Mike struggled with Vickie's limp form as he pounded down the back stairs, nearly diving head first down a flight on more than one occasion. He remembered the last time he'd tried that, and his left wrist twinged in case he forgot the outcome.
The door banged open, with Mike remembering at the last second to use Vickie's feet rather than her head as a battering ram. He stepped out into the alley beyond, and immediately realised he couldn't keep on this way. He propped Vickie against a wall, holding her upright by the simple expedient of planting his hands against the wall, under her arms. He paused, gasping to try and get his breath back. Vickie wasn't heavy, but getting her home was still going to be a chore.
"Hé, amoureux! Obtenez une salle!" someone cried as they passed the alley. Mike looked around, curiously. What the hell? Get a room? What... Then he realised what this probably looked like. He coloured slightly, and then a vision came to him. . . .
"I'll miss you," Rich said as they lay together in the bed.
"I'll miss you too. Don't worry. I'll email every day at least. Besides, you'll be busy feeding everyone."
He rolled towards her. "I'd rather feed you," he said with a grin.
"I think that can be arranged." She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply.
Mike staggered backwards, letting Vickie slump downwards. He pitched up against the far wall, dry heaving as his head ached with that image. WTF had just happened there? He shook his head gingerly, noting sourly that his brain was now aching much the same as his jaw.
He stepped forward, bending over to help Vickie up, and noted with a grimace that the disparity in their height made for an ill fit. He hoped she wouldn't be too uncomfortable. He hoped she wouldn't shout at him later.
The two made it as far as the end of the alley, before Mike stopped in dismay. The street outside was snarled up. Doubtless the explosion had tied up the traffic all around, and he could see emergency personnel rushing towards the site of the blast. He shook his head, and began making his way back towards their apartment.
The way the streets were blocked, there was no chance of getting a taxi right now. Questions about Vickie were best avoided, too, and people on the street were plenty distracted right now.
"Monsieur?" came a voice from behind him. He turned, cursing silently, and nearly swung Vickie into a wall before he checked the spin. In front of him was a gendarme, looking curiously at the mismatched pair.
Mike was forced to concede that the smartly dressed, unconscious woman he was holding, didn't exactly fit with his much scruffier image. The gendarme asked Mike something in rapid French far too quick for Mike to follow. He shook his head, trying to shrug, and managing a one shouldered jerk that threatened to deposit Vickie on the ground again.
"Pardon, mais je ne pas parlais Francais. Mon ami est... est..."
Ivre.
The word appeared in his head. What the hell.
"Ivre. Mon ami," he gestured with his Vickie-arm, "est ivre. Trop ivre, moisseur."
"Ainsi. J'ai des choses plus importantes à s'inquiéter pour. Comportez-vous." (So. I have more important things to worry about. Behave yourselves)
"D'accord," Mike managed. The gendarme turned and hurried on towards the blast site. Mike breathed out in relief. Thank you Josh he thought.
The wave of satisfaction and relief that flowed back at him seemed rather strong for Josh, but Mike assumed that the occasion was bringing out the best in the American.
Mike continued along the street, his spirits perking up somewhat when Vickie began to make small noises that seemed to indicate she was waking up. He tightened his grip on the unconscious woman, and picked up speed somewhat.
Behind him, a young Frenchman kicked idly at a stray cat, and was painfully surprised to find himself pivoting on his foot and kicking a nearby wall. Hard. The shock was enough to -temporarily- override the pain of having shattered several toes. Mike heard the cry as he stumbled along the street. Whatever was making that noise, it would be a good thing to get some distance between them. It sounded dangerous.
Up ahead, Mike could see trouble. Big trouble. Mike had difficulty believing this particular trouble had escaped the Stereotype and Apocrypha (Trouble Dept.) section of whatever divine force had decided to take an interest in his life today.
The woman was huge. Immense. Truly circular. In the not too distant past, this woman would have been elected Goddess of any indigenous tribe you may care to mention, and worshipped loyally. This was a woman that had taken life for all it was worth. And had a second helping of dessert.
She was draped in fur. Coat, stole, hat, all consisted of the hides of dead animals. Curiously, then, she was preceded by a number of poodles, her pudgy fist tightly clasping the leads of seven half shaven pedigree hounds, each died a distinct colour.
Mike looked frantically around, trying to find a way he wouldn't have to encounter the woman. But the traffic was nose to tail as far as the eye could see, and the woman was covering all the pavement, and more. As Mike watched, her ample rump caught a wing mirror, which spoinged back into place on release.
Mike dragged Vickie towards the woman, the otherwise deserted street between them reminding Mike of Main Street, Tombstone, just as the town clock began to chime High Noon. Someone would have to yield.
Naturally, it was Mike. The prospect of giving up space to the two TG members never seemed to cross the mind of the rotund woman.
Mike flattened himself and Vickie against the wall, grimacing as the hairy, blubbery, smelly mound of human flesh pressed him briefly and revoltingly against the bricks. As the woman's ass released the two friends, one of the rainbow mutts turned to bark at them, and the woman cooed at it.
"Hmmph, les jeunes aujourd'hui. Ça ne fait rien, mes bébés. Ne soyez pas effrayé." (Hmmph, young people today. Never mind, my babies. Don't be scared)
Mike felt a wave of anger wash over him. Involuntarily, his eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened. "Bébés? Hé la dame, dîtes-moi quelque chose. Est-ce que c'est les chiens torturés que vous traînez autour avec vous, ou les sextuplets que vous avez caché sous ce manteau?" (Babies? Hey lady, tell me something. Is that the tortured dogs you drag around with you, or the sextuplets you got hidden under that coat?)
He felt Vickie giggle in her unconscious state.
The woman spun around, the more outlying bits of her attempting to achieve local orbit. Her eyebrows knit together, contorting her overstuffed face into a parody of human facial expression. Her voice, though, was anything but imitatory, as she spewed forth a barrage of vile imprecations, ending with a well placed swing of her heavily laden handbag, whose reinforced corner caught Mike under his chin, sending stars shooting through his already pounding skull.
Mike lowered Vickie onto the park bench, before slumping down next to her. He brushed his fingers through his friend's hair, checking for something, anything that would explain what had been happening. Even as he checked, he knew it was probably a waste of time. He was right. No implants. No bumps, lumps, or anything else. He sighed. That sort of thing didn't have to be attached to the head, of course, but deep down he knew there wasn't anything.
The only thing that had been happening was that Vickie was hurting, and was reaching out to those closest to her. Without Rich or Kelly around, then, Mike was next in line. His head hurt. It wasn't unprecedented. A warped reflection of Corran Horn's powers had taken up temporary residence in Mike more than a year before, and Vickie knew the way to get inside's Mike's head better than anyone. Even though she was unconscious, she was still reaching out through the Force, and Mike was a handy outlet for that. He sighed.
Better get Josh C here.
It would take a Jedi to deal with this. He hoped his colleagues were all right. He was raising the phone-cum-comlink to his mouth when Vickie stirred again.
Josh. So proud. Hope. Maybe hope. Power. Much power. And skill. But great uncertainty. Careful. Must be careful. Push too hard, too fast, and he will fail.
Crispy. Loyal. Brave. Adventurous. Does what is asked. A Wraith in Rogue clothing. Strong and proud and maybe the best of us all.
Becki. Uneasy. So scared. What next? Left to her own devices, she could do all that is hoped for. So much promise. She will be great.
Mike's vision clouded.
He found himself in the palace, standing in front of Llessur Atner. He watched as the Queen Mother played with one of his ferrets. "I wish you to do something about Lieutenant Bush." Llessur spat Becki's name out with venom. "See that she forgets my Thayer while you are on your trip."
Mike's jaw dropped open.
"Madam, I have no control over..."
"But you could steer her away, perhaps towards Lieutenant Cochran. I'm sure given the time away, Thayer will have developed more of a fondness for Lady Lenka."
"I'll do what I can," Mike heard himself say.
His vision cleared again, and he tried to focus on his friend, but he was beset by a barrage of images. Of Josh. And Becki. The two holding hands. Becki smiling at Josh. Llessur Atner. The treacherous thought. Innocent words and actions that could mean so much more. And, ultimately, the great confusion at the heart of the dillemma.
Is it really wrong?
Mike's eyes snapped open, and he was looking at his friend as though she was a complete stranger. "Oh Vickie," he said. "What the hell are you doing?"
Mike was in poor spirits as he lifted his friend up again. He didn't pretend to understand what was happening with Vickie, Llessur, Josh C and Becki. He refused to draw judgment from partial images.
But it didn't look good.
Vickie felt much heavier now. Mike tried to convince himself it was because he was tired.
A poster on a nearby cinema was advertising the summer's big movie, Episode Two. The picture of Anakin and Padme standing with their backs to one another struck a nerve with Mike. He looked down at Vickie's face, the Jedi blissfuly unaware of what her friend was thinking.
Forget what you thought you knew.
Anger. Corran berating Vickie as she sought to do her duty. The Force blazing within her. The desperate struggle in the darkest hours to not succumb to the Dark side. She could have done anything. Dark side or Light, the power would have been under her control. The clone would have been her, and she the clone. Pash would have been hers. Had been hers. The kiss had been electric. The departure a wrench.
The call of the Dark side had never been so near.
And now.
Becki was being destroyed by her separation from Thayer. And Vickie could help. And to help her friend was good. And Thayer would be happy. And Josh would be happy. And Becki would be happy. And no-one would feel what she had felt when she had sacrificed her own dream to make her clone happy.
And that had to be of the Light side.
Mike's vision cleared once again. He looked up from where he was slumped on the ground. The dead weight on his legs, he hoped, was Vickie. That, he realised, was the least of his troubles. The gendarme standing in front of him was the first.
"Vos papiers, monsieur," the gendarme said. Even Mike could translate that.
He took a second to rearrange himself, before propping Vickie against the wall again.
"Elle est ivre," he said, digging into his pockets. Where was it? Ah. . . Then he felt the now familiar tingle of Vickie's subconscious in his mind. With an immense effort, he slammed shut the mental guards, throwing a shocked Vickie out of his head. Not every problem needed the Force.
"C'est ici," he said, handing a card to the gendarme who looked at it carefully. Mike rubbed at his aching head as the gendarme investigated the ID card from every angle but inside-out. He looked dubiously at Mike, before holding the card out to him. Mike reached out to take the card, but the gendarme held on, looking closely at Mike.
"Vous êtes jeune pour un diplomate," he said.
Ths time, Mike allowed Vickie in, grateful that his friend was still operating on some level.
"Je suis seulement un secrétaire. Ma compagne est la soeur du vrai diplomate et je l'avais montrée autour de Paris. Tristement, elle ne peut pas tenir sa boisson," he replied, smoothly. (I am only a secretary. My companion is the sister of the real diplomat and I have been showing her around Paris. Sadly, she cannot hold her drink.)
"Ainsi. Déplacez-vous s'il vous plaît maintenant," the gendarme said, a shade dissapointed. (So. Please move along now.)
Mike scooped Vickie up again, and hurried on, clamping his mind closed to any further intrusion on his friend's part. But his mind was still full of thoughts of Vickie. Was she really trying to separate Becki and Thayer? And pair off Becki and Josh? It was hard to beleive, but so much of what he'd seen pointed to that conclusion.
And so much of what he'd seen pointed to a dark streak in Vickie that he'd thought was behind his friend. And she'd kissed Pash. That was one thing he was certain of. And she's never said anything about it. He wondered if Kelly knew.
At least he didn't have ID worries. He wondered, belatedly, if he should have arranged for diplomat cards for the other members of the group, but it was hard enough passing himself off as a diplomat. Besides, they'd had the opportunity to do what he'd done. All they'd had to do was ask Kelly to take them slumming when they visited Coruscant. It was amazing how quickly fake ID could be put together. Mike had a drawerful back in Mendellia.
But Vickie was the concern here. Mike would have bet his life, would still bet his life, that the woman could be trusted. He began to get a sense of what she had gone through when she'd been faced with the decision over whether or not to trust Brad.
As with Corran on Courkus, Mike's understanding of things reached a whole new level. He looked down at his friend and smiled grimly. He shook her, almost roughly, trying to elicit a reaction from her, then growled when she remained silent. Unconscious she may have been, but she had a lot to answer for this day, no matter whether or not he'd take her side.
The couch creaked as Mike dropped Vickie none-too-gently onto it. Walking into the kitchen, he sat up on the counter, folding his legs beneath him. The first time Vickie had seen him do it, she'd accused him of following the ways of a Jedi meditation course she'd been sent by Corran. But Mike hadn't seen that. To him, it was just a comfortable position from which to address life as it happened to him.
And then, again, his vision began to cloud.
They stood facing apart as their enemies closed in across the desert sand. One by one, they ignited their lightsabres, ready to protect the wounded with their lives.
The warriors squared off with their enemies only to find themselves, suddenly, at one another’s throats. The ferocity of the combat never waned, as the sabre-wielding fighters traded blows with an intensity that bought anger quickly into the fight. And still the fury of the battle increased, each fighter aggressively battering at their opponent. And the vision darkened. And the fight intensified. And the vision darkened. And the fight intensified. And the vision was black.
Mike wondered how much of this vision was fear, and how much was real. How much was possible, and how much was set in stone.
Mike felt that he was seeing the future, and that what he was seeing was a schism in the ranks of Terra Group.
His vision returned, again. He was still sitting on the counter.
He raised the comlink, and tapped in the code for Becki, figuring that she probably wouldn't be shooting anyone, unlike the two Joshes.
"Mike!" she answered, on hearing his voice. "Are you two okay? Did you get back to the apartment?"
"Yeah, we're back," Mike replied. He looked out through the kitchen door, his gaze resting on Vickie's sleeping form. "And we're fine. Everything's absolutely fine."