awesome_lilly | (no subject)

(no subject)

As she steps through the door and into Duncan's bedroom, Lilly's looking around carefully. The room had appeared deserted when she looked through, but it didn't hurt to make sure. It's disturbingly unmessy, and a lot of Duncan's stuff is missing. Maybe he's gone on a trip. Maybe he's moved out. The thought makes her smile, a little, and then she takes another step in and the blood is trickling down her forehead again and the smile fades away.

She turns back to Alain.

"All clear."

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"She can go," Lilly says dismissively, moving through the door to stand outside the car.

"Veronica'd run the other direction if she saw her here."

She's looking around the gas station, now. It looks like it did in her dream, same signs, same graffiti... and the feeling that something's wrong is growing again. This is the place.

A nod, to Lilly, and he gets out of the car.

"This is it. Go on."

A small smile. Not a nice one.

"Long days and pleasant nights."

The car door shuts, and he turns away.

Celeste loses no time in restarting the car and driving away as fast as possible, her hands tightly clutching the steering wheel.

She never wants to see that man again.

Lilly doesn't even bother watching her drive off.

"I remember... the bus pulls in, and they all get off, and... Veronica can't get back on. I still don't know why, she just... she can't. Something will happen to her."

She's looking around, trying to think of a way to make this work.

"We just have to figure out a way to keep her behind without the teacher noticing."

"Will your teacher count that all are there? Or could she slip away unnoticed?"

"She could slip away, I think," Lilly says slowly. "But we'd need her to want to and I'm not sure how to do that."

She glances at him.

"I don't... I don't know if I can make her see me. It's harder, away... away from the house."

Alain frowns, thinking.

"If I beckoned to her, or some such, would she come, or stay well away?"

The roar of cars in the background gets louder; a motorcycle is approaching.

"You're a strange guy with a gun," Lilly says, "and she's a sheriff's daughter who might actually notice it. She'd stay well away from you-"

She breaks off as the motorcycle roars into the station and parks along the side. The rider takes off his helmet, and Lilly starts to smile.

"However, that guy? She'll talk to him."

His face lightens in answer.

"All right."

"What's for us to do, then?"

Lilly's staring thoughtfully at Weevil.

"If I could make him see me, that'd probably get him to stick around... we used to kinda date. But I can't, so..."

She watches as Weevil walks into the gas station.

"Okay, when he comes out, tell him you like his bike but it's a shame the exhaust pipe is crooked. That'll keep him here for a while."

Alain snorts.

And moves to study the bike with carefully faked familiarity. When Weevil reemerges, he does exactly that.

Weevil's indignant response makes Lilly smile. He always took so much pride in his bike. Alain moves away and Weevil bends to study the bike intently. He's still looking at it, buffing the chrome idly with his bandana, when the bus pulls in.

Lilly's instantly alert, motioning Alain back against the far wall. She watches almost hungrily as the students pile off the bus, Veronica one of the last. Her hair's longer again. Lilly approves. She sees Meg and a few other students she recognizes, but mostly she's just watching Veronica.

And then she realizes something and swears under her breath. Weevil's parked along the far side of the station, Veronica'll never see him. Alain's out of the way and Veronica's already pushing through the doors...

Lilly takes a deep breath and concentrates as hard as she possibly can.

"Veronica!"

Veronica's head turns, sharply.

"Lilly?" she breathes.

Lilly forces herself into visibility, head wound and fading be damned. She runs around the corner of the building, and Veronica follows.

Lilly has time to turn her head, watch Veronica notice Weevil, see the fight start. As she watches, though, her concentration's failing and she's fading, the noise of the world around her growing muted.

She knows Veronica can't see her anymore. She wonders if Alain can.

Veronica is with the motorcycle-boy, thoroughly distracted.

It'll have to do. Right now, that's not where his focus is.

He can barely see Lilly now; she's a shimmer in the air, like heat rising in a desert.

Low and urgent, "Lilly?"

Fuck, he thinks.

He can't touch her physically, but all the same he's reaching out with the touch, a formless call reinforcing his words.

He can only guess what's going on. Let alone how to help.

Lilly can hear Alain's voice, faint but growing more audible, feel him reaching out for her. It's a long moment or two before she can even think about pulling herself together enough to respond. For a second, she thinks she might not manage it.

Whatever else Lilly is, though, she's stubborn as hell. She's still very, very faint as she moves over to Alain, but more visible than a shimmer.

"s'ok, 'lain. I'm still here."

"Good."

The students who piled off the bus a few minutes ago are gathering again. Some of them are getting back on the bus; others are still grouped in scattered clumps, talking.

Alain lifts a hand, briefly, to Lilly's. He feels nothing, of course; just air. The thought is there, anyway.

Lilly's watching the bus now instead of the argument Veronica and Weevil are having. The bus pulls out, with no Veronica on board, but... the feeling that something's very wrong still hasn't gone way. She frowns.

"Something... something's still wrong. Not Veronica anymore though..."

Weevil circles around, tosses a helmet to Veronica. Lilly barely even notices her get on the bike.

"It's the bus. Oh god, something's wrong with the bus."

"The--"

The bus. Full of kids, and pulling out into the crowded road.

"Fuck."

His gaze snaps back to her. "Is there anything--?"

Alain knows next to nothing about cars. Not what would go wrong with them, and not how to fix it.

Lilly knows a little more, but it doesn't matter now. The bus is gone, back onto the coastal road. Veronica's gone too, speeding down the road on Weevil's bike. No one who can hear her, no one who can help.

She meets Alain's gaze, and her eyes are wide with fear.

"There's a shortcut over the hill to the road, but... the bus is so much faster, it's too late, whatever's going to happen will, oh god it's too late."

She's right.

He knows it too. A coldness in the pit of his stomach, an icy disquiet. It's too late.

Grim, "Let's go."

They can't not. He's certain, now -- but they can't not. Just in case.

It takes them agonizingly long moments to cut through down, up over the hill that over looks the coastal road. When they get there, though, Lilly wishes it had taken longer.

A broken guardrail is still smoking at the edge of the cliff, the limo parked haphazardly behind it. Duncan and Veronica are clinging to each other, standing in a group of other students, police, EMTs, all of them staring over the drop.

One girl is shrieking, "They're dead, they're all dead, they're all dead!" and as Lilly and Alain slip into the crowd they know she's right.

The view from the clifftop would be beautiful if it weren't for the broken pieces of the bus floating on top of the deep blue water. If it weren't for the dark shapes just underneath.

If they weren't all dead.

There is a sick, hollow feeling in his stomach.

They saved Veronica, yes. One person. But all the other innocents, O Discordia...

Time flies, knells call, he thinks. Life passes, so hear my prayer. The old, weighted words of the death-prayer, line by line, pass through his mind. They're in the Lady's white arms now, and that's a comfort.

He looks at Lilly. They were her friends.

Tries not to look at the blood that's still and always trickling down her dead forehead.

Lilly takes one step forward, closer to the edge, then another. The police are ushering people back but they can't see her, can't stop her.

She stands on the very edge now, looking down. Piece of the bus -a tire, fragments of metal painted that distinctive orange, a broken seat- are floating to the surface. She doesn't let herself blink.

This is what you didn't stop.

Lilly keeps looking until the first bodies break the surface. One of them has blonde hair, and if she could she'd throw up at the sight of it.

He's not invisible, and he doesn't need to see.

He's seen enough accidents, and enough massacres. He can imagine just fine.

They saved Veronica.

They still failed.

He's watching Lilly, instead. She's at the very edge of the cliff, precariously close to the empty air.

Maybe she needs to see this. All the same... she doesn't need to see this.

Low and compassionate, "Lilly."

If he gets strange looks for saying a dead girl's name to the empty air, so be it.

The people around Alain are too caught up in shock to really hear him, to notice the stranger in their midst, but Lilly knows this won't be the case for long. She takes a last look, still feeling sick, and then turns back to him.

Her face is set and expressionless, blood still dripping down her forehead. She looks just a little more dead than she did before.

"Let's find a door and... go."

"Aye."

Each man owes a death, the mental litany finishes. This is theirs.

He turns away from the cliff, following her.

Give them peace.

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