[REG] Be All My Sins Remembered (Miriam, Charlie, Charys)[F]

[codalion]

The girl who turned up at the Boyle door to see their son Charlie was a peculiar one. She showed up in an oversized winter coat that covered her knees, bundled up in mittens and a huge scarf and a big white hat. None of this would be peculiar, except that despite the cold, when the Boyles answered the door she was very, very pale: no flush to her skin whatsoever. Apparently Charlie was consorting with high school goths nowadays. She had the hair for it, certainly, in dark disarray most of the way down her back and smeared with snow.

More peculiar was that she didn't say anything to either Boyle except for a nod at oh, are you Miriam? and a grunt at come inside. A very rude goth. And very peculiar, as while Charlie's mother went upstairs to get him she didn't talk to Charlie's father at all; and in the time it took to get him, she didn't take a single piece of her clothing off, just stood around there in her winter clothing dripping slightly on the Boyle carpet.

Charlie greeted her somewhat awkwardly and she stood and waited a little longer while he bundled up, himself: he might've asked her if she wanted to come upstairs some other day, but her behavior seemed to be a strong indication against that. He fumbled with his gloves a little; she waited; he struggled with the zipper to his coat; she waited; he finally nodded awkwardly to his parents and went outside with her.

She waited for him to close and lock the door and for both of them to trudge a few steps away from the Boyle house. Just as he was about to clear his throat and say something, she interrupted.

"I fought Sailor Nova," said Miriam. She was slurring. "I need somewhere to go."  

[Shazari]

He took in her dizzy speech, her carefully steadied steps, the blanch-white of her face beneath her white wool cap, and from these all, he extracted the appropriate evidence for an equally accurate claim:

"God, Miriam, you need to go to a hospital. What were you thinking coming here? What am I supposed to do? You're not alright," he finished like 'not alright' was the most damning assessment known to man: 'you are as wrong as the marriage of a monkey and a pony, and the resultant offspring.'

"Alright, let me think," he said with a sort of slow, bedrock calmness -- but he crowded her in close like he was going to pick her up and carry her to the nearest ER at any moment.  

[codalion]

She was looking at him dully. That dull look remained in place of any glares or haughty sniffs or other indicators of bruised pride, which was really the first and worst sign of Miriam's condition right now -- she didn't have it in her to be unreasonably concerned with her dignity. That was bad. But she was together enough to shake her head, and then shake her head again. She really was deathly white underneath the cap. Charlie wondered how much she weighed.

What he expected to hear when she opened her mouth was I'm fine, or I can't go to the hospital, or I can't go to the hospital, my parents will find out. What she said was:

"I killed her. She's dead."  

[Shazari]

It wasn't hard to put the details together. In fact, it would've taken more effort to fail to put the details together, because there hadn't been many details, just a Point A and a Point B. Point A, Kunzite fought Sailor Nova. Point B, Kunzite killed Sailor Nova. And had nearly been killed in the process.

He got the sense she was supporting her own bodyweight now by sheer dint of will. Charlie thought of Sailor Nova, whom he'd struck, horrified, with an umbrella, until she was no threat to him anymore. The idea that she was dead, that Kunzite had killed her, was definitely frightening. In his mind, he recalled the caravan of ambulances that circled the body of the dead jogger, he saw the last gushing exhaust of blood from the animal shelter worker's throat. It was frightening, all of it -- no one could say it wasn't. But what frightened him more, if he admitted it, was that he hadn't been able to kill Sailor Nova no matter how much of a monster she'd been turned to. It was not noble. He'd been scared. And now here was Miriam, perhaps within ten paces of dying herself, not because she'd fought and killed Sailor Nova, but because Sailor Thuban had fought and hadn't. His throat felt tight.

"You survived," he said flatly.

She was waiting for him to make a decision. "For now," he considered this a very big compromise, "we'll go to Charys's. She's just around the corner, and I think her dad's abroad right now. It's close." He tilted his left to indicate which direction.  

[codalion]

Miriam didn't answer, just looked at him and looked away, then looked at him again briefly and then away: the most animated movement he'd seen from her so far. He wondered at it, until it occurred to him that she was surprised -- surprised at what, though? That he relented with respect to the hospital? That he was helping her at all? The possibility that he might not have had not occurred to him, but she was a wary and distrustful sort of girl; he'd known her long enough now to know that. It wasn't that hard to get her to believe that you didn't think well of her. In fact, it seemed to be her default mode of operation. Now, missing a lot of blood (and perhaps, though he hated to imagine it, covered in a sailor senshi's), she had reverted.

"I'm fine," she said, remaining stationary, though she didn't protest when he studiously pivoted her in the direction he'd indicated and gave her a push. She did wince, though. "Charys is Sailor Nerissa?"

They'd talked about this before once at a diner, when she'd told him everything he wanted to know (or everything they could fit in, at least) about the Courts and the Silver Millennium and the senshi and he told her about the other sailor senshi he knew. It hadn't seemed like a very fair information trade, but she'd been content with it. It was a little impressive that she could still match name to name, but then again, she did hate imperfection.  

[Shazari]

He nodded. "Yes. Whirlpools. Watch your step there," he warned, putting out his arm in case she tripped where the sidewalk was uneven. She didn't, and she gave his outstretched hand a scouring look. That pride of hers, well.

"Charys used to work with Sailor Nova," he explained, "so she'll know a little better what you were up against there. And we'll get you off your feet. And then maybe call a cab to take you to the hospital." Charlie let her precede him up the front walk to the Murphys' door, then curled up his gloved hand and used the side of his fist to knock.  

[candy lamb]

There was silence for quite a long while. It went dimly through Miriam's mind that the friend who had a father abroad had every likelihood of not being present herself, especially as Charlie hadn't called ahead. But Charlie didn't hesitate, or vocalise this, just waited -- and was gratified when they heard steps moving through the house, to the doorway, opened up the door from them both. It wasn't that late in the evening, but Charys Murphy was wearing pyjama pants and a singlet, iPod earbuds still blasting Snow Patrol where they were coralled around her neck: it was hard for Miriam to judge or care. Or Charlie, at this point.

"Whoa, whoa," she said, and she moved aside so that both of them could come in. She had piercings. And blue hair. Charlie still resisted any of her attempted 'proof' that it was dyed, especially when she offered to show him 'rank proof'. "s**t. Come on in. Mi casa es su casa. -- Bring her in, everything's covered in Scotchgard."

This was free invitation for Miriam Jacobs to bleed on her furniture. Charlie had never brought anyone halfdead to Charys before, but as he ushered in Miriam to the Murphy house its ersatz owner seemed to be taking it pretty well. Hadn't he said somewhere along the line that she was a super senshi? She probably had seen things like this before. Necessarily had people bleed on her couch.

"She needs a hospital," her friend said, significantly. And a little sourly, telegraphing: this one is stubborn.

"It's cool, I played all of Trauma Center." This was of course a comfort. "First on the left, Chaz, get her into the living room. Fill her full of dopamine and make a diagonal incision on her abdomen, and I'll fork out her appendix." Charys disappeared through another door.  

[codalion]

To this Charlie tolerated no argument: Miriam was quickly piloted through the door to the living room, but once she reached it she stood rooted in place until Charys came back with some towels. She seemed unwilling to have anything to do with the couch until towels were laid out over it; then, without preamble, she started to unbutton her coat. She was fumbling with the buttons one by one much more than she should have -- her fingers were a little shaky. "I'm Miriam Jacobs," she slurred while she did, a little incongruously. It didn't really seem like the time for introductions. She left hers at that, though, and moments later discarded her coat.

Charys had seen episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Miriam looked like a Special Victim. The pale blues and whites of her Crystal uniform were stained and smeared with blood; her white stockings had dark streams streaked down them into her black Mary Janes, whose uncertain squelching was suddenly much more explicable. She wore a white long-sleeved blouse and both sleeves were colored dark red. Under it all she was an ashen color. Her face was clean, at least.

She set about the sluggish unbuttoning of her shirt with shaky fingers. Charlie started and she glared at him, a little unfocused; he stopped. "I'm not going to the hospital," she said again.  

[Shazari]

"Fine," Charlie shushed her, though Miriam wasn't necessarily sure that he meant it, just that he was trying to get her blood pressure down. He was, in fact, just trying to get her blood pressure down: the severity of her injuries screamed hospital!!!!! even to someone who had never taken a first aid class. There was blood everywhere, and from the way she was acting, he had to guess that most of it was hers. "Just sit down, here, let me do that."

It was his turn to push Miriam Jacobs around a little bit, just as she had hip-checked him away from the register drawer once. He put the palm of his hand the only place he could think of that she didn't seem to be bleeding or badly injured -- the top of her skull -- and pushed firmly down so that she took a seat. He looked vague, but irritated, and perhaps more irritated when he brushed aside her shaky fingers to undo the buttons of her blouse himself. "I know how buttons work," he assured her, "You can trust me with this incredibly difficult rocket science task."

He pulled off her shoes, too: ostensibly because they looked uncomfortable, and an injured party should be kept comfortable. In fact, he planned to hide them so that she couldn't flee the house if he called 911, which he was still very much in favor of, and hoped Charys was already doing. (That Kunzite could teleport was forgotten.) Miriam would be slower without shoes.

"Be prepared for more crass jokes," he warned her. "That's how Charys is."  

[codalion]

Crass jokes didn't seem to be at the top of Miriam's mind. She relented to being sat down, though it was debatable that she had much of a choice in the matter. Her eyes unfocused while he unbuttoned her blouse, which would definitely be unwearable from here on out, and with some ginger difficulty pulled it off her shoulders. The sight was uglier from there. Her brassiere was spotted with blood too, blood which had trickled from her shoulders. Some of the wounds were familiar: a myriad of scabs from deep stings marked her battle with Charonite, though some had re-opened. Then there were nasty burns like cattle brands in the shape of small stars. Some had broken the skin and some had only seared and cauterized it.

She unrolled her own stockings before anyone could intervene. Her legs were pocked with a few of the same star-shaped wounds, and one of her feet had a rather gruesome star-shaped hole in it.

From Charys's expression it was very, very clear that all of this was very bitterly distinctive. Miriam's head lifted to look at her through bleary blue eyes. "You knew Sailor Nova?"  

[candy lamb]

Knew was the operative word here, knew had a heaviness that sailed past all of their heads in favour of the fact that Miriam Jacobs looked pretty KO'd. "Yeah, wow," said Charys -- the star-shaped hole on Miriam's foot was weeping blood and clear fluid. It looked like she had been attacked by a jolly Christmas elf. "Goddamn, you look like a Starbellied Sneech. That's Sid for you."

'Sid' must have referred to Nova, a nickname or a full name. The super senshi was swinging Miriam's unwilling legs up on the other betowelled arm of the couch even as Charlie delicately put the bloodstained blouse out of sight. The wounds weren't like senshi wounds. The thing about senshi wounds was that you'd look at them, they'd look as though they'd take you away due to peritonitis or halitosis or whatever, and then you'd look back and they'd already be classily crusted over.

Miriam's wounds weren't closing. Charys took a dressing and dabbed at the star-shaped goth wound on Miriam's foot. "She might be three bricks and a button tall, but she can take out like, an Oklahoman daycare center -- s**t, was that too soon. Tooo sooon." Charlie had been right about the 'crass'. "She's the midnight bomber what bombs at midnight. Okay, I'm not going to lie to you. You look completely ******** disgusting. Chaz, make her swallow some Neosporin, I'm going to get the car ready."  

[codalion]

To her credit, Miriam didn't flinch. Miriam didn't do much of anything except drift in and out of apparent consciousness. She was wavering a little sitting up, too, so she rested one of her injured arms across the back of the couch and used it to support herself while Charys dabbed at her foot. Either she was incredibly stoic or incredibly out of it. The hole looked like it had gone straight through to the bottom: and, as Charys picked her foot up and peered at the sole, it had. There was a matching hole there. This nearly qualified as crippling -- it might well be, for all they knew. No one was a doctor. This was far out of their league.

"I'm a Cavalier," Miriam was saying all of a sudden. She was slurring like a drunk fresh out of a bar at 2 AM, while her eyes had gone completely unfocused. It was hard to say who she was talking to. "We don't heal like you Soldiers," that was an odd word to use, but she went on like there was nothing strange about this, "unless we've formed a bond with you. And even then, I'm not sure I can any more. I spent too much time with the Negaverse. My starseed's not the same any more. There's only so much that can be done --"

She broke off suddenly as her head drooped back, and for a moment it looked like they'd have to carry her into the car, or call an ambulance. But her eyes were still open, albeit half-lidded, and after a moment she started talking again. "If I had to guess," she said, "I'd say the same happened to Sailor Nova. But then again --"

And here it came.

"-- what I did to her, I don't think it would have made a difference."  

[Shazari]

Charlie was fairly certain that there was no chewable form of Neosporin -- and if there was, he wouldn't trust it to treat any kind of cuts. Pills were slow-acting and definitely not as efficacious as a topical gel. He put his hand to Miriam's forehead, like a fever was somehow the most important thing they had to worry about. She was still clammy, which he didn't think was any better than a fever, honestly.

"Hey, you know I love when you tell me insider information and all, but just try to relax and stay awake. Count to a thousand." But he looked over Miriam's hole-punched frame to meet eyes with Charys, saying silently: she could die here.  

[candy lamb]

The eye expression that Charys gave Charlie back said nothing, not an I know nor a let's get moving. Then again, her entreaty to make her swallow topical gel and her expression as she dabbed away at Miriam's foot meant that she knew exactly how serious this was; how borderline, how utterly unready they were to treat this despite every DS game of Trauma Center. Miriam Jacobs was losing proper consciousness. Miriam Jacob's eyes didn't scan any more.

This was maybe why Charys wasn't listening too closely to her "crazy old man" ramblings, when she should have: when she should have listened to them so closely that her ears fell off. Then again, it was Charys Murphy. Maybe she already had.

Miriam was still talking to herself. For a pretty, long-haired girl, there was something utterly unappealing to her where Charys was concerned, even just lying there bleeding in her bra (and it should have been that she was lying there bleeding in her bra, but she wasn't that good of a person). Don't put the positive to the negative end --

"Don't worry, Nova's pretty much unkillable," she assured the injured girl. "Like, in my view, she's that evil ghost whale that came out in the levels of Bubble Bobble now -- jesus, what the hell was that whale's name. It had soulless red eyes and cared for no man. Tip of my tongue. Baron von Blubba. I'm just sayin', <******** you, Taito." Quieter: "Okay, Chaz, we have to move her or bury her, choice is up to you. I like option A."  

[codalion]

"No." Apparently Miriam was not done having her say in things. At least she was awake. "No," she said again, and then repeated what had to be one of her favorite words, "no, no, no. You don't understand." Her near-catatonic stare had focused again, though it drifted somewhat confusedly for a moment or two before it settled on Charys. It sounded for a moment like she was protesting going to the hospital again, which was something that Charys and Charlie had already mutely agreed to tune out completely -- but she wasn't. "You don't understand," she slurred again.

She made an effort to sit up straight, which only caused her to slump in a little more disarray back on the couch. She was slouching. She was slouching like she was a puppet that had been dropped there and left alone. "I killed her," she said. "She attacked me and I killed her. There's no question of it. I left her dead. I left her dead on the pavement."

There was silence all around the room while Miriam's head lolled back again; but she interrupted it, sounding more dazed than ever: "There's nothing in the world, Sailor Nerissa," her eyes drifted half-closed, "that can't be killed."