The Universe's Mixer

Ariel held the Directory book in her open palms, desperate. She was settled on a curbside, a shoulder pressed hard against the bottom pole of a pay phone that looked unused. Again and again her blue eyes searched the names and numbers. Each scan brought more panic and despair to her heart and mind. She was afraid. She felt so utterly and completely alone. And her heart felt like it had shattered into more pieces than she knew how to count to.

Her palm slipped from around the back page of the book, and a finger found the names again. He had to be here. He had to.

Her eyes scanned the names that appeared alphabetically, starting with the top of the list of new arrivals and ending with current residents. No ranger. Neither of the pair of brothers names showed or stood out to her.

That had to be wrong. But some how it wasn't. Some how it didn't feel wrong. Ariel knew that Faramir would have found her by now if he had come. He would have worried about her well-being, he would have been concerned for her safety in this new, strange world. And she had not heard a sound from him, no sight of him, no letters...nothing.

Her heart felt heavy. Too heavy.

Pulling her hand from the pages, Ariel lifted her fingers to her face, rubbing over her red, puffy eyes. She sniffled, a new wave of tears welling up and spilling over and coursing down her cheeks like a small river.

She snapped the book closed, setting it into her lap. The weight of it was absent though it felt far too heavy. The world around her didn't matter. If it had faded away she wouldn't have cared. This was what she had given her fin up for, her voice. A broken heart? It wasn't the ranger's fault, she didn't really know who to blame. But that didn't make it hurt any less. That didn't alleviate any of the pain.

Ariel pressed the book against the sidewalk next to where she was sitting. Gathering herself, Ariel sniffled again and lowered her hands from her face. Her lips frowned deeply as she rose, brushed off her skirt and began to travel down the empty sidewalk. Her pull to the sea was strong and it was stronger now. She would follow it indefinitely, until she found the comfort in the sight of the sand and waves, and then she would continue to walk. She would become one with the sea, become part of it and fade away into oblivion. That had to be better than the pain.

It had to be easier.

Jono woke up to white walls and the sensation of over cleanliness. It was not his room in the blue police call box named TARDIS. These weren't his worn sheets, these were starched white monstrosities of the sort that he'd hoped he'd never experience again.

When he bolted out of the bed, though, Jono realized that he was wearing his regular clothes, and not the hospital scrubs he'd gotten used to when he'd been staying in his old burn unit room. His stuff was sitting in a corner, too. Not just the sword he'd found on the beach on the island, but his guitar, his duffle bag. His phone was plugged into the wall.

Oh, thank fuck for that.

There was a tray with a meal sitting on it, which made him frown unhappily. Before he took a moment to try to figure out what the situation was, Jono opened the door and pushed the rolling tray into the hallway. He paused a moment and looked around, there was activity, people doing hospital things. People. Odd. Jono's eyes narrowed.

His stuff, that he hadn't seen since the transport to the dinosaur island, his phone plugged into a wall, his fucking GUITAR. Jono rifled through the bag, seeing black clothes that weren't faded, or dirty. He wished he could smell them.

Jono moved to the bed and found the call button. He pressed it and sat down to wait. It wasn't long before a nurse appeared, smiling.

"Oh, Mr Starsmore." She smiled. There was something off about her. "You're awake. Good. Well. Your stuff is right there. You can go anytime you like. We have your release papers all ready, just waiting for you to be. Or you can stay here. Whichever you would like. Did you not want your supper?"

He shook his head, would have frowned if he could. Before she could say anything more, he was up, gathering his things, unplugging his phone, and heading toward the door. The bag was heavy, in a pleasant way.

There was no hesitations in his steps. This was not the first time he'd ventured out into the unknown on his own. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know how he'd gotten here, but he hoped he would find Laura.

The girl he left in his kitchen was in pain. She suffered. She waited for him. The girl left in his kitchen was in pain. He was responsible for her. Erik drew his scattering thoughts back to Arie again and again. Above it all, she was a singular thread, iron and brutal and ugly, but nothing like the horrors left in the vacuum of Christine's absence.

His servants had relocated to basement storage the wheelchair that Hannibal once sent to his manor. On his way down to the storage room, Erik remembered to grab the phone. The doctor's number was still on speed dial - a courtesy and convenience built in for his servants (and his wife, his wife) when Erik was too ill to dial the number himself. When Hannibal's voice answered, Erik opened his mouth and said something - less than a handful of words. As soon as he dropped the handset on the last bit of furniture he passed, he forgot whatever it was he'd said. The door to the basement stairs closed behind him.

There were a few minutes lost to his memory. He could remember only the presence of old friends - the hand of rage on his shoulder, the breath of helplessness against the back of his neck, the claws of pain raking his chest. What had drawn him back? He looked at the handles of the wheelchair in both blood-speckled hands, knuckles stinging, then checked behind him. The basement door was destroyed, and the blood must have been his own.

A sound came to him, the siren bell, ringing. He walked with the wheelchair (the girl is hurting) to the door of his manor, straightening last night's rumpled shirt with one flattened hand. Hannibal. Yes, of course. Erik pressed the button that would allow the doctor entrance through the otherwise-inpenetrable security around his manor, then turned back toward the kitchen. Arie was waiting. She needed him.

The statue had been sitting in front of Sherwood Florist since the day that Jesse Custer had abused his powers to put a temporary end to the Clown Prince of Crime. It had moved when the shop had moved, always in the same spot. But when the City brought in all the new people, it decided that it didn't want Jack Napier outside of Dinah's shop anymore. It had erected Blackgate for creatures just like Jack. It would put him there, instead.

So it placed the figure directly in front of it, smack in the middle of a fountain. It didn't make the Joker spout any water himself, but there were decorative sprays that sprang up in patters around him.

Maybe people would throw coins into the fountain and make wishes.

The City would like that.

Bane knew this place.

Not because he'd ever been inside of it before, he hadn't. He knew it because of the people he had freed from it. From the time that he had spent studying the gates so that he could tear them down and release all of those inside, causing havoc and mayhem with which to bring down Gotham city. The interior was just as bleak as the exterior. It was cold, unforgiving.

But still a warm and inviting place when compared with the pit.

He didn't know how long he'd been inside. His cell held no windows. There was only thick concrete brick. A heavy metal door with a small barred window. He could see only the cell opposite of his own, and there had been no stirring of life from over there since he'd woken up. Not that he'd called out or anything. Mostly, Bane had been brooding and plotting how to get out.

There had been an attempt to break the door, which had resulted in bloody hands and strained muscles. He had planned to overtake the guard that brought his meals, but while he was awake, nobody appeared. Even after staying awake for 48 hours, there had been no life, no food. But the second he began to drift off to sleep, Bane heard the sound of a tray clattering gently against the floor.

He had been reluctant to take the mask off, to have that weakness, but he knew that he would be weaker still if he didn't eat the pathetic food they offered.

They. Who were they. What had they done to get him here? Where was here? Gotham? There certainly had been no prison on the ruined world, where he'd been staying in Sanctuary. And nobody there that he'd found who could take him down. Certainly Bruce Wayne had been no match.

Since then his days had been spent sitting on the cot, staring at the small barred window, running his mind over complex formulations to keep his thoughts sharp, or working his body to exhaustion.

Preparing.

Waiting.

The smells were sweet. Like home. And why shouldn't it? It was the day hideout that he'd established. The odd thing was that he was here and not in the castle. Eric had given up the apartment when the castle had appeared. There were more than enough hiding spaces within those walls to satisfy an entire nest of vampires. Or two, perhaps. They - him and Baba - had not explored every single nook and cranny.

He realized that he was tangled up with somebody, but it was a body distinctly not alive. There was a chill to the skin that he had not known in a long while. It wasn't Pam, the chest pressed against his arm was barren of her soft parts, and the form itself was entirely too long. The smells coming from it were familiar, and yet not. Eric opened his eyes to see who he slept with and spied... Eric.

"Oh." He sighed. He had hoped for his wife. Where was his wife? "You. How did you get here?"

The other Eric opened his eyes then, a much more difficult task for him, as it was mid-morning. "This is not my home." He said, body tensing.

"No. It is mine. One of mine."

"Where is Pam?"

"The Pams are not here."

"But we are in the City again."

"Yes. Of course."

"And your witch?"

"I have no idea. Alive, I can feel. Somewhere here. But unless I go look, or she walks in that door, I do not know the exact place."

"And we are?"

"Sleeping together, apparently."

"We're vain."

"News to you?"

"Not in the least. Stating facts out loud. For the fun of hearing my own voice."

"Shall we get up and figure out this mystery?"

"Can we have just a little while longer here?"

"I don't see why not."

He had been evacuating people from New Troy, making sure that the citizens were getting out, doing what Eric told him to do, staying behind to gather the strays and assuring those who were weak or injured wouldn't be left to the mercy of whatever was happening to the world. Aidan didn't mind, not really. He wanted to help. Of course he did. But he also wanted to find Dean and Evey. Make sure they were okay. The decision to stay and do his job had been a hard one, when all he'd wanted to do was run.

As the last people were being ushered out the gates, another big quake hit. Aidan remembered feeling the rumble of it under his feet before his brain knew what was happening. The world below him collapsed, and he fell. He fell and fell and there was nothing but black. He thought he'd lost consciousness for a while, he had no recollection of the end of the tremor, and the sensation of waking up. Above him was a great chasm, far away was night sky. He'd certainly hit his head, he could smell his own blood. He felt weak.

The sounds of others stirred him from his self focus, he'd called out to them and gotten moans of pain in return. Death entered his nose, a scent he was intimately familiar with. Aidan crawled toward the closest mutterings to try to calm and assess the injured. He found a man with his lower body crushed, a man who was not going to live. Nearby was another, a woman with a broken neck. Another, a woman with some kind of unseen internal damage, Aidan could see her belly swelling with the blood. And another, a kid who may have just barely turned fifteen, bleeding out quickly.

He tried to do what he could for all four of them. The youth went quickly. The woman with internal bleeding, not long after. But the other two lingered. He saw the pale glow of sun twice before they truly started to die. It was then that he realized that unless he helped himself, he would die as well.

It killed Aidan to do it, but he took the crushed man first. Draining him completely of blood, filling himself up. It wasn't much, but it gave him the strength to stand. He cradled the woman softly. He told her that he was sorry. She told him that it was alright, she knew he needed to live, to help others. She knew that she would not, and she wanted to do something good for the world. She told Aidan that he had taken care of her grandmother in the hospital, that he had been kind. If only for that, she owed him.

This made Aidan feel worse.

But he would not squander the gift.

When he was finished with her, Aidan laid her head softly on the ground, and closed her eyes. She looked oddly peaceful, as long as he didn't look at the angle of her neck.

He'd looked up, dreading what came next, but began the climb quickly.

By the time he reached the top, he was thankful he'd fed before beginning. He was worn out. The hole had gone deep into the earth. Miles. His arms felt numb and weak. His legs shook. He'd thrown himself over the edge and managed to crawl far enough away that he wouldn't fall back in, realized that he was laying on grass, and lost consciousness again.

Waking up now, Aidan felt the grass on his cheek, smelled it. The sun was bright and warm on his back. He still hurt from the climb, still felt weak. How long had he been laying out here? Raising his head a little bit, Aidan spotted a child staring at him, eating an ice cream cone.

Ice cream?

Grass?

Aidan rolled onto his back to look at the sky. Beautiful pale blue with white fluffy clouds. Trees surrounding him. The sounds of children happily playing. And... was that a goddamned kite? A dog yipped happily, Aidan's body tensed, thinking it was one of the wild dog packs, but a frisbee flew by over him and a golden retriever jumped him like a hurdle, tail wagging. None of the dogs had been that clean looking. Nor that willing to play.

"What... the... fuck..." he breathed out, wondering if he'd had too much blood. Usually when he was blood drunk, though, he was scarier to look at. And it was people he hallucinated, not places.

Michonne felt clean sheets. She smelled potpourri or an air freshener. She felt clean. She was wrapped in a soft night shirt. The pillow next to her smelled like a man she cared about deeply. She heard the sounds of children playing.

It was a dream, she was sure. The dream she'd had before. The one of the future. Only this time, she knew it was a dream. Sleep was fading from her, and she fought to stay. They were like cats, her and Dean. They fought, disagreed, but they seemed to always make up and find themselves curled around one another. She hadn't expected to like him at all. She certainly hadn't expected to find in him somebody she could confide in. Or be comfortable around. And she really really hadn't thought that she'd develop real feelings for him. All of which had happened. She remembered how sad she'd felt at the idea of that dream not becoming a reality.

The warrior realized that she was going to have to face the world eventually, and that it was better to get it out of the way. She was ready to open her eyes and look at the dingy walls of her small apartment. To spend the day hunting the creatures on the other side of the wall, to ready themselves to the move to a new place.

Reality did not want to replace the dream, though. Even with her eyes open, she was still in the fantasy. But the sound of children laughing was coming through the open window - open, a thing that would never happen in die Festung. The fresh sheets slid over her skin like a whisper. There were flowers by the bed.

The pillow smelled like Dean, but he was not there. Nor was there a spot of warmth, or a dent in the cotton.

Frowning, Michonne rose.

Oh, it was really just like the dream. Cleaner. Yes. Much cleaner. Sparse, like an apartment she would have had now, after everything she'd been through, but clean. There were actual matching dishes in the kitchen when she peered in, waiting in the draining rack as if she'd just done them. There was food - in packages in the fridge, a working fridge. Clothes in the closet, a mixture of things she would have worn in her old job, as a lawyer, and things that she would have chosen to fight in.

Her sword was there, too, though it was lovingly placed in a display where an ordinary person might have placed a television. There were shelves of books, and the second bedroom was converted into an office.

But no Dean.

Not even a trace of him outside the smell on her pillow.

Michonne returned to the bedroom and looked out the window. She saw a city out there, not one she knew, but it was bustling with life. Her heart ached. Was he out there somewhere? Looking for her?

Other questions plagued her as well, of course. How had she gotten here? Where was she? Where were all of the others? But Dean...

She returned to the kitchen briefly, scrounging around for a plastic bag. Sentiment was something Michonne had abandoned a long time ago, yet she couldn't help herself. With trash bag in hand, she went to the pillow. She breathed deep the smell of the man who she was unsure of seeing ever again before placing it within the plastic. Just in case. Just in case. She wanted this. To be there for her. Until she the smell dissipated from the fabric completely, she wanted it. Or until she found him.

Oh, she hoped she found him.

After tucking the wrapped pillow away in a closet, high on a shelf, Michonne dressed herself, grabbed her sword and headed outside.