Someone to Die For... Again (Anya)

[Dimitri]

((set right before the spell is lifted at the Halloween party))

As with everything else this night, his last few moments happened far too fast. The witch was up to something that wouldn’t bode well for anyone, so Rory had drawn his sword on her. He took his stance, made his threats, but she merely laughed in return. “I’ve see 1,900 years of war and evil so you might want to stop laughing right about now,” he warned her, and for a moment he thought he’d succeeded. She stopped laughing, but only for a moment before, with an expression of boredom and annoyance, she gave herself something else to laugh at. With a mere flick of her wrist the sword was wrenched from Rory’s grasp. Suspended in the air, the steel glinting in the festive lighting, it turned round of it own accord and drove swiftly forward, slicing through his Roman armour like a hot knife through butter and impaling itself in his chest.

Stumbling back a few steps, Rory looked down at the hilt of his sword in shock. For 1,894 years he had fought and he had lived, but he hadn’t been human, merely a toy soldier. Not it was flesh and blood, not plastic, that the sword pierced, blood that he could feel flowing warmly and freely beneath the armour.

Not again, this couldn’t happen to him again. Not now after just achieving the one thing he wanted most in life. He couldn’t lose her again, couldn’t leave her again. It wasn’t fair! They had pledged to spend the rest of their lives together, but that was meant to be years - decades - not days! Sure, they had some more traveling to do, but eventually they were supposed to settle down, buy a house, have children, and live a normal life. Then, when they were in their eighties they could laugh and tell their grandchildren all about their dangerous and thrilling adventures with the Raggedy Doctor in his blue box.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

“Amy...” Rory murmured. Oblivious to her screams he collapsed to the floor.

[Anastasia]

It all happened so fast.

She had been talking to the Doctor the strange boy in tights and the southern woman with the waitress outfit and then…where had it all gone wrong? She should have been more alert, she should have been paying attention. They had just been transported here without knowing why, the Doctor wasn’t acting like they knew them and they were surrounded by unusual people, of course she should have been paying attention.

The first she knew something was wrong was when she heard the sickening sound of something sharp first piercing metal and then flesh. Turning around on her heel to see what had caused it she let out a scream, rushing towards her husband who was stumbling looking at where the sword pierced his chest. “RORY!” she screamed as she fell down to the ground beside him, one hand cradling his head as she bent over him.

Tears rolled down her face as she looked at his face, caressing it, willing the life to come back in to it. “no, no, no, please Rory, Rory, it’s not funny, come on,” she whispered, furiously wiping the tears away, “you, you can’t leave me…there’s too much we want to do…Rory please…don’t die…”

[Dimitri]

If he could possibly find anything funny at this moment, the sense of déjà vu he felt would have been it. Hadn’t they already done this? Him laying here dying, her crying over him and then... nothing. Last time he had woken up a Roman soldier, but now... he couldn’t expect another miracle.

He wanted to say something to her... there was so much he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. So he just smiled at her and the pain didn’t hurt so bad and the lights weren’t so bright and all he could see was her. The last thing he would ever see was her.

Rory Williams eyes closed for the final time.

[Anastasia]

This was a nightmare.

This couldn’t be happening, not again. She looked up at the Doctor and said, “Do Something! Bring him back! Please, please just get him back. It’s happened before we can do it again!”

She moved him so that his head was resting on her lap as she caressed his face, “I thought you in to existence before, come on stupid face, come back, come back to me, you do not get to leave me, you’re my husband, please Rory…please…”

There was a commotion by the door, something else was happening but to her she couldn’t care less. Her whole world was in front of her, and she was losing it…he was her everything…she couldn’t live without…him…

She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, as a pain hit her.

She opened her eyes and looked down.

What. The. Hell?!

This had to be a nightmare.

[Dimitri]

Something didn’t feel right. He was uncomfortable, a bit queasy and there was a tremendous pain in his chest... and why was everything dark? He didn’t remember going to sleep...

Dimitri opened his eyes to find Anya staring down at him, her eyes red and her face wet with tears. What the hell was going on here? Glancing down at himself and noting the red stained armour didn’t help put the pieces back together and his eyes were just drawn back to her face, her beautiful, sad face.

“What’s wrong, babe?” he asked. Maybe he’d gone and thrown himself in harms way again to protect her. It wouldn’t be the first time, or even the second. The pain had subsided, though, and now he just felt... strange. No injuries, he was sure of it. Maybe he’d taken a knock to the head? “I’m fine.”

[Anastasia]

What’s up Babe? What’s up Babe?

The two of them were sitting there, his head in her lap and…yup she had tears rolling down her cheek, and her throat was sore, possibly from screaming and all he could say was ‘What’s up babe?! She wasn’t sure what she found most annoying about the scenario, his blatant obliviousness to the bizarre surroundings and position they were in, or the fact that he had just called her ‘Babe’.

“I didn’t ask,” she said to his ‘I’m fine’, although the blood on the armour would say otherwise.

This was too weird. Deciding to wash her hands of it all she pushed his head off her lap and stood up. “What….what the hell happened there? Why are you covered in blood? Why was your head in my lap and why are you calling me babe? Answer that last one first.”

[Dimitri]

Dimitri’s brow furrowed as he looked up at her. She didn’t looks so much upset anymore as confused and clearly annoyed. “Well you seemed pretty-” he started to say, but before he could finish with ‘concerned’ Anya was pushing his head off her lap to thump painfully on the floor. “Ouch!”

Rubbing the back of his head, he slowly sat up and took a better look around him. Whether it was the knock to the head that jogged his memory or the sight of so many distraught people in costume around them we may never know, but suddenly everything came rushing back. He was at a party, a Halloween party, and this... this wasn’t his Anya.

“I, uh...” was the best reply he could manage on the fly, especially as he had to deal with reality all over again. It might have been enough to absolutely undo him, the thought of having her back again only to lose her... again, but there was something much more distressing that came to the forefront of his mind as he looked at the blood on the front of his costume, then down at the harmless yet also bloody toy sword laying forgotten on the floor.

“Oh God...” Holding a hand over the damaged armour, he shook his head in bewilderment. No, that couldn’t be right. It was impossible. He couldn’t have... “I died. I...” Shaking his head again, he just looked up at Anya, brown eyes wide, looking for an answer.

[Anastasia]

“You, you died!” she repeated and looked around the room, anywhere but at the man in front of her, “Well of course you did, a moment ago that plastic sword was sticking out of your chest after been run through by some evil witch….wait what?!”

How did she know that? How could she have known that, that didn’t happen, it couldn’t have happened because here was Dimitri all fine and well and his usual annoying self. Not dead. Not her Husband. Not the man that she had… She reached a hand up to her eyes and found that they were still crying. What. The. Hell?!

“Magic. It has to be. This place is filled with out you know,” she said as matter of fact as she could, trying to keep herself from freaking out about the fact that the man in front of her was supposed to be dead and she was still crying, “it’s probably something to do with that. As I hear it, something like that happens every time they have one of these dance things.”

[Dimitri]

Hearing Anya actually recount the incident didn’t make it any better. It proved it had really happened, that he wasn’t crazy and didn’t dream it, but it also make it that much more real yet no less unbelievable. Dimitri was stunned to silence and could only stare at Anya. He watched the movement of her hand, watched her wipe at the tears on her cheeks; watched as they continued to fall. She was still crying even though she didn’t know why, still crying for him because she had lost him and they had been married and she had loved him. Still crying even though none of it was true, no matter how real it had felt.

“Yeah, it, uh, usually does,” he forced himself to speak, forced himself to look away from her. The problem was that by looking away from her his eyes were drawn back to the sword covered in comically fake blood, but Dimitri definitely wasn’t laughing. “I started skipping them.” A complete lie. He had only stopped going to the function after she had left him.

No, she had left here, left this place, not him specifically. He just happened to still be here while she wasn’t. I should have skipped this one,” he muttered to himself, still staring at the sword, one hand still absently covering his ‘wound’.

[Anastasia]

“Yeah, yeah you probably should have,” she said, catching his mutter, “and I’m currently making a mental note to do the exact same in the future. Yes. Uh huh. Yup.”

Again she furiously wiped her cheeks of the tears, this was getting beyond a joke, why couldn’t she stop, why had she been so upset at something that was clearly not real. She could still feel the concern turning her stomach, making her feel sick, but why? She didn’t care that much about Dimitri, she hardly knew him, so why, why, why was she crying?!

“You know, trouble just…follows you,” she said, attempting to make a joke out of it but really not able to take the accusing tone out of her voice, “I don’t think it’s the place, it’s you. You’re just…trouble.”

[Dimitri]

The silence should have been awkward, but Dimitri was too distracted by his thoughts, by his nonexistent wound, by the bloody sword on the floor to notice it. Her words, though... her words he noticed. Whatever tone she had been going for, all he heard was the accusation and he raised his eyes to meet hers again, his expression a mix of hurt, surprise and anger.

Was she seriously turning all this back on him? He had been put under a spell, he had been the one who died, and somehow this was all his fault? “Oh, right, this was all me! Everything bad that happens in this god forsaken place is all my fault!” Dimitri shot back, equal parts incredulity and sarcasm.

When he actually thought about it, though... was Anya so far off the mark? He certainly didn’t have a great track record. His life had never been easy, bad things always seemed to happen to him. Everyone he cared about left him one way or another, he was running out of fingers to count the number of serious injuries he’d sustained in his short life, and then things like this kept happening. It had been easy to say it was his Anya, that trouble followed her and that he took the brunt of it by always being there to protect her, but she was gone now and these things just kept happening. Had Allan and Mulan left before or after her? He couldn’t remember anymore, but they’d left him all the same. Maybe it was better they were gone, maybe she had been smart in leaving him. He could still remember two years ago - or had it been three? - when that glass room had shown him his greatest fear: that one day he wouldn’t be there to save her. And now he wasn’t, but now this Anya was caught up in his web of trouble, having no idea why or what she’d mistakenly gotten herself into.

“You’d be better off just staying away from me.” The anger had faded from his tone leaving him sounding almost hollow. It would be better for them both if they just avoided each other. He couldn’t deal with this, couldn’t deal with her. Taking a step back, then another, he turned and made a break for the now open doors.