Out of touch (1)

s e v e n t e e n

Anita felt herself falling before she hit the ground harshly and slapped her head off of whatever surface she had landed on.
She lay there for a minute just breathing and waiting for her to gain her strength back. She felt like she had been through so much since arriving at the TVA. She went from sitting isolated for days on end with only a friendly analyst to save her from her own mind. She had then met a man who had been stuck in her dreams for all that time and was later saved by him. She had been on a journey with him like none other and she felt herself thinking about how much she had come to care for him. And it was in that moment, she wished to be held in his arms so badly. For him to tell her everything would be alright and for her to believe that he was right. She hated being apart from him, from Sylvie and from Mobius. She let out a haggard sigh before she felt the tears pouring down the side of her face. The small scared child within had crawled out of her heart and was sat looking at her, begging her for her to be different. She sobbed loudly, wailing into the vast nothingness. She wanted to go back to a life where she didn't feel, where she had no time to think for herself.
After she had tired herself out with the tears and straining her voice with the screams of horror and pain, she felt her eyes closing for a minute.
She paused and remembered the words Sylvie had said to her before she pushes herself off of the ground and stands up shakily. Her suit was dusty and her hair was matted but she didn't care. She saw things dropping out of the sky and saw as thunder rumbled above her. She had to just keep doing what she had been trying to do since she got out. She just needed to keep running and that's what she did. Anita Lenkov picked herself up off of the ground and ran as fast as she could in whatever direction she could. As long as she kept running, she would be okay. She channeled all her grief and determination and fear into this moment and she ran like her life depended on it. She would not give up. Not now. Not ever.

•••

Around an hour later, not that she even had any sense of time in this place, she found herself slowing down. She felt like this was all pointless. She could've been going in circles or she could've just been going nowhere, she didn't know. It felt like she was never getting anywhere, if there was even a place for her to get to. She found a set of rocks and sat herself down beside them. She needed something more to keep her going. Her grief was taking a toll and was now starting to tire her out meaning she couldn't use it anymore. She thought back on her moments with Loki, how he had cared for her the minute they met. They had immediately found an understanding and they used that to fight together. He had protected her every step of the way whilst she had held his hand. She had fought through mental strain for him and had watched him be pruned in front of her bringing her nothing but sadness. And it was in this moment when she sat reminiscing about all the time she had spent with him and how she wouldn't have traded it for the world, that she realised she had found something she had been yearning for since being snatched from her bed as a child.
She had found love.
The girl sat and smiled at the thought of it. And though she may never see him again, she had felt the one thing she needed to keep going and so she did. She got up and raced forward into the vast nothingness and kept a smile on her face as she ran past ships of all kinds and lost people. She didn't stop though. She didn't have time to stop. She had to do what Sylvie said and keep run-
"Anita stop!"
Well that wasn't what she had said to her.
But then she heard the voice again and turned to see a car driving quickly towards her.
In a mad panic, she pulled her gun out and shot it at the car, hitting the hood before she saw the blonde tuft of hair sticking out of the side of the veichle.
It stopped a few metres in front of her and she watched as Sylvie got out and raced towards her. The woman immediately grabbed her arms to check if she was hurt, which she wasn't before she turned and saw Mobius stood on the other side.
She didn't know how to react, whether to cry in joy or laugh or simply just stay silent. So she just ran up to him and pulled him into a soft hug.
"I'm so glad to see you"
"You too"
And that was all they needed to know that they were safe together. She looked at the pair who had found her and smiled knowing she had chosen good people to trust. In a world full of wolves and power mad freaks, she had found the calm in the storm and she was going to hold onto them until the end of time.

•••

The assassin and the variant sat in the back seat of the analysts run down car like they were children being taken to school.
"So explain to me what we're doing" the raven haired girl says as she clings to the seats in front of her to stay stable due to the lack of seatbelts.
"You see that cloud monster in the sky?"
The girl looks out the window at the dark landscape that was getting closer as they drove on, seeing the creature as purple lightning shoots through it making her scrunch up her face.
"Unfortunately I do"
"It can destroy anything in its path, it is the keeper to this void, it can kill us in an instant" Sylvie explains from next to her.
"Then why are we driving towards it?" She asks slightly scared.
"Because I think it's guarding whatever lies at the end of time, I touched it when I got here, with my enchantment and I saw something, something lying beyond it and I think that if we enchant it again, we'll find out who's behind all this" she tells the girl who nods.
It was a lot of information to take in and they were both so desperately waiting to find something beyond this void. The assassin was wishing so hard that this wouldn't be another time keeper fiasco. She just wanted to find whatever was waiting for them at the end of time and then find Loki. She missed him. She missed him more than anything and although she knew he wasn't dead, she has this overwhelming feeling of grief from fear of never seeing him again. She had been wandering around for what felt like hours and hadn't even come close to finding anyone she knew, how long would it take before they found him.
"What did you do, when you got here?" Sylvie asks softly from next to her.
She looks over to see the blonde looking at her with slight worry in her eyes but she still saw the glimmer of relief flashing through.
"I did what you told me to do, after I hit the ground, I just started running, I took everything that had been tearing me down and I used it to build myself up. I ran in spite of my grief and my fear and I kept going and when it started to drag me down, I thought of him" she admits before looking away as she says the last bit.
She did not want to appear vulnerable to the pair but they both knew. They both knew how she first loved him when she first saw him and that she continued to love him, despite his tricks, because he protected her and cared for her and treated her like no one in the universe would ever hurt her because he would always be there.
The woman next to her smiled up at the analyst who was looking at them through the rear view mirror and they shared a knowing glance before Sylvie leaned forwards and saw what was in front of them.
"Mobius stop the car, out, get out now" she says to the younger girl who quickly gets out of car, stumbling slightly before turning and seeing what has been so urgent.
Her world stopped for a second as she saw the man she cared so deeply for, running towards them in the distance. His shirt was all creased and his hair was getting whirled about by the wind but she didn't care.
She couldn't move for a minute in fear that this was just a cruel trick her mind was playing on her. She was brought out of that when she heard him calling her name as he got closer.
Everything felt like it went in slow motion as she started to walk towards him, shakily stepping on the ground before starting to speed up and she found herself running towards him. She slipped off her jacket and left it lying as she got closer, noticing how his face came into view. All his beautiful features staring back at her. She runs a few seconds more before she jumps into his embrace, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck securely whilst a hand makes it to the back of his head to caress his hair. His arms snake around her back so that he is clinging to her waist. She is happy. She is home. He never wants to let her go and she feels the same as they just stand there holding on to what they thought they had truly lost forever. They hold that embrace for a few seconds longer before he places her down and stares into the eyes of the girl he had truly come to love. She had fought with him, betrayed the TVA, ran by his side and all the while, never second guessing a single moment between them. He knows she feels the way he does simply by the way she is rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb and smiling with the smile he was fortunate to see in moments of bliss like this. How he loves it and her.
He is happy. He is home.