Title: Going From Here

Disclaimer: Hex and all characters are the property of Shine Group and Sky One.

Character Focus: Ella Dee, Leon Taylor, Thelma Bates, Ella/Leon

Summary: Holed up in the woods and struggling to work out what to do next, the End of Days starts to take its toll on Ella, Leon and Thelma.

Context: Set straight after the end of Season Two.

It was the calm before the storm, the time when both sides, having declared war on each other, took a step back, laid down their arms, and let it sink in. It was a necessary period of adjustment, a time to accept the new reality, mourn for the old one and face the future, whatever it held, with a clear head and a clear conscience.

The calm was still ongoing now, twelve short hours after the world – or at least the world as those who occupied it had come to know it – had ended. Twelve hours after Medenham Hall had been consumed by a demonically ignited inferno and Thelma, Leon and Ella had fled for their lives to a shaded woodland glade as far from the flames as the collective legs of a ghost, a mortal and an injured anointed one could carry them.

Only Thelma, so often the comic relief of the ragtag bunch, had realised the severity of the situation. Weakened from her self-inflicted stab wound, Ella had fallen asleep as soon as her feet had touched the leaf-strewn floor and Leon had eventually dozed off too, leaving Thelma watching over them, every inch the guardian angel she was dressed as. When Leon had woken up she'd been hoping for a serious talk about what the hell they did now, but he'd ignored her and just stared at Ella, cradling her hand in his and listening to her soft breaths as she slept.

Of course, once Ella had woken up too, Thelma and her attempts at making conversation was the last thing on their minds. They'd just sat there, snogging, giggling and so relieved to be alive and together that the small matter of Thelma getting a change of outfit, much less the world ending, didn't appear to bother them.

Now, at last, it seemed to have sunk in. The lovebirds had finally come up for air, and woken up to reality, and so they were doing what Thelma had been doing for the last twelve hours: sitting in silence as it dawned on them that this definitely wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare, and they were living right through it.

"So I guess we lost, then," Thelma said at last, breaking the impasse, as she munched on a blade of grass in an attempt to relieve her hunger. She spat it out in disgust. "Bloody hell. We remember to bring the volta, the knife and the book of Orokiah but no-one thought to grab a bite to eat on the way out?"

"We didn't exactly have time to raid the chocolate machine while we were running for our lives," Leon pointed out.

"We did not lose," Ella snapped, ignoring the subject of food altogether.

"Oh really?"

"Malachi may have succeeded in bringing about the End of Days, but this war is far from over."

"It's all over bar the shouting," Thelma corrected, the lack of something more appetising to chew on making her even more irritable than the dire situation had so far managed. "I mean, poster boy for evil's got the school and God knows what else besides and we're camping out in the woods like a bunch of girl guides."

"You wish," Leon said.

Thelma stuck her tongue out at him. "Let's face it, guys – we're screwed."

On that damning note she reached down and plucked a clump of grass from the forest floor, trying to work up the courage to stuff it in her mouth and pretend it was a really weedy sausage roll.

"'The clamour of Gods and men'," Leon said suddenly, gazing off into the distance as if he'd just remembered a quotation from one of Jo Watkins' old classes. Old as in before she'd turned evil, that was. He noticed Thelma and Ella glancing at each other, confused.

"What Thelma said, about the shouting – it reminded me of something."

"'Busty Biblical Babes'?" guessed Thelma.

"Something the guy in the pub said." He squinted against the hazy early morning light as he tried to remember it all. "I think it went something like, 'the sons of darkness will fight the sons of light, amid the roar of the multitude and the clamour of Gods and men'."

Ella stared at Leon suspiciously. "When was this?"

"Right before he came back to school and saved your life," Thelma supplied, Leon having already filled her in on what he'd been up to when they'd arrived in the woods. Not without a superhuman effort on her part, though. Since he was far more interested in a sleeping Ella than he was in her attempts to extract information from him, their conversation had mostly consisted of Thelma firing questions and Leon grunting one-word answers back at her.

"And who was it who told you all this?"

"Not sure what his name is. He's the one who helped Thelma wake you up, when you were..."

"Mephistopheles," she said tersely, apparently not caring to recall her brief tenure as Malachi's succubus-slash-sex slave.

Thelma frowned. "So this helps us how?"

"Well, he also said that it didn't matter who won the war – that it wasn't going to solve anything."

"So...this helps us how?"

"I don't know, Thelma!" Leon shouted. He shrugged. "I just thought it might be useful."

"It is," Ella told him, all wifely reassurance. Thelma struggled to resist the urge to gag. She was pleased that it had worked out for them – when they weren't getting on her last nerve by snogging the faces off each other, that was – and the whole soulmate thing was kind of cute. But sometimes, more than ever since the world had come to a crashing halt around them, it was just too much.

"He might be useful. If we could track him down..."

"Hang on," Thelma interrupted, "he's one of the bad guys, remember?"

"He's fed up of both sides," Leon said. "He reckons they're both as bad as each other. He couldn't see the point in fighting when it wasn't going to solve anything – "

"Whoa, whoa. You keep saying that. What did he mean? How can it not solve anything?"

He thought about it. "Something about there being dark days ahead whoever wins."

Thelma felt her heart sink. "That's just bloody marvellous."

"But of course he'd tell you that," Ella said. "His side need to remove every obstacle if they hope to win this conflict. He was obviously sent ahead to discourage you from doing anything that might prevent that victory."

"Actually, he was trying to persuade me to come back to you."

She trailed the tip of a finger down his chest. "And I'm very glad he did."

"Why would he do that if he wasn't trying to help us?"

Ella didn't seem to have an answer to that, but the slight dent in her forehead suggested she was doing her best to think of one.

"Maybe he's Cupid in disguise," Thelma said, kicking her heels against the side of the rock she was perched on. Ella rolled her eyes condescendingly and didn't take up the suggestion.

"He's helped us twice now already," Leon persisted. "He might do it again."

"There's a big difference between helping us save you from an evil monster from hell and helping us kill Malachi," noted Thelma. She cocked her head to one side thoughtfully, fingers dancing a riff on her harp. "Though there is a common theme in there somewhere..."

"Well, there's always Raphael."

Ella shook her head so violently she winced, lifting a hand to her barely-healed knife wound. "No."

Thelma glanced warily at Ella, recalling only too well her account of what had happened after she'd awoken from Malachi's influence and saved Leon from Sariel, the Nephilim assassin. Archangel Raphael had fallen from grace in a big way by practically trying to rape her.

Leon let out a long breath. "Ella, I'm so sorry..."

She kissed him full on the lips, accepting the apology.

"He's probably busy anyway," Thelma said with a glance up at the heavens, hidden from view by the canopy of trees. She'd seen enough of the two of them pawing each other to last a lifetime. Or in her case, afterlifetime.

"Anyway," Ella added with a sly smile after she'd prised herself away from Leon again, "I kind of terminated my contract with his side the last time we saw each other."

"Great," Thelma said dryly. "So we don't work for the good guys, and the bad guys want to kill us. Where does that leave us exactly?"

"Stuck in the middle."

"Now you know how I feel."

Leon shifted to his side and looked at Ella intently. "Mephistopheles is stuck in the middle too. They tortured him for betraying them. You're not the only one who's unemployed. So to speak."

"No."

"But if we..."

"I said no, Leon!"

"Oh, I get it," Leon said as he let go of her hand for the first time since they'd arrived in the woods. "It's the Ella Dee show again. What the rest of us think doesn't matter."

She reached up and cupped his cheek gently. "It's not like that, Leon. It's just that I've got a lot

more experience than you..."

Thelma snorted. "For which he's eternally grateful."

"Contacting Mephistopheles would be far too dangerous. He is far too dangerous. It doesn't matter what he might have said or done. We can't trust him."

Thelma rested her chin in one hand. "So when an archangel tries to get off with you and Satan's sidekick helps rescue you, which one are you supposed to trust?"

"You trust the only thing you have left," Ella said, lacing her fingers back through Leon's. "Each other."

Thelma nodded approvingly, pleased that Ella's near-death experience had taught her more than to trust in love. That was a worthy subject for an epiphany and all, but there were bigger things to consider. The last thing they needed right now was Ella deciding to go it alone to get her revenge. Assuming they stood any chance of defeating Malachi and his minions, it was a task they would never be able to complete unless they worked as a team. Though she had a sneaking suspicion that Ella's idea of teamwork at the moment involved her and Leon doing something horribly heterosexual, and that meant it was up to her to get things moving.

This was a threesome, after all.

She abandoned the harp and jumped down from the rock. "Well, I for one don't need a side to know Malachi needs his arse kicking. Who's with me?"

Ella and Leon glanced at each other and back at Thelma. She lifted her eyebrows and they raised their hands obediently.

"Right then, Team Ella. Let's go back to Medenham – "

"Whatever's left of it," Leon whispered to Ella.

" - and zap the bastard." She put her hands on her hips decisively. "That'll teach him not to play with matches."

Leon guffawed, but Ella was shaking her head gravely.

"It's not going to be that easy," she cautioned. "Malachi will be almost impossible to kill now, and he'll be heavily guarded. It's going to take a bit of planning...a bit of thinking..."

"You said that last time, and look where it got us."

"It won't happen again," Ella promised, her eyes fizzing with determination and some other emotion Thelma couldn't quite read. She sat up straighter, apparently about to issue instructions of some kind, but then fell back, flinching. Leon hovered next to her protectively.

"Are you in a lot of pain?"

She smiled puckishly. "I'll live. Could someone pass me the book?"

Thelma darted over to the few, mostly mystical, possessions they'd brought with them and retrieved the thick tome.

"This," Ella said as Thelma placed it on her lap carefully, "is why we don't need Mephistopheles, Raphael or any other higher being as our guide."

"An anointed one's guide to the galaxy," Leon quipped.

"Exactly. The book of Orokiah will tell us everything we need to know about the End of Days and what our next move should be." Ella paused, looking a little sheepish. "Without it, I'm afraid I don't know much about what to expect."

Leon grinned. "Sounds like you've been skipping classes for centuries."

"The End of Days...it's the subject of countless prophecies, much like Malachi...but the two were always connected. It was supposed to happen, and yet it wasn't...not as long as I fulfilled my destiny."

"Well, Miss Dee, your destiny's been interrupted," Thelma said as she settled herself down on the carpet of leaves. "Now tell us a story."

Ella thumbed the outer covers of the book reverently, as if she was welcoming an old friend, and then pulled the covers apart. As Thelma and Leon waited expectantly, her eyes widened. She thumbed frantically through the age-worn pages, her bottom lip trembling.

"What's wrong with it?" Leon asked, drawing himself up to his knees to take a look for himself. Thelma was quicker, though. Before two seconds had passed she was standing over Ella, staring down at the antique cream pages of the book. The sacred book. The book that was going to tell them where they went from here.

"Oh, fu – "

"It's blank!" Ella leafed back through the empty pages, her breath coming in short ragged gasps. "Everything – all the incantations – all the information – it's all gone!"

Leon stared over her shoulder. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know – it's never happened before – " She caught her breath and tried to regain her composure, pasting on a rigid smile. "I guess I've never decided to go freelance before, have I?"

"But the book was fine after that," Thelma pointed out. "It was where Leon found out he had to bleed you to death."

Leon shot her a look that could have killed. If she hadn't been dead already, that was.

"I don't understand," he said. "The book is just a book, isn't it? It's not like it's got a hotline to God or anything..." His voice trailed off as he saw Thelma and Ella exchanging a glance. "...has it?"

"It's a sacred book," Ella said grimly. "It's very much connected to God."

She slammed it shut telekinetically and tossed it as far away from her as she could manage. "I failed to kill Malachi, and then I failed to stop him from bringing about the End of Days. This is my punishment."

Thelma looked at Leon uncertainly. "Ella, I don't think He's exactly got the time right now to pass judgement on you."

"Oh, on the contrary," Ella said. "He's always got the time for it. That's the reason the Nephilim and their ilk hate him so much. They believe the world would be much more fun if they were in charge."

She glanced at the book of Orokiah bitterly. "Sometimes I'm almost inclined to agree with them."

Thelma frowned. "Not thinking of switching sides on us, are you?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Thelma," Leon snapped as Ella stared into space. She looked as pale and shaken as if she'd just been stabbed a second time. "We don't have a side, remember?"

"I'm just checking..."

He turned away and wrapped his arms around Ella, planting a comforting kiss on the top of her head. Thelma stood over them, cold creeping through her like an intravenous drip of ice.

Fun was not the word she would use to describe a world run by Malachi. Having the smug, conniving bastard in charge of the school had been bad enough – what he'd get up to with the entire planet as his playground didn't bear thinking about. That Ella could even contemplate such an outcome would be fun, let alone say it out loud, disturbed her more than she could express.

But the book of Orokiah being fit for nothing more than doodling – well, if she and Leon found that hard to stomach, it had to be a shock of earth shattering proportions for Ella, who had relied on its guidance for the best part of five hundred years. It was bound to affect her. Today of all days, Thelma was willing to allow her a little leeway.

"How's your wound?" she asked evenly, gate crashing the party of two before they got so wrapped up in each other they forgot she was there. She could think of plenty of better things to ask. What on earth are we supposed to do now, for instance. But without the book to provide the answer, the question hung unspoken in the air between them, as much of a ghost as Thelma was.

"I'm an anointed one," Ella reminded her. "I'm a fast healer."

"You'd heal even quicker if you had something inside you," Thelma said.

Leon rolled his eyes. "Do you think of nothing else?"

"Down, boy. That is not what I meant."

"It's not what I meant either."

"Oh."

He sighed. "You're hungry, Thelma. We get it."

"Yeah, and I don't even need to eat. Your girlfriend, on the other hand, could do with something to help her regain her strength. You too, Leon Taylor, because once we figure out what to do and get the hell out of here..."

"We don't know how long it's going to be before we get another chance," Leon finished.

"Actually...I was thinking more along the lines of, we don't know what's out there waiting for us." She sighed, trying to quell the feeling of rising panic. "Much less whether any of it's edible."

It was something none of them had dared to ponder aloud, but Thelma hadn't needed to intrude into their dreams to know it was on their minds too. What was left of the world outside of their temporary sanctuary? Even if Thelma had needed to sleep, there was little chance she would have been able to with the apocalyptic visions that kept popping into her head.

She could almost smell the acrid stench of churches burning, hear people screaming, feel the crunch of their ashes underneath her feet... She could see fire raining down from the blackened skies...a triumphant Malachi standing aloft the ashes of Medenham Hall, surveying his new kingdom...the Nephilim picking at the bones of their victims...

Ew. I must be hungry.

With effort she shook herself out of the vivid image, keen to do something more constructive, and beckoned Leon over before Ella could get her hands on him again.

"Come on, lover boy. You and me are going hunting."