Ilya (foundapurpose) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-02-17 23:31:00 |
|
|||
Don't be in a hurry to reach your ghosts. That was what he said, when he first sat down next to Euphie's hospital bed. Sol thought she looked so small and young like this, vulnerable, like when they'd met all those years ago. She threaded into his life when he was half-raising his sisters, and there was Euphie, sensitive and anxious and always triggering his protective instincts. Sol was in HQ when the explosion happened, the world rocking around them, and he couldn't help but imagine the scenarios when he was on the tenth floor instead. He could have seen her, maybe distracted her, she wouldn't be on the floor. The bomb never happened, it was found before. All kinds of fantasies where their delusion of safety wasn't blown to pieces. He focused on the people he could. He waited and watched and worried. Sol sat in the chair nearby for some time, but she looked so frail. He moved to sit on the bed next to her instead, needing that small amount of connection between them, a reminder that she was breathing and real. Not a shade of herself. Not yet. His Slingers. His heart bled for them, broke for them. His hand touched her leg, a warm imprint, all he would give himself for now, and he stared off into oblivion. No longer caught in illusions, but in realities. There are more ghosts to be haunted by now. So many, marching from Pluto and back, from each planet they began gathering around the HQs; whitewashed hands reaching upwards for the director: scream, scream, scream. Through the fire, the explosions, the breakout. The Sol was rearranging, already the Mars parliament was debating. Arguing uselessly. This world she had once wanted to help, there was ash beneath her feet and ghosts by her side. In the end it was a path she had to walk alone. The touch was grounding, she made a little sound of recognition but didn't move. It all hurt too much, and she didn't want to face physical pain on top of everything else. She didn't want to be awake. There were so many things she didn't want to think about, so Euphemia chose to sleep(a faux choice given the drugs administered). The sound drew his attention back to her, and Sol resisted the urge to wake her. She needed her rest. Maybe what he wanted to do was shake her awake, to see her eyes lucid and aware, to watch that half smile of hers grow. The future was uncertain now. There were enemies lurking behind every corner. They'd been so sure that the HQ was too well guarded, too untouchable, and now they learned from that folly. He reached out to brush her hair out of her face, trailing fingertips along her cheek lovingly, and he sighed. "What am I going to do with you, Euphemia?" His words were soft, his baritone a rumble. "What's the use in being strong and well trained if in the end there's nothing I can do to protect the people I love?" The question more a haunted thought for himself. He trained as if he thought there was a chance he'd be able to save them all. Her fingers touch his thigh, the closest she can return the affection without moving much, eyes fluttering open. She is frightened for a moment - had Death come back? — but it is just Sol. Wonderful, caring, dangerous Sol; sitting on her bed, all warmth and comfort, his self doubts like cobwebs illuminated by the morning sun. "Fight." Uttered so quietly it was easily lost beneath the beeping of the machine nearby, the conversation of the nurses outside. Sol's smile was instant, and he hoped the relief in his eyes masked the sting of tears he was holding back. What was going on around them was escalating. He was faced with the reality of a grim future, and it wasn't being surrounded by a med lab that made him so fatalistic. Sol was a man of duality, one with sunshine in his face and moonlight in his veins. "It figures you'd wake up just in time to tell me what to do." He touched her hand, being careful not to stir her too much while she was still healing, there is an apology in the look she gives(this was not supposed to happen). "We can't fight what we can't see." These people, so good at getting around them. Sol would become a shadow of himself to find them, if he needed to. There is gravel in her voice, dust in her eyes. "Gods never stay hidden. They can't." Euphie wonders if shadows can kill gods, slipping beneath their sheets with guns and knives. Her free hand is tugging at the cables, a failed attempt to sit up; she is tired(from her soul, to her heart and bones). Fights are seldom won when in this state, she lets her body have its way and remain still. "You'll see." "No," Sol said firmly when she tried to sit, just a single touch of his fingers to her shoulder. Stay. Her body needed it. It was broken and mending. She was small in that bed, he could swoop her up with one arm if he needed to. The no was to that, but it could be to either. "They're not gods. They're cowards. And cowards know how to hide." It was a good way to survive, but it made hunting more difficult. They were only so many fox holes they could overturn until it was done. He was supposed to be the positive one. "They'll pay for it. No one gets to hurt one of my sisters and get away with it." Sol smiled, a sad hue, and touched her cheek with the back of two fingers. A flicker of apprehension erased by his touch; Euphie did not agree, she didn't think anyone involved in this was a coward, they were marble weathered by Pluto's climate, chipped away until they found an escape. "I know you will, but," she tilted to trap his touch between cheek and shoulder. "Sol, we put them there. Months, years." Her agitation grew with each word, because she had been there on Pluto — they had put them there and forgot, assumed they were locked for good. "What went on there we don't know, we didn't see. I didn't see until it was too late." Sol nodded. "It crossed my mind too. You put brilliant minds together in prison, all of them simmering with nothing but time on their hands." If that was true, this could all be connected, and that meant they were ten steps behind. They were becoming the hunted. It wasn't a very nice thought. He shook his head and brought her hand to his mouth, kissing the knuckles affectionately. She turned her hand in his, brushing his cheek. "But we will figure all of that out, Euphie. You need to rest for now, regain your strength. You couldn't see because we all were blind." She didn't want Sol to walk into the shadows on his own, they were family. "We will, together, Sol. You don't have to protect me." She thought of Tag's warm words, Jude's steady company, Winston's fingers tangled in her own, of Sol — sitting next to her, a shield against whatever waited outside this room. "Of course I do." But he failed her this time, and he failed her in Pluto, and Pluto before that, and the years before when she became broken beyond real repair. Euphie was as a fragile as a hummingbird's wings, but she stood still even less than they did. "That's what we do for the people we love. Whatever it takes. Don't pretend you're not the same way." Not lying there with the scars of her sacrifices on her mind and body. Things she seldom thought about until these moments: tying herself to the Sling, Killian's words(he had stayed off Kamikaze, should she have to?). "I won't." Her fingers cool against his cheek, thumb tracing a circular pattern, "But that is why we should do this together, whatever you're thinking of doing — don't go alone. Even if you won't take me." Euphie was scared for Sol — that stepping down into this path — would lead him astray into a place no one could reach him. "Please." He wondered if he was that transparent to her, but maybe he was. They saw through each other better than most. Her ghosts and his shadows. Sol worked hard so that when people spoke of him, they mentioned his smile, the book club, his cooking, things that someone could like being said of them. They didn't know what could lurk behind a smile(broken things call for their kind; shadows and ghosts belonged together). "I won't. I wouldn't dare risk your wrath when I got back." But it did have a neatness to it. No one else risked. No one to witness. "Very wise of you." She cleared her throat, sat up a little despite protests from her body — she drew from his darkness strength, the will Sol had to do what was necessary; a shared trait, though more latent in Euphemia's case. And her eyes were still affectionate, even if her smile tensed(when she accepted captaincy of the Sling, she broke something. Each step from now on was irreversible, her fingers tightened in his). Her sanity, her bones and soul were hers to break. "Are you sure, Sol?" "Don't push yourself." He protested when she started to sit up. Sol winced at her pains as if they were his own. "Neither of us can fight our demons if you don't heal." She was as vital to him as an organ he couldn't live without. "I'll be more sure if you rest, alright?" And those words were an effective lock, further struggles put aside in favour of them. "Just don't go anywhere alone," the words laced with emotion that wrapped its hands around her throat, "Wherever you're planning to go." Don't leave me behind. |