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[x-marrow.livejournal.com]

Jono gets his fifteen minutes with Sarah when she wakes up. There's hugging involved.



If stealthy sidling had been a skill taught somewhere, Jono might've actually been good at it. He just generally disliked the medlab, and the atmosphere, to come and go quietly and like he didn't belong. He knocked on Sarah's door, although he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as if they hadn't shared a living space anyway.

Looking up from her laptop, Sarah could barely contain her smile as she saw Jono at the door. "Hey Sparky," she said, pushing herself up a little more, "was wondering if you'd come to visit."

He strode in, automatically looking around to see if someone was hiding in a corner or something. "Yeah. Wondered if they'd let me after the debacle in the journals." He bent down to hug her artlessly, when he was at the bed.

Her smile widened at the hug, and she not so subtly hid it in his shoulder for a moment. She did have a reputation to uphold after all. "So much for emailing you because you wouldn't freak out on me..." she teased, just loud enough for him to hear.

He withdrew a bit, bumping his forehead against hers. "What did you think? Oh, my best friend's going to go kill herself, I'll just sit here and do nothing?"

"I wasn't going to kill myself, Sparky. The death thing was not my goal. Not death for me, anyway." She shrugged, then grinned again. "But thanks for trying. It makes me feel special, in a sick sort of way."

"Yeah, you weren't going to kill yourself, they were. There's a difference", Jono reminded her, finally sitting up straight on the edge of her bed. "And they did." He glanced at the clock to make sure it wasn't going too fast.

There was a moment of silence as Sarah looked at him, a flash of guilt in her expression. "I had to try," she insisted, "I couldn't go all my life and do -nothing-."

"I know that", he replied simply. "But alone? That's just-", He shook his head, then tried to smile. "It doesn't matter. You're here."

"Yeah, you're not that lucky to get rid of me on the first try," she joked, but the words felt flat. "What sucks the most, is that I ran off and did this, and couldn't even finish the fucking job. Some Morlock I am."

"Lived to try another day?" he suggested. "With help? Besides", he continued. "I don't want to get rid of you."

"Yeah, like I'd ever get another chance to run off alone like that." She sighed, leaning her head back against the pillow behind her. "Fuck, I need a cigarette."

"I just don't get it. Why alone if you've people who are willing to help? And don't give me any of that needing to do this or that alone shite." Jono was frowning a little now, but seemed more curious than anything.

"But that's all it is." She looked at him helplessly, knowing that there wasn't anything she could say to make him really understand. "They killed my family. Doing this is my responsibility. Besides, it's the irony. It's the look on that bitch's face when she watched me kill her teammate. Dead by a Morlock's hand."

She was right. There was no way she could make him understand, possibly because when she lived in the sewers, he had been off having fun in London. So he only nodded. "Just. Dying because of that would be really idiotic. Again."

"Yeah, I heard you the first time you said it." This would be about the point where if she could move her legs without feeling like she was dying again (and she'd -tried-) she would have curled up and stared at a spot at the wall until she could come up with a new topic of discussion. Instead, she just sat there, fingers running along the scars on her hands again.

He set his fingertips on her arm, probing towards her thoughts a little, but then turned the touch into another hug. The clock was definitely conspiring against him and moving extra fast. "I was worried", he said. "And I should go before someone has to remove me."

She buried her face in his shoulder, tempted to just not let him go. Maybe the docs would give in if she kept bugging them. "Somebody has to remove you from my room. Seems to be the trend around here."

"Yeah, it does. Think we're just not meant to be, Spikey", he said, amused a bit, and his nose against her neck. "That or we're utterly too bad influence on each other."

She laughed, until she remembered how much it -hurt- to laugh. "Ow. Probably both. Definitely the bad influence part."

"Yeah", he agreed, then pulled back, standing up. "I'll come by later to be more bad influence, but you should probably rest now. Your knees didn't feel very good."

She started laughing again, and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, no shit. It's what happens when they get shot out."

"Haven't tried that yet." He shrugged with one shoulder, slowly retreating towards the door. "We should go out sometime and just blow my knees away, see what'd happen."

"I wouldn't recommend it. It's about as pointless as you think me going into the tunnels alone was." She waved him off with a smile. "Later Sparky."

"See you later, Spikey", he replied with raised eyebrows and disappeared into the corridor behind the door.