LOG: Upgrade - Haroun Regains Consciousness. Briefly.

[x-jetstream.livejournal.com]

And Alison's there. He's not the most coherent thing in the world right now.



Medlab. Dark, quiet, kept as cold as the Iso Lab's air-conditioners could make it. Haroun snapped back to consciousness with a gasp. He didn't quite know where he was, and he felt light. Feverish. Dizzy. And why was it so blasted dark in the room? And why couldn't he move?

"You're in the medlab," Alison murmured softly, the motion having drawn her attention, and she straightened in the chair, leaning closer to him - as much as she could with all the tubes and instruments and monitoring equipment and the gel tank, the iso suit she was wearing making things even more of a challenge. "Don't try to move. I'm right here, it's okay." Her voice was filtered through the suit and then the containment tank, slightly removed.

Haroun blinked in confusion. "It's warm in here. Turn down the temperature, OK?" he said, looking at where he thought he heard Alison's voice coming from. "What time is it? What's going on? I ... I don't remember what happened. Did we take Omega Red down?"

"No. No, he got away - but he didn't get Maverick…" she trailed off at that, itching to reach through everything between them to touch his cheek, fingers curling up instead of frustration. "You got hurt." She bit her lip after that, knowing her voice was strangled, sobs not far behind. At least he probably wouldn’t even hear it.

"I did?" he said, forgetting that he was restrained and trying to move towards the sound of her voice. "Hey, why can't I move? Am I offline?" he asked, sending a mental query to the 'ware and getting a whole lot of ... pain. A whole lot of pain - a headache that started deep in his head and ripped through him like a knife. He turned ashen and struggled not to vomit.

"No!" This time she did reach out, a gloved fingertip resting lightly on the glass, shaking her head even though he probably couldn't even see her clearly. "No, no, no, don't. Don't move. Don't try to get a diagnostics. Some of the 'ware is offline but some is not and…" She did sob, once, this time, before reigning herself in. "It'll be okay. Just don't move."

Haroun blearily looked up and towards Alison's voice. "I'm all fucked up, aren't I?" he asked her, voice ragged with the pain of the attempted diagnostic. His control over his bowels was rapidly heading into the ragged edge end of things, and he clamped down on his jaws to try to fight the nausea.

"It's bad." She would cry later. Somehow, Alison managed to choke down on the follow sob and instead kept talking. "But we're working on the new software and hardware. We got what we needed from Shaw - it was in your contract with them, they have to," she winced a bit at the way she'd worded things, which was far from how it had actually happened, and went on, "and Hank and everyone else are making sure that everything will fine."

"Hey." he said bravely. "Relax. They rebuilt me once, they can do it again." he said, and then messily lost the battle against nausea. He didn't have much left to purge out - just some thin sour nastiness. He hazarded a shaky smile at what he sincerely hoped was her head. "Why is it so hot in here? And I feel sick."

"The heat is normal. At least that's what they said, your body trying to fight off the virus and the effect of Omega Red's spore… Do you remember?" What Nathan had said about being there had left Alison shaken and scared, but this was worse, somehow.

Haroun blinked owlishly. "I ... I don't remember." he said confusedly. "Ow." he said intelligently, as the guy behind his eyeballs with the blowtorch came back.

And this time, he brought brothers.

"I don't suppose I can have an aspirin?" he asked plaintively, a sure sign that he was near the end of his rope.

"They're already feeding you a lot of stuff via IV," she murmured, biting her lip once more, tasting blood briefly, the sting of pain belated and ignored. Reluctantly she pulled back her hand, arm threading out of the tangle of wires and tubes carefully. She didn't tell him about the phone calls she had to make, or the ones she'd made before already. Or how things seemed to be going at a snail's pace, rather than the speed with wished for them to move at. "You… you're okay with all of this, right? The operations and… everyone doing everything they can to set you to rights? It's okay?"

"I hate IVs." he grumbled. "Hey. Chin up, kiddo. I'll be fine. It's just machines." he said. "Jetstream can be rebuilt pretty easily."

He was trying to reassure her and that nearly undid her on the spot. "As soon as we fix… everything, yes." Her voice was faltering and that was a bad thing, so she paused, taking a slow breath, not wanting him to know that this was the part which was proving more problematic than anyone would have liked.

Haroun struggled to think that concept through. "Shaw..." he said before giving up this whole speech thing as a bad deal. His headache was only getting worse, and he kept getting feelings that he knew were insane. Like he was falling, or stumbling, or doing a really sweet twisting kick. But it was all skewed and wrong.

"Yeah. Shaw." Alison said the name flatly, and refused to go on. "You should rest more." It was getting hot in the iso suit, or perhaps it was her imagination since the thing was supposed to be able to deal with extreme temperatures. "I'll stay." As long as they'd let her, she'd stay. Or until it was time for another phone call or for more research - but for now, just a few moments longer spent with him before going back to the pursuit of information… she wanted those moments. Just in case.

Haroun lolled his head as he struggled to deal with the fever, the Spore, and the bizarre non-input from the MMI. He did manage to lift his head enough to look at Alison - albeit from a slightly tilted angle. "Love you." he said, before he let unconsciousness take him once more.