Title: Tortuga

Author: Syberina5 or tsarcasm

Word Count: 205; Complete

Summary: Soon she'd be slipping into someone else's flesh, moving their limbs but still not really there. Still just a ghost rather than a girl.

Disclaimer: I don't need one. Ha. It's mine. All mine.

Author's Notes: Part of the Black Swan Cycle (in the Block of Wood 'Verse) which started out as a single story, became a trilogy, and blossomed from there. This is the prologuey prequel to I'd be Delighted (about to be posted as part of the NukeBigBang). For those who care about such things: the story is AU and essentially canon for Luke and Noah until 10/23/2009—the last episode I saw (don't ask why unless you actually want to know)—but I may be messing with things that happened outside their storylines as I didn't watch most of the stuff [grovels in gratitude at the feet of LukeVanFan]. {Warning: This cycle UMBRELLAS} Meaning the cast will grow frighteningly large and involve things that are not only ATWT (for explanation keep reading). Because of the way my brain works this UMBRELLAING story is part of my Block of Wood 'Verse (QaF, don't ask) and relates to an old General Hospital story I wrote years ago (again, best for me not to explain) and have sadly lost (gr, fickle technology). Luke and Noah are major characters in the tale and drive a lot of the action. QaF knowledge is completely irrelevant as any intersection takes place long after this series' action concludes and the connection is mostly for my edification. The GH fic would likely only confuse you as to what is going on in this story rather than enhance your enjoyment but since I was mentioning the QaF BoW (Block of Wood 'Verse) I thought I would mention the other in the interest of disclosure. The titles in the cycle and many of the references come from an old Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara movie called The Black Swan which has significance only in my very troubled mind. Now that the "Legal" document is out of the way on with the show?

Tortuga

She felt like the ghost she'd once been more than ever now. Like Pinocchio turned from real boy back into a toy. All her limbs had been real, filled with feeling and blood, solid. Substantial. People had seen her, seen her and known her at a glance, for the first time in her whole life.

In the twisted ways of the world that time had been dominated by her not knowing herself.

She had been a real boy. Or girl, as the case maybe.

But times had changed, she'd come back to reality, to herself and felt her limbs going fuzzy. That numb feeling of translucency returning.

She'd fought it. Tried to keep the two existences separate. Here she was a ghost; here she was a girl, a daughter, a friend, a wife. Maybe someday a mother.

But she couldn't keep them apart after all. Her two existences had collided, had destroyed, had bombed out both of them. The real girl's pain was too much, too heady and terrifying. So she retreated into the ghost. She walked right into nothingness. Invisibility.

Soon she'd be slipping into someone else's flesh, moving their limbs but still not really there. Still just a ghost rather than a girl.