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xp_logsClosure, Part 1: Having gone to Muir Island as arranged, Amanda sees Manuel for the first time in just short of a year.
"Hola!" Manuel said with a warm smile upon seeing the wytchbrat bearing beverages. "You're a sight for very sore eyes. I'm dying of thirst over here." he said, reaching for one of the glasses of very, very, suck-all-the-paint-off-your-house tart lemonade that he generally favored.
"Well, you will lie around in the sun bakin' yourself." Amanda grinned and flopped down on the towel beside him once he'd taken his glass. "Not that I'm complainin' 'bout the view, mind."
Manuel held off on replying until after he'd downed half the glass of lemonade. "Ahhhh." he said with real delight, maybe just a hint of red around his eyes as he slipped just a bit, sharing his pleasure in a cold tart drink on a hot day. Then, just for fun, he spent a few moments in a slow writhe on the towel, knowing that she liked looking at him, watching him move.
She chuckled, shaking her head at him before lying back on the towel, sunglasses shielding her eyes from the glare. "Such a showoff," she said, but there was affection in her voice.
"You like it." he said simply, then he quit showing off so he could down the rest of his lemonade. "It is a _glorious_ day out." he said, staring up through his ever-present dark shades into a clear blue sky. "The kind that makes you glad to be alive."
"Mmm." Amanda's reply was almost sleepy sounding. For a long moment she didn't say anything, leading an onlooker to think that perhaps she had fallen asleep, and then she spoke, breaking the warm, comfortable silence. "Manny?"
"Si?" he responded, letting his hand wander over to her towel to take hers lightly.
"This is nice." She turned her head slightly to look at him. "Makes me almost wish I could stop time, make it last forever."
Manuel smiled at that. "I can't stop time, but I will carry it with me forever. And I'll always be willing to share it with you if you want to feel it all over again." he noted carefully. He gave her hand a squeeze and lay in the sun, hand-in-hand with Amanda, basking in the sunshine and in the warm comfortableness.
*beep-hiss* *beep-hiss* *beep-hiss*
Amanda blinked, the unremitting sounds of the life support machines bringing her back to the here and now. In the dim light of the private ICU room, the figure before her was strangely reduced, dwarfed by the equipment keeping him alive.
Manuel spent most of his days floating in a warm familiar oblivion given to him by first-tier painkillers. He rarely opened his eye - the other was bandaged for some reason - to see himself, wasted and slender, covered almost from head-to-toe in bandages to keep various abused parts of him bandaged and clean so that he could heal. The only thing that sent ripples of sensation across the Void was the slight burning sensation in the bottom of his lungs whenever he - or the machine that helped him breathe - took a breath. But right now even the Void held very little appeal to Manuel, so he opened his bloodshot eye to stare at the ceiling of his hospital room. Idly, for a moment, he wondered where Marius and Jennifer had gotten to, then dismissed the thought as irrelevant.
He was... awake? Amanda caught the movement, the long, weary blink of the exposed eye. "Oh, love," she murmured, coming forward to take his limp hand in hers. "You and the hero thing. I knew it'd almost kill you one day." Her voice cracked, eyes filling with tears. He looked so helpless, broken and beaten.
Who was this skinny blonde who was babbling at him, and what did she want? Was she touching him? He couldn't tell, but that was probably just the Void eating all the sensations. "Que?" he managed to croak out around the breathing tube and the terrible pain in his chest. Not only did it hurt to draw shallow breaths, but trying to talk was enough of a spike to send its barbed jags through the Void and into his fragile little mind.
"Shh," she soothed, seeing the spikes on the machine readouts at the effort. "It's all right, don't try to talk." She swallowed, holding back the tears as best she could. "'S me." Now for the hardest part. What would his reaction be when she told him who it was? "Amanda."
Manuel blinked his eye and tried to focus. Blast it, everything _hurt_ now. The Void was no shield now, no comfort at all. That name used to mean something. It used to mean everything to him. Now? He searched himself but all was barren inside of him.
The name meant nothing at all. But something nagged at the back of his mind. A shorter name, a truer name.
"Gemile?" he said, nearly blacking out with the strain of it.
She nearly laughed aloud at the sheer... Manuel-ness of it. Of course he'd use that name. "Yes," she replied, unconsciously stroking his hand as she held it, the old soothing gesture. "I had to come, but if you don't want me here, tell me and I'll go. Don't say anything, just squeeze my hand, okay? If you want me to stay, squeeze my hand, yeah?" She was babbling, she knew, but she couldn't help it. Seeing him again would have been bad enough, but like this?
Manuel just looked at her like she was from another planet entirely. He couldn't understand a damned word she said and on top of that she seemed ... hollow ... to him. In a way he couldn't articulate, like she was a bad fax copy or something. All he wanted was another shot and maybe some more chemical oblivion. It hurt to think, hurt to breathe, hurt to move. "enhhhiihhher?" he asked, too tired now to enunciate clearly, to make himself understood. Her hand he left unsqueezed - mostly because he was numb to his own body and couldn't feel it anyway.
Too much. She was demanding too much of him, same as she always had. And he was doped to the eyeballs - what had made her think he'd be able to take in anything she had to say? But there were things that needed saying, so she was going to try any way. "They'll be okay," she continued, still stroking his hand. "Marius and Jennie. They're back at the school and they're looking after them. Neither's doing fantastic at the moment, but they'll get help."
Manuel still couldn't track a damned word this strange blonde girl was saying, but she was still the most attractive thing he'd laid an eye on in ... he couldn't remember. He liked the way she looked - petite but solid at the same time.
He'd hit it.
And that thought, for whatever reason, brought a smile to his face.
Amanda caught the smile, and took heart. Hopefully something was getting through. "You saved her life, you know," she went on. "From that truck. That's what they told me. You did good, Manny."
He muzzily looked up at Gemile. Her mouth was moving, and noise was coming out, but he couldn't make out a damned word she was saying. She had nice eyes, though, and they gave Manuel something he could focus on. But he was so tired, so very, very tired. Perhaps he would sleep for a time. Or perhaps this girl was some sort of an illusion, a ghost conjured by a damaged and sick brain. He had no way of knowing.
His last action before fading back into chemical fog was to smile again hopefully at the girl. He still thought that he should have known her, but he couldn't remember from where.
Amanda watched the visible eye flutter closed, and squeezed his hand gently. "Sleep well, love. Sleep and heal," she whispered, leaning forward to kiss his forehead softly. "Heal and move on."
Manuel's chemical oblivion was a fairly light one - enough to kill the pain in his body, but not so deep as to risk dependence or to dull his mind completely. His dreams were full of indescribable sensations - crazy patchwork colors, insane patterns, and very tightly frayed spirals that led nowhere and everywhere at the same time. And above all of it was the simple beep of the monitors, the dull rumble of the A/C unit, and even the skritch of the bandages scraping past his sheets.
Out of her pocket, Amanda pulled a small white rectangular shape, a cable wrapped around it. "Got you something," she said, unwrapping the cable to reveal it was the headphones of an iPod. "Moira said it would help when I talked to her on the phone. Actually, she called me a bloody genius." She dropped into Moira's accent for a moment, smiling despite herself as she carefully put the headphones in his ears and lay the iPod itself gently by his side. "Take care out there," she said at last, and then hit 'Shuffle'.
Manuel's dreamscape changed - the crazy colors and the empty spirals still existed, but instead of the dull background noise of his hospital room the strains of a song floated through his head. The lyrics didn't make a great deal of sense to Manuel's addled mind, but at one time they meant a great deal to him.
Some time ago I checked my conscience
And found it wasn't all that clean
A trail of people I had hurt
A sea of sins left unredeemed
Regret is a dull and rusted blade
That covers me with scars that never fade
These wounds, like a catalog of flaws
Serve to remind me of all the pain I've caused.
With a deep sigh, Amanda patted his hand one last time and headed for the door. Hand on the doorknob, she stopped and looked back over to the silent figure in the bed. "I'm so sorry, love," she whispered, before leaving the room and Manuel to the music.
So I resolved to make amends
To heal the damage I had done
But I could never stop the torrent
Of those regrets still yet to come
Regret is a dull and rusted blade
That covers me with scars that never fade
These wounds, like a catalog of flaws
Serve to remind me of all the pain I've caused
This bitter sadness overwhelms me
And mires me down with velvet arms
It's time for me to face the music
It's time to undo all this harm
Regret is a dull and rusted blade
That covers me with scars that never fade
These wounds, like a catalog of flaws
Serve to remind me of all the pain I've caused.
***
Immediately after seeing Manuel, Amanda talks to Angelo. He doesn't tell her what she wants to hear, but what she needs to hear.
Amanda closed the door behind her and paused, leaning her forehead against it whilst she let out a deep, shuddering breath. That had been... Words couldn't even begin to describe it.
Angelo was leaning against the wall just to one side, waiting for her to come out - Marie had gone to talk to Curt and fetch coffee, so he was alone for now. He looked sideways at Amanda, silently.
Time to pull herself together... Amanda straightened, closing her eyes and trying for if not calm, then at least a facsimile of it. She wasn't very successful, and at last she opened her eyes and gave Angelo an almost beseeching look. "Well, that was moderately horrible," she managed, seeking solace in her usual technique of making a joke.
"Yeah?" he prompted gently, not moving toward her just yet.
"I have no idea how much he understood, but I s'pose off his head on drugs and pain and brain damage is better than a coma..." Amanda's voice caught on the last word and she took another deep breath. "I never wanted this to happen," she quavered, the first tears sliding down her face. "I never wanted him to get hurt, even when I was r-ripping the link out of his h-head." The loose semblance on control snapped as the sobs started.
That got him moving the few steps towards her, arms outstretched. "Hey, hey, come here... I know you didn't."
She clung to him, burying her face in his shirt as his arms came around her. "I'm tired of f-feeling g-guilty," she hiccuped. "I-I fucked up a-and p-people are s-still getting hurt and I just, I can't s-say sorry any more. It doesn't m-mean anything."
"Then maybe it's time you stopped", he said, quietly but firmly. "You can't go on blamin' yourself for everythin' Manuel does for the rest of his life. Hell, we don't even know why this happened."
The words seemed to help - Amanda hung onto him for a little while, the sobs gradually lessening until she finally she spoke again, her words muffled by the fact she had her face pressed into his shirt. "I know I can't. I don't want to. I just don't know how to stop. If I do... then I let him go."
"An' isn't it time you did?" was the next gentle question. "He's not yours anymore, Amanda. Even if you still love him."
"I know," came the miserable reply. And she did - maybe this was why this was so hard. "He's just so... alone." Another shuddering breath and a half-sob. "And he needed me for so long." Then her voice dropped into a broken whisper. "But it's over, isn't it?"
"It is. An' I think, maybe... he's less alone than he's ever been here. He's got Moira, an' the other patients here when he's a bit better... an' if he's still talkin' to Marius an' Jennie after whatever happened, he's got them."
"I spent so long, being the only one..." At last she looked up at him, face and eyes puffy and red. "And we hurt each other and messed each other up and spent half the time screaming at each other but... he loved me more than anyone ever has. And... that's hard to give up, even now, when he h-hates me."
"D'you know that he hates you?" he asked, not looking away. "I mean, still? It's been a long time... did he say that, today?"
She shook her head. "He wasn't saying anything, Ange. I don't even know if he knew who I was. And that's part of what makes it so hard. I don't know."
"Then don't imagine the worst", he says quietly. "If he hated you, if he doesn't know who you are now... it is what it is. Time to move on all the same."
It made sense. Angelo always made sense. Amanda nodded, sniffling a little. "I know," she said again, but this time there was no 'but' attached. "Thanks," she added, after a moment. "It helps, having you here."
"Good", he said with a faint smile. "'s half of why I came, after all."
"Hola!" Manuel said with a warm smile upon seeing the wytchbrat bearing beverages. "You're a sight for very sore eyes. I'm dying of thirst over here." he said, reaching for one of the glasses of very, very, suck-all-the-paint-off-your-house tart lemonade that he generally favored.
"Well, you will lie around in the sun bakin' yourself." Amanda grinned and flopped down on the towel beside him once he'd taken his glass. "Not that I'm complainin' 'bout the view, mind."
Manuel held off on replying until after he'd downed half the glass of lemonade. "Ahhhh." he said with real delight, maybe just a hint of red around his eyes as he slipped just a bit, sharing his pleasure in a cold tart drink on a hot day. Then, just for fun, he spent a few moments in a slow writhe on the towel, knowing that she liked looking at him, watching him move.
She chuckled, shaking her head at him before lying back on the towel, sunglasses shielding her eyes from the glare. "Such a showoff," she said, but there was affection in her voice.
"You like it." he said simply, then he quit showing off so he could down the rest of his lemonade. "It is a _glorious_ day out." he said, staring up through his ever-present dark shades into a clear blue sky. "The kind that makes you glad to be alive."
"Mmm." Amanda's reply was almost sleepy sounding. For a long moment she didn't say anything, leading an onlooker to think that perhaps she had fallen asleep, and then she spoke, breaking the warm, comfortable silence. "Manny?"
"Si?" he responded, letting his hand wander over to her towel to take hers lightly.
"This is nice." She turned her head slightly to look at him. "Makes me almost wish I could stop time, make it last forever."
Manuel smiled at that. "I can't stop time, but I will carry it with me forever. And I'll always be willing to share it with you if you want to feel it all over again." he noted carefully. He gave her hand a squeeze and lay in the sun, hand-in-hand with Amanda, basking in the sunshine and in the warm comfortableness.
*beep-hiss* *beep-hiss* *beep-hiss*
Amanda blinked, the unremitting sounds of the life support machines bringing her back to the here and now. In the dim light of the private ICU room, the figure before her was strangely reduced, dwarfed by the equipment keeping him alive.
Manuel spent most of his days floating in a warm familiar oblivion given to him by first-tier painkillers. He rarely opened his eye - the other was bandaged for some reason - to see himself, wasted and slender, covered almost from head-to-toe in bandages to keep various abused parts of him bandaged and clean so that he could heal. The only thing that sent ripples of sensation across the Void was the slight burning sensation in the bottom of his lungs whenever he - or the machine that helped him breathe - took a breath. But right now even the Void held very little appeal to Manuel, so he opened his bloodshot eye to stare at the ceiling of his hospital room. Idly, for a moment, he wondered where Marius and Jennifer had gotten to, then dismissed the thought as irrelevant.
He was... awake? Amanda caught the movement, the long, weary blink of the exposed eye. "Oh, love," she murmured, coming forward to take his limp hand in hers. "You and the hero thing. I knew it'd almost kill you one day." Her voice cracked, eyes filling with tears. He looked so helpless, broken and beaten.
Who was this skinny blonde who was babbling at him, and what did she want? Was she touching him? He couldn't tell, but that was probably just the Void eating all the sensations. "Que?" he managed to croak out around the breathing tube and the terrible pain in his chest. Not only did it hurt to draw shallow breaths, but trying to talk was enough of a spike to send its barbed jags through the Void and into his fragile little mind.
"Shh," she soothed, seeing the spikes on the machine readouts at the effort. "It's all right, don't try to talk." She swallowed, holding back the tears as best she could. "'S me." Now for the hardest part. What would his reaction be when she told him who it was? "Amanda."
Manuel blinked his eye and tried to focus. Blast it, everything _hurt_ now. The Void was no shield now, no comfort at all. That name used to mean something. It used to mean everything to him. Now? He searched himself but all was barren inside of him.
The name meant nothing at all. But something nagged at the back of his mind. A shorter name, a truer name.
"Gemile?" he said, nearly blacking out with the strain of it.
She nearly laughed aloud at the sheer... Manuel-ness of it. Of course he'd use that name. "Yes," she replied, unconsciously stroking his hand as she held it, the old soothing gesture. "I had to come, but if you don't want me here, tell me and I'll go. Don't say anything, just squeeze my hand, okay? If you want me to stay, squeeze my hand, yeah?" She was babbling, she knew, but she couldn't help it. Seeing him again would have been bad enough, but like this?
Manuel just looked at her like she was from another planet entirely. He couldn't understand a damned word she said and on top of that she seemed ... hollow ... to him. In a way he couldn't articulate, like she was a bad fax copy or something. All he wanted was another shot and maybe some more chemical oblivion. It hurt to think, hurt to breathe, hurt to move. "enhhhiihhher?" he asked, too tired now to enunciate clearly, to make himself understood. Her hand he left unsqueezed - mostly because he was numb to his own body and couldn't feel it anyway.
Too much. She was demanding too much of him, same as she always had. And he was doped to the eyeballs - what had made her think he'd be able to take in anything she had to say? But there were things that needed saying, so she was going to try any way. "They'll be okay," she continued, still stroking his hand. "Marius and Jennie. They're back at the school and they're looking after them. Neither's doing fantastic at the moment, but they'll get help."
Manuel still couldn't track a damned word this strange blonde girl was saying, but she was still the most attractive thing he'd laid an eye on in ... he couldn't remember. He liked the way she looked - petite but solid at the same time.
He'd hit it.
And that thought, for whatever reason, brought a smile to his face.
Amanda caught the smile, and took heart. Hopefully something was getting through. "You saved her life, you know," she went on. "From that truck. That's what they told me. You did good, Manny."
He muzzily looked up at Gemile. Her mouth was moving, and noise was coming out, but he couldn't make out a damned word she was saying. She had nice eyes, though, and they gave Manuel something he could focus on. But he was so tired, so very, very tired. Perhaps he would sleep for a time. Or perhaps this girl was some sort of an illusion, a ghost conjured by a damaged and sick brain. He had no way of knowing.
His last action before fading back into chemical fog was to smile again hopefully at the girl. He still thought that he should have known her, but he couldn't remember from where.
Amanda watched the visible eye flutter closed, and squeezed his hand gently. "Sleep well, love. Sleep and heal," she whispered, leaning forward to kiss his forehead softly. "Heal and move on."
Manuel's chemical oblivion was a fairly light one - enough to kill the pain in his body, but not so deep as to risk dependence or to dull his mind completely. His dreams were full of indescribable sensations - crazy patchwork colors, insane patterns, and very tightly frayed spirals that led nowhere and everywhere at the same time. And above all of it was the simple beep of the monitors, the dull rumble of the A/C unit, and even the skritch of the bandages scraping past his sheets.
Out of her pocket, Amanda pulled a small white rectangular shape, a cable wrapped around it. "Got you something," she said, unwrapping the cable to reveal it was the headphones of an iPod. "Moira said it would help when I talked to her on the phone. Actually, she called me a bloody genius." She dropped into Moira's accent for a moment, smiling despite herself as she carefully put the headphones in his ears and lay the iPod itself gently by his side. "Take care out there," she said at last, and then hit 'Shuffle'.
Manuel's dreamscape changed - the crazy colors and the empty spirals still existed, but instead of the dull background noise of his hospital room the strains of a song floated through his head. The lyrics didn't make a great deal of sense to Manuel's addled mind, but at one time they meant a great deal to him.
Some time ago I checked my conscience
And found it wasn't all that clean
A trail of people I had hurt
A sea of sins left unredeemed
Regret is a dull and rusted blade
That covers me with scars that never fade
These wounds, like a catalog of flaws
Serve to remind me of all the pain I've caused.
With a deep sigh, Amanda patted his hand one last time and headed for the door. Hand on the doorknob, she stopped and looked back over to the silent figure in the bed. "I'm so sorry, love," she whispered, before leaving the room and Manuel to the music.
So I resolved to make amends
To heal the damage I had done
But I could never stop the torrent
Of those regrets still yet to come
Regret is a dull and rusted blade
That covers me with scars that never fade
These wounds, like a catalog of flaws
Serve to remind me of all the pain I've caused
This bitter sadness overwhelms me
And mires me down with velvet arms
It's time for me to face the music
It's time to undo all this harm
Regret is a dull and rusted blade
That covers me with scars that never fade
These wounds, like a catalog of flaws
Serve to remind me of all the pain I've caused.
***
Immediately after seeing Manuel, Amanda talks to Angelo. He doesn't tell her what she wants to hear, but what she needs to hear.
Amanda closed the door behind her and paused, leaning her forehead against it whilst she let out a deep, shuddering breath. That had been... Words couldn't even begin to describe it.
Angelo was leaning against the wall just to one side, waiting for her to come out - Marie had gone to talk to Curt and fetch coffee, so he was alone for now. He looked sideways at Amanda, silently.
Time to pull herself together... Amanda straightened, closing her eyes and trying for if not calm, then at least a facsimile of it. She wasn't very successful, and at last she opened her eyes and gave Angelo an almost beseeching look. "Well, that was moderately horrible," she managed, seeking solace in her usual technique of making a joke.
"Yeah?" he prompted gently, not moving toward her just yet.
"I have no idea how much he understood, but I s'pose off his head on drugs and pain and brain damage is better than a coma..." Amanda's voice caught on the last word and she took another deep breath. "I never wanted this to happen," she quavered, the first tears sliding down her face. "I never wanted him to get hurt, even when I was r-ripping the link out of his h-head." The loose semblance on control snapped as the sobs started.
That got him moving the few steps towards her, arms outstretched. "Hey, hey, come here... I know you didn't."
She clung to him, burying her face in his shirt as his arms came around her. "I'm tired of f-feeling g-guilty," she hiccuped. "I-I fucked up a-and p-people are s-still getting hurt and I just, I can't s-say sorry any more. It doesn't m-mean anything."
"Then maybe it's time you stopped", he said, quietly but firmly. "You can't go on blamin' yourself for everythin' Manuel does for the rest of his life. Hell, we don't even know why this happened."
The words seemed to help - Amanda hung onto him for a little while, the sobs gradually lessening until she finally she spoke again, her words muffled by the fact she had her face pressed into his shirt. "I know I can't. I don't want to. I just don't know how to stop. If I do... then I let him go."
"An' isn't it time you did?" was the next gentle question. "He's not yours anymore, Amanda. Even if you still love him."
"I know," came the miserable reply. And she did - maybe this was why this was so hard. "He's just so... alone." Another shuddering breath and a half-sob. "And he needed me for so long." Then her voice dropped into a broken whisper. "But it's over, isn't it?"
"It is. An' I think, maybe... he's less alone than he's ever been here. He's got Moira, an' the other patients here when he's a bit better... an' if he's still talkin' to Marius an' Jennie after whatever happened, he's got them."
"I spent so long, being the only one..." At last she looked up at him, face and eyes puffy and red. "And we hurt each other and messed each other up and spent half the time screaming at each other but... he loved me more than anyone ever has. And... that's hard to give up, even now, when he h-hates me."
"D'you know that he hates you?" he asked, not looking away. "I mean, still? It's been a long time... did he say that, today?"
She shook her head. "He wasn't saying anything, Ange. I don't even know if he knew who I was. And that's part of what makes it so hard. I don't know."
"Then don't imagine the worst", he says quietly. "If he hated you, if he doesn't know who you are now... it is what it is. Time to move on all the same."
It made sense. Angelo always made sense. Amanda nodded, sniffling a little. "I know," she said again, but this time there was no 'but' attached. "Thanks," she added, after a moment. "It helps, having you here."
"Good", he said with a faint smile. "'s half of why I came, after all."
