Chapter Text
“That’s life.”
That’s life the crackle of the radio echoed with the tap, tapping of the fingers busy pressing buttons. Boots nervously tapped away with the beat and the bass, the chair squeaked under the tense weight, somewhere not so far away, a world was crumbling.
“That’s what all the people say. You’re riding high in April-“
The woman at the console momentarily paused in a low-slung singing, head snapping around to a port bay as a detonated bomb rumbled with the bass of the song far too close for comfort, heart-breaking and soul crushing. She didn’t linger long in the silence, couldn’t bare to loiter in the resonance of the devastation she knew was happening just outside waiting to get inside, instead turning back to the screen she was busy working on, tapping faster, harder, singing raising over the century long trudge of a falling civilisation.
“Shot down in May. But I know I'm gonna change that tune, when I'm back on top, back on top in June.”
Entering the ignition key for the life support systems locked and loaded and ready to hold for the next century if the worst came to be, perhaps longer if the new repairs held up as good as she hoped, the young woman briskly pushed back in the spin chair, wheels screeching on the haphazard bolted plates of the narrow gulley of the landed ship.
“I said that’s life-“
That’s life, the radio repeated, barely covering the shelling of open gunfire coming closer and closer and closer. She had about twenty minutes left before the wards fell. Twenty-five to get the ship up into the sky.
Thirty minutes to save her people.
“And as funny as it may seem, some people get their kicks stompin' on a dream. But I don't let it, let it get me down.”
Boom!
The young girl winced, but did not let the sound of explosions slow her down.
“'Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinning around.”
Squealing to a halt a short way down the galley, the young woman turned to the panel of switches, gloved hands racing to action as the sounds of grenades joined the crescendo of shelling, bombing and barrage of air support drones. Idly, she wondered who it was going to be that finally broke the wards so many had sacrificed their lives to erect around Hogwarts. Wizards, witches and muggles alike.
Likely Khan. He was still pissed she’d taken his eye the last run in they had.
Eighteen minutes.
“I’ve been a puppet-“
Switch.
“A pauper.”
Flip.
“A pirate.”
Toss.
“A poet.”
She slammed the last lever, watching as the panel above flashed orange, orange, orange and then, thank Merlin, green. Green for go. Green for getting the fuck out of here. Green for not hurtling into bloody extinction.
Seventeen minutes.
“A pawn and a king. I’ve been up and down and over and-“
The ship lurched violently, quivering as the ground below roared under the trundle of tanks and armoured combat vehicles -khan had really sent his all this time, eh?-, and the young woman lurched from her own chair, boots muffled on metal, thudding in the hall as she darted and ducked and dived into the bowels of the ship, edging for the last hall at the very back.
“Out, and I know one thing. Each time I find myself flat on my face-”
The above head lights flickered almost sickeningly as she entered the tight space, short, hasty wiring that needed replaced but stayed askew due to the lack of time for any more repairs.
Sixteen minutes.
“I pick myself up and get back in the race.”
The pods stood upright against the walls, as high and as far as the ship allowed, tiny viewing panels the only glimpse at the slumbering inhabitants frozen in place, lost in the white. The young woman didn’t know much about cryogenics as the muggles called it, but either it would work or-
Or they wouldn’t wake up to find out it didn’t.
Only one pod remained empty.
One out of sixty-three. The only survivors of her entire race.
“That’s life. I tell ya, I can't deny it. I thought of quitting, baby, but my heart just ain't gonna buy it.”
The young woman does not go towards her pod, instead she checks the others first, makes sure the tubes are still clean and locked in the right ports, the lights are flashing the correct colours, the temperatures are set and stacked.
She pauses on the sixth down from her own, raising a hand to lay on the glass though no hand would come and join hers from the other side, the face within peaceful and pale and perfectly still.
“See you on the flip side, ‘Mione.”
Now she goes for her own, just as the ship stirs one last time, trundled with the spark of the engines coming to life as the echo of the plasma bomb distorted the radio where her own voice carried the tune when no one else could.
“And if I didn't think it was worth one single try, I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly.”
Her feet stall a single step from her open pod, the keen, clinical lines of the inner shell, the cold-cool blue of the vitamin lights. Twelve minutes.
One last chance.
One last go.
She would step into this pod and either wake up, or she wouldn’t know what went wrong. A small blessing, but a blessing all the same.
Do or die, and Heather Potter had already died twice technically.
Taking that final, last step, Heather settled into the pod and hit the ignition key on the side panel inside. The lid swung shut with a whirr and a puff of strange smoke, the shot of air that filled the tight space felt contrarily cold and warm and smelled of buttered popcorn.
“That’s life, and I… can’t… deny… i…t-“
Heather fell softly, swiftly to sleep. She did not hear the engines howl as fuel burned to bright blue heat and height, did not feel the whisk as the ship lifted and flew high and then higher and then out into the black unknown. Neither did she hear the bleep of the systems console bleep out its distress call, a last ditch effort in a long line of lost hope that maybe, just maybe, someone might hear it and someone might help, the lax buzz of the life support systems kicking in, the decline of the gunfire and hell that earth had become.
In fact, she wouldn’t hear anything for a long, long time.
That’s life, the radio sang on into the silence of space. and I can't deny it. Many times I thought of cutting out but my heart won't buy it. But if there's nothing shaking come this here July, I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die.