Subject: [OTL]: [SC] Steelmill
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 10:26:34 -0700
From: Oberon <oberon@hem.utfors.se>

Disclaimer : I own none of the characters used, nor do I own subreality...
Ell in fact everything but the idea is stolen. But I am hoping for leniency
here since all I want to do is to tell a good story about what happens
after "death" for those characters loved and no longer written.

Summary : Once you loose your solid ground, you will have to develop or die.

Far to the south of the Cafe lies one of the places that the subreality's
citizens do not want to speak about. Once upon a time they all thought that
fictives where immortal, or at worst that they just faded away if the
author lost interest and time for them. It was worse... far worse and
darker indeed.

Once a fictive no longer has an anchor, he or she will be free. Free to
evolve beyond the paths that was once so set in stone. That much is good,
but it also means that father time will cough, notice them and start
winding the clock.

For some of them that is not such a bad thing, if they had the leads they
will have a long and often full life anyway... for the supporting cast
though things tend to go downhill faster. The more life something had the
longer it will last.

But as we come here today we see a huge hulking man with the first strands
of grey in his reddish hair kneel before a small grave at the outskirts of
the graveyard. He has the loose skinned look of someone that has once been
much heavier, not to even say that he might once have been truly obese, but
now... he is a fading Adonis with muscles more heavily defined than most so
called super heroes. On his head rests a small horned helmet, mostly as a
memento of his past life, but the old blue and white striped pants have
since long been discarded for a set of tight black leather pants at the
advice of the woman in his life.

"I wish you were here Asterix, you will never know how much this place
really has to offer us. I miss you little buddy. Who would have thought you
would be the one that had a harder time adapting. When we first came here
we where both so confused, confused and scared.  But..."

He pauses and swallows.  "You didn't take it well. Not at all well. It was
like watching a car-wreck in slow motion. First the drinking... I never
knew just how... Just how much you drank, not before the end. At the
least... Kara said you died a hero. Funny, one would have thought there
would be more heroes in a town like this. But most are just that...
has-beens. They have grown to scared of their own mortality, of the pain
and aches in aging bodies that will not keep that perfect shape without
work and care any longer."

"I wasn't there when it happened... Kara was though and she said the little
girl wouldn't have had a chance if you hadn't pushed her out of the way.
Who would have thought one such as you... one such of you would be the
victim of superman. Death of a hero at the hands of a hero."

"Of course... None of it would have happened if there wheren't so many
old-time versions of superman around. The constant fighting about who is
the REAL one... Occasionally it comes to blows when two or more of them
have had too much to drink. And ... even Kara can't stop them all the time.
Especially not the late seventies Supermen. It was one of those that hit
you, after being punched through a wall. But I guess you know that old
friend."

The giant shakes his head slowly. "I didn't mean to be so glum, I came to
tell you something happy. " There are tears in the big mans eyes when he
continues. "I wish you could have been here, we... we are finally getting
married me and Kara, and yes... That means that I did indeed finish my
studies and got my degree just as I promised myself."

He smiles sadly, thinking of all the sleepless nights over the books, the
endless exams and the horrible defeats. First learning to read and write,
then learning so much about this new world he has come to... and then
understanding. Understanding that he did indeed have a good head for
reading when the stakes where down.

"I would have ... I would have wanted you to be my best-man old friend. But
I think you will be happy to hear that I am doing good."

With that the aging giant slowly turns away, walking through the graveyard,
barely suppressing his shivers as he passes by the graves of people far
more famous than him.

He traces the headstones with his eyes, reading the names he passes by.
Some are elaborate, almost shrines, others are simple. "Yellow Boy --
Father and Origin", "Ellen Dolan -- You where my Alpha and my Omega",
"Hiawata -- Last of the Mohikans", "Lieutenant Blueberry", "Korak -- Son of
Tarzan"... The list goes on and on, listing those dead from indifference
and accidents.

He nods at the undertaker as he passes him by. They know each other well,
the big Gaul and the once-upon-a-time detective. There is respect there,
they both realize the other one has found something to live for, a place in
this strange new world.

Memories... He never realized as a young man how much the memories would
mean to him once he got older. ~ Sometimes ~, he mused, ~ the memories is
all we have got. They where enough for me to pull through with a little
help from a very wonderful woman.~

Kara had been the first one to reach him when Asterix had... died. She had
come to the old dingy place they had shared and offered him a shoulder to
cry on. And from that had come first a friendship consisting of her nagging
on him to do something out of himself.

And he had, now that he had to think for himself instead of always
following, he discovered that he liked thinking things through. He was by
no stretch a genius, but he liked learning and wasn't too slow to do so.

There had been some time that things had gone on like this, him learning
and her showing him her world, helping him cope both with this world and
with the loss. And then ... Then she had lost another relative, another
version of herself wiped out by calamity and she had turned to him for
comfort.

He didn't quite know how it came that they ended up not just holding each
other but in his bed, the old rusty bed with the squeaky springs. And even
if none of them where youths any more it had been good.

And she had been delighted to know that he had never had another woman. She
had thought it to be sweet... So sweet she had almost cracked his ribs with
the hug she gave him when he told her.

Autumn love was perhaps not as some say the richest love, but knowing that
they where not immortal surely made it into something more caring and
comforting. And it was decidedly a meeting of the souls.

The sights she shared, the unexplored depths of the wastelands in the far
south of subreality, the clubs late at night. The far north, the Cafe and
the center of the storms. Sharing the miracles of each other's lives. The
happiness and the disappointments. All the little things that make up a
human life.

They had laughed together, cried together and slept together for almost two
years when their little family got it's first and so far only addition. A
boy that they had named Asterix Kal-El.

And now, three years after that, with the support and love of his family
behind him Obelix had finally done what he had promised himself. He had
gotten himself a degree good enough to support a his little family. "Yes,"
he thought to himself, "I know that I am old fashioned, but on the other
hand, I am also a child of my age. A man that can not support his family
should not have one."

Telling Asterix first had been something that he just did... Passing by the
cemetery before going home to the apartment they now shared. You tell your
family first, but Nobody had been his family as long as Asterix had.

And so he comes to the door, the door of his home, of his castle. He only
tried to call it his fortress of solitude once and Kara's reaction made
pretty sure he won't forget himself again and use that name. Neither will
the neighbors. A Kryptonian throwing a fit is quite... spectacular.

So things hadn't always been all cuddly and sweet so what, there are no
such relations once you leave being a fictive behind.

Just look at the neighbors downstairs, young Calvin and his wife Suzie.
They occasionally fought so both he and Kara thought they'd bring down the
roof, but they STILL had a good relation and had never come to blows.

And now... Now it was time to make his little family official. To finally
tie the bands of matrimony, and perhaps it was about time, both of them
looked to be in their forties and none getting any younger as it was.

* * *

Two months later they held their wedding, the bride being in a slightly
off-white dress and the groom in a coat with tails that had indeed had to
be sewn especially for him. And standing slightly behind them both stood
the best-man, a small boy named Asterix Kal-El with a small and very old
dog at his heels.

Kara looked at her husband, her wonderful kind and strong husband, perhaps
one of the few men around here strong enough to keep up with her even now
in the weakened state the retcon that tore her away from the power of
mainstream had left her.

And she smiled, perhaps it was not a forever after, but it was a now and as
long as she had purpose in subreality she would live and so would those she
loved.

-
Oberon