Ordinary World

by Cascade

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue,
Thought I heard you talkin' softly,

***********

She screamed, but there was no one to hear her.

She sat up, panting and crying, and it was a few moments before the cool night air convinced her that it was only a nightmare. Akkaba had been hot and stifling the day of the Merge. And it had been loud. She remembered that. Even crouched on the sidelines as she was, she could remember the yelling of Dark Riders and the noise over the communication channels. Then there was all the psychic noise in the air-- as if the dying empathic screams of the Dark Riders hadn't been enough, the Merge itself was earsplitting to those who were sensitive to it.

There was almost no sound here.

She crawled over to the pristine mountain lake that she had camped next to, splashed water on her face to wash off sweat and tears and then sat back on her haunches. The area was beautiful-- certainly the most beautiful shift she'd been exposed to. She'd learned the hard way not to be lulled into a false sense of security by something beautiful-- but the area seemed okay. The water appeared to be safe to drink, and none of the plants seemed to pose a danger to her. There didn't seem to be any animals, though, which made the entire area uncannily quiet. She wished she could stay here, but there was nothing to eat, and she was quickly running out of food-- and once she left this shift to find provisions she'd probably never find it again. It would have made her sad if there weren't so many other things to be sad about.

She missed him horribly. She had loved him-- although the practical part of her discounted the value of love in this new world. He was more valuable as a partner. They'd slept in turns during the night to watch for shifts. His powers were essential in driving off threats from dangerous scavengers-- both the animal and human kind. His optimism helped her to continue when she wanted to give up.  Mostly her mind focused on his importance as a partner because it knew a partner would be far easier to replace than a love. The hole a lost partner left in your heart was much smaller than that of a soulmate.

He spoke to her sometimes. She had just enough sanity left to realize that was a very bad sign.

*Hey,* he would greet, and she could feel ghost fingers on her shoulders, rubbing at aching muscles as he had done when he was still with her, but now not able to work out any knots. The yearning for more solid contact was slowly driving her insane.

The wind brushed through a stand of trees nearby, and she could feel him speaking through the moving leaves.

*Ah'm waiting for you.*

She shivered and stood up quickly, brushing her hair out of her face as she looked around her. He seemed so loud now. She searched the trees for a hidden doppleganger. It was entirely possible that there was another of him following her. That was the one thread of hope that this world inspired. Infinite universes combining meant infinite copies of loved ones that you could possibly run into.

No copy presented itself. She sighed and turned back to her gear and started packing it back up. All of her supplies and equipment had been scrounged and scavenged. At least half of it had once been his. It was still dark out, but she wasn't going to sleep anymore tonight.

After she'd lost him, she had planned a trek to Kentucky. It made sense that she might have a better chance of running into him there, but if she ever did make it to Kentucky it would be a happy coincidence. Geographical landmarks didn't stay constant through all the universes. He had tried to fly them back to New York once, but they'd gotten hopelessly lost. They couldn't even be sure if they were back in North America-- the Atlantic Ocean was hardly a constant throughout the multiverse.

She filled her canteen with water and looked up at the sky. It didn't look familiar-- but there was no way of telling why that was. It could be because she had somehow ended up in the southern hemisphere, or perhaps the stars were just different in this shift.

She sighed, hefted her backpack, and started walking.

*********

I turned on the lights, the TV and the radio,
Still I can't escape the ghost of you,

*************

She had coined a name for it: Window shopping. A seemingly harmless term for such a dangerous passtime. She got close enough to see inside each shift and tried to determine if it was hospitable or not. If she didn't find anything that piqued her interest she moved on. It was pure luck-- or perhaps it was somehow due to her empathy (There sometimes seemed to be a strange feeling in the air that preceeded a shift) -- that a shift hadn't opened up right on top of her yet.

She hadn't found much of interest today. At least nothing that was better than where she was now. Intriguingly enough, she hadn't run across anything really bad today either.

Just after lunch she came across another shift. It was dark inside and stood out starkly against the lush greenness of the place she was in. Staying a safe distance away, she peered in. She couldn't see much. Relaxing her posture, she reached out with her empathy to see if she could get any readings from any occupants inside. She felt nothing at first and passed it off as another dead zone, but just as soon as she was about to pass on she felt a weak call. It wasn't a call as such, considering the person was probably semi-conscious at best, but it was someone who needed her powers.

A lot of people needed her powers these days. When he had been by her side she might have rushed in to help with no hesitation, but things were a little different now. She hadn't used her powers in a long, long time-- it was entirely possible that she wasn't able to use them anymore with as little as she'd been eating. She took a swig from her canteen and frowned at the dark shift, trying to see if anything could be gained by entering it.

She analyzed the feelings of pain she was feeling from the poor soul who needed her. It felt like exhaustion and hypothermia mostly-- with maybe a few bumps and bruises thrown in. It also felt vaguely familiar.

*Aw, hell,* she thought. She couldn't figure out who it was-- but it was young and male. She hated the cold, but if there was a chance--

She shrugged off her backpack and quickly put on her warmest clothes and got out her emergency flashlight.

*You better be worth it,* she thought as she stepped through.

*******

What has happened to it all?
Crazy some are saying,
Where is the life that I recognize?
(gone away)

*********

The cold and thick swirling snow made her gasp. She hesitated, wanting to turn back around and run back to the pleasantly warm spring day that was behind her. *Not while there's still a chance...* she steeled herself, pulled up the collar of her winter coat and marched forward.

The snow was so thick it rendered the flashlight less than effective. She turned it off in order to save the battery and waded through the deep snow practically blind, counting on the assumption that there weren't any crevasses between her and whoever-it-was out here.

The wind howled and pawed at her clothes. She felt his hands on her again, but she fought through them.

She nearly tripped over the body. She knelt down next to it and shined the flashlight on its face. Disappointment flooded her as soon as she saw the dark skin, but there was still a spark of recognition there, even if she couldn't put her finger on who it was. Her life Before seemed terribly vague and distant now-- like a half-remembered dream. She picked him up. He felt unnaturally light, and he certainly wasn't responding to her being there, so he was completely out of it. She carried him back the way she had come.

She followed her tracks back to where she entered this world, but she came to the end of the tracks and there was no shift in sight. *Shit.* She walked a little further in the same direction, but still didn't see anything. Her 'patient's' condition was getting worse, too.

Through feel, she found her way to a snowbank. She dug a cave as quickly as she could and then crawled inside out of the snow, dragging the body with her. She took off her gloves and  touched his freezing cheek. She was almost surprized to see the soft glow surrounding her hand, and she smiled a little. It was like the return of an old friend. She quickly healed any damage done by the cold, but she had to get his temperature up.

She felt the exhaustion that the use of her powers brought on tugging at her. She would have to do this quickly before she passed out. She sighed and started undressing them both. *Whoever you are, you'd better respect me in the morning.*

*************

But I won't cry for yesterday,
There's an ordinary world,
Somehow I have to find,

**************

She awoke suddenly, not feeling rested at all. At least she hadn't dreamed-- that was probably due to her using her powers. She would have to help people more often. Of course, the trade-off was a mind blowing headache.

"Well this is an interesting variation of heaven I wasn't previously aware of."

It suddenly occurred to her what an incredibly bad idea this had been. She was practically defenseless against a total stranger, and was in a very vulnerable position.

She felt his hands searching the cave. Her flashlight clicked on.

"Hello," he said. There didn't seem to be any malice in the word. His face seemed friendly enough, and she wasn't picking up any hostile intentions-- but she could be wrong.

His skin was dark, but he wasn't African. He looked-- she paused trying to remember the names of the continents. It was some of that trivial information that you tended to forget when survival was more important-- South American, her mind decided.

"Can you tell me exactly which afterlife it is where you get to lay with beautiful, naked women all day?" He gave her a roguish grin.

She hadn't spoken since he'd died. There'd been no need for it. How long ago had that been? Weeks? Months? Years? She worked her jaw a bit.

"Or is it beautiful, naked, mute women?"

She backed away from him, pulling some of the blanket with her and putting a barrier between the two of them.

"I-- I saved your life," she said slowly, trying to remember how to move her tongue.

"I figured as much." He smiled at her warmly this time-- no hint of the cockiness here. He seemed sincere. "Thank you."

"Turn off the flashlight. You're wasting batteries."

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "You're the boss," he said, and then the cave went dark again.

"We'll wait until this storm lifts, and then try to make our way out of here," she said, maintaining the blanket barrier between them and laying down next to him.

He sighed. "The storm's not going to lift. I figure we're in some earth variant with nuclear winter, or one where a big asteroid crashed and the debris is blocking out the sun. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten stuck here."

Depression settled over her. She reached for her clothes. "Well, then let's get out now." She wasn't exactly sure how to do that, but she supposed it sounded decisive.

He laughed.

She bristled.

"No offense, but from what I saw, you looked exhausted. I'm not much better. Whaddya say we take advantage of our relative safety for a while and get some more rest first?"

"Fine. Whatever." She laid down again and turned away from him to instead face towards the mouth of the cave. There wasn't much to be seen outside.

"My name's Roberto DaCosta."

She remained silent. In the back of her mind she could feel the lightbulb of recognition flicker a little bit, but refused to light up. grumbled at it inwardly.

"Do you have a name?"

"Dana," she said curtly. "Dana Hawkes."

"Um... sorry to bother you and everything, but can I get some of the blankets back? It's a little chilly." He paused. "I promise, I won't take advantage of you."

She sighed and turned back over and redistributed the blankets, and then laid down beside him.

"You can use me as a pillow, if you want. It's probably more comfortable than the ice."

"I'm fine."

"It's really all I've got to pay you back with right now." He chuckled softly.

The ice *was* hard and cold. Her steely voice mirrored it as she spoke. "If you even *think* about doing something inappropriate I will leave you to freeze."

"Deal."

******************

And as I try to make my way,
To the ordinary world,
I will learn to survive,

*******************

She dusted snowflakes out of her hair as she re-entered the cave. "Done dressing yet?"

"Yeah-- but is there really a reason we have to head out?"

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Because we're out of food, and this shift is barely hospitable. There's gotta be something better."

He sighed and handed her the backpack. "Figured out which way to go yet?"

She shook her head. "It's all the same. We just have to hope we run into something."

"I don't like those odds."

She didn't answer him, instead shouldering the pack, choosing a direction and starting to walk into the darkness.

He scrambled out of the cave and to her side, keeping pace. She couldn't see him, but she knew he wore ill fitting clothes that had belonged to a dead man. It almost justified her having hauled them around with her for all this time.

His hand touched her shoulder, and then trailed down her arm before taking a firm grip on her hand.

"So we don't get separated!" he yelled over the wind.

*************

Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say,
Pride will tear us both apart,

***************

They were exhausted and there was no food left to replenish their energies. They dug a hasty shelter in another snowbank and quickly huddled together out of the wind. They were too tired to continue, so chose to camp for the night (or day-- it was impossible to tell) and pray that sleep would restore a bit of their reserves-- at least enough to get up the next morning.

He fell asleep almost instantly, and she was not far behind when she felt a distant empathic ripple. A ripple meant a human, and where there was another human-- whether they be in this shift or in another-- there was probably food-- or at least a greater chance of finding it.

Shaking him violently, she grabbed his hand and started marching him back into the snow before he was even fully aware of what was going on.

"Wha--" he said, a bit muzzyheadedly.

"I felt someone," she explained, moving as fast as she dared, "It might mean a hospitable shift-- which means we have to hurry if we want to catch it."

"You felt someone?"

"I'm a mutant-- an empath," she explained quickly. He seemed too tired to argue.

They dragged, supported and half carried each other for what seemed like miles upon miles of the same desolate, dark terrain.

Then they saw it-- a faint diffuse light that filtered through the snow towards them. They ran towards it, stumbling on legs numb with cold and exhaustion. It was hard to see what lay behind the shift through the swirling snow. So they ran until they were nearly right on top of it-- but then both stopped in horror at what they saw inside.

"Cable..." they breathed together. They shared a quick stunned look between them, and then looked back at the scene. At first glance, it may have appeared that Cable was fighting his old enemy Stryfe-- but a quick check for the TO virus confirmed that he was indeed fighting himself.

She had long ago learned that those of the Twelve were magnets for the shifts-- but she had never seen two of the same person of the Twelve together. It seemed to magnify the affect considerably.

Although the two Cables were seemingly oblivious to anything but themselves, they were ringed by rifts. The rift on the far side of the ring looked promising, but to get to it meant having to run between the two Cables, and from the look of the blighted ground beneath them, it didn't look like much survived in their presence for long.

Dana looked at the two figures with a feeling of longing. There had been a time, once, when the man on the other side of the shift had meant everything to her. He'd been her teacher, mentor and surrogate father and she had thought that she could never live without him guiding her.

She had proved herself wrong, but still-- There was a part of her-- a large part, truth be told, that would be happy to completely relinquish her will and independence to have him guide her again. He could certainly, with his knowledge of the shifts, timelines and the astral plane, help her re-assemble her family.

She reached out to the both of him, looking for some sign of recognition. One sent a terrific wave of golden energy towards his opponent, knocking him off of his feet. With his opponent down he spared the time to glance at her and Roberto. There was a hint of recognition there-- but it was buried too deep underneath the time he'd spent out in the shifts. She knew that sanity was a fleeting thing out here, and as he turned away from them again, she realized that it was probably too much to expect that he would fill the same role as her Cable had.

Roberto grabbed her arm. "What's going on?" he asked, he had the same longing look in his eye as she knew she must have. Damn, but there was something familiar about this Roberto-- apparently he knew of Cable-- and she would devote time to figuring out what it was just as soon as she got someplace where she had the time to think.

"They're both losing their minds. Too long out in the shifts. They each think that the other is Stryfe."

"We have to do something!"

"Do what? I'm not getting in between those two-- and even if we do break it up, do we really want two semi-psycho Cables trailing us around? They'd only bring more shifts." She was justifying it to herself just as much as she was to Roberto. "As soon as one of them goes down again, run straight across. Try not to get blasted. The shift on the other side looks fairly safe."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Look, once we're on the other side, we can debate this. I, for one, am sick of freezing my ass off."

She crouched in the snow until one of the Cables toppled. The other paused, panting. She knew it would be their best chance. "Go!" she shouted, grabbing his shoulder and hauling him out of the snow.

They darted between the Cables quickly. Dana dove through the far side and rolled, looking behind her to watch for Roberto's entrance.

He wasn't coming. He was still standing on the other side of the shift, looking at the Cables.

"Cable... Nathan... Forget this fight. Come with us," he said, reaching out his hand to them. His voice was quiet, but pleading. She could feel him broadcasting his feelings to the both of them, as if they weren't already written clearly on his face-- a strange combination of love, hope, pain and need.

She stood and walked to the very edge of the shift. Realistically, she knew she should yank him to her side of the rift and beat some sense into him, but-- if it worked-- if he could get her back her father--

They paused in their fighting and turned towards them. One reached out his hand--

She saw it moving towards them out of the corner of her eye-- a beautiful star field. It took a moment for her mind to register what it was-- a shift where the earth did not exist. It seemed more aggressive than the rest, moving past where the other shifts had gathered and closing in on the three frozen figures quickly.

She shouted a warning.

She was too late.

She darted out and grabbed Roberto by the collar and dragged him into the safety of her shift just before the star field came sliding by. She felt the cold slide over her fathers. They were exhausted and completely unprepared with no way to defend themselves. She turned away as she felt the vacuum take their lives.

Roberto stood by her side and watched it all.

"In another life he was my teacher," he whispered.

She nodded, but refused to look back. "He was mine as well."

He looked at her for a moment and then looked up at the new land they'd found themselves in. It was beautiful-- not quite as starkly beautiful as the mountain lake she'd discovered before-- but there was food here, which definitely made it a sight for sore eyes-- even if she didn't really feel like eating at the moment.

He leaned against a fruit tree. "Were you on X-Force?" he asked quietly.

She gasped, suddenly placing him. "No, but my--" She paused, swallowed. "I was--" She looked at the ground. She had to admit it to herself now-- it was unfair to think of him only as someone to watch her back. "--in love with someone who was. You were his best friend."

He turned towards her again, his eyes narrow, disbelieving. "Sam? You were in love with Sam?"

She nodded, but tears blurred her eyes and her throat tightened-- she could admit it now, but she still couldn't say his name.

"What-- what happened to him?"

She bit her lip. "He--" She took a shaky breath. "He's dead. He died. Saving me."

Dana covered her face with her hands and sunk to her knees in the soft grass. She was exhausted in every way-- she couldn't deal with this right now.

She felt him move towards her, kneel beside her, take her in his arms gently. "Your Sam was on the X-Men?" he asked quietly.

She nodded.

"Mine was too. I hadn't seen him for months-- we had plans to get together after the whole mess in Egypt-- X-Force stayed in San Francisco. Then the shifts hit us, and I never found him again."

"What happened to the rest of X-Force?" she asked shakily.

He swallowed. "The learning curve nowadays is pretty high. We all got separated before we figured out the rules."

"I felt it coming," she whispered. "Not early enough to do anything about it, but I knew something was wrong. I ran to him-- I guess I wanted to have a chance to say good-bye. Then it happened-- we were separated from everyone else-- I had no idea what was happening-- I just held onto him and prayed. So many people died that day-- I felt them all die."

He nodded. "A lot of good people died. And we're what's left." He sighed. "You ever wonder, 'why us?'"

"I try not to." She pulled away from him and shrugged out of her backpack. "Let's get some rest," she said curtly.

**********************

Well now, pride's gone out the window, 'cross the
rooftops, run away,
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

**************

She woke up gradually in the mid-afternoon. It felt so good to be warm. She stretched like a cat in a sunbeam and slid out of many of her heavier layers of clothing. She gradually blinked her eyes open and looked around for Roberto.

She found him laying on his back on a big flat rock next to the gurgling little stream that bisected the meadow they were in. He was only wearing his shorts in order to take full advantage of the warm sun beaming down onto his dark skin.

She finally found the willpower to stand up and wandered over to him. He looked so happy laying there on the rock she had to chuckle. "What are you, part reptile?"

His eyes still closed, he stuck his tongue out quickly a few times, snake-like. Then he grinned and shaded his eyes with his hand as he looked up at her. "Actually, my power involves absorbing energy from the sun and using it later for enhanced strength and flight and energy blasts and all that good stuff."

"I seem to remember him saying something like that," she said quietly.

"Yeah." There was an awkward silence, before Roberto decided to break it. "That's kinda how I got stuck in that snowstorm, actually--" He chuckled. Now that they were both safe he could laugh at his own stupidity. "I thought I could just make a quick flight across that shift as a shortcut. I didn't realize that there was no sunlight getting through or how big it was and so I drained all my power without being able to re-charge. And that's how you found me."

She smiled. "I'm glad I could finally help someone for a change." She looked around. "So what's for breakfast around here?"

He chuckled and sat up. "Welcome to the Garden of Eden." He grinned and indicated the stands of trees a ways off. "I think we landed near an overgrown orchard or something, so there's fruit, and I ran into a bunch of animals in there earlier, so we could probably round up some venison or something, too, now that I'm re-charged."

She walked over to the nearest tree, stomach growling. She was going to have to be careful not to make herself sick on fruit. She looked up into the heavy branches. "Oh, this is symbolic-- apple trees."

He laughed and came over to join her. "Well I had a few, and I seem to be all right. I haven't been cast out, haven't seen any snakes, and this isn't a dimension where apples are toxic." He flew up to a higher branch and gathered a few nice specimens for her.

She accepted them gratefully and went back over to his rock to sit down and eat them.

"So what's the plan?" she said around a mouthful of apple. "You wanna set out on your own, now that we're out of harm's way for the most part?"

"I wasn't planning on it-- unless you want me to go?"

"Well, I have noticed that teams survive a little longer out here than lone wolves do."

"Plus, I think we have something very important in common." He took her hand gently. "I think there's someone we both need to fill a gap in our lives. We probably have a better chance of finding him together."

She nodded and smiled gratefully. "I was hoping you felt that way. So, you want to get right to it?"

He grimaced. "I may be re-charged, but I think I could use a vacation. I'm not very survival savvy, but we may be able to figure out a way to store some of the food around here so we can take it with us."

"Don't look for much help from me. I was a spoiled rich kid for a good part of my life."

"No way. You too?" He shook his head disbelievingly. "How the hell did we survive this long? We should have been doomed!"

***************

What is happening to me
Crazy some are saying
Where is my friend when I need you most
(Gone away)

*************

The campfire burned low. Dana lay happily next to Roberto. It had been a long time since she'd had meat. She could get used to this. If they found one more good point to this place she would never be able to force herself to leave.

Roberto scratched his head. "Umm... How about Backstreet Boys, Brittney Spears and N*Sync?"

"Yup."

"Damn, I hope they're not universal."

"Now there's a sobering thought."

"Your turn."

She thought for a moment. "Beethoven and Mozart."

He nodded. "Uh huh. How about Lucas and Spielberg?"

"Yes and yes." She rolled on her side to face him. "Now, rumor has it, my universe's Roberto was very fond of Magnum P.I. How about you?"

"Of course!"

"Did you know that they started rerunning that show on A & E of all channels?"

"Yes! You have no idea how pissed off I was when I woke up one morning and discovered that the apocalypse was going on, so the satellite dish was on the fritz."

She laughed. "I'm glad SOMEONE on the planet had their priorities in order."

"Our universes seem rather boringly similar."

"I'm sure we'll find something significantly different enough for you-- other than me, that is. I suppose it's more than logical that you wouldn't have known me in your universe. Me coming to the mansion in my universe was a fluke million-to-one shot that required all the stars to be in perfect alignment. I guess one of the stars was off in your universe."

He smiled softly. "What was your Sam like?"

She looked at him, hurt, wondering what would have compelled him to ruin her good mood. She rolled away from him and looked off into the distance. "No. We're not talking about this," she whispered.

He sat up and looked at her. "I think you should talk about it."

"Who the hell are you to tell me what I should and should not be doing? I met you *2 days ago*!"

"I'm just saying..."

"I have no interest in anything else you care to say."

He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, but I just think..."

"I'm moving on tomorrow. You can come or not..."

"What!? I thought we'd decided to stay for a while... stock up on provisions..."

"I changed my mind."

"Let's not be hasty just because I said something stupid."

"We'll talk about it in the morning."

"No, I definitely think this is something we should talk about now."

"Look, we either talk about it in the morning, or I leave now." She sat up and reached for her backpack.

"Fine. Tomorrow morning." He laid back down and waited for her to turn over and lay her head on his chest. She didn't. He touched her arm. She batted his hand away.

"Okay, fine," he muttered, and turned away from her to go to sleep.

************

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
somehow I have to find

*****************

A combination of the sun shining down on his face and the wind shifting and blowing ash from last night's fire onto him woke him up. He sat up and coughed at the dust, blinked a few times, and then looked around him.

Dana was already up, but he didn't see her. She was probably out gathering food. He stood up and stretched and brushed dust out of his hair while he looked around for her. "Dana?" He looked towards the orchard, but she wasn't to be found amongst the trees there. He walked slowly over to the stream. There was something sitting on the large flat rock. He knelt by the rock with a sinking feeling of dread in his heart. Approximately half of the possessions in Dana's backpack were sitting on the rock, tied into a carriable bundle with a shirt. The words "bye" and "good luck" were written on the rock with a piece of charcoal from the fire in large shaky capital letters.

"Damn it!" Roberto shouted as he hastily scanned the horizon for her retreating form. He couldn't see her and wondered if she had even bothered to sleep last night, or if she had just waited for him to fall asleep before running off.

He picked up the bundle and soared into the air to try and find her from a higher perspective. He saw a dense forest in one direction, and a number of shifts in another and cursed. If she had run in either of those directions he'd never be able to find her again.

He glanced in the other directions. Tall grasses stretched in both directions. He dropped a little to see if he could detect any tell-tale bent-grass path through the meadow. He'd almost given up hope when he saw it-- a faint straight path through the grass in a westerly direction-- assuming that the sun rose and set in the same direction here.

It could have been a deer track or something, but it was his only lead and he sped off in that direction skimming low to the grass so he could follow it-- and approach without being too obviously seen.

He flew for a long time. It had become fairly obvious that she had left as soon as he'd dozed off last night, and he was furious about being left behind. He had just worked himself into a phenomenal rage when he saw a black speck in the distance that was rapidly becoming a human form.

It was Dana and she was running. He narrowed his eyes in anger and made a beeline. He landed right in front of her, but she didn't even notice until she crashed into him and fell to the ground.

He glowered down at her and she blinked distractedly. She was clutching something in her hand.

"What the hell are you doing sneaking out on me!?" he yelled. She spared him a single irritated glance and climbed to her feet and started walking again in the direction she'd been traveling.

"Wait a minute!" he called after her. "We are going to sit down and have a talk about a few things." He jogged after her and grabbed her arm, holding her back. She nearly took his head off with the wild punch she aimed at his head.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, narrowly ducking it. "What's going on?"

She handed him what she had been clutching in her hand by way of explanation and then continued to walk. It was a yellowed, weathered shred of newspaper.

"What's this?"

She didn't turn around, but she finally said something. "Read it," she called back to him.

Her voice sounded strange, he noted, but he glanced down again at the scrap of paper.

It was the top corner of a page. There wasn't enough of the article preserved on it to make any sense of what it was talking about. He looked at the very top. There was a page number, A6, and then the name of the newspaper. He nearly fell to his knees when he read it: The Cumberland Gazette.

"Dana-- you don't think--"

"I can feel him."

******************************

And as I try to make my way,
To the ordinary world,
I will learn to survive,

*************

He clutched his Bible to his chest with one hand and gripped the rotting fence post with the other, gasping for breath. He glanced up at the line of crosses a few yards ahead of him and then glanced back the way he had come. It got harder and harder to make this trek every day.

He started forward again, using the old fence to support him. He only got a few steps before he started seeing stars again. He took a few deep breaths, but they only instigated a fit of coughing that racked his thin frame and brought up black mucous. He shuddered.

He was 26 years old-- he thought. It had been hard to tell time lately. His father had died in his late 30's and he recognized similar symptoms. The coal dust that he'd inhaled in his work at the mines had already started to destroy his lungs. He was dying. It would have been tragic if he hadn't been ready to embrace death with both arms.

He finally made it to the nearest grave and knelt beside it. It was the freshest, but only by a few days. He'd dug it himself.

He took a deep, but careful, so as to not stir up a coughing fit again, breath and let the Bible fall open on his lap and began to read.

"Yea, though ah walk through the valley of the shadow of death, ah will fear no evil..."

He prayed passionately. He prayed over this grave every day. His brother, Joshua, was buried here. Joshua had committed an unforgivable sin. The thought made him pray even more fervently. Joshua would not go to heaven, and he really didn't know what to do about it. So he prayed for Joshua's soul and begged for the Lord's forgiveness. He would have taken all of Joshua's sins on himself if he could-- that's what big brothers did for their little brothers. He would have moved on long ago, if he didn't have to stay to look after his brother. He would never abandon Josh.

He read page after page until his back and neck were stiff from hunching over the book on the cold ground. He reached a hand up to massage his neck and he glanced up into the sky. The sun was a little past directly overhead. He'd been out here for hours. A bird was flying low in the distance and he watched it for a while before returning to his reading.

He read a few more verses before something odd registered in his mind about that bird. He looked up again. It was much closer now. It must have been flying directly towards him. And now that he really looked at it, it looked less and less like a bird. He squinted at it as he slowly climbed to his feet.

"Holy God..." he breathed.

He must have been seeing things-- but there it was. The bird shape had resolved itself into two *people*. Two *flying* people. One was carrying the other, and they were coming right for him.

"Angels..."

He was frozen in place. He knew he should throw himself to his knees in front of angels, but he couldn't make his knees bend. He clutched his Bible to his chest. His breath came faster and he started seeing stars again.

They landed on the grass before him. One was a dark-skinned man, the other was a tanned, brown-haired woman. Neither of them wore white, and he couldn't see any wings. Of course, then he couldn't see much of anything, now. His damaged lungs couldn't quite process all the oxygen he needed to cope with divine visitation and his vision went gray and he fell to the ground.

"Sam!" The female angel had called his name, he realized dimly.

"Not yet..." He gasped, only semi-coherently. "I can't go without Josh."

The female angel knelt by his side. "Sam, calm down, you're hyperventilating," she said softly. She placed her hands on his face, and he blinked up at her. She was surrounded by a diffuse, white glow and it was getting easier and easier to breathe.

It was getting harder and harder to cope with the situation mentally, however, and he passed out.

*********

Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and
greed
Fear today, forgot tomorrow

***********

Sam blinked his eyes open, fully expecting to be in heaven. He glanced around himself only to find that he was in the master bedroom of his home-- one of the few undamaged rooms left. He sat up a bit and only then noticed that the female angel was laying beside him, asleep. He jerked back from her, shocked, but then reached out to move a lock of hair from her face. She certainly felt like a real person-- but she had flown, he was sure of it, and the white glow she had radiated-- He took a deep breath, and didn't cough. Had she healed him? His lungs felt so much better.

He let his hand linger on her face. There was something about her. Something familiar, even though he would have sworn that he'd never seen anyone like her before. And her face, close up, was hardly angelic-- Her hair was ragged, and her face and visible skin showed scars. There were lines on her face-- she looked like she'd gone through terrible hardship.

"Good morning, Sam."

He jerked back from the female angel and turned to look up at the male one, who was carrying a plate of something. "Ah'm sorry-- Ah..."

"What? Her?" He indicated the other angel's sleeping form. "Oh, don't worry about that. She'd probably be flattered. Hope you like apples and venison for breakfast. It's really all we've got left."

The angel handed him a plate heaping with food. More food than he'd seen in quite a while actually. "Ah couldn't..."

The angel rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. We've been looking for you forever. It's the least we could do." The angel watched him until he had taken a bite.

He was, to say the least, confused. Angels didn't seem to act this way in the Good Book. "Umm... Sir? What're ya'll doin' here?"

"Looking for you, Sam. Man, it's good seeing you again." The angel patted him on the shoulder, but then cocked his head to the side. "I guess you don't know me, do you?"

Sam shook his head.

The angel sighed. "Aw, man. Okay. Lets start at the beginning. You know what the shifts are, right?"

"The doorways ta hell?" Sam said around a mouth full of apple.

The angel shrugged. "That's one way of putting it. Okay... before the... uh... 'doorways' opened, the world you lived in was your universe. It was part of a multiverse which consisted of every possible universe. So for instance, there's another universe in which you were never born, and a universe in which you tied your shoelaces 5 seconds earlier one morning than you did in your universe. Then... something happened, and all the universes in the multiverse were thrown together. That's what your doorways are-- where the universes are overlapping. We," he indicated the sleeping angel and himself, "are friends of versions of you from other universes. We missed our Sams and so we came looking for one. And we found you."

"So you're not angels?"

The not-angel laughed. "Hardly."

"But... but ah saw ya fly! And she," he indicated the girl sleeping beside him, "was... glowing!"

"Oh, geez. Um, well, in our universes some people are born as 'mutants'. We're regular people, but we've got superpowers. I can fly and do a few other things, and Dana there can heal. Oh. I should probably introduce myself. I'm Roberto.

"Roberto?" Sam looked at the girl next to him. "And Dana?"

Roberto nodded.

Sam sighed. "Ah really don't understand all this. Am ah dead?"

Roberto sighed, shook his head and tried to explain it all again.

************

Here, beside the news of holy war and holy need,
Ours is just a little sorrow,

************

Her head hurt. Her head really hurt. That was all she could really think about. She couldn't ever remember it hurting this much. Two major healings within a week, when she was out of practice and undernourished-- it was amazing she was still alive. If this got to be a habit she'd really have to find away to take better care of herself-- if that was even possible. She clutched her head. The voices she heard weren't making her head feel any better. She moaned.

"Would you kindly shut the hell up, 'Berto? My head feels like it's going to fall off. And get me a glass of water."

"Yes SIR!"

She winced at the volume as he marched off. She was going to kill him. She really was. Just as soon as her head stopped pounding.

"Uh, ma'am?" a quiet, timid voice drifted past the pain. "Can ah get ya anything?"

She knew that voice. She blinked her eyes open. It was much too bright in the room. She looked up at the figure sitting on the bed next to her.

"Sam!?" She had shot up and had her arms tightly around him before she even registered the desire to move. She regretted it instantly, but she didn't care. She was too busy crying into his shoulder. "Oh, God, Sam, it's so good to see you. I can't believe it..."

"It's okay... uh... Dana..." he said, patting her on the shoulder awkwardly.

"Dana, here's your water." Roberto had brought her the canteen. She lifted her head from Sam's shoulder reluctantly and reached for it, taking a deep breath to try to stop the tears before taking a drink.

"Ah guess ah owe ya a bit of thanks... Roberto here tells me ya healed my lungs by some sort of miracle..."

"You're more than welcome Sam. I wish it made a dent in what I owe you... or at least one of you..."

Sam looked confused and rubbed the back of his neck. "This is all so confusin'... It's gonna take a bit of time to get used to."

Roberto patted him on the back. "That's okay. Now that we're all together, we've got all the time in the world."

******

And I don't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find

*************

The three of them stayed at the farm for weeks but their food was running low again. There was a little wild food around, but it wasn't enough to feed three people reliably. It had barely been keeping Sam alive. But they couldn't get Sam to leave. Dana at least could understand part of the reason. Sam's entire family was buried here now, and this Sam was much more devout and less worldly than hers had been. Beyond that, though, there was an unusually strong tie to this place.

He still went out every morning with his Bible to the graveyard. He knelt in front of the same grave every time, and stayed out twice as long on Sunday mornings when he was up with the sunrise. She tried to talk about it with him, but he didn't say much about it. He didn't say much at all. It seemed as if he appreciated having company, but he seemed to be intimidated by these strangers who'd intruded on his life, as well. She could understand that. She just wished that things could have gone back to how it had been with the other Sam, and she was impatient.

While he was out praying one morning she went out into the overgrown fields. The shifts had played havoc with them. The crops were pretty much destroyed except for the rare plant or two. She gathered a few items that looked at least halfway edible, and gathered every wildflower she could find. When she had an armful of flowers she headed back to the ruins of the house and deposited the vegetables and grain in what was left of the kitchen and then went out to the graves to find Sam.

He was just getting up stiffly from his kneeling position and dusting his pants off. She moved up beside him quietly. "Which is your mother's?" she whispered.

He pointed wordlessly to the largest cross.

She walked over to it and reverently laid half of her makeshift bouquet on it. "I knew your mother, Sam. She was a beautiful, strong woman whom I miss very much." She turned back to him. "My mother died when I was very young. When I fell in love with you and you introduced me to your family-- she became a foster mother to me. I don't think I ever really thanked her for that."

He swallowed and nodded. "She was a good woman."

She nodded silently, and went about distributing the rest of the flowers on the rest of the graves, bowing her head briefly after each one.

She came back beside him again, before laying flowers on the last one. "Who's this?"

"Joshua." His voice cracked as he said it.

She bit her lip and knelt beside the grave as he had done. "Does he have his guitar with him?" she asked quietly as she laid down the flowers and then looked back up at him.

He nodded, and then a heartbreaking sob escaped from him and he sank to his knees next to her. She turned and held him tightly, and he cried into her shoulder, sobs racking his skinny frame in her arms.

She cried with him, freely. His family had once been nearly her family after all, and she loved them. "What did he do that was so terrible, Sam?"

He drew back from her, horrified. "How..?"

She looked down. "I'm an empath, Sam, besides being a healer. I can't read your mind-- just your emotions."

He looked shocked. She could feel him pull mentally away from her, disgusted by the invasion of privacy.

"No!" She panicked and said it too loudly. He flinched. "No. I didn't do it on purpose. I wasn't prying. I couldn't ignore it. You're just hurting so much..."

He still didn't look quite convinced. She resisted the urge to just throw herself on the ground in front of him. "Sam... please understand how hard this is for me. My Sam..." she paused. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "He was my... soulmate. I guess there's really no other way of putting it." She looked off into the distance and smiled briefly through her tears. "He proposed to me... but we never found anyone to perform the ceremony." She paused. It was her most cherished memory.

**********

It had been pouring rain, and they'd sought shelter in a deserted city. They'd found an empty church to spend the night in. She'd gone into the bathroom and shed her soggy clothes and changed into dry ones, and when she'd come back into the sanctuary he'd lit all of the candles in the place. It was a beautiful church with large stained glass windows and a sparkling altar. He'd come forward and taken her hand and lead her to the front without a sound. She'd known he was up to something, but he said nothing, and they'd eaten a small dinner in a beautiful silence. Then he'd taken her in his arms and kissed her and asked her to stay with him forever, and they'd knelt in front of the altar and said private vows to each other in front of God. He'd kissed her chastely, collected a few of the candles and led her to the building next door where they'd made love for the first time,  surrounded by candlelight. She could still see the way his face looked in that flickering warm light when she closed her eyes at night. They came back into the sanctuary of the church to spend the night, cradled in each other's arms, surrounded by a rare feeling of love and safety. It was the first and only time Dana had actually felt like God was watching over her.

************

"I wish I had some way to convey to you what he gave me. I owe him everything-- my life is the least of it. He... died." She fought back a sob. She couldn't sob now, she had to speak. "I guess I came here to try to find him,  or a part of him, or a substitute for him... and that's not fair to you, I know. But you have to understand that you are essentially him, and everything I loved about him that called out directly to my heart exists in you as well. One of those things was his family and his love for it. You have no way to know how much I loved his family. I wish I could share that with you. Josh was like a brother to me. I used to love to sit in the backyard and listen to him sing. So, please, as a member of your family in at least one dimension, tell me what happened."

"We were engaged?"

She smiled faintly. "We were married in every way that mattered. He used to tell me we were in the eyes of God."

He bowed his head and thought about that. "Josh..." he started. "Josh and ah were the last ones alive. The rest were killed in the... uh... 'shifts'. We went out to hunt ducks one mornin' for the rest of the family and when we got back, they were all... gone. We buried them all, and ah thought he'd be all right, but a few nights later ah got woken up by gunfire at around 3 in the morning. ah went to his bedroom... and... " He paused to collect himself. "He'd taken his shotgun and..." He sobbed again.

She collected him in her arms again and made soothing noises and cried with him.

"It's okay. He's at rest now..." She soothed.

He pulled back from her. "No! It's not! He's been condemned ta Hell! That's why ah have to come here every morning to pray for the Lord's forgiveness. Ah have to help him. He's mah *brother*."

"How long do you have to do penance for him?" She said quietly.

"Ah don't know. As long as ah can."

"We can't stay here forever. We'll starve."

"You don't have to. Please leave me here and move on-- you'll find another one of me, ah'm sure."

"I'll go if you want me to, but please don't make me. It'll kill me to leave you again. It took me so long to find you, and I think I can help you... but we'll have to leave eventually. Can you pray for him from a distance?"

"Ah guess so, ah just don't feel like ah should leave them."

"I'm going to say something brutally harsh here, and I hope you'll forgive me, but you're going to join them if you don't leave them. And I know you think that's what you want, but let me tell you, there are enough dead people in this world, and there are plenty of mean ones, and to let a good person die would be unconscionable. I once swore in a church that I would protect you and always be with you. It would be a sin for me to let you die, too."

He didn't say anything. She touched his cheek and wiped away some of his tears. He looked up at her. She tried to resist and knew that it was somehow inappropriate, but she found herself leaning closer. She touched her lips to his. he froze at first and her heart sunk, waiting for him to pull away, but then he put a tentative hand behind her head and pulled her closer.

She could have died right then and been happy.

***********

And as I try to make my way,
To the ordinary world,
I will learn to survive,

*************

They moved out a week later. They packed everything from the house that was portable and useful and marched out into the wastes together. They took turns watching at night for bad shifts. They gathered more food than any of them had been able to gather alone, and Sam's outdoors knowledge saved their lives on a number of occasions. They didn't know what they'd do without him.

His relationships with Dana and Roberto deepened. He and Roberto were the best of friends, now, like they were always supposed to be. And he now returned Dana's affection for him. He didn't love her yet, but he let her sleep by his side now, and he'd noticed that she'd cried herself to sleep with tears of joy the first few nights.

He still had the dreams, though. The terrible dreams where Joshua would call to him through the fire.

************

Every world is my world,

****************

It was Sam's watch. He sat cross-legged with his back to the fire. Dana's head was in his lap and her arms were around his waist. He'd been watching the darkness for hours and had seen nothing. He was about to wake Roberto up for his watch, when he saw it, flickering in the distance.

The shift they were in wasn't as comfortable as it could have been. He was always on the lookout for a better shift, so he carefully freed himself from Dana and went to investigate.

It was moving towards him. Not quickly enough that he couldn't escape it at a jog, but definitely towards the campsite. He should probably turn back to wake the others to prepare them for the shift or to tell them to move out of the way, but something drew him onward.

In a flash of reds and yellows he saw what it was.

Fire.

The whole shift was burning.  So fiercely that he thought he could feel the heat through the barrier. "A doorway to Hell." he whispered. He stood staring at it, hypnotized.

The flames looked alive, as they danced and devoured everything in the shift. They should have burned themselves out by now-- maybe there was something in the air on that side of the shift that they were feeding off of.

Pain clutched his heart as he thought of his brother. Was that what his brother was facing, alone? He shouldn't have left home. He needed to be with his brother.

The shift grew closer. He was so close to it that the wind on this side of the shift whipped at his baggy clothes and they came back singed.

All he could think of was a burning guitar.

"Yea, though ah walk through the valley of the shadow of death, ah will fear no evil..."

*************

I will learn to survive ,

*************

"SAM!" Dana was on her feet in an instant, screaming and starting to run in the direction she'd felt him from before she knew what was going on. "Oh, God, no. Oh please, God... not again."

She ran as fast as she could on numb legs. Her entire body was numb. She fell twice, not gently, springing up again with new bruises and lacerations.

She felt a rush of air beside her, and Roberto was there.

"He's done something... I can't feel him..."

She knew what that meant. She could just stop running now. But she couldn't. Her legs wouldn't stop. Not until she got to the shift, and her stomach lurched, and she knew, with a sickening certainty that the image would stay with her forever.

She would still see the way his face looked in that flickering warm light when she closed her eyes at night.

**************

Any world is my world,

**************

Roberto put his arms around her waist. He knew what was coming.

"Oh... no. Oh God... oh God, no!" She pulled against him, moving towards the shift. He held her back.

"Dana, he's gone. Dana, come on, lets go back to the campsite. There's nothing we can do!"

"NO!" The sound seemed to tear all her vocal chords on the way out. She cried and screamed and pulled towards Sam's body. It sounded like her heart was dying. He had never heard anything so pitiful as her helpless screaming. She writhed against him.

"Let me go, 'Berto! I need to be with him. God, just let me die..." She turned in his arms, and hit his shoulders, trying to get herself free. "I can't take this again."

"Dana, you can't leave me alone... You're my friend now. I don't want to be alone."

She dropped to the ground and just sobbed. She didn't say anything else, just sobbed loudly, burying her face in the dirt, and grabbing at weeds with her hands.

He stood over her, letting his own tears fall until the shift moved threateningly close to them. He picked her up, carried her back to camp, packed up the essentials, and flew them both away where they wouldn't be threatened by the advancing shift.

She was catatonic for three days. She wouldn't eat or drink unless he made her. She didn't make a sound, except for a few whimpering noises when she finally did fall asleep.

On the fourth day, she blinked once as he was trying to make her drink some water.

"Dana?"

He got no response.

"Dana, Goddammit, you can't just will yourself to die. I need you here."

He tried to make her drink again. More water dripped off her chin than went in her mouth.

He closed his eyes, put the cap back on the canteen, and hurled it as hard as he could into a rock. It exploded.

He knelt in front of her, and brushed her mussed hair out of her eyes. "Dana? Please talk to me?" he started to cry. "I need to tell you something important, and I need to be sure that you'll hear me."

She didn't move.

"Fine." He pushed at her in anger. She toppled over onto her side, not even attempting to hold herself up. "Just fine! You saved my life and now I'm just supposed to let you die?"

He took a deep breath. "I can't do that Dana. Because I think I love you. I would never get in the way of you and Sam, but I really think I've fallen in love with you."

She blinked.

He knelt down and kissed her.

Her lips moved under his. She responded and kissed him back.

He finally broke it off, and looked at her. She met his gaze unwaveringly, despite the tears in her eyes again.

"Let me try to make you happy again?"

She reached out and put her arms around him, and he hugged her back fiercely.

They sat holding each other and crying until the fiery sun set.

************

I will learn to survive.

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