Who: Wren and Hal What: Hospital visit and arrangements to move in with newly!wealthy Tristan Where: Off-the-grid hospital When: A couple of days after the Reavers Warnings: None
To say Wren had been angry when she’d left Hamartia after talking to Charlie understatement. It was something like the last straw that broke the camel’s back. She’d walked to the not-hospital the first time, and she hadn’t gone in, choosing to wait to hear from Dot. She walked there the second time, too, and this time she made it as far as the door, but she didn’t go in then, either.
And then the Reavers had come. Throughout it, she’d known Hal would be okay, out of the way like he was, outside the city limits where the Reavers hadn’t touched.
Now, Monday, she’d gotten Tristan settled in Aubade, and she’d left him to go and pick up some of her things (including Petti), intending to call Kyle for help with carrying. But she’d ended up giving the cab driver another address instead.
She was tired, still not sleeping like she’d been before the kidnapping and not having slept well at all the past week, and there were bruises visible beneath her eyes that she hadn’t bothered to hide with makeup when she grabbed her keys. She’d slipped a red swingcoat on over a knee high, white sundress over a long sleeved, thin tee and red-polka-dotted stockings on before going to Tristan, and she didn’t change before heading out to the not-hospital that Oracle thought was such bad news.
There were three people inside, and they looked medical, so she approached them and asked, in French, to see Hal Savoie.
Hal had spent the apocalypse bored out of his mind. Fortunately, he spent much of the time sleeping, and since he wasn’t yet able to move and still on a steady diet of painkillers and antibiotics to fight infection, the rest of the time he spent staring at the ceiling and contemplating things he usually did a good job of ignoring. The makeshift hospital didn’t even have a television in the room, and though Charlie was a continuous presence, he was about as communicative as a ghost and sometimes drifted in and out to check the perimeter. Hal wasn’t even able to do that, and there wasn’t a window he could see out of, so he literally just... lay there, listening to the handheld radio.
Though he wouldn’t have been offended if the doc had gotten the hell out of there, the man stayed with Charlie as a capable defense, and his assistants returned only a couple days later. By this time Hal had informed him of the two people who knew his location, and the people who intercepted Wren gave way after identifying her and directing her down a hallway. Hal happened to be awake at the time, and strange voices was enough of a change that all of his attention was focused on the door, hoping someone would come through it.
Wren, who was generally calm and understanding, looked anything but as she walked into the space that was Hal’s quasi prison. Her cheeks were as flushed as the coat was red, because she had been remembering all the reasons she was upset as her identity was verified and she was led back. Additionally, she had spent an entire day reassuring everyone else, when she didn’t feel reassured about anything at all. What resulted, was what Hal (as an aficionado of women) would recognize as a maelstrom, standing at the foot of his bed, ready to rain down upon the man beneath the blankets. “You’re not going to die?” she asked in soft, accented French that belied the thunderous expression on her face.
Hal was so relieved to see someone who would talk to him that he beamed at her, and you wouldn’t know he was ill except that he was sitting upright in bed, which was not a natural position for him. “Bonjour, cher! ...Or is it nighttime?” He glanced at a bare wall where a window should be, as if it might tell him the answer. He didn’t particularly care too much what Wren’s mood was, as long as she was going to be there and pay attention to him.
“It’s nighttime,” she said, stepping out of her snow boots and climbing onto the end of his hospital bed with a sort of feminine entitlement that came from not thinking about her actions, at least not around men like Hal. She slipped off the coat, too, letting it fall behind her on the bed, and she crossed her legs in front of her. She looked at him for a minute, a long and quiet look. “You almost died,” she said, accusingly. “I don’t hear from you for months, and when I do, it’s because you might be dead and a working girl is calling to tell me so.” For Wren, who didn’t generally make demands, it was a fairly weighted couple of sentences.
Hal watched with interest, though not particularly predatory or admiring, just watching, because God, at least she wasn’t a blank wall. He opened his mouth to ask something vague about how it was out there, but she was already talking, so he subsided to listen. “Ah well,” he said, soothingly, “I was real busy dere for a while, cher. You know how it goes.” His eyes narrowed a little in puzzlement. “I don’t t’ink Dot is a workin’ girl, now you mention it.”
“No, Hal,” she said, with a sort of newfound certainty that came from finally having friends and seeing how they treated one another. “Being real busy, it isn’t a good enough excuse. Just because we don’t sleep together anymore, it doesn’t mean I stop mattering.” She looked a little surprised to hear that coming from her own mouth. Maybe more than a little, but she didn’t make any move to take back what she’d said.
He looked surprised at this accusation. “You matter.” He blinked as if this was not fair, and then he frowned at her. (For the record, he was still bright-eyed, enjoying the attention even if it was a frank argument, a shifting of accusations back and forth. He’d never had one of those with Wren.) “You want me to call you when Ah’m workin’?” he asked her, smiling with an infuriating touch of condescension. “When yore workin’?”
Being angry, worked up, it wasn’t a standard thing for Wren, and so she wasn’t very good at controlling it. It was like years worth of built up anger had finally bubbled to the surface, and now that it was there, she had no idea how to shove it all back down. For someone who was distant when it came to everything not-sexual, it was a marked change. She crawled forward, hands on either side of his thighs, not touching him, but looking him in the eyes, motivated by that condescending little smile. “If you care about someone, you check on them, you talk to them, you’re there when someone kidnaps them for days, you notice they’re missing, and you help them after, and you don’t get almost killed and have that be the first thing they hear about you in months.” Her eyes shone with emotion and anger, and she looked down, as if trying to find out where he’d been shot.
Hal and Wren had been physical quite a lot. He was generally comfortable with her presence, and in most situations such a move would be blatantly sexual, but not this time. This time he had this sudden urge to run away, not that he could move at all. He drew back a little into the pillow away from her and looked down at her from the corner of his eyes. All the condescension died entirely. “What you talkin’ ‘bout? Missing?”
She sighed, a little huff of air, and she stayed there a second, quietly watching him draw away and barely look at her. “That’s what I mean,” she said, sitting back. “Charlie didn’t notice either,” she added, crossing her legs again and sounding hurt. “You can’t go back to Hamartia, not after what happened, and the first floor apartments are the worse. I’m staying in Aubade, and you can come with me. Charlie too. You’ll need looking after,” she said simply.
“We didn’t notice... you got hurt?” He looked her over for injury, wondering if it was somewhere he couldn’t see. He realized that thought made her angry, more angry than he’d been in several days, and it was refreshing. It was hard to sit there and not feel anything but physical pain. He made a face. “Aubade. De rich joint. Not likely.”
“You didn’t notice, because neither of you have talked to me in months, even when I tried,” she said, and she didn’t say what had happened, didn’t go into it, because she was afraid she’d start yelling and not stop. There was hurt in her eyes, but anger too, and concern, to top it all off. “My friend, his name is Tris, he’s from Hamartia, too. Someone died, and he was left this big apartment in Aubade, and he doesn’t want to be there alone. I told him you were coming, and you aren’t going to say no, Hal.” She sounded grown up, determined, and her eyes were deep, threatening him to argue with her.
He couldn’t think of Wren hurt and by herself. Just because he didn’t pine for the woman didn’t mean he didn’t care about her, and she was wrong to think it, but he was not the kind of man to follow up on his “I-wonder-if” moments. He was also too proud to defend himself, even if he would have tried to make it up to her if he could move. He suspected she knew he couldn’t move and she was using it against him. “Why you tell him somet’ing like dat,” he demanded. Angrily, guilty.
“Because Hamartia is a wreck, and because you’re going to need someone to look after you, Hal,” she said. “Charlie’s a guilty mess, blaming himself for what happened to you, and he shouldn’t be alone. Neither should Tris, and none of us fit in there, so we’re all going to be there together.” She paused, looked him square in the eyes, none of the coquette there. She’d grown up since he’d seen her, and there was no doubt about that. “I don’t want to be alone either. We’re going.”
Hal looked away at the mention of Charlie. He didn’t want to talk about him and his guilt. They hadn’t talked about what happened, either, but Hal was no fool, and he figured there wasn’t going to be any more bullets coming out of that particular bastard’s gun. “Well guess I can’t run away, den, can I?” he said, sharply, not really to hurt but more to communicate how unhappy he was just fucking lying there day in and out.
She took that as agreement, and she watched him, noticed how miserable he looked. And then she moved forward again, and she tugged at the blanket covering him. “Who was it? And where did they get you?” she asked, crawling over to him and touching lightly against the hospital robe, trying to find the bandaging that would indicate the location of the wound. “Do you keep in touch with anyone other than Charlie?” she asked, touching.
He gave away the location immediately by bringing his hand across his stomach to protect his left side from her and fending her off a little bit with his right elbow. “Give me some air, cher. Ah’m fine.” He’s testy, and while he wanted attention he didn’t want her clucking over how ineffectual he was. “Non, it’s just Charlie. Why, you want me to be callin’ someone?”
She pushed his elbow aside with her free hand, sitting back as she did it, kneeling at his side now. She tugged his hand away from his side more gently, or she tried to. “Let me see,” she said, voice firm, but back to her normal softness. “I was just wondering why you don’t want to care about anyone,” she asked bluntly.
“I care about people,” he said angrily, but it was a harmless anger. He wouldn’t let her, and he was starting to flinch with the effort of keeping the blanket up and pushing her hands away. “Stop dat.”
She stopped her hands, but she didn’t move away. “Then why don’t you keep in touch with anyone?”
“Like who?” He still put both palms over his side--not quite touching, too sore for that, but over it just in case she started worrying at him again. He was perhaps a shade paler, but otherwise fine. He took the opportunity of the nearness to try to find more signs of ill health.
She was thinner, and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes where there hadn’t been before, but everything else - everyone on the outside - had healed. “Anyone you’ve ever known that isn’t Charlie,” she said plainly, and she tugged her hair forward at the examination, covering old scars.
He didn’t answer, distracted in his search, and some of the defensive anger abated as his concentration shifted. He pushed at her hair to see what she was concealing, and tried to judge if she was actually thinner or if it was just his imagination. “What happen, cher? You hurt? Tell me.”
“You have to tell me, if I tell you,” she said, eyes intense as she searched his face.
“Can’t if I don’t know. Charlie is who I know. Nobody else gon’ be interested in my business.” Shortly, lowering his chin firmly. “Now tell me what you hurt.”
“No, I don’t mean who. I mean what,” she clarified, hand reaching to touch the place he was shielding. “How dangerous was it? How bad? How almost didn’t you make it?” She was still looking at his face, despite the way he lowered his chin. “Were you scared?”
Hal paused, reluctant, then avoided her eyes to answer. “Was... mebbe too dangerous. I pick de jobs, not Charlie. Me.” He chewed on that a moment, jaw working, and then he nodded shortly. He nodded, but he still said, “Non, ‘course not.”
It was that last bit of honesty that made her expression soften, and she moved forward and lay down beside him, against his good side. She was definitely thinner, but she was warm, and she looked up at his face. “You’re not allowed to get killed,” she told him, and it was an order, despite the softness. “Even if I am mad at you.”
His good side meant she wasn’t concerned so much with his bad side, and that pleased him. He put an arm around her, an arm that was still strong, at least, even if he was not, so much. “Well, when you say it like dat, it might be scary some,” he teased. “I don’t like it when you mad at me.”
“Beau,” she said earnestly. “I don’t expect you to love me, and I don’t expect you to want me, but I do expect you to be a good friend. I didn’t know what that was before, but now I do, and it matters,” she said, and though it was quiet, it was a sure thing. “I deserve that, and I’m not going to do whatever it is you’re scared of, whatever it is that makes you leave people behind,” she promised, because she thought there had to be something.
Hal took his arm back and settled back into his pillows. He could look at her next to him without too much strain, though eventually it would give him a crick in his neck. “I’m ‘round if you need me, cher, but I’m not psychic. If you don’ tell me somet’in’ wrong wit’ you, how do I know?” He dropped his head and stretched his fingers for no reason except to do something with his hands. “I’m not de kinda friend dat’s gonna be callin’ you and ask how yo’ day was.”
“Then how do you know what’s going on in your friends’ lives? How do you know if they’re happy or sad or everything in between?” she asked, tugging his hand back.
“If it’s somet’ing I can help with, dey call me,” he said, seriously, shrugging. He let her appropriate the hand again without struggle, but it didn’t have the warmth from before.
She pushed herself up on the bed a little, and she looked down at him seriously. “What happened?” And she didn’t meant the gunshot. She meant to make him detached. For her, it had been the fact that she had never known friends, hadn’t ever had anyone but a long-dead mother. She didn’t think that was the case with him.
“Just a job,” Hal said, casually misinterpreting. “Dey go wrong sometime. It not Charlie’s fault. You should be sayin’ dat to him.”
“No, to make you not want to be close to anyone,” she clarified, undeterred.
Hal looked at her closely. “Well, because then one of dese days Ah’m not gonna get here to a hospital in time, am I?”
“None of have that guarantee, beau, no matter how safe we are or what we do. You could care for someone that does nothing dangerous at all, and you could lose them,” she said, brushing hair off his temple gently. “I’m scared of that, too. With you, with my friends, and I used to think it was better to just not care.” She shook her head slowly. “It isn’t Hal.”
Hal’s eyes stared low without blinking. “You lecturin’ me about the people close to me, Wren?” It was a warning, but not one that promised threat of danger. It was a different kind of threat, and it said unequivocally that Hal didn’t want to be lectured.
She tipped her head, and she acknowledged the warning, and she was quiet-still for a moment. “I’m saying that I’m not letting you get away with it, not with me,” she assured him, and she climbed off the bed and looked at him a moment, longer, hands clasped behind her back, expression open and honest.
“Well Ah’m not goin’ anywhere real soon,” he said grumpily, shifting a little deeper in the pillows to try to take the strain off his hip and side. “And there ain’t a damn t’ing to do in dis place.”
“I’ll see when you can leave. Maybe a nurse can come, since you’ll be somewhere nicer,” she said, because moving to Aubade wasn’t a choice for Hal. She leaned over him, and she kissed his cheek, and she straightened. “When we get you home, we can talk about what happened to me without you trying to not have the conversation,” she told him, and somewhere between the door and the bed, he’d become something she needed to fix. “I’ll let Charlie know to move things,” she added, walking out the door.