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girlsoloKate brings Will dinner in bed. It's just a different bed than the one she expected to find him in. He's not a lizard, but there's a negligee (not Abby's) and a sloth. Kate's a little confused and a lot emotional. Will's just glad to see her.
Magnus will fix this, Kate tells herself. Magnus can do it. Even if it’s been days and everything she tries has no effect. Even if she’s starting to shove everyone away, even Biggie. Even if Kate’s already seeing echoes of the Magnus who lost Ashley every time she’s close enough to look in her eyes, and she’s not sure whether to stay away so she doesn’t remember that’s partly Kate’s fault or sit with her and make her eat and take care of herself and try to talk to her like Will would. Even though Kate has no idea how to do this, Magnus does and she’ll fix it.
These are lies Kate tells herself today while her feet move slower and slower over the carpet in the hall to Will’s room. She doesn’t lie to herself as much as she used to, and she’s out of practice or something, because she’s having a hard time believing them. The ravioli on the tray of food she’s bringing smells like crap and its making her sick to her stomach, but that’s probably because Biggie made it because all of them love it: Will, Magnus, Henry, her, even Declan. It’s making her sick because its one more thing that’s going to be all wrong when Magnus can’t pull this one out of the hat and Will’s gone.
Kate has to stop, she can’t... she can’t do this. How is she going to do this? She knows how to bag and tag more redlist Abnormals than most of the Sanctuary’s ever heard of but she can’t bring Will his food, sit with him and watch him eat, and know he’s going to die a lizard-plant thing. She can’t.
When she leans against the wall to catch her breath and tell herself the lie she can, her image reflects off the glass of a painting on the wall. Who the fuck is this girl, clutching a tray of food like a shield, hair a hot mess and looking like she’ll shatter if you tap her wrong? This isn’t her. This isn’t Kate Freelander, the name that sends half the Abnormal underground packing to skip town and the other half loading for bear. Whoever this is, it’s not someone she knows how to be and it’s sure as fuck not who Will needs to see.
That much, Kate knows. If this is hard on her and Hank and the doc and the Big Guy, it’s gotta be ten times as hard on Will. He’ll be worrying about them under that lizard skin, worrying about Magnus, and trying not to think about this going wrong. He’ll be needing to believe in Magnus, which means Kate has to believe her lies and give him reasons to. She can do this. She’s the best damn con in the business.
Her chin comes up, her eyes clear, her grip on the tray loosens, and she finds space in her lungs for air. “Come on, Freelander,” she urges herself and then tries out, “What’s a few scales compared to walking on ceilings? That’s seriously cool. Just think how much easier that’s going to make retrieving cliff-dwelling Halifaxian eggs before they hatch.” Better.
She starts walking again, makes her steps purposeful and puts a little swing in her hips. She can do this. Magnus can do this. Will’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. And when she opens the door, smile in her eyes, she believes it.
...what the fuck?
Maybe she believed it a little too hard? Or she just got whammied?
Why is Will asleep in a bed she doesn’t recognize with some tiny furry thing on his chest and what has to be Magnus’s super-expensive black negligee hanging off the post on the other side of the bed? Abby would never own something like that. She couldn’t afford it and she can’t be stupid enough to think she could pull it off if she did. That’s Magnus, straight up the middle.
It’s a joke. Will’s fine. Magnus cured him and no one told her and now they’re playing a joke on her. Right?
“This is really sick, guys. Even for you. I’m not laughing.” Also, the tray in her fingers isn’t shaking. It isn’t shaking at all.
Since Roy was still tiny and needing to be fed round the clock, Will was spending a lot of time looking after him. He was getting pretty attached to the little guy, with his little smiling face and slow movements. He'd never seen a more placid and mellow creature, and he enjoyed taking care of him. Right now they were having a nap. Well, Roy had naps pretty much all the time when he wasn't eating, but this time Will was napping with him, with the little guy curled up on his chest and his claws hooked in Will's shirt.
Will was just dozing off when he heard a voice. A loud, very unexpected but very familiar voice, and he woke up instantly. "Kate?" he said, rubbing his eyes, and holy crap it was her, standing there with a tray of food and looking totally flabbergasted. She'd definitely just shown up here seconds ago. "Wow, it really is you."
"Will." Kate can't...she just can't... "You're okay?" she asks and her voice is shaking too. It should matter that everything is confused and Will has Magnus's nightgown and some weird Abnormal clinging to his shirt, but the only thing she can think right now is no scales.
Her fingers clutch tighter on the tray, because she's not going to drop it. Scraping ravioli off the floor's going to take a fuckton longer than eggs and bacon and... she blinks. "What do you mean it really is me? Of course it's me."
"It's complicated," Will said, carefully sitting up so he didn't disturb Roy too much. Roy's claws curled tighter in Will's shirt but he otherwise didn't move. "What's the last thing that happened before you saw this?" Will thought it would be easier to explain what's going on if he had a frame of reference for where she was coming from. Probably the future, some time, like Tesla, because she looked just a little different than he remembered her, but he knew he should probably make sure because with Kate, it was best to avoid assumptions.
"Damn right it's complicated," Kate snarls, and spins back the way she came. When she finds Hank and Magnus she's going to tear a few strips off peoples' hides. This isn't funny. Not with the way everything's been going. Just as soon as she--
Runs into a wall. Because the door isn't where she left it. And now her heart's pounding and her fingers are slipping on the tray.
"C'mon, Will. Just...everyone, stop screwing around, okay?" Her voice is loud, loud enough for Biggie and Hank and whoever's listening to hear she's giving in; fine, they got her. But no one's jumping out with smiles and gotchas and when she turns again, she can feel her eyes getting shiny, so she bites the inside of her cheek to stop it. All she's wanted since this started was to hear his voice sound normal again, and now he's fucking with her and she doesn't know why.
Will got up and crossed over to her, with Roy still clinging to his shirt--though Will didn't get too close, because making Kate feel cornered was probably not a good idea. She looked almost... panicky, which wasn't something he was used to seeing on her, and it made him worry. He remembered feeling pretty damn panicky himself when he got here, and he'd at least had Magnus to wtf at. Showing up alone was worse.
"Nobody's screwing around with you," he said quietly. "I know it's kind of freaky, and it's going to sound even crazier when I explain everything, but trust me when I say I'm not screwing around with you, okay?"
Kate searches Will's face while she tries to stop freaking the fuck out. She nods once, teeth grabbing at the inside of her bottom lip now, because when it comes right down to it, Will's a shitty liar. There's no way he could pull something like this off more than a minute, and even though he's got some freaky-ass Abnormal clinging to his shirt, he wouldn't. Will just wouldn't screw around with her when...
Her eyes tear up and there aren't enough bitten lips or tongues or stomped on toes in the universe to stop that shit, especially with her will going to not dropping the tray again.
"Okay." She looks around and finds a place to set the tray then comes right back over to him, already reaching for him when she manages, "Can I just... you were... I need to know you're okay first even if this is some other kind of effed-up crazy, I have to..."
That was even more surprising, that tearing up and practically asking for a hug--Kate, being emotional--and he hugged her because she was clearly worried about him as much as she was worried about what the hell was going on. He was careful about it though, not wanting to squish Roy between them or scare him into suddenly biting her or something. "I'm okay, I promise," he told her. "One hundred percent, a-okay."
Even though part of her wants to shove him back, she can't. She just...six months ago, she'd have given him the bullshit don't get mushy on me line, but she's seen him almost die too many times now. She has to breathe through her mouth to keep from crying as it is, and that's just stupid because she doesn't cry.
It takes a minute, her forehead tipped against his chest before she can take a step back again. When she does though, she grabs each hand and turns it over and over, looking for any signs of the lizard-plant scale-things. Then she grabs his chin and turns it into the light and away.
Nothing. So fine. He's not dying from that. Her gaze narrows and she pokes him in the shoulder. "Just because I'm glad you're not dying doesn't mean you're getting off the hook. What the hell is going on, and--" She tips her chin at the furry thing. "Does it have anything to do with that...whatever it is?"
Will let Kate manhandle him for a bit, because she seemed to need to do it, grabbing his hands and his face and giving him a good look over, and he wondered what in the hell could make her so worried for him (but then he remembered, Sanctuary, weird shit happens all the time). "Of course I'm not dying," he said, when she seemed satisfied he was the way he was supposed to be. "And this little guy is a sloth. I found him the other day, he's an orphan and Magnus and I are sort of raising him. He doesn't really have anything to do with this other than the fact that sloths live in the tropics and this... is a tropical island."
There's a lot of information in there, but Kate's used to it. Sanctuary briefings are like direct downloads of Encyclopedia Abnormalia sometimes. The problem is, she has no idea where to start. Ten minutes ago, Will was dying. Now he's telling her she's on a tropical island and he's raising a sloth with Magnus, which... she's just not even going to go there.
She tugs at her bracelets and tries to think like Will. It's not working so well for her, because how the fuck is she supposed to know if this is some kind of weird projection from an Abnormal, or she hit her head, or it's a dream, or the Praxians are involved... or even when it started? Off the top of her head, she can think of two dozen redlist Abnormals that could trigger something like this and then there's the good old, American as apple pie psychotic fucking break.
"Am I dying? Because if you're supposed to be some kind of spirit guide, you seriously suck at it."
Will grinned, because there was the snarky Kate he knew and was beginning to love. "I'm a shrink, not a spirit guide," he said, in a frowny imitation of the doctor from Star Trek, and hugged her shoulders again. He still wondered why she would think he was dying, but he'd find that out in a little while, after he explained what was happening here. "No, you're not dying. This is..." he sighed and shook his head. "Okay, I know it's going to sound a little nuts, but hear me out. This island... it's some kind of weird bubble thing in time. And people just get stuck here. Magnus and I have been here for a little more than a year. And Tesla..." Will rolled his eyes a little. "He's been here a few weeks."
That was another thing Will wanted to ask about, and he would, in a minute--did Magnus get cured? Did she know? Meanwhile Roy woke up and yawned and studied Kate with wide black eyes.
"A little nuts?" Kate studies Will with eyes as black as the little sloth's and much more suspicious. "Come on, Will. Give me more credit than that. I buy something weird's going on. I mean, obviously--" She glances back for the door that's not there any more and cocks her head at him. "Because all the bad jokes in the world doesn't make this Star Trek and we don't have transporters."
Shaking him off, she takes a few steps around the room, looking at what's here and ignoring the hell out of the negligee and the "Magnus and I" from before, because if her subconscious mind's trying to tell her Will has a crush on Magnus, it's not like that's news. "Think about it. What would you tell me if I came to you with this story? You'd say I was crazy or high or something. And, you know, that's me, not you, so fine, I get that, and I want to trust you, but how do I know I'm even awake and not under the influence of a Hymerian Flaxworm or Tellorgreen Beetles? You're the guy with the brains and the freaky eyeballs. What should I be looking for? What should I be asking you?"
Either it's real or he's some kind of projection from her mind or someone else's. Either way, he's the only link she's got with out there so she's got to treat him like he's real. Sloth or no sloth.
"I might say you're crazy or high or something," Will allowed. "Hell, I thought I was crazy or high or something when I showed up here on the other side of the island in the middle of a monsoon." He almost said where the dinosaurs are but he wasn't sure if that was the best thing to say to Kate. "But I promise you, this is a real thing, and you're not crazy or high or under the influence of some redlist Abnormal. This is some kind of crazy--and the real kicker is? I've been here for over a year and during that time you guys probably haven't even missed me or Magnus because we haven't been gone, to you. We've been there doing... whatever it is we've been doing that makes you think I'm about to die, when I've been here ever since Magnus and I went after that vampire squid in the Gulf a year ago."
Kate takes a step back, and another, shaking her head. "It can't be. You can't. That was--" She tries to remember when it was Ashley's birthday last. How long it's been since then. More than a year, she knows that. "Holy crap, that was before everything." Somehow that's the worst part, that this isn't even her Will. If he and Magnus are here, wherever here is, and now she's here, and Tesla's here, even if it's some kind of dream or projection thing, they can figure it out. That's what they do, and maybe he and Magnus just needed a few more pieces. Hell, maybe she just doesn't remember but she and Hank and Biggie and Declan figured it out and sent her in and if she just concentrates enough, she'll remember what she's supposed to tell them.
But...if he doesn't even know about her dad, about Jimmy, about Kali and how she told him he couldn't die, or how she didn't steal any money from the bank they held up...if he doesn't know any of those things, he doesn't know her and he won't even believe her if she does remember whatever she's supposed to know. And if...if it's all true, then... no, no no no. It's not true. "All right, then we'll just have to find our way out of here. We can do that. We've done it before." Sort of. Will wasn't in Praxis.
This was the part Will hated the most. It was kind of a stages of grief thing, dealing with this island. Stage one he would call the "what the hell is going on here?" stage, followed by the "you got to be kidding me" stage, and the "okay, well, we'll find a way out of here" stage, and then the "I guess we're stuck here for good" stage. And the place between those last two was the nastiest. He had a feeling that it would be even nastier for Kate, who didn't like being tied down anywhere.
"Well," he began, a little reluctantly, "people have been trying to figure that out for... almost six years? And it hasn't worked. They've tried to sail away, fly away, use a space station to get away... and nothing."
Kate could have her fingers in her ears and be singing "la la la I can't hear you" for as much attention as she's paying to that right now. "Since when are you the defeatist? You're the guy who won't let me give up, remember?" She presses her lips together and rolls her eyes. "Pfft, whatever. First of all, they could totally be lying. Second, you didn't have me before. Getting out of tight spots is my specialty, remember?"
Will's alive, Magnus is alive, Tesla's here. They can do this. It might just take a little longer without Hank and Biggie and Declan. Which means they should eat while they have a chance. "Come on." Kate shoves him in the shoulder. "If you've been here a year, you're probably going into withdrawal for Biggie's cooking. Where's Magnus? We should share with her too."
"Biggie's cooking?" Something on that tray smelled good, but Will hadn't realized she brought some of Biggie's cooking along with her. "Well, we can't let that go to waste. Magnus is... probably at her office, but I'm not sure." Roy slowly craned his neck around to look at Kate and loosened one claw from Will's shirt to reach in her direction. "Magnus is really going to be happy to see you, trust me." Will was definitely glad to see her, although he had a feeling she was really going to hate the island before long.
"Not a chance, little guy," Kate tells the sloth-thing when it starts reaching for her. It's kinda cute but she's not getting attached. They're not staying, no matter what Will thinks. And if Magnus drank whatever Kool-Aid Will's been dipping into that he's napping while Magnus is at the office, then she'll find Tesla and yank him around by his balls until he helps her help them.
She looks up at Will and pastes on a grin, not a bad one for as weird as this all is, but he'll probably see through it. He always does. Her Will does anyway. Did he used to? Kate can't remember. "So, we eat while you fill me in--" They'll save some for her. "And then we'll go find her and the human magnet and tell 'em the good news."
Will dragged over a couple of chairs so they could sit down to eat. "Ohh, ravioli," he said, and Roy's nose twitched as he sniffed. "Not for you, little guy," he added, in case the sloth got any ideas. Roy was still a baby, a little one at that, and his diet was all milk. "So you want to tell me where you were going with this food tray?" He wanted to fill Kate in on the rest of it, but her dying comment earlier still picked at his brain.
"No." She doesn't want to think about it, because if half of what he says is true, then her Will is probably still dying and... yeah, just no. Instead, she sits like this is the most normal thing in their world and she wasn't bringing him what might've been his last meal as a human and she didn't just have some kind of aneurysm or get transported in time in space. But now he's asked and she can't stop seeing him and hearing him and...
Kate sighs and just gives him a look, it's almost pleading for a heartbeat before she points the fork at the negligee. Anything's better than talking about him dying, even though the Will she knows is never going to let her get away with it. "You want to tell me why Magnus's negligee is hanging off your bedpost?"
Will caught that look but he didn't have much time to analyze it because Kate asked that question and he nearly choked on a bite. "Well," he said, glancing from Kate to the black lace and back to Kate again. "We kind of have a thing. A relationship thing." He wasn't sure why he couldn't just come out and say Magnus is my girlfriend because he said it all the time to people on the island, but somehow it was different with Kate because it was basically saying The boss is my girlfriend, and whoa.
Kate says, "No shit, Sherlock," dripping with sarcasm, like she can't even be assed to come up with something more original, but something tightens in her chest. If she starts poking at it, she's not going to like the labels she comes up with and she knows she won't like the ones her shrink-BFF would come up with, so she ignores it, dumps the bread on the tray and spoons some ravioli onto its plate with one piece of bread and some butter, then smirks at him, sly. "For Magnus. Wouldn't want you getting couched or anything."
"What do you want me to say?" he asked. He wasn't sure what kind of reaction he expected from Kate, but that wasn't quite it. "I was just answering your question, I didn't think you wanted details or anything." He shifts uncomfortably in the chair and Roy clings to him a little tighter.
"Sorry," Kate says softly, not looking at him. She didn't really mean to be such a bitch about it. "If you're happy, that's good. You both deserve it, and I know you're kind of crazy about her." It's not that she's jealous, like wanted Will for herself or anything. It's just...one more reason she has to figure this all out and get home.
Will winced a little when she looked away and he thought about what Magnus said about that future thing she'd experienced. What if... he didn't think that future was something that really happened, but more something that was supposed to warn Magnus off taking that elixir, but still. He had to know. "Kate," he said quietly. "I really need you to tell me what you were doing before you got here." He couldn't just ask hey, are we a thing when you come from? Because how do you even ask something like that?
Of course he does, because if there's one thing Will can't do, it's ignore someone else's problems. Maybe she should be glad that hasn't changed, but she's mostly wishing she hadn't so she could just tell him to fuck off and light out of here before the door can shut behind her. If he knows her at all, he'll be seeing that however he does, and that's another thing she wishes right now, is that she knew what her tells were when it came to him so she could hide them.
Kate runs her finger over her cuff again, tosses her chin up, almost defiant, and says, "Bringing you dinner." The rest, well, his freaky brain can help her out and do some of the work. Once it does, she can fill in whatever he needs to know. She just can't say that part without knowing he didn't. Die.
Will watched all this with maybe not quite as much detatchment as he might have if it was anybody else. "Bringing me dinner," he repeats. Bringing him dinner because she thought he was dying? Roy made a little squeaky noise and Will scratched the sloth's back absentmindedly while he thought about this. "Because I was... " He didn't finish it.
"Okay." He figured that was as good as he was going to get from Kate. But it still didn't explain why she bit his head off so much about Magnus just now. "Was there... you know... anything else going on?"
"Like what, Will?" Kate has to bite back the rising snarl. "Like Magnus working herself to death trying to figure out how to stop you from Kafkaing into some thing you've never heard of from a place you've never been while Hank tries to contact a bunch of xenophobic bastards for help and I bring you the dinner Biggie cooked because other than feed the Abnormals and run retrievals and fob off your girlfriend there's not a damned thing I can do? Anything like that?" Okay, so maybe she didn't do the best job at not snarling.
"I'm sorry," Will said. He could only make sense out of about half of that, but Kate sounded like she was about to snap and he didn't want that, so he didn't ask anything more about it. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize, I just..." He shook his head. "You just know so much I don't know, stuff that hasn't happened yet for me. It's hard not to ask." He wanted to ask about Magnus, too, and find out if her radiation poisoning is cured, but maybe Kate didn't know anything more about that than Tesla does and he didn't want her to get any more upset than she already was.
Kate pushes the fork across the space at him. The ravioli's making her sick to her stomach again, or maybe it's just...she really wants to be alone right now. Really wants to run. Run away from the questions in his eyes and the fear, the sick sick sick fear that maybe he's telling the truth and she's never going to see home and Biggie and Hank and Declan and her Will and Magnus again. The old Kate Freelander would be gone already; the one he thinks he's talking to. The new one can only look at him and then look away so he doesn't have to see how much it hurts. He's still Will and she still has to protect him, even if he doesn't know that she'd throw herself in front of anything for him.
"It's fine, Will. Ask what you need to know. I'll be fine." She sounds like ash blowing off half-charred bone, but she's fine. It's what she does.
"It can wait," he said quietly, because there was just too much in her face for him to ask her anything else. Too much in her face, too much in the way she avoided his eyes--it wasn't the Kate he knew when he left, but a new Kate, a Kate who was uncomfortable with all this and didn't know how to handle it. He almost said we have plenty of time to talk later but he knew that was something she didn't want to hear, either. "Just tell me if Magnus is okay? The radiation sickness... Tesla said she was dying."
At least she can do this much for him, this one thing. She tips her chin back his way, lashes wet but cheeks dry. "She's fine, Will. You stood Ranna down and told her we wouldn't help them if she didn't help Magnus." No need to tell him that Ranna had planned to help anyway. He needs to know she's okay and that he wasn't powerless to help her, and Kate gets that. Right about now, she gets that better than anyone. And that's why she can't sit here anymore. "The people from Hollow Earth, they cured her. I'm sure they're going to help her cure you too."
She stands up, gaze scanning frantically for the door she hasn't actually found yet, which says a lot about how much she trusts him. Kate Freelander always knows where the doors are. "I need... just... I can't do this right now."
Will wasn't sure what to say then, but he did know what to do--or what he wanted to do, at least. Whether Kate would be willing to let him do it was another story, but he wasn't really thinking about that. He carefully removed Roy from his shirt, putting him in his towel-lined box, and pulled Kate into a hug. "Come here," he said, and even though there was a chance she might punch him, he had to do it, because he thought she needed it and because he knew he needed it. He had missed her. A lot. And he hadn't realized how much until she was there.
"Don't," Kate snarls at him when he reaches for her, but he's got longer arms and she doesn't have anywhere to go and she's not going to hit him. it's Will. And even if he doesn't know anything, she needs him. "Don't." But this time it's nothing more than a whisper, because she can't make sound around the lump in her throat or the tightness in her chest. Half an hour ago she was losing him forever, and whatever fucked-up headtrip this is, even if it's all a lie, he's alive right now and maybe the reason she's here is to have a chance to let him know, for real, no bullshit, that he's as much her family as Thad.
So don't becomes "don't let go" instead, and even ifr she's not saying it out loud, her hands are fisted in his shirt, and she's just trying not to lose it and cry all over him.
He felt her fingers gripping his shirt even as she told him don't, and it was that kind of pushing away and pulling close at the same time. Will recognized it, felt it loud and clear. "I won't," he said, and hugged her a little tighter. "I missed you, Kate." Yeah, it was mushy as hell, but he hadn't seen her in over a year and it was so good to see her again, even if it was because she was here and not because he and Magnus had gone home.
"You don't even know me," Kate whispers and its the closest thing to pure truth she's ever told him, this him anyway, because she can't keep the emotion out of her voice, can't keep the fear out of it, but she can't let go anyway. Her Will would tell her it's not just this situation, it's everything they've been through together and how they never take time to deal with any of it, how she doesn't, anyway, and she'd tell him to stow the shrink crap and come get a beer, and he'd make that face and she'd say something just mushy and honest enough to get her off the hook and he'd smile and they'd call it a day.
"Doesn't matter," he said. And it didn't matter, because even though he didn't know her that well when he left the Sanctuary, he could tell by the way she looked at him, the way she was so damn worried and scared, that he'd gotten to know her and she'd gotten to know him and they were family now. The Sanctuary was the only family Will had ever really had. And Kate, apparently, was part of that now.
"Yeah, Will. It kind of does." It's a little more solid and a little harsher. She's not trying to be a bitch, but she can't let him rip her apart like this. "Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me. You and Magnus... " She shakes her head. "It's just different now. I'm different now." There's so much. "And so are you. You're sleeping with Magnus, not hanging around with me and Hank and Biggie and Declan. I mean, you and Magnus are tighter than... Never mind." Kate stops herself, before she digs a hole she can't get out of it and starts looking for the door again, even though she hasn't let go still. "It doesn't matter. You're right. You're still Will and I'd still do anything to save your sorry ass. So just forget it. Forget I said any of that. It's fine."
"I'm not hanging around you guys because you're not here--well, you are now, but you know what I mean," Will pointed out. "I'm still me, even if Magnus and I have our thing. And she's still her. And it matters to me, don't think it doesn't." He loosened his arms around her but didn't let go of her entirely, gripping her shoulders instead. "Maybe I'm different than I am when you know me, but I'm still me."
"I know, Will." Kate closes her eyes and looks down at her boots, instead of looking him in the eyes. "I know." That's the thing. She does know. She knows Will. "Listen, I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm glad, okay? I'm really glad. It's just..." Shaking her head, she glances up at him again, eyes dark and willing him to understand. "A lot to take in." One hand giveth while the other taketh away, wasn't that how they said it? At least he was alive here. "Let's... let's just go see Magnus?"
* * *
Lyrics for title and lj-cut from Dessa's Mineshaft.
Magnus will fix this, Kate tells herself. Magnus can do it. Even if it’s been days and everything she tries has no effect. Even if she’s starting to shove everyone away, even Biggie. Even if Kate’s already seeing echoes of the Magnus who lost Ashley every time she’s close enough to look in her eyes, and she’s not sure whether to stay away so she doesn’t remember that’s partly Kate’s fault or sit with her and make her eat and take care of herself and try to talk to her like Will would. Even though Kate has no idea how to do this, Magnus does and she’ll fix it.
These are lies Kate tells herself today while her feet move slower and slower over the carpet in the hall to Will’s room. She doesn’t lie to herself as much as she used to, and she’s out of practice or something, because she’s having a hard time believing them. The ravioli on the tray of food she’s bringing smells like crap and its making her sick to her stomach, but that’s probably because Biggie made it because all of them love it: Will, Magnus, Henry, her, even Declan. It’s making her sick because its one more thing that’s going to be all wrong when Magnus can’t pull this one out of the hat and Will’s gone.
Kate has to stop, she can’t... she can’t do this. How is she going to do this? She knows how to bag and tag more redlist Abnormals than most of the Sanctuary’s ever heard of but she can’t bring Will his food, sit with him and watch him eat, and know he’s going to die a lizard-plant thing. She can’t.
When she leans against the wall to catch her breath and tell herself the lie she can, her image reflects off the glass of a painting on the wall. Who the fuck is this girl, clutching a tray of food like a shield, hair a hot mess and looking like she’ll shatter if you tap her wrong? This isn’t her. This isn’t Kate Freelander, the name that sends half the Abnormal underground packing to skip town and the other half loading for bear. Whoever this is, it’s not someone she knows how to be and it’s sure as fuck not who Will needs to see.
That much, Kate knows. If this is hard on her and Hank and the doc and the Big Guy, it’s gotta be ten times as hard on Will. He’ll be worrying about them under that lizard skin, worrying about Magnus, and trying not to think about this going wrong. He’ll be needing to believe in Magnus, which means Kate has to believe her lies and give him reasons to. She can do this. She’s the best damn con in the business.
Her chin comes up, her eyes clear, her grip on the tray loosens, and she finds space in her lungs for air. “Come on, Freelander,” she urges herself and then tries out, “What’s a few scales compared to walking on ceilings? That’s seriously cool. Just think how much easier that’s going to make retrieving cliff-dwelling Halifaxian eggs before they hatch.” Better.
She starts walking again, makes her steps purposeful and puts a little swing in her hips. She can do this. Magnus can do this. Will’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. And when she opens the door, smile in her eyes, she believes it.
...what the fuck?
Maybe she believed it a little too hard? Or she just got whammied?
Why is Will asleep in a bed she doesn’t recognize with some tiny furry thing on his chest and what has to be Magnus’s super-expensive black negligee hanging off the post on the other side of the bed? Abby would never own something like that. She couldn’t afford it and she can’t be stupid enough to think she could pull it off if she did. That’s Magnus, straight up the middle.
It’s a joke. Will’s fine. Magnus cured him and no one told her and now they’re playing a joke on her. Right?
“This is really sick, guys. Even for you. I’m not laughing.” Also, the tray in her fingers isn’t shaking. It isn’t shaking at all.
Since Roy was still tiny and needing to be fed round the clock, Will was spending a lot of time looking after him. He was getting pretty attached to the little guy, with his little smiling face and slow movements. He'd never seen a more placid and mellow creature, and he enjoyed taking care of him. Right now they were having a nap. Well, Roy had naps pretty much all the time when he wasn't eating, but this time Will was napping with him, with the little guy curled up on his chest and his claws hooked in Will's shirt.
Will was just dozing off when he heard a voice. A loud, very unexpected but very familiar voice, and he woke up instantly. "Kate?" he said, rubbing his eyes, and holy crap it was her, standing there with a tray of food and looking totally flabbergasted. She'd definitely just shown up here seconds ago. "Wow, it really is you."
"Will." Kate can't...she just can't... "You're okay?" she asks and her voice is shaking too. It should matter that everything is confused and Will has Magnus's nightgown and some weird Abnormal clinging to his shirt, but the only thing she can think right now is no scales.
Her fingers clutch tighter on the tray, because she's not going to drop it. Scraping ravioli off the floor's going to take a fuckton longer than eggs and bacon and... she blinks. "What do you mean it really is me? Of course it's me."
"It's complicated," Will said, carefully sitting up so he didn't disturb Roy too much. Roy's claws curled tighter in Will's shirt but he otherwise didn't move. "What's the last thing that happened before you saw this?" Will thought it would be easier to explain what's going on if he had a frame of reference for where she was coming from. Probably the future, some time, like Tesla, because she looked just a little different than he remembered her, but he knew he should probably make sure because with Kate, it was best to avoid assumptions.
"Damn right it's complicated," Kate snarls, and spins back the way she came. When she finds Hank and Magnus she's going to tear a few strips off peoples' hides. This isn't funny. Not with the way everything's been going. Just as soon as she--
Runs into a wall. Because the door isn't where she left it. And now her heart's pounding and her fingers are slipping on the tray.
"C'mon, Will. Just...everyone, stop screwing around, okay?" Her voice is loud, loud enough for Biggie and Hank and whoever's listening to hear she's giving in; fine, they got her. But no one's jumping out with smiles and gotchas and when she turns again, she can feel her eyes getting shiny, so she bites the inside of her cheek to stop it. All she's wanted since this started was to hear his voice sound normal again, and now he's fucking with her and she doesn't know why.
Will got up and crossed over to her, with Roy still clinging to his shirt--though Will didn't get too close, because making Kate feel cornered was probably not a good idea. She looked almost... panicky, which wasn't something he was used to seeing on her, and it made him worry. He remembered feeling pretty damn panicky himself when he got here, and he'd at least had Magnus to wtf at. Showing up alone was worse.
"Nobody's screwing around with you," he said quietly. "I know it's kind of freaky, and it's going to sound even crazier when I explain everything, but trust me when I say I'm not screwing around with you, okay?"
Kate searches Will's face while she tries to stop freaking the fuck out. She nods once, teeth grabbing at the inside of her bottom lip now, because when it comes right down to it, Will's a shitty liar. There's no way he could pull something like this off more than a minute, and even though he's got some freaky-ass Abnormal clinging to his shirt, he wouldn't. Will just wouldn't screw around with her when...
Her eyes tear up and there aren't enough bitten lips or tongues or stomped on toes in the universe to stop that shit, especially with her will going to not dropping the tray again.
"Okay." She looks around and finds a place to set the tray then comes right back over to him, already reaching for him when she manages, "Can I just... you were... I need to know you're okay first even if this is some other kind of effed-up crazy, I have to..."
That was even more surprising, that tearing up and practically asking for a hug--Kate, being emotional--and he hugged her because she was clearly worried about him as much as she was worried about what the hell was going on. He was careful about it though, not wanting to squish Roy between them or scare him into suddenly biting her or something. "I'm okay, I promise," he told her. "One hundred percent, a-okay."
Even though part of her wants to shove him back, she can't. She just...six months ago, she'd have given him the bullshit don't get mushy on me line, but she's seen him almost die too many times now. She has to breathe through her mouth to keep from crying as it is, and that's just stupid because she doesn't cry.
It takes a minute, her forehead tipped against his chest before she can take a step back again. When she does though, she grabs each hand and turns it over and over, looking for any signs of the lizard-plant scale-things. Then she grabs his chin and turns it into the light and away.
Nothing. So fine. He's not dying from that. Her gaze narrows and she pokes him in the shoulder. "Just because I'm glad you're not dying doesn't mean you're getting off the hook. What the hell is going on, and--" She tips her chin at the furry thing. "Does it have anything to do with that...whatever it is?"
Will let Kate manhandle him for a bit, because she seemed to need to do it, grabbing his hands and his face and giving him a good look over, and he wondered what in the hell could make her so worried for him (but then he remembered, Sanctuary, weird shit happens all the time). "Of course I'm not dying," he said, when she seemed satisfied he was the way he was supposed to be. "And this little guy is a sloth. I found him the other day, he's an orphan and Magnus and I are sort of raising him. He doesn't really have anything to do with this other than the fact that sloths live in the tropics and this... is a tropical island."
There's a lot of information in there, but Kate's used to it. Sanctuary briefings are like direct downloads of Encyclopedia Abnormalia sometimes. The problem is, she has no idea where to start. Ten minutes ago, Will was dying. Now he's telling her she's on a tropical island and he's raising a sloth with Magnus, which... she's just not even going to go there.
She tugs at her bracelets and tries to think like Will. It's not working so well for her, because how the fuck is she supposed to know if this is some kind of weird projection from an Abnormal, or she hit her head, or it's a dream, or the Praxians are involved... or even when it started? Off the top of her head, she can think of two dozen redlist Abnormals that could trigger something like this and then there's the good old, American as apple pie psychotic fucking break.
"Am I dying? Because if you're supposed to be some kind of spirit guide, you seriously suck at it."
Will grinned, because there was the snarky Kate he knew and was beginning to love. "I'm a shrink, not a spirit guide," he said, in a frowny imitation of the doctor from Star Trek, and hugged her shoulders again. He still wondered why she would think he was dying, but he'd find that out in a little while, after he explained what was happening here. "No, you're not dying. This is..." he sighed and shook his head. "Okay, I know it's going to sound a little nuts, but hear me out. This island... it's some kind of weird bubble thing in time. And people just get stuck here. Magnus and I have been here for a little more than a year. And Tesla..." Will rolled his eyes a little. "He's been here a few weeks."
That was another thing Will wanted to ask about, and he would, in a minute--did Magnus get cured? Did she know? Meanwhile Roy woke up and yawned and studied Kate with wide black eyes.
"A little nuts?" Kate studies Will with eyes as black as the little sloth's and much more suspicious. "Come on, Will. Give me more credit than that. I buy something weird's going on. I mean, obviously--" She glances back for the door that's not there any more and cocks her head at him. "Because all the bad jokes in the world doesn't make this Star Trek and we don't have transporters."
Shaking him off, she takes a few steps around the room, looking at what's here and ignoring the hell out of the negligee and the "Magnus and I" from before, because if her subconscious mind's trying to tell her Will has a crush on Magnus, it's not like that's news. "Think about it. What would you tell me if I came to you with this story? You'd say I was crazy or high or something. And, you know, that's me, not you, so fine, I get that, and I want to trust you, but how do I know I'm even awake and not under the influence of a Hymerian Flaxworm or Tellorgreen Beetles? You're the guy with the brains and the freaky eyeballs. What should I be looking for? What should I be asking you?"
Either it's real or he's some kind of projection from her mind or someone else's. Either way, he's the only link she's got with out there so she's got to treat him like he's real. Sloth or no sloth.
"I might say you're crazy or high or something," Will allowed. "Hell, I thought I was crazy or high or something when I showed up here on the other side of the island in the middle of a monsoon." He almost said where the dinosaurs are but he wasn't sure if that was the best thing to say to Kate. "But I promise you, this is a real thing, and you're not crazy or high or under the influence of some redlist Abnormal. This is some kind of crazy--and the real kicker is? I've been here for over a year and during that time you guys probably haven't even missed me or Magnus because we haven't been gone, to you. We've been there doing... whatever it is we've been doing that makes you think I'm about to die, when I've been here ever since Magnus and I went after that vampire squid in the Gulf a year ago."
Kate takes a step back, and another, shaking her head. "It can't be. You can't. That was--" She tries to remember when it was Ashley's birthday last. How long it's been since then. More than a year, she knows that. "Holy crap, that was before everything." Somehow that's the worst part, that this isn't even her Will. If he and Magnus are here, wherever here is, and now she's here, and Tesla's here, even if it's some kind of dream or projection thing, they can figure it out. That's what they do, and maybe he and Magnus just needed a few more pieces. Hell, maybe she just doesn't remember but she and Hank and Biggie and Declan figured it out and sent her in and if she just concentrates enough, she'll remember what she's supposed to tell them.
But...if he doesn't even know about her dad, about Jimmy, about Kali and how she told him he couldn't die, or how she didn't steal any money from the bank they held up...if he doesn't know any of those things, he doesn't know her and he won't even believe her if she does remember whatever she's supposed to know. And if...if it's all true, then... no, no no no. It's not true. "All right, then we'll just have to find our way out of here. We can do that. We've done it before." Sort of. Will wasn't in Praxis.
This was the part Will hated the most. It was kind of a stages of grief thing, dealing with this island. Stage one he would call the "what the hell is going on here?" stage, followed by the "you got to be kidding me" stage, and the "okay, well, we'll find a way out of here" stage, and then the "I guess we're stuck here for good" stage. And the place between those last two was the nastiest. He had a feeling that it would be even nastier for Kate, who didn't like being tied down anywhere.
"Well," he began, a little reluctantly, "people have been trying to figure that out for... almost six years? And it hasn't worked. They've tried to sail away, fly away, use a space station to get away... and nothing."
Kate could have her fingers in her ears and be singing "la la la I can't hear you" for as much attention as she's paying to that right now. "Since when are you the defeatist? You're the guy who won't let me give up, remember?" She presses her lips together and rolls her eyes. "Pfft, whatever. First of all, they could totally be lying. Second, you didn't have me before. Getting out of tight spots is my specialty, remember?"
Will's alive, Magnus is alive, Tesla's here. They can do this. It might just take a little longer without Hank and Biggie and Declan. Which means they should eat while they have a chance. "Come on." Kate shoves him in the shoulder. "If you've been here a year, you're probably going into withdrawal for Biggie's cooking. Where's Magnus? We should share with her too."
"Biggie's cooking?" Something on that tray smelled good, but Will hadn't realized she brought some of Biggie's cooking along with her. "Well, we can't let that go to waste. Magnus is... probably at her office, but I'm not sure." Roy slowly craned his neck around to look at Kate and loosened one claw from Will's shirt to reach in her direction. "Magnus is really going to be happy to see you, trust me." Will was definitely glad to see her, although he had a feeling she was really going to hate the island before long.
"Not a chance, little guy," Kate tells the sloth-thing when it starts reaching for her. It's kinda cute but she's not getting attached. They're not staying, no matter what Will thinks. And if Magnus drank whatever Kool-Aid Will's been dipping into that he's napping while Magnus is at the office, then she'll find Tesla and yank him around by his balls until he helps her help them.
She looks up at Will and pastes on a grin, not a bad one for as weird as this all is, but he'll probably see through it. He always does. Her Will does anyway. Did he used to? Kate can't remember. "So, we eat while you fill me in--" They'll save some for her. "And then we'll go find her and the human magnet and tell 'em the good news."
Will dragged over a couple of chairs so they could sit down to eat. "Ohh, ravioli," he said, and Roy's nose twitched as he sniffed. "Not for you, little guy," he added, in case the sloth got any ideas. Roy was still a baby, a little one at that, and his diet was all milk. "So you want to tell me where you were going with this food tray?" He wanted to fill Kate in on the rest of it, but her dying comment earlier still picked at his brain.
"No." She doesn't want to think about it, because if half of what he says is true, then her Will is probably still dying and... yeah, just no. Instead, she sits like this is the most normal thing in their world and she wasn't bringing him what might've been his last meal as a human and she didn't just have some kind of aneurysm or get transported in time in space. But now he's asked and she can't stop seeing him and hearing him and...
Kate sighs and just gives him a look, it's almost pleading for a heartbeat before she points the fork at the negligee. Anything's better than talking about him dying, even though the Will she knows is never going to let her get away with it. "You want to tell me why Magnus's negligee is hanging off your bedpost?"
Will caught that look but he didn't have much time to analyze it because Kate asked that question and he nearly choked on a bite. "Well," he said, glancing from Kate to the black lace and back to Kate again. "We kind of have a thing. A relationship thing." He wasn't sure why he couldn't just come out and say Magnus is my girlfriend because he said it all the time to people on the island, but somehow it was different with Kate because it was basically saying The boss is my girlfriend, and whoa.
Kate says, "No shit, Sherlock," dripping with sarcasm, like she can't even be assed to come up with something more original, but something tightens in her chest. If she starts poking at it, she's not going to like the labels she comes up with and she knows she won't like the ones her shrink-BFF would come up with, so she ignores it, dumps the bread on the tray and spoons some ravioli onto its plate with one piece of bread and some butter, then smirks at him, sly. "For Magnus. Wouldn't want you getting couched or anything."
"What do you want me to say?" he asked. He wasn't sure what kind of reaction he expected from Kate, but that wasn't quite it. "I was just answering your question, I didn't think you wanted details or anything." He shifts uncomfortably in the chair and Roy clings to him a little tighter.
"Sorry," Kate says softly, not looking at him. She didn't really mean to be such a bitch about it. "If you're happy, that's good. You both deserve it, and I know you're kind of crazy about her." It's not that she's jealous, like wanted Will for herself or anything. It's just...one more reason she has to figure this all out and get home.
Will winced a little when she looked away and he thought about what Magnus said about that future thing she'd experienced. What if... he didn't think that future was something that really happened, but more something that was supposed to warn Magnus off taking that elixir, but still. He had to know. "Kate," he said quietly. "I really need you to tell me what you were doing before you got here." He couldn't just ask hey, are we a thing when you come from? Because how do you even ask something like that?
Of course he does, because if there's one thing Will can't do, it's ignore someone else's problems. Maybe she should be glad that hasn't changed, but she's mostly wishing she hadn't so she could just tell him to fuck off and light out of here before the door can shut behind her. If he knows her at all, he'll be seeing that however he does, and that's another thing she wishes right now, is that she knew what her tells were when it came to him so she could hide them.
Kate runs her finger over her cuff again, tosses her chin up, almost defiant, and says, "Bringing you dinner." The rest, well, his freaky brain can help her out and do some of the work. Once it does, she can fill in whatever he needs to know. She just can't say that part without knowing he didn't. Die.
Will watched all this with maybe not quite as much detatchment as he might have if it was anybody else. "Bringing me dinner," he repeats. Bringing him dinner because she thought he was dying? Roy made a little squeaky noise and Will scratched the sloth's back absentmindedly while he thought about this. "Because I was... " He didn't finish it.
"Okay." He figured that was as good as he was going to get from Kate. But it still didn't explain why she bit his head off so much about Magnus just now. "Was there... you know... anything else going on?"
"Like what, Will?" Kate has to bite back the rising snarl. "Like Magnus working herself to death trying to figure out how to stop you from Kafkaing into some thing you've never heard of from a place you've never been while Hank tries to contact a bunch of xenophobic bastards for help and I bring you the dinner Biggie cooked because other than feed the Abnormals and run retrievals and fob off your girlfriend there's not a damned thing I can do? Anything like that?" Okay, so maybe she didn't do the best job at not snarling.
"I'm sorry," Will said. He could only make sense out of about half of that, but Kate sounded like she was about to snap and he didn't want that, so he didn't ask anything more about it. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize, I just..." He shook his head. "You just know so much I don't know, stuff that hasn't happened yet for me. It's hard not to ask." He wanted to ask about Magnus, too, and find out if her radiation poisoning is cured, but maybe Kate didn't know anything more about that than Tesla does and he didn't want her to get any more upset than she already was.
Kate pushes the fork across the space at him. The ravioli's making her sick to her stomach again, or maybe it's just...she really wants to be alone right now. Really wants to run. Run away from the questions in his eyes and the fear, the sick sick sick fear that maybe he's telling the truth and she's never going to see home and Biggie and Hank and Declan and her Will and Magnus again. The old Kate Freelander would be gone already; the one he thinks he's talking to. The new one can only look at him and then look away so he doesn't have to see how much it hurts. He's still Will and she still has to protect him, even if he doesn't know that she'd throw herself in front of anything for him.
"It's fine, Will. Ask what you need to know. I'll be fine." She sounds like ash blowing off half-charred bone, but she's fine. It's what she does.
"It can wait," he said quietly, because there was just too much in her face for him to ask her anything else. Too much in her face, too much in the way she avoided his eyes--it wasn't the Kate he knew when he left, but a new Kate, a Kate who was uncomfortable with all this and didn't know how to handle it. He almost said we have plenty of time to talk later but he knew that was something she didn't want to hear, either. "Just tell me if Magnus is okay? The radiation sickness... Tesla said she was dying."
At least she can do this much for him, this one thing. She tips her chin back his way, lashes wet but cheeks dry. "She's fine, Will. You stood Ranna down and told her we wouldn't help them if she didn't help Magnus." No need to tell him that Ranna had planned to help anyway. He needs to know she's okay and that he wasn't powerless to help her, and Kate gets that. Right about now, she gets that better than anyone. And that's why she can't sit here anymore. "The people from Hollow Earth, they cured her. I'm sure they're going to help her cure you too."
She stands up, gaze scanning frantically for the door she hasn't actually found yet, which says a lot about how much she trusts him. Kate Freelander always knows where the doors are. "I need... just... I can't do this right now."
Will wasn't sure what to say then, but he did know what to do--or what he wanted to do, at least. Whether Kate would be willing to let him do it was another story, but he wasn't really thinking about that. He carefully removed Roy from his shirt, putting him in his towel-lined box, and pulled Kate into a hug. "Come here," he said, and even though there was a chance she might punch him, he had to do it, because he thought she needed it and because he knew he needed it. He had missed her. A lot. And he hadn't realized how much until she was there.
"Don't," Kate snarls at him when he reaches for her, but he's got longer arms and she doesn't have anywhere to go and she's not going to hit him. it's Will. And even if he doesn't know anything, she needs him. "Don't." But this time it's nothing more than a whisper, because she can't make sound around the lump in her throat or the tightness in her chest. Half an hour ago she was losing him forever, and whatever fucked-up headtrip this is, even if it's all a lie, he's alive right now and maybe the reason she's here is to have a chance to let him know, for real, no bullshit, that he's as much her family as Thad.
So don't becomes "don't let go" instead, and even ifr she's not saying it out loud, her hands are fisted in his shirt, and she's just trying not to lose it and cry all over him.
He felt her fingers gripping his shirt even as she told him don't, and it was that kind of pushing away and pulling close at the same time. Will recognized it, felt it loud and clear. "I won't," he said, and hugged her a little tighter. "I missed you, Kate." Yeah, it was mushy as hell, but he hadn't seen her in over a year and it was so good to see her again, even if it was because she was here and not because he and Magnus had gone home.
"You don't even know me," Kate whispers and its the closest thing to pure truth she's ever told him, this him anyway, because she can't keep the emotion out of her voice, can't keep the fear out of it, but she can't let go anyway. Her Will would tell her it's not just this situation, it's everything they've been through together and how they never take time to deal with any of it, how she doesn't, anyway, and she'd tell him to stow the shrink crap and come get a beer, and he'd make that face and she'd say something just mushy and honest enough to get her off the hook and he'd smile and they'd call it a day.
"Doesn't matter," he said. And it didn't matter, because even though he didn't know her that well when he left the Sanctuary, he could tell by the way she looked at him, the way she was so damn worried and scared, that he'd gotten to know her and she'd gotten to know him and they were family now. The Sanctuary was the only family Will had ever really had. And Kate, apparently, was part of that now.
"Yeah, Will. It kind of does." It's a little more solid and a little harsher. She's not trying to be a bitch, but she can't let him rip her apart like this. "Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me. You and Magnus... " She shakes her head. "It's just different now. I'm different now." There's so much. "And so are you. You're sleeping with Magnus, not hanging around with me and Hank and Biggie and Declan. I mean, you and Magnus are tighter than... Never mind." Kate stops herself, before she digs a hole she can't get out of it and starts looking for the door again, even though she hasn't let go still. "It doesn't matter. You're right. You're still Will and I'd still do anything to save your sorry ass. So just forget it. Forget I said any of that. It's fine."
"I'm not hanging around you guys because you're not here--well, you are now, but you know what I mean," Will pointed out. "I'm still me, even if Magnus and I have our thing. And she's still her. And it matters to me, don't think it doesn't." He loosened his arms around her but didn't let go of her entirely, gripping her shoulders instead. "Maybe I'm different than I am when you know me, but I'm still me."
"I know, Will." Kate closes her eyes and looks down at her boots, instead of looking him in the eyes. "I know." That's the thing. She does know. She knows Will. "Listen, I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm glad, okay? I'm really glad. It's just..." Shaking her head, she glances up at him again, eyes dark and willing him to understand. "A lot to take in." One hand giveth while the other taketh away, wasn't that how they said it? At least he was alive here. "Let's... let's just go see Magnus?"
Lyrics for title and lj-cut from Dessa's Mineshaft.
