Unintended

Chapter Two: Unintended Answers

One day the world almost ended. They didn't really notice though, as they weren't quite on Earth proper, and a little outside the boundaries of Armageddon.

* * *

The day after the almost-but-not-quite Armageddon an angel and a demon showed up in the place, each claiming to be a watchdog for their respective bosses. The angel looked stereotypical, all white glow and wings, while the demon took on the form of a rather disgruntled looking taxicab driver, the brim of his newsboy cap pulled way down low over dull red eyes. The angel's name was Oriel; the demon called himself Monty.

"Do you think their presence has to do with that tremor we felt yesterday?" Regulus asked Samantha, practically screaming over the noise of the crowds that had gathered in the sreets to greet the new arrivals.

"Has to be," Samantha replied, distracted. She had to ask that angel a question, first chance she got.

Her chance came later that night, sneaking out of the apartment and heading over to the angel's new dwelling as fast as possible. She wasn't the only one who'd had that idea, however. There was a short line of folk waiting outside the door for their chances to have an audience with the angel. Samantha sighed, sat down with her back against an old stone bench, and waited.

It was almost dawn by the time Samantha's turn had arrived. She awoke with a gasp, seeing the angel hovering over her with his hand on her shoulder. "Come inside," Oriel said, turning to go back into the building. "Would you like some tea or coffee?" he offered.

"Mmm. Coffee," Samantha mumbled, falling into a chair. The angel poured some out for her (manifesting it from where only someone knew) and sat down opposite her.

"Now, how can I help you?"

Samantha sipped her coffee, then put the mug down with a clank and glared up at the angel. "I want to know why I didn't die properly."

The angel was obviously taken aback. It wasn't the question he was expecting. The questions thus far had been more along the lines of reassuring the living left behind, standard concerns for those who had moved onto the next stage of their existence. Samantha continued on. "I saw the light, felt a change...and woke up in that field. I've been here for years, and I'm pretty damn sure by now this isn't heaven or hell. So why didn't I die right?"

"You were taken here by the walk-ins, I believe, as the humans like to call them. Walk-ins are not perfect creatures. They were humans at one point, but they changed. Vigilante souls, so to speak. They save people according to their whims, who they feel is worthy."

"So they felt I was worthy of being saved?"

"They feel that way about most children. They are the young and innocent and deserve a second chance at life." The angel shrugged. "Being imperfect creatures, however, means that sometimes the people they try to save end up getting lost along the way."

Samantha resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "So they forgot about me and I got stuck here. Great." It hadn't occurred to Samantha that maybe she was the one who had wandered off, not content with an eternity of Elgar and Liszt. She looked up at Oriel. "Can you maybe try to find out, up there, you know, why I can't get in? There's got to be more of a reason than I just got lost, especially if I can talk to you here."

The angel frowned a bit, looking pensive. "I shall try, but I cannot guarantee that you will want to hear the answer."

"I'm just happy you're going to try."

* * *

Regulus rubbed at his eyes. Ever since 'Monty' had shown up he seemed to have a persistent low grade headache lurking right behind his eyes. He also found himself hissing more, and he really couldn't explain it. Sounded like a bloody teakettle at times.

He slouched on the couch next to Samantha, who had the remote in her hands and was flipping through the channels. She eventually ended up on some American show, something inane about teenage undercover cops. It didn't really register though, and he rubbed at his aching eyes again.

"What the hell are you doing?" Samantha asked, tossing the remote onto the table and turning to him.

"My eyes bloody hurt," he gritted out, pulling his hand away and blinking roughly.

"Have you..." her voice trailed off as he looked up at her.

"What?"

"Do you trust me, Regulus?" she suddenly asked.

"Yeah, of course. Why?" Regulus watched her as she moved behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders.

"Just trust me." She covered his eyes with her hands, palms warm against his cheekbones. "Stand up."

Blind to the world, he stood up. "Okay," she mumbled, starting to move him in front of her. They walked for a little bit until Regulus felt cold tile under his feet--the bathroom. The light switch clicked, and Samantha moved him into a position. "Okay," she said again. Her hands pulled away, and he blinked at the sudden rush of light.

"What is i--" Regulus's voice abruptly cut out as he caught sight of his eyes in the mirror. Instead of their normal grey color they were a bright and almost sickly toned golden yellow, with slitted pupils. "Holy fucking Merlin," he breathed.

"I think that's why your eyes have been hurting lately, ever since the demons first invaded that day, right?" Samantha moved around to face him, hopping up onto the sink counter. "I saw your eyes change that day for the first time," she whispered. "They've been going back and forth since then, especially when you get emotional. I think you might be one of them." There was no question what 'them' she was referring to.

"In part, at least. God only knows what sort of foul creatures my mum was sleeping with. It wasn't my father, that's for sure. He had his own special mates," Regulus sighed, pushing his hair back away from his eyes and leaning in closer to look at them. His chin was brushing Samantha's shoulder.

"I also think that's why you didn't die properly either. Demons like that, like you, don't die all that easily," Samantha said softly into his ear. "And I think that's why you're here, with me, instead of heaven or hell, maybe."

"You'd really want to stay here with a demon though?" Regulus muttered, not looking at her.

Samantha put a few fingers on his chin, guiding his eyes to her. "I trust you. We've been here for ages and you've had every chance to hurt me, but you haven't. So demon or not, I don't care. I trust you. Doesn't matter what your blood is."

Without warning or hesitation Regulus bent slightly and kissed her full on the mouth. It was sudden and soft, and lasted for longer than either one of them had though a kiss could. Samantha's hand cupped his cheek briefly, and she exhaled a shaky breath against his lips. In that moment the thought occurred to Regulus that the insecure and lost fourteen year old girl that he had met that first day was still lurking inside the grown body, and that this just might have been her first kiss.

Finally Samantha pulled away, her face a bit flushed. "So I'm not really and truly dead. Huh," Regulus mumbled dazedly.

Samantha smirked a bit, even though it was a slightly sad smirk. "Maybe you are by a human standard, but not by a demon's one. Sorry."

They didn't kiss again until the day they decided to escape from the nameless place and try to make their way back to Earth.

* * *

A few days later Samantha received a missive from the angel, asking if she would like to come over for a chat. Regulus was skeptical, but she went anyway, knowing that if Regulus had known what she had asked....well, it wouldn't be pretty.

The angel was sitting outside his abode when she arrived. "Well?" she asked, throwing all pleasantries aside.

"You're not going to like this," Oriel said guardedly.

Samantha leaned back against an old and twisted tree trunk. "Great. So what's the bad news?"

"It's that rather typical line: It's just not your time yet." The angel idly stuck a wing out and groomed the feathers.

She clenched her jaw--it was that or let it drop all the way to the dusty ground. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"Alas, no. Actually, there's very little information relating to you that I could find there. That was a bit surprising, but everything seems to come from a higher up area where even I don't have access." Samantha exhaled sharply and spun on her feet, heading back towards the City. "Please, wait," Oriel called after her.

"This is bullshit!" she shot back, not stopping.

"There is a plan! There's always a plan. We may not be able to see it right now, but it exists."

"Screw the plan!" She began to run, not stopping or thinking until she walked into the door of the flat. Regulus wasn't there, and she collapsed onto the couch.

She wanted to think that it wasn't fair. She wanted to rage about lost chances and lost lives, how everything was taken away from her and how she was just here waiting for something unknown. But she just didn't seem to have the energy within her. As Regulus would say, she just couldn't be arsed to care. She glanced outside the window, seeing a still vision of glass and girders, unmoving and unchanging, glittering weakly under a cloudy sky shot through with the occasional beam of watery sunlight.

God, she was so tired.

With a sigh of finality, she walked off.

* * *

Regulus got back to the flat after dark. There had been some rumors brewing throughout the community. There was a storm coming, folk were saying. The ones who had been there for ages, even longer than he and Samantha, couldn't remember the last time there was a change in weather. All they could ever recall was the pale sunlight through heavy clouds. It was a bad omen, the whispered voices said.

The flat was unusually quiet. Samantha, more often than not, fell asleep in front of the television. The living room was silent and dark. The only light was a thin stripe coming from beneath the bathroom door.

"Sam?"

Something was very wrong.

In the space of a blink he was in front of the door, a shaky hand grasping the knob. He threw the door open roughly, preferring to scare the crap out of her rather than make himself sick with the anticipation.

"Oh fucking Merlin."

The water in the overflowing bathtub was a patchy translucent red, with the clouds emanating from the ragged gashes on Samantha's wrists. She was submerged, short hair like a mass of thorns around her blurry face. Regulus kicked away the bloody knife that was on the floor holding sentry over the bathtub and fell to his knees. He grabbed her hand, still surprisingly warm given the chilled temperature of the water, and hauled it out.

"Oh, God," he whispered, pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers. He turned her hand over to take a look at the slashes there--

--and paused. Then gaped a bit.

The flesh seemed to be knitting itself back together. Tendons and veins wove in patterns, sealing flawlessly. The muscles surged back into place like a commanding army, and the skin wrapped itself over all, leaving a smooth and perfect inner wrist behind.

Samantha sat up with a scream, water cascading off of her. Regulus jumped back only a slight bit, but he recovered quickly enough and grasped her shoulder with his free hand. "What happened?" he asked roughly, his voice cracking.

Her face crumpled, tears mingling with pale pink streaks of water. She wasn't a very pretty crier, but not many people are. "I'm so tired, Regulus," she sobbed. "I just want to rest."

Regulus pulled her into a tight hug, not caring about how messy his clothes got or how achy his knees were. "Just wanna rest," Samantha muttered again, warm fingers grasping at his shirt.

* * *

They slept for about a year, give or take a few days. Regulus never left her side.

(Except for once in February, to use the loo and have a cigarette. He wasn't a smoker, but felt the situation warranted one.)

* * *

"The angel told me there was a plan."

The two were buried deep under blankets of Samantha's bed, with Regulus's wand giving off a soft lumos, highlighting the clasped hands between them. There was something womb-like about the whole thing, but the two of them just focused on the warmth of wool and cotton. "I asked him why I hadn't died properly, why I'd ended up here, and all he could tell me was that it wasn't my time and that there was a plan."

"So you decided to take matters into your own hands?" Regulus asked.

She nodded. "Thought maybe I could buck the plan, prove them wrong."

Regulus's eyes fluttered shut briefly. "Did you even think how this would affect me?" He didn't go into details about the nightmarish images that kept flashing through his head; didn't have to.

"No. I'm sorry. There's...no excuse." She gripped his hand tighter. "You've done so much for me since I've been here...and I hurt you. I'm so sorry."

"It's all in the past now." Regulus twisted their hands to reveal her inner wrist. "And besides, it looks like things fixed themselves anyway."

Samantha snorted, a bitter grin twisting her face. "Yeah. Damn plan in action."

"Almost ineffable, really." There was a silence and Regulus studied Samantha's fingernails, ragged from where she'd bitten them off when they first woke up. They could both benefit from a shower and haircut too. "You feeling better now?"

"I think better's a-a relative term. I'm not going to toss myself out the window though, if that's any comfort."

"It is. I'd miss you if you were gone, you know."

* * *