Author's Note: Shame on me. I've had a FF.N account for over a month and this is the first fanfic I've decided to post. This has been sitting in the back of a drawer for two weeks collecting dust, and this is also the only fanfic to ever make it out of my mind and on to paper. Anyway, I wrote this at three in the morning, right after I'd finished #11. It was dark outside, and I was listening to that Matchbox 20 song 'You Won't be Mine' and it kind of inspired me to actually right down the fanfic that was floating in my head. Given the above factors it could be a little garbled. Feel free to read and review and criticize. Just please don't blowtorch my story. Flaming is bad for the soul. Anyhow, here you go, away with what you've been clicking for:

You Won't Be Mine

scene: about chapter 22, book 11, David's POV

Camp town ladies sing their song... I was whistling- we were in the middle of serious we're-going-to-get-our-asses-kicked warfare and I was whistling with what I could tell was a stupid grin on my face. Why? Because maybe it wouldn't be us getting our asses kicked out there. Jalil's whole science math genius thing was actually paying off, first the sulfuric acid, now he was working on bigger things, studying guns. I'd run into him in the real world, his head bent over a book on explosives. If we could buy him the time, just a few more days than-
I heard it then. In my whole happy-whistling state of mind I had shut out the sounds around me, but the scream pulled me out of it, the scream that came from less than three feet away, around the corner of the hall I was standing in, just behind me. It was a dying scream, and that's when I heard the gunfire, and then the footsteps that were coming towards me. I whipped around, but not fast enough a gun butt connected with my left temple. I felt the blood running down my face and saw one steel-toed boot as I crumpled to the floor.
"David man, they're in. They're in the castle." Real world. I was on the phone with Christopher, a sobbing, weeping, hysterical Christopher who was busy confirming my worst fears.
CNN. I couldn't breathe, the air wouldn't come, I put the phone down and stared at the wall until my chest eased up enough for me to speak again. "Yeah," I said, "They are. Yeah. Something happened, I'm down Christopher." I felt sick, like I would throw up standing here in the kitchen with my mom test-driving her newest boyfriend in the next room. I put my head between my knees, still trying to calm Christopher down.
Call waiting.
It was Jalil. He was calmer and more rational than Christopher, he always is. But I could tell he was shit scared. He was down too.
Back to Christopher, we made plans to go see Brigid, as if she'd help anymore than she had. Not likely. I hung up the phone. I put on a jacket. I walked out to the Buick that I like to pretend is a car. I got in and did up my seatbelt, because we wouldn't want to get killed now would we David. I heard the belt click into place, and then I lost it I started sobbing. Dry-eyed, dry-mouthed sobs that echoed in the car. I was an idiot, a coward; I was scared. Scared in that special gut-wrenching-heart-in-your-throat way they always talk about in movies but you never really think is real. But that wasn't what really got to me: I was a failure. A capital F failure.
I sat there and howled long after I was supposed to get Christopher. When I could finally control myself enough to drive, I put my car in gear and drove, not to Christopher's house, but down towards the water, to the pier that had sucked me into this shit in the first place.

I felt the cold stone of a castle floor underneath me. I was back in Everworld. No idea where in Everworld, though. Everything around me had settled into a filmy gray haze. My head hurt. I was lying on my side on the floor and blood was dribbling down my face from the wound in the side of my head. Drip. Drip. It joined a small pool that had started up under my cheek. I closed my eyes. How much time had passed since I'd gone under?
Enough.
The shooting had stopped, with only the occasional round going off, usually followed by whooping and wild cheering. The screaming hadn't stopped. It was pretty obvious who'd won.
April's face came to mind, so did Jalil's, so did Christopher's. Were they alive? Would they be for much longer if the were?
No one gets left behind. Remember that David?
Someone dragged me to my knees then. The pain in my head exploded, twenty times worse than before. Oh god. Whoever it was dragged me down a hallway, I didn't care, all I wanted was to black out, to blank. My head was pushed upward, "That's him." Someone said, the voice sounded far away, but I knew what someone it was. It was a voice I knew, one I loathed, one I loved.
"Senna," I murmured. I opened my eyes long enough to see her, her hair, her skin, her eyes, her. I saw her gesture, then I took a kick in the ribs, another in the face, in the kidneys, the stomach. And then I was floating over myself, seeing watching it from somewhere else. Not quite unconscious but not quite there. Watching my body get slammed, and punched, and kicked. Then it was over and they threw me into some locked room so I could bleed all over those cobblestones instead. I lay where I was thrown, unmoving until the blackness crept up over me and real world David got another CNN and started sobbing all over again.

"David, David, come on, David wake up." Jalil was shaking me. I was lying in the courtyard now flat out on my back covered in big ugly chains. Jalil was a mess, bruised, bloody, he'd probably gone through the same thing I had. He stared back at me, "Whoa, David."
I didn't want to dwell on it. "Is anyone else...?"
"Etain, and the King & Queen, a few druids. April and Christopher though..." He shrugged, biting his lip. Too many horrible possibilities sprang to my mind, probably to Jalil's too. The cheering started then, and even in my state of mind I knew who had to be coming." I dragged my self to my feet and tried to wipe some of the blood out of my eyes as Senna and her followers marched into the fallen castle.

Intermission: Go to book 11 and read pages 180-198, then meet me back on the other side for part two

- ~ -

April, good little Catholic April stabbed Jalil's knife into my former girlfriend. "You!" Senna sobbed. She fell to the ground. In all the confusion no one noticed my scream. No one saw the tears that sprang to my eyes as Senna's body fell to the ground.
Someone dragged me to my feet, again. Didn't care. There was a small gash in my side I dug my nails into it, it was all the pain I needed to pass out. I felt my body go limp as Jalil half carried half dragged me away from Senna's body. Left her lying in the dust.

"So take your straight line for a curve, make it stretch the same old lines. Then try to find if it was worth what you spent, are you guilty for the way you're feeling now? It's almost like being free. And I know soon you will be over lies, and you'll be strong, you'll be rich in love and you will carry on, oh no no, oh no, no you won't be mine."

- From 'You Won't be Mine' by Matchbox 20

By Duck-K