fandomtownies | Sunday Evening, All Across Fandom Island

In a Fandom that should never have happened, a wand snapped in half, this time for the last time, and moments later, an hourglass cracked apart, sand spattering to the floor.

Time, already twisted back on itself like a watch wound too tight, snapped free. Unspooled across Fandom and the universes that touched on it, re-creating the lives that Umbridge had undone -- all but her own. That ending, she'd earned, and Time left her where she was, dead on the floor of an office that no longer existed, just like her.

Fandom, though? Fandom was back, and those who'd lost their lives under her rule were back too, waking wherever they'd been in our world when she'd made her escape from Special Collections last Sunday.

Those who lived long enough to see her defeated would find themselves standing exactly where they were a moment ago, the memories still fresh in their minds, but in a world devoid of Dolores Umbridge -- and refreshingly low on pink.

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[OOC: For all your wakeywakey fun-times or horrible embarrassment, as you like - feel free to react here or link it up from wherever you'd like to set it. Any reactions should be with or in your characters' regular journals, though, since we're back in the main timeline!]

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Well... the day had been saved. How about that.

Jonothon made his way from the dorms, a few grains of sand still clinging to his fingertips, with a blank sort of look on his face, eyes turned toward the ground underfoot.

This was a victory. The flood of memories of the past several years of his life stood to confirm as much. Whatever this was, this was the best possible outcome. But there was a part of him that wished that, in the wake of that outcome, this didn't have to be the life that he came back to.

"Three...two...one..."

If you wanted to avoid this hug, Jono, you had better move damn fast.

Jono wasn't going anywhere. Jono was going to just hold his arms open and take the hug like a man. Just like the sort of man who had spent a week with his head on right, who had all of the senses that he had lost nearly a year ago and who had known how to use them, only to have that taken away again.

Like a man who had returned to normal, only to find out that the life he was living came with so much guilt.

He was clinging. For dear life.

Edited 2012-07-30 00:40 (UTC)

"Jono, I'm so sorry, Jono," Karla said, clinging to him and weeping into his shoulder. Would he take that like a man, too? Girl tears were his one major weakness, after all.

"So, so sorry." Sorry for everything he'd been through, this past week. Sorry for everything she'd done to him. Sorry for any lives he'd taken during the fight--more blood on too-bloodied hands.

Mostly, she was sorry because she knew for a fact this was perhaps the only person on the island sorry that the previous timeline hadn't been real.

Maybe it was for the best that she was crying. It meant that he didn't have to. Or, at least, that she would understand if he was shaking and not about to let go.

"It was worth it," he murmured, and then, because some part of him, some selfish, terrible part of him wasn't convinced, he repeated it. "It was worth it."

There had been so much death and pain and loss. It could only ever be worth it.

"Just because it was worth it doesn't make it easy to live with," Karla told him, nowhere near ready to let go yet. "It's so stupid, but all I can think of is how I made you hate me. Isn't that stupid? But knowing there's a universe where we're not friends and it's my fault..." she trailed off into another messy sob.

"No," Jonothon mumbled, lifting his hands to grab at her shoulders, even if he couldn't quite look up to meet her gaze. "It's not your fault. It's her fault. You did what needed to be done. She created that universe. We just did what reality demanded we do."

Jono, of all people, also knew full well that 'not your fault' didn't make the guilt go away, at least.

"That's not entirely true," Karla said softly, looking away, in part so she could pretend that she didn't notice Jono's inability to meet her eyes. "Umbridge Imperio'd me. She didn't require me to act like a sadist. That was all me. She might have took away any inhibitions I might have felt about acting that way, but whatever was left was all me."

Jonothon fell silent at that. Silent, but he nodded. It made sense. It made all too much sense. He'd spent a year screaming in the back of his own head, but there had been moments, things he'd been able to do with his powers under the command of Weapon X, that had thrilled him all the same.

"Did you enjoy it?"

He had. And he wasn't sure, these days, if he'd enjoyed it because they told him that he ought to, or if he'd enjoyed it because it was something that he had actually been good at.

"I did," Karla said, in a voice almost too soft to be heard. "I was good at it. I could play them like instruments and I knew exactly what buttons to push and strings to pull to make them hurt or make them break or make them love me all the more."

She shivered, though the July evening wasn't the least bit cold. "All my life, I've fought against everything that Hobart was. And now I find I'm just like him. But better at it."

"No," Jonothon murmured. "You're not, any more than I'm that... that thing that swept through Neverland. There were pieces of you missing, and there were pieces thrown in for good measure. But whatever it was that did those things back there, Karla, for as much of it was you... all of the humanity that you've got in you had been run through a filter."

He gave her a tight squeeze, and then relaxed his grip only enough to be able to look her in the face.

"That's what people are, Karla. We're the good and the bad. Usually, there's just enough to make some sort of balance."

"I feel dirty," Karla admitted. "And I think I'm going to feel that way a long time."

She fell silent again, thinking how stupid it was for her to say that to Jono, of all people.

"You envy him, don't you."

There was a lump in Jono's throat. He needed to work on swallowing that, first, before he could manage his reply.

"For far too many reasons," he admitted. His voice was entirely too hoarse for his liking. "I do."

Sunday Evening, All Across Fandom Island

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