Saving Cayli

[Natalie Grey]

Given the tone of the conversation she had overheard on the balcony, she doubted that were true. If Jay avoided warning his family of his imminent arrival, it was probably for reasons in the same vein as her own. It carved a small, humourless smile from her expression for sins shared. She knew nothing of how he'd ended up with the Legion, but doubted good things pushed him from the arms of his home. And it changed a man, the life he led. As much as he must love his family, it did not mean he relished the awkwardness of reunion.

The rush from the terminal had fortified her for a while, but exhaustion began it's ferocious gnaw once they left the tarmac. She half dozed a while, fighting to concentrate on her book and its familiar soothe, before sleep sank her lids low. The paperback fell loose in her lap as her breathing softened into dreams tangled like thorns, though less potent than those lured forth in the deep dark of night. She fell into a world of churned sand on an empty beach; of dozens of small footprints, their owners vanished. They will be our future, Azu proclaimed proudly.

Sickness dragged her stomach.

Sometimes when she spun round to catch his ghost the beach morphed to jungle leaves slick with blood and noises in the trees, but this time there was only a figure distant on the beach. He flickered like a mirage, broken on his knees, shifting great fistfuls of sand with clawed hands. Heel to throat in black. The deeper he dug, the deeper he sank.

She took a step forward, but it was like the lens stretched the yawning distance of a light-forsaken chasm. She took another anyway, until fingers entwined her own from behind. She knew that hand better than her own. The callouses and scars. His breath stirred the dark hair at her ear; the deep vibration of his voice a promise, as though about to speak.

So achingly real.

Real enough that it roused her.

Natalie blinked groggily as consciousness seeped back in. Overhead the intercom declared the final checks for landing soon. She frowned, a small murmur of discomfort leaving her throat as she ran a hand over her face. Her cheek pressed against Jay's shoulder, her neck stiff. Beyond, through the window, a flat tapestry of farmland replaced what had been mountainous the last time she looked.

Jensen read quietly. Jay frowned at nothing. Her limbs protested against the long hours caged as she straightened, clipping her seatbelt back on for descent.

There were no long queues at the airport, minuscule even compared to the dereliction of JFK. A few scant hours decent sleep fortified the burn of her curiosity for new surroundings. Her gaze trailed as they passed through, though there was little to see -- least of all this early in the morning. She toyed with her wallet while arrangements for the last leg of the journey were made, then excused herself to call her mother while the paperwork for the SUV hire was filled in.

[Jay Carpenter]

He drove with one hand clenching the wheel, the other propped against the rim of the window. Both thumbs tapped the leather like a drum along with the music. At one point, he turned up the volume when a particular song crossed the radio. Last time he heard it, he was crossing the countryside in a truck hours from failing and abandoning him in the snow. It wasn't snowing now. A spring clung to the flat horizon. Here and there, tufts of green brave- or stupid-enough, showed themselves early. A risk on the part of the plant, making them vulnerable to spring frosts as much as spring storms. In this part of the world, either extremes were just as likely, either with catastrophic results. At least on the part of the plant.

The two-lane highway rolled endlessly along as mundane and homogenous as acre after acre of empty fields. The only sign of the passage of time was the slightly different billboard decorating one side of the road versus the other. A green sign pointing the way to distant hubs of people that barely qualified as a town down one lane or another. 

It was home. A horizon that promised something on the other side but human eyes simply couldn't strain hard enough to glimpse it. Home stretched unobscured, treeless, buildingless, empty, but not alone. Not necessarily.

He turned from the main road onto one whose pavement was dimpled with age. The rented vehicle was only a few years old, and rolled fairly smoothly over the terrain, but the passengers jostled none the less. "Short-cut," Jay explained as the engine revved. They flew along the road almost twice the posted speed-limit. Jay didn't care. Nobody policed this stretch, though perhaps they should. Old wooden crosses dotted the ditches once in a while, marking places of former accidents now forgotten. 

From this road split dirt-paths that led sometimes to distant farmhouses and sometimes to seeming nothingness. But mailboxes marked their entrance. Someone lived down those dirty lanes. Another one off another road would take him to Jay's house. It darkened his face to think about. They were getting closer. One dirt road pulled his attention as they rolled by, memories overwhelming him like a flash flood. He picked up Anna Marie, the cheerleader he took to senior prom, as she stepped out onto the front porch ready for prom. He remembered thinking she was gorgeous in those smooth blue skirts. He put flowers on her wrist and waited to slip his hands on her waist until the view of her dad was long gone. Anna Marie was a hell of a lot of fun. Although he wasn't ignorant of whispers behind her back, of the names others called her.

She was some sort of pharmacist in town now, the one that mom brought up last time he was home. Light of all that was good and holy, don't let her be working at the hospital. He exhaled like the memories might get shoved someplace less accessible in his mind. 

The shortcut ended with the turn onto another highway. A minute later, houses filled in. Then a gas-station, the cost per gallon outrageously high. The building was pockmarked with signs of old protests. Boards covered half of the windows never replaced. But the store clung to life anyway.

A decent sized town revealed itself.  Post-office was shut down for the weekend. The grocery store was still dark. A pizza restaurant was closed up, boarded for permanent closure. Downtown was no less depressing. Jay was somewhat relieved to see the hot-dog/pool hall/bar remained. That place was a shithole, but had the best food in the county. Lots of memories.

Ten minutes after arriving, he pulled into the hospital parking lot. It was a two-story building constructed some fifty years ago. Age didn't settle well upon the shoulders of this old girl. 

Blood pumped fresh through his veins as he seized the power for the first time since landing. The eyes of a soldier scanned the perimeter, though a growing weight in his chest gave him warning. The building was far more similar to the hospital in Freetown. The same double-levels. The same flat exterior. The same bottleneck entrance. Temne-units overran it, the Mende slaughtered. Doctors, nurses, other staff, the patients, the vulnerable -- it didn't matter. They were all caught in the crossfire. The building represented the town. A hub. Control. Then burned. 

Jay pushed his eyes closed. Temne soldiers moved with blind fury through the halls, kicking in doors and shooting any resistance. All because the president laid vulnerable in surgery. Anyone standing between them and the president were fodder. 

Legio Patria Nostra he said to himself, hoping after he did that the words didn't escape his lips like a whisper. The promise had been the last thing he said before they kicked in the front door for themselves, plunged into the smoke, and searched for Natalie.

He shook off before the tide yanked him under. All the fatigue was gone. He blinked and the pressure-doors whooshed open almost in the next heartbeat. He didn't remember running..

He skid to a halt. Cayli could be anywhere..

A help desk..

"Cayli Carpenter's room," he said as he raced to the receptionist. An elderly lady looked up at him, and slowly input information into the computer system.  Jay's fists opened and closed, foot swiveling like any second he'd turn and sprint away. 

The lobby was sparsely populated this time of day. Two staffers walked in a pair. An elderly man shuffled along, bearing a sack of breakfast and nursing a cup of coffee. A man with a young child walked hand-in-hand. It was the sole man seemingly slumbering in a chair along the wall that Jay studied most closely. He was thick with muscle, dark-haired, and wearing jeans and boots. His jaw clenched. Zacarias could have arranged for an assassin this soon, but Jay let the power continue to give him the edge. The man was legitimately asleep. The slow drawing of his breath was easy, smooth. His muscles were limp. The man was asleep. No assassin standing guard, waiting for their arrival. 

The woman's voice yanked his attention away. "Room 119 East."

Jay ran to the east corridor. One, three, five.. eleven... 

He skid to a stop outside of 119. The door was slightly ajar, the room dark within but for the dim glow of dawn breeching the shades.

He swallowed. Staring at the door. There were no sounds within. No television. No talking. No shuffling. He focused on it, power giving him strength. A steady beep. The churn of a pump. Not dead.. He breathed a sigh of relief. Not dead.  They made it on time. 

He bit the inside of his lip. Scrubbed his hair. Tugged his sleeves and readied to face whatever was inside.

He reached for the handle. Ready to push it open. When the call of his name slammed like the chains of a collar clicked around his throat. 
"Jay?"

The power rippled angry, still waters disturbed. Gaze unblinking, he turned to face his dad.

The last time they saw one another, a pack slung over Jay's shoulders, sunglasses rimmed his temples, jaw tight with promises - some of them unfulfilled - some of them upheld. He promised to send money. To help them from afar. Fuck the farm, he said angrily one night, knowing that it wounded his father's pride and legacy far more than anything else he'd ever done in defiance. What was legacy of land, soil and sweat, when sons and daughters died before their time? 

"How did you get here?" Shock shook his voice. His eyes were sunken. The skin across his lips drawn. He'd never seen his dad so frail-appearing. He looked old. Tired. Worn.  Jay frowned. Like hell he was going to explain that his good friend the great evil overlord of the world Ascendancy arranged it all. 

"I can save her," he quickly explained. 

His dad blinked like he didn't hear. "What?"

"Well. I can't. But I brought someone who can." He waved Jensen closer. 

His dad's gaze swiveled to drink in sight of the stranger. He was unlikely to recognize the Texan t.v. preacher. Mom would be a different story. 

"I don't understand," he responded, wary of the promise. Jay's promises were works in progress, for the most part, as far as he was concerned.

"You don't have to," he said and pushed the door open, ushering Jensen inside as quickly as possible. He begged the man to hurry. 

Shadowy shapes filed into the room. Mother flinched from sleep, jumping to her feet from a recliner. Darkness hovered in the corners, shadows of machines and pumps and poles thrown around the walls ominously. But Jay was at the bedside in two steps. The ridges of his fourteen year old baby sister's body barely demarcated beneath sheets. 

She opened her eyes when he sank close. He put his palm on her forehead, clammy and damp. She hadn't showered in days, it seemed. Probably didn't have the strength. The power gave him strength enough for the both of them, though. For once. He smiled as her eyes fluttered open. "Hey kiddo.." His voice was softer than he expected it to be. It took her a moment for recognition to settle, but when it did, he buried his face in her neck and hugged her frail skeleton. He felt her sobs like they were his own.

"It's going to be okay now. I'm here."

His mom's voice lifted, but Jay did not. Hands laid on his back. Her voice growing more frantic by the second. But his gut was in knots that wouldn't untangle until it was done. Light pray that Jensen hurried. That it worked. 

It had to work. 

But then he had a single, paralyzing thought.. What if it doesn't work?

[Jensen James]

They flew over the roads like darting through the air on a speed bike. If it wasn't for previous reckless experience, Jensen may have been nervous for their safety. Instead, he found himself studying the landscape, so much greener despite the season, and compared it to his home. 

Wichita Falls was not that different. Dallas and Austin were sprawling mega-cities, of course. His home, on the other hand, felt much like this town. It was hardly reason to be uncomfortable.

From the backseat he brushed his hair and freshened up. There hadn't been time to do so in the airport or rest-stops along the way. In fact, he glanced at the reflection of the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror momentarily, sighed and decided to change shirts right there in the back seat. Modesty was hard to maintain, but he attempted to be swift and discreet. 

The fresh shirt, a plainer button-up than the purple wad he shoved into his bag, made him feel like a brand new man. Casting off the dank musk of air-travel was more than refreshing. He combed his hair back and wished for an opportunity to shave, but it was the best to be done at the time. It would do.

Jay all but lept from the vehicle as it rolled into park. He ran into the hospital in a flash all before Jensen even emerged. He looked worriedly at Natalie, "I'm worried for him." Emotion eroded Jay. It didn't take a master healer to see it. Unfortunately, those were wounds Jensen could not heal. Though he wished he could.

He hurried into the lobby as the gift swarmed around Jay. The moment hit him surreal. Jensen spent many years visiting the infirm, touching them tenderly, praying for their healing. It had been one of his favorite parts of the ministry and something he missed.

Then there were the anonymous visits to the ill incarcerated within failing bodies at the Guardian. He honed his craft during that time as he came to accept the curse was actually a gift. 

Jensen jogged in the direction Jay went and cast apologetic glances at those nearly barreled over by the two men. He found Jay outside a door speaking with someone familiar. The resemblance was not unnoticed by Jensen. A sister within, this had to be the father. Jensen shivered as the crawl of suspicion put him under a microscope. 

The door to the neighboring room swung open about then, a face peeking out to glare at the disturbance in the hall. Jensen apologized, noting the one laid in their bed within. Every room in this place was occupied by someone that could benefit from the gift's blessings. But first, he promised to help Cayli.  

He followed Jay inside. The man was curled over the supine body of a young girl. Emotion clutched at them both. A woman was behind Jay, trying to win his attention. Jensen rounded the bed as the woman looked up.

She gasped when she saw him, and Jensen knew that she knew who he was. He smiled to put her at ease, "ma'am," he greeted her with little else to say. 

Like Jay, the powers of the gift came on speedy wings.  He lowered himself closer to Cayli and plucked her hand from where it grasped at her older brother. "Miss, may I?" His only question was gentle as a bubbling brook. She looked anxiously between Jay and Jensen, but let the stranger take her hand at Jay's behest.

Jensen smiled warmly as the gift came together. Healing, this magical miracle, flowed from on high. She was going to be healed. Cancer was the enemy to be purified.  This young girl deserved life. Innocent and fragile. Jensen let the gift settle into her.

But his eyes narrowed as they fell into far-distant study. Something wasn't right. The gift was the same as always. It touched her body and mind as it did all those others that came before her. But something was wrong. It made him blink and capture Jay, their mother and father, with confusion.

"I don't understand," he began to say. The gift explored, seeking the answer, seeking it all. Then he realized he knew all along. The healing wouldn't work because --

"There's nothing to heal." Amazed, Jensen stepped away. He had no explanation. "I'm sorry, Jay. I don't understand."

[Jay Carpenter]

For once, the swarm of power was soothing. Jensen did his work, and Jay kept brushing the hair from Cayli's clammy forehead. She was burning up, feverish, ill. He looked to the bags slung from nearby poles, but the labels meant nothing. Fluids and medicine, he didn't care. They wouldn't be needed in a few minutes.

He knew the warmth that pushed through the throes of healing. Vanders' had the same effect. Like settling into a warm bath, something Jay had never done in his life, ever. With candles and one of those jars of colored rocks that dissolved into the water upon dumping a palm full in. The healing was soothing. The body recuperated. Grew stronger. More vibrant.

Only, as Jensen worked, no color flushed Cayli's cheeks. Her eyes were lidded in distant glaze. Jay grew worried. Where was the healing? Was that all? 

Jensen stepped away. 

Jay blinked, straightening. "What do you mean 'there's nothing to heal'?" His throat clenched, anger, frustration built a stone in his gut. "Heal her, Jensen. You healed Ascendancy. You healed Natalie. You can heal anything short of death!" He licked his lips, dancing desperately between pleading and panic. They came all this way. 

His father intervened. 
"Ascendancy?!" Vitriol drenched with hate spat from his tongue. "Explain yourself, boy!" He turned to Jay, eyes wild, an animal protecting its young from predators.

That he imagined Jay as anything but a protector tore out his heart. 

He pinched his eyes closed, frantically working through what was going on. Maybe Jensen couldn't heal her. Maybe she was beyond healing? No. That made no sense. Jensen healed gunshot wounds. He healed Ascendancy from the brink of death. He healed cuts and bruises. He could heal anything. 

More to the point, he didn't say the healing was impossible. He said something entirely different. 

There's nothing to heal.

His mind raced backward in time. The morning his father returned from the casino... 

She doesn't know...
Doctors said there was nothing to do.. 
Can't find the source of it...
We told her she had mono.

Breaths came shallow and quick. He turned away, trying to piece it together. 

She never seemed sick. Thin and pale maybe. Some days were worse than others. She missed a week of school here or there. Doctors couldn't help her. There was nothing to heal.. He paced, shoving out the voices slowly raising around him. They were demanding answers. Demanding to know who Jensen was. Demands he couldn't satiate. Why was he here? Scaring all of them like this? What healing? 

Nothing to heal.

Jay felt the blood drain from his face. His gaze, wild and panicked, settled upon Cayli. Her own eyes shared the bright blue of his, were likewise afraid and searching. 

Wetness glossed his eyes as he stared into hers. He now knew. God help him, he knew. 

"No. No no no. No. No. No."

[Natalie Grey]

Hospitals prickled her skin with unease.

Natalie's pace slowed. Back home she wouldn't have even been allowed this close since she was not a relative, and she had no wish to intrude. There was nothing she could do beyond getting in the way anyway, and Jay's family would not want a stranger amongst them at such a time. The air split when Jay's dad caught him in the corridor, one small step away from confrontation before he slipped into the room with Jensen -- without waiting for further acknowledgement from his father. Tension rippled behind him. Then the door clicked shut.

Natalie brushed the hair from her face as she sank into one of the metal seats lining the corridor. She would have waited in the car if not for Jensen's confession of concern squeezing tight her chest, her pinched expression sharing the burden even if she didn't voice it. She had no doubt in Jensen's skill. But even once the miracle settled, she doubted this would go easy for Jay.

After a while raised voices echoed within. She'd been studying the tiles on the floor while she waited, trying not to dwell on the stink of antiseptic trying to pluck free memories best left forgotten. Now her stomach knotted, uncertain, as she glanced up. A window peered into the room, blinds shading the view, but presently the door rocked its hinges with the sheer force it was wrenched open, and the yelling spilled out like a bloody wound. Her heart sank.

She stood slowly, hands clasped, assessing the situation silently. Jay's father clawed the handle, anger erupting in great gouts of vitriol. He stormed back into the room, words cyclones meant to eject the unwanted visitors -- and probably fists if that did not work. It was that bad.

She caught Jensen's eye in brief question, unsure how or why things had gone so wrong.

And saw there in the shadows of the room a skeletal girl heaped under blankets, unmoving. Unhealed, certainly. But it wasn't pity pulling Natalie's attention; it was something else. Like a shiver of butterfly wings against the soul; the same shy tug she had felt in Africa, that same pleasant resonance encouraging a sister of Evelyn. Surprise rippled like a stone dropped in a pond before her expression stilled.

Then her jaw hardened with new realisation.

Sickness was not unknown now, even in America, and no doctor would have diagnosed cancer without evidence.

Her parents knew.

They knew, and chose to lie to themselves.

They were watching her die.

She pressed her emotions down deep before they had the chance to rise or question, purposefully avoiding settling her attention on Jay. The desperate tear of his voice was enough, shaking out anger that threatened to bite into her tone. But she swallowed it like poison, her pale gaze indifferent as she pressed passed the threshold, just inside the door.

"That's enough." The severity of pale gaze belied her youth. She had a demeanour that fully expected to hold the attention of the room, which might fall either side of advantage given the context. Her accent alone marked her a grave outsider, but if Jay's father was gunning to argue with strangers she hoped he might think twice before aggression towards a woman. Sometimes that alone diffused a situation. Either way she wouldn't brook it; she treated the chaos with the derision of children caught in a petty squabble.

Her gaze moved to encompass Jay's mother, hoping to elicit a calming influence. Her voice softened. "Your daughter doesn't need to hear this. We've travelled a long way to a difficult end. Give him a moment to say goodbye. Then we'll leave." The appeal encompassed an entreaty for Jensen's help to smooth this path and encourage them from the room, confidant his charm could win them over. She needed all the time she could get. Her heart beat hard.

[Jay Carpenter]

He barely realized when strong hands gripped. He let the rapids carry him away. Jay was so utterly speechless, that only when the door swung open, the sting of bright hall lights knocked him from the coma. 
His parents were insane. They knew all along, but convinced themselves otherwise. Did this back country hospital never hear of the sickness? Did they stupidly assume it wouldn't reach their corner of the plains? "Dad! Stop." Jay's hands were stronger, the ridges deeper, the pressure bone-crushing. He clamped down on his dad's forearms to halt the retreat. They thought to throw him out? He was here to save Cayli. There was only one way to do it.  If there was time left at all.

He'd forgotten she was there. Until her voice rang like a bell, clear and pure, through the chaos of war.

Both men stopped struggling. Natalie spoke and four grown ass adults fell silent. Her accent felt all the sharper here. Or maybe Jay's was all the blunter. Either way, dad hinged his jaw tight, clearly biting his tongue for the foreigner in their midst. 

Mom had tears in her eyes. Doors popped open along the hallway, heads staring out. A nurse paused at the end of the corridor, waiting to see if intervention was necessary.

Jay's heart stopped. She swept between them, literally opening up the space between Jay and dad wringing one another's shirts in violent fists. She addressed neither of them, but the ice in her gaze met his, willing some silent communication that Jay had no idea how to interpret.

His shoulders sank when Natalie approached mom. The tears on her face were ugly and tired. Aged prematurely. Stress and exhaustion. Jay couldn't bear to look at her. His gaze fixed the ceiling instead as an exercise in stillness pricked an old memory.

Jay wasn't the only country-boy who thought himself talented with a target only to find the error of his ways set straight in basic training. Turned out, everything about his shooting was wrong. His stance. His aim. His arms. Muscles too rigid. Shoulders too square. The instructor was quick to see the potential, though. By the end of his time in the marines, he was a special operations rifleman for a reason. But it was one of the first lessons that roared in his mind right now like he was back there, weapon in hand, he heat of discharge on his fingers, and the wafting scent of a spent cartridge on his face.
 
Count to ten, Carpenter. The weapon is a part of you. As you are, it will be. 

Counting was enough to pull him from the brink. Tension remained, but he was in control. Chaos spiraled, but one shredded clutch at control was enough of an anchor to hang on. He didn't even know when he seized the power, realizing it flowed through like a storm crashing the back of his mind. But it simmered down. What threatened to boil eruption was contained. Barely.

He waved at the nurse that the situation was stabilized. Then, a cold shun met those of whom were roused from the rooms by the disturbance. Probably made him look like a dick, but it didn't matter. Stay in control. 

His dad tossed his hands, stomping farther down the hall. Mom was convinced, however, and exited the room in exchange for Jay.

He searched the glacial calm of Natalie's presence, but all it did was erode his own.  Cayli sat upright now, knees drawn to her chest. It was like Natalie saw straight to everything he wanted to hide, churned the silt settled on the rockbed of his life, and stepped into the murk anyway. Didn't she see that this was insane? Didn't she want to run out of here? She should. He wouldn't stop her.

He scrubbed his hair back on one breath and on the other violently yanked the arms of his sleeves back into place where dad wrenched it askew. Power pushed the door shut even as he came to stand by the bed. Vanders said it first. Nox said it later. Marcus confirmed and the Nine all agreed. To survive the sickness, the person had to take the power consciously. If they only did it once, death was thwarted.

Nox tried it first with Jay when he stared into a fire. Jay could think of no other way but to duplicate the attempt. His voice was calmer than he thought when a small blue flame hissed alive in front of him. Maybe it was the shred of hope that stilled his soul, so he swallowed and began to explain. Cayli gasped.

"Cay. There's a light behind you," he stopped when she looked over her shoulder, and shook his head. How to possibly explain this?

[Jensen James]

This never happened before. Shouts erupted. Jay was practically thrown from the room. His mom hovered protectively alongside her daughter, but Jensen refused to be completely useless. He shuffled in next to her, put an arm around her shoulders and stood in solidarity.

His attempts to soothe fell on deaf ears. "They're both tense. Their emotions are raw. People turn their anger upon each other when there's no one else to blame." He understood the frailty of a human mind pushed to its limits all too well. 

Natalie's was the voice of reason, of course. He was all too happy to follow her lead and give Jay some moments alone with his sister. Although a curiosity flickered his expression when their eyes met. Were they really ready to admit defeat and depart so soon? 

He held Jay's mother's hand cupped in his own as he led her out. His father was far down the corridor by the time by that time. He looked down at her. "Fresh air can help."

That's when she practically collapsed into him. "Nothing can help now." She sobbed into his shirt and Jensen pat her on the back. He'd been a shoulder for more than one person many times before. 

When the tempo of her emotions seemed to change, Jensen tilted away and looked down. He used to carry a handkerchief in a pocket in what felt like a lifetime ago.

He guided her to a chair and helped ease her into it. He kept his tone soft for a gentle query. "Jay said that Cayli had cancer." 

[Natalie Grey]

The silence was like a sudden vacuum.

Her artifice of confidence eroded a little in that moment, her heart shuddering loud enough to make her dizzy. The door had closed, but she pressed softly against it anyway, just to make sure. There was no lock, and she didn't want to cause panic if Jay's parents returned and could not get in. Though neither did she want to risk interruption, considering she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing. Only that she had to try.

Cayli had pulled herself up by now. Jay clawed himself back together, sharpening the dishevelled lines from his altercation with his father. She expected a torrent of grief, but it was darkness that consumed his expression. And purpose. It took her a moment to realise what he was doing. How he'd discovered what he was was just another in a long line of topics ignored between them. So far as she knew he'd never been Sick. Not that there ever proved time, in the tumultuous fashion they seemed to permanently lurch in and out of each other's lives, for conversations that might make the road they travelled together a little easier.

But she understood then that he knew what his parents had done. What they had hidden.

"She won't be able to see the mechanics of that. Neither of us can."

It wasn't exactly the way she had planned to tell him, though he'd had all the pieces for a long time now. Explosive force swept men aside like toys in Netlands, yet she and Ekene had walked out mostly in tact from that epicentre. When Jay's brothers were forced to leave him bleeding in the dust, she'd struggled against the tide to coax a burst of adrenaline enough to haul him to his feet. At least enough to get out of the way. No one ever seemed to wonder why they'd found her on the embassy's front steps rather than tucked away safe with the other refugees, praying for the Legionnaires' timely intervention.

Light, how did he think she got away from Palvo?

She didn't pierce too deep for a reaction. Even now there wasn't time to unravel the knot of everything unspoken. But she wasn't sure she wanted to perceive what he thought of her silence, at least not now.

"If you're going to stay you need to keep quiet," she said softly instead. "Don't be a distraction. To either of us." She might have told him too that she was utterly out of her depth; that a spectator to the struggle burst a terrifying amount of pressure in her head. Everything she'd learnt had been through adversity. Lessons and regrets clung like ghosts; it hadn't exactly been a painless journey. And she was hardly an expert. But sharing the weight of doubt would only cast a heavier burden on them both. The expectation was heavy enough on its own. So she wove the illusion of strength, and hoped that would be enough.

Cayli watched wide-eyed. Hollowed cheeks, dull eyes. The enormity of the task caught in Natalie's throat, the question of whether it was already too late hanging like a pall as she sat on the bed beside her, the mattress creaking under her weight. Proximity revealed just how thin Cayli had become. How weak. Natalie smiled anyway, empty of platitudes that might comfort a dying girl. She had Jay's eyes. "So you must be Cayli. My name's Natalie. I wish we could have met under different circumstances."

Her smile touched morbid; she didn't hide the flash of it. Nor did she think about what to say. A fortress of careful walls protected Natalie's exterior, but when she allowed it the honesty beneath was blunt. Cayli didn't know her; had no reason to trust her beyond the sanction of her brother's company and the calm way she simply took control. So what Natalie offered was raw, unpremeditated. Her voice was low, meant to capture Cayli's whole attention; just enough to pull her that little bit forward and begin to block the rest of the room out.

"I was older than you are when I found out what I could do. I burned my dad's office to the ground, and the house with it. You can keep that secret, right? Because my mother will kill me if she knew it wasn't exactly an accident." A sin spoken so casually they'd never know it hadn't ever passed her lips before. Evidence had burned to cinders in that blaze; she could still remember the sensation of it flowing out of her, the ash choking up her nose, the pounding at the door as it all burned.

"I was in hospital for a while after, so it wasn't immediately obvious I was Sick. But I was lucky. With some help I learned how to stop myself from reaching for the power, and it saved my life."

That method wouldn't work for Cayli, though, because Natalie wasn't even entirely sure how it had worked for her, and there just wasn't time to puzzle out the mystery. Her conversation with Marcus seemed a world away. That small room and its piano; the rich flourish of chords and scribbled notes still little more than exploration in her head. She railed against Brandon for his ignorant eye toward education as a basic foundation. She'd meant to prove him wrong. But she hadn't expected such high stakes to test the theory.

She shifted. Her voice softened, thinking of the cadence of notes that smoothed her grasp of the power until she no longer needed the crutch. The press of ivory keys pushed her into thoughtless calm, the slow build of sound paving the path towards the fall of an embrace. It took trust. But she didn't know how to replicate the feeling for someone else. In her lap her palm opened, a prism of light burst above, shimmering the colours of a rainbow; a physical draw for Cayli's attention, which still snatched every so often to pull comfort from her brother's presence.

Because if she wasn't exactly sure how to fix this, she knew there could be no distraction.

"Do you remember any strange things happening to you, Cayli? It feels like light when you touch it. Like pure joy and peace. I can feel it in you. It's what's making you Sick, but only because you don't know how to touch it safely." The colours striated a simple pattern, like chords. A steady, mesmerizing pulse. " Just listen and watch and let go. We've got all the time you need, and I'll stay until you've got this. It's not a battle to be won with force. You can let yourself drift. Lose your thoughts."

Her voice murmured on, soft, coaxing Cayli to lull. She'd know if it worked.

[Jay Carpenter]

Cayli was unlikely to see the flows. She was so new, she was unlikely to even notice the light. Which was why Jay attempted to direct her attention to it. Nox tried to tell him that he used the power, too. He rained down fire and brimstone to push him to the point of channel or die. The stress did its job, too. He lost a bet because of that. He almost smiled at the memory, though the fact that he was trying to save his sister's life at the moment barred the emotion from showing itself.

The kid, whatever his name was, had touched him on the shoulder and in a flash Jay threw him to the floor like a sack of grain, edge of a blade pressed to his neck. Only, the blade shimmered with lines of light once Jay gave it a real look. After that, he saw the light everywhere. Always there. Taunting and needing a conduit to put it to use. Restless, angry, violent, thrashing. If he didn't wrestle it to submission it would sweep him away. 

Of course Cayli couldn't see the mechanics of it. The lines would reveal themselves eventually, as power itself would come to be a familiar companion. He scrubbed a hand in his hair without an alternate idea as Natalie settled onto the bed.

Then her words struck him. The entirety of his focus shifted from Cayli to Natalie. Her voice drew carefully like water trickling down a wall, coaxing stormy waves to calm currents. 

The epiphany dropped his jaw agape. She can channel too. He never noticed. Never even tried to notice. So wrapped up with his own demons, he never even considered the possibility that ghosts from her past haunted her. Surely the sparking of any channeler to their first touch at the power was catastrophic. Jay wasn't even sure when his own first touch occurred, himself. Although Nox assured him that the deed was done prior to their meeting. Which meant it had to have been in Africa, though he razed the memories of those days carefully. Too many unpleasant ones to dig around too deeply. 

His was nothing like what she described! Joy and peace?  Jay's couldn't be the same power. Though it was entirely possible that the nature of the wielder shaped the nature of the power flowing through them. Jay's power was hungry and carnal, wild and ferocious, violent and harsh, painful yet thrilling. A storm that had to be summoned, once arrived, had to be conquered. Was that the reflection of the duality of his own soul? Or was it the other way around?  

He fell quiet and the blue flame snuffed.  He thought about sinking into the rocking chair that his mother previously occupied. Instead, he took up post on a doctor's stool, elbows on his knees, fingers at his lips, and watched with unblinking eyes. Maybe it happened the day he wore the power-armored suit and executed Wallace-Johnson. What are you waiting for?! Someone yelled. Their question was justified. Jay stood there, weapon aimed at the devil's chest, but hesitated anyway. To this day he didn't know why. Or maybe he did, but as Jay frequently said, he only lied to himself. Not knowing why, he hovered over the man begging for mercy he never bestowed himself, until sinking into the shell of his own body and letting muscle memory take over. 

Memories of gunfire faded when Natalie's story began. He just stared at her in disbelief. Fire swarmed her soul like a ghost that wouldn't stop haunting her. Fires that Jay could almost smell, even now. 

The helmet filtered black smoke. Bio traced three heartbeats. The second one didn't last long. Jay's bullets made sure of it. The third was Natalie's. 

He paid the price for abandoning the legion wearing a half-million dollar suit in order to take her to the hospital after the embassy fire. But it wasn't the worst punishment in the world. Not like they ripped out his soul and spiked his head on a pole. 

Her voice wrapped his mind like a shroud. 
I burned my dad's office to the ground.
I was in a fire when I was a teenager... months recovering..

His stomach knotted with realization. She started the fire that burned down her house. Her dad's office; the same dad that went to jail. Did anyone die in it? Undulations carried the tone of her voice into the realm of morbid humor. But from the periphery, Jay saw the dispassion buried deep within. Self-protective dispassion buried the guilt of those memories as a means to live with herself. Jay recognized it all too well because the same denial made his life livable. If it didn't, a mountain of corpses would rise up and drag him off to their hell. Maybe he deserved to join them. Someday he would. Preferably later rather than sooner. But someday. He knew what fate awaited.  

He scrubbed his hair, clawing fingers down his scalp like the sting might shake the sickness twisting his gut. Just watching, Jay had nothing to say. Except to stare at the hellish memories surely haunting Natalie like ghosts. More notably, she didn't let herself feel it despite the curl of a smirk on her lip. How many times had he seen that same expression ghosting her with a playful mask? How often had he mistaken the pain of her reality for the mystery of a playful taunt. 

Natalie talked like Cayli may recognize her own pivotal moments. Jay still didn't know when his own came, but he had to assume it was the day he executed Wallace-Johnson. If Zacarias thought he executed Andres Amengual in cold blood, he should have a chat with Wallace-Johnson's demon and set straight. Of course, he was ordered to put down that madman. The exact opposite was meant to stay his hand in Nicaragua. But the evil son of a bitch deserved worse than what he got. Someone in the Pentagon was fucked by the heat of Jay's call that night. 

He looked around the room uneasily. Cayli was focused on Natalie's lights. The two women fixed on one another. All he had to do was sit there and not be a distraction. Just wait.

But hell he was going crazy waiting. He tried the counting thing again. The tile ceilings worked well for that. They were a grid of 12 by 12 squares. The spicket of a water sprinkler struck out from the center tile. The beep and whirl of monitors and pumps pounded like drums in his head. The power ached to be put to use. 

He smoothed his palms across his knees when one began to jump nervously. What was mom and dad doing out there? Maybe he should check on them. But then mom may want to enter if she thought their conversation done. Natalie and Cayli couldn't be disturbed. 

He put his face in his hands, stubble on his jaw pricking deep into his palms. When a cold streak pebbled the back of his neck a moment later, he flinched and jumped to his feet.

Nothing happened. The door wasn't rammed in. Screams didn't pierce the air. No gunshots. Nothing. It was just Cayli and Natalie looking at one another. 

But somewhere down the hall, a male voice muffled, but it was too far to decide if it was his dad's. Jay carefully stepped toward the door, focus honed upon the sound amplified by the power. Words were thrown by someone angry. Male. Footsteps that pounded closer.

Hopefully the girls were done because time was up. Someone was about to storm into the room and Jay was really wanting to avoid kidnapping Cayli just to give her a chance at survival. "Someone's coming," he announced, voice low, tense. He attempted to peer around the hem of the curtain draping the window, but the angle was terrible. He saw nothing.

Hopefully, it was only his father pissed off. Pissed, he could handle dad. It wouldn't be the first time. 

Jay stepped back, braced for the door to swing, waved that Natalie and Cayli stay back.

[Natalie Grey]

The slow cadence of her words layered foundations, funnelling Cayli towards the experience by re-imagining those moments when, for Natalie, notes shivered her thoughts clear and built to crescendo, like a flower leaning towards the sun. The two twinned naturally for her; joy with joy, and if the guilt of that time spent surrounded by the richness of music made it seem more like indulgence than work, she could at least hope for something worthwhile from the outcome.  

Though really, she had no idea if it would actually work. 

As the time began to trickle inevitably on, the doubt began to set in. Cayli lulled into it, the fear in her gaze unravelling as she became drawn by the colours. An accidental aide, really, but it had the right affect. The tight defence of her body eased, her knees sliding loose until she sat cross-legged.

But still nothing. 

Patience was not always natural for Natalie, but it was steadfast when she weathered it. She was aware of Jay in her peripheral; aware too that it must be tortuous to simply have to wait. He simply wasn't built for it. 

By now her voice was only a murmur, the soft, rhythmic soothe of waves kissing sand. She had been waiting for a sense of Cayli brushing against the power, not for the gentle tug against her pattern of colours. The prism shifted lazily, blue to green to yellow, then red.

The last pulse of light had been Cayli's. 

The girl's eyes were round saucers when they jumped up a moment later.

"I lost it," she breathed, hoarse words little more than the scrape of a whisper. Like perhaps fevered-screams had wracked her voice silent. Frustration already tempered her brow, as impatient as her brother. But a light too, that shone her eyes with vigour. Relief pressed a sigh from Natalie's lips, the only signal she gave of how much a gamble it had been.

"It'll get easier," she promised.

"You're from the Custody?" 

Natalie nodded, reading the lines of unease that flooded her young face. She might have been surprised at the question if she'd not heard the name Ascendancy spat coldly from Jay's dad's tongue moment's earlier. Though how that had come up so quickly she didn't know; there was a reason Jay wasn't wearing the uniform of the Nine. Cayli's lips pursed, but it seemed a passing concern.

"And I'm not ill anymore? That's it?"

Natalie's lips lifted a wry smirk for how inconsequential a thing it was through the eyes of a teenager. The knot where her shoulders met panged with the tension just released, other muscles aching dully from the long travelling and fleeting sleep. But for Cayli, disbelief settled quickly to acceptance in the way of the truly innocent. Though Natalie didn't begrudge it. When she tipped her shoulder and nodded, Cayli's face split into a grin. Her hand wrapped the bed sheets to untangle herself, about to fling herself in Jay's direction.

Before he spoke.

Someone's coming was an innocuous enough warning, but Natalie took it with the seriousness she would have had they still been in the warzone of Africa. It could easily be a doctor doing rounds, but she didn't put it past Jay's dad to call security -- or worse. Brandon wouldn't have sent Natalie alongside if he hadn't anticipated the possibility of more political concerns, and so far their entry into the country had gone too smoothly.

She didn't turn, nor strain through the power to discern whatever had alerted his soldier's senses. Sierra Leone built implicit trust, or maybe it was something else; something more intrinsic. Either way she put her hand against Cayli's knee to stop her from moving. Pressed a finger to her lips.

"Just you, Jay, and I know for now, okay?"