After The End of the World
Jul. 3rd, 2008 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onemuseleftTitle:After The End of the World
Characters: April
Rating: G
Summary: The world didn't exactly end. Sometimes it seems like it did.
Notes: Set in the Archie-verse, loosely. If the Archie-verse were crossed over with a certain movie about aliens.
April never saw the Turtles again.
It didn't necessarily mean they were dead. She told herself that a lot in the early days after the invasion. It didn't mean they were dead. It just meant that she didn't know where they were, that they didn't know where she was. There were a lot of lost people after the invasion and she was only one of many.
She'd been in DC right up until the end. She'd been in the White House when the ships appeared, preparing for a private interview with President Whitmore. She'd interviewed the President back when he was still a fighter pilot, coming home from the Gulf War, back when she still worked for Channel Six. When she went freelance, Whitmore had made a point of offering her exclusives whenever he felt like doing a little PR work. It was good for her work – there were a few contacts more lucrative than the President of the United States, but only if you worked for gossip rags. She'd been walking down the hall toward the Oval Office, accompanied by an intern, when everyone started acting strangely.
After that, it all seemed to happen very quickly.
She remembers the evacuation like a movie. In her memories, it's always just slightly removed from her personally. At the time she hadn't felt quite so calm, of course, but time has taken some of the edges off, and she can almost see herself in her memories, watching herself react without feeling any of it anymore.
She'd been watching it all on the news, taking notes and talking quietly into her handheld recorder, planning to call in the story to the editor at the Times, when the Welcome Wagon crew was obliterated by the ship over LA. Less than a minute later a Secret Service guy had grabbed her by the arm and was rushing her, and everyone else in the White House, outside to the front lawn.
She spent the rest of the invasion in the desert, on a military base, sitting in a hallway, holding hands with an old man who prayed quietly and calmly in Hebrew.
She'd been lucky. If she'd stayed in New York – she has no way of knowing what would have happened if she stayed in New York. Maybe she'd be dead; she hadn't evacuated DC, after all, so maybe she wouldn't have evacuated New York either. Maybe she'd be alive, maybe she'd be with the Turtles, and Splinter and Oyuki. She doesn't know.
President Whitmore still gives her exclusives. April hadn't been sure that a reporter would be terribly important in the aftermath of the attempted genocide of the human race, but Whitmore had other ideas. "People needed to see a familiar face," he'd told her, "and you're the most famous person we've got right now." People needed to know what was happening, what wasn't happening. People needed information, and getting it to them was her job.
She doesn't rest much. She travels almost constantly when she isn't meeting with the President and his new Joint Chiefs.
These days, she doesn't think of the others as much as she used to, which is to say sometimes she might be able to get through the day without the loss hitting her like a sucker punch to the gut. She has no idea how to find them – if they don't want to be found, then they won't and it's not like she can put their names into the Separated Families Registry. She put Oyuki's name there, and Irma's and even Vernon, the little weasel, but the Turtles were always below the radar. Now it would be even more important for them to stay hidden. After the invasion April can't imagine how people would react to mutants.
Everyone in America knows her face, her voice and her name. If the guys and Oyuki have access to a radio, television, newspaper, then they know she's alive.
Just because they don't come and find her doesn't mean they aren't alive.
But April's starting to wonder.
Characters: April
Rating: G
Summary: The world didn't exactly end. Sometimes it seems like it did.
Notes: Set in the Archie-verse, loosely. If the Archie-verse were crossed over with a certain movie about aliens.
April never saw the Turtles again.
It didn't necessarily mean they were dead. She told herself that a lot in the early days after the invasion. It didn't mean they were dead. It just meant that she didn't know where they were, that they didn't know where she was. There were a lot of lost people after the invasion and she was only one of many.
She'd been in DC right up until the end. She'd been in the White House when the ships appeared, preparing for a private interview with President Whitmore. She'd interviewed the President back when he was still a fighter pilot, coming home from the Gulf War, back when she still worked for Channel Six. When she went freelance, Whitmore had made a point of offering her exclusives whenever he felt like doing a little PR work. It was good for her work – there were a few contacts more lucrative than the President of the United States, but only if you worked for gossip rags. She'd been walking down the hall toward the Oval Office, accompanied by an intern, when everyone started acting strangely.
After that, it all seemed to happen very quickly.
She remembers the evacuation like a movie. In her memories, it's always just slightly removed from her personally. At the time she hadn't felt quite so calm, of course, but time has taken some of the edges off, and she can almost see herself in her memories, watching herself react without feeling any of it anymore.
She'd been watching it all on the news, taking notes and talking quietly into her handheld recorder, planning to call in the story to the editor at the Times, when the Welcome Wagon crew was obliterated by the ship over LA. Less than a minute later a Secret Service guy had grabbed her by the arm and was rushing her, and everyone else in the White House, outside to the front lawn.
She spent the rest of the invasion in the desert, on a military base, sitting in a hallway, holding hands with an old man who prayed quietly and calmly in Hebrew.
She'd been lucky. If she'd stayed in New York – she has no way of knowing what would have happened if she stayed in New York. Maybe she'd be dead; she hadn't evacuated DC, after all, so maybe she wouldn't have evacuated New York either. Maybe she'd be alive, maybe she'd be with the Turtles, and Splinter and Oyuki. She doesn't know.
President Whitmore still gives her exclusives. April hadn't been sure that a reporter would be terribly important in the aftermath of the attempted genocide of the human race, but Whitmore had other ideas. "People needed to see a familiar face," he'd told her, "and you're the most famous person we've got right now." People needed to know what was happening, what wasn't happening. People needed information, and getting it to them was her job.
She doesn't rest much. She travels almost constantly when she isn't meeting with the President and his new Joint Chiefs.
These days, she doesn't think of the others as much as she used to, which is to say sometimes she might be able to get through the day without the loss hitting her like a sucker punch to the gut. She has no idea how to find them – if they don't want to be found, then they won't and it's not like she can put their names into the Separated Families Registry. She put Oyuki's name there, and Irma's and even Vernon, the little weasel, but the Turtles were always below the radar. Now it would be even more important for them to stay hidden. After the invasion April can't imagine how people would react to mutants.
Everyone in America knows her face, her voice and her name. If the guys and Oyuki have access to a radio, television, newspaper, then they know she's alive.
Just because they don't come and find her doesn't mean they aren't alive.
But April's starting to wonder.
