Chapter 1

December 1992

 

Mommy and Daddy always liked snow, the small girl thought fondly as she looked out the window that December evening.  During those times, they would take long walks around the neighbourhood – all three of them – and stay in the park for just a few moments so Chloe could make snow angels on the ground.  Mommy and Daddy would talk as she made one; two; three of them on the ground.  Finally, Mommy would shiver and say ‘Come on, Chloe-babe, and let’s get a cup of hot chocolate.’  I jumped up and ran to them when they did, she recalled with a childish giggle emitting from her six-year-old throat.

When she glanced out the window again, she saw that snow was falling heavier to the ground, making her gasp in awe.  She loved the slow and steady movement of the snowflakes as they fell.  She especially liked it when she was outside, when they fell and melted on her cherub cheeks.  Growing excited at the possibility of going out that day, she jumped off the chair she sat upon and ran out of her parents’ room to insist they go.  She stopped short, however, when she saw her mother walking up the steps.  She was crying! Chloe thought in alarm.  Immediately, she hurried over to the older woman and began tugging on her hand.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?  Don’t cry, please,” she pleaded as she grasped the large hand in her own two.

“Oh, baby doll,” Karen Sullivan sobbed and fell to her knees to hug her only child.  “I’m really sorry, but, Mommy has to go somewhere right now.”

Chloe pulled away with an alarmed look on her face.  “But you promised!  Oh, don’t go!  You, and Daddy and me can go out to play in the snow!  We have to!  It’s snowing, Mommy!”

“Sorry, my dear girl, but I have to do this.  It’s important.  Your Dad already knows.”

Having said that, Mrs. Sullivan struggled to her feet and walked to her room.  Finding the fact that her father would allow such a thing to happen, the little child bounded down the stairs as fast as she could and went to the living room, where she was certain she would find her him.  Lo and behold, he was there, seated on the couch, his face buried in his hands in a defeated manner.  She went over to him and tugged on his sleeve.

“Daddy, Mommy’s going and we still need to play in the snow.”

He moved his head to give her a bleary look with one eye.  “I know, kiddo, but I can’t do anything about it.  You’re mother needs to go on an expedition right now and apparently, it determines the future of her career.  We just have to be supportive.  I know you shouldn’t have to go through this, but this is really important for her.”

Chloe didn’t understand why it had to be like this.  She didn’t want it to be like that.  Her father and she watched as her mother sat in a cab and drove off, waving frantically; hoping that she would remember them throughout the expedition.  Six months later, Gabe Sullivan heard that the archaeologists in search of the Temple of Thanatos suddenly disappeared from human existence.  He refused to tell his daughter the fateful news that came up on her seventh birthday.

~~ o0o ~~

She wanted to open her eyes… she could feel, that was all she could do for the moment.  Her body was curled into a fetal position, and from what she could touch most of her body was covered in a thin film of some sort of cloth.  She could hear the hum of distant voices in the air – calm voices that made her want to drift on in her semi-conscious state.  Although she knew things were wrong, there was a sense of safety kept within her.

Something rustled passed her and soon she felt a strangely warm and comforting entity by her.  There was no breath of life; just the mere magnetism that a body always had – only a bit more compelling, causing her skin to break out in goose bumps.  A voice – something with a timbre that was neither male nor female – rang silkily in her head.  It was a statement that made complete sense and no sense at all.

Be patient, little one, for that lucky day, when love forgets to wait.  In the realm of in between is where here is until that time comes.  Forget not that it is only when love shall stop the waiting and the hope shall two paths cross again.  Remember, little one… be patient…

Then the voice ebbed away and she was lost to the darkness once again.

~~ o0o ~~

February 2010

“Sullivan, you get your arse in my office now!” a man with a snappish tone bellowed from across the large room.

The buzzing of voices from each section ebbed away and all eyes fixed themselves upon a petite young woman with cropped dirty blonde hair and sharp hazel eyes.  Sighing, the girl pushed herself away from the artifact she was working on and walked towards the office conjoined with the one she was working in.  Before she stepped in, she turned her head and barked, “Get back to work.  This isn’t any of your business.”  The reaction was immediate and the room was droning with voices once again.

It was a known fact that Chloe Sullivan should not be questioned or even mocked.  She was a strong individual who commanded attention from all others – despite her slight figure.  Everyone admired her for her quick wit and loved her for her sometimes dry but contagious humor.  At the same time, however, they also feared her anger.  Someone with as much passion as she had for her job was bound to have a fiery disposition that was not to be tampered with.  One man was unfortunate enough to mutter something dirty to her and ended up becoming the laughingstock of the entire company after she had her turn on him.  She was the untouchable, to many, but that sense of distance from her was preferred.  It didn’t seem possible to get close to her anyway, what with her tendency to avoid almost all of the social functions that were provided to the employees.

Her boss was a different matter.  He was used to attitudes like hers and took her yells and snarkiness as if he was eating at a free buffet lunch.  At that moment, he was in a formidable mood, and with his patience already being limited as it was, created quite a complicated scenario.  Once the door was closed, the man with long, slick, raven hair and sharp obsidian eyes sent her a piercing look.  Underneath his large hooked nose, his lips were pursed together in their usual hard fashion.

“You called your most honorable highness?” Chloe said in mock respect.  She had been planning to bow as if in the presence of a monarch, but thought against it at the last minute, looking at him with obvious disdain.

“Miss Sullivan,” he began, his low voice accentuated British as he ignored her caustic tone, though he was quite tempted to wring her neck for her intended disrespect.  “There has been a recent call about an expedition team that is expected to go on a search for an ancient temple in the area known as ancient Greece.  The temple that I’m talking about was – and still is – known for the fact that a group of ancient Grecians worshipped Thanatos there.  Thanatos was the –”

“I’m not a dimwit, Severus,” she snapped, cutting him off rudely – with the purpose of irritating him.  “I very well know who Thanatos is.  He’s death personified in Greek mythology.  He was the son of Night, or Nyx, and the brother of Sleep, or Hypnos.  According to what we know, all the other Greek gods hated him – the reason why remains a mystery to most of the modern world, though we can assume that it might have been because he had a nasty personality, though I must digress.”  She looked at him quite haughtily and lifted her chin to show her smugness.

“You know, it’s been quite a while since I’ve had you around that I’ve almost forgotten just how much of a know-it-all bitch you could be,” he commented lazily as he watched her with a slightly amused smirk.

“If I’m not mistaken, it’s only been a month – not long enough, if I do say so myself.”  She folded her arms proudly and looked at him with an upturned nose.

Raising a brow and leaning forward over his desk, he sneered and said in an acerbic tone, “Just because we had a personal relationship doesn’t mean you can go around and disrespect me, you insolent child.”

“If you call bantering over dinner you pay a ‘personal relationship,’ your views are definitely warped.  Besides, if you were more open to a certain someone - *cough Hermione Granger cough* -- then I don’t think I would have ever found myself actually having any relationship of the sort with you.”

“It’s far more complicated than that, you stupid little twit,” he seethed, scowling darkly at her.  “She was my bloody student for seven bloody years and the first time I saw her, she wasn’t even starting puberty!”

“Well, what made me different from her?  I went through the same processes as she did at about the same time?  I’m basically the same age as her aren’t I?”

“She’s slightly older actually…” he trailed off most wistfully, but shook his head to clear his thoughts and gave her a deathly glare.  “But that is beside the point.  What I’m saying is that I knew her when she was still a wee little child while I only discovered you were alive just a year ago.”

“That still is no reason why you couldn’t say or do anything when she’s around!  You either turn away from her in hopes of not looking like a blubbering idiot or you mock her to death and get into another heated argument with her and push her away in the process.  You may seem slick and arrogant on the outside, Bub, but you’re nothing but a tall, skinny, greasy-haired dumb-ass when that’s all you’ve accomplished!”

“If you knew just how much I know –” But he stopped short and waved his hand dismissively.  “Oh, bloody hell, let us just cease with this endless prattle and get on with what I had started.” Leaning forward on his seat, he slid a neat folder towards her, which she picked up and fingered through.  “These documents that you are reading are what the last team found before they disappeared.”

The information he gave got her mind off of their personal problems and quite interested in the assignment he had been offering.  “Wait, what do you mean by ‘before they disappeared?’”

“Well, the first expedition was eighteen years ago.  Forty archaeologists and experts traveled around Europe to find traces of where the whereabouts of the temple might be.  As you can see, the last documentation of their travels stopped at Ireland.  The information they found so far indicated that the basic whereabouts of the ruins was somewhere in the plains of Turkey.  Unfortunately, we’re not too sure that the theorized location is in that country at all.  The group that is to be formed now will pick up where they left off and hopefully find it.”

“Does anyone know how they suddenly disappeared?”  She began to run a finger down a list of the people at the first expedition and their basic background information.

“Could you get off of that?” he asked acerbically.  “The point is, there’s a great archaeological find out there and you could be the one to discover it.  That is why you majored in this field is it not?”

He waited a moment, only to find her frozen with a shocked look on her face.  “Miss Sullivan?  Is there something wrong?”

She looked up from the folder slowly and brought it right up to his face, pointing frantically at a certain section of the page.  “Did you see this?  Do you know who this is?” she demanded in utter joy and disbelief.  Her hand was shaking in her excitement as she held it in front of his eyes, but he knew just what she was talking about.

He leaned back and gave her a little smile – it was a sight that was rarely or never seen.  “Dear girl, you think that I don’t look through before I assign people?  Why do you think I picked you – other than the fact that you are a brilliant mind, although I begrudgingly want to admit it?”

“So you want to send me on an assignment that traces my mother’s last steps?  Do you know how much I want to kiss you right now?!” she cried in joy.

He opened his arms and looked at her suggestively, causing her to stop and give him a disgusted look.  Severus laughed dryly and flicked his limp hair back from his face with the smooth swish of his hand.  “Now, you and the rest of the crew will be leaving in three days.  That will give you ample time to pack and notify others that you might want to tell of where you are headed.  As I have been appointed the head of this expedition, I will be expecting you – as well as everyone else coming along – at the airport at seven o’clock a.m. sharp.  Have your passport ready.  Don’t worry about the visa as that is already taken care of.  Now have I made all of the instructions clear?”

“Is that all, Teacher?” she asked with a devilish smirk.  “You're not going to take my hand in yours and walk me through the whole process?  Because you seem to think I'm too incompetent to think for myself, you see and I need someone to guide me every step of the way because I'm still a little girl...”

He shot her a daggered look to which she tried the image of feigned innocence.  “Just one more thing,” he muttered.  “Take whatever you like, just as long as it’s useful to you and the search.  All your baggage will be carried by you only so I don’t think you want to bring too much extra.  The bare essentials such as clothes of all sorts and sensible shoes will do, I think.”

“It doesn’t take a drill sergeant to figure that out,” she muttered with a flippant gesture.  “Besides, this isn’t the first search I’ve been assigned to, if you haven’t forgotten… unless of course age is taking its toll nowadays.”

He let out a growl at her last comment, to which she snickered childishly.  “Well, then, what are you waiting for?” he demanded before motioning for her to shoo.  “Go on and get ready!  I don’t care for dilly-dallying individuals to come along.”

“Yes, sir,” she saluted in a most sardonic manner.  Holding the folder close to her heart and marched out, a cheerful smile on her face.

Upon gathering her things, she walked out of the building feeling refreshed.  It may have been the fact that she had a nice little spar with Severus again, bit she knew for a fact that it was mostly because of the exhilaration that she felt about actually following in the exact footsteps of her mother on a search that very well may lead her to the remnants of the woman she knew didn’t leave her and her father alone on purpose.  She always wondered where Karen Sullivan had gone off to.  At a certain crazed point in her life, she even believed that the woman didn’t want any of the life she and Gabe started out with, but she was brought to the conclusion that her father wouldn’t be so adamant at defending her had she done so.

Driven by her the legacy Mrs. Sullivan left behind, she dropped her obsession with the news reporter fad she cooked up in middle school and went for a degree in archaeology and took the first job that was offered to her that sent her spiraling into a web of ancient civilizations and wondrous discoveries that she felt proud to take part in.  Gabe questioned her about her choice in career.  He was faced with the prospect that perhaps she would disappear suddenly just like her mother.  She knew the risks, yet he was hoping that she, too, would realize just how dangerous her line of work was and return to him.  Fearfully, he read her accomplishments through news articles, emails and saw them on television shows.  Occasionally, she dropped by to visit – times that he truly enjoyed and treasured.  In any way, she tried to show him that she was still there, and tried to reassure him that nothing akin to what happened to his wife would be the same with his daughter.

Keeping such a thought in mind, she headed back to her apartment by foot, soaking in the sounds of Metropolis as much as possible as she knew that it would be a while before she heard it again.