Bad Blood // Epilogue

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

There are still a few moments left to share. A phone call to Scott, once more, from the officer who called him earlier that day. And Nathan and Haroun, standing vigil over Alison as she sleeps on in the Medlab.

Moments in Time

A familiar voice was on the line again, a small silence preceding the words. "Hi, this is Officer McPherson. I just thought I'd do a follow up on this morning's call; see if you reached Miss Blaire. I didn't know who she was - my daughter was pretty quick on educating me on that, when I got home…" The voice paused at the end of the line, as though too much had been said.

Scott took a deep breath, then answered, surprised at the calm, conversational tone he managed. "Oh, yes, we did, Officer." He tried to force a cheerful edge into his voice as he went on. "I was about to call you, actually. It took us quite some time to get in touch with her, but it turns out her cell phone's battery was dead."

A moment's pause was followed by a sharp bark of laughter. When he spoke next, the officer's voice seemed lighter somehow. "Good! That's a relief to hear. You actually, well, had me worried for a moment there, Mr. Summer. I apologize for bothering you then, and have a good evening." Voices echoed beyond the line, a girl's voice raised in a cheer barely disguised by a hand suddenly placed on the receptor.

Scott almost managed a smile. He did manage to keep the conversational tone going. "She's just fine," he lied. Or maybe it wasn't quite a lie. She would be fine. She would be. "You can tell your daughter that as well, Officer. Thank you very much for following up on this."

"You're welcome." The man sounded almost bemused by the thanks, though he then merely repeated his good night wishes before hanging up.

~*~

Haroun leaned forward in his chair, staring at the unconscious blonde in the Medical bed. "Of all the days to be out of town..." he said with a hand run over his scalp. "I should have been here. She should wake up soon, right?" he asked Nathan. "I wanted to be here when she woke up."

Nathan blinked and shook himself, realizing that Haroun was talking to him. He was trying not to succumb to exhaustion, as he damned well intended to be here when she woke up, but it was starting to feel like a losing battle. "I'm not sure. I think," he said slowly, after a moment. It was hard to track her thoughts, to focus that much.

Haroun looked over to Nathan with a flat look. "You pass out on me and I will _personally_ kick your ass up one side of this country and down the other. I need you to _stay focused_ and _stay with me_ here."

Focus. Talking would help him focus. "Right," Nathan said, staring at Alison. "You know, I fuzzed the minds of everyone in that hospital today? Except the ER personnel. Held it for a while, too."

"That's quite a piece of work. No wonder you're practically drooling on me here." he said. "New trick for you, right? One of those little telepathic stunts of questionable morality. Useful as all hell, though."

"Never thought I'd ever catch myself doing something like that..." Nathan murmured, his eyes still on Alison. "Charles had to help in the end. Adrenalin started to let me down, I think... it let me concentrate on her, when he did." He looked up with a wan smile. He could feel Charles still watching, but he could also feel the fatigue in those usually exquisitely patterned thoughts. Neither of them was at their best, but together they should be able to prevent Alison from lashing out, should she wake up badly, and keep her likely state of mind from affecting any of the other sensitives in the mansion.

Haroun nodded. "Thanks." he said, quietly but sincerely. He knew his friend would be able to see what he really wanted to say in his mind anyway. "Docs say she'll pull through physically just fine. I'm worried about her mental state." he admitted.

Nathan nodded slowly. "I don't doubt that she will pull through mentally, too," he said quietly, the confidence audible in his voice despite the weariness there. She was too strong not to, and even if it was hard, as it would be, she would have as much help as she wanted, as she needed. "It'll just take time..."

Haroun nodded. "Yeah. You're right. Come on, Alison, wake the fuck up already." he told the comatose woman. "I'm here for you..." he told her helplessly, then took a wipe at his eyes. "Come on..."

"I think..." Nathan trailed off, blinking at Alison. "Her thoughts are shifting," he said a bit vaguely.

~*~

Alison finally awakens, to what she is unsure is actually real. Haroun is there for her, though, patiently waiting for her to sort nightmare from reality as Nathan watches on.

That Which Survives

There were moments in which time stood still, a shifting from unaware to aware, lines blurring between dream and reality. When one fully expected to wake within a nightmare however, sometimes reality wasn't something to be believed in, or even accepted. The first breath she drew held the memory of blood, stale water and the heavy scent of a predator. The next was composed of one single thought, now apparently unhampered by sedatives or drugs of any kind to slow her down.

Get. Away.

The bed sheets were half flung, half vaporized into nothing as Alison shoved them away, eyes wide and wild, drawing in one deep breath, an undertone of terror and rage bleeding into the sound. The scrambling backwards ended when she hit the end of the bed, the wall hardly not allowing her any further motion other than sideways, the result of which sent her tumbling to the floor in a heap. The motion never ceased though, until she'd wedged herself in a corner, the light flaring from her eyes illuminating the room in a harsh, flat light.

~fire slicing down her cheek, heat coursing down her neck and splattering across her shoulder~

As long as she could see him, she could stop him. The walls around were safe. Everything else…

…was not.

Haroun blinked at the sudden harsh light. He tried to speak, to reassure Alison that everything was going to be OK, that she was  safe here, but her power ate his words without so much as a  backwards glance. He made his body-language as non-threatening as he could, and waited for her to start acknowledging her surroundings.

Nothing was happening. And that was the most disconcerting thing of all, though she remembered the moment where he'd done that. Let her hope he was gone, that she might make it to the door and escape, somehow. She hadn't even been able to move then, just looking towards the one path to freedom until pain and darkness had claimed her once more. And now nothing was happening and nothing was hurting for that matter, the ache in her elbows and hip not even attracting her notice.

Nothing hurt and nothing was happening, and everything screamed at her that it had to be a trap, that it couldn’t possibly be real. Hesitantly, she reached up to touch her cheek, breathing still harsh and quick, the light dimming suddenly, so that she could conserve whatever iota of power she might have left to her to defend herself. To attack.

And then she saw a familiar silhouette beyond the edge of the bed, and forgot to breathe entirely, not daring to believe anything else but that this might be some dream offered to her before she woke once more to reality.

Haroun smiled in what he devoutly prayed was a disarming manner at Alison. "Hey." he said to her casually. "You're back home. You're safe." he said to her carefully. No threatening gestures, al-Rashid, and that included hugging her silly. "It's me. You know me. I'm not Sabretooth. I'm Haroun. Do you know me?"

It was his voice. One she knew through and through, the sound drunken in greedily so quickly that his last words faded into a whisper. Taking one shuddering breath, then another, Alison pressed a hand firmly against her cheek one last time, then ever so briefly glanced at her arm. The clean t-shirt of the school was noticed only in that it wasn't what she'd been wearing before, her last sight of it surimposing briefly over the grey fabric - and the unmarred flesh beneath. A small sound escaped her and the motion nearby drew her attention immediately.

Breathing low and fast, mind struggling to settle into something resembling some form of control, Alison shook her head. She remembered what had happened. Remembered the pain and the bleeding and the screaming and- with a small mew she pushed once more into the corner, this time forgetting entirely about being vigilant, eyes snapping to her hands. Fingers flexing as she turned them over, inspecting them for the breaks and jagged tears she'd last seen, the trembling intensifying with every passing second.

Haroun swallowed heavily as she inspected herself. "You're safe now." It was all he could think of to say. He knew he was a passionate person - he felt everything deeply, a fact that Nathan took great delight in and less-kind individuals had exploited for their own amusement - but even for him the torrent of emotion was getting to be a little much to deal with. What he was not was eloquent. "Come here?" he said, holding out a hand for her to take or ignore as her own desires prompted.

~…come here, little birdie. you're going to sing for me… scream...~

She twitched violently at that, the memory surging up, accompanied by the drip of water - blood - on stone and the scrape of nails against her skin. But it was the sound of Haroun's voice which still lingered around her as she shook off the moment of panic, and his face which gazed back at her. Not his.

Haroun's voice, warm and deep and safe.

Had she somehow dreamt it all? She found herself reaching back for him even as she doubted her hold on her sanity, though the dream of safety was one which she couldn't help but want to lose herself in, if dream it was. A strangled sound escape her, the first attempt at speech. Haroun's name, lost in a whimper. Through a voice she knew wasn't broken at that moment, though she'd heard it so earlier. She still pushed back though, against the safety of the wall, even as she reached out, hoping he was real.

Haroun took her hand and almost crushed it accidentally. "Hey." he told her idiotically, deliriously happy that she was at least reaching out to him. "Do you need me to read you bawdy limericks in Arabic again?" he asked her with as much of a grin as he could muster. ~There once was an old man from Nantucket...~ he said in Arabic, ignoring Nathan's amused snort in favor of Alison's reaction.

"There once…" She knew this one. He'd translated it for her once, after she'd finally asked what it was. She was breathless at that suddenly, even as a tremor raced down her arm at the sensation of crushed fingers - though they weren't, still whole and able to hold onto to Haroun's hand in return. Her other reached out tentatively, tapping his chest once, as though confirming it was him, returning again to rest there, the motion made hesitant by disbelief. The words echoed and ebbed around her sharply, even more uniquely reminiscent of Haroun now. Home and safe, the sounds told her. Home and safe.

"Don't understand... I don't..." she shook her head, pulling now - herself towards him, though leaving the safety of the wall braced against her back was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Not going to cower. Not hiding. The worlds curled up fiercely in the pit of her stomach, stoking themselves to red hot fury in a heartbeat. She was checking herself for the wounds she remembered, the pains she thought had been present not so long ago, even as she clung to him, shaking her head still.

"They came and got you." he pointed out. "And I'm right here. We can pick at what happened later. You're safe here." he stressed to her.  He even threw his shoulders back to present more of himself to her hand if she was so inclined to doubt the evidence of her senses. "They pulled you out of that hellhole. I was at a concert with a couple of the kids. Good show, by the way. You'd have hated it - it was loud, rude, and barely musical." he laughed.

It didn't matter what he was saying, Alison decided as she settled against him, one hand still trailing to her cheek, fingers still moved about now and then as though to make sure they were still there. Real and unbroken. She was rocking slightly against him, biting her lip to keep a low scream from escaping, anger and defiance and fear whirling wildly as a kernel of belief started to settle within her. "Hold." A tremor ran through her once more as she said that single word, but right now it was all she could think of. All she could say.

Haroun, normally a little slow on the uptake in these matters, got the hint immediately. He wrapped his arms around Alison tenderly, to hold her. ~You're still the Alison that I fell in love with.~ he told her in Arabic. ~Nothing will take that away from us.~

Holding back to him in return, desperately so, Alison didn't say a word - merely drinking in the sound of his voice, the beat of his heart, the rhythm of his breathing. And though they didn't make the echoes of screams and pain fade away entirely, didn't erase the helpless anger within, it soothed her enough that finally, mercifully, she stopped questioning why she was there and unhurt. The scream still welling within was muffled for now, quieted long enough for her to simply hold on, and dare to believe it would all be all right.

~*~

His eyes burned suddenly as he watched Alison curl into Haroun's arms, clinging to him like he was the only stable thing in the world. But Nathan kept his own expression level and calm and his thoughts inside his own head, not letting them spill out in a fatigued flood.

Watching them, he remembered suddenly what he'd told Lorna, weeks ago. About how there wasn't supposed to be any distance between the thoughts of one person and another, how seeing that meant they were slipping. Alison wasn't only not slipping, she was actively holding on. So tightly that her thoughts and Haroun's were almost intertwined. He could feel it, not just see it, and... why could he feel it?

Swallowing, Nathan summoned up what little energy he had left and eased himself up out of the chair, moving slowly, so as not to startle the woman curled in the corner. She would be all right for now. Haroun was here. He had stayed to make sure she wouldn't lash out, and he thought the danger of that was past for now. If Charles needed continuing help screening her, he could do that without being here... intruding.

Clumsy with fatigue, he reached out in as gentle a telepathic touch as he could manage. Just to remind her that she was home, and safe. He couldn't tell whether she responded. His throat felt tight, suddenly, and he tottered a little as he kept moving towards the door.

It would take time. Just time.

Out in the hallway, the air seemed cooler, the hush almost oppressive. Nathan let out a shaky breath, leaning against the wall for a moment. His eyes were still stinging, and for a moment the accumulated weight of the day almost overcame him. So tired. And his reaction, as always, came after the action, once everything was said and done. Do the job that needs doing and then feel it. But then he remembered that Moira and Rachel would be upstairs waiting for him, and the weight lifted, just enough to let him keep going.

Everyone was alive, he told himself, as he had countless times in his long and violent life. All of the people he loved were alive.

Everything else was negotiable.