Crowne Plaza; Lextington Park, Tuesday early evening

[fantastic_torch]

Johnny was chilling by watching a bit of TV, but he was rather anxious for Savannah to hurry up and get her butt over to him. He knew she had rehearsal and he was wearing patience pretty well. But damn if she shouldn't be here by now.

[[ For a specific phone call. NFB due to distance. ]]

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[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

"Hey, sweetheart," he said, taking her hand and pulling her in gently.

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah went right into his arms and held onto him.

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

He shut the door and held her tight.

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

"I think..." she whispered. "I think I'm ready to talk about it some. I don't know if I'm ready for all of it... but for some, yes." She had her face in his chest. "After my class tomorrow, I want to go away a few days. I need to get out of Fandom. I need to see Isabel and Wyatt, Summer and Chris to know for sure with my eyes. I need to spend time with you and try to make the nightmares and the guilt let go a little bit."

She needed to eat and sleep, but that wasn't important to her right now.

"Can we do that?"

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

"We can do all of that, sweetheart," he replied gently, leaning to kiss the top of her head. "Come here." He stepped back and with his arm still around her, led her to the bed so they could crawl atop it and sit and talk. "And Savannah, you're not taking care of yourself. When did you eat last?"

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah kicked her shoes off and say cross-legged on the bed. "I'm not really sure."

Thursday.

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

Johnny leaned forward as he sat in front of her, in the same position. "That's too evasive for you, babe. When?"

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She tried to think back. Real food? Thursday. Survivor rations were Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So Thursday.

"Thursday, I think," she said softly.

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

Without a word to her, he slid off the bed and took two minutes to order room service. A variety of foods, so she could take her pick. Then he sat back on the bed and gave her a look that dared her to say anything against that. She would eat, and she would eat until he was sastified she wasn't in danger of passing out at any given moment.

"Now... where were we?"

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

She wasn't going to say anything to him about it until the food got there. It wasn't that she was refusing to eat, it was that she couldn't seem to. She got ill.

"In an alternate Fandom, students, teachers and business owners arrived there to be at a school and a town where their powers or differences were able to evolve and shine. It was full of great opportunities for learning and being free with yourself. Sounds just like here. But it wasn't. When people crossed the Causeway, they were attacked by vampires. In the beginning, some of the new arrivals got away, most didn't because they didn't expect it. Zoe was the vampire leader and she kept the propaganda flowing off the island to get more people there. It was like a giant fucking roach motel. You could check in, but you could never leave. Food on the hoof for the vampires. You couldn't call people outside Fandom or e-mail them. None of those devices worked. Zoe's people were very thorough." She swallowed, ducking her head. "People that came to find out why their loved ones hadn't contacted them became instant food."

"The students that had been there when this first happened,started raiding the Causeway on newbie days. They be there to attack the vampires who tried to pick the new ones off -- either to be food, or because they had something that they wanted. That's how you and I met."


[[OOC: SP tomorrow as am sleepy and migraine came back?]]

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

Johnny listened, intently, and while she continued, his frown deepened. What a fucked up place. And that she was there, or an AU version. Damn, no wonder she was a mess.

"You know, I'm trying to find something to say here but my brain is working its way around all of that. Sounds like a damn horror flick, Savannah."

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah nodded. "I was there for three days and I can tell you that horror flick describes the place perfectly," she said softly. She pulled her knees up to rest her chin on them.

"From what I saw in my dreams and in her memories when I got hijacked there, in that world, the two of us... we were... we were us. That version of Savannah was... she was harder and a little broken inside. She watched her mother be turned into a vampire on her birthday a few months after she got there. It broke pieces of her mind and soul because she had to watch the whole thing and she wasn't able to stop it or do anything."

She took a breath, making herself talk.

"Her grasp on sanity was crumbling by the time I got there, but that version of you, you weren't about to let her give up and die. The two of them... it was like us only different. She was so lost and so broken, but he was the one that gave her something to hold on to. He was very devoted to her and he loved her completely -- even when she had moments where everything was dark. The first dream I had was of them having a fight because she did something that could have killed her -- and burnt her out of her magic. She hadn't told him she was risking herself with the others and when she and one friend were the only ones of the five magic users to come back from the ritual, he was... he was unhappy, and she didn't blame him. She was dumb -- " Savannah closed her eyes. "-- because she told him that she knew there was a chance she could die during the ritual and she didn't want him to see her die. Their fight... he was angry and hurt that she had risked herself without telling him because she was everything to him, too."

She looked at him and there were tears in her eyes for their other selves. "She was really afraid that she was going to lose him and was willing to die herself if that got him safely off that island." She looked back down.


[[Edited to break up the long block of text because it was driving me insane. :) ]]

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

He reached out, tentatively, to caress her cheek. "They loved each other very much. I can't think of a universe where you and I wouldn't find that deep connection.

The Fandom she spoke about was difficult to imagine, however.

"...but we didn't make it, did we?"

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

She gave him a torn look, wanting to crawl into his arms but knowing if she didn't tell him all of this, she'd never be able to start to heal and let go. "I'll get to that. I promised I would... tell you..." She took a breath.

"They lived like that for two years, Johnny. They couldn't leave, and every day someone died and was added to the list that the survivors kept by the doors of the dorms -- the only safe place on the entire fucking island for the survivors. They had to fight for their lives every damn day and manage to hang onto each other at the same time. When she lost all of her magic in the ritual that reached out for help, she thought she was useless to him. He didn't think so." She swallowed, burying her face in her knees, her wrists turning white from how hard the was grasping her arms around her legs.

"Before I got there, Eve attacked her. She fought back, but she didn't have the strength of will to try to kill her. Johnny heard what happened and he went after Eve. He had decided that he wasn't letting her and Gwynn break his girl any more. He wasn't about to lose her because she was their favorite game. As much as he was everything to her, she was everything to him and seeing what they had been doing to her and would keep doing to her was breaking him. He didn't let her see, but everytime they broke a piece of her sanity and soul, it broke a piece of him, too."

A tear slid down her cheek. "This happened the night before I got there. He left to go after Eve and she was hysterical. She couldn't leave the dorms because he made her promise that since she had been hurt in the f-fight with Eve she'd take the night off. K-Mart and Claire kept her from doing anything stupid that night but when sunrise came and he wasn't back, she was ready to go out to find him."

She lifted her eyes to his. "That's when I went into the coma and got hijacked into her mind, right when she was cleaning blood off of his body and trying to apologize to him for Eve hurting him for taking care of her."

Okay, not quite the way it happened, but she wasn't about to go into how she had suddenly been in her other self's body while they were having sex. Come on!

"He believed me," she said in a soft voice. "He believed that I was who I said I was, just like you would have believed her if it was different. I think... I think it was good for him to know that his Savannah hadn't lost all of her power... her magic... for nothing." She swallowed. "He was worried about his Savannah and protecting me so that I could get back safely to you."

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

Jesus, this was... too much. Hearing what she'd been through, what she had endured, and god... Eve? And Gwynn? A screwed up universe that's for sure. And one he was never going to be a part of.

Oh. Yeah. Mentioning to him the sexy tiems would not be the smartest thing ever. Although he might possibly understand.

"Sounds a lot like me, that Johnny," he said low, brushing at the tear on her cheek.

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

She leaned her face into his hand. "He was. A harder, more rough you, but he was like you in that he wanted us safe. He wanted to keep me safe, but he wanted his Savannah back." She closed her eyes again and more tears slipped down her cheeks. "It was a horrible place. Eve and Gwynn were psychotic vampires. Summer was a vampire who said Savannah was her favorite of the humans and she wanted to make her one of them. Chris was dead, killed by Summer. Isabel was so sad, but she was still one of Savannah's closest people after Johnny. Wyatt... Wyatt was so so different. Chris being killed caused him to harden and push everyone who cared about him away from himself. Sean and Savannah weren't as close because she wouldn't let him be. K-Mart and Karla were people she cared about, and trusted a little bit. She was so hard, so different. She was so close to being out of control and it scared me to be seeing myself that way."

She moved her head to rest her chin on her knees because now came the hardest part. "I got her killed, Johnny," she said quietly, ashamed of herself. "She had survived two years there, and three days of me being in control of her body and she was dead. Sunday there was a battle, we knew how to save them and a strike team went out. The rest of us were distraction and attacked Town Hall where the vampires mostly resided. You -- he... we got separated and I saw him and Eve f-fighting. I tried to get to him but I was prevented from it by another attack. I fought, but she was too strong, too powerful and my magic wasn't strong enough to fight her. I tried talking my way out of it to get to him, but... he fell. I watched Eve kill him as Tahiri was ripping into my mind and then frying me with some sort of lightning from her hands. I was bleeding everywhere, then I couldn't breathe... I couldn't get to him." Savannah was crying in earnest now, her face buried in her knees. "I felt a sharp pain in my chest and there was even more pain and then I woke up screaming in Town Hall. I couldn't get to you and you died because I wasn't strong enough or powerful enough!"

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

"No, Savannah!" he said and reached for her, pulling her into his lap so he could hold her and get her to focus on the here and now. He didn't the story. He didn't like the picture of her being killed in such a gruesome manner. He didn't like the idea of her dying period. Forget him. He cared about her and her emotions right now where centered on that other AU life that didn't actually exist for them. They were what was real and it was that that he repeated to her over and over again.

"...I'm here and I'm alive and I'm your Johnny. You didn't get her killed, sweetheart. You didn't. That place... it seems like no one was surviving well. The death of Johnny and Savannah seemed inevitable. What could you have done? They loved each other till the end and cling to that, Savannah. And cling to the fact that we are here and alive and that this is our life."

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

"I promised him, I promised him that he would get her back. I promised him that he'd see her again and everything would be okay. But it wasn't and when I was dying, I wasn't thinking about them at all," she held tighter to him and buried her face in his chest as guilt poured out of her along with everything else. "All I could think about was that I was dying alone and scared and that you'd never know what had happened to me. I was dying in a place that I didn't belong and it wasn't right and you'd spend the rest of your life not knowing what had happened because I was in a coma and I couldn't tell you how much I loved you and how much you meant to me. I couldn't tell you how happy you made me and how I was glad that their lives were not ours! And I know that's not very nice and I shouldn't have thought like that, but all I wanted was for you not to be hurting when you found out I was gone!"

Because none of them there had realized at the time that if they died there, they'd wake up here.

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

"Aw, baby," he tried to soothe her. "Don't you know I know that already? I'll know it forever. Don't think for a single second that you ever have to prove that to me. I already know. And it's a perfectly fine thought; I'm glad their lives are not ours either. I love you and I'm here with you. Shh, it's okay, it'll all be okay. I can stay here for as long as you need me too."

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah held onto him tightly as she cried. She had been so scared in that other Fandom that she would never see him again and she didn't want to let him out of her sight for awhile.

"Please," she whispered. "I can't... I can't stay here this weekend. After tomorrow, I don't have class until Monday. Johnny, please, get me out of here for a few days. Show me that everyone is alive and just... I need you."

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

"We can do that. I'll take you to Chris, and Wyatt, and we'll see Isabel. Hell, maybe we'll have a party. How's that sound?" he asked, holding her close, hating to see her cry, and hurt as she was.

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah nodded, not about to let go of him right now if she didn't have to. "And Summer. A party with all of us together." She didn't think she was up for a party right now, but it was more important that he be with her. "And you won't leave."

She knew she sounded needy and desperate, but she couldn't help it right now. Everything she had seen and experienced was burned bright in her mind's eye and she was afraid to let him out of her sight.

"I locked the teddy bear in the closet." No, she really had no idea why she said that.