I was trying to post at least once a month and I missed the entirety of August. Though, in the interest of fairness, that was a pretty up-in-the-air crazy month. Not that the next few months won't be as well, but hey. It's an excuse and I'll take it.
But my fingers have not been completely idle. They've not been channeled into what they should be working on, but this AU idea was not to be ignored.
Basically, I watched all five seasons of a show called Fringe (9/10 stars, would recommend) and got inspired by the final season, where the team was encased in amber and were woken up twenty years down the road.
I know what you're thinking and oh yes I did. But just Jandy, because I'm sadistic that way.
There are going to be some inconsistencies and some POV swaps, because writing through Dechlan's eyes is not nearly as easy as you might think. There should also be more at some point, because I didn't even get to Teagan in my scribbles. And I kind of love Teagan. Some of the different bits are unfinished, as I'm sure will become apparent very quickly. Those would be the ones that got worked on in my head, but never got to the point where I could figure out how to put them down on the page.
That said, shall we?
Dusty and looted though it may have been, the majority of the furniture still remained in the upper levels of the abandoned research facility. Too heavy to transport, if he had to hazard a guess. Dechlan checked the desk drawers of the office he’d found a reasonable-looking couch in, searching for anything that might be of use.
As expected, nothing. Just indecipherable notes and appointment books.
He tossed a stack of papers onto the aged mahogany then went to drop onto the couch with an expelled breath. The electricity was out and they weren’t going to risk turning it on, so the only light available came through the dirty windows, making the interior a comfortable level of darkness to sleep in.
Dechlan closed his eyes but sleep couldn’t have been farther away in that moment. He started counting ceiling tiles, one arm crossed behind his head.
Ten years. Almost eleven in a few weeks more.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Dechlan tried shutting his eyes again. It was his turn on the sleep rotation and if he didn’t sleep now then he wouldn’t get another opportunity for at least ten hours.
That knowledge did nothing to help calm his mind.
All the evidence had pointed to her death. No one had heard from or seen her since the Takeover and with the silence and the gaping emptiness nearly driving him insane, he’d had to let go.
If he hadn’t known better than to waste the energy, Dechlan would’ve been angry. Furious. That someone would’ve taken her, loaded her mind full of information, and stuck her in a high-tech freezer for someone to find down the road. For the resistance army to find after searching through whispers and rumors and fairytales for almost a decade to find a hail mary pass to save them all.
Jandy.
The emotions that came attached to that name had faded over time. She had become a fading memory. He’d let go and put her out of his mind years ago because he couldn’t handle trying to hold onto her. It’d been over thirteen months that he’d even thought about her in passing. There was just too much else going on to ruminate over the past.
Except, it wasn’t the past anymore.
If they found Jandy here and if she’d survived the cryogenically frozen state she’d been suspended in for the last decade with her mind intact, then it would’ve been weeks for her since she’d last seen him. Her memories of him would be fresh. Outdated, but fresh.
Dechlan could remember the facts about his counterpart. He knew that she’d had short brown hair and darker eyes, that’d she’d been 5’5” on the nose. He knew which hospital she’d been born in, the city she’d grown up in, all about her lost twin, Jane. He knew what her preferred foods were, that she hated sleeping with the curtains open, and that her sarcasm got caustic when she was scared.
But her smile was gone.
Staring at an overhead air vent coated with dust and cobwebs, Dechlan tried to remember her laugh and couldn’t. Her voice, the temperature of her skin, the smell of her hair after she’d showered.
At some point over the years, he’d let it all slip away.
The soldier forced himself back to stable territory again. It wasn’t worth it to linger in the past.
Yes, Jandelyn Sparks had been important to him. The only thing important to him, at one point.
But there was a war going on. A fight for their survival where every pair of hands was needed and that meant he could not be crippled If they found a frozen corpse somewhere in the multiple sub-levels of this building.
Coming to this conclusion, Dechlan turned on his side with his back to the wall and his fingers wrapped around the grip of his handgun.
//
The office door banged open with an excited announcement of, “Sir!”
Dechlan jerked into awareness, not even realizing he’d fallen asleep and sat up, resisting the urge to pull out his weapon. “Boweman. What?” A check of his watch said that he’d still had fifteen minutes.
“The commander said to get you, sir. Nielsen found something.” Boweman was young, still full of vigor at the thought of being part of the resistance movement.
It was usually amusing but it was downright annoying right now. Rubbing a hand over his face and feeling the foundations of stubble on his jaw, Dechlan nodded once. “Fine.”
The boy disappeared with a hundred-watt grin, leaving the door open as he left.
His body protested when he stood, an ache in his back making itself known, probably due to the decrepit couch. It wasn’t fun to remember but Dechlan was aware that he’d be forty-two in a handful of months. A fact that kids like Rick Boweman would not be learning, if he had any say in the matter. He already got enough “old man” jokes due to the graying hair at his temples.
Boweman was waiting in the hall, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he leaned against the wall. The older man wanted to snap at him to straighten up and stand at attention, but this wasn’t the army. They pretended it was, with ranks and a chain of command, but half of their so-called troops were civilians, most of whom had never fired a weapon. Army could only be applied loosely to this group. What military procedures and regulations did show up were because of guys like him, who had been in the service at some point before the Takeover and had had it ingrained in them.
Dechlan walked past the kid without acknowledging his presence, intent on getting to the stairwell to start down the eight flights of stairs to where their commander, Iain Ferrel, had set up his temporary headquarters.
A mumbled curse and a series of running steps told him that Boweman had noticed his rapid departure and had to hurry to catch up.
“Sir!”
Dechlan was already half way down the first set of stairs and didn’t pause. “What, Boweman?”
“Do you think this is really going to work? Thawing out a popsicle and hoping whoever it is has enough marbles left to save the world?” He sounded out of breath already.
Making a mental note to suggest some extra PT to the commander, he answered, “The commander is in the business of exploring all our options, Boweman, and ours is to not ask questions and do as ordered.” He didn’t let it reach him that the “popsicle” the junior soldier was talking about was Jandy.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” The kid had gone from skeptical to subdued in less than a minute.
Silence reigned while they continued going down, footfalls echoing through the space.
Dechlan considered tacking on some of his own views on this endeavor to lighten Boweman’s mood again but decided against it. He was a superior, not a friend. And taking into consideration his own doubts about the matter, mentioning them to someone as impressionable as Boweman would be undermining Ferrel’s command in a punishable way.
//
Riker Nielsen was at turns jittery, nervous, and excitable little man and no matter which it was, it always seemed as if he was on some form of a caffeine high. Or maybe a sugar high. It was hard to tell.
He was waiting when Dechlan entered a couple of steps behind Ferrel. Twirling on a stool that let out a horrible screech with every turn he made.
“Mr. Nielsen, if you would,” Ferrel’s voice was deceptively mild but all who knew him knew better than to not sit up and listen when he addressed you in that tone.
Dechlan let him deal with the scientist, taking in the lab with subdued interest. It was in a back corner of the bottom most basement level, tucked away behind three prior labs. Ferrel said they’d almost not found it, except this floor had been Brisk and Counterman’s responsibility and Brisk was renowned for taking the time to do his job right. There was no other door, nor was there a person-sized freezer that was locatable, but he did spot a large part of the flooring that had been pulled up and displaced.
While he wasn’t sure about what type of space one would need in order to hide a cryogenically frozen person but it looked large enough to him, especially if it spread out beneath the floor.
A glance at Ferrel and Nielsen told Dechlan that the scientist was deep in the midst of explaining something long, complex, and mind-numbing to the only person who would listen to him. He had time.
There was no hesitation to the soldier’s stride as he moved to the hidden storage space, crouching down beside it to shove the steel piece of floor further out of the way. The lights of the lab couldn’t quite reach into the darkness, but there was a faint hum indicating a power source.
Dechlan lifted his head and checked his immediate surroundings for a flashlight.
There. Tabletop, four paces away.
Retrieving it, he twisted it on, checking that the beam was strong before turning it downwards, fingers curling around the edge of the floor space to keep his balance. The light revealed wires, silver piping wrapping around and feeding into the coffin-like case, and a frosted glass pane that extended beyond the scope of the opening in the floor.
He let out a long breath.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, it registered that the conversation behind him had ceased, indicating that something of greater importance had caught their attention but he didn’t care. Gripping the flashlight with his left hand, Dechlan reached down to try and scrape off the thick layer of frost with his nails.
He had to know.
It wasn’t coming off and he knew a flare of irritation before tamping it down again. Dechlan sat back on his heels to study the stasis chamber another moment before standing. Nielsen would have to do his thing and get it to open before they would know who was stored inside.
Stored. Like frozen produce.
Both the commander and their only capable scientist were watching him when he straightened, their expressions expectant.
Dechlan turned off the flashlight and set it back on the nearby table. “Whenever you’re ready, Nielsen.”
//
There was something about being told to stay far to the side that produced a feeling of general uselessness in Dechlan. If Nielsen was just going to put him on the sidelines, why ask him to come at all?
He stood at ease near the wall farthest from the hidden cryogenics chamber, a desk piled high with test tubes and paperwork obscuring his view. Silence reigned over the lab, a mixture of tension and anticipation in the air.
No one knew what to expect. This find could be their saving or their undoing.
Part of Dechlan wanted to be right across from Nielsen, listening to every muttered word the nervous man had to say, but the rational portion of his mind knew here was better. If it was Jandy – he would not acknowledge how every fiber of him screamed it is her – and she woke up to see him vastly changed from her last memories of him, it could…
Nielsen had had a slew of technical terms but what Dechlan had come away with was that the shock of seeing him could cause irreparable harm to her. If she woke up, she would be in a very fragile state, physically and mentally. The scientist had made sure to stress her fragility several times too many. The human body, he had explained, was not built to be frozen in untested conditions for so long and there was no telling what the side effects would be. At this point, it was better safe than sorry.
So he would remain in the background while only Nielsen, a couple of needed aides, and a medic would be close to keep the trauma sustained during her reviving to a minimum.
Quiet murmurs reached his ears. It sounded like they were getting close.
Ferrel, standing a few paces away in full view of the happenings, shifted his footing, telling of his own apprehension over the matter.
“Alright!” Nielsen’s voice shattered the quiet, too loud and too excited.
Dechlan jerked, then gritted his teeth. Of all the scientists sympathetic to their cause to have been assigned to their unit, it had to be him.
“Mr. Ferrel, boss, sir,” he spoke in a constant stream, words running together until it was almost impossible to understand him. “I found the deactivation sequence—masterful work, whoever built this beauty—buried in some subroutines and I can start the thawing process whenever you would like. It shouldn’t take too long—this is some great tech, taking into account its being ten years old—but I’m thinking maybe three minutes before we can get the subject out of the chamber.”
The commander checked his watch and then nodded to Nielsen, hidden from Dechlan’s view. “Alright. Get started. How long until she’ll be ready to transport?”
“I won’t know until we get her out and breathing. It could be minutes, it could be days, depending on what type of medical attention she needs.
//
He’d underestimated what it would do to him to have to stand on the sidelines.
She couldn’t breathe.
Nielsen had turned the stasis chamber off and there’d been a flurry of activity with orders being thrown to and fro between Doc, Nielsen, and the two aides then there had been gasping breaths.
“Get me that oxygen tank now,” their field doctor ordered, voice tight with the stress everyone in the room was feeling.
Dechlan gripped the countertop behind him, feeling the edge cut into his palms. His world was narrowing down to any noise he could hear from ten feet away.
//
The world was blinding white and icy cold. Every lungful of air she dragged in burned her from the inside out and then cooled the blazing path when she expelled the breath. The sensation caused Jandy to gag and she had to fight for every breath after that, battling breathlessness.
“Get me that oxygen tank now.” Foreign voice and what must’ve been a touch that just felt like fire on the back of her neck, around her wrists.
And… emptiness. Sharp, aching, a frozen blade cutting through her mind.
Oh dear God, no.
A mask was pressed against her nose and mouth and Jandy fought it, struggling to pull free because he couldn’t just be gone.
He’d been there. He’d been there, she’d felt him… before. Before.
Before this. He’d been there and now there was nothing but her own thoughts and her own feelings and Dechlan could not be gone.
“Please,” she tried to speak, her mouth almost too dry to manage it. As it was, she choked on the single word, still trying to twist away from the insistent hands that held her.
“Don’t try to speak. There’ll be time enough for that later.” That same voice, firm and unyielding, somewhere above her in the white-out when she dared open her eyes.
“Please,” Jandy jerked her head from side to side, the movement only partly controlled, as she felt a tear ignite a fiery path down her temple and into her hairline. “Please, Dech…” Her throat closed then, making it impossible to speak further, but a helpless whimper escaped.
It was so cold. Why did it have to be so cold?
Another tear escaped, slipping across her skin unimpeded.
It was getting easier to breath—or at least the air she was getting was doing more—and she realized that she’d lost the fight against the mask. The lightheaded spinning feeling was beginning to diminish, if she focused on it.
Jandy attempted opening her eyes again and found it easier to see. There was the black shape of a person now instead of an all-encompassing white blotting out everything and everyone.
“Miss Sparks, I’m Doc Dempsey. I’m going to hold your hand in mine and I want you to squeeze my hand to answer my questions. Once for yes, twice for no. Do you understand?”
It took her a moment to relate the burning pain in the palm of her left hand as the man’s touch. She fought the reflex to pull away. It felt like brushing against a hot stove except without the part where her skin was singed.
But she did as asked, contracting her fingers into what she hoped was a squeeze. It was hard to say. She couldn’t quite feel her body, where everything was and if she was even grounded. The only surety was the cold. An icy blanket wrapped tight around her entire being, from the pain in her heart and extending outwards with a numbing presence.
“Good. That’s good. Do you remember what happened?”
Jandy tried, but the memories weren’t there. None at all, in fact. Impressions and moments and feelings, but locations and dates and images were lacking. She tightened the tendons in her arm and hand. Once, twice. She blinked her eyes to try and remove the film making the world hazy. It didn’t do any good.
“Okay. That’s fine. It should come back in time. Are you in any pain right now?” His voice never changed tone, maintaining consistency, probably for her sake.
Everything had faded to a dull roar. Jandy figured she couldn’t have told pleasure from pain at that point and squeezed the doctor’s fingers twice. No.
“Good to hear. I expect for that to change in the next while, but I’m glad you’re comfortable for the moment.”
If she could’ve, Jandy would’ve rolled her eyes. She’d never said anything about comfortable.
She waited and felt panic tighten her chest. There should’ve been exasperation and it wasn’t there.
Dechlan.
Dechlan was gone, she couldn’t feel him anymore, and she’d already come to that realization. What was happening? What already had happened?
Jandy pulled her hand from the doctor’s, trying to find the floor beneath her and ground herself.
“Miss Sparks? Jandelyn? You’re going to be alright. I need you to stay calm, please.” Dempsey’s voice was low and soothing overhead.
It was driving her insane.
“Get off.” She forced the words out, trying to raise her voice because she knew the mask would muffle it. “Tell me… what happened… to him.”
//
They were in the middle of a meeting, maps that covered over half the country strewn across the table. Dechlan listened to Ferrel as he laid out their path for the following week, zigzagging through the mountains to avoid detection and returning to either the safe zone or to their designated infiltration points. They wanted a strong resistance presence in high-profile target cities at all times.
“Then Enjolras, you’re going to take squad tango and cut across to Central City…”
A cold feeling washed through Dechlan, but it wasn’t from anything in his immediate vicinity. The last time he’d felt something like this had been…
“Call an assembly.” He cut across what the commander was saying, not caring about the repercussions.
The room froze.
“What?” Ferrel’s brow was smooth. Not a good sign.
“Sir, I will explain but I need you to call a company-wide assembly in the front hall right now.” Dechlan shot Ferrel a look, dead serious.
The older man measured him for a long beat and then nodded once. “Charleston,
//
It was fourteen hours in a truck to get to North Central City and Dechlan was not pleased to learn that Nielsen would be among the occupants of their transport.
Fourteen hours of the scientist’s constant jittery rambles. Maybe their medic could give him some extra sedative for Nielsen, for when the urge to murder the man became too overpowering.
Dechlan nodded to the other soldiers he passed. It was early, well before sunrise, but everyone was up and prepping for a company-wide departure. There were eight different trucks, all going to a variety of destinations and all slated for a different departure time.
The temporary infirmary was on the first floor, just down the hall from Ferrel’s office. He made his way that direction, running a hand over his hair. Once they got back to North Central, he’d need a haircut. It’d been too long since his last one. Too long equating to almost two weeks.
Jandy had guessed where his mind was at one morning and then had laughed at him, apparently reading small tell-tales that she’d remembered despite the time.
His step slowed as his mind began to churn again. She wasn’t doing well. Not since that absolutely idiotic kidnapping. Doc said with her system as broken down as it was, even the two hours of exposure she’d had to endure before Boweman had found her had had a catastrophic effect.
It made Dechlan want to get access to those two and put a bullet between both of their eyes.
The fact that she had valuable information aside, this was Jandy.
The soldier’s heavy boots caused a loud echo in the stairwell as he traveled down. They had an hour and a half until the truck for North Central left and he still needed to talk to Doc and figure out what he’d need to do so that Jandy would be okay until they got to the city and another resistance doctor could be summoned.
Green eyes surveyed the large entryway for a moment, picking out faces and putting names to them before he continued to his destination.
Most of the lights were off when Dechlan stepped across the threshold, pausing to let his eyes adjust. The space had been a filing room when they’d first arrived, with rows of cabinets filled with documents and records lining the walls. Dust layered everything in this room as well, although Doc had been meticulous in cleaning at least the front half of it while Nielsen had been working out how to unfreeze Jandelyn.
“Oh, Scott, good. I was hoping you’d get here sooner rather than later. It’s only going to be a day, maybe two tops, unsupervised by a physician, but the more you know, the better off Miss Sparks is going to be.” Doc’s voice was low from where he sat at his desk, feet settling back on the floor from where they’d been propped up.
Jandy must’ve still been asleep. “We’re scheduled for 0630 departure, so whatever you’ve got for me before then will be appreciated.” Dechlan tempered his voice as well, making his way through the mostly empty room to where he knew Jandy’s cot was.
The doctor rose from his chair to come stand a few paces back.
Ignoring his presence for the time being, Dech crouched down at her bed side, reaching out to carefully shift the blankets away from her face. Her skin was a pale splotch in the darkness, white against the black.
Even as she slept, there was a shiver to the breaths she took in and let back out.
//
Jandy rounded on him, eyes sparking with kindling anger. “Don’t even start with that, Dechlan Scott. I will not believe for an instant that a single one of those gray hair made you forget about it.”
“It’s been ten years, Jandy, and you deserve—“ he tried again, struggling to not fight fire with fire. He was supposed to be the cool-headed one.
She shook her head, emotions running across her face almost faster than he could process. “No. No. You don’t get to tell me what you think I deserve, Dech. That’s my right. I get to choose and I will not let you take that from me.”
Just as soon as her ire had blazed, it was dying down, leaving a raw pain behind. It took a lot to keep from responding to the hurt in her brown eyes.
As it was, Dechlan reached out to gather the open flaps of her oversized jacket in his hands and tow her closer to him. Jandy’s body trembled with a cold that seemed to have manifested itself deep within her. He was reminded once again of what Doc had said—that she’d probably never be the same, physically, again.
Taking in a quiet breath, he bent to touch his forehead to hers, breathing her in, recommitting her to memory, restoring fragments of what he’d lost.
“I don’t care about the years, Dech. You know that I don’t. You know that I’m not going to. I married you because I love you. And if you want me gone, then you have to tell me right now, because I can’t take this.” Jandy’s breath caught in her throat and he knew she was close to tears. “I can’t live with you so close and so far away. I can’t. It’s going to kill me.”
He knew what she meant. Some of the physical barriers had fallen away—he was the only one she trusted enough to allow close and keep her warm when the nights dropped below freezing in the unheated building—but many of the emotional dividers remained. It’d been so much easier before. All they’d had to do was feel. Not it was similar to trying to sail a boat through dark, foggy conditions with no lighthouse to guide them. That is to say, difficult.
“Jandy…”
Her hands found his, her skin’s temperature chilling in comparison to her own, and Jandy slipped her slim fingers between Dechlan’s.
Jandy cut in before he could get anything more out, her words halting even as she said them. “I—I’ll understand. If there’s somebody else, Dechlan. It’s been a really long time for you. But you’ve got to talk to me. Please—“
//
And that's mostly where my brain has been for the last few weeks, though I did get some scribbles penned down for Trinity's prompt that I need to type up and then fill in the inbetween space for.
Again, there's some blank spaces and inconsistencies. Apologies. I was just trying to get it out of my head and on the page.
So. Let me know what you think. I'm going to see about some other stuff I scribbled early last month and consider posting that as well, though it probably won't be going anywhere else.
As always, thank you ever so much for reading and for your patience. You guys are amazing.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
