xp_logs | Tayammum 3: Back in shape

With a little help, Sooraya finally manages to regain her human form.

Emma reviewed the picture in her mind again. She kept mental maps of everyone associated with the Mansion in her head, filed away in the back of her head. There were a number of reasons for it, but bringing Sooraya back from her dispersed state suddenly seemed a very important one. So Emma ran her mind carefully over the curves and shapes of Sooraya’s mind map, making sure it was as clean and delineated as it could be.

“You know I don’t like this, don’t you?” she said, quietly, to Doug. He understood her, as well as anyone, did and would know how much she hated having to trust Sooraya’s mind to someone else, even if it was her White Knight.

If there was anyone that understood what was involved in helping to put another person back together piece by piece, physically -and- mentally, it was them. Knowing that Emma was there to help gave Doug a much-needed calming to his nerves. Sue and Molly and Laurie had walked him through what was needed, and the theory behind it, but it was still a lot of unknowns.

“Here it is,” said Emma softly, and took her mind map of Sooraya’s sense of herself, gathered it carefully within her mental hands. She blessed everything that it was Doug she was working with; their trust in each other was near-absolute and his mind was freely available to her. Carefully, slowly, she let her mind draw shapes within Doug’s, traced the edges of Sooraya’s self-sense, in all its forms, gifted it into Doug’s mind. “Be careful with it,” she breathed.

"Like it was my own," Doug answered. There was so much information to be contained and catalogued. He had a new appreciation for just how difficult it must have been for her, helping him re-establish himself after dealing with Mastermold, and he spared a brief tendril of thought to convey his continued and deep gratitude to her. He held up his right hand and stared intently at the traceries of black and gold that made it up. Perhaps it was unnecessary, a sort of visual crutch, but he found when he was conveying information to them or communicating on more than a background instinctual level, it helped to have something to focus on.

It felt like forever, but at the speed of thought, it was probably only seconds. 'Uploading' the information dump Emma had given him from his own consciousness to the loose collective cohabiting his body, he made very sure that the nanites he was about to shed understood where they were going, what they needed to do, and how to transmit the information. He really hoped this worked, because Sooraya deserved to come back from this. "Sam'i Allahu liman hamidah, Rabbana wa lakal hamd," he murmured in the fluid syllables of Arabic as he took another sterilized scalpel and made a deliberate cut just above the inside of his elbow. Allowing several drops of blood to collect on the instrument, he then carefully lowered it and allowed the blood to drip onto Sooraya's dispersed form.

Sooraya still floated. Occasionally she caught a flare of sound or some hazy images, but mostly she floated amidst a soothing blackness or strange clouds of colors. But there it was again though... that strange pricking sensation on the edge of her consciousness and something inside her perked up. Last time, though uncomfortable, it had brought warmth and she'd been finally heard. A picture of a man floated in front of her... 'Doug' A voice inside her whispered and she pushed herself to focus on the strange pricking sensation.

As soon as she focused, something began to push at her consciousness, spreading through her. It tingled and pricked and stung and pushed her move, to do something. And there were people out there, people who wanted her back... was this it? So she shifted her focus and simply tried to push one thing back: 'Help?'

Doug was watching intently for any sign of progress in Sooraya's dust. As he continued to stare, trying to will something to happen, he felt...a buzzing sort of feedback from his arm where it lay on the table. Curious, he moved his nanite hand closer to the containment they had set up for Sooraya, and the sensation grew stronger. Some kind of resonance with the nanites he had 'donated'? As he concentrated, he managed to parse it into a single word - 'help'. "I think...I think she's trying to communicate," he explained to the others. Encouraged, he tried to find the single word that might help Sooraya most, and then concentrated on pushing that single word with every iota of his power.

'Build'.

'Build? Build what?' An image of a... hand?... flashed through her mind and the stinging sensation increased till she felt something starting to move. It followed the contours of the image before her and Sooraya finally managed to put a little conscious effort behind it. Contours became something to be filled and even shifted to flesh for a moment, but then another image flashed in front of her, this time of a foot. The pricking sensation returned again and this time Sooraya knew what to do. Putting more effort behind it, the contours filled, separate toes formed, each with their own nail shifting to flesh as well for a second.

~Ah! There,~ thought Emma, as the quicksilver flash of another mind, suddenly swam into the telepathic net she’d cast across the medlab. It was only the merest hint of shape and had flickered out again, but it was there. And again, another flicker, and this time Emma was quick enough to catch it within her net, to touch it with her own mind, to attach the softest spider-web of a telepathic thread before it vanished again. The third time it flickered back into existence, it was a little more formed and Emma caressed it gently with her mind. ~Here, Sooraya,~ she said. ~Here is who you are.~ There wasn’t enough time or enough of Sooraya to give her the whole mindmap yet, but Emma sketched the edges of Sooraya, an outline a mind could fill.

The stinging sensation surged again... but it felt different this time. It seemed all encompassing but was also more gentle at the same time, more of a tingling sensation that gently nudged her. Another image flashed in her mind, a vague picture of a body... no... not a body... her body. This was her body. Sooraya realized and some of the fog cleared from her mind. Other more stinging nudges returned, urging her along. Sand actually floated up and started to move and shift around, forming the actual 3D outline of a body. The hands and feet were easy, she already had those pictures in her mind... skin, hair it all fell into place slowly and weird patches of flesh shimmered on her sandform.

Doug quashed the urge to yell 'it's working' because he was sure everyone else could see what was happening as well as him. Instead, he concentrated on quiet mental support to Emma so that she did not have to deal with any extraneous distractions. He sent a surge of support vaguely in Sooraya's direction as well, since there had been some resonance through the nanites.

Grain by grain dropped into place and the picture in her mind became clearer and clearer. And suddenly it was there, a kind of abyss she just had to jump into. Sooraya hesitated, but suddenly a small surge of support pulsed through her and she pulled herself together. There were people waiting for her on the other side... who wanted her back... And she jumped.

Her muscles violently contracted as she fought to pull in those first breaths, back into her fully human form.

Laurie sprang into action as soon as Sooraya's body was solid, gesturing for Amelia to help her with attaching the monitors as she directed and making sure they could see her vitals picking up properly now that she was back in a physical form.

"Is her mental map stable?"

Emma nodded, cradling Sooraya’s mind within the gentle touch of her telepathy, cushioning it from the shock of suddenly being whole again, instead of the soft drift of diffusion. “She’s very strong,” said Emma softly, admiringly. “She knows who she is. She just needed a little help to find herself again.” Emma tilted her head in thought. “With the fact that her powers means diffusion so often, I suspect it needs her to have a strong sense of…” She stopped herself. “Sorry, you’re busy. Yes, she’s stable.”

Sooraya sucked in another breath before she finally got a hold of herself and slowed her breath a little, moving her fingers and toes a little, while scanning the room. "What..." she whispered very softly.

"Welcome back," Doug said with a genuine smile. "You were torn apart on that last mission, but thankfully we were able to find a way to show you how to put yourself back together."

"I'm back? Back home?" Sooraya's eyes moved from Laurie and Amelia still checking her over to Doug and Emma standing a little back. Slowly it clicked that she was indeed back and she relaxed back into the table, letting her eyes fall shut while the doctors worked.