By Any Other Name

By Wesa

Series: Crossover War of the Worlds/ The People

Rating: PG

Category: Angst

Disclaimers: War of the Worlds characters belong to Paramount and Strangis & Strangis. The concept of The People belonged to the late Zenna Henderson until her death; I don't know who owns it now. I have nothing but admiration for those who created these characters and concepts, and I mean no disrespect. I'm not making any money from this; this is just for my own entertainment and for the entertainment of those who want to read it.

By Wesa.

Randie's scream of despair had gone out on all channels, and was heard by Bethie and Shadow, as well as Karen, Valancy, and Jemmy. The Sensitives and the Old Ones met the exhausted girls just south of the Grand Canyon, gently taking over the tenuous life-support the inexperienced younger members of the Group had been able to offer Paul and Norton, and supporting their damaged bodies more surely than anyone else could have done. Only upon meeting them was Randie able to stop her subvocal scream for help.

Letting the others take Paul from her care was the hardest thing Randie had ever done, and she followed them to Bendo in the Cougar as quickly as she could.

Shadow was tending to Norton when they arrived, but he was out of danger by then, and she put him in Lytha's care, and went to help with Paul. Randie was not allowed into the bedroom.

Sometime after dawn, Jemmy came out to find Randie kneeling in prayer in the hallway. He took her hands and lifted her to her feet, telling her gently, "He is not yet Called, Randie, but it may not be long before he is. Can you tell me why he would have done this?"

She shook her head, subvocally pouring out to the Old One the sudden flood of emotions she had received: his terror, his pain, his anguish, the feeling of having his very life-force drained away, and his great sorrow when he thought his good-bye to her. "He doesn't want to die, Jemmy," she sobbed. "There was a reason, I know there was." She hesitated, then added in a low voice, "Maybe that - that thing had something to do with it."

"What thing?" Jemmy asked, catching his breath when Randie showed him her memory of the room, with Paul's body slumped in a corner, blood and brain tissue still liquid on the wall behind him, and a soulless copy of him struggling to rise in front of the fireplace. "Adonday veeah!" he gasped. "It still lived?"

"Paul is still alive," Randie murmured tearfully. "The shock of what he did must have stunned it, weakened it, but it was still alive, until the house exploded."

"Are you sure it died then?" Jemmy wondered.

Randie nodded. "Horrible as it was, it was only flesh and blood. It was still in the house, and nothing could have survived that blast. It threw the car a quarter-mile," she said. "Jemmy, please, I need to be with him. In case."

Jemmy looked over her shoulder as Valancy came out of the bedroom, and nodded. "Go to him, Randie."

As Randie rushed to Paul's side, the Old Ones looked at each other, exchanging thoughts, and nodded in unison. Valancy turned back a moment, looking at the unconscious figure floating above the bed, then paled and leaned on her husband for support.

"I'll make the arrangements," Jemmy murmured. "Randie will insist on going. Shadow and Lytha will want to, as well. And probably Norton."

**********

There were birds singing. Or were they angels? Norton listened for a while, his eyes still closed. Nope, definitely birds.

When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself on his back in an unfamiliar room, one brightly washed with sunshine that came, along with a gentle breeze and the sounds of the birds, through a window only a couple of feet from the bed where he lay.

Alive. He was most definitely alive. Norton cautiously felt the front of his chest. Had it all been a nightmare? But no, there were sore places covered with bandages. They must have gotten him out before he died, before the bomb went off. That meant the effort to reach the alarm had been worth the risk. He relaxed a little, settling his shoulders more easily into the sweet-smelling sheets. Strangest hospital he'd ever been in, he decided. But definitely the best.

The door of his room opened, and a young blonde came in, carrying a tray. "Good morning!" she chirped cheerfully.

She was too young to be a candy striper, Norton thought. Besides, didn't they make them wear uniforms? "Hi," he replied. His voice sounded weak, even to himself. "Where am I?"

"Welcome to Bendo, Norton," an older woman greeted him from the doorway, as the blonde - her daughter? - put the tray down on a table beside his bed. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

"How long have I been here?" he asked. "Wait - Bendo?"

The mother sat on the edge of the bed and turned his covers back to expose his chest. "Yes. My name is Bethie-too, but my friends all call me Shadow. This is my younger daughter, Lytha."

"How did I get here? And why?"

"Randie and Lytha brought you and Paul here," Shadow replied, gently peeling back the bandages. "Oh, yes, this is healing nicely. I am concerned, though, about your back." Carefully, she bathed the wound area with the sponge Lytha handed her. "You have no use of your legs?"

"The muscles work, a little," Norton replied. "I just don't have any control." The Colonel was here? Which Colonel?

"Have you asked about treatments?" Lytha asked, giving her mother fresh bandages. "They can't do anything to help you?"

"No," he replied shortly. "That's not important right now. You said the Colonel is here? I need to see him." I have to make sure it's him, not the clone, he thought, unsure how to tell the difference or what to do about it if it was the wrong one.

"He's severely injured, Norton," Shadow said gently. "He's unconscious."

"Will he live?" Norton asked in a hushed voice.

"He is not yet Called," Shadow said. "Please the Power, we hope he will live. If love can hold him here, he won't leave us yet."

Lytha smiled sadly. "Randie hasn't left his side since we got him settled. Even the Old Ones had to come to her."

Norton swallowed hard. "Shadow, are you sure it's him? There was an imposter -"

"The clone. Yes, we know," Shadow said soberly. "Randie told the Old Ones about the thing she saw. We didn't know they were so far lost from the Presence to be able to create such abominations."

"Then - You know about them, about the aliens." Norton breathed a sigh of relief, thankful not to have to guard every word he said.

"Oh, yes," Shadow replied, finishing re-bandaging his wounds. "The Mortaxians are suddenly gone from all the places where they were only a month ago. The Morthren have replaced them."

"At least the Morthren don't steal people's bodies," Lytha said, frowning.

Shadow looked up at her daughter. "And cloning is not stealing a person's body?" she asked sharply. "I think Paul would disagree. Imagine what he must have been trying to prevent, to have been driven to do what he did."

Lytha nodded, chastened. "At least he's still alive," she murmured. "They didn't kill him."

"I must tend to him," Shadow said. "Lytha - I know it's hard, sweetheart, but I need your help."

"Yes, Mother," Lytha said softly. She picked up the tray and turned to go, pausing to tell Norton, "I'll bring you some soup in a little while."

The mother and daughter left Norton's bedside and crossed the hall to the room where Paul Ironhorse floated face down a few inches above the bed where he'd slept only weeks earlier. He was wrapped warmly in a blanket, and there was a small bandage on his throat and a much larger one on the crown of his head. Randie Merrill slept in a chair beside him. With tears dropping down her cheeks, she had talked to him until she had run out of things to say, and now she simply sat and held his hand, occasionally crying herself to sleep.

Randie woke when Shadow and Lytha entered the room, and she stood up and leaned close to Paul, murmuring to him that she had to get out of their way, but that she wasn't leaving, wouldn't leave him ever.

Shadow changed his bandages, shaking her head at Lytha to keep her daughter from saying anything to Randie about his condition.

**********

It was several days later when Lytha brought a wheelchair to allow Norton some mobility. It wasn't Gertrude, but at least he wasn't bedfast anymore. With Lytha's help or Shadow's, he could get into the wheelchair, and then he had free run - at least of the second floor.

He was coming back from the end of the hall, where he had been looking out of a different window for a change, when a door that was always closed against him opened, and Shadow emerged, her arm around a weeping woman.

"He's unconscious, Randie," she murmured. "He won't know if you're away long enough to get cleaned up and rest in a real bed."

That was Randie? Not the beauty he'd imagined turning the Colonel's head. Her eyes were red from crying, of course, so he discounted that, but her clothes were rumpled and her hair was stringy and unwashed.

"But if he wakes while I'm gone?" Randie asked.

"If he begins to climb toward consciousness, I'll call you in plenty of time for you to get here," Shadow promised. "Randie," she continued, drawing the dark-haired woman toward a mirror, "do you want this to be the vision that first greets his eyes?"

Randie drew back in dismay. "Oh! Oh, no, Shadow, he mustn't see me looking like this!" She bit her lip, still staring at her reflection. "I have to go home. When is Derek due back?"

"Tonight. Remy is going to meet him, and they'll bring the ship here. Go home and clean up. Pack for the journey, and get some sleep in a real bed, then return here by evening." Shadow put a hand on Randie's shoulder as she turned to go. "You're very brave, Randie, as befits Paul's Love. I don't think I could have borne your pain."

Randie shook her head. "I'm not brave, Shadow. I'm terrified. And I'm not bearing the pain, only enduring it. Because I have no choice." She looked down the stairs into the living room. "No choice," she repeated softly, fresh tears washing down her cheeks. She swallowed hard. "I'll be back this evening. Call me right away if he starts to wake up, all right?"

"I will," Shadow promised.

And then - And then! Norton smothered a gasp as Randie levitated into the air and calmly descended to the main floor without using the stairs.

He waited silently until Shadow turned and followed Randie, using the same form of transportation, then silently wheeled down the hallway to the door the two women had exited. He tried the knob, surprised when it turned and the door cracked open. "Colonel?" he called softly. "Colonel, we have to get out of here. These people are -" He stopped in mid-sentence, staring at the inert form of Colonel Ironhorse, floating in mid-air, gently bobbing up and down in the breeze from the open window.

"Aliens?" asked an amused voice from behind him. "He knows, actually."

Norton wheeled his chair into the room and turned sharply to face the stranger, an elderly woman he hadn't seen before. "Who are you?" he asked sharply. "What have you done to Colonel Ironhorse? Where are my friends?"

"My name is Valancy. I Sorted Paul, no more." She smiled engagingly. "Jemmy hasn't been able to find Harrison, Suzanne, and Debi. We promised Paul that if something happened, you and your friends could come here and be safe, but so far we haven't been able to keep our promise, except in your case."

Norton stared blankly for a moment. "The Colonel ... knew?" He shook his head. "He wouldn't - He'd have killed all of you."

"Well, I do think Remy and Shadow kind of caught him off-guard," Valancy admitted. "You see, Harrison was hurt, and Paul was praying for help, though Shadow and Lytha weren't quite what he was expecting. Nor did he realize they weren't your average family until the girls left with Harrison. But the Mortaxians couldn't Lift," she added, as if that explained everything.

Valancy continued, "Shadow says you're well enough to come downstairs for lunch. Ready to see new and different scenery?" Her eyes twinkled as she spoke, and Norton found himself starting to like this woman.

"The Colonel -" He hesitated. Valancy regarded him patiently. "Is he - I mean, are you sure it's him? What happened?"

Valancy sighed. "He tried to kill the clone," she said softly.

"And it did that to him?"

"No. He did that to himself, Norton." She studied the unconscious form with saddened eyes. "To be willing to take your own life to save another; that is true love, and true courage. I don't think I could have done it."

"Done what?" Norton insisted.

"The Morthren clones draw their life-energy from their originals," Valancy explained reluctantly. "The original is weakened, and the copy is strong. If the copy dies, the original regains his strength. If the original dies, so does the clone. Paul realized that." She paused, then added softly, "He shot himself."

"No." Norton shook his head. "No way. The Colonel doesn't give up so easily."

"He thought if he waited, if he took the time to look for another solution, all his friends would die," Valancy explained. "Maybe Debi first."

Norton hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. He could see Paul Ironhorse doing just such a thing, especially for Debi. "He's so still. Are you sure he's alive?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"If he isn't, then Shadow isn't the Sensitive she's cracked up to be." She took the handles of the wheelchair and pushed Norton over next to Paul's bed. "He's wrapped up like a cocoon in that blanket," she said. "I'll get one of his hands free, so you can feel his pulse."

"Valancy!" Lytha exclaimed from the doorway. "What are you doing?" She paused, then spoke with great respect. "Norton shouldn't be in here, Old One."

"Your caution does you credit," Valancy told her gently, "but he's worried about Paul."

The girl's face softened. "We're all worried, but he's getting better. He is," she assured Norton.

"His will to live is strong," Valancy added. "If the Healers on the New Home can help him, he should make nearly a full recovery."

Norton blinked and turned to look at Valancy. "'The New Home?'" he repeated, a little concerned by the expression of worried surprise Lytha wore, still standing in the doorway.

"We are fortunate to have three very talented Sensitives in our Group," Valancy said softly. "Their Gift allows them to ease suffering and to monitor body conditions, but they cannot Heal injuries as severe as Paul's are. Your doctors could do nothing for him, would not even understand why he still lives. We have no Healers here; he will never recover unless we take him to the New Home where he can be properly cared for."

"You can go, too, Norton," Lytha suggested softly.

"Go where?" he insisted. "It's like you're offering me a trip to another planet."

Valancy smiled gently. "We are. And there's no reason the Healers there cannot fix what's wrong with your back."

"You could walk again," Lytha encouraged him. "Norton, please come with us."

"Hush, child," Valancy murmured. "Norton will make up his own mind. Let's get him downstairs for lunch."

**********

Norton spent the afternoon sitting with Lytha in Paul's room, listening to stories of The People very similar to those Randie had told Paul and Harrison. Around dusk, Randie returned, carrying a small suitcase. She smiled at Norton, her dark hair once again flying around her head like a cloud. She was about to greet him when Lytha interrupted. "You're just in time, Randie," she said, gesturing toward the window.

Norton looked outside, but saw nothing at first. After a moment though, a doorway of light appeared about twenty feet above the ground and two men were silhouetted briefly before the light went out. In the twilight Norton could see the men descending the same way Shadow and Lytha had descended the stairs that morning. "Where did they come from?" he asked. "Who are they?"

"The ship has the unlight on," Lytha explained, or thought she had.

"That's Remy and Derek, our Motiver," Randie said, studying Norton's expression. "Hi, I'm Randie. You must be Norton."

He raised his brows at her. "Paul told you about me?"

Randie smiled sadly, her eyes moving to Paul's still form. "He cares for all his friends. I already met Harrison - and you obviously aren't either Suzanne or Debi." She reached her fingers out to gently touch Paul's face, then looked at Lytha.

"He saw you leaving this morning," Lytha explained. "You Lifted. Valancy explained most of the rest to him."

"So you're coming with us?" Randie asked Norton.

"The way I understand it, it'll most likely be my only chance," Norton replied. "If you had managed to find Harrison and the others, it'd be my duty to go back and help them. This is our world. But since you haven't..." He shrugged.

Lytha smiled. "Let's get you downstairs, then, and give Paul and Randie some time to themselves. They'll get little enough over the next few weeks."

Norton opened his mouth to protest that it didn't matter, since the Colonel wasn't in any condition to do any romancing anyway, but the expression on Randie's face stopped him. She was grateful to Lytha for the privacy she offered them. So he nodded, and as Lytha took the handles of his wheelchair and pushed him from the room, he heard Randie murmur softly, "I'm back, Paul. I missed you."

**********

Within half an hour, Norton found himself with his arms around the necks of two men he'd just met, Remy and Derek, as they carried him in his wheelchair up to the invisible ship, following Shadow and Lytha carrying the Colonel between them. Randie Lifted beside them, gently holding one of Paul's hands.

Inside, the ship was not at all what Norton had expected. There were no acceleration couches, no furniture of any kind. Remy and Derek set his wheelchair on the floor and disappeared into another room. Norton sat where he'd been left and watched as the women carefully strapped the Colonel loosely to a wall. Randie stayed by his side, while Shadow and Lytha carefully checked over a hanging net full of supplies.

"How long will the trip take?" Norton asked Lytha.

Her face was glowing with excitement. "About a week there, a week or so back. The time we will stay, though, that's hard to say. A lot depends on Paul's treatment and how quickly he recovers."

"Time is different on the New Home," Shadow told him, "or so I hear."

"You've never been before?" Norton asked as Remy came out of the other room.

"We're very sparing of our comings and goings," Remy said as he secured the door. "Everything ready, Shadow?"

"Just help us get Norton strapped in," Shadow replied. "I never did get very good at Animate Lifting."

Remy chuckled. "Your Inanimate Lifting skills more than compensated," he teased her gently.

Shadow flicked her fingers at him, and a flurry of snowflakes spun around his head. "At least I learned how to snow properly; you don't have to blame it on the birds anymore." They laughed together as they strapped Norton in similarly to the way they had restrained Paul, folding the chair and strapping it to another setup nearby.

He found out why moments later, as the ship noiselessly lifted off, scrunching him into the straps. Shadow and her family seemed unaffected by the sudden increase in G-forces, but Randie's face showed her stress as she stayed by Paul, helping to support his head against the sudden increase in gravity. She was frightened.

"It's okay, Randie," Lytha assured her. "We've got him."

"Let her be, Lytha," Shadow murmured. "She needs to feel like she's doing something."

The increased G-force eased after half an hour or so, then disappeared entirely. Randie breathed a sigh of relief and folded her legs up under her. Norton shook his head. He would never get used to seeing people floating in midair. Then he realized that he, too, was floating. He grinned as Lytha came over to unstrap him. "Never thought I'd ever get into space," he told her, watching her hair float around her face.

She grinned back at him. "Norton," she said as she released the final strap, "you're free up here. Just try not to run into Paul."

Norton stared at her for a second, then realized what she meant. Laughing in sheer joy, he pushed off from the wall and floated effortlessly across the room.

An hour after they lifted off, Remy called Norton over to one of the portholes. "Come look," he said, and Norton did. Beyond the reinforced window, the Earth receded, its silvery satellite nearly eclipsing its parent. Norton stared, tears welling in his eyes, until his home was an indistinct dot of light, and then gone.

Lytha stroked his shoulder. "You'll come back when we do," she murmured. "Earth is Home Too for us now. Mother and I cannot stay; it would leave the Group with only Gramma for a Sensitive. Remy has a family. And Paul and Randie won't want to stay any longer than necessary, either. So we will return. All of us."

**********

Reassured by Lytha's understanding words, Norton spent most of the next several days looking out the porthole. After working with Harrison Blackwood so many years, he knew enough about physics to understand that they couldn't really be going faster than light, and that if they were, he shouldn't be able to see anything out of the porthole. But they had to be going extremely fast, and he could see the stars shifting their groupings because of the change in perspective. He asked Remy about it.

Remy shrugged. "I'm an Architect," he said. "I understand how to read a blueprint, whether for a ship or a house. Astrophysics are a bit out of my field."

Norton looked at Shadow and Lytha, who both shook their heads. Randie didn't even open her eyes from where she floated next to Paul. "Don't look at me," she murmured.

"Must you question it?" Shadow asked. "It simply is."

"I'm going to have to explain this to Harrison when we find him," Norton defended himself.

"Maybe Derek knows," Randie murmured. "You can ask him after we land, but I'd rather you didn't distract him before then. I don't want to fly through a star."

Remy chuckled and went back to his sketchpad, and Shadow turned down most of the lights in the main cabin. "It's time to sleep," she told Lytha.

"But Mother," the teen protested automatically.

"He isn't waking yet," Shadow hushed her daughter. "Sleep now."

Randie's eyes snapped open at her remark, and Norton turned to look at Shadow questioningly.

She sighed. "Paul's coma is not quite so deep as it was before we left," she told them, "but it's unlikely he will wake before we reach the New Home. He won't wake before morning in any case."

"Is he aware of us?" Randie asked anxiously.

"Of the rest of us? No, or only marginally. He hears you, though, Randie." Shadow smiled gently at Randie's expression.

"Adonday veeah!" Randie exclaimed. "Praise the Power!" She turned back to Paul and murmured softly to him.

"How is that possible?" Norton asked. "I saw his wound when you changed his bandages, Shadow."

"I know," she replied. "I thought you were going to be sick - not a good idea in space. I Stilled you again.

"Paul's wound looks worse than it is," she continued before Norton could question the qualifier 'again.' "He lost mostly skin and bone. Praise the Power, the bullet must have traveled between the two halves of his brain, without tumbling as bullets so often do. And it was hot enough to cauterize much of the wound it did cause. There was very little intracranial bleeding. It did catch part of the corpus callosum, the connection between the two sides of the brain, but I'm praying that Ethann and Ismey will be able to Heal that, too. Please the Power, it will be so."

**********

Their landing mirrored their take-off. The ship slowed quickly, causing G-forces that had Randie carefully supporting Paul's head again, and when they'd landed, the women quickly unstrapped Paul and took him out the high door of the ship, leaving Norton's release to Remy and Derek, who got him into his wheelchair and followed.

Norton looked around curiously as they descended. There were houses around, in about the same density as in a farming community on Earth. Each home had trees and shrubs placed around in a pleasing arrangement, flowers, and some kind of ground cover - not grass. It all looked like a carefully manicured park. There were almost no people around, though, and Norton wondered where they were. Surely there should be children running and playing over a continuous lawn like the one below.

They arrived at the door of one of the houses and went inside, and the door closed behind them.

**********

Looking back at it, Norton could see that the People of this New Home had been just as uncertain about him as he was about them, but they took him in anyway. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and dusky-skinned Sharada, who he later discovered to be Ismey's daughter, brought him to a bedroom on the ground floor, made certain he had everything he could possibly need, and left him to rest for a few minutes.

"Wait," Norton called after her as she reached the door. "My friend - will they be able to help him?"

"Have faith, Norton," she advised softly. "If the Powers will it so, then it will be. Try to rest a bit, then come join us in prayer when you feel up to it. Father and Ethann will need all the help we can give them."

Norton tried to lie still on the bed and close his eyes, but found himself too restless. After the week of weightlessness, gravity sat on him like a suffocating blanket. His legs twitched, and he had no control to keep them still. After a few minutes he rose and went in search of Randie, or at least Sharada.

He found them both, along with Remy and Derek and a young boy whose name he hadn't caught, kneeling in a circle and holding hands, praying. Sharada looked around when he came in, loosed her hand from Randie's, and reached back to catch his hand in hers and include him.

Norton joined the circle, though he couldn't leave his wheelchair to kneel. As he slipped his free hand into Randie's, he felt a surge of strength infuse him with power, and for the first time he truly believed they might be able to help Paul.

**********

It was full dark when Ismey and Ethann exited from Paul's bedroom followed by Lytha and Shadow. All four of them looked exhausted. Sharada excused herself and went to the kitchen. Derek followed her and helped her swiftly set out a cold supper while the others were talking.

Randie didn't ask; she just looked at the Healers and Sensitives with pleading eyes.

"He lives," Ismey told her, and Randie relaxed slightly. "There was surprisingly little damage to his brain," he continued. "We began the repairs to the bridge between the left and right sides, and to his visual and sensory cortices, and set in a lattice for the new bone to grow into. He will recover, though it will take time for everything to heal completely."

"Praise the Power!" Randie exclaimed, echoed by Remy. "Thank you," she added softly.

"Thank you doesn't even begin to express my sentiments," Norton said.

"How long until he wakes again?" Randie asked anxiously.

"A few hours," Ethann replied. "He is Stilled, and it will help him heal if he sleeps. I understand you are Loves. When we have eaten, you may go to him. It will do him good to have you near."

"If Randie must eat before she is allowed to resume her watch over Paul," Shadow chuckled softly, "then by all means, let us eat." She led the way into the dining room, where Sharada was filling cups with a hot, dark liquid that didn't smell like coffee.