Panacea-Quisition [Dragon Age: Inquisition/Worm Crossover. One Shot. Complete.]

[Kylia Quilor]

Author's Note: I am committing that cardinal sin of writing Worm fanfic without having finished Worm. I am more than halfway through it, and beyond spoiled for most of what comes later. While I do have many fic ideas, some of which I've started to outline, I was dead set on not writing any of them out until I'd actually finished reading Worm.

But my muse has been demanding I write something Worm related, and the 'Amy Dallon ends up in Thedas and becomes the Herald of Andraste' idea (one of ~30 distinct Amy-centric fic ideas I've got right now) has been floating around in my head the last few days since I last saw something for Veilguard, so I thought this Victoria POV 'post epilogue' type thing would be a way to write that something that worked with the parts of Worm I have read, and wouldn't really impinge too much on the main idea.

It was supposed to be short. It ballooned into this. I'm bad at one shots sometimes. Also this is the first time I've written in first person in... possibly ever, certainly in a long time.

Conceptually, the idea of a Bakuda bomb isekai-ing Amy was inspired by FantasticCheese's very interesting Worm/ASOIAF fic "Hearts of Iron" which I do strongly recommend.

---

---

"Are you sure this will work?" I asked the Tinker who handed her the five devices. It seemed like overkill - I should really only need two, one to find Amy, one to bring her back - but...

With Tinkertech, it was probably a good idea to have backups.

"I have no idea. I made it based on the information you gave me, so it should do what that information says it should," the young woman replied, "But..." she shook her head. "I don't know. Where did you get that stuff from to begin with?"

"...I can't tell you." I said quickly. Well, I could but then there was no way the other cape would believe I was even halfway sane. Hell, I wasn't even sure I was, but if she was crazy, then so be it.

Trusting that woman with the fedora and the suit, the same woman who had murdered Khepri, according to Tattletale's description, was probably a stupid idea, but when the woman who had been Cauldron's enforcer for... ever tells you that your sister you thought was dead was alive, and gives you a step by step list on how to find her and bring her back home...

Well. I had to take that chance. Losing Amy... it had nearly destroyed me, had derailed the entire course of my life...

---

Bakuda's rampage had been... it had been hell on the city. Bombs going off everywhere, people turned into suicide bombers with a little surgery, and they'd blow up sooner or later, wherever they went. The ABB had earned the ire of every villain in the city, and at first, the Protectorate and New Wave had been content to let them fight it out, only dealing with protecting civilians and containing the damage. Search and rescue, evacuating spaces, that sort of thing.

As Glory Girl, I'd had ended up playing the role of flying ambulance, bringing the worst cases to the hospital, people whose legs had been turned to glass, people who had had arms somehow swapped sides and turned around, one man who had been left bleeding from every opening on his body, but somehow not dying from blood loss.

Panacea... Amy - she'd pulled double shifts, ignoring her every time I'd told her to take a break, to come home, to get more sleep. But with so many people getting hurt in ways that normal medicine couldn't handle -

If I'd just forced her to come home sooner, If I'd made her get some sleep, or just - go to a fucking coffee shop instead of just grabbing something from the break room...

Amy did what she always did, and burned the candle at both ends. She kept putting in the hours, saying she'd take a break once Bakuda was off the streets, or stopped bombing...

I'd known she was lying. Amy never took breaks. She'd always say she would and then a few nights later, she'd be sneaking off to the hospital, thinking I didn't know how often she did it...

But I let her get away with it. People did need her help and - and -

I figured I could force her to finally take a break once it was done. Somehow.

I made excuses, for her, for myself, for -

Because I didn't stop her, because I didn't - I didn't say anything, didn't make her take a fucking break, she was there, she was there at Brockton General when another one of Bakuda's fucking bombs went off. Half the hospital was vaporized, gone.

There wasn't even a body for her funeral.

---

"Victoria Elizabeth Dallon, I forbid you to-"

"Mom, when was the last time I actually let you tell me what to do?" Victoria cut her off, not letting her finish her bluster. "I am going to find my sister, and I'm going to bring her home!"

"Amy is dead, Victoria!" Her mom snapped. "I won't let you get yourself killed on some - on some hopeless fool's errand. I -" her breath caught, and I had to resist the urge not to ball my hands into fists at the sight of the tears in forming in the corner of her eyes.

I looked past Mom, to the pictures of Amy on the walls. None of them were treasured memories Mom had held onto after her death. Mom hadn't even had pictures of just Amy, before she died. But once Amy died...

"Right. You can't let Amy be alive, because then you'd actually have to care about her to her face. Easier to love her now, without having to face how you never let her know you did when she was alive!"

The first time I'd ever seen Mom care about Amy, really care, had been her funeral, when she'd started crying when Aunt Sarah had given the euology, trying to capture Amy's life in words that could never do it. How selfless Amy had been, giving of herself all the time, healing when I knew she didn't like it.

She'd never told me, but she'd never needed to. She was never happier after going to the hospital than before.

Just another thing I never talked to her about. Another thing I never asked her about. Never pressed her on.

In the two years between the funeral and the end of the world, Mom turned Amy's room into a shrine to her. Actually gathered pictures and actually cared about her. Missed her. Acted like she'd actually ever shown Amy even the tiniest crumb of affection and regard.

I'd never really wanted to admit how bad things between Amy and Mom had been, until I was actually seeing Mom do all the things she never did before.

"Victoria-" Mom started, starting to choke on her words, voice thick, but I didn't let her finish.

"I'm doing this. Amy is alive. I could have found her years ago, brought her home, years ago." She wouldn't have been just another person who I lost.

Eric. Uncle Neil. Carlos. Dennis. So many other people who died during Leviathan's attack. Dean only barely avoided joining them to sheer chance. He had joined them at the end of the world, when so many people died at the hands of Scion.

Losing Dean...

And now I had the chance to at least have one of the people I'd lost back? There was no way I wasn't going to take it.

---

Amy was the only reason Bakuda was alive enough to make it to the Birdcage.

In hindsight, listening when Tattletale of all people told me that the villains of the city had found Bakuda's lab, with her in it, had been a stupid move. But apparently even a lot of the city's villains hadn't been happy that Panacea had died. Go figure.

I'd known telling Mom or Aunt Sarah would have been pointless. But Crystal? Eric? Even if it meant fighting on the same side as the city's villains, if it meant bringing Bakuda to justice -

Not my proudest moment. Not Crystal's either.

But -

The ABB had fought like the cornered rats they were. Skitter and her bugs swarmed a bunch of them. Grue's darkness covered others, split them up into smaller groups. Newter took some out with a touch. Coil's mercenaries provided covering fire.

Even fucking Rune had been there, overflying the whole fight, with Othala handy to heal people up afterwards.

I'd been the one to break through the heavy steel door Bakuda had finally hidden behind at the end. She'd been in the middle of making... something. Some massive bomb, I guess. Maybe wanted to threaten the whole city with it, I don't know. But I broke through that door like it was paper, grabbed her, pulled her away from her tech, ripped her bandolier off her...

I was so -

I was so angry. I wanted to drive my fist into her head, spatter her brains over the floor, the walls. Fly up and drop her from hundreds of feet in the air. Drop dumpsters on her. I wanted her to hurt like losing Amy had for me.

But there was one thing - one thing - that managed to stop me. I'd been... I'd been so close to crippling her, at least... but I'd held back at the last moment because of Amy. All the times Amy had told me I needed to control my strength better.

All the times she'd covered for me.

All the times she'd reminded me, whatever my excuses, that it wasn't my strength that was the problem.

"But I know you better than anyone. If you're having trouble holding back, the problem isn't here -" she poked me in the bicep. "It's here-" she jabbed me in the forehead, hard.

I'm not sure how. But I held back. I just knocked her out. Maybe she got a concussion out of it, but nothing like what I wanted to do to her.

---

"This is an absolutely insane plan, you do get that, right Glory Hole?" Unlike that first time we'd encountered each other, Tattletale's use of the 'nickname' was almost endearing.

Almost. We weren't -

I'm not sure I could say I was friends with her. Despite everything, we'd ended up working together several times in the aftermath of Leviathan's attack on the Brockton Bay. Including when Slaughterhouse Nine had attacked the city.

Without her, without Skitter and the rest of the Undersiders, the Nine would have killed even more people than they did, and would have left the city with more of their members. I probably would have died. I nearly did, more than once.

But Lisa was... hard to like. Hard to be friends with. I wasn't sure how Skitter had managed it.

But I trusted her. And hard or not, I did like her. Most of the time.

"You said as much when I first asked you about the plan the woman in the fedora gave me." I pointed out. "But you said you thought it would work."

"My power isn't infallible. It seemed like it would work. That she was telling the truth. But it would have been a lot easier to tell if I'd been able to see her giving it to you. And I don't exactly trust her."

"I don't either. But I can't -" I closed my eyes, voice cutting off for a moment. I took a breath, but Lisa beat me to the punch.

"I know. You can't not take the chance."

I didn't know all the details about Lisa's trigger, but I did know it involved the death of an older brother.

"I think these devices will do the job, but again, my power isn't infallible, and tinker tech is... it's its own thing for my power sometimes," Lisa finished, shaking her head. She handed them to her.

"So if we can trust one of the two remaining masterminds behind Cauldron to be on the level-"

"Big if,"

"Yeah," I nodded, "that's given, but if we can trust her to be on the level, then..." I trailed off.

Amy was potentially just a single use of one of these devices, a trip to another, 'distant' Earth, and a trip back with another one away.

In theory, the devices should take me to whatever Earth Amy was on, and somewhere near her. And then using one again would take me and anyone I was touching back with me.

But if they didn't work. If the woman in the Fedora was wrong or lying, if the Tinker she'd sent me to had made a mistake, if I could really come back, if I could find Amy if she was okay, if we didn't get lost in some bad TV show concept about moving from Earth to Earth, always trying and failing to get back home, if - if - if...

I closed my eyes and took a breath. Could I do this? Could I take the risk? I had friends. Responsibilities. And as angry as I was at Mom right now, as much as our relationship had... gotten so much worse since Amy's funeral... I still had family. Mom. Dad. Crystal. Aunt Sarah. Even Uncle Mike and his kids, my little nieces and nephews. Could I just risk never seeing them again? Them never seeing me again?

I'd asked myself that question multiple times, and the answer remained the same.

It was Amy. I couldn't abandon her. She'd probably given up on any hope of seeing me again by now. I'd spent so long thinking she was dead, and now - now I knew she wasn't... or at least had some reason to hope...

"Insane or not, it's not like I wouldn't do the same thing if she'd offered me a chance to find Taylor and bring her back." Lisa finally said after a moment.

I blinked. It was hard sometimes, to think of Skitter, of the woman who had died as Khepri as having a name. Of being... just a person. She'd never unmasked to me, not like Lisa had, not that it mattered at this point. Secret identities weren't unknown here on Earth Gimel, but...

They weren't common.

And yet I still insisted on being called Polaris when I'm in costume, most of the time. Amy would -

I blinked repeatedly, fighting back tears.

Amy would have pointed out who stupid it was, even more than it had been for us back in the Bay. At least back then New Wave had been the only ones who had been open capes, and I'd always insisted on her calling me Glory Girl when we were out and about in costume. And she'd always said it was stupid.

And she was going to say it was stupid again. Because I was going to find her and bring her home.

I looked back over at Lisa, taking the tinker tech devices back from her outstretched hand. "I don't suppose I could convince you to come with me? You'd be a lot of help, if finding Amy and getting her home isn't simple." It was an off chance, but -

Lisa shook her head, "I'm pretty sure your sister wouldn't want to see me. You do remember the only time we ever interacted, right? At the bank. I was holding her hostage."

I barked a small laugh, "It's been three years. I don't think she'd still hold a grudge." I didn't. But then, I had gotten to know her. And -

Humiliation. Shame. Heartbreak.

"...though I suppose there's the whole secret of hers that you still won't tell me about that you threatened to expose." I didn't - I didn't actually think of it that often anymore. I'd spent so long trying to understand it after she'd 'died'. I'd asked Dean, thinking with his emotion-reading powers he might have picked up on something. Amy wouldn't have confided in him - she'd never liked him, after all - but still. No one else had known. No one else had had any ideas.

I'd asked Tattletale a few times, after we'd developed a working relationship, but she'd always said that it was better to let Amy's secrets stay dead with her. Because that would never set me off, right? Never made me go mad with trying to understand it.

Dean had said he was pretty sure he knew, but she'd never confirmed it, and he didn't want to breach Amy's privacy, especially now that she was dead and couldn't share her side.

"It's her secret to tell you." Lisa said. "But yeah. I'm pretty sure seeing me would just annoy her, at least."

One more thing I'd never pressed Amy on. I nearly had, when she'd come back from healing the Wards that night, after the bank robbery. But I'd put it off. Given her space.

God, I'd been the worst fucking sister, hadn't I?

"Stop it." Lisa's voice cut into the middle of my recriminations. "You're wallowing in self-pity."

"I'm - No I'm not!"

"Yes. You are." Lisa let out a long, exasperated breath. "Yes, you have things you wish you could have done differently, done better. But Amy Dallon loved you. I didn't even need my power to know that. You were her favorite person in the whole damn world. So don't go wallowing in your mistakes. It's - It's the worst possible idea. Trust me."

I bit back my first response. I tried to listen to her, tried to stop 'wallowing'. But even if Amy loved me, that didn't change -

Another breath. A nod.

"Okay."

"Good luck, Vicky."

---

If it wasn't for my forcefield, I would be freezing.

The snowcapped mountains were the first thing I saw. I was flying high up near their peaks, the device having transported me from the open field on Earth Gimel to this... place. It didn't look like a mountain range I recognized from any picture, any documentary, but that didn't mean anything. But it wasn't where I'd been, not too far from New Brockton Bay. So that much had worked.

In theory, Amy was somewhere nearby. I looked around, flying lower, hoping for a sign of... a town? A village? A hidden mountain fortress, like from one of the YA fantasies series Amy had loved so much?

I flew lower and in a sort of random direction, not even sure which way it was. Minutes passed. The prospect of seeing Amy again was now real, in a way it never had been before and -

I had no idea what I was going to say, did I?

'Hey, Ames,'? That didn't feel like enough. Not after so long.

I kept flying, thankful for my forcefield to ward off the cold, my hair blowing behind me in the wind, and then I saw it, ahead, nestled between two peaks, below.

"I was just kidding when I suggested a hidden mountain fortress!" My voice was lost in the movement of the air as I dove down. The fortress was pretty big, and looked like a medieval castle, towers and walls and a long bridge crossing a gap, connecting it to a road. The road wasn't... you know, pavement and yellow lines, but it looked like something someone had put a lot of work into. And there were people crossing the bridge. Just a few. People in the courtyard. People on the walls. Someone looked up, saw me - I flew lower, people pointing.

Shouts.

I could get a better look at the people below. The people on the wall were wearing armor. Like out of a renfaire or those Earth Aelph Lord of the Rings movies. A lot of them were carrying spears.

And bows!

Bows and arrows and they were shooting arrows at me!

"Hey!" I shouted down, easily dodging them - most of them were falling short, or way off the mark, but I'd never actually tested my forcefield against an arrow, and I didn't see the need to take any chances that one might break it, the next might hit before it regenerated. Not when I didn't have to take that chance. "Stop it!" I shouted, drawing closer.

Did these people even understand me? There was a good chance they didn't speak English here, wherever 'here' was.

Should I try other languages? I knew a bit of Spanish, half-remembered from middle school. And I'd picked up some Japanese and Chinese, but not much beyond swear words (from ABB gangsters I'd been going after) and asking if someone spoke English.

I flew down, moving slower, sort of letting myself glide the rest of the way, dodging a few more arrows - which were getting a lot closer to actually hitting me now! - and landing in what looked like some sort of garden. There were people there, in red and white outfits and weird hats. The hats were black, and had a sort of sunburst pattern on them? There were three, all women, two of them about Mom's age.

All of them were pulling back away from me, and there were more people in armor - I noticed they had some sort of eye-symbol on their helmets. These ones had swords and shields, drawing the former, holding the latter up in front of them as they got in front of the robed women.

"Who are you?! What are you doing in Skyhold!" One of the demanded in a surprisingly even tone, raising their voice, but not doing a good job of not seeming afraid or even worried about my arrival.

So they did speak English. The accent was weird though. Like nothing I'd ever heard, even in a movie or show.

I probably looked pretty harmless, didn't I? I fought the impulse to use my Aura on them, or grabbing their swords and proving they should be worried about me. But instead I stopped, tried to think about how this looked. Strange woman in a white and gold outfit just flies down and lands -

Did these people even have a lot of parahumans? Were flying people even a thing? Even if they were -

Castles were military things, right? How would it have looked if some random cape had just flown onto a military base? Or into a PRT headquarters?

Bad, right?

I kept my hands low, didn't raise them up like I was surrendering, but I figured showing I was unarmed made sense?

"My name is Pol-" I bit my tongue, changing course. "My name is Victoria Dallon," I said. "Also known as Polaris. I - I'm looking for my sister. Amy Dallon. Panacea?"

There were sudden murmurings from the people in red and white, and the guards - soldiers? - looked at eachother, confused.

"You claim the Inquisitor as your sister?!" One of the guards finally said, scoffing. He looked like he didn't believe it at all.

"No, wait," another one said, before I could linger on the title the man called my sister. "I heard Varric Tethras tell a story at the tavern once, he said the Inquisitor told him about her sister. Said she could fly."

"People can't fly!" I felt my hands twitch, the urge to grab this man and prove to him people absolutely could fly rising to the forefront of my mind.

"And normally people can't heal with a touch, but the Inquisitor can!" the second guard pointed out. Keeping his shield up, he lowered his sword a little, and turned to one of the people in red and white. "Go find Lady Seeker Pentaghast and Commander Cullen. And - and tell the Inquisitor someone who says she's her sister is here!"

The guard turned back to look at me. No one was saying anything as the younger person in red and white scurried off, moving inside. I debated brushing past them, just forcing my way inside to find Amy myself, but I forced myself to stay, floating a half-inch above the ground, hands closed into fists by my side.

I reflected on what the guards had said. They called Amy 'The Inquisitor'. That... that was not the sort of name a heroic cape should have?

But did they have capes, apart from her and now - and now me? They said people didn't fly, but flying was one of the most basic powers, there had to be other people that flew, if they had other capes.

But if it wasn't a cape name, then why the hell were they calling her that? And - who were the other people the person was being sent off to get? What - what had happened in the last three years? Was Amy... was Amy in charge of these people?

No. Can't be. Amy wouldn't have wanted that sort of responsibility. But obviously she was known for her healing ability so - that was probably it. She was the healer here at this... castle in the middle of seemingly nowhere?

Every question spawned more questions, and the guards and the other two people behind them just sort of stared at her, confused, curious, awed maybe? I was still floating above the ground.

"So, I haven't seen Amy in three years. Seems like a lot has happened?" I looked at the guard who had believed me, who had heard of me. "Amy talks about me?" It made sense. I talked about Amy all the time. Sometimes I still found myself finding something or hearing about something and thinking I should go home and tell Amy all about it, before remembering I couldn't.

"I wouldn't know, I don't - I don't really talk to the Inquisitor personally." The guard shrugged. He lowered his weapon and shield, directing the other two to do so as well. "But she at least told Tethras about you. He's good at wheedling stories out of people."

That sounded like exactly the sort of person my sister would hate then, people pushing her to talk. Especially if they went and told other people? Amy not talking to many people in general tracked. Why the Inquisitor though? That -

That made no sense. The Inquisition was all... torture and interrogation and stuff. Hunting heretics. Amy would never be part of that.

Did the word mean something else here?

"Why do you call her the Inquisitor?" I finally asked. "I - where I'm from, we called her Panacea, when she was healing people. But Inquisitor?"

"Because she commands the Inquisition." The guard said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"She - she's in charge?!" That - why would - Amy was twenty years old? And she was in charge of soldiers? That -

Sure, Skitter and the Undersiders had taken over Brockton Bay when she was just sixteen, but Skitter was practically the definition of abnormal. And she'd sought it out. I -

I couldn't imagine Amy wanting to be in charge of anything. I held back the barrage of questions I wanted to ask. Somehow.

"It - it was a controversial choice, under the circumstances," one of the women in red and white behind the guards said after a polite cough. "But - she is the Herald of Andraste, and it proved to be the right choice, given that she saved the world. Twice."

I stared at the woman. I blinked.

"She - what?"

"Your sister saved the world. Twice."

What?

---

I was still processing that revelation, trying to wrap my head around it. I - 'saved the world' wasn't exactly a thing people threw around casually, right? And twice?

Was it like she'd helped? Healed someone or - or used her power on someone? The way Bonesaw, of all people, had turned Skitter into Khepri so she could defeat Scion? Had she -

Had she had to use her power to...

I didn't really know the full limits of Amy's power. Did she even have any? But she hadn't been bluffing when she'd threatened to give that one Nazi erectile dysfunction after healing him. She could have, if she'd really wanted to. She'd never done it, never would do it, but she could give someone cancer.

Could she stop someone's heart?

Maybe she'd cured a plague? That seemed more likely.

Resolving that that was probably it, I was about to say something more when there was the sound of a door opening, and someone strode into view. A woman wearing armor, the front of it with that eye symbol, in a sunburst or something, painted onto it.

She had black hair that looked like it had been cut short, and then I looked closer and saw that her hair was done up in a thin braided crown. She looked to be about Mom's age, and walked with the air of someone who was dangerous, and knew it. She had a couple of scars on her face. I was surprised Amy hadn't healed them away, but then, Amy had told me once that some people got weird about scars, refusing to let certain ones be healed.

"You are Victoria Dallon?" This woman had a different accent than the others, but again, I couldn't place it.

"I am. Where's my sister?"

"On her way, presumably, the Sister found me first." The woman answered. "I am Cassandra Pentaghast. I'm honored to meet a one that Amy has spoken so highly of." She inclined her head respectfully for a moment, then held out a gloved hand. Victoria took the hand and shook it.

"I - nice to meet you, Lady Seeker." There was something about the woman that reminded me of Piggot. Not a lot, but - I felt like I should probably respect her title. "You know my sister well, then?" It was -

It was good to know Amy had made friends? Had she?

"I do. I've been one of your sister's closest advisors and companions these past three years. We've fought together many times." Pentaghast said.

"Fought? You - you made her fight!?" I nearly lashed out and grabbed the woman's armor - I could have bent and crumpled it like paper - but I managed to hold back, raising my voice. I let my aura go off a little. "Amy's not - she's a healer! She's not supposed to - she's supposed to stay safe! Away from the fighting!"

"I - I did not make your sister fight. But under the circumstances, she had to learn. She was quite reluctant to, at first." Pentaghast seemed entirely unbothered by my Aura, I couldn't tell if she was just good at not showing fear, or -

The guards seemed shaky, but had raised their weapons again. The two women in red and white had backed away several feet.

The dark-haired 'Lady Seeker' smiled a little, "The first time she mentioned you was after the first time a demon attacked her. I demanded to know why she'd not fought back, and just kept running, and she said fighting was her 'sister's thing'."

"And where were you when this 'demon,'," just saying that felt silly, but if this was a medieval world, maybe - maybe all the capes were monster capes? So they just called them demons? But weren't all of those just Cauldron's Case 53s? There was still some debate if literally every monster cape was the result of Cauldron. Most people said yes, but -

"Where were you," I repeated, "when this demon attacked my sister."

"Killing the other demon that attacked us," Pentaghast answered.

I reigned my aura in, and nodded slowly. Okay that - that was fair.

"You may leave," Pentaghast said, turning to the other five people in the garden. "I imagine the Inquisitor will want privacy when she arrives."

The guards nodded, pressing their closed fists to their chests after sheathing their swords and departing quickly, but without hurrying. The two... 'civilians' just scampered away.

"There's much that has happened in the three years since I met your sister. I will leave it to her to explain most of it, but I should warn you that she is much changed." Pentaghast said in a careful tone. Then she chuckled again, "Though not in every respect."

"I mean... people change. That - that happens." Even if I went by Polaris now, I was still wearing the Glory Girl costume - not the exact same one I'd worn three years ago, but still. "I'm not the same person I was three years ago either." What would Amy think about the fact that I'd worked with the Undersiders so often? About all the choices I'd made in the last three years?

"Are you still a hero who dedicates yourself to saving lives and helping people, with little regard for your own safety?" Pentaghast asked simply. The question was surprisingly blunt, but -

"Yes. I mean - I try to be better about the little regard for my safety bit?" Was I really that reckless?

I mean... I guess I could be... sometimes.

"Then it seems as though you're close enough to the person your sister knew before." Pentaghast observed. "When we began, your sister often asked 'What Would Vicky Do?' before making decisions."

I felt a slight flush to my cheeks. I know Amy had called me her favorite cape, more than once (and she'd always been my favorite cape) but still, that was - that was a lot.

There was another sound of a door opening. I looked over and -

It wasn't that I expected Amy to look exactly the same as when I'd last seen her at Brockton General. But the whole time since I'd found out she was still alive, when I imagined seeing her again, I -

I'd still imagined someone that looked mostly like her.

And - it was still Amy. There was no mistaking the freckles, or the shape of her face. But so many other things -

Her hair wasn't frizzy, and it was actually styled in something more than just a loose ponytail. Getting her to actually do anything with her hair had always been a fight, and here - she had her hair in a crown braid too. Thicker, and more noticeable than Pentaghast's, but...

Had Amy copied the older woman's style?

Just the way she walked was different. Last I'd seen her, Amy always walked... like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. She dragged her feet a lot. She hunched herself forward a lot, always trying to hide in whatever oversized sweater or hoodie she was wearing.

She wasn't doing that now. She walked... confidently. Head held high. Not some sort of overconfident swagger or anything, but just... like she felt comfortable in herself. And her face - she looked like she was actually getting enough sleep. Like, the full eight hours. That one almost made me figure it couldn't be my sister.

Her high-collared shirt looked like something out of a renaissance fair, though the beige color did not look good on her at all, but it was her arms, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows that really surprised me. Amy had never been fat, but she'd never had any muscle either, and - she definitely did now. Not a ton or anything, but they were definitely there.

No. Not arms.

Arm.

One arm. She had one arm, sleeve rolled up to the elbow, and the other arm and sleeve... ended, at the elbow.

My sister had one arm.

My sister, who this - this - woman had dragged into fighting, when she had to have been told Amy couldn't heal herself! - was missing an arm. Someone had cut my sister's arm off and I hadn't been there to protect her or - or-

I let my aura flare again, but the storm of anger quickly rising in me was suddenly cut short at the sound of Amy's voice.

Three years and she still sounded the same, at least.

"Vicky?" She sounded like she didn't believe what she was seeing, like I was some sort of dream or illusion, or - something else. Something that wasn't real, anyway.

I couldn't blame her. Three years. She'd probably given up on seeing me, or- anyone else she'd known, ever again.

"Turquoise Wombat." I said quietly. Everyone in New Wave had had a M/S trust password. Something to prove we weren't a stranger, at least. Something we weren't supposed to tell anyone. Something drilled into our heads, so we'd never forget it. I just hoped Amy remembered it.

Amy's eyes widened, her mouth falling open and then suddenly -

My arms were full of crying sister. She'd all but tackled me, her arm wrapping around me, holding on tight as she cried into my shoulder. I caught the words 'you're really here' and 'Vicky' between tears of what I hoped were joy. My arms went around her, holding just as tight.

Until it finally happened, I don't think I realized just how much - just how much I needed this. Being able to hug Amy.

Being able to hug my sister.

I wasn't sure how long that lasted, but eventually, sniffling a little, Amy pulled back, looking up at me.

"I - I thought I'd never see you again." She said quietly.

"I thought you were dead," I admitted, just as quietly. "Not until - until someone told me you were alive, and how to find you." God, filling her in on the story of the last three years... Leviathan, Uncle Neil, Eric, Slaughterhouse Nine, the takeover of Brockton Bay, Scion trying to kill everyone, Dean... so much to explain why listening to that woman, believing her, trusting her, was stupid. But that could wait.

"You - you thought..." Amy started, brow furrowed, confused, and then she trailed off. "I guess...I mean, I know it was one of Bakuda's bombs..." She licked her lips, "How many other people-"

"I don't... I don't remember the number anymore," I admitted. "A lot - a lot happened in Brockton Bay and... in general, after you - after we all thought you died."

Amy screwed her eyes shut, taking in a slow, shuddering breath, then opened then again, letting go of me, taking just one small step back. "Who died?"

A lot of people. So. So many people. But that's not what she meant. She obviously could tell someone we both knew, someone we were close to died. "Uncle Neil. Eric. Dean." Amy stared at me for a moment, incredulous, as if trying to will me into saying 'Psych!' or something like that, admitting it was all a cruel joke.

Amy let out a strangled sob, and Cassandra came up behind Amy, putting a hand on Amy's shoulder for a moment. I closed the distance between my sister and I, hugging her again, letting her cry on me again.

"I should have been there." She said after a long moment, sniffling, still crying.

"There's nothing you could have done for any of them. It was too quick. For all of them."

"I could have been there for you. For... for Crystal. For Aunt Sarah. For Dad." Amy paused a moment, I wasn't sure if it was because of her taking a shaky breath between sobs, or if what she said next really was an afterthought.

Probably both.

"For Carol,"

I wondered how Amy would react to finding out Mom changed, after her 'funeral'. I wondered how Mom would react to seeing Amy alive. Would she actually keep caring about her? The realization that she really had nearly lost her daughter actually changing her behavior?

I kind of doubted that, though. Mom was...

Mom was Mom. She was -

Maybe Mom wouldn't be as bad as before, but there's no way she'd just... treat Amy like her daughter for real, to her face.

"It's not like you had a choice, Amy. And - I mean..." I stepped back, taking a look at her again.

I gestured at the stump of her left arm.

"I obviously missed out on a lot for you. And - one of those guards said you saved the world! Twice!?"

Was I putting off going into detail? Explaining Scion? The end of the world? The survivors moving to other Earths. The whole 'I teamed up with the people that held you hostage to avenge you and fight Slaughterhouse 9 and a whole bunch of other times and now Tattletale is kinda-sorta-not-really my friend' thing.

Amy actually flushed, embarrassed, looking down at the ground. "Damnit, they're still on that? It was once, at most. Just... two instances."

"Closing the breach and defeating Corypheus for good both prevented catastrophe, Amy," Pentaghast said firmly. "You've more than earned it."

"Right, and that's why Orlais and Ferelden forced us to shrink down as much as we have," Amy muttered. "I save the world and that's the thanks I get."

Skitter saved the world - all the worlds - and got two shots through the head and was thrown through a portal to who knows where.

I was just glad nothing like that had happened to Amy. Though of course, I was left with even more questions.

"Celene is ambitious, and Alistair Therin is..."

"A well-intentioned idiot. Why did I try so hard to save Celene's life and reconcile her with her girlfriend if she was just going to..." Amy trailed off, mumbling under her breath, too quietly me for me to hear, and then she looked back over at me. "I... sorry. Fuck, I'm -" she shook her head. "A lot's happened in the last few weeks. Losing the arm being the least of them."

"That happened a few weeks ago?!" I wanted to go back and strangle that Tinker. If they'd worked faster, I could have stopped whatever happened, stopped whoever cut her arm off. I glared at Pentaghast. I couldn't shake the feeling it was her fault somehow. That Amy had taken up fighting.

I didn't see any sort of weapon on Amy, but then, she wasn't wearing armor either. But... I guess if she was in charge, she didn't need to in her own castle?

Amy had a castle. She was in charge of people. With swords. And bows and arrows and -

Fuck, that was going to take some getting used to, conceptually. At least until we went home. I looked at her hair. Amy had always hated doing her hair, brushing it, or styling it, or anything. Especially if she was doing it herself. But this was a castle. With people with swords and armor and Amy was clearly someone important and -

Was Amy rich?

Was my sister rich? Did she have - did she have servants who did her hair for her?

I blinked a moment, imagining it. Having people on-call to do your hair for you, all the time.

I could see the appeal. Even if it felt a bit gross, to, you know, have servants.

"Twenty-two days." Amy clarified. "You - we just got back to Skyhold - that's - that's here," she gestured around herself, as if to take in the entire castle, "A few days ago."

"I think - I think the Tinker tech I used to get here would have taken me wherever you were." I explained.

"Huh." Amy blinked. "I guess that makes as much sense as any Tinker tech." She turned around, looking up at Pentaghast and meeting her gaze a moment. "Can you give us - give us some privacy, Cassandra? Tell everyone to just... leave the garden alone for a few hours?"

"I can." Pentaghast nodded. "But you know once Dagna finds out your sister's here-"

Amy's shoulders sagged, "Oh shit," she let out a breath. "She's going to interrogate you about your powers like she did me." Amy said, looking back over her shoulder at me. Then she blinked. "Then again, you love talking about powers."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. However different she looked and seemed, Amy really was still Amy.

"I might love it even more than I did three years ago. There's - there's a lot we've learned about how powers work, recently." Understatement of the century, there.

"I'll leave you two to it," Pentaghast told Amy quietly. Amy leaned in and gave the older woman a tight hug for a moment, and she hugged her back. It was much quicker than Amy hugging me, which left me feeling... weirdly smug for a moment? And then the woman gave me another nod, and walked away, heading inside.

I looked at Amy's braid, so seemingly copied off of the 'Lady Seeker's', and -

"So... I - you two are... you're close?" Stating the obvious, but - Amy wasn't much of a hugger. Just me, and Dad, really, most of the time.

"Cassandra is... she's," Amy swallowed, "Look, you know Carol and I... I still haven't figured out if she actually hated me, or just... didn't want me around, but... Cassandra's the closest thing I've had to..." Amy trailed off a moment. "The closest thing I've had to an actual Mom, since whoever my birth mother was died."

I said nothing for a long minute, trying to process.

"I...yeah, I - I didn't want to admit how bad things between you and Mom were, until... after. After it was too late." I confessed. "I should have - I should have said something." I blinked repeatedly. "I should have said a lot of things. Should have forced you to take a break from the hospital sooner." My voice was thick, and I realized my eyes were wet. I wiped the wetness away with be back of my hand, forcing myself to take a deep breath.

Amy took my hand and squeezed it. "Vicky... short of chaining me to the wall, there's nothing you could have done to stop me from going to the hospital and - and healing people."

I tried to protest, but I did know how stubborn Amy could be. Maybe she was wrong, but... well, she had a point.

"I suppose that makes sense." I squeezed her hand back. "God, there's - there's so many questions I have, so many things I want to know and - so many things that happened to fill you in on."

"Why don't we sit down?" Amy suggested, gesturing to a stone bench nearby, and I nodded. Amy walked, I floated, and then we both sat down on it. "How did... how did they die? Uncle Neil and Eric and Dean, I mean?"

"A few weeks after... after you 'died', Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay. That's when Eric and Uncle Neil died." I told her quietly. "He didn't destroy the city, at least, but... a lot of people were lost. As for Dean... that's... that's a long story. He died... he died a year ago now. There was... there was a fight. Bigger than an Endbringer fight." There really was no other way to describe the end of the world. I heard some people were calling it 'Gold Morning', though I'm not really sure why.

"Bigger." Amy's words came deadpan, flat.

"Like I said. A lot happened." My eyes flicked to the stump of her arm. I probably shouldn't keep staring. Disabled people didn't like it when people kept... staring. And Amy was - it was new, but she was-

I looked away, looking around a moment, trying to figure out the way to word the questions I wanted to ask. "Does - does - 'Cassandra' feel - I mean, does she-"

"Does she feel like I'm the daughter she never had, or something like that?" Amy finished. "I... I think - I think she might. Just a little, maybe. She's... she's not always the best at showing emotions other than annoyance or exasperation. Better than Carol, low bar that it is. But yeah. I think she might. She cares about me. She tried to argue against them putting everything on me, putting me in charge, once she saw how much I didn't want it."

"Why did they? I - I mean, I know you hate being in charge of things. Or... hated, anyway."

"There's a lot of things I was dealing with back then," Amy said quietly. Her hand fidgeted in her lap. "I hated being in charge of things because I hated myself. Didn't trust myself. And you know I didn't like having powers. I still don't like having them, but... I hate them less."

Amy hated herself? That...

I hated how much that fit, with everything. It actually -

It actually made everything come together a lot better. I knew how unhappy she'd been with... everything. With healing. With home. With her powers. But I hadn't - I hadn't made the leap to her hating herself.

But why? She hated healing, but she kept doing it anyway. Amy - Amy had saved more lives than the rest of New Wave put together, helped more people than we could have, by the time that fucking bomb went off. She might even still have saved more lives than the rest of New Wave put together, even given everything we'd done the last three years.

Amy was selfless to a degree that most capes only dreamed of. So why would she hate herself? What - what possible...

It had to be related to that secret. I opened my mouth, to press her on it, to finally ask her - I should have asked her after the bank - but I closed my mouth.

I just found her again. It could wait.

Not for long. No more letting things sit forever, but... it could wait. There was too much to catch up on.

"Okay, I have to ask." I finally said. "You say Cassandra cares about you, but you - she took you into fights! She let your arm get cut off!"

"Vicky, Cassandra had nothing to do with what happened to my arm." Amy said, sounding actually angry at the accusation. "As for taking me into fights - it's a really long story, but things were - I had to go places. Dangerous places. With - fuck, things they call demons and I still don't have a better word for them. I couldn't just hide behind everyone else until the demons were dealt with."

Again with the demons. What were they really? Amy of all people called them demons?

"And..." Amy flushed a little, "Hitting things with heavy sticks... it's... it's surprisingly therapeutic. I -" she sighed, then made a face. "I should have taken you up on the offer to patrol with you more. Use my powers to fight, at least a little. I think hitting criminals might have... I think I would have actually enjoyed it, just a little."

I stared at her. She looked away.

I burst out laughing. I put one hand on my stomach as I leaned back on the bench, giggling. The look on her face as she admitted I was right!

Amy glared at me. "Vicky!" she protested, and I tried to catch my breath, stop laughing, but I couldn't, not for like, another fifteen seconds or so. Finally, I managed a deep breath, and stopped.

"Sorry," I grinned, "I just -" I shut up a moment to suppress one final giggle. "The look on your face. You looked so - like it was causing you physical pain to admit that! Because how dare I be right?" I took another breath, and then considered. "...you're probably right though. One the things we've learned about powers, the last few years - the conflict drive theory? I know I told you about it once, after I learned about it in Parahuman Studies 101." Amy nodded. "We - we basically know for a fact it's true, now."

Amy looked away and stared ahead at the garden for a long moment. "That... that makes a lot of sense, given... things." She paused for a moment. "Fuck me." She groaned. "I was such a damn idiot back then."

"Amy-" I started, but Amy shook her head and cut me off.

"Nope. No defending me. I was a fucking idiot. On a lot of levels." Her left arm twitched, and I remembered how recent her loss of it was. Did she still feel phantom limb stuff? Forget she'd lost it?

"If - if Cassandra didn't have anything to do with you losing your arm, then who cut it off?" Who did I need to hurt? Badly.

Amy barked a hollow, bitter laugh. "Funny thing is, cutting my arm off was to save my life, actually."

I blinked. How did that work? Some sort of disease, rotting up her arm? Gangrene? Were the people here that primitive? Since Amy couldn't heal herself...

"Of course, once I catch up to the guy who did it, I'm still going to kill that bald motherfucker. A lot." Amy growled. "So no, you can't hurt him. He's mine, Vicky."

I blinked.

I stared at my sister.

What?!

---

---

Author's Note: I could have kept going with all the recapping and the back and forth as they caught up, but then this would have become the entire fic, and this was long enough.

A few things to clarify.

1. While I am not actually a big fan of Carol, and she's unlikely to get much of a positive portrayal in most of the fics I have ideas for, if I write them once I'm done with Worm, I do think Vicky is being unfair to Carol here, but she has good reason. She lost her sister, and she blamed herself and Carol as much as she did Bakuda. She saw Carol actually start to act like she loved and cared about Amy in a way she never had when she was alive. And that pretty much permanently screwed up their relationship (which was hardly perfect to begin with, just... a lot better). For Carol's part, the experience of losing Amy made her realize how much she really had loved her, and how terrible of a mother she'd been to her. Which means that I do believe she'd actually make the effort to be a good mother, if Amy went back to Earth Gimel with Vicky. But for Amy, at this point, it would probably feel like too little, too late.

2. Realistically, if Amy vanished from Brockton Bay during Arc 5-era, there's a good chance Taylor is permanently crippled after Leviathan, and Bonesaw's plague, whatever she unleashes on the Bay, would have done tons more damage. Things probably actually would have been worse overall (even if better for Vicky) compared to canon. I certainly dislike fics that suggest otherwise. But for this, I didn't want to deal with the logical consequences of that, so I decided somehow, the stars aligned and Taylor didn't take any permanent damage fighting Leviathan, and Bonesaw never got the chance to release the amnesia plague or w/e, so it doesn't matter.

3. I firmly believe that Vicky was Amy's #1 fan up until that critical final moment in 11h, and that she was nearly as co-dependent on Amy as Amy was on her, just in a different, less severe (and less impacting her ability to socialize with others) sort of way. Losing Amy like she did really did fuck up Vicky a lot.

4. If I ever do write the notional fic this is an epilogue of, I really do have a lot planned for Amy's arc, and Cassandra absolutely would start to care about Amy a lot. Amy absolutely would have a ton of issues with being put in charge at first, but I do think that if it didn't destroy her, she could end up rising to the occasion.

5. While the sentiment already existed in ideas for this fic concept, the 'hitting people with heavy sticks is surprisingly therapeutic' bit as a line is inspired by DoubleD20's summary of their fic, "Her Bark's Worse Than Her Bite".

 

[Mintcakes]

I'm not into Dragon Age, but it was quite good!

 

[Imperium]

Great work