TW Fic: This Site Temporarily Unavailable
Title: This Site Temporarily Unavailable
Recipient: queenfanfiction
Author: nancybrown
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Alice, Johnson
Spoilers and Warnings: through COE
Words: 550
Beta: amilyn
Summary: Nothing matters to Alice any more.
Author Note: Just a little thank you to QFF for all she's done. :) Written for the tw_femficfest bonus round!
***
Alice leaves him sitting there, and doesn't look back when she hears him walk away. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. The sedative in her bloodstream wore off an hour ago, and her calm is her own.
"Mrs Carter?"
The woman, Alice only knows her as "Johnson," stands stiffly, formally. Alice wants to hate her too but doesn't have the fire. Her hate was a quick burn, leaving Alice herself in ashes.
"You need to see this."
"Go away," Alice says, but Johnson's hand is on her arm. Perhaps she is leading Alice away to die. Alice finds she doesn't mind. Hundreds have died since yesterday morning and her world has contracted to the space inside her own head. One more death can easily be shunted into the pile of bodies from Thames House. One loose thread can be cut to incriminate the monsters who let the aliens inside.
Johnson escorts her to the morgue. Alice rears back when she sees the door. She held her baby already. Holding him again will kill her as surely as the bullet Johnson has planned.
"Please, stop."
"Trust me."
Alice chokes on her laugh. Trust the woman who brought her child to his execution? "You must be joking."
"I don't joke." She drops her eyes. "I can't and won't apologise for the role I've played over the last few days. I was misled. That's not an excuse, but it's the truth."
"If that lets you sleep at night, fine." Alice is numb. She could sleep for hundreds of years.
"I am ... sorry," the word comes out in a tone speaking to its unfamiliarity in Johnson's mouth, "for what you've been through. That's why I had to check."
Two soldiers stand guard outside the morgue. Johnson flashes her ID. Alice is going to sob again, feels the scream building up inside her throat. Steven will be still, his skin cleaned of blood and turning blue, his flesh as cold as Mum's when Alice held her hand after she died.
" ... and they all had guns! It was just like on the television!"
Her knees give way at the threshold. She would know that voice after a thousand years.
Her mouth wants to form the words that this is impossible, but her brain remembers the first time she watched her father die, his chest bloody from a clawed gash, remembers his gasp back to life. He has always told her to be careful, told her it's not a facet of his bloodline, told her so many lies, come to think of it, that it's a wonder she ever believed a single word he said and didn't walk off a building to test him right then.
The door opens, and Steven is sitting up on the slab, thin chest bare, looking around at the soldiers and the terrified mortician like he's just popped up as a surprise from a birthday cake.
"Oh, hi Mum!" he says, when he spies her at the doorway. His face, his beautiful face, puts on his pouty, thinky frown, as he calls it. "Are you all right? You look sad."
And her knees sort themselves out, and her heart beats again for the first time in hours, and yes, she hates Jack for everything he's done, but her arms are full of little boy, and old resentment doesn't matter, it doesn't matter at all.
***
The End
***
Recipient: queenfanfiction
Author: nancybrown
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Alice, Johnson
Spoilers and Warnings: through COE
Words: 550
Beta: amilyn
Summary: Nothing matters to Alice any more.
Author Note: Just a little thank you to QFF for all she's done. :) Written for the tw_femficfest bonus round!
***
Alice leaves him sitting there, and doesn't look back when she hears him walk away. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. The sedative in her bloodstream wore off an hour ago, and her calm is her own.
"Mrs Carter?"
The woman, Alice only knows her as "Johnson," stands stiffly, formally. Alice wants to hate her too but doesn't have the fire. Her hate was a quick burn, leaving Alice herself in ashes.
"You need to see this."
"Go away," Alice says, but Johnson's hand is on her arm. Perhaps she is leading Alice away to die. Alice finds she doesn't mind. Hundreds have died since yesterday morning and her world has contracted to the space inside her own head. One more death can easily be shunted into the pile of bodies from Thames House. One loose thread can be cut to incriminate the monsters who let the aliens inside.
Johnson escorts her to the morgue. Alice rears back when she sees the door. She held her baby already. Holding him again will kill her as surely as the bullet Johnson has planned.
"Please, stop."
"Trust me."
Alice chokes on her laugh. Trust the woman who brought her child to his execution? "You must be joking."
"I don't joke." She drops her eyes. "I can't and won't apologise for the role I've played over the last few days. I was misled. That's not an excuse, but it's the truth."
"If that lets you sleep at night, fine." Alice is numb. She could sleep for hundreds of years.
"I am ... sorry," the word comes out in a tone speaking to its unfamiliarity in Johnson's mouth, "for what you've been through. That's why I had to check."
Two soldiers stand guard outside the morgue. Johnson flashes her ID. Alice is going to sob again, feels the scream building up inside her throat. Steven will be still, his skin cleaned of blood and turning blue, his flesh as cold as Mum's when Alice held her hand after she died.
" ... and they all had guns! It was just like on the television!"
Her knees give way at the threshold. She would know that voice after a thousand years.
Her mouth wants to form the words that this is impossible, but her brain remembers the first time she watched her father die, his chest bloody from a clawed gash, remembers his gasp back to life. He has always told her to be careful, told her it's not a facet of his bloodline, told her so many lies, come to think of it, that it's a wonder she ever believed a single word he said and didn't walk off a building to test him right then.
The door opens, and Steven is sitting up on the slab, thin chest bare, looking around at the soldiers and the terrified mortician like he's just popped up as a surprise from a birthday cake.
"Oh, hi Mum!" he says, when he spies her at the doorway. His face, his beautiful face, puts on his pouty, thinky frown, as he calls it. "Are you all right? You look sad."
And her knees sort themselves out, and her heart beats again for the first time in hours, and yes, she hates Jack for everything he's done, but her arms are full of little boy, and old resentment doesn't matter, it doesn't matter at all.
***
The End
***