Do Not Resuscitate I (Eluard)

[Leann Lacey]

The nurse's station in the ICU of Endonia Memorial Hospital was as busy as always. The semicircular desk, with its spaced out cache of computers, created only a pseudo-barrier for the nurses within and everyone else that was on the outside. Behind them, various monitors beeped, blinked, and flared, giving real time reports to the monitored status of various patients in that particular half of the ward. As always, the station was understaffed for the number of patients and although that certainly fueled many downtime complaints, it did very little to change the almost out of place neutrality exhibited by the handful of nurses. They weren't truly desensitized to their environment and the stress that came with it, but they were used to it. So much so that when the cardiac monitor for the elderly gentleman in room 4 pronounced, with a multitude of annoying-as-sin beeps, that he had destabilized into ventricular tachycardia of the torsades de pointes variety, they scarcely batted an eyelash.

"Four's in v-tach," said one as she plugged away at logging the status of the new arrival in room 12.

"Really? That was quicker than expected. Oh well. Should I mute it?" replied another, while she calmly attached a variety of printed sheets to a handful of different clipboard charts.

"Nah, I'll get it. He's DNR coded anyway, so it's not like we can do anything."

"Yeah, it's kinda sad, but I guess it can't be helped. I wonder why the family decided on that."

"Don't know. Probably has to do with inheritance."

"Doesn't it always?"

This kind of casual talk was the norm. To an outsider, overhearing such a conversation given the situation would probably make them question each nurse's dedication to her craft. It might make them wonder just how cold-hearted these ladies were. Did they even care about their patients? Did they do their jobs appropriately?

Such questioning, while natural, was cruelly unwarranted. The ability to block out that which would prompt emotional outbursts in the "citizen" were required for the job. The casualness was a coping mechanism; a necessary evil in the high stress environment. Had the patient in question not been a "do not resuscitate", the conversation would not have taken place. Instead, one of the nurses would have calmly picked up the telephone and declared "Code:Blue, ICU, Room 4" to alert the crash team, while the other nurse calmly left the nurse's station to retrieve the crash cart from the nearby storage room and move it, and herself, into position to facilitate the crash team as soon as it arrived.

Everything... was business as usual.

The monitor was silenced; one of the nurses would go alert a doctor and they would go together to confirm time and cause of death approximately fifteen minutes later. But for the moment, there was more "nurse talk" to be had.

"That poor girl's here again."

"Again? She certainly is a dedicated little thing. Four's kids only came to see him once... and, if they'd allowed it, he probably could have been saved and been kickin' around a few more years. Six... we told her she doesn't have a chance."

"Yeah... I don't really get why she keeps coming up here, though. She just stands there for the entire visitation period. Doesn't say anything, doesn't cry... just stands there and looks sad."

"I know. I tried to offer her some water day-before-yesterday and she barely shook her head. That was the yacht accident, right?"

"Yeah. Her's mom's in room six, and she was over in CCU herself for a while. Apparently, while she was over there, she kept telling people it was her fault, but... eh. Survivor's guilt, I guess."

And so it was that Leann was, indeed, in room six, standing at her mother's bedside. Just as the nurses had stated, she was silent and still, eyes glued to the floor. Accompanied only by the sounds of the life support keeping her mother's body functioning, she was the living statue of the ICU for as long as visitation was allowed. Before visitation? She was the ever-present body slouched in a chair in the far corner of the waiting room. After visitation? The one that gingerly made her way back to the waiting room, put on a pair of inline skates and skated out. Her habitual presence had become so routine that the desk attendants in the waiting room had stopped bothering to make her sign in. Her movements, much like their shifts, were like clockwork.

[Eluard Verlaine]

Losing a patient was never easy. Eluard stood in the staff bathroom just outside the surgery room, washing his blood-covered gloves in the sink, watching the red water swirl around the round white bowl before disappearing down the drain. People didn’t die on his table, not very often, so each time it happened left him blank and humbled, feeling all too human and powerless. The chances of success had been slim from the very beginning and he had told the family that. They had been left with two choices: risk surgery and if the kidney transplant succeeded it could give the aging older man a chance at prolonged life or don’t opt for surgery and live through his worsening state for perhaps another year tops. Surgery was immensely risky for someone as weak as him but in the end he had decided to brave it and developed a lethal arrhythmia post-operation, all attempts at resuscitating him resulting in failure.

Eluard removed his gloves and dumped them in the sanity hazard bin, his hands coming to rest on the sink’s sides, head bowed before the mirror. As if he could turn back time, his mind was considering all of his actions and trying to come up with alternatives, anything that could have saved the man on the table, but he knew he had done everything within his power to keep the man alive. His power. With all his knowledge and perfect representation of the human body he couldn’t do anything. A mutant with healing abilities perhaps could have saved Mr. Brenton’s life but the world would rather have them in labs than where they truly belonged. The surgeon clutched the sink so strongly his hands hurt.

There was a knock on the door. “Dr. Verlaine? We’re ready to inform the family. Should we send Doreah or Joanie for it?” Eluard lifted his hands and swept them over his face, getting blond hair out of his eyes and tying it behind his back. A moment more and he was yanking the door open, looking stoic and professional and like he hadn’t been pondering about his powerlessness, the mortality of man and the inadequacies of life a second earlier. “I’ll do it,” he told the assistant and glanced only briefly at the dead on the table that was already being cleaned and prepared for a morgue bag as he heading for the door that led into the hallway. Maybe in another five years it would stop distressing him just how little was actually under his control, but somehow he suspected that was an issue that would follow him to the grave.

When he appeared before them, the family members – a loving wife and two “kids”, one a teenage girl and the other a twenty year old man, looked to Eluard with a mixture of fear and hopefulness. “How- How is he?” The woman finally asked, her hands fretting over each other nervously, eyes already moistening. Eluard looked at each of them in turn, exposing himself to so much raw emotion he felt as if he knew all of them quite personally and then he stopped on the wife. “I’m sorry. He did not survive.”

Incredulity was the first reaction, their minds trying to process the information. In stages, they succumbed to grief, and the almost typical family crying ensued. Half-slurred questions of “What went wrong?”, “How is this possible?” and such were uttered but expected no real answers but from God himself. With his own eyes slightly glistening from the sight of their collective pain, Eluard calmly explained what had happened before excusing himself and leaving them to mourn Mr. Brenton. Walking down the hallway, he sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes and knowing that the scene would forever remain with him like a personal little clip he could replay at will. Eluard was aware of everything around him all at once - a nurse pushing a bandage trolley and humming to herself, a small girl tugging on her mother’s sleeve and asking when they could visit her father again, a man sitting quietly on a chair in front of the MRI room and a conversation between two nurses that came from inside a room.

Usually, Doctor Eluard Verlaine lived inside the Surgery room and adjacent suit. He had, perhaps, two hours before he needed to perform another surgery and he knew the family of that respective case was already looking for him, wanting to hear that everything would go well and he had all certainty of success but the truth was that right now he didn’t and he wouldn’t. There was risk in that case as well, though not as overwhelming as the one he had just went through, and Eluard didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep. Without thinking, he went straight to room six. The patient within wasn’t his and he rarely visited patients personally. They were usually under the care of their respective ward and brought to him just for surgery before being returned to their root care. On rare occasion he would supervise difficult future surgery cases personally, but that wasn’t the case so there had been no reason for him to breeze through intensive care or any of the other rooms.

Quietly, he opened the door to room six, dressed in surgery blue under a white lab coat he had donned after leaving the surgery suite. Eluard hadn’t come across Leann at all since she and her mother had appeared within the hospital so a quiet wave of surprise coursed through him at the sight of familiar pink hair. Although his first thought was to retreat, he closed his eyes briefly and then opened them as he stepped inside and came to linger by Leann’s side, his eyes on her mother, thoughtfully registering her for the first time. She had definitely never been his patient. What do you tell a person who was losing one of the most important people in their life?

“She’s irreplaceable,” he said, barely above a whisper, his blue eyes on Leann’s slumbering parent but looking as distant as if they were miles away. What felt like a long time ago he had been in Leann’s position, watching his father slip away and at the same time trying to prevent it through intensive study and will alone. His eyelids lowered even further. Sometimes you just couldn’t stop people from leaving your side. “May I sit with you?” When he looked at her, his eyes were a mirror of the ones he had watched her with just the other day in Miguel Vasquez’s dome and the question was a reiteration of the same he had posed then. Perhaps she would recognize the hint, perhaps not, Eluard wasn’t even sure that he wanted her to.

[Leann Lacey]

She had been described as a statue, sad but stoic, hardly moving. Thus, there was no surprise associated with her utter lack of response when the door behind her opened and Eluard stepped in. Somewhere in the back of Lee's mind, the "presence" registered, but her initial internal response was to treat it like every other interruption that often occurred whenever she was visiting. Nurses would routinely enter, check her mother's vitals, make adjustments to oxygen flow or the various prophylactic medications that were being administered IV, and then leave. At first, they had attempted to make small talk, or inquire about her own condition, but Lee had not been very cooperative with those attempts and, eventually, those efforts faded away.

Between her trials in the underground and her hospital routine, Lee's secondary response - that is, to identify that this visit was not at all "routine" - was delayed. When she did, the shiver that went through her made it seem as though Eluard was the spectre of death itself suddenly shadowing her. The whisper, once registered, dropped on the girl with the weight of finality not intended by the one that uttered it - but fatalism was rampant, both within her and, apparently, the hospital that day. His second phrase seemed to her to be a command of privilege - a request that, no matter what, she had no right to refuse.

All she felt she could do; all she wanted to do was simply nod, acknowledge, and acquiesce to Eluard's request. It was to be simple, silent, and completely in the same manner as any other response she may have managed to give one of the nurses on any routine interruption. But the heaviness of the situation, the improper reception his words have been received with, and - once she managed to look at him - the force of personality behind blue eyes, ushered forth a collapse that had simply been waiting for one more little push.

Instead of nodding, her whole form shook. Instead of simply accepting the request for company, it was as if she had accepted the finality of the situation - though this would ultimately prove transient, at least for a little while longer. The flood gates opened, and she slumped to the ground, hugging herself tightly and sobbing. Although she managed to keep everything but the initial cry silent, there was a definitive violence to her sudden misery. Her hands clutched so tightly around her arms that her nails, even trimmed as they were, threatened to tear through her sleeves and rend the flesh hidden underneath.

Though mostly silent, any noise at all not associated with the electronic monitors did catch the attention of one of the nurses. The woman in question appeared at the window of the door, but she did not enter. While "odd" that the pink-haired girl was on her knees, there had been no change in the actual patient's status. Furthermore, the nurse's quick glance had caught sight of an unexpected visitor - Dr. Verlaine - and whether the nurse thought that the good doctor must have everything under control or that, perhaps, he'd been the one to finally force Leann to accept, in coarse terms, that her "mother was a vegetable", the woman was not prompted to enter. She disappeared almost as quickly as she had appeared... and not a second too soon.

The outpouring of emotion was a dangerous thing for she who did not have full control of her powers. Such strong instability, as associated with such an outburst, could do nothing if not produce some sort of residual effect. Lee was aware of that risk, and it played heavily into her typical hospital statuesque demeanor. But her breakdown cracked the door open on her control.

*crackle*

If Eluard had "shocked" her into her collapse, the result of that collapse shocked her back to reality. The crackling of green around her hands and wrists caused her mind to break the chains of misery binding them and trumpet the warning of danger throughout the rest of her body and soul. Her expression turned from overwhelming grief to one of utter terror, and her sudden crawling scramble to the far corner of the room away from Eluard was a motion of absolute panic. If Eluard had seen fear in her eyes in the underground, the wavering of her orbs now was that expression tenfold, mixed with a splash of "caged animal." Her breath was ragged and while one fist clenched close to her chest, her other hand was extended out, palm up, as if to wordlessly say "don't come any closer!"

For in Lee's messed up mind, she. Was. Caught. And if that were truly the case... then it really was all over.

[Eluard Verlaine]

Eluard wasn’t young anymore. Although he still bore the features of a young enough man deep down he harbored thoughts that were as old and aware of people and the world as bearded old men had on their solitary benches from which they watched the world, having seen too much grief to smile, having a deep understanding of the tragedy in the world to be narrow-mindedly present only in their own self-centered universe. And yet. Even though his core functioned on borrowed time of chained anger just waiting to shatter binds and take revenge on every wrong in the world, Eluard could still be reached thought the wall of tar on his heart.

He was moved by the smiles in the maternity ward. He felt joy to spend time with his young daughter and he had been touched by the tears of the family whose father and husband he had lost on the operating table. When Lee’s frame started shaking and she ultimately collapsed to the ground, besieged by grief and fear and the madness of her life right now, the details of which Eluard could only guess at, the surgeon felt like he was right back in the operating room, readying to open a chest so that he could physically massage a heart in order to have it beat again. Only this time there was no such desperate measure immediately within his reach.

So he collected himself and shelved his own distress that had no place in the matter. The nurse’s gaze averted just in time to miss him kneeling in front of the crumpled Leann, eyes grave and calm and deep as the memories of sunken ships in oceans much too wide. For a moment he could do nothing but be there, silently assessing the situation because he had to, since Lee was currently the most dangerous thing in the building. He was afraid. For Jenny, for the nurses and assistants on duty and for everyone else in the hospital that day at large. And he couldn’t say one word, for fear it would be the wrong one, the one that would make a tragedy of more people than was necessary in this place at the time.

Electricity cackled around Lee’s hands and wrists and for a breath Eluard was ready to use the only thing available to him to try to shield the surroundings from a potential outburst – himself. The information broker, surgeon, father, colleague, associate and so many other roles that hung to his entity wasn’t afraid of death. He felt like there had been enough events within his short life and some part of him sensed he would not die warm in his bed as an old man. However, his early demise was not warranted as the fit was slowly being contained by the pink haired girl before him. Despite it, along with it came fright, a terror like he had only seen in a dying person who had burned alive.

She ran to huddle in a corner and he drew up from his crouch, ready to follow but pausing at the sight of the warning hand. At this point he wasn’t sure if she feared him, the arena, the loss of her mother or all of it together in her crumbling world but once upon a time he had known how it felt. At least, in his own version of it.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” was the first thing he needed to say and made sure to keep his tone low and soft. “I’m also not going to leave,” his eyelids lowered a little bit, “Leann.” He took a step towards her then. “I can’t fathom the pain in your life right now but you needn’t trudge through it alone.” Eluard watched her back, something tightening in his eyes. Words hardly felt enough, words hardly were enough to convey what he was trying to say. Even so, even if all the support he wanted to offer could reach her, it was likely not enough and couldn’t drown out the panic and grief that enveloped her now.

So he disobeyed her order and walked forward with slow light steps. “You didn’t know it was me when you saw me in the sewers,” he suddenly began in that same leveled tone. “You didn’t know that person came to you after the battles were had and done,” he was nearing her. “But I was there and what I saw down there and after that was a brave girl, ready to place her life in danger for everyone else.” He was by her side now, crouching down again. “And I still see her now and know that she wouldn’t harm the people here even if it was out of her control.” With fear not absent from the beat of his heart he took that hand that had been extended so pointedly to warn him and planned on holding it until she acknowledged his genuine desire to help and belief in her strength of heart or she electrocuted him off or otherwise made a move to flee even further.

"I will leave if you wish me to leave." Eluard could barely hear his own voice.

[Leann Lacey]

Her thoughts were as fractured as her spirit. Fight or flee? Could she do either? Should she try, or would that make everything worse? A movement, any movement, could bring forth the terror that had started it all in the first place... and yet, if entrapment was truly the here and now, then did the explosion rending the apex of her heart not also represent the only possible freedom available?

Freedom, perhaps. But at what cost? Though Eluard may have been speaking and slowly moving forward with such an intent, he was not the presence in the room that forced Leann's restraint to endure. The one who was, never mind the machines, already in the grave was an intangible influence of power currently greater than even the energy threatening to burst from the pink-haired girl.

Yet, Eluard, unknowingly, held a card with greater power still, and though the playing of the card was knowingly, the piercing of her veil was the unknowing coup de grace.

She offered only subtle signs of recognition at his first words - Not there to hurt her? That seemed to register, if for no other reason than because he had made no threatening movement. Not going to leave? That went by without a flicker; how could that possibly have mattered? The only escape route was his, was it not? He couldn't fathom her pain? Her forehead creased; her status re-reminded to her and a faint flickering of poison touched her mind, as if to scream "because you aren't me! You don't know me!"

Her eyes narrowed in confusion with the next few phrases - the man in the sewers? The one that had come to see her after the battles? Brave? Her? Had his next sentence not come, she may have been able to process the revelation; to connect to it, perhaps, and be brought back to the relative "normalcy" she had been habitually displaying during her hospital visits.

"And I still see her now," he'd said, transitioning from the identity revelation. "And know that she wouldn't harm the people here even if it was out of her control."

There was an impact with this, like a single thundering strike of a war drum that echoed within her.

"...know that she wouldn't harm the people here..."

Selfish. The only price she'd even considered was the one that held her back. Had the forced combat numbed her that much?

"...harm the people here..."

Monster. Didn't that prove it? Self-centered concern. That was all she had, wasn't it?

"...out of control..."

Words were lost. Meaning, self meaning consumed her. When Eluard touched her, Lee's eyes shot wide open.

Selfish. "...harm the people here..." Monster. "...out of control..."

You're already just like them.

Her eyes were wide, but she did not see the hospital room. She was there physically, but her being had been sucked back into the arena.

...Time's running out!

She never even heard Eluard say that he would leave if she wanted him to. Her inner picture had shattered in a way she could not have fathomed, and the lesson learned in that moment overloaded her mind. Instead of exploding in a lightning sphere, she shuddered, then slumped to the side, eyes still wide open. As the saying went, "the lights were on, but nobody was home."

[Eluard Verlaine]

She slumped down on the floor, making him release her hand mostly due to the awkward position that followed. Her back was to him and whatever she saw in her absence would remain a mystery to Eluard. The threat she posed, however, was quietly gaining ground and it was out of concern for the people within the hospital and duty that Eluard, no, the paranoid information dealer, slowly removed a sedative with a tiny needle from within the lab coat. Making sure it was out of her notice (if she could even notice anything that went on around her at the moment) he stabbed the delicate needle into her neck, hoping in his experience to have not missed the carotid artery but knowing anywhere would have done just as well. Such tranquilizers were for violent, delirious or panic-ridden patients that needed a quick knock out. Right now she was the image of a panic attack and the danger that posed to him and everyone else more than merited the trip to slumber land.

Cautious of her reacting with an electric response to the injection in the second of true consciousness still available to her Eluard had pushed back from her after the initial assault only to return and pick her up from the ground to carry in his arms out of room number six. It was easy to explain her state of unconsciousness to curious minds down the hall and he had worked here long enough to not be questioned when he said he would take care it, in this case the “it” being her at the end of his shift (after the last operation). She had been deposited in an empty patient bed and had about an hour before the sedative would wear off when Eluard took her (this time drawing some raised eyebrows due to her still unconsciousness) and summoned a cab that transported them both to the apartment he kept for such and other forms of circumstances.

It would have been better, for her, to let her wake in the hospital but Eluard would rather risk this situation than leave her reaction for the people there. Thus, the pink haired girl was on the couch, her clothes untouched, save for the police cap being on the table (if the article of clothing had been with her in the hospital), with a thin blue blanket over her. She was in a spacious room bathed in low, orange light. A living room in a fancy apartment. Right beside the couch was a square blue glass table where her cap was along with a bowl of fruit, several stacked newspapers, a support with pens and markers and an assortment of vitamin tubes. The front door was several feet away, right before the couch and on the room’s sides, two other doors were open and leading into various other parts of the apartment. There was a carpet spread on the floor, depicting a sci-fi environment, complete with flying cars in a forest of sharp angled sky-scrapers. There was a larger table with chairs all around by the windows, currently almost completely obscured by dark velvet curtains and the rest of wall space was decked in bookshelves. Inside a space in one of them, an expensive-looking stereo stood quiet.

Sounds were coming from the room to the couch’s left, also the smell of food cooking. It was about time that visitation hours ended at the hospital that the sedative would start wearing off and Lee would awaken to the unfamiliar environment. The front door was unlocked.

((If you don’t like how this turned out let me know and I’ll change it.))

[Leann Lacey]

Treading water was fine, if one's head was above the surface. It was not fun, however, if one was trapped deep within the murky depths. Such was the experience under the influence of the sedative. Lee was awake before she was awake, drowning, but not, within the blurry confusion of the slowly breaking drug-induced slumber. In "normal" circumstances, the feeling of helpless floating would have induced a measure of panic in the girl, but the events that had lead to her sedation had drained far too much of her energy to allow for that. The fatigue impacted the metabolism of the drug, as well, and even when she "awoke", eyes opening just a sliver as she turned onto her side, she remained mostly unaware.

Blurry vision compromised the scene that spread out in front of her. She could make out a table of sorts, with a variety of shapes sitting atop it, immediately in front of her. One of these shapes seemed to be a bowl, another was more familiar, though in her haze she couldn't quite remember why. The others were cylindrical aliens. For a few moments, she simply stared at them and focused, mainly, on breathing. It seemed a difficult task; a touch of relatively unimportant respiratory depression from her sedation. She was mildly aware that there was a blanket on her, and very slight movement of her legs half-informed her brain that she was still wearing shoes.

What was definitely not clear to her was the location. Somewhere in her mental aquatic maneuvers, she recalled that her last memory was that of the hospital. Something... important had taken place there, something that, even in her current state, compelled her to react negatively to the thought of returning. She could not remember the particulars, however. The only hint she had stated that it was because it was dangerous.

"Mmm...."

The noise coincided with a mental admission of defeat. It was too difficult to think and the urge to simply drift off back into slumber was too strong. She rolled back over onto her back, letting her eyes close once again. Even if her slumber was unnatural, it felt so necessary. When was the last time she had slept so deeply?

That sentiment ruined the chance, though. The answer was a simple one: before her awakening. The last time she'd slept normally was before "all of this" began. "All of this"... a new compulsion struck through the grogginess. She didn't know what time it was, but if she was no longer at the hospital, it could only mean that time was a limited resource before she would be summoned back to the place that had become her unhappy home. There was less pressure, though. She still had one day left on her "recovery", unless, of course, the boss changed his mind. Unlike the others trapped beneath the city, she was always expected to be in her "best shape" if an arena appearance was to be warranted. The threads in her head, hidden just past her hairline, still counted as "less than perfect."

But that was why she had to return. To have them removed. So it had been decreed.

"Uh-ugh..."

And so, she tried to force herself to get up. The first attempt was a complete failure, as her muscles simply refused to work. The second time, she managed to move enough to slide a single leg out from under the blanket and over the edge of the couch. On the third attempt, she "reached down deep" and pushed herself into a sitting position. Instantly her world was spinning, and she was forced to clutch at her eyes and hold her breath to fight off the wave of nausea and near-black out that came from her slow-to-react blood vessels and the brief bout of hypotension that occurred. But she felt that she could not linger too long and, with an ill-advised move, she stood up.

And immediately fell back down in a heap, the movement dislodging the placement of the table, causing the objects sitting on top of it to clatter in inanimate upset. Still, she fought on. One hand went to the table, the other to the couch, and with a bit of a grunt, she righted herself once more. She was too unbalanced, though. A single step towards a door - she wasn't sure which - and back to the floor she went. Had she the wherewithal to do so, she would have been awfully embarrassed. After the second fall, though, she determined that... perhaps... a small rest was necessary.

[Eluard Verlaine]

“Noreen, I may not make it tonight, could you remain with Jenny until tomorrow?”

Eluard was phoning his babysitter with the kind of behavior he had promised to keep in check last time. “Again?” He could hear her pout. “Yes. I’m sorry. Something came up. I’ll be sure to compensate you for the trouble.” The twenty year old sighed but smiled faintly on the other end. “Okay. I’ll stay overnight and next time I’m bringing a toothbrush to leave in the bathroom. You make me do this too often!” Her reproach sounded amused. There was a pause on Eluard’s side that made Noreen poke at her cell phone. “Hello?” After another moment, he finally spoke again in a tone that was a little defeated and quiet. “I don’t know what I would do without you. Thank you, Noreen.” The young woman on the other end distanced the phone from herself with wide eyes as if keeping it close would have him hear the blush spreading on her cheeks as well. After another moment she drew it back and replied cheerfully. “No problem! You can always rely on me!”

“Goodnight.”

Eluard had ended the call and Noreen slumped back against the hallway wall. “You can always rely on me?” She facepalmed then groaned and dragged herself back to the kitchen. Gods she was suck a fool. Eluard was probably in the arms of some other woman and yet her two year crush endured. For what felt like the millionth time, the brunette pushed such thoughts aside and put on a smile. It was nearly time to tuck Jenny into bed, but maybe she’d read her a story in the time left. There was something warm but lonely in her eyes. Whatever thoughts they hid didn’t linger when she found the chipper four year old. A chill wind was on the streets today.

In his spare apartment, Eluard was making chicken soup and rice when a strange sound reached him from the other room. Leaving both to boil on, he removed the apron that protected his black shirt from culinary accidents and grabbed the white ball mask that called him White Serpent from the near-by table. After the incident in the hospital, he felt like he shouldn’t be the person that had triggered her terror there but the one she had managed a normal conversation with in MV’s dome. Another sound came from the living room and this time it was the clear thud of something falling to the ground. Eluard put on his mask, took a breath and walked into the room.

A sedative hungover Leann was on his sci-fi pattern carpet. He did not approach her immediately, instead giving her space for the moment. “You’re awake,” he observed, his blue eyes lucid with caution but tone pleasant. “Please don’t be frightened. I will explain everything if you allow me the chance.” He swept a gaze around the room. “You’re safe here and I promise that, in the end, everything will be alright.”

The information dealer was readying for a possible return of panic but felt comforted by thinking about the weakened state she must be in due to the tranquilizer. Whatever emotions or physical manifestations she could have couldn’t possibly replicate what had happened in the hospital. At least, not right now.

[Leann Lacey]

Frightened?

When Eluard came into the room and spoke to her, "stupid" would have been a much more appropriate term to describe her presentation. She looked "stupid" and she felt "stupid", regardless of what her actual intelligence might have been. As Eluard spoke, Lee simply looked at him, her eyes mostly blank and her mouth slightly open, as she was quite slack-jawed. He'd said she was "safe" and that he would "explain everything" and that "everything would be alright"... but she only partially heard those words. "Safe" was an easy enough word, though she'd already accepted that her body couldn't function enough to give a damn about safety. "Explain" would have been intriguing, she thought, if she could capture what it was that was to be explained.

The last part was tricky. "Everything would be alright?" How could that be? She wondered at what sort of power this vaguely familiar masked man could have that could prompt such a ridiculous promise. She managed a bit of a smile at first... and then it turned into a frown. No one could promise that... to anyone... no matter what the situation. Why would he say such a thing?

"Mwa-mmm, nnngh?"

Unfortunately, she found that her mouth, like her other muscles, was unable to function properly. She couldn't even offer a question. Thus, she was stuck - no words, no actions. In such a state, an attempt at lightning didn't even cross her compromised mind. She managed a rather confused and somewhat irritated look... and gave a sigh. She had nothing else to give; she was at his mercy.

[Eluard Verlaine]

Everything would be alright not because of some grandiose role he would play in making it so, but because time allowed for it eventually. There was no personal tragedy that could endure at full force forever, not when you wouldn’t be out alone on the streets and friendless and Eluard would make sure Lee was neither. He would do his best to find all the mutants that life and circumstance discarded and grant them a place and a purpose (if they didn’t immediately find one for themselves).

Leann’s presentation was to be expected. It was quite clear that she had struggled up prematurely. “Allow me to help you back to the couch. You’ll feel better lying down.” Eluard walked up to her and would scoop her up like he had done in the hospital, only this time she was conscious and could indicate against it, to which he would leave her to the spot on the floor. If he was permitted to take her to the couch he would do so. The pillow she had woken up on previously was quite fluffy and cool and ultimately comfortable. Eluard actually longed to lie down himself. It had been a long and stressful day.

With a brief close of his eyes and an avoided sigh, he took a chair from the table by the window and brought it over to sit near her. He was aware that her attention wasn’t the sharpest at the moment and wouldn’t be surprised if she succumbed to more sleep but true to his word, he started explaining.

“My name is Eluard and you’re currently in my home.” Or second home, as it were. His true home was where a tired Noreen would be acquiescing to read five different stories for Jenny before she went to bed and no one would ever know of it easily. “I’m the leader of an organization that offers support and housing to mutants and thus, by default, wish to be your friend.” He leant in slightly, placing his chin on hands brought together. “There’s nothing I would force you to do and should you choose to live in or visit the hideout where others like you currently reside without the state’s notice, you would be free to come and go as you please.”

Eluard paused, looked over to the kitchen and raised a hand. “One moment, please.” He got up and disappeared into the room to the left, added more ingredients and water to the soup and churned the rice before picking up a cooling tea from the sink. Jasmine and Gynostemma tea. When he returned, it was with two cups of mildly warm tea. He placed one of them on the table where it could easily be reached from the couch and kept the other for himself as he sat back down. “Have some tea when you desire.”

He took a sip of his own cup. “As I was saying, you are not alone, not truly. There is a place where you can come and where you could find others to understand.” He glanced to the curtained windows. “Perhaps better than I can.” And if he was talking about her torture in MV’s arena, her pain for losing her mother, or anything else that applied it wouldn’t be clear.

“I don’t know who ties you to return to the underground dome, but it will not matter soon.” There was a pause during which Eluard’s tone gained a queer edge of finality. “Because the place will not exist for much longer.”

[Leann Lacey]

The best Lee could do, with regards to Eluard's offer to assist her back to the couch, was a simple nod of acceptance. She had no resistance to offer; there was no fight in her. Under the lingering effects of the sedative, she was simply a doll; a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her only show of individuality was to try - and shakily succeed - in remaining upright and sitting once she was deposited back on the couch. Though her weakness forced her to lean back deeply into the cushions, her position was quite similar to the posture she would later display for Kaien - knees together and her lower legs forming a triangle with the floor. Her arms remained limp at her sides, however.

She watched Eluard as he retrieved a chair, her eyes following without any assistance from her head or neck. She did not utter a sound and her breathing was slow. She felt like a toy robot whose batteries were dangerously low.

The introduction came and went without much of reaction from the pink-haired girl. The explanation came next, and an offer of "friendship." The beginning spiel ended with an oddly placed interruption, and when he disappeared she was, momentarily, left to her own devices, malfunctioning though they were. She wondered at the name, at the mask, at the "organization" described. She wondered at the term "mutant", and internally frowned because, to her, it didn't sound much better than the "monster" term she had been using to describe herself.

His return included cups and it was only on their appearance that she recognized how parched her throat was. Still, the cup on the table, with its faint veil of steam rising into the air, was, for the moment, little more than a tease. It was an unintentional torture, established because she simply did not trust herself to try and reach for it, given her condition. Her host sipped his and... it made her heart a little sad. She'd get over it, however. When the "ultimatum" came, she seemed to react slightly - a little inward gasp of air, because the thought of the end of the arena inevitably meant the end of other things.

But the piecemeal memories from the hospital, and her self-labeling of "selfishly dangerous", tempered her feelings a bit. It took her a minute or so, but eventually Lee managed to push her upper half forward. Her posture became slouched, her forearms resting on her knees to provide much needed support. Her head was bowed, her expression a mild bit of sadness, and her eyes were focused only on the cup of tea. Another beat passed, and she slowly extended a trembling hand. It reached out towards the tea... but she withdrew it before even touching the cup. She huffed, the sound a combination of the need for air and of the complete frustration associated with, quite generally, everything in her life at that moment, including the information Eluard had just shared with her.

She tried again. The hand extended. This time, her index finger made contact with the lip of the cup before she once again withdrew it. She was made of hesitation. A third trial came, and this time she managed to be brave enough to close her hand around the cup. Unfortunately, she found that the cup might as well have been Mjolnir - she could not successfully lift it. Instead, the weakness associated with her attempt managed to only tip the cup and, before complete disaster could come to pass, she relinquished the attempt and withdrew back into herself, her arms folding across her middle in a light self-hug. The attempt had disrupted the cup enough that its contents sloshed about, a measure of the liquid escaping to tarnish Eluard's table.

She closed her eyes.

"S-sorry... ...Mm... useless."

Lee had not yet responded to what Eluard had said. She couldn't. She didn't know how. The only possibilities that presented in her mind were clear only in the fact that they all spelled "the end."

[Eluard Verlaine]

Sharing such information with her was a huge risk and it wasn’t just once that Eluard had considered against it. Although she didn’t know it, she was the first person to have been given concrete display that the information dealer often referred to as White Serpent was in fact a surgeon at the local hospital named Eluard. The fact that she could single-handedly ruin what he had spent so much time trying to build with a misplaced mention worried him and he would stress the importance of keeping his double identify secret but later. Right now, he did notice how strongly the sedative was still influencing her and the “tragedy” of spilled tea would not have happened for he rested his own cup on the table and steadied the one she let go of just before tipping its contents onto the table. A few drops strayed from the cup but the rest was safe.

“It’s alright,” he reassured her, this time with a smile that could have been sensed in his tone. With the cup in hand he came to sit beside her on the couch. Technically, it was his fault that she was now in this state and he was taking responsibility for it. The only thing he didn’t intend to dwell on was why it had happened. “Here.” He lifted the cup to her lips and would carefully help her satisfy her thirst, ready to lower the cup when she indicated, however faintly.

“I feel I should apologize. I brought you here without your explicit permission.” The look in his eyes was cautious in its slight remorsefulness. There was a pause and a definite return of the cup to the table before Eluard closed his eyes and undid the knot that secured the mask to his face, effectively removing it. The information dealer returned to his seat on the chair.

“You can remain here for the night if you wish. There’s a guest room you can have, fully equipped with bath robe and plain fresh nigh clothes. Also, toothbrushes.” Eluard took a sip of his tea, for a moment privately aware of how thorough his planning for having guests was. Noreen wasn’t mistaken, sometimes he did come “home” with company from the club and it was painfully obvious how separate he wanted to keep said company from his life. Seeing one of these chance women wake up to walk around in one of his shirts, snatched up because she had no alternative, wasn’t something he welcomed. Thus, unisex loose-fitting white PJs were provided.

“If you would prefer to return home, however, I could drive you as soon as you regain more of your strength.” Eluard took a look in the kitchen’s direction. “I hope you don’t have disagreements with soup and riceballs. They’ll probably be done in another hour.”

[Leann Lacey]

Much of the situation should have been alarming to her, but Leann found that it was awfully difficult for one to become "excited" when one felt so ridiculously lethargic. So, since all other options seemed so out of reach, she simply cooperated. Accepting Eluard's help with the tea was easy, even if it made her feel like a child, because it fulfilled a definite need. She'd known she was thirsty once the tea had first been presented, but she did not know how parched she really was. Thus, three-quarters of the cup was consumed before she pulled away and let Eluard put it back on the table. It was a little embarrassing.

Eluard's apology was met with a brief shaking of her head, as if to indicate that there was no need for it. Perhaps she recognized that it was a necessary action. Perhaps she was just used to having things done to or with her without permission being needed. Perhaps she was just being polite. Whatever the reason, her movement stopped when he removed his mask, her eyes widening slightly. But instead of truly reacting to the dots that had just been connected, she bowed her head. There were two many things to try and consider, and her brain was much too sluggish to deal with it at that moment.

The offer to remain there the night finally prompted words from the girl.

"I can't. I can't stay or go home. I gotta go back. E-even... if you say it ain't gonna be there much longer... I don't have a choice. Y-you... already knew that, though, right?" She frowned, though she didn't raise her head. "Why... are ya tellin' me this stuff? It... it doesn't matter if... if what yer sayin' is true. If it ends, it ends. I'll end, too. Bein'... nice is just... bein' cruel."

She had not directed any comments to his mention of food, in part because she had not had a realization of hunger and in part because she couldn't know when her phone would go off, indicating that it was time to return underground. Accepting, then leaving in the middle of dinner was rude, after all. Why this thought occurred to her was anybody's guess, since it seemed rather out of place, especially given what she'd just said. But manners were considered, nonetheless. Perhaps the "nice" from the formerly masked one had had some kind of beneficial impact. Still, her spirit remained quite low. Her existence was tied to the arena; her reason for living was that which was effectively lifeless and in the hospital. She had no room for thoughts of a future beyond it, and that was why she'd said that when "it" ended, she, too, would end.

"If it's all gonna end anyway... ya prolly shoulda just put me ta sleep completely. ...Right? Part of the reason ya brought me here is... is cuz I'm dangerous, so... wouldn't it have just been easier to..."

She didn't finish the sentence. Even if death was all she could really see, she didn't want to die. She did, however, think it was inevitable. Such was the way of the arena.

[Eluard Verlaine]

When her shock didn’t evolve into another, albeit probably quieter, fit of panic, Eluard released a breath he hadn’t quite noticed he had been holding. A new sip of tea solidified his growing calm. He was being very formal and careful with her, an approach he often reserved to business in the underground. After the little stunt in the hospital he was glad to still be in one un-burnt piece. It was hard to deal with people under a lot of mental and physical stress, especially if their instability could blow you up. There was a certain form of tension that never left him, not even right now, when all seemed calm across their little interaction lake. Had he ever been quite so unpredictable and difficult to handle when his own life had descended into emotional shock?

His inner thought-pattern was distracted by her words. A flash of recognition made him avert his gaze and he avoided answering by taking a new taste of the tea. Yes, he had thought that maybe she would need to go to the underground dome and her rationalization of his niceness translating into cruelty left him briefly thoughtful. It wasn’t until she suggested what she did that his sharply blue eyes returned to her and he once more abandoned the almost finished cup of tea on the table.

He sat forward in his chair and watched her with some intensity. “Are you so eager to die?” An uncomfortable bit of silence ensued and after it Eluard leant back in his seat and gathered his more neutral approach back up. One of his feet, covered in black socks, came to rest atop his opposite knee. “Why is it “the end”? The end of what?” Eluard tilted his head, keenly trying to tap into the meaning of the girl’s fatalism. He had lost loved ones as well and yes, perhaps for a short time after his wife had died he had thought to join her, but even so, he couldn’t completely connect to Lee’s attitude.

“Is it the end because you don’t know where to go from here?” The blond man’s gaze went to an invisible spot within the room. “Or is it the end because you don’t want to go anywhere with the person you’ve become?” The apartment was so quiet the boiling of rice and soup in the kitchen could be clearly heard from their position.

[Leann Lacey]

The first question seemed to physically strike her. She winced at it, and closed her eyes. Was she so eager to die? The short answer to this was "no", but Lee found that she knew no qualifiers to it. She could find rationalizations as to why she should die - the inherent danger she represented with her power, the suffering she had caused regardless of the fact that those actions were forced, and the damning idea that death would unquestionably be easier than continuing the struggle - but she could not find any verbal defense to offer in argument of her continued existence. She could simply say it; defend it selfishly in stating that no one wanted to die, but she did not. She had already been made aware of how selfish she was earlier that day, and the lingering regret kept her lips sealed.

So she did not answer Eluard's first question, immediately. His other questions were different versions of the same question and her prior silence compelled her to try and form a response.

"I'd... go on. If I could. But how can I? The end... is the end. If I don't... do what I'm told, it's the end of her, which'll be the end of me. If I fail, then... I'm already lost, but you've seen that down there already. If you make the arena go away... then doesn't it do the same thing? If I'm there, don't you kill me, too, anyway? Or... or are you able to be magically selective in making it disappear? ...It doesn't matter. He'll sever the connection if there's a threat and she'll..." Her eyes shut even tighter, and her fists clenched. "And I don't care what you doctors say! If I can make it so she keeps breathing there's a chance! So I have to try. I have to, until I'm dead... cuz... I don't have another option. I'm the one that destroyed the boat. It's my fault. ...I can't be forgiven... if she... never wakes up..."