed less vicious. Without the blood no one might've even known what had happened here. She squatted near the point where she'd tried to help Hicks, where her blood was etched onto the ground.
"He wanted me to come with him, run from Morris and Lucas," Skye explained numbly. Her voice was the voice of someone older, someone who didn't embrace life without a care.
"When I told him that I had been lying, he became agitated. I wasn't thinking clearly, but I could sense that he wanted to hurt me," she continued, unwilling to look at the man listening to her words.
"Perhaps he just wanted to knock me out for a head start. Perhaps he wasn't trying to kill me." Her voice broke a bit, and she buried the rest of the sentence against the back of her hand, holding back tears.
"I couldn't take any chances, so I struggled, and I fell, and I screamed for help," Skye recalled.
"I didn't even see who it was. Their fighting was a blur to me while I reached for the gun. I think if it'd been anyone else, they could've pointed a gun at him by the entrance, had him back down. But Hicks didn't carry a gun; she didn't think there was any danger here, at the camp." Again she faltered at the thought of her friend on the ground bleeding and gasping.
"I don't think he wanted to hurt her. They were friends once. I think that they struggled and the knife… I think it was an accident." Because he hadn't reacted like a homicidal lunatic, no, his reaction had been of pure pain.
"There was such shock in his eyes, such terror. After that, it was too late. He just wanted to die. So I pulled the trigger, because otherwise he would've stopped at nothing, until someone stopped him."
Her hand touched the ground, the dried blood. There was nothing here: No ghosts, no goodbyes.
Carter shifted a bit, clearly slightly uncomfortable listening to this. He'd wondered whether he should've called Mira back, yet something had kept him from doing that. He feared Morris would turn this situation into something it had never been: a weakness of their leaders, a strike against Skye, a thorn in their side that would divide their united ranks. He couldn't have that, not now.
"It was coming with or without you," Carter said calmly, knowing Curran would've been hunted down by any of them after this. "Don't blame yourself."
Skye rose to her full height, turning her gaze to Carter lazily. They shared a look, both expressing pain and suffering with a dull glare. Skye was the first to cast her eyes back into the ground defeated, and exit the tent in need of some fresh air.
It was fresh outside, just as lovely as always: bright, lush, comforting. She didn't receive any joy from walking outside though. Carter followed her without fail; he hadn't really left her alone since this morning, and she was grateful for that. They walked in unison for a moment, many eyes following their advance with silent curiosity from the sidelines. No one disturbed them though as they knew time was needed to mend the fresh wounds.
"What now?" Skye asked. She'd tied her arms around her chest, a vain attempt to feel protected when she could no longer feel secure here.
Carter walked by her in silence, thinking apparently. "We bury her. Tell Mira when she comes back," he suggested after a moment's contemplation.
She swallowed painfully, seeking for her strength. "And Curran?" she asked, her face painted by shadows as they stopped at a quieter spot beneath the trees.
Carter hesitated before he answered her truthfully, "For all I care he can rot in a ditch."
Something awoke in her eyes, the numbness and disillusion dissolved, a fire sparked in her. "No," Skye shook her head, placing her hand over Carter's. He eyed this gesture carefully, wary of her, knowing how good she was at turning situations to her own advantage. "We need to take him to Terra Nova. He deserves a proper burial," she then said to his amazement.
"He doesn't deserve anything," Carter growled coolly, unable to feel sympathy for the bastard who'd infiltrated them and murdered one of them, nearly killing Skye as well. He didn't understand how Skye was able to feel it either.
But Skye held onto her ideals, refusing to let go of them, even with this maelstrom at her core. "We're nothing better than beasts if we don't act like people. They will want to know what happened. What if they find his rotting body in a ditch somewhere one day? It'd be a declaration of war. Isn't it better to give Curran to them with a story? To be honest for once?"
Her suspicions and fears were calling for her to do the right thing this time. She spoke with eloquence, worded her thoughts with the utmost grace so that it reached even Carter's jaded sense of compassion. He stirred at her words, felt them corrode his senses.
"Why do you care?" Carter asked with a frown. He was showing her how he truly was; his core was laid bare in front of her. It would've been easy to abuse his moment of weakness, but she no longer willed her sweet tongue and clever words to delude others. She just wanted him to understand.
"If it were me, I'd want someone to recognize me for the person I was, not for the sins I'd committed," Skye confessed, letting the anguish swirl inside her. Her lips were swollen, her eyes teary once again, and her voice was broken.
She couldn't grin at her brutally honest words, not when she could still remember Curran as her friend instead of an unhinged assailant. In the few days they had known one another, he'd actually made her feel better about her choices, and given her reason to believe that people could make use of the second chances they'd been given. Of course now that thought felt useless, yet she clung onto it. It had been too late for Curran to change at his core; he hadn't accepted the banishment from Terra Nova, but she had. She still had a chance. She just needed Carter to prove to her that her faith in her new family wasn't unfounded, that they would do the right thing even when clouded by rage and sorrow.
"Very well then," Carter agreed, touched by her honesty. His voice was low, accepting. "Let's do as you say Skye."
She felt a small surge of elation. It actually made her feel better.
"But you're coming with me, and you're explaining this to Taylor, because you're the one he'll believe," he then continued, cautioning her against futile optimism. Skye froze, not having considered such a possibility. She looked back at Carter cautiously, as if inquiring if he was being serious. And he was.
"Fine," she agreed with a stilted expression after a moment's pause. "I'll do it."
The drive had lasted for hours. It was a chance to think things through, wallow in disgust over his easily flaring temper and his suspicions. Because all he could see was her heartbroken face, the way she'd childishly provoked him in their fight, and the way Skye had turned her back on him to hide her tears and hold onto the anger she'd felt. Those images were a dull knife in his chest; they caused him pain he hadn't understood.
She'd changed him, acted like a catalyst to speed the process of transformation. To him Skye had been a justification for his plans, his feelings, to his whole being. Reality wasn't as easy. Relationships weren't easy. He struggled with her because he couldn't be without her, and each victory was laced with defeat. Yet the person he'd been before her wasn't worth regressing to, which was why he carried on. So many setbacks, hurt emotions, conflicts and barriers he'd had to knock over to reach her, and no matter what he did, new ones just kept appearing.
Lucas carried his equipment with a jaded expression, skulking through the desert of the Badlands. The ground there was largely volcanic, the sun scorched everything and as far as the eye could see they were faced with a long wide view of nothing. Morris led them onwards patiently though; he followed the coordinates he'd been given, trusting them when others might've faltered. They'd left the cars behind awhile back, after Mira had announced they couldn't spare more gas if they wanted to get back to the camp.
There was a tension between Mira and Morris, but Lucas hadn't had a chance to ask what they had talked about during the drive. He suspected it hadn't been anything pleasant. Of course the revelation that Morris had been accompanied by other infiltrators that were lying in wait in Terra Nova, serving as backup for this vile man, hadn't been a nice one either. Somehow he just expected there to be more.
The air seemed to become more and more electric the farther they went. It brought a taste in Lucas' mouth, an anticipation he couldn't recognize. Morris hadn't talked about what they were looking for exactly, but Lucas had his doubts: Probably a resource of some kind, or any discovery that would hold value in the barren future. He carried onwards, trying to keep the images of Skye and Curran together from overthrowing his mind. Chaos prevailed though. He wasn't jealous by default, he just worried a bit too much about her safety since he was an established killer and she was leading him on. Would she be angry enough to hurt him by approaching Curran? No, but he couldn't vouch for Curran's smarts.
"What'll you do in 2129, Taylor?" Morris asked all of the sudden, shaking Lucas free from his oppressive fears.
"Continue my research," Lucas responded automatically. It used to be the truth a long time ago, before he'd become accustomed to the jungle, before he'd appreciated the harshness of nature, before he'd realized he didn't have a future in 2149.
"They're giving you enough money to do anything," Morris suggested, pushing with his inquiries.
"Maybe I'll buy something," Lucas noted with annoyance, uninterested in this topic. His reluctance told Morris everything he needed to hear though.
"I see," Morris noted. His interest in the topic vanished as quickly as it had flared in the first place.
Mira stepped between them at this time though, forcing both to concentrate on her sudden outburst.
"What the hell are we doing here Morris?" she snapped violently, even going as far as grabbing Morris' jacket sleeve for a bit. He quickly caught her hand with his, squeezing it inside his grip, his eyes drilling into her. The two fought a silent battle, each beginning to lose their cool after days of dancing around their differences.
"What are we looking for?" Mira continued to question harshly, refusing to back down now that she had Morris in her grip.
"I don't like your tone Mira," Morris simply responded, and held onto her wrist tighter. Discomfort turned to pain, annoyance evolved into anger. Before Carter had been there to break every encounter, but now he was a day's drive away, facing his own problems, and Mira felt her patience snake away from her as her enemy expected her to follow him into a desert.
Lucas, however, had continued walking. His interest was elsewhere, captured by the weird feeling that made every hair in his arms shoot up. Something was off here, just a little strange. And he sought for the source of his discomfort with his eyes, catching nothing out of the ordinary while the tensions rose between his companions.
"Cut the bullshits Morris," Mira demanded, putting every ounce of her authority in her voice. She was done beginning, done playing around.
Morris stared her down, weighing her usefulness, knowing she was the thing that had kept the fringe elements at bay for this long. On the other hand, he couldn't wait to see what the jungle had made her into. "I have nothing for you Mira," he responded with a sadistic smirk.
And then Lucas realized something. He put his duffel bag down and began searching through his while wiping the sweat from his brow. The others paid little attention to him; they were more concerned with the fabric of their fragile truce falling apart. Lucas found one of his instruments and clicked it on eyes cast on the needle that began showing him unusual readings straight off the bat. He took a careful step forward and then another, following his gut and the readings while the argument faded into the back of his mind, diminishing into a mere whisper.
He walked for a few minutes, straining off-course a bit. And he almost walked into a shallow crater when he didn't take his eyes off the needle as it began to go haywire. Lucas stopped just in time, teetering at the edge he hadn't noticed until now, and his eyes flew over the crater in disbelief. He lowered the instrument in his hands and absorbed the sight before him. For a moment he just stared at the view, let the shock sink in and become the truth.
"Stop!" he shouted back at his companions, drawing their attention to him. Mira and Morris forgot about their exchange, each putting more value on whatever it was Lucas was up to. Morris released Mira's hand and Mira sheathed her knife, stepping away from the operative.
Lucas looked down at the crater again, motioning the others to him. He then tied the instrument over his shoulder with its strap before he began his descent down the crater's side.
The crater was filled with things that didn't belong: the prow of a wooden ship, old skeletons of people and animals, a broken obelisk of some sort, a round metallic probe rusted around the edges, and lots of other small things he couldn't place immediately. Everything was hidden from the casual eye in the crater, buried in sand, wearied by exposure to sun and erosion. He could tell these things had been here for years, decades, some even a millennia.
But there was nothing at the center. It was bare.
Lucas knew better though, and he approached with care, holding the instrument with his extended hand. He watched as the needle danced a dance of madness across the screen before he stopped and lowered the instrument. Lucas turned to look at the others, who were standing at the edge of the crater, eyeing him and his findings with mixed feelings. Morris was the only one, who didn't look one bit surprised.
"We have another rift," Lucas then yelled back, stating the obvious for those who hadn't yet realized it.
The strangest thing was that the Sixers always had plenty of body bags. It was the one supply Terra Nova never failed to deliver them when they made an arrangement. Carter recalled watching Mira go through the supplies they had traded and then flaring at the sight of the new body bags Taylor had secured them for many times now. It was another of Taylor's methods for psychological warfare, Carter had assumed.
He had to wonder though if Taylor had ever expected to see one of his men return to him in one of these bags. Judging by the look on the man's face, he hadn't.
The Sixers lifted the body bag from their rover, carrying it to Taylor under the watchful eyes of Skye and Carter. Skye was standing close to Carter, their closeness marking him as her protector in the eyes of the crowd. Both stood with confidence, had a familiarity in their interaction to one another. A stranger might have taken them for friends, but everyone here knew better.
Skye hadn't changed yesterday's clothes; the bloodstains were there as a reminder of the tragedy. She was armed though, clad in Sixer clothing, barely indistinguishable from the others. It disturbed her former acquaintances; their eyes carried distrust as they realized who she really was. Carter was someone they all knew, a familiar face to hate, whereas Skye was somehow they hadn't wanted to see here.
Across them Nathaniel Taylor was standing with his men, observing Skye rather than the Sixers who were walking towards him. His expression revealed no emotion, but even Carter had realized that Taylor hadn't recognized Skye at first. The moment he'd placed this woman with his former foster daughter had been so clear to anyone watching; the revelation had stirred him to the bone.
Skye observed Taylor's obvious disdain while the Sixers worked, but she realized she wasn't that upset anymore. Seeing Taylor witness the results of his scheming was somehow gratifying. A small part of her remembered the shame she'd felt with the tracker, only now it was tenfold. She didn't even flinch when the Sixers backed down, and Taylor squatted to open the body bag, where Curran's motionless corpse greeted him.
Taylor covered his nose and mouth to repel the stench of the corpse. His demeanor didn't betray unease as he examined the body. Seeing Skye dressed as one of them had upset him more. His eyes sought for glimpses of her even now, while his mind fought to grasp this change in her. This girl, no, this woman was different in almost every way. She hadn't come to him as a captive, but as a leader. He could see how Carter stood by her side like a shadow, letting things run their own course rather than manipulating them himself.
He groaned and closed the body bag, standing up and looking at the two enemies in front of him. He didn't know what to think anymore. Everything had become more and more complicated every day since he'd found out Skye was a spy, and today was no different.
"Thank you for bringing him," he eventually settled to say. His voice was far from thankful though; anyone could see the crease around his mouth, the way he was tensed and discontent.
The arrangements for this meeting hadn't been easy, but Carter had come through for her. It was now that Skye was standing in this hot spot between two warring sides that she felt like losing her voice and courage. It was the way Taylor looked at her like a stranger that drove her insecurities wild.
"It wasn't an accident," Skye eventually said, drawing Taylor's attention towards her. His interest was piqued, he was judging what she was trying to accomplish.
"Curran thought I was in danger. He blew his cover and when he realized I wasn't on his side, he made a move against me. We fought, someone got between us and Curran killed her. I shot him," she explained emotionlessly, trying to silence the weaknesses, the doubts. Skye faced Taylor's shock and disgust openly, knowing now that truth wasn't all that mending.
"You killed him," Taylor said softly, as if tasting the words. He didn't seem like he knew what to think.
"You sent him to them, to betray them. I was caught in the crossfire. He nearly killed me," Skye clarified. She pushed her hair behind her ear, fidgeted with the holster on her belt. Everything about her spoke clearly of the anguish she was under. It took Taylor awhile to recognize the full extent of the hurt in her voice, and his eyes snapped at her sharply with the realization.
"The man you sent to spy us nearly killed me, because I was standing in the way of his escape," Skye said again, this time with more conviction. She held him accountable. How could he trust a man he'd already deemed unfit to live in paradise once?
"Desperate measures…," Taylor responded with a gruff, albeit his iron mask seemed lost. Her words had gotten through. This hadn't been what he'd wanted.
The warm breeze swept over them. Guns remained in place, sad glances were thrown between Taylor and the girl he'd once considered a daughter.
"Lucas?" Taylor asked, showing a bit of vulnerability.
"Still angry," Skye answered, not knowing what else to say. Lucas carried that hatred with him. It was stronger than anything, stronger than his feelings for her.
"And your guest?" Taylor inquired, surprising Skye with his question. She stirred, shifted her weight a bit as she glanced at Carter, uneasy about answering this question in particular. He nodded at her.
"The root of all our problems," Skye then replied absent-mindedly. Something clicked in that moment, a half-remembered dream sneaking into her brain, a connection making it visible. Somehow it made things worse.
"We should go," Skye advised Carter, pressing her head and beginning their retreat.
"Skye," Taylor called to her, stopping her before she could leave. She looked back at him, recognizing his softness. "Your mother's awake," Taylor then said.
The effect was strange. He could see hope light in her eyes, the way this piece of information peeled the coldness from her and brought forth the girl he'd known. But this was for just seconds until she reverted back, as if realizing who she had sided with. Skye faced the knowledge with calmness, giving him a small nod of thanks.
"Take care of her," Skye responded simply. Then she let Carter lead her away.
Taylor was left behind at their rendezvous with his troops. He just stood there for a long moment. Everything had backfired. Just the thought that Curran had tried to hurt Skye was unbearable; he pressed his teeth together with rage. And hearing her talk about killing a man with such calmness, such detachment was a knife to the chest. He couldn't blame her, but he couldn't deny wanting to shake her awake from her numbness until she told him how she really felt.
The cruelest truth was that she had stood in front of him just like Lucas had, talking like nothing important had happened.
TBC
Fandom: Terra Nova
Ship: Skye/Lucas
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: bad language, sexual situations, AU
Chapter: 20/?
Summary: AU story. Skye meets a strange man at Snakehead Falls and ends up falling in love. But can happiness built on anonymity last, when the world around them is on fire?
Author's Note: And after mini-hiatus, I'm back. The final third begins...
Things Lost in the Fire
20. Adagio
Mira had offered to ride with Morris while the others occupied the second rover. She couldn't quite shake this incredibly bad feeling in her gut: this inkling that something was wrong. Morris instead seemed relaxed and comfortable with their nighttime drive and the company he was keeping. He leaned against the door, resting his head a bit while he tried to make sense of the glimpses in the dark scenery. Mira only saw the headlights: an endless road ahead of them, a nightmare she lived daily.
"I'm surprised with how well you and Lucas play together," Morris commented suddenly. He'd cast his intent eyes on her again, something she realized he did a lot, almost enough for her to have become accustomed with the stare.
"We have an understanding," Mira explained calmly. Morris had approached this subject quite a few times already, looking for cracks and weaknesses in their truce, yet finding none for the time being. It had to frustrate him that out of all the people he was focusing his energy on, she was the one who didn't get flustered because of his attention and hints.
"Are we going to have an understanding?" Morris asked next. He wasn't acting petty though, merely somewhat disillusioned. He sounded like he actually wanted to be friends with her. Of course Mira had to consider it a mind fuck for the time being.
"I hope so," she responded honestly, really needing no more complications to the situation. If Morris could turn around and play nice with them, no one else needed to suffer.
He shifted in his head, rubbing his beard a bit and blinking his eyes to rid him of the tiredness. The past days had been rough. The people at camp stared at him curiously, their eyes begging for good news, for a break of some kind. But the more Morris loomed about in the Sixer camp, the clearer it became that the stragglers were settling into the jungle, into this timeline. They resembled a tribe rather than a ragtag group of mercenaries. It was unsettling.
Of course the real worry was Lucas Taylor, the man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He seemed unwilling to finish what he had started. He'd given this jungle five years of his life along with his juvenile wishes and his passions. Now he was beginning to feel something again, something for this girl. And Morris figured it was only a matter of time before Lucas would refuse to fulfill his end of the bargain. That made Lucas Taylor an enemy, someone who wanted to trap them in the past.
"Do you have the spot marked I told you about?" Morris asked quietly, yearning to rid himself of these people and this strange vivid world that clashed with his memories of the dead future.
"The spot where we're headed? Marked by the coordinates your henchmen gave us?" Mira asked spitefully, having learned that Morris wasn't the only infiltrator who'd arrived to Terra Nova. "Yes, I have it," she then added.
Her protest was largely a quiet one. She'd known the man had leverage, and other spies placed in Terra Nova certainly fit the bill. Only God knew what they were ordered to do in the event of Morris' untimely death. But it further proved her point about simply ambushing him being a bad idea.
Morris noticed her displease; it shattered the illusion that perhaps this woman was the only trustworthy in the bunch. Mira wasn't overly clouded by emotion like the rest of them; she still had the ability to look at things from a business perspective. But even her sight was suffering from the fear for the wellbeing of others.
"Please," he noted with distaste, "Don't pretend such precautions aren't necessary."
Mira stiffened at the sound of his voice, the contempt, the hurt. How easy it would've been just to drive the rover off the road and leave him behind wounded? Her reason prevailed though. She knew better, so she settled to fantasize.
"You're really some kind of new breed of asshole, aren't you Morris?" she mumbled back at him, gripping the wheel a bit too hard. It wouldn't surprise her if he was doing all of this just because he liked to screw with people, not because their superiors had requested it.
They didn't speak again until they stopped for the night.
The following morning was a haze to Skye. She remembered everything with too many vivid details, with too much color and emotion, too much clarity. Carter had had one of the Sixers, a woman by the name of Kiaya, drag her to bed and hold her hand until she fell asleep. He'd excluded her from the speculation, the backwash, for the night. Any other time she might've felt angry, but now she was grateful.
They had washed her hands together, trying to clean the blood, rubbing it off her skin violently. For the most part they had succeeded, but it didn't make her feel any less dirty. She didn't know what to do anymore. Everything was in pieces. This was the price of her lies: someone always got hurt, and it wasn't her.
Now, as she stood in the tent that was lit by the breaking dawn, the signs of the struggle seemed less vicious. Without the blood no one might've even known what had happened here. She squatted near the point where she'd tried to help Hicks, where her blood was etched onto the ground.
"He wanted me to come with him, run from Morris and Lucas," Skye explained numbly. Her voice was the voice of someone older, someone who didn't embrace life without a care.
"When I told him that I had been lying, he became agitated. I wasn't thinking clearly, but I could sense that he wanted to hurt me," she continued, unwilling to look at the man listening to her words.
"Perhaps he just wanted to knock me out for a head start. Perhaps he wasn't trying to kill me." Her voice broke a bit, and she buried the rest of the sentence against the back of her hand, holding back tears.
"I couldn't take any chances, so I struggled, and I fell, and I screamed for help," Skye recalled.
"I didn't even see who it was. Their fighting was a blur to me while I reached for the gun. I think if it'd been anyone else, they could've pointed a gun at him by the entrance, had him back down. But Hicks didn't carry a gun; she didn't think there was any danger here, at the camp." Again she faltered at the thought of her friend on the ground bleeding and gasping.
"I don't think he wanted to hurt her. They were friends once. I think that they struggled and the knife… I think it was an accident." Because he hadn't reacted like a homicidal lunatic, no, his reaction had been of pure pain.
"There was such shock in his eyes, such terror. After that, it was too late. He just wanted to die. So I pulled the trigger, because otherwise he would've stopped at nothing, until someone stopped him."
Her hand touched the ground, the dried blood. There was nothing here: No ghosts, no goodbyes.
Carter shifted a bit, clearly slightly uncomfortable listening to this. He'd wondered whether he should've called Mira back, yet something had kept him from doing that. He feared Morris would turn this situation into something it had never been: a weakness of their leaders, a strike against Skye, a thorn in their side that would divide their united ranks. He couldn't have that, not now.
"It was coming with or without you," Carter said calmly, knowing Curran would've been hunted down by any of them after this. "Don't blame yourself."
Skye rose to her full height, turning her gaze to Carter lazily. They shared a look, both expressing pain and suffering with a dull glare. Skye was the first to cast her eyes back into the ground defeated, and exit the tent in need of some fresh air.
It was fresh outside, just as lovely as always: bright, lush, comforting. She didn't receive any joy from walking outside though. Carter followed her without fail; he hadn't really left her alone since this morning, and she was grateful for that. They walked in unison for a moment, many eyes following their advance with silent curiosity from the sidelines. No one disturbed them though as they knew time was needed to mend the fresh wounds.
"What now?" Skye asked. She'd tied her arms around her chest, a vain attempt to feel protected when she could no longer feel secure here.
Carter walked by her in silence, thinking apparently. "We bury her. Tell Mira when she comes back," he suggested after a moment's contemplation.
She swallowed painfully, seeking for her strength. "And Curran?" she asked, her face painted by shadows as they stopped at a quieter spot beneath the trees.
Carter hesitated before he answered her truthfully, "For all I care he can rot in a ditch."
Something awoke in her eyes, the numbness and disillusion dissolved, a fire sparked in her. "No," Skye shook her head, placing her hand over Carter's. He eyed this gesture carefully, wary of her, knowing how good she was at turning situations to her own advantage. "We need to take him to Terra Nova. He deserves a proper burial," she then said to his amazement.
"He doesn't deserve anything," Carter growled coolly, unable to feel sympathy for the bastard who'd infiltrated them and murdered one of them, nearly killing Skye as well. He didn't understand how Skye was able to feel it either.
But Skye held onto her ideals, refusing to let go of them, even with this maelstrom at her core. "We're nothing better than beasts if we don't act like people. They will want to know what happened. What if they find his rotting body in a ditch somewhere one day? It'd be a declaration of war. Isn't it better to give Curran to them with a story? To be honest for once?"
Her suspicions and fears were calling for her to do the right thing this time. She spoke with eloquence, worded her thoughts with the utmost grace so that it reached even Carter's jaded sense of compassion. He stirred at her words, felt them corrode his senses.
"Why do you care?" Carter asked with a frown. He was showing her how he truly was; his core was laid bare in front of her. It would've been easy to abuse his moment of weakness, but she no longer willed her sweet tongue and clever words to delude others. She just wanted him to understand.
"If it were me, I'd want someone to recognize me for the person I was, not for the sins I'd committed," Skye confessed, letting the anguish swirl inside her. Her lips were swollen, her eyes teary once again, and her voice was broken.
She couldn't grin at her brutally honest words, not when she could still remember Curran as her friend instead of an unhinged assailant. In the few days they had known one another, he'd actually made her feel better about her choices, and given her reason to believe that people could make use of the second chances they'd been given. Of course now that thought felt useless, yet she clung onto it. It had been too late for Curran to change at his core; he hadn't accepted the banishment from Terra Nova, but she had. She still had a chance. She just needed Carter to prove to her that her faith in her new family wasn't unfounded, that they would do the right thing even when clouded by rage and sorrow.
"Very well then," Carter agreed, touched by her honesty. His voice was low, accepting. "Let's do as you say Skye."
She felt a small surge of elation. It actually made her feel better.
"But you're coming with me, and you're explaining this to Taylor, because you're the one he'll believe," he then continued, cautioning her against futile optimism. Skye froze, not having considered such a possibility. She looked back at Carter cautiously, as if inquiring if he was being serious. And he was.
"Fine," she agreed with a stilted expression after a moment's pause. "I'll do it."
The drive had lasted for hours. It was a chance to think things through, wallow in disgust over his easily flaring temper and his suspicions. Because all he could see was her heartbroken face, the way she'd childishly provoked him in their fight, and the way Skye had turned her back on him to hide her tears and hold onto the anger she'd felt. Those images were a dull knife in his chest; they caused him pain he hadn't understood.
She'd changed him, acted like a catalyst to speed the process of transformation. To him Skye had been a justification for his plans, his feelings, to his whole being. Reality wasn't as easy. Relationships weren't easy. He struggled with her because he couldn't be without her, and each victory was laced with defeat. Yet the person he'd been before her wasn't worth regressing to, which was why he carried on. So many setbacks, hurt emotions, conflicts and barriers he'd had to knock over to reach her, and no matter what he did, new ones just kept appearing.
Lucas carried his equipment with a jaded expression, skulking through the desert of the Badlands. The ground there was largely volcanic, the sun scorched everything and as far as the eye could see they were faced with a long wide view of nothing. Morris led them onwards patiently though; he followed the coordinates he'd been given, trusting them when others might've faltered. They'd left the cars behind awhile back, after Mira had announced they couldn't spare more gas if they wanted to get back to the camp.
There was a tension between Mira and Morris, but Lucas hadn't had a chance to ask what they had talked about during the drive. He suspected it hadn't been anything pleasant. Of course the revelation that Morris had been accompanied by other infiltrators that were lying in wait in Terra Nova, serving as backup for this vile man, hadn't been a nice one either. Somehow he just expected there to be more.
The air seemed to become more and more electric the farther they went. It brought a taste in Lucas' mouth, an anticipation he couldn't recognize. Morris hadn't talked about what they were looking for exactly, but Lucas had his doubts: Probably a resource of some kind, or any discovery that would hold value in the barren future. He carried onwards, trying to keep the images of Skye and Curran together from overthrowing his mind. Chaos prevailed though. He wasn't jealous by default, he just worried a bit too much about her safety since he was an established killer and she was leading him on. Would she be angry enough to hurt him by approaching Curran? No, but he couldn't vouch for Curran's smarts.
"What'll you do in 2129, Taylor?" Morris asked all of the sudden, shaking Lucas free from his oppressive fears.
"Continue my research," Lucas responded automatically. It used to be the truth a long time ago, before he'd become accustomed to the jungle, before he'd appreciated the harshness of nature, before he'd realized he didn't have a future in 2149.
"They're giving you enough money to do anything," Morris suggested, pushing with his inquiries.
"Maybe I'll buy something," Lucas noted with annoyance, uninterested in this topic. His reluctance told Morris everything he needed to hear though.
"I see," Morris noted. His interest in the topic vanished as quickly as it had flared in the first place.
Mira stepped between them at this time though, forcing both to concentrate on her sudden outburst.
"What the hell are we doing here Morris?" she snapped violently, even going as far as grabbing Morris' jacket sleeve for a bit. He quickly caught her hand with his, squeezing it inside his grip, his eyes drilling into her. The two fought a silent battle, each beginning to lose their cool after days of dancing around their differences.
"What are we looking for?" Mira continued to question harshly, refusing to back down now that she had Morris in her grip.
"I don't like your tone Mira," Morris simply responded, and held onto her wrist tighter. Discomfort turned to pain, annoyance evolved into anger. Before Carter had been there to break every encounter, but now he was a day's drive away, facing his own problems, and Mira felt her patience snake away from her as her enemy expected her to follow him into a desert.
Lucas, however, had continued walking. His interest was elsewhere, captured by the weird feeling that made every hair in his arms shoot up. Something was off here, just a little strange. And he sought for the source of his discomfort with his eyes, catching nothing out of the ordinary while the tensions rose between his companions.
"Cut the bullshits Morris," Mira demanded, putting every ounce of her authority in her voice. She was done beginning, done playing around.
Morris stared her down, weighing her usefulness, knowing she was the thing that had kept the fringe elements at bay for this long. On the other hand, he couldn't wait to see what the jungle had made her into. "I have nothing for you Mira," he responded with a sadistic smirk.
And then Lucas realized something. He put his duffel bag down and began searching through his while wiping the sweat from his brow. The others paid little attention to him; they were more concerned with the fabric of their fragile truce falling apart. Lucas found one of his instruments and clicked it on eyes cast on the needle that began showing him unusual readings straight off the bat. He took a careful step forward and then another, following his gut and the readings while the argument faded into the back of his mind, diminishing into a mere whisper.
He walked for a few minutes, straining off-course a bit. And he almost walked into a shallow crater when he didn't take his eyes off the needle as it began to go haywire. Lucas stopped just in time, teetering at the edge he hadn't noticed until now, and his eyes flew over the crater in disbelief. He lowered the instrument in his hands and absorbed the sight before him. For a moment he just stared at the view, let the shock sink in and become the truth.
"Stop!" he shouted back at his companions, drawing their attention to him. Mira and Morris forgot about their exchange, each putting more value on whatever it was Lucas was up to. Morris released Mira's hand and Mira sheathed her knife, stepping away from the operative.
Lucas looked down at the crater again, motioning the others to him. He then tied the instrument over his shoulder with its strap before he began his descent down the crater's side.
The crater was filled with things that didn't belong: the prow of a wooden ship, old skeletons of people and animals, a broken obelisk of some sort, a round metallic probe rusted around the edges, and lots of other small things he couldn't place immediately. Everything was hidden from the casual eye in the crater, buried in sand, wearied by exposure to sun and erosion. He could tell these things had been here for years, decades, some even a millennia.
But there was nothing at the center. It was bare.
Lucas knew better though, and he approached with care, holding the instrument with his extended hand. He watched as the needle danced a dance of madness across the screen before he stopped and lowered the instrument. Lucas turned to look at the others, who were standing at the edge of the crater, eyeing him and his findings with mixed feelings. Morris was the only one, who didn't look one bit surprised.
"We have another rift," Lucas then yelled back, stating the obvious for those who hadn't yet realized it.
The strangest thing was that the Sixers always had plenty of body bags. It was the one supply Terra Nova never failed to deliver them when they made an arrangement. Carter recalled watching Mira go through the supplies they had traded and then flaring at the sight of the new body bags Taylor had secured them for many times now. It was another of Taylor's methods for psychological warfare, Carter had assumed.
He had to wonder though if Taylor had ever expected to see one of his men return to him in one of these bags. Judging by the look on the man's face, he hadn't.
The Sixers lifted the body bag from their rover, carrying it to Taylor under the watchful eyes of Skye and Carter. Skye was standing close to Carter, their closeness marking him as her protector in the eyes of the crowd. Both stood with confidence, had a familiarity in their interaction to one another. A stranger might have taken them for friends, but everyone here knew better.
Skye hadn't changed yesterday's clothes; the bloodstains were there as a reminder of the tragedy. She was armed though, clad in Sixer clothing, barely indistinguishable from the others. It disturbed her former acquaintances; their eyes carried distrust as they realized who she really was. Carter was someone they all knew, a familiar face to hate, whereas Skye was somehow they hadn't wanted to see here.
Across them Nathaniel Taylor was standing with his men, observing Skye rather than the Sixers who were walking towards him. His expression revealed no emotion, but even Carter had realized that Taylor hadn't recognized Skye at first. The moment he'd placed this woman with his former foster daughter had been so clear to anyone watching; the revelation had stirred him to the bone.
Skye observed Taylor's obvious disdain while the Sixers worked, but she realized she wasn't that upset anymore. Seeing Taylor witness the results of his scheming was somehow gratifying. A small part of her remembered the shame she'd felt with the tracker, only now it was tenfold. She didn't even flinch when the Sixers backed down, and Taylor squatted to open the body bag, where Curran's motionless corpse greeted him.
Taylor covered his nose and mouth to repel the stench of the corpse. His demeanor didn't betray unease as he examined the body. Seeing Skye dressed as one of them had upset him more. His eyes sought for glimpses of her even now, while his mind fought to grasp this change in her. This girl, no, this woman was different in almost every way. She hadn't come to him as a captive, but as a leader. He could see how Carter stood by her side like a shadow, letting things run their own course rather than manipulating them himself.
He groaned and closed the body bag, standing up and looking at the two enemies in front of him. He didn't know what to think anymore. Everything had become more and more complicated every day since he'd found out Skye was a spy, and today was no different.
"Thank you for bringing him," he eventually settled to say. His voice was far from thankful though; anyone could see the crease around his mouth, the way he was tensed and discontent.
The arrangements for this meeting hadn't been easy, but Carter had come through for her. It was now that Skye was standing in this hot spot between two warring sides that she felt like losing her voice and courage. It was the way Taylor looked at her like a stranger that drove her insecurities wild.
"It wasn't an accident," Skye eventually said, drawing Taylor's attention towards her. His interest was piqued, he was judging what she was trying to accomplish.
"Curran thought I was in danger. He blew his cover and when he realized I wasn't on his side, he made a move against me. We fought, someone got between us and Curran killed her. I shot him," she explained emotionlessly, trying to silence the weaknesses, the doubts. Skye faced Taylor's shock and disgust openly, knowing now that truth wasn't all that mending.
"You killed him," Taylor said softly, as if tasting the words. He didn't seem like he knew what to think.
"You sent him to them, to betray them. I was caught in the crossfire. He nearly killed me," Skye clarified. She pushed her hair behind her ear, fidgeted with the holster on her belt. Everything about her spoke clearly of the anguish she was under. It took Taylor awhile to recognize the full extent of the hurt in her voice, and his eyes snapped at her sharply with the realization.
"The man you sent to spy us nearly killed me, because I was standing in the way of his escape," Skye said again, this time with more conviction. She held him accountable. How could he trust a man he'd already deemed unfit to live in paradise once?
"Desperate measures…," Taylor responded with a gruff, albeit his iron mask seemed lost. Her words had gotten through. This hadn't been what he'd wanted.
The warm breeze swept over them. Guns remained in place, sad glances were thrown between Taylor and the girl he'd once considered a daughter.
"Lucas?" Taylor asked, showing a bit of vulnerability.
"Still angry," Skye answered, not knowing what else to say. Lucas carried that hatred with him. It was stronger than anything, stronger than his feelings for her.
"And your guest?" Taylor inquired, surprising Skye with his question. She stirred, shifted her weight a bit as she glanced at Carter, uneasy about answering this question in particular. He nodded at her.
"The root of all our problems," Skye then replied absent-mindedly. Something clicked in that moment, a half-remembered dream sneaking into her brain, a connection making it visible. Somehow it made things worse.
"We should go," Skye advised Carter, pressing her head and beginning their retreat.
"Skye," Taylor called to her, stopping her before she could leave. She looked back at him, recognizing his softness. "Your mother's awake," Taylor then said.
The effect was strange. He could see hope light in her eyes, the way this piece of information peeled the coldness from her and brought forth the girl he'd known. But this was for just seconds until she reverted back, as if realizing who she had sided with. Skye faced the knowledge with calmness, giving him a small nod of thanks.
"Take care of her," Skye responded simply. Then she let Carter lead her away.
Taylor was left behind at their rendezvous with his troops. He just stood there for a long moment. Everything had backfired. Just the thought that Curran had tried to hurt Skye was unbearable; he pressed his teeth together with rage. And hearing her talk about killing a man with such calmness, such detachment was a knife to the chest. He couldn't blame her, but he couldn't deny wanting to shake her awake from her numbness until she told him how she really felt.
The cruelest truth was that she had stood in front of him just like Lucas had, talking like nothing important had happened.
TBC