The IronMan Seven

Title: The Waters of Lethe
Author: vagablonde
Rating: Teen
Warnings: none
Word Count: 384
Summary: Evan Lorne had been strong, stronger than his previous host.
Author's Notes: An AU for the ironman7 challenge

( Prompt: everybody wants to rule the world )

Title: A New Beginning
Author: vagablonde
Rating: general audiences
Warnings: none
Word Count: 224
Summary: For the AU challenge....so very, very AU...
Author's Notes: Sorry - I couldn't resist - he'd look so good in tights...

Prompt: there's a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed/you were a vampire and baby I'm the walking dead


Lorne crouched on the rickety fire escape above the alley, blending easily with the shadows. He was still, so still several loud bar patrons walked within a few feet of him and never realized how close they were to instant fame as the latest victims of the night and the seedier side of the City. A college boy, too young for coked-out look staggered by - it was getting late, maybe tonight wouldn't be the night. Maybe tonight he'd go home empty-handed, unsatisfied. A young woman, maybe in her thirties, attractive, confident, keys in hand, strode by beneath him, only feet away, he could smell her expensive perfume.

In a flurry of motion he erupted from his hide, beside the woman before she could react. She turned, screamed and tried to run but was knocked off her feet as he collided with a dark shape in front of her. The struggle was brief, marked significantly only by how quickly it was over, the alley's other sentinel subdued and lying on the pavement. Lorne knelt, binding him with cuffs kept just for the purpose.

"Are you alright, ma'am," he asked, standing.

She nodded, too shocked to speak.

"Good. Phone the police. And don't walk around at night by yourself when there's a serial killer loose."

"Who - " she stuttered, "who are you??"

"I'm Batman."

Title: The Land Of Canaan

Author: vagablonde

Rating: Mature for self-multilation

Warnings: cutting

Word Count: 1123

Summary: Alone is much more than a place...

Author's Notes:

( Prompt #1 - The path that I have chosen now hasled me to a wall, and with each passing day I feel alittle more like something dear was lost. )

Title: A time to gain, a time to lose

Author: vagablonde

Rating: Teen for language

Warnings: character death, original characters

Word Count: 2828

Summary: There's no such thing as a simple mission...

Author's Notes: The initials FNG is a slang term for Fucking New Guy
Beta'd by drkcherry


( Prompt #2: The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath. )

Title: Home.
Author: vagablonde
Rating: Gen Audiences
Warnings: none
Word Count: 373
Summary: Set at the end of Season 3 -
Author's Notes: Prompt: 7. I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky. But why, why, why can't it be, why can't it be mine?



Even in the almost hermetically sealed environ of Atlantis’ labs, there was a layer of dust on everything.

Everything that hadn’t been moved or used in the last week or so had collected a faint layer of it. Lorne wiped down a large modular unit he had no idea the purpose of, refolded his scrap of rag, and realized it wasn’t worth the salvage effort. He pulled another from the standard 35-pound military issued bag - made from scraps of blankets, uniforms and bedding, laundered and bundled for reuse. The Daedalus brought them every six weeks. On an expedition a few million light years from home, in an Ancient city whose occupants were notoriously efficient, rags were always in short commodity.

The military contingent went about the task of packing coldly and prosaically; this ride was over, move on to the next one. All of them were used to being transferred in their careers, used to striking camp and setting up somewhere else on a moment's notice in the field. They were resigned to the move and the task. More than a few were veterans of Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan or Iraq and were just happy that no one was shooting at them while they did. They went about the task capably, keeping their regrets mostly to themselves as they folded and stacked, taped and boxed.

The labs were finally packed away, stowed and crated, ready for the return trip through the gate. Finished, the airmen and Marines were dismissed to their own personal quarters, to break down the components of the lives they'd brought with them and the ones they'd earned here, compartmentalizing the last three years and then pretend it was just another assignment, just another tour of duty.

Lorne sat on the edge of his bunk, thinking the door closed and stared at his two bags. He packed light, he always had. There wasn't all that much to remove from the ancient city, not much to say he was ever here. He lay down, closing his eyes and feeling the warmth of Atlantis seep into his skin, a subconscious hum, an unspoken, whispery caress somewhere at the back of his mind -

- and knew how empty Earth would forever be........

Title: Wednesday Morning
Author: vagablonde
Rating: teen
Warnings: none
Word Count: 271
Summary: First steps are the hardest
Author's Notes: Prompt: 4. Ain't it hard when you discover that, he wasn't really where it's at, after he took from you everything he could steal. How does it feel?


He packed carefully - he'd always been somewhat meticulous about his clothes. He folded them each a certain way, t-shirts efficiently reduced to exacting rectangles, underwear into smaller squares, socks matched and rolled together in pairs, pants a series of blue-denim and khaki-coloured rolls. Things wrinkled less that way - if he were careful, they didn't wrinkle at all. It was something he could control.

He rearranged the top layer so it lay more evenly.

"Will you at least say something??"

The words were harsh and angry; familiar. He folded the top of the bag inward, catching up the zipper. It rumbled through the heavy fabric as he closed the bag.

"If you're waiting for an apology, you're gonna have to be listening to me before you can hear it."

He was tired; suddenly, completely, tired. It was too far to the front door, too far down the hallway, too far to the door of the room. He wasn't going to make it.

He swallowed, picking up the bag. It wasn't much - but it was everything that was his. He breathed out, not realizing he'd been holding his breath. Trophies, pictures, his diploma, the car keys - all he had to trade to have them was his entire life.

He glanced at his watch.

The first step was the hardest. He made it, then another, just as hard. He was at the door.

"If you leave, you can't come back."

"I won't," he finally answered, his voice hard and rough from silence.

He pulled the door closed behind him, shutting off the multimillion dollar house and the perfectly manicured lawn.