Work Text:
Wednesday, April 23rd, 1958
Kendra Barlow Pennington was putting away the freshly-washed breakfast dishes when she felt it. She’d just been finishing up her morning chores, ready to head to her part-time receptionist job at a local automobile manufacturer’s office (the closest she could get to her former job as a shipyard welder since the war ended). Matt had already gone off to work at his father’s company, so she was home alone when that horrible chill ran down her spine and she became almost certain that someone was watching her.
She knew, intellectually, that that feeling, when combined with that chill, didn’t mean that someone was actively watching her that very moment, but that didn’t stop her from whipping around to look for those watching eyes. Even the crashing sound of a plate falling from her suddenly-numb fingers and shattering on the floor couldn’t distract her from the overwhelming feeling that he was nearby.
Hath-Set. Vandal Savage.
Despite their long, uneventful stay in Iowa City, Kendra had known that their time was coming to an end. Or perhaps it was because it was so uneventful. She and her soulmate had only lived to the age of thirty in two different lifetimes before this one: their time in the Old West as Kate and Hannibal, and during the turn of the century as Sheila and Jimmy. At the age of thirty-one, it was only a matter of time before their eternal nemesis caught up to them.
And now he was here. And he was close. Too close.
She never bothered to pick up the pieces of the broken plate, instead choosing to rush for the entryway. Thanks to her husband being born into a wealthy family this time around, their house was the grandest she’d lived in since her life as a live-in servant during the late Victorian Era. And that meant that she would have to go up three floors and a ladder to reach their small stash of their old weapons in the attic.
But there wasn’t enough time to bother with stairs. With the adrenaline flowing through her, it took almost no effort to call her wings forth, and she flew up to the top floor. The halls were a bit too narrow for her wings, and the trapdoor into the attic definitely so, so she retracted them and ran as fast as she could.
Matt’s – Khufu’s – old mace was on the top of the first box she literally ripped open, so it was the first thing she grabbed. There were so many other treasures that they had amassed from their past lives, but she couldn’t take them all; as deeply as it pained her, she was forced to leave them behind.
There was only one way in and out of the attic; she couldn’t stay up there. Her best hope was to get to the balcony on the second-storey (as none of the third-storey windows opened enough for her to fit through them) and fly out of there, get to Matt’s office, and flee with him. She could hear the sound of the front door shattering just as she got to the trapdoor.
He was here.
Kendra clattered down the ladder, despite the fact that her raw instincts were telling her to go in the opposite direction, to get away, far away from Savage, not run in his direction. But she had to move closer in order to reach her only way out.
She was nearly at the bottom when disaster struck.
The second-lowest rung, the one with the crack in it that had had her worried for a while, snapped when her foot came crashing down on it. With a scream, she dropped down to the floor and landed hard. A sharp pain in her ankle told her that something was wrong, but she had to keep going. She didn’t have enough room to fly until she reached the stairs, so she would have to suck it up and run as well as she could manage.
Kendra could hear boots thundering on the stairs, and she hauled herself to her feet. Pushing past the pain – she’d felt worse in her previous 204 lives – she hobbled down the hall as quickly as she could, still keeping a tight grip on the mace that she now needed more than ever.
As soon as she had enough space to do so, Kendra spread her wings and launched herself over the bannister, before diving downward and then pulling into another sharp turn as soon as she cleared the floor/ceiling.
Only to pull up short as soon as she saw her path to freedom blocked by the very man she was trying to escape.
Hatred and terror overtook her at the sight of his face. The last time she’d seen it, he’d put a knife in her husband’s chest and choked the life out of her while her son hid in a closet and was forced to listen as his parents died. She yelled – a primal scream of rage – and swung the mace as hard as she could. He barely even had time to realise she was there before she struck him in the head, and he reeled backwards but didn’t fall down.
Kendra swung again, but this time, the immortal was ready, and he caught the weapon’s shaft with one hand, stopping the second attack in its tracks.
She yelled a second time and tried to yank the mace out of his grip, only for that yell to get cut off by a searing pain in her chest. She looked down and, to her horror, saw the hilt of a very familiar dagger sticking out between her breasts.
Then Savage yanked the blade out, completely ignoring her blood spattering all over his front.
Her entire body went numb, and she found herself falling out of the air and onto the stairs below her. That numbness didn’t last long, as the momentum from her fall sent her tumbling down to the first-floor landing. By the time she rolled to a stop, her head was bleeding, and she was pretty certain that both of her arms were broken.
She felt like she couldn’t breathe; her very first attempt set her chest on fire, and the horribly familiar, coppery taste of blood filled her mouth.
As she lay there in a broken heap and in a pool of her own blood, Vandal Savage slowly strolled down the stairs, and she was lying in just the right position to see his approach.
He had a wide grin on his face as he brandished the Amon Dagger at her. “Do you recall this?” he taunted her, “Of course you do. After all, not only was this the same dagger that began our tragic story, you tried to kill me with it just last month.”
Had he lost his last shred of sanity? “Wha-” she choked, “What?”
He shook his head. “Come now, My Love. You didn’t think I wouldn’t follow you all the way from Harmony Falls, did you?”
“What… the hell… are you… ta- ta- talking… about?!” Every syllable seemed to take twice as much effort as the last. The ever-growing pool of blood told her that her time would be up very soon.
He was leaning over her, now. “I’m grateful that you chose a home that was so… isolated… from your nearest neighbours. There’s no one around to report my entry into your home.”
That had been Kendra’s choice. She remembered the innocents drowned in the Flood, and she remembered the last time her neighbours had been killed for trying to save her and her soulmate. Vandal Savage had no problems with additional casualties. It was why she had insisted on the house with its own expansive grounds on outskirts of the city.
“I can afford to wait until your dear Raymond comes home.”
Raymond? Who was Raymond? She no longer had the strength to speak; it was taking all her effort just to breathe, and blackness was creeping on the edge of her vision.
“And when he sees you here, I’ll give him just enough time to scream before I slit his throat. I won’t tolerate another man taking My Love from me.”
She didn’t understand what she was saying, but it didn’t matter. All she could hope was that Matt would be able to get away, and that it wouldn’t be too long before they met again in the next life.
‘I’m sorry,’ she thought, ‘I will wait across eternity… for my love to come back to me.’