bakerstreet | the alternate universe meme.

[I'd be up for the canon specific.]

[ cool! where would you prefer we start? with Booker being rescued from his own stupidity or do the others get captured anyway? ]

[I doubt Merrick would stop with just Booker but for rp ease, let's just go with him needing to be rescued. Joe, Nicky, and Nile can be zeroing in on Merrick.]

The first sign something is happening outside the lab is muffled gunshots. Booker blinks, looks at the door, and frowns. By his estimate he's been in this lab maybe three weeks? There's no window and no clock here so he's guessed based on the doctor's visits and her watch.

It could be longer. It could be shorter. It's hard for him to keep track of time when the doctor keeps killing him for her samples. But he keeps waking up. It's the last thing he wants most of the time.

Booker sighs heavily.

He can guess why there are gunshots. The others have figured out where he is and have come to save him. He shouldn't be surprised but he kind of thought they'd forget about him.

It's only recently he's really gained perspective on a lot of things.

He kind of thought they'd forget about him. Yeah... that's never going to happen. The reasons are more numerous than the days that have passed. He may be an asshole but she's not about to lose him. She's already lost so much. Losing him too is not an option.

Andy barges through the lab door and immediately contends with the woman doctor who tries to attack her with a syringe. It can't even be called a fight. She's obviously just come from one though. There's splatters of blood on her face and clothing.

If she's relieved to find him, it doesn't show. There's no time for emotions in the middle of an extraction. She makes a beeline to his bed he's strapped to, slips the Glock into her waistband, and reaches for the first wrist restraint with both hands. The idea that he may not want to be rescued has never crossed her mind.

"You with me?"

"You should go," he said as he studied her. Booker missed her so much he ached with it but she shouldn't be here. "They'll try and capture you all once they realize you're like me. Andy go."

She needed to go and take the others very far away from Merrick. It would make that little bastard's day to have all four of them. Booker had refused to tell Copley or him where the others were.

His deal was simple. Merrick got him and no one else.

He suspected the whole time he was here Merrick was still looking. Now, they'd played right into his hands.

Once his wrist is free of the restraint, she reaches for the Glock and forces it into his hand. She has her back to the door, momentarily vulnerable to anyone who might walk through. It's not a position she likes finding herself in. Now more so than ever. He'll have to defend her for the next thirty seconds, the time it will take her to free his ankle and move around to the other side of the bed.

"We're walking out of here together." Like always.

No one would get a chance to shoot her. As soon as a soldier appears in the doorway Booker shoots. He didn't want her to get hurt from his stupid action.

"He'll come after us," Booker says with a shake of his head. "You should've left me here."

And never put herself at risk like this. She needs to run. The others too.

"He'll come after us regardless," she mutters, moving around to the other ankle. Making deals with men who don't keep them buys you nothing. It certainly won't ensure their safety. Merrick has tasted the possibilities
and now he wants the whole meal. It'll only mean suffering for all of them.

More gunshots can be heard, farther away than before. She glances up at the door for a second then back at Booker. "We need to join the others. They're tracking down Merrick."

Booker cursed under his breath. He was the only one who was supposed to get sacrificed. Everyone else was supposed to be safe and left alone. He was the only one that wanted to help... and maybe die in the process.

He rolled off the bed and stumbled a little. He'd been strapped down for a long time and his muscles weren't quite used to moving or carrying his weight.

He recovers quickly and holds out the gun to her. "I'll find something on the way."

Her hand immediately reaches out, ready to lend stability, but ultimately he finds his own footing.

"Keep it," she orders. She takes one last look at him, a second longer than she would normally, her gaze characteristically intense. A long conversation is somewhere in their future but right now, there isn't time. She hopes she gets the opportunity. She pulls from her back the only weapon she's kept in her possession. The axe, like her face and clothing, is already bloody.

Yeah, there would have to be a conversation about what he did and why. Booker wasn't looking forward to it. He had tried to hide his pain from them. Now, he'd have to show it all.

"Behind you," he said with a nod to her. Booker took up point behind her left shoulder where he usually positioned himself.

Joe would typically take the right. He was probably in the thick of those gunshots while they hunted down Merrick. What a fucking mess.

What he's tried to hide is not as hidden as he would like to think. You don't live 200 years with a man and not learn how to read him. The miserable thousand yard stares, the silent hours of introspection, the collapsing in on himself. What he doesn't share is just as important as what he does. He's lost and lonely and maybe just ready to be done. Andy would be lying if she said she didn't understand.

With his nod, they fall into place like a well oiled machine, surging forward. They check corners and clear rooms, encountering resistance only a handful of times. Joe, Nicky, and Nile have already been through. The evidence of their presence can be found in the body count and blood.

Andy's axe is buried deep in a security guard's chest when they hear the sound of glass shattering. Nile and Merrick freefall past the floor to ceiling window, heading straight for the street at least 20 stories down.

The new one. Booker had dreamed of her while being tortured and experimented on. Maybe she was how they found him after all this time, through her dreams.

Booker watched them hit the car and winced. That wouldn't be pleasant to recover from. "I saw an elevator back that way." He led the way. Most of the opposition was dead and not getting back up like they did.

After stepped into the elevator Booker leaned against the wall to catch his breath. All that was done to him had a real lingering effect.

Joe's ability to put descriptions to paper is nothing short of amazing. It took Nile several dreams though to come up with anything useful, the images disjointed and run together. A sketch of Copley sent them down workable avenues of investigation.

Andy leans beside him, their shoulders close to touching. She glances at him sidelong, not to give him a once over but to gauge his expression. His body is already healed. It's what's inside that's still bleeding.

It's the only moment of privacy they're going to get for the next few hours.

"You're not going to ask?" Booker can feel her gaze on him like a familiar weight.

Ask what happened. Ask what's wrong. Ask the million or so questions he can feel in her gaze.

There was a lot there and honestly he felt she was the only one that would understand it. Joe and Nicky had their weights but nothing like theirs. Nothing like the crushing grief they carried every day.

Maybe Andy would understand. Maybe she would sympathize even though it put them all at risk.

Joe and Nicky have each other, to have and to hold through ages of long nights and difficult times. She and Booker orbit each other differently, tied together in mutual misery. Grief has no expiration date, nor does time heal all broken hearts. She does understand. Her circumstances changing in his absence don't negate that.

The conversation she'd like to have with him can't be conducted in the space between floors. "Later we're going to sit down," she tells him. "You're going to talk and I'm going to listen. Just you and me."

It could be. It wouldn't be a satisfying conversation but it could happen. Booker nods. They'll talk later then.

Right now, they ride the rest of the way in silence. Booker puts himself on alert when the doors open expecting more danger but there isn't any. Apparently, they've neutralized the enemy.

There's only Joe and Nicky helping the new member out of the crushed car. Both men look relieved to see him. Joe smiles warmly at him and claps him on the shoulder.

They pile into the car and drive off. Booker in the backseat between Nicky and the new girl. He meets Andy's eyes in the rearview mirror before looking away.

They travel for what seems like hours, only stopping to change cars and drivers, putting as much distance as they can between them and London. Between them and the authorities. Andy has plans for a new day but this one isn't over. She may not sleep at all. Under the cover of night, they slip into another abandoned church, a refuge from prying eyes and imprisonment.

In the adjoining rectory, she hands him a beer and settles down into a chair across from him. Hers is already half gone.

They're all tired. Nicky's got brains to wash out of his hair. Nile is coping with the realities of immortality. They drift to separate corners of the church though he can feel everyone subtly watching him.

He takes the beer, takes a sip and then leans back in his chair. For a moment he's quiet but he can't keep it in. "Copley, former CIA, we worked for him once years ago. He tracked us through history. He told Merrick. Merrick wanted all of us."

Booker licks his lips and glances away from her for a moment. "I gave him me."

He may look away but her gaze is still firmly locked. When he doesn't continue, she prompts him even though she may already know the answer, understand his motives. "Why?"

Booker sighs heavily and looks at her. She knows. He can see it in her expression.

"Eventually, I thought he'd help me die. For good." Booker swallows around the words which feel bitter on his tongue now. "All lies, of course. He would've kept me alive as long as possible to keep testing but... at the time it seemed like the only way out."

And he could've helped cure cancer and done something good with this curse. He could've done something that made him feel worthwhile.

She knows. They've both been alive too long, carrying remorse too great for any one person to bear. "We're both so eager for it to be done," she whispers, sadness in her undertone.

The irony strikes her, makes her more tired than she already is. Now that's she's mortal, her time is finite. She's gotten what they both want so desperately, an eventual end to suffering. Only now she finds she doesn't want it as badly. With death on the horizon, she finds she just might have something to live for. She sighs and reaches a hand up to grip her shoulder, stretching her neck.

"And here we are instead. Constant." Booker knew it wasn't actually constant but he didn't know when things would end for them. Andy is at six thousand years roughly.

If that's the average then Booker has a very long time stretching out in front of him.

"I should've known it was too good to be true." Like Spiritualism and seances. Everything was a con. "I'm sorry I put you all at risk. I should've just killed Copley."

"I'm glad you didn't," she admits. For her own selfish reasons.

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