Claudia Donovan (knocknockclauds) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2012-12-16 01:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | claudia donovan |
Claudia Donovan [Narrative]
Early hours Sunday, December 16, 2012; Streets of Lawrence
Re-arriving.
PG-13 (violence, angst, also WH13 s4 mid-season finale
spoilers?)/Complete
One minute she was in Lawrence and the next, she was just gone. She didn't even have time to process anything until she looked around at the scene around her. She was back home, in the hangar. Back in the moment that her life had started falling apart. This was the last thing she wanted. Claudia wanted to be in Lawrence. She didn't want to face what was here. Losing Jinks, H.G., the Warehouse.... It was something she knew, but she didn't want to have to go back and live. In Lawrence, she had them. She didn't have Artie and Pete had been sent home recently along with Myka, but she'd come back just before all this. There was also the fact that the Warehouse wasn't there but that was only because it didn't exist there and-- She wanted to go back. She was internally begging the Seal to take her back, but she couldn't say anything, not here, not now. They'd think she'd really lost it. So, she had to play like everything was normal. The sinking feeling of loss was already starting to creep into the back of her mind as she finally really took the scene around her in. She was breaking all over again.
And then she slowly sank back into life as it was back home, no Apocalypse, no demons or Lucifer or Horsemen, no being fictional. Just living her normal, non-Seal-related life. Her memories of Lawrence even began to get a little fuzzy as time went on. Life, in general, became a huge blur as it went by, everything was happening so fast. Bringing Steve back with the metronome, learning about the connection it had created between the two of them, Artie's mood swings and bizarre behavior, the issues with Brother Adrian. So many things had happened, all leading up to where she was now.
Artie had used Magalen's Astrolabe, turned back time to save a world without hope, and as a result of the artifact, an evil of his own making was created. He'd been convinced it was residing within Claudia, but things had finally pieced together and now the other Warehouse Agents could see that the evil was within Artie himself. The leads they'd received from Artie about Adrien had been wrong all along, fabrications of his own doing. The form of Adrien that Artie had always spoken to was nothing more than a hallucination of a broken man's steadily breaking mind. He had even killed a member of their family-like team in the process.
And that brought her to this exact moment.
Claudia stumbled up the stairs after him, determined to stop him from setting the Blue Orchid containing the sweating sickness free. "Artie, don't!" was all it took to get his attention. "You'll kill millions of people! It's not too late. I know you're still in there, I know you can hear me!"
A beat. And another. A fraction of hope that maybe the real Artie had registered her words. "I know what I'm doing." The man that looked like him, but was really nothing like, Artie spat at her. "Saving Artie from all of you." A dark, twisted sort of chuckle rushed past his lips. "And you....you're the worst of them. You're an insolent, annoying child who will never be a woman, who only wants everybody to love her. Here's the truth: Artie doesn't love you. He doesn't love any of you. You've ruined his life."
The others, having succesfully fought off the family that Artie had set against them, finally arrived back on the scene just in time to watch as Artie raised the dagger, calling out, "I cast you out!" and stabbed the container the Orchid was in, releasing it. A wave of energy rushed out, causing the dagger to fly out of Artie's hand. Claudia's eyes landed on it and with the smallest moment of hesitation, she grabbed it, realizing that there was no other way. The real Artie...he wanted her to do this, to save him. Hands clasped around the dagger, she raised it above her head and, much in a similar fashion as he had done moment ago with the Orchid's container, she rushed at him, "I cast you out!" she shouted as she stabbed him in the chest, releasing the evil that had found its way into him.
And as the tears were starting to roll down her cheeks, Claudia felt a familiar sensation and she knew it was happening again. She was sucked from her world and thrown back onto the streets of Lawrence. There was a sense of relief as she realized where she was, but she was still reeling from everything she had just come from. She had to stop and think. She needed to get to a computer and get someone to take her back to her home here, to what she had dubbed 'house Warehouse' in her time here before.