InsaneJournal

Promise. When you’re done, you’ll come home and you’ll marry me. Swear to me, Alma.
Who: Alma, Beth, Faiza and Elise
What: Alma receives a phone call, loses her shit, and then takes extreme measures
Where: Urdnot Ranch
When: 5/15
Status: complete
Rating: R for violence and memory wiping


Alma wasn’t feeling well. Not since Wrex had come back from helping deal with Orcs and things. She wished she’d thought to go along, but he’d asked her to stay at the ranch, should it need defending.

She was also somewhat concerned about Beth. She didn’t want to let her out of her sight, not if Cerberus was after her. It made her... angry. She’d been increasingly angry lately. She’d even gone so far as to question Scott about what he’d seen in the future.

She hadn’t told Beth about that yet.

It was like a filter had been taken off. She hugged her baby to her and tried her zen garden.

Beth was worried about Alma. Had been ever since Wrex had come back. She looked up from studying and noticed that Alma was gone. Walking around the ranch, she bit her lower lip. “Alma?”

Alma was moving rakes through her garden. One with her mind, and the other with her hands, and she had Elise tucked safely against her in a little baby hammock. She looked up, and gave Beth a tight smile. “Hello.”

“What’s wrong?” Beth wasn’t known for beating around the bush. “You’re upset.”

“I don’t, nothing’s wrong.” Alma ran her fingers through her hair. “I am not feeling good. If I am pregnant again this is your fault.” She managed a playful smile.

Biting her lower lip, Beth moved to sit by her wife. “I hope you’re not, sweetheart. I wanted to go next. But ... are you sure?” She stroked Alma’s cheek.

“I’m not...” She took Beth’s hand and nuzzled it. “I was teasing you. But I am a little under the weather. Are you okay?” Her eyes flashed. “No one else has followed you?”

Beth shook her head. “Not today, at least.” Bad joke, but that was how Beth dealt with stress.

She gave her a funny look, then kissed her hungrily. Pulling away she dislodged Elise from her body and held her out. “She wants her father. Faiza is coming for her checkup.”

That made Beth whimper in surprise and arousal, but then she took her daughter in hand. “C’mere, sweetheart. Your papa misses you while she studies, she does.” Smiling, Beth peppered Elise’s head with kisses.

Alma smiled, putting that image in a mental picture frame and storing it in her heart. There were so many pictures there now, that her heart was fit to bursting. There was always room for more. She heard Faiza come around the corner.

Her phone rang, and she answered it without really thinking about it. Her eyes turned red, and power rippled through the air, striking the cabin, and then Beth and Elise, and finally Faiza, blasting them away in a flurry of ash. The cabin exploded into wooden shrapnel.

The girl shrieked as she regained control of her senses, revulsion and anguish flooding her mind and making her stomach twist. She ran. She should have left, she shouldn't have been there, she should have left. Her heart ripped in half.

A hundred yards from the wreck of the cabin, Faiza lay with Beth and Elise in her arms. She had acted the second before the shockwave had hit them, taking them apart and putting them back together. Yet it had seemed like an eternity. She felt certain they'd been dead. She couldn't panic though. She couldn't let herself.

Beth hadn’t really realized what had happened. For a moment she’d been kissing Elise’s little toes, listening to her laugh, then suddenly Alma was running and the world seemed to be pain and light and fury.

When she looked up at Faiza, they were far from the cabin. “What - “

Faiza ran her hand over Beth’s face, then inspected the baby. “I don’t know, duck, but something is really wrong with Alma.”

Beth stood up. “Watch Elise.” She ran toward Alma. “Alma!”

“Don’t do something stupid!” Faiza cradled Elise, trying to get back to her feet.

Alma had made it to the treeline by now, moving away from the cabin a few hundred feet behind her, and away from the ranch house two miles farther in. She caught herself in a branch, feeling a shade of deja vu...only there’d be no one to come get her this time. She curled into a ball and cried. She had nothing to live for now. She was a monster, she’d been right all along.

She started to give in.

“Alma, come home!” Beth was still running, faster than most people thought she was. She was sobbing, but she was thinking as loudly as she could. Please, come back to us. We can’t do this alone, Pretty.

The telepath sat up, sharply, looking in the direction of the voice. She hesitated to reach out. Her hands were shaking, her body was shaking, but if she did anything, then she might kill Beth. She didn't know how the girl survived, but she was so glad she had. She stepped out from behind a tree, and made the ground explode in front of Beth. "Stay away!"

Alma's eyes were glowing orange and there were leaves in her hair. Her voice sounded older, and her skin was paler. "Please! Stay away!"

I love you. Don’t go. Please. Beth covered her mouth with her hands, taking a step back. “I don’t want to live without you, Alma.”

"You have to. I don't know how you're even alive." And she didn't see Elise. Oh god Elise. She backed away from Beth, shaking her head. "Let me go. Let me go. You made me think I wasn't a monster and you've been lying all along!"

“Faiza fixed her, Elise is fine.” Beth held her hands up. “Stop, Pretty, you’re not a monster and who was on the phone?” What did this? It wasn’t you.

"A man's voice..." She rubbed at her face again. She was shaking. She could feel herself get angry again. She would find this man and rip him apart, after making him understand the true meaning of fear. The expression on her face was one of wanting vengeance.

“Who?” Beth took a step forward. “Let me help you, Faiza has Elise, please.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She held a hand out and floated Beth into the air. “Please, Beth, please. I cannot live if I hurt you again. I have to go away.” She didn’t deserve any of them. Not Elise, not Beth, not Wrex or Roy.

“You have to come back to me. Promise. When you’re done, you’ll come home and you’ll marry me. Swear to me, Alma.” Beth felt angry, hot tears of rage for whoever had upset her girl. “You’re all I have, Alma.”

"I promise," Alma said, but she didn't trust herself to come any closer, and she didn't trust herself to truly believe those words. "I love you Beth. But I'm not all you have. You have Wrex, and you have Elise. You have to protect both of them. You have to. Even from me."

She planted a suggestion in Beth's mind. A phrase, a series of words that would distract Alma enough to end her, if it came to that.

Beth burst into tears again. “I will, but I want you too.” She couldn’t help but feel like maybe if she’d loved Alma more, this wouldn’t have happened.

Alma pulled Beth close. She wrapped her arms around her, hugging her tightly. "I love you so much. I promise you, I'll only ever love you."

She stepped back, and she dove into Beth's mind. She found the memories of herself, and their time together, and she took them away, locking them in a place in Beth's mind where they'd be safe, but unreachable. She found Wrex's mind, and Faiza's, Scott and Shepard's and Roy's. She didn't dare try Thor or some others, and she was too distraught to think of Kasumi.

To them, Alma Wade had never come into their lives. Wrex had taken Beth and her baby into his home, and that was that. She stepped back, trailing her fingers along Beth's face, wiping away her tears. "But you have to forget how much you love me."

She backed into the forest, and ran.