crossing_lostrp | [Alia] A messenger from the future

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[Alia] A messenger from the future

Who: Alia and Zoey
When: Day 29, mid-morning
Where: Just outside the bunker cafeteria door
Invited: Anyone
Status: Open

'Liz' ascended the stairs to the open clearing just outside the bunker, breathing the air deeply. It was a pleasant morning, although she'd spent an uneasy night, interrupted several times by the almost-speech which kept returning to her perception. The last time she thought she'd seen a flicker of light accompanying it, but was growing practised at ignoring it now. Nobody else could see it. She was, she thought, probably going mad.

The sense that she wasn't the person who looked back at her out of the mirror was stronger than ever, and she had come outside partly to avoid anything reflective. She'd caught a glimpse of her face in the taps while washing her breakfast bowl and spoon and cup, and the sense of dislocation had been jarring.

Out here, though, everything was simpler. Birds sang in the trees, and she heard something scurrying through the undergrowth as she approached the treeline.

All was calm and quiet, and she relaxed against a tree, wondering what to do. Nobody knew anything still, but they would have to go and investigate... something. The crash site, perhaps. Yes. She'd volunteer to go. It'd be good to see somewhere else, talk to some other people, if there were any there and even if they'd also forgotten who they were. Perhaps there'd be some clues there about who she really was.

She was just about to go back into the bunker and tell somebody about this decision when she heard a powered sort of whoosh, like a door sliding open. Turning, she saw a bright rectangle of light. A woman emerged from it, a woman dressed so improbably for the jungle that it didn't take observing her passing directly through a branch lying on the ground to realise that she wasn't really there. Stiletto heels, enormous and garish earrings and tight leather clothes gave her the domineering look of someone you instinctively didn't want to cross.

Their eyes met, and the woman smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, it was a predator's smile of triumph.

"Thames! We've got her!" she called, apparently shouting at the sky. She poked at a small device in her hand, which emitted beeps and squawks in response, then she looked at Liz again.

"Good morning Alia," she said. "It's good to be able to talk to you again."

Liz... Alia... stood speechless. Then, finally.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I am Zoey," the woman said. "I am your Observer."

"My... Observer?"

Zoey muttered something rude under her breath.

"It's clear that you're suffering from some severe memory loss," she said.

"Me and everybody else."

"Yes, we know. We've been watching, trying to communicate. We haven't had any success until now."

"The voices I've been hearing?"

"That was me. We had to keep experimenting to find how to project to you again."

"We... who are you? Who am I?"

Zoey sighed.

"There's no point reciting your life history. Hopefully you'll get your memory back, although I must say that it was abnormally scrambled already after you Leaped. Something about this thrice-cursed island, I suppose. In any case. You've seen yourself in the mirror?"

"It's not me I see in the mirror," Alia said.

"Correct. Your instincts still work, at least. Well, some of them. The face you see in the mirror is that of Kate Austen, your host."

"My host?"

"You have temporarily swapped places with her."

"Then she's..."

"She is in a room not fifty metres from where I currently stand."

"And where is that?"

"Where is not as important as when."

"When?"

"You are a time traveller, Alia. You Leap back in time, occupy somebody else's life for a while, and change history."

"To make the world a better place?" That sounded nice. It sounded familiar.

Zoey chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound.

"There's already somebody else doing that," she said. "We are the balance."

"I wreck history?"

"From a certain point of view, so does your counterpart on the other side."

"And who is my counterpart?"

"A very tedious man called Sam Beckett. He invented this technology we use, although it must be said that our version is substantially more useful."

"So... why am I here?"

"A mission was identified. You Leaped onto this island to accomplish a task."

"The task being?"

"I'm not sure I can trust you enough to tell you that," Zoey said. "You don't remember why you need to do what we tell you. Just remember, we're the only people who can bring you home."

"Then why don't you? I'm not going to do anything useful while I can't remember who I am."

"Indeed. We have considered retrieving you and re-educating you, but for the time being, since communication has been re-established, Lothos suggests that you should concentrate on discovering and removing the source of your memory loss." She turned away, back toward the open doorway through which she had arrived. "I'll be back soon. In the mean time, I don't recommend telling anybody about me or yourself."

"Why not? They'd believe me."

"That is precisely the reason. Don't cross me, Alia. You'll regret it."

She stepped through the door, and it whooshed shut, vanishing completely and leaving Alia standing in the clearing wondering if this island could possibly get any stranger.

((OOC: Of course, only people with particularly perceptive minds - or insane people and children - can see or hear Zoey))

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Claire wasn't doing much, just wandering outside, enjoying the feel of greenery tickling her sandaled feet and generally getting used to waking up - again - with a baby and presumed other half. The little one seemed pretty taken with the great outdoors, so who was she to dismiss something that kept him occupied while awake? It was fun to watch him, mostly.. right up to the point where she remembered again that he was hers. Aaron might be cute as a button, but the finality of waking up with her very own newborn was still shocking. How the hell did she manage to forget something like that? That and, y'know, his dad.

One chubby hand shot out as Kate* came into view. She seemed to be talking to someone, though Claire couldn't see who for the life of her. Aaron's face screwed up though, like he'd tasted something bad. His eyes were still fixated on the other woman though, and he'd liked her well enough before.

Oh no, mystery baby ailment number who bloody knows.. Claire sighed, bouncing him a little in an attempt to get him smiling again. "What's up, shorty? Swallowed a fly? There's a song about that, I think. Can't remember. You caught me on the hop. You and everything else here."

It seemed to work: the scowl vanished soon after, shortly followed by re-absorption into whatever natural wonder had caught his eye this time. Colours galore, better than a nursery. Still, adult conversation would be great - at least until Aaron here decided that he absolutely had to have attention/sleep/lunch/nappy/whatever.

Claire waved towards the brunette, who looked a little statue like in the clearing there. "Morning! See something good out there?"

* Do the others know Alia as Kate, or what she came up with before? Sorry, still getting my brain back in gear.. it's a sloooooow process :)

((OOC: they only know her as Liz, nobody at the bunker has seen Kate's wanted poster yet. Let's pretend Claire thought Liz instead of Kate))

"Something good?" Alia asked, distracted. "No. I wouldn't say that." She looked back over her shoulder, wondering how long it would be before Zoey came back. If she came back. If Alia hadn't hallucinated the whole thing as some kind of elaborate internal explanation for the extreme dislocation of being convinced that it was somebody else's face in the mirror.

Aaron was looking at her with his bright baby eyes. She smiled and tickled him, but it was an empty gesture. She felt jarred, dislocated, and Zoey's calm admission that she worked for the bad guys - the balance, she'd called it, but Alia could see through that. Someone else went through time fixing things. Alia went through time breaking them. She didn't want to be on the evil side of things.

((OOC: they only know her as Liz, nobody at the bunker has seen Kate's wanted poster yet. Let's pretend Claire thought Liz instead of Kate))

Daniel has. I'm currently working on that post. It's a slow go with work and everything . . .

Claire's smile was hesitant. Liz was obviously bothered by something, but she didn't have the first clue about figuring out what. They might have been best friends once upon a time, not that it made a difference today - everyone's a stranger. Aaron was grabbing at the other woman's finger; at least he didn't seem to have trouble engaging with others.

She decided to make small talk instead, pathetic as it sounded.

"Have you remembered anything yet? I haven't, I don't think. I know I dreamt something last night, but it's all gone hazy though. Whatever it was, wasn't pleasant.. maybe the plane crash. Or just my crazy imagination." Claire bit her lip nervously. "I hate not knowing anything. Even a snippet would be better than limbo."

((OOC: Having just rewatched the first Evil Leaper episode again, I'm hereby retconning Zoey's Imaging Chamber door effect because it's not the same as Al's))

"That," Alia said thoughtfully, "depends on what you find out."

Claire looked confused, and Alia gazed thoughtfully down at the baby.

"What if you found out something," she said. "What if you found out you weren't a very nice person. If you'd done things, evil things, in the past and that once you got your memory back you'd go back to doing it. It could happen to any of us. Most of us don't know who we used to be. Maybe we should take this as a fresh start."

The multicoloured doorway reappeared behind Claire, and Zoey re-emerged. Aaron looked straight at her, and she walked closer to him, putting her hand right through Claire's face to waggle her fingers at him.

"Little brat," she said. "Having a heart-to-heart with the single mother are we?"

Alia ignored her.

"Whoever I was," she continued, "this is a fresh start. We don't have to go back to who we were if we don't want to."

"Oh yes you do," Zoey said. "There'll be no more talk of this, Alia. Oh, if you could remember what has been done to you - done to us - in the past. Well. In the future, from this point of reference. And I'd be careful if I were you. Claire here might think your little speech about past evils is prophetic once she finds out who your host is."

Claire didn't think that babies could glare, but Aaron really didn't like that tree - at least, that was all she could see when she turned to see. Maybe there'd been something else that moved off.

Liz seemed pretty intent on ignoring the background, whatever was there. It was like she was making a big effort not to see the.. tree. Hmm.

Grinning, Claire waved a hand in front of the other woman's face. "Yeah, well some of us don't have much of a choice. Bub here's pretty bloody certain I'm his mum - I can't exactly say no, eh. Too much evidence to the contrary and it's not like he can snack anyplace else. Which.. I'm still getting used to. Either way he'll be following me round for a good few years more!"

She patted the little one's red red hair, chuckling.

"And then there's the fella.. I don't remember either of them, but that's the past coming to visit before I can make a clean getaway.. presuming I wanted too, that is."

"Well, as I said. A new beginning... although some of us clearly have things we can't leave behind." She sighed. Zoey walked right through Claire and rolled her eyes theatrically.

"Are you done with the self-indulgent moaning yet?" she demanded. Alia ignored her. Zoey made an exasperated sound and tapped furiously at her handlink.

Aaron fussed and started to cry, and Alia frowned up at Zoey. Leaving Claire to try and sooth the infant with a muttered apology, Alia moved out of earshot.

"The baby can see you," she said to Zoey.

"Young children often can," the other woman said indifferently. "Mad people as well. Lothos says-"

"Who's Lothos?"

"Lothos is the artificial intelligence which runs this project."

"You answer to a computer?"

"Running it doesn't mean being in charge. You know nothing."

"That's right," Alia said. "And it scares you, doesn't it?"

Zoey flinched.

"Not at all. We'll figure this out. In the mean time-"

"I think I'd like to live my life over again," Alia said. "What you offer doesn't sound very nice. How do I even know you're telling the truth? You're just an apparition." She waved her hand through the middle of Zoey's face.

"Foolish girl. You don't remember hell, do you?"

"Hell?"

"Hell! You sent us there."

"So that's why you're afraid. You're held responsible if I fail."

"We're a team, Alia!"

"Not when I don't remember it. Go back to the future, Zoey. Leave me alone." She started back towards Claire and Aaron. Zoey vanished and reappeared in front of her.

"You're clearly going to need some more persuasion until you get your memory back," she said. "Thames, run the retrieval programme."

There was a moment of silence.

"Of course I know it won't work. Run it anyway!" Zoey cried, clearly replying to a voice Alia couldn't hear.

A moment later, Alia felt something happening. She felt made of light, shining out of her body, stretching in all directions, then a pull, like she was being hauled out of time and space to somewhere completely different...

...it finished with a jolt. She swayed for a moment, gasping for breath, then everything went dark and she didn't even feel herself hit the ground.

Zoey watched, nodded in some satisfaction, and opened the Door to depart.

"Liz? LIZ?!" Claire held the baby tighter and dropped to the ground as quickly as she could, reaching for the woman's shoulder. "C'mon, Liz - wake up. Oh shit, what am I supposed to do when something like this happens?"

She looked around for a helper and found none, other than Aaron looking like he was about to bawl. Bonzer. At least a hand over Liz' nose and mouth showed she was still breathing, not dead or anything. And if she was breathing, her heart was beating - had to be - not that that explained what the hell had just happened. She didn't want to leave Liz alone either, not after something like that, but staying meant she was essentially alone herself.

"Sorry lil fella," Claire apologised, straightening out Liz' skew-whiff arms and legs. "This'll be loud."

Covering the baby's ears in case it helped, she yelled out for help. Please please please let someone hear me...

OOC: calling all knights in shining denim :)

To be honest, mucky denim would do - and is far more likely on this island!

Will, who was still getting accustomed to thinking of himself as Damon - at least according to Ami* - behaved himself and didn't follow Claire around like a hulking overprotective lover when she ventured outside with Aaron in her arms. Of course, he was doing his own version of Jon's avoidance game; Damon was avoiding Ami both physically and mentally. They'd "talked" some the night before; they'd discussed their abilities and the fact that they were supposedly old friends. Then the British hottie turned all serious and said they should talk about his relationship with Claire.

Damon found an excuse to flee and stayed away ever since. Everything about Ami's mannerism and behavior told him that he probably didn't want to hear whatever she had to say. Fortunately, once the woman and her fiance disappeared behind closed doors, she dropped off the radar - mostly - for the night.

He did not think about the feelings and thoughts and images that leaked through when the woman slipped back onto the radar. It did beg the question though of how did telepaths ever have any privacy in intimate moments?

(Of course, we knew our abilities back when we knew stuff,) Damon reflected. (It was probably easier to be private.)

But that had been the night before and now this morning, he did his own brand of exploring, "hacking" his way back into his laptop. Once he stopped freaking himself out and grew accustomed to the Matrix-like-skills, it was easy enough. Damon didn't learn anything about the island, but he learned a lot about himself and the company he worked for, all of which raised more questions.

Claire needs help.

The feeling came to him so suddenly and so sharply that Damon leapt to his feet, nearly sending the laptop crashing to the floor. Telekinetic instincts caught it mere centimeters from the cement ground.

Guided by instinct, Damon closed his eyes and listened and felt. His Claire wasn't in trouble but .. . someone was.

He needed to be there. Now.

And then he was, stumbling forward in knee and waist high grass, his arms pinwheeling. Ami told him that he could do it, that Jon's demonstration wasn't just a fluke for Jon, but until that moment, Damon hadn't really believed it. Until he went from cool, recycled air to hot, bright greenery and humidity in the blinking of an eye.

It took him only a few seconds to reorient himself and turn toward Claire and his son. He jogged closer, wondering if she'd seen his sudden appearance and terrified of how she would react if she had.

Just as he opened his mouth to call for her, he saw feet in the grass and quickened his pace. Damon dropped down beside Liz and automatically reached for a pulse. "What happened?"

[OOC: *I had planned on getting an Ami and Damon chat up, but I'm not holding my breath, so we'll assume it happened off-screen. Also, up to you,

sophiedb whether or not Claire saw Damon teleport in]

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," Claire rattled out, caught between her shock/surprise at Will's appearance - Damon! Must get that into my head, somehow.. - and Liz' continued.. nothing. "She just.. fell over."

Shuffling back to get out of his way, she shifted Aaron to her other shoulder and grinned nervously.

"That was kind of cool: I yell and you appear. Bit like Lois Lane and Superman, only flashier."

Moving back to the POINT? Y'know, person lying unconscious on the ground? Claire blushed guiltily.

"Uh. It was like Liz was talking to someone else up to then, but I couldn't see or hear anyone. She was.. distracted. Then Aaron started fussing, I got distracted too, Liz let us be for a sec and next thing I know she's toppling over. She seems ok before you got here, ish, just." She rolled her eyes at herself. "Who am I kidding? I haven't got a clue!"

Damon took a moment to reach out and clasp her hand comfortingly. "It's ok. You called for help and you stayed with her. Now, we'll just do what we can and get some more help out here."

He gave Claire a reassuring smile, resisted the urge to pull her into his arms and hug her and Aaron tightly and forced his attention back to Liz. A quick check of her pulse revealed nothing, but then again all he knew from a pulse was that she was alive and her heart was beating.

/Ami, Jon,/ Damon 'called,' /I need you to send some help please./

/What's happened? What's wrong?/ Ami's concern and panic flooded him. Oddly, it was comforting and familiar.

/Everyone's fine. I think. Mostly. Liz and Claire were outside and Liz collapsed after having some kind of spell./

/Spell?/ Jon echoed. For someone who tried to ignore the 'voices in his head' he caught on and answered when it suited him.

/Just send some one outside who can check her vitals and help get her inside, please?/

He broke contact and looked back at Claire. "Someone's coming."

Ami frowned, worried after receiving word from Damon that something had happened to Liz.

/What's wrong?/ Scott asked, quickly picking up on her mood and distraction as they lingered over breakfast. Ami spent only a few heartbeats to marvel at how natural it seemed to have this sort of rapport with him.

/It's Will ... Damon. He said that he's outside with Claire and Liz and Liz collapsed./ Ami stood up and looked around the canteen which had become the meeting place of the bunker. She hesitated for only a moment, hoping she wouldn't have to give too much information before getting people in gear. "They need some help outside. Liz collapsed."

/Do you think you can help her?/ Ami asked her fiance.

/Do you think you can help her?/ Ami asked.

Scott stood and moved to Ami's side. /I don't know, but I'll try./

"Who's they? Where are they?" Scott turned to the speaker: John Locke, who sat at a table with his hottie girlfriend Daisy. He got to his feet as well.

"Damon, Claire, the baby, and Liz," Ami replied. Her eyes unfocused for a moment as she presumably conversed with Damon. "They're outside the south door."

Locke tilted his head slightly. Scott imagined the man connecting the dots, figuring out how Ami knew what she'd announced. Nevertheless, the man didn't press for details. Instead he addressed the others in the cafeteria. "Someone get Dr. Pierson or Dr. House, if he's up to it." Then, to Ami and Scott, "Let's go."

OOC: sinanju, I left his open in case Daisy wants to come along.

After the blackness came drifting. She floated in a place between times, between alternates, between the seconds on a clock face. Her life drifted past, and she knew who she was. She remembered the project, her first Leap, all those missions, ruining lives, the advantages she'd gained in the present as a result.

Then she remembered Dr. Sam Beckett. The punishment for not killing him. Their next encounter. Leaping together - such a different experience from the loneliness of travelling alone. After that... Leaping was her own for a while, but then they'd caught up with her again. Punishment again. The resigned return to Lothos' control. No choice... no choice...

And then she'd come to the island, and forgotten everything. She could see it now in her mind's eye, the point where her memory simply vanished. It wasn't gone, merely hidden. Here, between Leaps, she had access to it all.

But it wasn't between Leaps. There was still a thread connecting her to the island. She'd be going back soon. The retrieval was incomplete, and for this endless moment she drifted nowhere and nowhen, marvelling in being a complete person again.

OOC: Don't worry, she'll lose most of these memories again when she returns to her body.

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[Alia] A messenger from the future

[Claire]

[Alia]

OOC

[Claire]

[Alia]

[Claire]

[Alia]

[Claire]

OOC

[Damon]

[Claire]

[Damon]

[Ami] Inside the Bunker (tagging Scott, anyone)

[Scott] Inside the Bunker

[Alia] Dreams of other times