Welcome to Gaia! ::

The door whined open with a hesitation that mirrored Bia's own. The two steps that the girl took- those two, single steps that brought her from the hallway to the interior of her superior's office- were the most poignant and devastating steps she'd ever taken. She couldn't help but think in such grand terms. Not when she was about to say what she was about to say.

Bia closed the door behind her- softly, as if to quiet the whine... then stood against it- blocking her own exit- and hopefully, strengthening her resolve.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Dr. Lockheart." Her words- as always, were well chosen- and few. "But there's a matter I think... I need to discuss with you."

It took a fair amount of the girl's willpower not to look back at the door once she'd stepped out nearer to the seat opposite the tired Aubrey. Bia sat, her legs uncrossed and her hands flat against her thighs. She looked at her hands, then- small, human hands... and before her mind could seize on the doubt that was being born in her mind, she tucked them between her legs, hiding them in the warm sandwich of her thighs.

Her words did not directly follow Aubrey's- but instead, came after a sizeable pause in which she watched the woman type, wondering whether she should have come at a better time. She seemed to look... tired. Occupied. Which wasn't surprising, considering the buzz about the labs that day.

"I would like..." the words eventually came. She knew there would be no better time than now, when her resolve was as gathered as it could possibly be, "...to be injected with a serum."

Bia took a deep, steadying breath- and was unhappy when it became suddenly ragged. "I think it's best for me if I become a subject."

A part of her had hoped for an immediate judgement: either an ultimate, damning 'no'- or an ethused yes and subsequent injection without hesitation. But then- Bia realized that she'd come to Dr. Lockheart, rather than any of the others- for a reason. Because there was truly only one person she expected to be able to understand. She had known, since the thought had entered her mind some weeks before- that she would have to explain herself. ...Perhaps even plea. An idea which terrified her.

"It's been a very long time since I came here, Dr." She was unused to having to say so much at once, and so, her words came slowly, at first. "And... I can't pretend that I would have come here in the beginning if I'd known what I was going to be doing. But that's... not what's on my mind. It's..." she struggled with a way to explain, and fell silent more than once, frustrated with herself for being unable to articulate how she felt. Finally, she just shook her head and looked down into her lap- and let an embarassing stream of consciousness slip from her lips- quietly, heavily- into the waiting air.

"In the beginning, there was always something to do. I could put my mind off everything with the work. But as the others... came in..." she fell silent again. "I understand. I know they're more qualified, they can fill the Labs' needs easier." She looked up at Aubrey for a brief moment, connecting with her eyes. "They even knew why they were coming. Some of them, yes?" She looked down again, unable to sustain that connection. "In the past few months, I've had everything stripped away from me except some of the most fundamental duties. I know Moreau doesn't need me anymore. And I know... that I can't go home."

It was then that her words failed her.

With those two, simple words- and all the weighted silence that surrounded them, Bia suddenly found her future slipping away from her- the possibility of this change disappearing with every moment. Her eyes connected with Aubrey's- and stayed there, unblinking, angled with a thick, sad concern.

"I don't know if this will make any sense to you, Dr. Lockheart... but I just feel recently like I'm doing myself more harm than good. I find myself... saying, or doing things that I know will only hurt me in the long run... I don't even know why. A part of me knows I'm self-destructing... but the rest just doesn't care. I thought that this was what I wanted- well, not... this- but this lifestyle, this work. But now, I don't know what's wrong with me."

Her voice became quiet- a near whisper. "It's eating me up inside. ...I'm sorry. I know this doesn't mean anything to you."

Bia shook her head- slowly, but quite pointedly, sucking in her bottom lip and holding it between her teeth for a moment as she did. "No..." she said, taking a deep breath to hope to sustain her somewhat ragged speech, "I don't think that will do much good. I don't want to continue on with what I'm doing. ...Honestly, Dr. Lockheart, what good am I here? The bolster work I'm doing could be completed by a monkey with a lot of time on his hands. ...And I'm not qualified to do the sort of thing the others can."

A part of her desperately wanted to take Aubrey up on her offer- to speak with this counselor, and hope that her problems could be solved through a less drastic means. But there was no way to convince herself of that- not when she knew there was nothing left in the labs that could sustain her. True, in the beginning, she had been engaged in enough challenging work that kept her mind off of what she was doing- and where she was... but in the days since, in the doldrum that had been imposed upon her by Moreau and his new heirarchy of staff... Bia had realized more than she'd cared to let herself think on, in the beginning. Even if they tried to give her more work now, Bia knew- that there would be no way to assuage her conscience.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Dr. But... this isn't the right place for me. Right now I'm not working up to my full potential... and even if I were, I couldn't pull the sort of weight I'd need to. And I'm not going home. So where does that leave me?"

She knew exactly where that left her. Living- and dying- in a room with no windows, where the only light was boxed and caged, and freedom was a word that hadn't been truly used for the past year. She would be an underling forever... forgotten, underused- and alone. In the past two months- she'd only spoken to a handful of people... and only then about her work. Bia Grey was dying- very slowly, from the inside out, and she knew that a fair amount of it was her own doing.

We deal in forever.

Bia swallowed a sum of fear, banishing it from her throat. "I know." Her words were soft- fearful. ...Unprofessional. If there was a deep end, Bia knew she was in it. She only hoped she wasn't drowning.

"And I don't really know what I'm asking for. ...Except... some sort of peace. If I stay here- I'm going to die." The whisper came through fearful, shuddering lips. "I wake up every night thinking the walls are going to cave in on me. And there's no one there, in the darkness. ...And it's always darkness."

She put a hand up over her face- to touch the heat that had begun to pulse through her temples, only to find that her fingers shuddered, too. Some invisible wind of change was moving her to its rhythm- and, like so many times before, Bia felt she had no control over herself.

"At least this way, I won't be alone. ...And Moreau..." she looked up into the corners of the room then- fearful, wondering where the cameras must be. Then she sighed, and returned her gaze to Aubrey. It was too late to truncate her statement: the name had already been said. Besides- what she had to lose... was brittle, anyway. ...Broken.

"Moreau... seems to be kinder to his subjects." She had been in requisitions for a month during the greater 'staff shift'- she knew from experience that the sort of things the islanders asked of their captors were rarely ever denied them. Bia had often wondered how emphatic her 'no' would have been... were she to have asked the same of the 'good doctor'.

We deal in forever.....

There was a paradox created in that moment: a keen, heavy feeling of both despair and joy. Neither overwhelmed the other- nor did they cancel out their opposites. If anything, the amalgam simply lifted Bia into a state of a heady fog. So much so that she didn't realize what her choice had done to Dr. Lockheart. Bia knew little about their relationship, sans what had been spoken in hushed whispers amongst the other doctors and technicians... but she had seen the changes in Aubrey- first, physical, after her serious attack, and then, ones that seemed to go deeper. Bia had no idea what had happened to the once so vibrant woman who had, long ago, endured dog ears and antlers with such a giddy demeanor- but whatever it was, it cut deeper than the attack ever could.

"I... I'll do anything you need."