It Was Summer...
by ALC Punk!

He wasn't where he was supposed to be. Intrinsically, he knew that. Knew it was the wrong time, the wrong dimension, the wrong space. But she wasn't supposed to be here, either. And he could feel her, screaming forever into nothing until the silent oblivion of death seemed like life.

The snow was cold, and should have crunched but he wasn't really there, and so it didn't.

Wind blew through where he would have been. It failed to ruffle the slowly-growing hair on his head.

None of them noticed him--not that they might have, anyway. Tarrant was half-unconscious, Vila was struggling with the fire and Avon was staring bleakly at Orac. Dayna stood to one side, her eyes distant, as if not realising where she was would help her to forget, to ignore the explosions that had shattered her world.

Their world. Not his.

He moved on, drifting ever closer to the now smoking and ruined hulk of the underground base. A cliche, really. Only the bad guys ever had underground lairs, Scorpius had preferred the cold. Stark had dealt with it.

It had been another shield against the madness of the Aurora Chair. Another piece to the unraveling tapestry of his mind under its constant assaults.

The bunker was now uninhabitable, yet he went in, drifting down the passage to where she lay. Her body was small, crumpled in a way normal bodies shouldn't. A testiment to the efficiency of the bombs that had destroyed this place. Stark wasn't a doctor, merely a Stykeara. He knelt in the rubble, ignoring the way his knee went through it. And touched her face.

Her screaming stopped.

"It's all right." Soothing, so gentle and careful. It occured to him that Crichton would have just left this woman, assuming her dead. Stark liked Crichton, but the human was sometimes so terribly short-sighted.

Barely, her voice came to him. "Who are you?"

"I'm Stark." He brushed a chestnut curl back from her forehead, ignoring the reddish streaks of blood and burnt patches of skin. "It's not going to be all right."

"...Know. Yes." There was a wry humour in her tone, and he wondered if she was really speaking, or if this came from elsewhere, the way Zhaan's voice sometimes did. "I thought you were supposed to lie. Tell me it all will be ok."

He shook his head and touched her forehead again. "I can't do that, you know. But I can help."

"I don't want to die."

"No one does, you know." Except for Zhaan. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering her utter calm and joy as the moment came to her. That lasting peace that she'd passed to him. And he had slowly ignored it, buried it because it hurt too much to believe she had left him alone, and been happy about it.

And he had gone searching for her.

Had it been because he wanted to get away from Aeryn? Her very real pain at the death of her beloved had been so like his--and she had been so like Zhaan, at times. It had almost hurt to see her with Crichton.

Or maybe it was Crais, or Talyn, or simply that he was sick of them all.

"I shouldn't have to die like this." But there was something in her voice that made him shift closer.

"What way should you die?"

"Bravely--for a cause. Not like this, lying shattered due to our own hubris."

"Your own, or someone else's?"

"It's not meant to be like this--Blake is supposed to win--we're supposed to--" She stopped, the bitterness in her tone seeming to startle her. "I... I knew this, once."

"Did you now," Stark stroked her head gently and sighed. "I have seen many deaths, none of them have been earned, or just. Even those I would gladly kill do not deserve it, in the end."

"Death is a great equaliser." Her head shifted away from him. "I knew that long ago. How did I forget it?"

"You had something to live for."

"Did I? Or was I merely fooling myself--were we all fooling ourselves that there was something better." She sighed. "I should be grateful if you would leave me to die as I should. Alone and bitter to the end."

"You're not alone." He found her hand, tried not to wince at the mishapen and distorted fingers. "I'm here."

"And it won't be all right." She turned her head to look at him one last time. The effort cost her more than she had thought it would. "I'm Cally. Will you sing my name to the stars?"

"They will hear you."

"Then I shall be content in that."

For a moment, the entire dimension paused, held itself, and then it released a breath. Stark's ephemeral hand closed Cally's sightless brown eyes, and he bowed his head. "Goodbye, Cally."

The resonant tones of his voice echoed outwards, and then he was gone, disappearing as dust continued to sift down gently from above, creating whorls and patterns on the small corpse it buried.

-finis-

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© 2004 ALC Punk!.