AU Bingo Ficlet: "Ascended"
The prompt: "Fantasy & Supernatural -- Gods and Goddesses." Spoilers for the series finale, should anyone find this of concern.
"Ascended"
Jack stared into Sloane’s eyes as he pressed the detonator.
What followed was not pain, exactly - akin to it, but too quick to really comprehend, or at least he soon lost the capability of comprehending it. He was a man; he was a mess of blood and bone and brain; he was not. It was as simple as that.
Until he opened his eyes again.
For one split second, he knew he should not have had eyes any longer - or a head, or awareness - but then the knowledge of death Jack had so briefly possessed faded, leaving behind only confusion. Slowly he pushed himself into a seated position; he seemed to be in some kind of milky, cloudy area with a few structures, distant and ethereal. White was the dominant color, save for the dark, brilliantly starry sky. He was uninjured, without pain, in fact thinner and stronger than he had been in many years.
The obvious conclusion was that he was in heaven. However, the thought of going to heaven was so far from obvious to Jack that he sat there for some time, attempting to think of other alternatives. None readily sprang to mind.
“Hello,” Nadia said.
Jack jumped slightly, too startled to speak. She didn’t seem to expect an immediate response; she simply stood there in a pale pink gown, waiting for him to come to terms with what he saw.
Looking down, he saw that he was wearing something … robe-like, which was gray rather than pink. It wasn’t a relief, exactly, but as close as he could get to it at the moment.
He finally managed: “This is the afterlife.”
“It’s the realm of the gods. Almost the same thing, but not quite.” Nadia’s smile was as warm and brilliant as it had always been - even more, perhaps.
Then he stopped thinking about her smile (always a distraction, for him) and started thinking about what she’d just said. “Why am I in the realm of the gods?”
“Because I brought you here.”
Jack carefully weighed the logical next question. “Why are you in the realm of the gods?”
“Because I’m a goddess.” Nadia studied his face for a moment. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Jack said, because if there was any chance whatsoever that he was talking to some kind of supreme or supernatural being, however deceitful, he intended to err on the side of caution.
“You don’t. You shouldn’t lie to the gods, Jack. We always know.” Her cheeks dimpled. “It’s all right. If you believed me right away, I don’t think I’d believe it’s really you. Even though I raised you here myself.”
Honesty could serve a purpose here, it seemed. So he rose to his feet and examined her, and their surroundings, more closely.
Now that he took a better look at things, Jack took in the details more closely: temples with columns, statues on pedestals, and a sky with stars somehow closer than before, which suggested the constellations very strongly in some way. He thought he could have traced Orion, Cassiopeia, Gemini, all of them. There was something distinctly Greco-Roman about the experience.
“That’s about right,” Nadia said. She didn’t seem to need him to speak in order to hear him. That was disconcerting. “The Greeks got as close as anyone to understanding the true nature of the universe. Since then, it’s all been downhill.”
Jack noticed that he didn’t have a heartbeat. This more than anything else convinced him that Nadia’s words were true, at least in essence. He decided to proceed accordingly. “Are you the same Nadia I knew, or did you just choose to look like her?”
“It’s me, Jack.” She touched his shoulder - just for a moment, but it felt like her, somehow. Not that he knew much about what it felt like to be touched by Nadia, though not for lack of wondering. “I wasn’t a goddess yet when you knew me. Dad realized it was possible, but he never understood that even divinity has its limits.”
“Wait. Your father understood that you were - ”
“Rambaldi said it could be.” No other explanation was necessary. “Though most of the time Dad thought that was a metaphor, once in a while, he allowed himself to hope for the truth.”
Sloane’s superiority complex would have been satisfied no end by the thought of having fathered a goddess. This was becoming more credible all the time. “He must have believed that your death ended that possibility.”
“Instead it was the moment that made the prophecy come true. I died a sacrifice to his piety, misplaced as it was.” Nadia sighed. “That’ll do it.”
“Was that what it was all about, in the end? Not just immortality, but divinity?”
“He was closer than he ever knew.” A soft breeze ruffled her hair, made the hem of her simple pink gown flutter. Jack noticed these things, and also the absence of the old guilt that always prevented him from noticing her too much, for too long. “The strain of it runs in my family. You must have sensed, at times, that my mother was … almost more than mortal.”
Jack tried to envision the divine realm Irina would rule over, and failed. And yet Nadia’s explanation rang true for him. “Is she here?”
“Not this time. She’ll be reborn. She has a few cycles to live through before she’ll find peace. She will, though. I know these things, now.” The merriment in her eyes told him that Nadia could find humor in predestination; if anyone had a right, she did.
“Sydney - Isabelle - ”
“May yet join us, in the fullness of time. They have the potential. You must have sensed that too.”
He nodded. Alone of the things he'd learned in the past few minutes, that didn't surprise him at all. Contemplating Sydney and Isabelle's ascent into greater power, greater invulnerability, gave him more peace than anything else had since the explosion - even more than his own sort of resurrection.
“Resurrection,” Nadia repeated. “You can have that, if you wish.”
Jack stared at her. “You could - return me to life?”
“I can. It would be hard to explain, but then, you’d have to do that, not me.” She grinned for a moment, but quickly became more serious. “Before you decide, though, you should know - if you want to help me protect Sydney from here, you can do that, too. You’re not a god, not in the sense that I’m a goddess, but I can share this realm and these powers with you. No mortal limits would stand in your way.”
That had a certain appeal. He thought back to his life and asked himself if he had anything to go on for in a world without Irina, without Nadia, even without Arvin, besides taking care of Sydney and Isabelle. In truth, he didn’t. Jack had chosen to live that way and did not regret his choice. So if he could care for her better here, even manipulate reality itself to ensure that his daughter and granddaughter had long, happy lives - that choice was even simpler.
Sydney would mourn him; he knew that. But mourning was inevitable when a child outlived a parent, and that was how it should be. Jack thought back on his death, decided it was a good one, and looked again at Nadia. By now he understood that she knew his decision without his saying a word.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I always hoped we’d get to know each other better.”
So simple, and yet it meant so much. Without the old guilt in the way, Jack found he liked the idea of getting to know Nadia quite a lot. Maybe this wasn’t heaven, but it was closer than he deserved.
END
"Ascended"
Jack stared into Sloane’s eyes as he pressed the detonator.
What followed was not pain, exactly - akin to it, but too quick to really comprehend, or at least he soon lost the capability of comprehending it. He was a man; he was a mess of blood and bone and brain; he was not. It was as simple as that.
Until he opened his eyes again.
For one split second, he knew he should not have had eyes any longer - or a head, or awareness - but then the knowledge of death Jack had so briefly possessed faded, leaving behind only confusion. Slowly he pushed himself into a seated position; he seemed to be in some kind of milky, cloudy area with a few structures, distant and ethereal. White was the dominant color, save for the dark, brilliantly starry sky. He was uninjured, without pain, in fact thinner and stronger than he had been in many years.
The obvious conclusion was that he was in heaven. However, the thought of going to heaven was so far from obvious to Jack that he sat there for some time, attempting to think of other alternatives. None readily sprang to mind.
“Hello,” Nadia said.
Jack jumped slightly, too startled to speak. She didn’t seem to expect an immediate response; she simply stood there in a pale pink gown, waiting for him to come to terms with what he saw.
Looking down, he saw that he was wearing something … robe-like, which was gray rather than pink. It wasn’t a relief, exactly, but as close as he could get to it at the moment.
He finally managed: “This is the afterlife.”
“It’s the realm of the gods. Almost the same thing, but not quite.” Nadia’s smile was as warm and brilliant as it had always been - even more, perhaps.
Then he stopped thinking about her smile (always a distraction, for him) and started thinking about what she’d just said. “Why am I in the realm of the gods?”
“Because I brought you here.”
Jack carefully weighed the logical next question. “Why are you in the realm of the gods?”
“Because I’m a goddess.” Nadia studied his face for a moment. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Jack said, because if there was any chance whatsoever that he was talking to some kind of supreme or supernatural being, however deceitful, he intended to err on the side of caution.
“You don’t. You shouldn’t lie to the gods, Jack. We always know.” Her cheeks dimpled. “It’s all right. If you believed me right away, I don’t think I’d believe it’s really you. Even though I raised you here myself.”
Honesty could serve a purpose here, it seemed. So he rose to his feet and examined her, and their surroundings, more closely.
Now that he took a better look at things, Jack took in the details more closely: temples with columns, statues on pedestals, and a sky with stars somehow closer than before, which suggested the constellations very strongly in some way. He thought he could have traced Orion, Cassiopeia, Gemini, all of them. There was something distinctly Greco-Roman about the experience.
“That’s about right,” Nadia said. She didn’t seem to need him to speak in order to hear him. That was disconcerting. “The Greeks got as close as anyone to understanding the true nature of the universe. Since then, it’s all been downhill.”
Jack noticed that he didn’t have a heartbeat. This more than anything else convinced him that Nadia’s words were true, at least in essence. He decided to proceed accordingly. “Are you the same Nadia I knew, or did you just choose to look like her?”
“It’s me, Jack.” She touched his shoulder - just for a moment, but it felt like her, somehow. Not that he knew much about what it felt like to be touched by Nadia, though not for lack of wondering. “I wasn’t a goddess yet when you knew me. Dad realized it was possible, but he never understood that even divinity has its limits.”
“Wait. Your father understood that you were - ”
“Rambaldi said it could be.” No other explanation was necessary. “Though most of the time Dad thought that was a metaphor, once in a while, he allowed himself to hope for the truth.”
Sloane’s superiority complex would have been satisfied no end by the thought of having fathered a goddess. This was becoming more credible all the time. “He must have believed that your death ended that possibility.”
“Instead it was the moment that made the prophecy come true. I died a sacrifice to his piety, misplaced as it was.” Nadia sighed. “That’ll do it.”
“Was that what it was all about, in the end? Not just immortality, but divinity?”
“He was closer than he ever knew.” A soft breeze ruffled her hair, made the hem of her simple pink gown flutter. Jack noticed these things, and also the absence of the old guilt that always prevented him from noticing her too much, for too long. “The strain of it runs in my family. You must have sensed, at times, that my mother was … almost more than mortal.”
Jack tried to envision the divine realm Irina would rule over, and failed. And yet Nadia’s explanation rang true for him. “Is she here?”
“Not this time. She’ll be reborn. She has a few cycles to live through before she’ll find peace. She will, though. I know these things, now.” The merriment in her eyes told him that Nadia could find humor in predestination; if anyone had a right, she did.
“Sydney - Isabelle - ”
“May yet join us, in the fullness of time. They have the potential. You must have sensed that too.”
He nodded. Alone of the things he'd learned in the past few minutes, that didn't surprise him at all. Contemplating Sydney and Isabelle's ascent into greater power, greater invulnerability, gave him more peace than anything else had since the explosion - even more than his own sort of resurrection.
“Resurrection,” Nadia repeated. “You can have that, if you wish.”
Jack stared at her. “You could - return me to life?”
“I can. It would be hard to explain, but then, you’d have to do that, not me.” She grinned for a moment, but quickly became more serious. “Before you decide, though, you should know - if you want to help me protect Sydney from here, you can do that, too. You’re not a god, not in the sense that I’m a goddess, but I can share this realm and these powers with you. No mortal limits would stand in your way.”
That had a certain appeal. He thought back to his life and asked himself if he had anything to go on for in a world without Irina, without Nadia, even without Arvin, besides taking care of Sydney and Isabelle. In truth, he didn’t. Jack had chosen to live that way and did not regret his choice. So if he could care for her better here, even manipulate reality itself to ensure that his daughter and granddaughter had long, happy lives - that choice was even simpler.
Sydney would mourn him; he knew that. But mourning was inevitable when a child outlived a parent, and that was how it should be. Jack thought back on his death, decided it was a good one, and looked again at Nadia. By now he understood that she knew his decision without his saying a word.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I always hoped we’d get to know each other better.”
So simple, and yet it meant so much. Without the old guilt in the way, Jack found he liked the idea of getting to know Nadia quite a lot. Maybe this wasn’t heaven, but it was closer than he deserved.
END