'Til The Midnight Hour

by Indigo

~A head full of hair -- gold as a noontime sunbeam in August, and not a grey hair to be found, thankyouverymuch. Still smooth to the touch, and not a split end in sight. ~

Jenny Sparks examined her reflection in the mirror -- and smiled wryly. She smoked, far too much. She drank, far too much. But her body had been granted a great gift -- agelessness. Combined with a temper to match her electrical powers and a spirit that was -- to all appearances -- indefatigable, Jenny Sparks was much feared and respected in the circles she travelled.

It was mere hours to the new millennium -- 01/01/01 -- the *true* millennium, and the face Jenny Sparks saw looking back from her looking glass was only that of a twenty year old, as most folk reckoned time.

The others could sense her -- dare she say it? ~Fuck yes, Sparks, don't be a pantywaist~ -- apprehension. It had been ten decades. They hadn't all been kind to her, but they had been *hers*. And she was lately beginning to worry that a century was all she got. ~Not like I should bitch, now, innit? It's a damn sight more than most blokes get.~

Nineteen ninety-nine had been one hell of a year. They'd driven off Sliding Albion and saved Los Angeles.

They had faced Gamorra and triumphed.

Sliding Albion had come back and by Jenny's command, the Authority had very quietly *destroyed an entire country*. The blue Meditteranean had swept over the land, and just like that, Italy had become submerged ruins.

In another two or three hundred years, it might even be spoken of like her own Earth told the legend of Atlantis. ~Let's hope the buggering bastards learned something. The Authority doesn't bloody well fuck around, and if they dredge it up only to bring back the horror, I'll just bloody well cover it in lava next time.~

She thought of Jerusalem, of the Progress Engine, and dismissed the thoughts with an effort for the millionth time. ~Don't torture yourself, old girl. There was no real choice: stop evil and stop progress, or let evil have its way, so the world could continue to produce music, art, intelligencia. They stopped the Engineer's Garden, when that could've done so much. We couldn't stop this; it would have cost too much.~

She glanced at the wall and whistled the opening six bars of Rue Britannia; the Carrier responded to her by opening its living walls and revealing the images of her shipmates.

Jack Hawksmoor lounged thoughtfully in his quarters, eyes their normal dark shade of blue, rather than the inhumanly glowing orbs of crimson they used when his alien-modified body slipped into intimate contact with a city. He looked relaxed and content for the moment.

Jenny found herself envying him that serenity. She -- perhaps due to being electricity personified -- was never truly "at rest." She indulged in excesses mainly because she could; and because getting good and shitfaced drunk was one of the few human foibles left to her.

She'd only given up the daily liver-pickling alcohol habit to head up the Authority -- because they could damn well *do* something that *meant* something. The nights, however, were still hers to spend with Jack, Johnny, Jim, and any other gentleman whose name adorned a bottle of liquor.

Jack's image flickered away, dimming. Shen was seated in the middle of her chambers, quietly meditating in the Lotus position. Jenny smiled wryly again: ~Are they all this peaceful between missions?~

Jenny thought; she herself seemed to perpetually walk the razor's edge between pissed off and Truly Angry. Jack had confided to her that after one of their first set-to's against Sliding Albion, the Midnighter had asked, "Is it wrong for me to find that woman truly terrifying?" She chuckled and startled at how unfamiliar the sound of her own laughter was to her.

Shen faded from the smoky glass viewport. The Doctor stood amidst his books and plants -- or, more accurately, amongst them. His smile was beatific and rapturous. For once, those damned lenses of red-tinted Coke bottle bottoms he wore didn't make him look both owlishly naive and ineffably sinister simultaneously. ~Lucky bloke, Doctor. Not many folk in the world get clean and then get a job that lets them get high on life.~

The viewport rippled and revealed Angela. Angie, of all of them, was the most prepared to go out amongst the world. The sheaf of nanite metal she wore as armor was gone, and she primped in a mirror, putting final touches on her makeup. Her black hair was expertly coiffed, and her smile behind deadly red lipstick was nothing short of enthusiastic. ~Yer gonna break hearts, Angie-girl.~

Jenny smiled; superhuman or not, the Engineer was going to enjoy her New Year's Eve.

The image poured away like oil, and was replaced by the images of Apollo and the Midnighter. The former reclined lazily on their bed, wrapped only in a sheet. His eyes were half-lidded with sleepy, affectionate, amusement. Beyond the foot of the bed, the Midnighter, for once without his costume, was executing a series of excrutiatingly fast moves. Sweat beaded on his brow and glistened on his chest. The tight biker shorts clung to him; a fact which Apollo unabashedly appreciated.

"Why do you even bother?" Apollo asked, not bothering to disguise his mingled amusement/admiration of the other man's motions.

"A niggling restlessness," shrugged the Midnighter. He was so often a man of few words.

That was enough for Apollo, who nodded in response to the Midnighter's words. It was more than enough for Jenny. She turned away from the scene, leaving them to their private moment, and walked back to her window. It was New Year's eve, one year into what the mundanes had named 'the Millennium' a year early.

And she too would admit, if only to herself -- that she felt a niggling restlessness. ~End of the year, all the mad ones come out,~ she told herself, dismissing the feeling.

The feeling, however, quite insistently refused to be dismissed.

[[Engineer to Jenny. I'm off for the evening. Anything you need before I go?]]

[[No, luv. You go off and have yourself a ball.]] She opened the telepathic communication to beam across the wide band. [[That goes for all of you. Yes, *all* of you includes *you*, Midnighter. We are The Authority and we are as entitled to a night off as the rest of the bleeding world.]]

She smiled crookedly, cigarette dangling from her lip, as they obediently opened Doors and stepped out into what their ideas of a good time were. None of them dared give her any backtalk. "Auntie Jenny" was not to be fooled with, and if she said 'have a good time,' then people had bloody well better get about the business of having a good time.

Jenny's own idea of a good time involved a bottle of scotch and a full pack of cigarettes. She sank into her sofa and closed her eyes, savoring the amber heat of that first sip.

Memories flickered like the display of an old nickelodeon behind her eyelids, between her thoughts. She could acknowledge -- here, in the safety of her own quarters -- that she was tired. So tired. She was coming up on one hundred and one; normal folk were lucky to still be alive.

~And so,~ Jenny mused, ~Am I.~ But when it came down to it, Jenny still had seen and done and experienced more -- joy and agony both -- than any normal woman had a right to. In her time she'd shared a bed with blue-skinned alien princes. Her first husband sat manacled in the tender embrace of the MI5.

Her own hand had taken the lives of two men she once had called friend.

~Izzit any wonder, then, that I'm weary?~

[[Jenny to Shen.]]

[[Yes, Jenny?]] the sending from Shen was accompanied by the sheer joy of flight.

[[Would you take me flying? I just realized it's been -- at least a decade -- since I flew for the sheer joy of feeling the wind in my hair.]]

A Door opened, and scant seconds later, Swift swooped into the room. "Why didn't you say so? Spending so much time being a cast-iron bitch and looking after the rest of us! Jenny, really. You ought to be ashamed." The chide was playful.

Jenny ground her cigarette out in its ashtray, face lighting with a smile. "Thanks."

"What are friends for?" Shen called another Door and dove through it, clasping Jenny beneath the armpits with her unnaturally long fingers. Swift had to raise her voice over the wail of the December wind in the Andes. "Is this what you had in mind?"

Jenny nodded, "Yes, exactly! This...is...brilliant!" ~It's like I am a girl again.~ The bite of the icy wind through her white man-tailored suit was more refreshing to her than anything, even though she knew in her human form she couldn't handle it long.

Despite her ability to transform from flesh to electricity, she was only human as a human. That had been a little shortcoming that very nearly had killed her when the High's cabal had attempted to subvert the world with the best of intentions. She still remembered the prickling heat of the needles in her back, and the dimming of the world around her as the poison had coursed through her system. A streetlamp had been not even millimeters away, and she'd been unable to throw herself into the circuit as electricity.

Jenny had been close to death a number of times, but that one had been one of the most harrowing for her.

[[Door.]] Shen trusted the Carrier to respond and understand what she needed; one moment was night over the Andes; the next moment it was sunset in California. The pair of them swept through the fading sunset.

~Here is where the Doctor turned a thousand-thousand warrior drones into trees.~ Jenny recalled, ~And where I stood, a thousand feet tall, and told them they better bloody well think twice before they play silly buggers with us again.~

"Penny for your thoughts, Jenny?"

"Thinkin' of all we've accomplished, Shen. Is it really so much, or am I foolin' myself?"

"You're not fooling yourself."

Jenny smiled again, and it felt almost unnatural to her. ~Has it really been that long, then?~ "Shen -- drop me anywhere. I'm of a mind to get out amongst the unwashed masses.~

Shen saluted Jenny with a grin, swooped low over Los Angeles -- and let go.

Jenny was in freefall for perhaps ten milliseconds before transforming into a crackling golden blue-white entity of pure electricity. She transmitted along high-tension lines, close with the current as a lover.

* * * * *

Jack Hawksmoor was in Times Square, completely unperturbed by the chaotic madness that went on below him. He sat, smiling a lopsided smile, on the roof of the Marriott Hotel, and listened to the city whisper her memories to him. The wind was the Hawk off the Hudson, and the people below huddled together -- strangers seeking warmth. Jack's bare feet were against the cold concrete of the building beneath him. The neon and flash of Times Square's many signs dappled him in flickering prismatic light...and in those strobes, he read the city's thoughts in a code only he understood; it was a visual sonata for his eyes.

New Year's Eve in New York was a holiday Jack went to some pains never to miss. He spent so much of his time singing his alien lullaby to soothe cities that shuddered in pain only he could feel. He worked the very stuff of his body between mortar and wires, comforting the organism that cried out in wails of agony only he could hear. New Year's, however, was different -- especially in New York.

New Year's Eve was the Big Apple's favourite holiday, with Christmas and Thanksgiving trailing a close second. The spirit of the city's inhabitants was so much kinder; as such, the city suffered less. Despite the police having to plaster "do not flash your money or jewelery" posters all over the city's subterranean innards, the city breathed a little easier, and was glad of the respite.

To Jack's senses, the city felt now like an energetic child of twelve who'd spent all summer with her leg in a cast -- and was about to have it removed, just in time to play in winter's first snowfall. The sense of anticipation echoed inside some cavity in Jack's body, like sound underwater -- magnified by the thousands of human souls joined in drunken revelry in the street below.

Beneath that exuberance, Jack's alien organs could also feel the city's sense of resignation: this state, when the city and the people were of one spirit -- was temporary. But Jack knew, and the city knew, the sensation would return again in a year...

...but not like this again for another thousand years.

* * * * *

Unseen and untouchable, the Doctor walked the streets of Amsterdam -- precisely 3.14 degrees out of true with his native universe. It was a nostalgic pilgrimage of sorts for him. The red light district was noisy and full of frenetic, almost desperate activity. Whores displayed their wares or showed off their particular talents -- ~Fascinating. I had no idea these girls could write without their hands.~ -- for potential clients.

The air hung visibly with a blue-silver mottled cloud that was only visible to the Doctor's magickally attuned eyes. Smoke from hashish and opium, marijuana mingled with more pedestrian tobacco and clove smoke. Tempted, he let a tendril of aroma permeate the dimensional divide and waft past his nose. He took a deep breath....

...which he regretted immediately. He bent double, fighting back the sour taste of bile in his throat. ~I have indeed come a long way,~ the Doctor reminded himself. ~Once, I would have gladly stolen, killed, for those chemicals for an artificial high. Once. But now? Peyote, coca leaf -- they're natural, undiluted -- pure. And they help me in my work for the greater good.~

He found his heart sympathetic for the strung-out, sallowed people who staggered through the crowd, eyes fixed on visions that showed to no eyes but their own; their bodies atrophied while their minds were sent reeling through trips purchased with the coin of escapism.

The Doctor sighed. ~I was young, I was foolish. And though the greater part of me has embraced being the Shaman of the earth -- part of me misses the simplicity, however tainted, of my former life.~

*<Yes, part of you will,>* a voice advised somewhere in the distant recesses of his million-year-old soul. *<It happens to us all.>* The Doctor smiled slowly, drawing comfort from his forebears, his brethren, and opened his mind to them. Laughter and warmth and cameraderie settled over him like a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate as the Doctors of years gone by shared with the current Doctor their fond Auld Lang Synes.

~It is all well and good to do global intervention,~ the Doctor decided after listening. ~But sometimes, charity begins, as they say -- at home.~

Heartened by his companions, the Doctor pirouetted those 3.14 degrees, and sauntered through the crowd. His lips moved in ancient incantations, and from his hands glittered confetti that had no mundane basis. Where the motes touched -- the worst of the addicts he found in the street were given an altogether different vision -- of what their lives might be like were they clean.

Trailing shimmering ribbons of magic from his fingers, the Doctor strolled into the night, offering the opportunity for new resolution to all who came into contact with him.

* * * * *

Apollo had insisted that the Midnighter spend at least a *little* time away from him; even tonight, on all nights, when couples in love rung out the old and rung in the new -- wrapped in each other's arms.

The Midnighter had protested, but not especially enthusiastically; clearly Apollo had some mischievous plan in mind for his partner. So, he had gone through a Door -- into Bosnia, where the human concept of "Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men" had never quite gotten through. The Midnighter would have plenty to keep him occupied until Apollo called for him again.

While the Midnighter was gone, then, Apollo set his plan into motion. They had spent so much time -- *too* much time -- on the streets when their first team had fallen and they'd been forced underground. The Carrier was all they could ask for -- safety, comfort, friends and companions. But tonight, Apollo wanted something different.

And the something different was -- something simple. He had rented the little loft in Oahu some months ago, and had painstakingly, day by day, decorated it in stolen moments between missions while the Midnighter slept.

Now, with nervous darting glances, lasers flashed from Apollo's to light the candles -- one for each day he and the Midnighter had had no one but each other to depend on, and no world but the dark, cold one in which they had operated.

The table in the dining room was set with care. Two Waterford crystal champagne flutes flanked a silver candelabra. Their plates and service settings sat neatly opposite -- waiting.

Pleased that all was as he had envisioned it, Apollo turned to shower. He literally walked on air, past the white tuxedo laid out on the king-sized bed.

On the pillow opposite Apollo's, a red rose and a white rose lay together, tied in gold and black ribbons.

* * * * *

Anyone else would have thought Angela Spica entirely out of her mind to have worn such an expensive evening gown to Sounds of Brazil. Angela Spica, however, had a different philosophy. She knew that she was the Engineer. She knew that her life might someday come to an abrupt and unspeakably violent end -- so she embraced every opportunity to *live* her life wholeheartedly.

So the killer dress served its purpose -- being worn out from the inside as Angie danced like a dervish. The lights were low, the bass was high, and the merengue Latin beat was like a living pulse. The brass was just as she liked it: nearly deafening. If not for the nanites in her body shielding her from the worst of it (and passively monitoring for Authority communications), she'd probably have ringing ears well into January.

The expert coif had served its purpose as well; envious, desirious eyes of men and women alike had followed her from the door to her table, from her table to the dance floor. But now that she was dancing, her hair fell in riotous curls and ringlets to bounce playfully at her shoulders.

Tucked between her breasts was a single dollar bill; based on an old family superstition that said: "start the new year with a dollar in your pocket, and you'll have money all year long."

She'd spent the hours before darkness in New York visiting families and friends from Spanish Harlem to Little Italy. ~I think I'm about the only person on that team who isn't totally severed from the real world,~ she mused. ~Jen was right to make sure we all got out and remembered that even though we're superhuman we're just as entitled to be *human* as anyone else.~

She blinked, thinking she'd caught a familiar brush of motion past her -- but when she glanced around, it was only the partiers. A brief cloud of disappointment darkened Angie's face, but she danced out from under it on a wave of salsa music. She let her feet carry her across the floor, and let her mind work in the background on new configurations for her nanites. Tonight was one night, but tomorrow would herald a new millennium, and all the weirdness that would come with it.

And it would be The Authority standing shoulder-to-shoulder between the worst of it and a fragile world.

* * * * *

In a Buddhist temple in Tibet -- Swift stepped from a Door, head bowed reverently. She had returned to the Carrier and sloughed off her wings. She had wanted to be as much like she had come into the world as she could be.

A good time could be had anytime, Shen told herself, but the opportunity to pay proper respect to fallen ancestors was not to be missed.

She knelt, eyes closed, and offered a prayer of remembrance and love to her parents. She murmured another prayer, promising them that as part of the Authority, she would see that such cruelties as the one that had taken her parents from her would not continue while she could draw breath to stop them.

Around her, the candles flickered and incense scented the air. Shen Li-Min was spending the end of the old year and the beginning of the new with her family ... and no more good a time could she ask than that.

* * * * *

The night had started with 'a niggling restlessness' for the Midnighter. Apollo, bless him, had been his usual carefree self. Truth to tell, the Midnighter envied his partner the ease he found to relax between missions. The perpetual tension, the constant heightened state of awareness -- the always-on battle readiness were states that seemed to be his default, unless Apollo soothed them into acquiescence with his gentle caress.

Whatever it was Apollo had up his sleeve, it was important to him; the Midnighter was not customarily of a mind for games and riddles, but there had been something so earnest in Apollo's eyes that he had been totally unable to refuse him.

Instead, he had opened a Door to Bosnia, and leapt out. ~I hope Apollo didn't need me energetic,~ he thought belatedly. ~Then again, some things I may be able to muster the energy for.~

The sounds of cries and screams tore through the night air, and the Midnighter's idyll was broken. He raced, on inhumanly fast feet, toward the sound, and found what he had hoped to find: a fight.

"Don't even bother with the 'infidel dog' rhetoric," Midnighter growled, lips parting in a smile that was more snarl than anything else. "You may believe the propaganda described as dogma. Believe it; it won't help you. It may only comfort you in the pain-filled hours that will await you after I'm through.

"And believe me: I will *enjoy* breaking your bones. I will savor every plea for mercy -- and ignore it as you ignored the pleas of those whose blood you spilled in the name of 'cleansing.' "

The Bosnian soldier might have understood, or he might not. It made no difference to the Midnighter. His motions were a blur in the other man's eyes, and he kept his promise of pain.

This dance of rage continued, leaving soldiers lying broken before the survivors of their victims -- until the Midnighter came upon a shivering child, huddled against the cold. He froze, vacillating for an instant, before picking the little boy up and wrapping him in his jacket. ~Apollo would see that you got food and shelter,~ the Midnighter thought. ~I can do no less. I don't need to eat or rest. You do.~

The thanks of the boy's family, upon which the Midnighter stumbled purely by chance rather than the child's enthusiastic cries in a language he did not understand, was heartening. The woman who was most likely the boy's mother snatched the boy up and showered kisses upon him, then fell sobbing against the Midnighter's chest.

He lifted his large hands awkwardly to pat her gently, and found himself smiling.

He had come to bust heads, but he had reunited a family. As ways to end a year went -- he could think of far, far worse.

[[Midnighter.]]

Midnighter lifted his head and smiled slowly. [[I'm coming.]] "Door."

He gingerly pried the child's mother from her embrace, and nodded politely to the small cluster of survivors. Then, turning, he murmured, "Door." And stepped through -- into the Carrier. "Door." And out again, into the periwinkle-purple sky of a tropical sunset.

There were two places set at an intimate little table, lit by candlelight. And in a garment bag with Midnighter written on the tag, was a black-on-black tuxedo with silver accents. He had to admit now, that his partner had piqued his curiosity.

As he showered, the Midnighter reflected that it had been a rocky year for them -- Apollo had seemed bound and determined to prove to the Midnighter that no matter *what* deadly menace or universe-spanning adventure they faced, Apollo *would* return. The Midnighter had appreciated the gesture and said so; but Apollo was always the more sensitive of the two of them; he knew that the Midnighter remained unconvinced.

"You're so like a child," Apollo had said to him without rancor. "So frightened of the things in the world that you cannot control. You cannot control random chance. You cannot control the future. And you cannot control me. Learn to be happy with what we have. You fear every time I step out of the Carrier that I will die and not return. Believe me, the same fear seizes my heart as well."

Apollo had gathered him into an embrace then, and the Midnighter had been content to try to follow his partner's advice. But he knew that his constant stance of caution was wearing on Apollo; and the Midnighter silently resolved to alleviate that pressure.

He slicked back his black hair and straightened his tuxedo, but there was still no sign of ... [[Apollo?]]

[[Here.]]

The Midnighter turned and found Apollo standing framed against the dusk sky, one champagne flute in his hand, and the other held out in offering.

* * * * *

The crowd had gone from an enthusiastic mutter to a crazed roar. In New York, only a minute remained of the old year - and the countdown clock was going, simulcast on Times Square's big screens.

"SIXTY! FIFTY-NINE! FIFTY-EIGHT!"

Jack skated along guy wires and clotheslines, soaring effortlessly between buildings, knowing the city would catch him and guide him to where he was needed. To his elation, there were no sores or festering wounds on the city that needed his urgent attention -- so he could simply lose himself in the embrace of the metropolis.

"FIFTY! FORTY-NINE!"

Angela had a glass of champagne in her hand, and watched as Dick Clark counted down on the big screen TV.

"FORTY! THIRTY-NINE!"

Jenny Sparks sat before a fire with Jackson and Christine -- content in the company of friends.

"THIRTY! TWENTY-NINE!"

Shen Li-Min had returned to the Carrier, and watched from the observation deck, smiling over a cup of Oolong tea.

"TWENTY! NINETEEN!"

"Where are we?" asked the Midnighter, gently stroking the white lapels of Apollo's tuxedo.

"Oahu, Hawaii," Apollo replied softly.

"Why are we here?" the Midnighter asked, turning with Apollo's touch to gaze into his eyes.

"Because," Apollo answered, and dropped in a graceful motion to one knee. His left hand held the Midnighter's left, and his right -- a black velvet box.

"TEN!"

Jack blinked, and then had to laugh at himself. The city, apparently had its own agenda of where he was needed.

"I'm told it's good luck to have someone to kiss at midnight," he murmured softly, certain his words would be drowned out by the crowd and the music.

The smile Angie turned on him when she realized it was him lit up something inside him -- and the city responded with its personal equivalent of "I told you so!"

"NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX! FIVE!"

"Wha--?" the Midnighter stammered, stunned.

Apollo remained on one knee, gesturing to the envelopes on the table. "Dayton Ilo and Donovan Ida, if you wish a normal name and a normal life. My name and yours.

"But even if you do not wish a name -- there is no one else with whom I'd rather spend my life. Normal or not. And there is none other to whom I will *always* return."

The velvet box popped open, revealing a ring of black metal and gold metal. "It's Mokume. J-Japanese." His cheeks were flushed, but his smile bright. "'Two contrasting elements: fused, bonded, and forged into a single unit.'" His voice quavered as he spoke.

"Sounds a lot like marriage," the Midnighter whispered, finding his vision swimming as tears welled.

"Can I take that as a yes?" Apollo's eager, earnest face turned up and literally glowed.

"FOUR...THREE...TWO..."

"Yes," whispered the Midnighter.

"ONE!"

"Oh, it is," Angie confirmed, leaning into Jack's warm embrace.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

And Jenny Sparks, sitting with her friends, cocked her head thoughtfully and nodded approvingly -- but couldn't precisely place her finger on why.

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