xp_logs | Anika and Madelyn, late Wednesday afternoon (Reply)

Sometime after this log, Madelyn comes down to visit Anika, who's doing a little better physically but is still in a very rocky place otherwise. A daring escape is made to the Land of Fresh Air, and Anika and Madelyn get a moment and some space to mourn, together.

She hated this place. Hated it, hated it, hated it. Anika
curled into a tighter ball, ignoring the protest of still-healing
muscles and skin and bones and, well, everything. Reddened blue eyes
peered defiantly at the door, waiting for it to open. Because it
always did. Strange people coming in to visit her, with all their
well-meaning fucking condolences and insane comments. Come and get
a look at the recently almost-dead woman. Sometimes she really
hated having a healing factor.

Madelyn wasn't sure why she'd talked Moira into letting her do this.
To cover the feeling of uselessness, to maybe start to heal the grief
by helping someone else? Or was it because Mick would have wanted her
to make sure Anika was okay? Either way, she wasn't too sure about
this now as she knocked gently on the door. Doctors walked straight
in. Visitors knocked.

Knocking? When did people knock, around here? The doctors were always
walking in. Some of their little helpers, too, Anika thought sourly,
then sniffed, the scowl fading into a pensive frown. She knew that
scent, even over the antiseptic hospital smells all around her. "Come
in," she called out, her voice rough as it came out through her
still-healing throat. As Madelyn opened the door and stepped in, Anika
uncurled a little, warily, wincing as she moved. "Hi, Madelyn," she
murmured. "Did you bring cards? Mick always said you brought cards
when you came to see him."

The reference brought a bittersweet pang of memory; she was glad Mick
had remembered it enough to mention it, even through the grief.
Reaching into the pocket of the unzipped hoodie she was wearing (one
arm only through the sleeve, the injured arm secured by the Damned
Sling), she pulled out the deck of cards she'd brought along on
impulse. "Have cards, will travel."

"I'm the worst card player in the world." Anika uncurled a little
more, an actual whimper slipping out as she tried to stretch.
"Seriously," she said, her voice catching. "No poker face at all.
Although I know all kinds of different ways to play solitaire." Her
jaw trembled a little before she set it determinedly.

"My brother taught me a two-handed version of solitare - i could teach
you that, if you like," Madelyn suggested, taking in the whimper and
the tremble, but not wanting to push. Sympathy and hugs were good, but
so was space and just being treated normally - God knew she had had
enough of fussing by the second day, although she'd been careful to
hide her impatience. "Though if we try that I'd have to sit on the
bed. The chair's too low."

It struck Anika to ask her if she really did want to play cards, or
whether this was just a sneaky way of trying to figure out How She Was
Doing and all that bullshit, in which case Madelyn could just turn
around and walk right back out and... well, she was getting a little
ahead of herself, wasn't she? Twitching, she scooted over a little
bit. "Plenty of room," she muttered, her eyes roving the room. "Do you
know, I'm not supposed to be getting out of bed? How stupid is that.
What good's a healing factor if you have to lie around and stare up at
the ceiling and smell antiseptic everything all the time? Not to
mention the fact that I can hear through the walls and no one will
ever lower their voices around here."

Madelyn chuckled a little as she sat, awkwardly turning the pack of
cards over in her left hand. "Unfortunately, while most medical
procedures around here have taken into account mutations, some of the
basic stuff, like making people stay in bed, is harder to adapt." She
looked around. "You know the really sad thing? You want out, and I
want in, and neither of us is getting what we want. But I'll have a
word with the others about letting you get some fresh air."

"Fresh air." Anika couldn't keep the longing note out of her voice.
"I'm not up to chasing squirrels. Kyle keeps offering to bring me one.
I think he doesn't get that it's not exactly, what, appropro and all
under the circumstances. Squirrels aren't really sanitary, are they?"

"Not really, no." Madelyn noted that longing note, and made up her
mind. Damn waiting to consult with the others. She'd checked Ani's
charts before coming in, and while she was still healing, she was out
of danger. Except perhaps of climbing the walls with boredom. There
was a wheelchair in the corner - getting up again, she brought it over
to the side of the bed. "All right," she said crisply. "Hop in. Before
we lose the whole spontenaety of the moment."

The sudden brightening of Anika's expression was almost maniacal in
its ferocity. "Ah! Jailbreak. Can I call you my own personal Houdini?
Because that would be both funny and fit really, really well." She
clambered awkwardly off the bed, swaying a little before she lowered
herself into the wheelchair. "I miss natural light, you know, when I
get stuck in places like this. It's like I just crave sunlight, and
then people wonder why I'm cranky. Well, there's that and the other
stuff," she said more vaguely, looking distinctly twitchy again.

"You should talk to Scott - put him in sunlight and he gets buzzed.
_Really_ buzzed." Madelyn yanked a blanket off the bed and draped it
over Anika's lap, tucking it in so it didn't get caught in the wheels.
"It's cold out there," she explained at Anika's frown. "And getting
you dressed would take too long - Moira or Jean would catch us and
then we're both in trouble." She surprised herself by winking at Anika
- somehow, this felt right. "Steering's going to be interesting...
think you can help out?" She waved her hand at the other trussed up
nice and securely.

Anika's eyes narrowed. "Good thing my bad arm's on the other side,"
she said. "Make it a cooperative effort? That way if we run into a
wall and get caught the blame gets spread equal ways." She looked
slightly embarassed.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Madelyn agreed, taking up her place behind
Anika. It took a bit of a shove with her hip as much as anything to
get them going, but the momentum helped. As did the smooth polished
surface of the floors. "I'd never thought about it before, but it is
pretty oppressive down here," she said, once they were underway,
Madelyn tweaking the wheelchair's direction as best she could. Luckily
there weren't too many corners. "Then again, I tend to live down here.
Especially during night shift."

"I don't like any places without windows," Anika said fitfully,
helping steer. "I mean, the walls aren't white, so there's that, at
least, but no windows and all the metal aren't really all that much
fun. I don't know how Nate's stood it all the times he's been down
there."

"Not very well," Madelyn confided, grunting a little as they rounded
the final corner before the elevator. "I remember having to yell at
him a couple of times for making his own escapes." And she possibly
could have been a tad more sympathetic about that, she was realising
in hindsight. The debriefing files on the white rooms and what had
been found there had been... disturbing. They reached the rear
elevator, and Madelyn hit the button, glancing over her shoulder
conspiratorially. "I don't think they've missed us yet," she said with
a grin.

"Combination of speed and not being loud," Anika said. "You can get
away with all kinds of things if you're not loud. With most people."
Her lips trembled a little as Madelyn pushed the wheelchair into the
elevator. "You can't fool Mick, though. He hears everything."

Where to start? "The medlab bothered him too, especially the noise. He
picked up everything, even when we were trying to be quiet so he could
rest," she said, the past tense as easily explainable by the fact she
was talking of past events, rather than consigning Mick himself to the
'things done with' pile. "Disadvantage of a mutation to do with sound.
Al's just as bad."

"I hear really well too," Ani said, her voice staying relatively low
but growing a bit wild. "I can hear Nathan right through the wall. He
cries in his sleep sometimes, you know. I suppose I probably do too. I
keep waking up realizing I've been crying and can't remember where I
am right away." She swallowed visibly, rubbing with some agitation at
her throat. "But I always remember. I don't smell Mick anywhere and I
remember."

The elevator chose that moment to reach its destination and ping
cheerfully. With a murmured "Hold on, hon," Madelyn managed to get them
both out and through the French doors in one of the parlours, onto a small
patio area. It wasn't the best of days, but there was sun, fitfully shining
through the dull grey clouds, and the air held that note of spring, of
green growing things. There was a low stone bench to one side, and Madelyn
steered the wheelchair awkwardly over there before sitting down where she
could reach Anika's hand. She didn't even think about it, just reached for
the other woman's hand with hers. Something to hold onto.

Anika's hand tightened on hers almost spasmodically. "It's not fair,"
she said, words spilling over each other as if they were in a race to
get out. "It's not fair, and I should be happy for the kids and I am
but I'm so angry." She took a deep, shuddering breath, her free
hand going awkwardly to her side as her ribs protested. "And I don't
care, you know, what happens to the directors who survived, whether
they're punished... I don't care because it doesn't matter anymore,
because they took almost everything I had left away from me, just like
they always did."

"Oh, hon..." Madelyn wished she had two arms working, even if a hug
wouldn't be accepted right then. "It is unfair, after everything you
both went through. He was so happy with you. He came down and talked
to me the night before I left, and he was so different..." Tears
trickled down her face, and for once she didn't berate herself for
them. Bad grief counselling procedure or not. "He loved you, so much,
he couldn't believe his luck, and I wish to God there was something I
could have done, that someone could have done..."

"Lucky." Ani gave a hollow little laugh with no humor in it, tears
glittering in her eyes. "He would see himself as the lucky one.
But I think the lucky one is... was me, you know? Because he decided
he wanted to live, and I know that I wasn't the only reason, but I was
a big one." She sniffled, looking away. "I was a big one..."

"Well, that was Mick, never one for the ego..." Madelyn ducked her head to
wipe her face with the right hand still pinioned against her chest by the
sling. "You both were lucky," she said with a sniff, trying to compose
herself. "I mean, I didn't see a lot of you together, but what I did... it
was a good thing, Ani. And I know this isn't much comfort now, but you did
have that. Even if it wasn't for very long." She realised with a start that
it held true for her as well - she hadn't known Mick long, or as well as
Alison, but she had known him, and she couldn't tarnish that with
regrets.

"I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss him so much," Anika said,
absolute desolation in her voice. "The others, too, but him most of
all. I let myself believe..." Her throat tried to close. "I let myself
believe and I shouldn't have," she rasped out, shaking. "I should have
known better."

"No, Ani, don't do that. Not to yourself and not to him." Madelyn squeezed
Anika's hand to make sure she had the other woman's attention. "You start
thinking like that and Mistra's won. They wanted to turn you into
tools, killers that would do their bidding at the flip of a switch. But
they couldn't take away your humanity, none of the first gens, no matter
how hard they tried. But if you close yourself off, if you stop believing
and living and loving, then you're letting them succeed in making
you something less than human." Her own throat was tightening, but she went
on, holding the other woman's eyes with a fierce blue gaze. "You took a
chance, Ani, and it's so damn unfair that you lost him, but at least you
took that chance, for him and for you."

Anika was huddling farther into herself in the chair, as if fighting
(and losing against) the urge to curl back up into the same fetal ball
she'd been in down in the medlab. She didn't let go of Madelyn's hand,
though. "I don't know how to do this alone," she almost whimpered. "I
don't want to be alone again. I didn't like it the first time!"

"You're not alone, hon, not now and not ever again. You think Nathan and
Alison would let that happen?" Madelyn found herself perched on the very
edge of the bench, unconsciously moving towards Anika, even if she couldn't
actually hug her right now. "You're family, and we'll be there for you,
whenever you need us." Damn this half-assed comforting - with a slight tug
on her hand she pulled gently Anika up out of the chair and onto the bench
beside her, wrapping her good arm around the other woman. "If you don't
want to stay here, there's always the Pack - from what Nathan's told me
about them, they'd be fighting us for you any way," she added with a faint
note of humour in her voice. "It's not the same I know, sweetie, but we're
here. Always."

Anika clung to her gingerly, knowing that the other woman was hurt,
but she needed the contact so badly. The tears were rolling down her
cheeks now. "I d-don't know what I want," she whispered. "It all went
away. What I wanted. I thought it was worth risking everything to stop
them, but I don't know anymore, I don't know..."

Madelyn's heart ached, and she found herself wondering the same thing. But
then she thought of the children as they'd come out, the expressions on
their faces as they'd been packed onto helicopters and flown back home.
Like they'd woken from a long and especially dark dream to find the sun
still shining. As if echoing her thoughts, the sun broke through the clouds
just then, bathing the little patio in warmth. "You need to heal, Ani," she
murmured, rocking her gently. "There's plenty of time later, for decisions
and knowing what you want. As long as you need. And we'll be here. Nate and
Al and Kyle..."

"You too?" Anika asked brokenly, sniffling. "Mick told me. Not just
about the cards. You made him feel safe. Like it was all right that he
couldn't find his footing right away. That there'd be t-time." Her
voice broke again. "He admired you so much, you know? For everything
you were doing to help us and the others and the kids... and he
t-told me about Vermont. That you c-cared because you wanted to, not
because you felt guilty, like MacInnis."

"Me too," Madelyn affirmed, and for a moment that was all she could say.
Anika had given her a precious gift with that knowledge, and it broke her
heart all over again, even as she cherished it. "I'll be here, Ani, as long
as you need." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "As long as I need, too."

Anika sniffled again, and held on. "That means you're pack, too," she
whispered. "So my pack's not gone. It's not all gone again..."

"Not gone," Madelyn echoed, rubbing Anika's back soothingly. "We're here,
and we're not going anywhere. You take as much time as you need, hon." A
slight wind stirred around them, ruffling Anika's short blond hair, and
Madelyn automatically reached to tuck the blanket around her more securely.
"You're not too cold?"

"Fresh air," Anika said faintly. "It's cold but it's fresh... I feel
like I can breathe out here." She let the air in her lungs out on a
long sigh. "Go from having too much nervous energy to none at all... I
wish my healing factor would settle down." She swallowed convulsively.
"Haven't gotten that hurt in a long time."

She'd have a word with the others about getting Anika out of the medlab
soon - it really wasn't doing her any good. "It'll take a little while -
it's been under a lot of strain, so you'll get tired faster until it
catches up again." Madelyn rested her cheek against the golden head resting
on her shoulder. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, to help you and Nathan. Not
that the medics who were there did a bad job it's just..." She paused,
thinking over the word. "Pack, I suppose. My people got hurt, and I wasn't
there to help them." Stumbling upon the barracks later was engraved on her
memory, even through the haze of pain and exhaustion and shock she'd been
in by then. "Alison's already reminded me I can't be everywhere at once,
but still... I wish I had been." To help Mick even, ease his pain...

"You're here now," Ani whispered, closing her eyes. "And I'm really
glad you are."