Chapter Text
It was still snowing but the clouds had parted and a ripple of pink was already spreading across the sky.
- Oblivion, p647
They saved the world.
Jamie can’t quite believe it, looking around himself at the bleak landscape of Antarctica. And then to his friends, looking satisfied and misplaced in Oblivion. Kind of lame emotions for the enormity of what’s just happened. Richard stumbles over, looking older than he’s ever looked before, eyes only for Matt.
Jamie looks past him, past the awe-filled face of Holly, over to Scott’s… Over to Scott. Broken and gone, lying on the stone courtyard. Flint, next to Jamie, follows his gaze to the identical body on the frozen ground, a strange expression on his face. The connection between them is as strong as Jamie’s with Scott; Flint’s staring at the corpse and seeing himself, dead on the ground.
That’s me…
But it’s not. Flint didn’t sacrifice himself to bring them all together. “No, it isn’t,” Jamie says, somewhat rudely, and walks off to kneel by his brother. Feeling disconnected from his body, Jamie reaches out to touch Scott’s wrist. It’s cold already, almost icy to the touch.
Scarlett approaches him slowly. She opens her mouth and then thinks better of it, placing a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “We tried to stop him…”
Jamie shakes his head. She touches his shoulder again and backs away, wiping her wet cheeks. Flint’s next to hover at Jamie’s side. “Sorry I’m not Scott,” he says simply.
“Sorry I’m not Sapling,” Jamie replies vaguely, not looking away from his brother. “Are you staying?”
“I don’t know… Probably not.” Flint looks around for Matt, standing ten metres away and talking seriously with Richard. Richard’s not saying much, just nodding and wiping his face. “Who’s that?”
“Richard… looks out for Matt, his best friend.”
“Ah.”
Holly hurries over and Jamie can see that she’s caught between sympathy for him, awe, and confusion. But she brushes these aside and hugs Jamie warmly. “Me and Lohan are going to find wood and stuff, make a fire,” she explains. Jamie nods at her and she walks off with Lohan, in the direction of the tents and abandoned planes leftover from the World’s Army.
He kneels there for some time. Matt and Richard join him, the other Matt’s – their Matt’s – body carried between them. Jamie can hardly even look at it, it’s so destroyed. Matt takes charge quickly, standing strong in his grey tunic, hardly affected by the bodies in front of them – but then, he knew all of this would happen.
Or did he? Jamie doesn’t understand what it is Matt knows, or their Matt knew, or what the cross overs are…
Matt touches Flint on the arm, pulling him away from them. Jamie watches them, quickly missing the presence of his twin – or his twin’s reincarnation. Matt’s talking and Flint’s listening, looking puzzled and asking questions when Matt stops. He looks over to Jamie and down to the bodies, finally nodding slowly and the pair come back.
“So what happens now?” Richard asks.
Matt doesn’t speak until Pedro and Scarlett join them. The six of them surrounding two corpses. “Now, we celebrate. There’s a ship coming for you all soon and the captain will take you wherever you want to go. More importantly, the Old Ones are gone.”
“So now we celebrate?” Richard looks unimpressed, looking back down to Matt’s brutalised body.
Matt – past Matt – bows his head. “Now we remember the friends we’ve lost in battle. All of us have lost someone, no matter what time we come from we can relate, thanks to the Old Ones.” He pauses, making eye contact with Flint. Flint nods, looking pensive. “Our stories end when the Old Ones die,” Matt says quietly. “Our books in the library, in the dream world. I used to think that was the end for us, that we enter the dream world one last time and stay there forever.
“But I’ve been talking with Flint. Flint and myself can’t stay here, it’s not our world. Something will lead us back to our world shortly, probably just after the boat leaves.” He turns to Flint properly. “We can go back, rebuild our world and go back to Scar and Inti. But before we go… We’ve seen what we can do. As the Five, we can do anything.”
“Do anything?” Jamie frowns. He thinks he knows where Matt’s going with this but doesn’t know for sure. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up.
“I think we can bring Scott and Matt back,” he says.
Silence follows his statement. A stunned, incredulous statement.
“We don’t know that anything like this could work,” Flint says sternly. “Not like we tried it out before.”
“So there’s no point in trying?”
Jamie’s hardly breathing. He turns to Flint. “If it does – what does that mean for you?”
Flint shrugs. “We go back.”
“Sapling?”
Flint looks to Matt, his eyes hard.
Matt sighs. “I can only hope… the power could transfer, somehow… I don’t know.” He turns to Pedro. “Do you understand what I mean, Pedro? It’ll be harder than anything you’ve done before – but there’s a power between us, even between Scott and Matt.”
“My power is not that strong…” Pedro doesn’t want to let them down but he knows there’s a limit to his healing. And this isn’t even healing, it’s resurrection.
“But we are. The force will come from you, the power from us.” He pauses. “Are you willing to try?”
Pedro looks down at the bodies on the ground. He nods stiffly. Matt looks around, assuming the silence means they should try. “We should try Scott first, because if he comes back Flint will go and…”
“And you’re more powerful than me,” Flint finishes for him.
Matt pulls an awkward smile, one that suddenly reminds Jamie how similar he and their Matt are. But then, the interactions between him and Flint, the way they’re strengthened by the other only serves to remind him how different they are.
Matt takes a step forward, pushing Richard out of their circle. Flint stands to Jamie’s left, Scarlett to Jamie’s right, and Pedro steps into the centre and kneels down beside Scott, opposite Jamie. Flint and Scarlett take hold of Jamie, encouraging him to standing.
They look to Matt for guidance. Matt bows his head, eyes closed, and straight away they feel the power flowing from him. Scarlett does the same, the strength taking Jamie’s breath away. Then Flint, his mind growing quiet and hot with his focused energy.
Jamie’s paralysed, just for a second, feeling all this power around him, making his head spin and staring at his brother’s corpse. But then he closes his eyes and remembers Scott, looking after him and supporting him.
And then the power grows. Jamie’s head spins with exertion, any second he thinks he’s going to keel over and join his brother on the ground but he doesn’t. He has no sense of how much time is passing, it feels as if it’s only been ten seconds but his exhaustion says otherwise. Flint had been holding onto him, fingers gripping his forearm, but the sensation suddenly leaves.
Jamie’s so tired, he’s about to collapse any minute, but the power won’t let him. It’s riding through him, entirely out of his control, all the strength is being sucked from the four of them and into the fallen bodies.
This is it, Jamie thinks, darkness sinking in his mind. This is his death.
The power stops very suddenly, leaving them all to lose their balance and stagger, and then Jamie knows no more.