|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 12:50 pm
There was something to be said about what waving a checkbook around could do for the state of someone's medical care--within hours of her mother making a few phone calls, Suri was seen to by specialists in the area, and by the next day she was speaking with some of the best orthopedic surgeons in the country. Her hands had been one matter, twisted and bent as they were, but a local anesthetic was all they'd needed to numb the pain while her doctor systematically broke and reshaped them to their proper form. She would never have the full range of motion in her hands, but Suri was no piano player or artist, and starseeds were truly the only delicate thing she touched. After days of suffering, she was simply relieved to know she would have use of them.
Elsewhere, there were complications.
Suri should have known it when her leg had stopped aching at all, or only ached in spasms, but she had assumed it to be the effects of whatever cocktail of medications she'd been on. Even if she'd been ignoring it, she'd seen the unsightly bend of her shins, and understood they'd be putting her under for surgery. What she hadn't expected was the prognosis following.
"We just want you to consider your options," the surgeon had told her while Suri reclined in her father's watchful arms, her eyes full of scorn. "While we've reset the bones as best we can, the nerve damage is incredibly extensive. Without function, the best we can hope for is muscular atrophy, and there's a risk of actual decay."
"Be more creative," Kerry snapped, pacing across the room with cold fury in her eyes. "What you've described aren't options. Fix her."
"Ma'am, you have to understand--"
---
When her parents had left for the day and the lights in the inpatient ward went dim, Suri waited for absolute silence and then pulled Chaos over her, dark leather covering the pale gown she'd been issued for her stay. Zircon had little time to herself, and she shuffled haphazardly through her pockets, searching for the starseed she kept at her breast in case of emergency. This one had been poorly cared for, stowed away for so long while in captivity, and it glowed only the slightest peachy color under all the dull grey, but it would have to do.
The doctors had told her it was beyond their scope to cure her, but Zircon stole miracles every day.
She bit down on the jewel and her head swam as suddenly her body came to life, tasting the sweetness of someone's existence. It burned in her throat and her chest and her arms, but the tingling sensation notably halted somewhere below her left knee. The captain frowned, then snatched for her boot, unbuckling each part in succession and tossing the footwear aside, its heavy heel clunking on the ground below. She watched in anger, in confusion, as the areas around her stitches and pins began to melt away slowly, but for as many times as she'd been healed by a stolen soul she could not feel its effects. Her hands touched cold shin, felt the mottled skin and the dull barbs of bone underneath, but only from her fingers. The leg itself offered no sensation, even as every heartbeat pulsed with the energy of two lives.
Her cardiogram was beginning to hop at a faster pace, or maybe one of the nurses had just heard the boot fall, and from the hallway Zircon heard footsteps. She cast aside her captaincy, and when the door creaked open, the nurse saw only the frightened woman instead, clutching at a leg that was no longer hers.
"Take it," Suri croaked, and when her eyes began to well up with tears she swore her world became a bit peach-tinged. "Just take it, take it away."
The nurse had been kind enough to hold Suri while she wept. She hated her for it.
---
Seven days she'd been held captive. Four days she'd been in inpatient care. Two since her second surgery. There would possibly be others. She couldn't know yet.
Suri's hospital room had been made cozy, at least, sharing residence with a number of balloons and cards. They were from her parents, mostly, but Kerry Ellis insisted that it was the appearance that counted, and so Suri drowned in the false affections of friends she'd never had for the sake of her mother's comfort. But that was how things usually went--on her bedside was a photo of her family from when she'd been in high school, hair stuck to her sweaty beaming face as she held up a medal she'd just had placed around her neck. It was a symbol of achievement, of accomplishment, and something that Suri would never have again, staring her down with eyes that would have been shocked to know that this was how it turned out.
Her father had brought her a teddy bear nearly the size of his torso for when he was away, and she lazily curled an arm around an oversized paw, imagining that she might be holding hands with someone. It was a small comfort, but better than all the phony cards in the world.
She tried not to think of the bandages on her left leg, of where they ended far too abruptly to accomodate her calf, her foot. Those things weren't hers to claim anymore, it was no use to think on it. Someone had put the TV on to keep her entertained, but she was staring past the screen, to some far off place where they'd taken the rest of her. Perhaps in that iteration Suri Ellis had not turned out to be a failure, crippled and broken and left to languish in a hospital bed.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 3:26 pm
Chase hadn't visited right away for multiple reasons.
One: The Ellis' were very firm in the fact that their daughter did not receive vistors the did no personally know which meant, because only Suri knew Chase, he hadn't been granted visitation rights.
Two: He hadn't visited because he didn't like hospitals. They reminded him of the time he spent in one before being carted back to his parents house and imprisoned in a nice, cushy jail cell. And if they didn't remind him of that hellish time period, they reminded him of his mother's sickly state and the coma she risked slipping back into if she wasn't careful. If he didn't monitor her health religiously, or pay someone else to do it.
Three: Chase was, admittedly, awkward as ********. Once upon he'd been smooth and charming and now, he was a mere shell of that person. He didn't know how to do personal interactions, what did you take to the hospital? Did you bring flowers? Did you bring a card? Did you bring flowers and a get well card?
Frankly, he would have rather been preparing for some failtastic thing of a date than going to visit Suri in the hospital.
But Suri's alter ego was one of his and it was his duty to check up on her, make sure her recovery was going smooth. Perhaps draw some more information out of her if he could.
So there he was, with a small bouquet of carefully picked get well flowers in a glass vase with a card hanging from the neatly tied ribbon, pushing the door to her room open cautiously.
"I brought flowers, that's what you're supposed to do right?"
Cosmos help him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 4:51 pm
Suri hadn't been expecting visitors, and so when the door began to open she turned away, expecting a routine check from one of her nurses. However, when she heard a voice that definitely wasn't Patricia's or Nancy's, she shuffled up in her bed, blinking out of her haze with weary eyes as she tried to focus on that shock of pink hair.
"...Chase?" she tilted her head, pale fingers curling around the stuffed animal paw in her hand as she lifted herself up to sitting. At once she felt a barrage of excitement and curiosity and dread and shame, and on reflex she jerked her wounded leg away, as if he hadn't already seen or might not know. She looked down at the flowers and furrowed her brows, as if she might be able to find some hidden machinations under those pretty petals.
"...What are you doing here?" she continued slowly, rubbing at the mess of blonde tufts that made up her disheveled hair. As much as she wore relief in her eyes, there was a hint of caution held back, apprehension in the moment where she was weakest. Was he here to make a report to the Negaverse? Was he somehow displeased with her choice? A sinking feeling took root in her stomach, threatening to pull the rest of her down. Even here, was she truly safe?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 11:43 am
Considering he'd been the one to deposit her in the hospital, terrifying all of the hospital staff with his dramatic arrival, of course Chase would visit.
But, considering the way she reacted to him when he'd come to her rescue he wasn't surprised by well, her shock when she saw him easing through the door.
"Hi Suri," he said quietly, looking almost sheepish which was possibly startling for the small woman sitting up. The tall, lanky man made up of lean muscle and hidden strength, couldn't recall a time when they'd been simply civilians.
He had always been Labyrinthite, the imposing general with a looming problem and she, Zircon who apparently was very terrified of him. New Years had proven that and well, her reaction to his arrival when she had been captive spoke volumes.
"I came to see you," he told her slowly, voice still quiet as he shut the door behind him, stepped closer to her bed while still remaining what he hoped was a respectful distance away. "I brought flowers - that's what you do for people in the hospital right? You bring flowers?" He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, holding the flowers out to Suri.
"I wanted to see how you were doing. I was worried."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:01 pm
Suri watched the man enter with an expression that might have registered as concern, her brows furrowed as she twisted in bed to face him. He...was worried? But that made no sense, she was just a Captain, nothing too great of an investment when he had a team full of officers to rely on. Nevertheless, there was something about his eyes that were startlingly sincere, and Suri wasn't sure to be relieved or even more horrified.
He cared. When had she made him go through that?
"I...guess?" she responded, staring at the bouquet twisted up in his pale hands. "We brought my mother flowers when she fell into a coma a few years ago. I've never visited someone who was awake to receive them." She received them carefully, taking them with tender hands and setting them in her nestled arms. It was something to do with her arms, at least, something that wasn't fidgeting while she tried to dodge the elephant in the room.
"I'm better," she responded, glancing down at the flowers with a soured expression as she thought back to the nights before. "They did what they needed to do. It was for the best." But it fell flat on her voice, felt like nothing but lies and poison that sapped her of her energy and left her as the worthless husk that she was. The Negaverse did not suffer loose ends. They did not entertain those who could not pull their own weight, and once they realized what had transpired at the hands of a senshi, she would be made an example of and promptly reclaimed by Chaos. That was what it meant to be strong, to be powerful--you healed or you ripped away what wouldn't and you moved on. It was just efficiency. Even Chase knew that, despite his honeyed whiskey eyes.
Panic bubbled up her throat, even as she tried to bite it down, and she shook her head as she crinkled her nose, closing her eyes to keep the tears at bay. She clenched her fists, and only after she heard the crinkle of cellophane did she look down at the blooms, where she'd already begun to break the stems. Suri's eyes widened and she looked up to Chase, looking for signs of anger on his face. "I--I'm sorry," she stammered, holding the broken bouquet loosely in her arms. "I just--"
Whatever excuse she might have made crumbled from her mind, and she stared at Chase with vulnerable amber eyes."I--I'm so scared. What happens when the N--when they find out what's happened?" Her soft whimper began to slide into full-blown panic, and she closed her eyes to keep from wailing, dropping her forehead into her hands. "When they know I'm not--not whole anymore--they're going to want to fix it, and I can't, I can't, Chase--"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:05 pm
Chase didn't know how to explain his attachment to Suri because he was not, or at least not anymore, a man to expressed himself via emotions. His feelings were often conveyed in little gestures; a trinket here, a bouquet of flowers that he'd spent hours picking out, or a small gesture that meant more than words. He had been anticipating her needing some sort of explanation and when she didn't demand one, he was relieved.
Suri was like Alkaid, always bringing to the surface emotions he didn't know how to cope with anymore.
He was working on it, but it was a long process.
He listened quietly, eyes drifting from the woman's face to her limbs hidden beneath blankets. He wanted to know what she meant when she said they did what they needed to. Something twisted in his gut and he swallowed hard when he stepped forward, reached for her hand. People liked comforting touches, ways of being shown that someone was physically there right?
It shouldn't have been this hard. He used to know how to deal or handle this but now? He was a conflicted mess of is this what normal people do?
"Hey," he said softly, hoping he sounded reassuring. "Suri, it's okay. It'll be okay I - I won't let them." He didn't know if he could promise such things but he was certain that he was at least going to try. He'd stood opposite of Laurelite once before, he could do it again. Or he would try. "You are not worthless without your leg - we'll have to adjust. We'll figure it out I promise. I won't let them touch you with any sort of beast."
Youma-halfbreeds lived a half life and Suri deserved better than that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 12:56 pm
You're not worthless without your leg - we'll have to adjust.
Suri's breath caught in her throat, and she glanced over at the pale hand on hers, the gears in her head turning slowly as she plodded over that statement. Her mother had been obsessed with fixing her, fixing the problem, making her whole again and hiding the damage when they couldn't. Her father oscillated between wanting to hold his baby girl to threatening violence on whatever had dared hurt her, both tender but futile gestures. But Chase had been the first to truly consider Suri in all this, not just an image of her, and what he said was 'We'll adjust.' Not just her--that was painfully evident from the moment she'd signed the consent forms, but we. It was a big change, one that she would have never chosen for herself in this or any lifetime, but for the first time she began to realize she wouldn't have to do this alone.
Slowly, she twisted her hand to be palm in palm with his, and her fingers gave a soft squeeze, a way to say message received when her words had escaped her. Suri looked up, and her eyes were still frightful, wavering as if Laurelite herself might walk through her hospital door any moment, but when she traded glances with Chase the worry lines on her face began to melt away.
"...Could you really stop it?" she asked quietly, as if speaking too loud might make it untrue. "If that's what they decided?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 2:26 pm
Chase let the silence blanket them, fog up the room until there was very little room for anything but when Suri had been slower to respond. He had been watching her, observing the flicker of emotion on her face, how it contorted and shifted. He couldn't help but wonder if the quick flash of emotions was something other people saw frequently on his own face.
Of course, considering the only thing he ever felt with a red-hot flare was anger he had to guess no.
Still, it was worth contemplating and ultimately left an unsettling feeling in his belly.
Could you really stop it? Suri asked, quiet and fearful and Chase's resolve solidified. There wasn't much space between him and the metal frame of the hospital bed so he stepped closer, reaching for one of her hands, the one snapping the stems of the flowers in her arm.
"I don't know," he admitted, gritting his teeth as he spoke as a flare of shame spiked through him. He didn't like to admit when he lacked knowledge or that he wasn't sure he was strong enough to protect her the way he promised. "But I will do whatever I can to prevent it. They'll have to go through me to get to you and you know I'm hard to kill."
It was an empty joke just like the empty smile he offered her after, but he was trying. And he meant it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 11:40 pm
And there was the truth. Chase didn't know, and he couldn't know, and if he'd tried to pretend that he knew, Suri would have called him insane. But ironically enough, his own willingness to admit the unknown made it all a bit less scary, if only for a moment. At the prompting of his touch, her fingers uncurled around the bouquet, the sound of crinkled plastic overpowering the soft hum of the medical equipment in the silence they shared.
"...I don't know," she murmured finally, looking up at him with curious eyes. "I gave you a run for your money once or twice, I think that makes you pretty easy to kill." Was this an attempt at being playful? Suri was poorly practiced in the art of levity, but if Chase could manage to make an attempt at being hopeful, after everything he'd seen and done, then it was her responsibility to at least try and reciprocate.
She looked down at her hand in his, the image of the key burned into her wrist not lost on her. They'd fought and suffered for so much already, what was one more challenge? Suri did her best to feign nonchalance as she made herself smile, because that's what people did when they felt reassured, wasn't it? "We'll figure it out," she repeated back to him, as if it were a promise either of them could keep, should it really come down to a General-Sovereign's intervention. Perhaps in this instance it was better to pretend, considering the alternative was to accept defeat.
Suri couldn't allow that, not yet, no matter the struggle ahead. There was still so much work to be done.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:51 am
He could have lied, but this was not the type of lie that he would get away with which was the whole reason he hadn't. Frankly, Suri deserved the truth and, with their history, Chase was inclined to give it to her. Still, the man was determined that they were in this together.
She was one of his and he wouldn't abandon her.
"Those were different times Suri, I've only upped my game," he teased back, squeezing their joined hands in what he hopped was a reassuring gesture. "I'm much harder to kill than I used to be but - if you don't believe me - we can spar again when you're out of the hospital." A jest but there was the inkling of hope that it might put her in better spirits.
Suri was currently broken but - she wouldn't always be broken. She'd get better and whatever happened, they would adjust, together.
"It might be tough," he admitted, letting whiskey eyes drift to the mangled limb beneath then back up to meet Suri's gaze with a level one of his own. "But you won't go through it alone. You've got me and - " a beat of hesitation as the words formed on his tongue. He'd been meaning to ask her if she wanted a formal place in his assembling team - they'd been through a lot together, why not keep going? "And you've got my team, our team, if you want it. I could use a good loyal soldier like you as my second."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 10:21 pm
"I'll hold you to it," she responded, her grip on his strong where the rest of her felt so weak. The idea of sparring was a goal, a concrete one that didn't feel as pathetic as such trifles as standing, walking. Those she would be doing in a month's time, she would accept no less. But sparring with the dread general would be a privilege earned, a trophy to show that she wasn't all lost, and it was a standard by which she could hold herself, a metric with palpable criteria that could be measured and recorded. That was a goal worth going for, a goal worth achieving.
Her eyes flickered when he continued to speak, and she tensed when he glanced down at her leg, in her mind begging 'no, don't look, don't look', but there was nothing she could do to stop his sweep over the mess of bandages and lack of skin. She could, however, respond to the proposition he gave her, and she did so by sitting in reverent silence for a moment too long, her heart suddenly leaping into her throat and keeping her from speech.
"...Do you mean it?" she croaked finally, looking from him to his hands and then back into the warmth of his eyes. "Yes, yes absolutely, I can do that." She had to keep her voice low, in case there were nosey nurses about, but her pulse was fluttering and it was everything she could do not to shake his hand excitedly. Was this an indication of trust? It was perhaps too early to hope for, but Suri had plenty of other things to be despondent about. She allowed herself the tiniest glimmer, just this once, that Chase might be extending his form of forgiveness.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 10:29 pm
"You have my word," Chase swore.
They had a lot of work ahead of them, but the man was confident in his ability to whip the woman back into shape once she had clearance from her doctors. Suri needed someone who would push her, encourage her to keep going, and remind her that as long as she had a will she could keep fighting.
But she wouldn't go it alone, that much he could promise.
"Of course I mean it. When have I ever said anything to you that I didn't?" He couldn't help the chuckle that rolled off his tongue in disbelief. After everything they'd been through, it was hard imagining Suri doubting him. Their history, their story was still mapping itself out in their book and as far as he was concerned it was a book that would keep going until one of them died.
But he wasn't going to let that ending be any time soon.
"Rest up, I'll come check on you later," he told her hesitantly, squeezing her hand one last time before pulling away. "You're not alone in this," he reminded her as he headed for the door, lingering in doorway for a moment.
"I promise," he said, swallowing hard before leaving her hospital room.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
