to elitch gardens [attn: hdub, jamie]

[errin]

"You're definitely going to need to jump a few fences," says Lucy, who now has an understanding of the landscape of the park. Elijah figures they'd all pile into the Civic and Lucy says, "I'll tell you where to park."

Then she holds out her hand for Sally's, giving her something to anchor her to the group as opposed to drifting listlessly back to wherever it is she goes between cycles. Lucy's smile is warm and kind, warmer and kinder perhaps than the apprentices have seen her, which is something. But ghosts are just about the only things that don't react to the chill of her touch. There is no warmth for the frost beneath her skin to leech away, after all. There is no way to feel the cold clamminess of her palms.

Or so she supposes. She doesn't know how it feels to a ghost to touch a living person, but she's never had complaints like she has with the living.

"Let's go," she says. Sally looks at her uncertainly, but her attention shifts to Elijah. There is something wary in that look - not that she distrusts Lucy, in fact there is something about the Dreamspeaker that makes her trust her more than she would most strangers, but there is a worry. That Elijah will be the one who disappears if she goes. And there is a wistfulness, too. If Sally Starling had lived she would be a few years older than Elijah. She would have graduated high school and bloomed into a lovely, impossibly tall young woman. If Sally Starling had lived she might not give the nineteen year old Orphan the time of day.

But Sally Starling didn't live, did she? And so she is forever fifteen, and thanks to years as a gawky, awkward kid that grew into a very tall and slightly more coordinated teen who was more into sports than she was either sex, completely unfamiliar with boys. And here is a good lucking boy who approached her on a bridge. He's the one who talked to her while the other two then watched, and while the other two tonight handled the hitchhiking spirit.

Lucy offers her hand, and Sally wouldn't mind taking it, but she would mind taking Elijah's a whole lot less.

[HDub]

Mister Poirot offers Miss Starling his hand. He could stand touching Lucy. He didn't actually mind touching Lucy, who was cold but warm and contradictions abound. He rather liked making contact with Lucy. We digress, we're not talking about Lucy right now we're talking about Sally.

Sally who would have been tall and just a little older than Elijah. Sally who would have had a future had she not slipped and toppled over the edge of that bridge that particular day. Sally who thought her "vacation" was lame and only wanted to go to Elitch Gardens if she had to be stuck in dumb Colorado. he couldn't really blame her- what had she done to deserve blame other than being young and disappointed?

"You're still in, right?" like Sally was going to do anything other than say that she was in.

[errin]

[guh, i am so sorry to drop the ball on closing this out, folks. gonna post us a wrap!]

Elijah offers his hand and a smile blooms across Sally Starling's face, making her glow just a little. Of course she's still in. They are going to grant her last wish. Maybe they won't get to ride the roller coasters (Lucy, tired as she is, advises strongly against it), but she'll at least get to go inside. Someone, Elijah maybe, figures out how to turn on the old carousel and the three mages and a ghost ride the carved and painted horses around and around.

Twice they run the risk of crossing paths with a security guard. But Lucy is there with her mirror to warn them of the danger, and so twice three Mages crouch down into the shadows, stifling smiles and giggles, with Sally crouching down beside them even though she doesn't need to. These are the things she wanted to do in life. She is going to enjoy them in her last moments on this plane.

They stay there until the sky begins to lighten in the east, the blackness turning a dark and murky shade of grey. That's when Lucy puts her hand on Sally's shoulder and tells her that it's time to go. Sally, her smile dimming for the first time all night, nods. It is time. Six years trapped here, forced to relive the moments of her death, is long enough.

Waving, she smiles wider for Lucy and Alicia, but widest for Elijah. She starts to turn, as though to simply walk out of the land of the living, but she stops. Turning back, she closes the distance to the mages in only a couple of steps, and she throws her arms around each of their shoulders in turn. To each of them she whispers the same thing:

"Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you!"

When she steps back from them, she is not the only one with watery tears causing her eyes to shimmer. She takes a step back from them and, waving, disappears.

It's quiet when the ghost is gone. The sun just breaks the far horizon line when Lucy climbs into the back of Elijah's car, where she curls up and promptly falls asleep, leaving the apprentices to talk about what they witnessed tonight or travel in a silence broken by the radio or Lucy's quiet, rhythmic breathing.