[ 20 ] 2014

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"He stopped breathing. Call an ambulance."

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Conrad had done well on his word and Harley could feel a heat coming up from the downstairs floor. It was followed by smoke, which was penetrating every wall of the house. "Calum. We need to get out of here..." She called to him. He was still on the ground, on his hands and knees for what felt like an eternity. His breathing had calmed significantly, but he seemed like he could barely keep himself from collapsing. He looked up at the sound of her voice, his love for her providing him with the willpower he needed. He saw their surroundings, then looked into her blue eyes and finally deciding on pushing all his pain and tiredness away. He would have to deal with it later. He had to do something if they wanted to get out of there alive. He gathered the last bit of his remaining strength and pushed himself back on his feet, swaying a bit as he did so. 

The first thing he did was to check on the door to the master bedroom. He couldn't get it open, no matter how hard he tried. His grandfather had sealed it shut using his powers, and even at a young age like that, Conrad Hood had been one of the strongest shifters Calum knew. 

The house was burning quickly anyway, and he could feel the searing heat coming from the other side of the door, almost burning his finger tips as he touched it. Next he tried the two windows in the room and came up with the same results, but it would have been difficult to get down from there anyway. When he could think of nothing else, he went to the two remaining living prisoners in the room. He went to Harley first and untied her restraints, setting her free. The seventeen year old sprang up on her feet, feeling a soreness in her ankles and wrists from the ropes. But she chose to ignore all of it for the time being. Together, Calum and Harley untied Ashton.

"What do we do?" Harley looked to Calum for guidance.

"The door and windows are sealed." He explained to her, still feeling a bit dizzy and out of breath. The mere act of speaking was almost too much for him. "There's no way out. Unless..."

He trailed off as an idea came to his mind. Harley took one look at him and knew what he was going to say before he even offered the idea. "We can't just leave him here. He'll die." She pointed out. Ashton was at the moment busy checking for a pulse from each of his family members. When he came up with nothing, more tears started streaming down his face. He was paying no attention to the other two teenagers making plans at the moment.

"I never said we'd leave him behind." Calum assured her, then he continued to explain, taking both of her hands in his in an attempt to calm her down. "I was thinking we could just make the jump to the present, and then bring him back here in a few days. That will let my grandfather think he's dead for a while and he won't try to kill him again." Bringing Ashton back to the past in a few days meant it would a be a few months in his lifetime. Conrad Hood would have long since forgotten about him and Ashton could leave town to have a fresh start. As far as everyone knew, he had family in another town and they had money. He could easily stay with them. Calum bit down on his lip nervously as he gave her the last bit of details. "The only problem is...the jump might be too much for his body because we're taking him to the future. There's a chance he won't make it."

Harley thought about their options. They could leave him there, and he would get burnt alive. Or they could make the jump to the present and take Ashton with them. But there was the risk that his body wouldn't make it and he would die anyway. Then again, making the jump still left them with a slight chance that he would survive, which was better than nothing. Leaving him there alone would mean that he would definitely die. Ashton was there too, and she wanted to ask his opinion as well. But given the fact that he was so distraught at the moment, she wasn't sure if he'd want to go with them anyway. What mattered most to her right then was that he would live, otherwise she would have failed.

"Hold onto him and close your eyes. Think of home. Maybe it'll be stronger if we both grab him." Calum suggested. After all they had been through those past four days, he didn't want to fail either. Especially because he knew how much it meant to Harley.

Ashton had been kneeling by his younger siblings, arms draped over their bloodied bodies. He sobbed into their lifeless chests, until Calum grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up to standing. "I'm very sorry for your loss, mate. But we have to get out of here before the entire house burns down." Ashton was like a shell of himself, limp and following what Calum wanted him to do. His face was tear soaked and his eyes were red and puffy. Calum led him to stand in between himself and Harley.

Harley grabbed one of his hands and Calum grabbed the other. Both of the shifters closed their eyes, while Ashton stood in between them with confusion. Harley visualized herself being home in the present time, in her bedroom. But she wondered if it would still even be there. With Conrad burning down the house, the only way she would still have it in the present was if it were to be rebuilt. 

She felt a pull on her chest, on her lungs, because their powers were refusing to take Ashton with them. Calum felt it too. But he encouraged her to keep trying. "Ignore the push. Just keep thinking about home."

Harley did just that. 

The pull knocked her breath out of her, but she felt the change in atmosphere. The searing heat from the house was gone, replaced by a normal room temperature. She looked to her right. Ashton was completely passed out on the floor next to her, face first. Calum was on his hands and knees again. But Harley had remained standing through all of it.

Calum crawled over to Ashton to check for a pulse, when he found none, he informed her, "He stopped breathing. Call an ambulance."

-

What happened next was an absolute blur for Harley Quinn. She had grabbed her cellphone off the nightstand and called an ambulance, which arrived within minutes. The first responders, had startled Harleen and Billy, who raced behind them to see if Harley was all right. There was still concern, but there was evident relief in their eyes when they saw that she was okay. The paramedics got both Ashton and Calum onto stretchers and hauled them away. Harley had gone with them in the ambulance, which her mother allowed. She knew that Calum was Harley's boyfriend and that Ashton was her friend. She needed to make sure that they would be okay.

They were taken to a hospital near by, and everyone arrived later to offer their support. Arthur, Harleen, Billy, and Cindy came to offer Harley some support. Dempsey and Paul had come by to see Ashton. 

She felt like she had been sitting in a waiting room for days by the time the doctors came to give them some news. He walked out with his clipboard, and two charts clipped underneath it. He gave a sigh before he started to explain the situation. From that sigh, Harley could tell the news was not good. "The first boy, Calum Hood. His blood stream has been poisoned by an unknown substance. We were able to stop the poison from reaching his heart, but..." He stopped short, and Harley already expected him to say that he hadn't made it, or something of the sort. 

"But what..." Harley urged, tears streaming down her face.

"In order to stop the poison from killing him, we were forced to amputate part of his right arm. Halfway up to his elbow." Harley felt herself sobbing harder at the doctor's words. She only hoped that it was the only bad news she would hear that night. Arthur left Harleen's side and pulled Harley into his arms. He knew Calum was a good boy, and Harley adored him. They would get through the worst of it and he would be there to support her. "We are doing all we can to stabilize him. But we will be keeping him in observation for a couple of days." The doctor then looked at the other medical chart. "As for the other boy, there are no medical records of him, other than the ones of a boy named Ashton Irwin who died in 1963. No matter, we are doing what we can, but it seems that he has fallen into a state of coma."

Harley wasn't sure why, but she felt the urge to see Ashton first. She asked the doctors for permission, and he allowed it. She entered the room alone, Arthur had offered to go with her, but she thought it was something she needed to do by herself.

As she entered the room, she felt her heart wrung out upon seeing him in a hospital bed, attached to all sorts of machines. Next to the boy in the hospital bed was his own soul, his ghost who had been in her house all that time. Her whole reason for going back to the past was to save his life, and now he was there, on the brink of death. Maybe she had been wrong in thinking that going back to save him was the best idea. Perhaps he really had been destined to die, even if it wasn't by Conrad Hood's hand.

He turned when he heard her footsteps approaching and she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I've done everything wrong, Ash. I just wanted you to live a full life." As she spoke, her tears started to fall down her cheeks like a waterfall. Harley wasn't really much of a crier, but the more she saw him there, the more she was starting to feel like this was the end. Like this was the last time she would ever see Ashton Irwin.

He offered her a sad smile. "I figured as much when I started having strange memories of a girl and a boy saving me from Con that night."

"Did things change too much?" She wondered. But she figured there hadn't been many major changes since she materialized back in her own house. Her mother, brother, and Arthur still all seemed the same. The hunters did too.

Ashton nodded his head slowly. It must have been strange for him, having conflicting memories of what happened that night. There was what he originally remembered, and then what she and Calum did. As was the natural order of things, he would probably soon forget the old memories in favor of the ones created most recently. "Since everyone still thought I died that night, and Con's family had the house rebuilt, everything else stayed the same. Annie was still murdered, Claire still seduced Bobby and had Arthur, Con still had Arthur sent to an orphanage."

Harley felt bad about that. Because everyone thought he still died, everything else stayed the same. Arthur still grew up without parents, Harleen and Arthur never got their happy ending as teenagers. But at least, she told herself, Ashton was there in the flesh and hadn't suffered a horrible death. 

Ashton got back on his feet and closed the distance between himself and her with a few steps. He pulled her into his embrace and she could feel the slight cold radiating around her, like being inside a fridge. Harley drew her arms around him as well and he whispered into the top of her head, "It really was a pleasure meeting you, doll. But I feel like now's my time to go. Take care of yourself and tell Calum that even though I didn't know him back then, I appreciate the fact that he called me his friend."

"Ashton..." Harley clung to him. She knew well that upon letting go, that was the last time she would ever see or talk to him. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that yet.

He smiled sadly, his own heart aching because he had genuinely come to love Harley Quinn and he could not be with her. It wasn't meant to be from the start. He then took a deep breath to steady himself before pulling away from her and pulling her arms from around him. He took a few steps back towards his hospital bed and sat down first, then he laid down, disappearing into the unconscious physical body that was there.

There was a beeping sound heard in the room. One beep, two beeps, three beeps signaling that his heart was still beating, and then his heart monitor went still.

-

another update for you guys. 

thank you all loads for reading and supporting this story. is this really the end for Ashton? he and harley got to say goodbye and there was no bad blood with Calum in the end. but there are still thirty more chapters to go.

everything else seems to have turned out exactly the same because to everyone else, ashton died. which means there was no real difference in the events that happened. so by consequence, the quinns still ended up moving to sydney and she still met ashton and everything happened the same.

thank you all so much for reading and supporting this story. it means the entire world to me. 

-clary