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Alex doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what to do and she has no idea where the hell they are or anything like that. But she can see the affection and love between the two of them and it scares Alex. It scares Alex more than anything with Coralee ever did. These were the answers that they were always working toward and now they had them, thanks to Amalia's insistence that Alex attend the club (god she hopes Amalia is okay but it's not like she can check right now) and it's kind of more than a little bit terrifying.

When Richard punches Tiamat, it almost feels like the world is in slow motion again, and she just stares over her shoulder as he grabs her hand and pulls her along. Alex is a runner, it's something that she does every day, but no one is a runner in heels like this, not really. Adding in the fact that Richard's legs are longer than hers and she needs to hurry to keep up with him when they're walking together, this entire thing seems more than a little perilous.

As if the running from a goddess herself wasn't perilous enough.

"Where are we going? Do you even know where the hell we are right now, Richard?" It's instinct for Alex to reach for her phone, but it's in the tiny purse that she'd left in the club when Richard had ordered her onto the table, and so she doesn't even have that. But she keeps looking over her shoulder to see if they're being followed.

"I have to get you out of here."

His voice sounds different, it's impossibly deep and it's pure damn luck as he leans against the wall to clutch his throat for a moment before shaking it off, "...I have to make sure you're safe. Then...Then...We just have to get out."

You can't leave Richard. You know you aren't going to leave me.

Leave her alone.

The voice in his head is petulant.

No.

He throws a hug at Alex, desperate, clutching her tightly as people pound toward them.

"I love you." Meeting her gaze his eyes shine, "But you have to get you out."

Alex just stares at him before he hugs her, and she wraps her arms around him automatically. Those were words that she'd never thought that she'd ever hear him say, honestly. Yes, she desperately wanted him to say it, but she'd never thought that they'd get past his lips. But maybe that's what happens at the end of the world: you say the things that you'd always meant to, that you'd thought that you'd get around to doing.

"I love you, Richard Strand." Alex's voice is a fierce whisper, and she ignores the sound of people coming towards them, she ignores the way that his eyes shine at her. She ignores knowing that Tiamat is inside his head and listening to them as she says the words. And of course, she also ignores how he says that she's got to get out. "I love you. Who you are. Not who Tiamat wants you to be, Richard. I love you."

The words come once more and she just reaches up and touches his cheek. "But I'm not leaving you. Don't you get that? You and me, right? We're in this together." Alex is loyal, always so loyal, even as her eyes are shining, liquid with tears as she watches him. "I love you." It's funny how she fought so hard not to say it, and now all she can do is to say it.

Oh Alex

He cups her cheek and kisses her hard before stroking her hair. There are guards with guns coming in their direction.

"If you want me to be me. Then you have to understand - I have to let you go-"before he can kiss her again his hands jerk and he pulls away. It feels like his chest is on fire.

And Tiamat is there. She's right there, warm and beautiful and he falls to his knees writhing for a moment before she strokes his hair and he...

Eases.

"Don't make me hurt him Alex." Her voice is soft, deadly and dangerous, "I will have to, and it will be by hurting you. You're not in his mind like I am. I am him. And He is me. And you brought him to me. As I wanted."

Richard is on his feet, towering over her but focused wholly on her.

"So. Chose. Join me, and keep him from pain. Or leave. Save the world. Save Nic. Save your interns, your mother, your father. Tomorrow..."

Tiamat cups Richard's cheek with a purr before kissing him, "I know you're scared Richard. I know she'll say yes."

Damn you.
Don't fight me on this.

He looks back at Alex and - out of desperation - thinks at her.

Run Alex. Run I'mnotworthit its not worthit Alex please please alexplease-!

But he wraps Tiamat in his arms, staring down at Alex dispassionately.

For a moment, Alex just looks torn, and she frowns when she can hear Richard in her head. Her voice is soft and wavering, but there's a certainity in it. "Yes, yes you are. You are to me." Because he is. Richard has been worth all of the monsters, and he's worth this. He's worth this.

But that doesn't mean that she's going to go easily. Even as she's shaking, the fine tremor working through her body, Alex raises her chin and she looks at both of them, but she's addressing Tiamat when she does so. "I want..." It's hard for her to say at first and Alex has always thought that she was a better person than this. She'd thought that she'd willingly watch him be hurt and in pain, that she'd willingly watch anyone be hurt or in pain in order to save the world. But it turns out she's not any better than anyone else and that hurts her. It's like a knife in her side. But she can't watch this happen to him.

There's a fleeting thought that Simon would be so disappointed in her, and Alex doesn't blame him in the slightest.

And she doesn't stop. "I want assurances, if I stay. I want you to make sure that my family and Nic and the interns and Simon and Charlie and the other kids are free and safe. My definition of safe. Not yours."

Interesting. Interesting.

It's not time yet for Richard and she to become one. That happens tomorrow but Alex is so willing to throw away reality for him?

"...Just them."

For now.

It's Richard who flickers for a moment but it's very easy for Tiamat to reach into his mind, "Just them? Out of everything and everyone. You trust me that much."

She's not delusional but she can sense the love out of Alex in waves. Leaving Richard to the side, she cups the other woman's cheeks.

"My sweet girl."

Warren doesn't look happy when he appears. He's been dragged from somewhere and his hair is askew. When he sees Tiamat however he falls to his knees.

"Leave Alex's family and loved ones alone." She keeps her hands on Alex, "And the children...we haven't taken yet alone."

Alex might feel a clench around her heart.

"The other ones are me. To have them stay free and safe? They must stay with me. With us."

Richard Strand is both horrified and hurt by all of this, and some of his resolve has waivered. Some part of his resistance breaks down. He returns to her, arm around her shoulders, before he glares at Warren.

"Did you misunderstand -" the word is said in ancient sumarian, "She means now. As in this moment."

His hand reaches for Alex to draw her close to the two of them.

Alex can't believe she's doing this. She really can't. But Alex Reagan isn't someone who backpedals on her mistakes. She's only done it once, and that was because there was something that had been entirely too important to her on the line: her relationship with Richard. Personally, professionally and in every way that it counted, if Alex hadn't apologized to him in that car, she doesn't know what would have happened but her gut told her that she would lose him.

Her gut is strangely silent on this and Alex just supposes that it means that there isn't a good decision here. Just bad ones.

"Ruby. Richard's loved ones too. Cheryl. Her family." Alex says after Tiamat gives the order to Warren. "I thought that went without saying but..." But Tiamat had already threatened to hurt her to hurt him--she doesn't want to give the Goddess the same idea. But she looks into Tiamat's eyes as she says it and then she lets Richard draw her closer to them, because her decision is made. "And I stay."

Richard is so disappointed. He had counted on Alex to lead a resistance but also...

Also maybe this was building it. I've dragged her down. He feels his heart crack and more of his resolve slip. Looking at Warren it's hard to not feel a degree of satisfaction. He knows it's their feeling.

I was not aware that my servants had been animals in such a way. That they had threatened you and Alex in such a fashion.

We'll whip them into shape.

"You heard her. You heard them." Her voice is soft as she reaches a hand out for Alex, "We'll be upstairs in my room to prepare for the ceremony." She pulled Alex toward her, toward the there of them, "Alex is now mine. You will treat her with the same respect you treat me."

"My lad-"

It's sudden. And it's not Warren. Warren freezes as one of the soldier's heads ...pops.

It just does. Blood splatters the wall.

Richard doesn't bat an eye and Tiamat shrugs before looking to Alex, "Come. I will take care of you and Richard tonight. Won't I?"

She says another word in Sumerian and Richard moves to hold her before looking at Alex.

If he is ever himself and he presses on her, Alex would tell Richard that there wasn’t going to be a way of leading the resistance because either Tiamat or Warren would have killed her. Maybe not with him standing there (though if Tiamat needed to hurt him enough probably with her making him wield the knife) but definitely not long enough to have any ability to stop them. But it doesn’t matter now, her choice is made.

That said, Alex Reagan doesn’t scream. She didn’t scream when she found Maddie, she didn’t scream when they received the video of Brother Lewis’ murder, and she doesn’t scream now. Instead her gasp is loud and strangled as the body hits the floor and Alex has a vindictive moment of wishing it was Warren as she pales.

But she comes forward at Tiamat’s beckoning, skewing over the blood pool on the floor.

Edited 2020-05-20 21:10 (UTC)

It's Richard who embraces her, kissing the top of her head and staring at nothing, eyes glassy. His hands squeeze her shoulders and he leans against her. Tiamat looking back at them and smiling.

Warren, for his part, rises slowly and shoots both Alex and Richard a look of absolute loathing before he bows and leaves. There's a pull and the three of them are back in their chamber.

Tiamat's features are expressionless. Blank and ice cold for a moment before her features brighten and she takes Alex's hands.

Richard, for his part, leaves, moving over to a bar that may or may not have been noticed.

"...Your hands." Tiamat feels them,features focused, "I love them. Richard does too. But he likes your voice the best."

She plays with them, feeling the fingers and tracing them slowly, "It's fascinating. I have had this body for so long I...have forgotten how things feel."

She smiles, unnaturally bright and inhuman, "...I can't wait to feel again."

Alex doesn’t miss the look on Warren’s face and she wonders if Tiamat has any idea of Warren's dangerousness and just how much he hates them. Alex is never going to let down her guard around him. Ever.

But she does look a little lost when they’re in the red room once more, and when Richard walks away from the two of them. Alex knows him, she does and she knows that he’s not happy with this at all. She tries to press down the guilt at that and she looks to the Goddess instead, watching her as she traces her hands against Alex’s. Her frown changes then, because if there’s something that Alex Reagan always has it’s a bleeding heart and burning questions. “If you can’t feel then what was going on with Warren at the club?”

"...Just because I do not feel does not mean that others do. Warren adores me."

Her gaze goes cold and her hands grip Alex's - painfully - before she pulls her hands back. Staring at nothing.

"It is not the act of blessing. It is the worship. He feels blessed. And I am worshipped.

But I do not feel...touch. The nerve endings in this body are dead."

Alex just winces at the way that Tiamat is holding her hands, and she frowns all the more hard at that. It's difficult not to be sympathetic at the way that the woman is saying. The Goddess is saying. She know she needs to remember that this woman isn't a woman, and that she's going to destroy the world, but it's hard when she looks that sad and Alex has never been good at ignoring someone's sadness.

She means it when she says, "I'm sorry. That must be awful. I can't even imagine." And somewhat reflexively, Alex leans forward and brushes her hand against Tiamat's cheek.

He and Tiamat are the same being. He sees that know.

Just being in her presence is a constant flood of information. He knows his father tried to save him in his own misguided way. That his mother was against this. That Coralee did love him and that she was now extracted and trying to protect Charlie.

He knows this. And something touches his cheek and it's warm.

"...Alex?"

When he returns he has a drink in his hand and looks confused - at he and Tiamat.

The goddess doesn't say or do anything and Richard stares, "...You...you care about Tiamat?"

Alex just frowns for a moment, and she pulls her hand away like a child who'd gotten it caught in a cookie jar or something like that. The crimson returns to her cheeks, and she's dimly aware that she's still dressed for the club and that her feet are starting to ache in these heels. It's funny what your brain will over you so that you don't think too hard about something like this.

And she can't think too hard about this, not really. "I have empathy for her." Which is true, she does. "I don't know about anything else." Which is also another truth, but it's becoming a little hard to see where Richard is ending and Tiamat is starting and vice-versa.

"None of this makes any sense. I don't understand. I should..." She should hate Tiamat for all of this, for the choices that Alex has just had to make. But it's easy for Alex to remember in this moment that Tiamat was a woman who's husband had been killed by her children for power, and who then turns around and kills them in return before her son breaks her body and uses it to create the stars.

All of this, everything that has happened has been for power and for vengeance. Alex doesn't want power, she never has, and vengeance and hatred just aren't who she is.

Richard wants all of it. He always has - maybe. Maybe in some small way for revenge - for all the people who had abandoned him except for Alex. Hatred for his daughter abandoning him. He tosses back the drink and nods, "It's not...wrong. To not understand."

He moves to sit beside Tiamat, between the two of them. The other woman drapes herself across his body and he looks at Alex - desperately. Pained.

"...We will travel to Babylon tomorrow." Tiamat murmurs, "To prepare. For my love's ascendency and I understand if this terrifies you. We are two halves who have found each other at last."

Alex just frowns for a moment, sitting on that huge red bed watching the man that she loves without reason and the Goddess who loves him draped over his lap like an accessory. She tries hard not to think about where the two of them had been before. God, it had only been less than an hour ago, wasn't it? It seems like it. And yet it might as well as have been three thousand years.

Taking a deep breath, Alex just reaches down and undoes the straps on her shoes and pulls her aching feet out of them, before she looks to Tiamat again. There's a question of course, because there's tons of them. "How exactly does that work? How do the two of you...become one I guess? And then you said I'd call you Richard. Earlier, I mean." Before Richard had tried to get her out, Alex thinks. "What happens to you? Or your current vessel, I guess? Was she a Richard once too?"

"She was offered to me." Tiamat murmured, "My mantle, my vessel. And with her I made the stars and the sea. I am speaking to you now because she has been alive for thousands of years. She is tired and I wish her to rest."

It's hard to tell if she's lying or being truthful, pained even.

"Richard was bred for this. I laid the seeds for the Strand bloodline ...in England? Yes. A soul was sold, a bargain was made just as you did. And here he is and you are..."

Her hand slides across Richard's chest as he leans his forehead to hers.

"You are everything I hoped for in a vessel. I would have come for him sooner, but his father prevented it. and then you stumbled onto my plan.

The frown that Alex is wearing just deepens, moving through her eyes as she just considers that fate, both for the woman and for Richard himself. For a mortal, the idea of thousands of years seems an impossibility, something that Alex can't even fathom. God, how could someone live like that without having nerve endings to feel? Without being even alone in her head? The empathy is written in her eyes and across her skin, but Alex knows that they probably aren't really paying attention to that.

She tries incredibly hard not to be jealous. It doesn't quite work--Alex is still herself even with everything going on. Despite the question that she wants to ask being if she should leave them alone, what Alex says instead is: "Richard didn't make the deal though. He doesn't have a choice. Why did you wait so long for him to be him? The Strands have been in America for at least two centuries." The tone of her voice is very 'it's not really fair' but Alex at least knows enough not to say it.

"My father hid me from her."

It's Richard who speaks, his voice soft, "He had me prepare to face the darkness but he never wanted this for me. He was afraid because he knew if I found her I would come into my power."

He and Tiamat stare at each other and he can see his eyes reflected back in hers.

"There will be a ceremony and Richard will have my power. And be responsible for leading my armies. This body will be accorded all honors and I will...be you. You feel it don't you?"

"I feel it." Richard has no eyes for anyone other then Tiamat, "...It's like looking into a mirror. I'm your bridegroom."

"And you won't leave."

Tiamat sounds desperate, " You have her. She's with us. You can make her your consort I don't care just Richard. Please. Please stay stay stay..."

She falls into his arms and he wraps them around her before looking at Alex - gaze curious and blank.

"I should..." Alex just colors she can't help it. It's one thing to doom the world to world so that you don't need to watch the person you love in pain. It's quite another to watch him and feel like she's intruding. She's shaking and she knows that she is, and a nervous fit of energy just works itself through her and Alex can't sit still anymore. Pacing is a way to think, and Richard knows it: Alex has worn her way across the floors of her office, the floor of Howard's house. She paces, and she thinks and then without thinking about it she instead begins to act on instinct.

If she's going to be here, if she's going to be here for him, then Alex is going to be here, and she's not just going to be here as a member of the audience.

So, she catches the pins that hold her hair up and tugs them loose, letting it fall over her shoulders and that already makes Alex feel like herself. And then she turns back to them and addresses Tiamat. "You said you want to feel. You feel what he does, right?" It's a question that's not really a question before Alex presses her lips to his and kisses him deeply while her hand moves to cup Tiamat's cheek.

It's a shock for Tiamat because she feels her lips on his and his lips on hers. The Goddess withdraws. One moment she's there and the next she isn't as she can feel Alex's body heat.

Richard's body is so much stronger than this one. This one is strong - she can do great feats with it. Move mountains and lift cars. The absolute power of chaos as needed but Richard...

Tiamat approaches, slowly, nervously, before grabbing Richard's shoulders gently, ever so gently...

This is not the bonding. This is not the bonding that will fuse them together, this is not their wedding. But she closes her eyes and energy rolls through him...

His body burns but Richard can't care. He's still there, but there's a ...a snake. A shark beneath the water of his mind. Every nerve ending is alight with energy as he moves to kiss Alex hard.

"I did not know it could be like this."

Pulling back she'll notice the pupils have vanished in his eyes, just pale white.

"You are so beautiful."

Alex just laughs softly, a little uncertainly (a lot uncertainly.) She didn't know if it would work or not but she knows that she was right and that Tiamat did feel it, that she could feel Alex kissing him. It's in the way that he kisses her back, the way that he sounds like himself for a moment. Alex wants himself, and maybe that means wanting Tiamat too. She doesn't know, but if she thinks about it for too long she's going to go insane and Alex knows it.

So, instead she does what she always does: Alex trusts her instincts. Kissing Richard again, Alex moves to climb into his lap her hands wrapping loosely around both him and Tiamat as well. Alex kisses him like she wanted to do at the club; it's hard and fierce and heated of course, but it's more than that. Alex Reagan never does anything with less than her whole heart, and certainly nothing like this, so she's offering it to them in this kiss as she straddles him once more.

"I love you," Alex murmurs between the kisses, and her fingers slide down along his chest, starting to undo the buttons of his shirt.

It will take time.

They have to be in a place of power. They have to have her essence around them and tomorrow they will go and he...

She wants to go now.. She has not wanted in years. Not until her vessel was born. And now, holding Alex, she wants Alex.

Please.

Richard's hands on her breasts, her cheeks, sliding between her legs.

You're going to destroy me, and take her.

Convince me not to.

She doesn't know me like I know you.

Right. Tiamat sits crosslegged like a child before laying back-heedless of their actions in front of her on the couch. Her eyes open to the stars pale ghost white and she-

Smiles.

You do know me. Every inch of her trembles between her legs, around her body, Love me Richard Strand. Love me and so love her.

Alex doesn’t know about the debate that’s raging between himself and the goddess. She doesn’t know that she’s at the center of it. But if she did, Alex would remind the goddess that without Richard being safe, she wouldn’t stay. There’s nothing that would make her stay other than Richard, and if Tiamat destroyed him then Alex would leave in one way or another. That was the line she would draw.

But for now she just kisses them, making breathless little moans as he touches her. Alex touches him too, sliding the shirt from his shoulders and grinding her hips against him. For a moment one hand scrambles against her back, but she can’t undo the laces holding the dress on her form by herself. “I need you to undo it, my love. I can’t.” Alex rememberers then that she’s wearing a collar and it seems strangely appropriate for what’s happening right now and what’s developing between them.