11-04-2013, 12:25 PM
Wednesday night is the first night free of imminent and impending death for the first time in what feels like an eternity. Sid's only stayed at the practice a week and a half, but already it's hard to remember life outside these walls. When was the last time she took a breath that wasn't full of the scent of blood and bile? Will she ever get that smell out of her lungs?
Luke offers her a cot which she refuses as politely as she can manage. Sleep? Who can sleep after what they've been through, after what they've seen? After what Sid's done? No, she takes a chair and she sets herself up just to the left of Lena's door, positioning herself where she can see with her eyes who may come down that hall at the same time she blankets the practice with an extrasensory perception. The hallway fills with her resonance, a desperate bliss she's too cold inside to feel.
She monitors their progress, the two Cultists in the rooms at her back. There is a part of her mind, detached and analytical, that pays attention to the way the cure makes its way through their systems, coating Hydra, blocking off its means of replication so their immune systems can finally, finally kill it without killing them, too. The rest of her mind occupies itself with work. Emails sent to professors requesting time to make up missed exams and an immense backlog of homework to get done.
She doesn't go inside those rooms. She leaves Sera and Lena to their much needed rest.
When Luke arrives or wakes or makes his presence known, Sid talks to him briefly about their progress, ask him for a note she can give to her employers and the school to explain her extensive absence, and she leaves. She doesn't go back, not while they're still there.
She goes home for a quick shower, in and out and out the door. The hoody she wrapped around Lena had to be disposed so she wears a sweater against the cold of the day and she goes to work. The faculty tell her as politely as they can that she should have stayed home another day, another two! Why not just come back on Monday?
"I look worse than I feel," she says, feeling the complete opposite. Then she ducks her head and digs in to her workload, which isn't as bad as it could be but still somehow occupies her mind completely. She misses lunch. She almost stays late, but someone finds her still working and urges her none-too-gently to leave it, there's always tomorrow, get some rest.
Sid doesn't rest, though not yet. There's a phone to be replaced, contacts to be checked, and when she goes home there's homework to be done, papers to write, things to do, go go go, don't stop don't stop don't stop to think--
At some point exhaustion took her and she dropped off right in the middle of what she was doing. It's dark outside the high narrow windows of her bedroom when she wakes hunched over her desk, cheek pressed to the pages of a textbook. Sitting up straight takes effort, her muscles ache and her spine is stiff. Good. Good. The pain and discomfort divert her thoughts long enough to reorient herself, and redouble her efforts on her studies. She goes until exhaustion drops her. She wakes, gets back to it. It becomes an awkward cycle that repeats until it's time to be up.
She's out the door before her roommate even knows she's there. If he sees her he'll know something's wrong. If he sees her he'll say something. Sid doesn't want him to say something so she makes a hasty exit, hair still wet from the shower coiled and pinned to her head. It'll never dry that way, there will be a cold spot at the back of her skull all day. There is still a cold ache inside.
Friday goes much the same as Thursday, except when Sid is pushed out the door she points her truck west and a little south. It feels like an eternity since she was last at the Chantry house. For a while she goes through the motions, cleaning, checking the fridge for spoiled food, making a list of groceries to get for when Shoshannah returns, indoor plants are restored to life with a touch. There's laundry to be done. Sid texts Shoshannah, asking if she'd like anything of hers added to the loads since her flight from the house had been a hasty one. She asks her, too, if she'd like anything brought to her to her place of self-imposed exile. If so, they set a time that is not that day and maybe not Saturday. Sid is not. quite. ready to see people yet.
Saturday she attacks the outdoors. Leaves are raked, walkways swept. The flowers and greenery around the hot spring reawaken with a brush of Sid's fingers before she herself allows herself to be renewed. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, glasses left on top of a waiting towel - no one's around, no one can see her but the Chantry's protector - Sid sinks into the warm water, closes her eyes, and tries to clear her mind. In for three. Hold for three. Out for three. Emptying her thoughts, opening up her self to the fabric of the tapestry. She can only do it for an hour before the world starts trying to crowd back in again, but thankfully that's all the time she needs.
She goes back up to her weekend room, thinking about her homework, steadfastly keeping her mind away from the places it wants to go, the dark shadowed spaces in which her thoughts want to dwell, stay out stay out stay away, don't think--
She's scared, obviously. It's not the fear that is familiar to her, fear of rough hands tearing at her, fear of being pinned, held, trapped, fear of hearing again the crunch and snap of her own bones breaking or of pain lancing through her limbs. It's not fear of what she did, either.
No what scares Sid isn't what, it's why. The thing she refuses to confront is that it wasn't fear that shook her limbs in the end, making it difficult to move. It was anger. It was a white-hot fury that burned her from the inside out, as poisonous and consuming as the virus that turned her body against her. It was a rage that was far from sated by the sight of Callum's fallen body or Eric's melted corpse or the three sleeping guards whose location only Sid knew.
Sid did that. She killed Eric. She let those people die.
And what scares her most of all is how completely satisfied she feels about it. Two of them got away, and that makes her furious. She doesn't know where to direct it. At Sera, who even after all she's been through is still human enough to save the lives of her captors? Or at herself? When did she lose her humanity?
Callum told Grace they weren't human.
In the case of Sid Rhodes,
maybe he was right.
====
At Luke's
niko @ 9:38AM
[Life scan, -1 for hella practiced]
Roll: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 10) ( success x 2 ) VALID
ixphaelaeon @ 9:39AM
Witnessed!
At the Chantry
niko @ 10:30AM
[Meditation: percept+meditate]
Roll: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) VALID
niko @ 10:30AM
UNF YEAH SID YOU GET BACK ALL YOUR QUINT IN ONE GO DAYUM
Samael @ 10:32AM
Woot!
Luke offers her a cot which she refuses as politely as she can manage. Sleep? Who can sleep after what they've been through, after what they've seen? After what Sid's done? No, she takes a chair and she sets herself up just to the left of Lena's door, positioning herself where she can see with her eyes who may come down that hall at the same time she blankets the practice with an extrasensory perception. The hallway fills with her resonance, a desperate bliss she's too cold inside to feel.
She monitors their progress, the two Cultists in the rooms at her back. There is a part of her mind, detached and analytical, that pays attention to the way the cure makes its way through their systems, coating Hydra, blocking off its means of replication so their immune systems can finally, finally kill it without killing them, too. The rest of her mind occupies itself with work. Emails sent to professors requesting time to make up missed exams and an immense backlog of homework to get done.
She doesn't go inside those rooms. She leaves Sera and Lena to their much needed rest.
When Luke arrives or wakes or makes his presence known, Sid talks to him briefly about their progress, ask him for a note she can give to her employers and the school to explain her extensive absence, and she leaves. She doesn't go back, not while they're still there.
She goes home for a quick shower, in and out and out the door. The hoody she wrapped around Lena had to be disposed so she wears a sweater against the cold of the day and she goes to work. The faculty tell her as politely as they can that she should have stayed home another day, another two! Why not just come back on Monday?
"I look worse than I feel," she says, feeling the complete opposite. Then she ducks her head and digs in to her workload, which isn't as bad as it could be but still somehow occupies her mind completely. She misses lunch. She almost stays late, but someone finds her still working and urges her none-too-gently to leave it, there's always tomorrow, get some rest.
Sid doesn't rest, though not yet. There's a phone to be replaced, contacts to be checked, and when she goes home there's homework to be done, papers to write, things to do, go go go, don't stop don't stop don't stop to think--
At some point exhaustion took her and she dropped off right in the middle of what she was doing. It's dark outside the high narrow windows of her bedroom when she wakes hunched over her desk, cheek pressed to the pages of a textbook. Sitting up straight takes effort, her muscles ache and her spine is stiff. Good. Good. The pain and discomfort divert her thoughts long enough to reorient herself, and redouble her efforts on her studies. She goes until exhaustion drops her. She wakes, gets back to it. It becomes an awkward cycle that repeats until it's time to be up.
She's out the door before her roommate even knows she's there. If he sees her he'll know something's wrong. If he sees her he'll say something. Sid doesn't want him to say something so she makes a hasty exit, hair still wet from the shower coiled and pinned to her head. It'll never dry that way, there will be a cold spot at the back of her skull all day. There is still a cold ache inside.
Friday goes much the same as Thursday, except when Sid is pushed out the door she points her truck west and a little south. It feels like an eternity since she was last at the Chantry house. For a while she goes through the motions, cleaning, checking the fridge for spoiled food, making a list of groceries to get for when Shoshannah returns, indoor plants are restored to life with a touch. There's laundry to be done. Sid texts Shoshannah, asking if she'd like anything of hers added to the loads since her flight from the house had been a hasty one. She asks her, too, if she'd like anything brought to her to her place of self-imposed exile. If so, they set a time that is not that day and maybe not Saturday. Sid is not. quite. ready to see people yet.
Saturday she attacks the outdoors. Leaves are raked, walkways swept. The flowers and greenery around the hot spring reawaken with a brush of Sid's fingers before she herself allows herself to be renewed. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, glasses left on top of a waiting towel - no one's around, no one can see her but the Chantry's protector - Sid sinks into the warm water, closes her eyes, and tries to clear her mind. In for three. Hold for three. Out for three. Emptying her thoughts, opening up her self to the fabric of the tapestry. She can only do it for an hour before the world starts trying to crowd back in again, but thankfully that's all the time she needs.
She goes back up to her weekend room, thinking about her homework, steadfastly keeping her mind away from the places it wants to go, the dark shadowed spaces in which her thoughts want to dwell, stay out stay out stay away, don't think--
She's scared, obviously. It's not the fear that is familiar to her, fear of rough hands tearing at her, fear of being pinned, held, trapped, fear of hearing again the crunch and snap of her own bones breaking or of pain lancing through her limbs. It's not fear of what she did, either.
No what scares Sid isn't what, it's why. The thing she refuses to confront is that it wasn't fear that shook her limbs in the end, making it difficult to move. It was anger. It was a white-hot fury that burned her from the inside out, as poisonous and consuming as the virus that turned her body against her. It was a rage that was far from sated by the sight of Callum's fallen body or Eric's melted corpse or the three sleeping guards whose location only Sid knew.
Sid did that. She killed Eric. She let those people die.
And what scares her most of all is how completely satisfied she feels about it. Two of them got away, and that makes her furious. She doesn't know where to direct it. At Sera, who even after all she's been through is still human enough to save the lives of her captors? Or at herself? When did she lose her humanity?
Callum told Grace they weren't human.
In the case of Sid Rhodes,
maybe he was right.
====
At Luke's
niko @ 9:38AM
[Life scan, -1 for hella practiced]
Roll: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 10) ( success x 2 ) VALID
ixphaelaeon @ 9:39AM
Witnessed!
At the Chantry
niko @ 10:30AM
[Meditation: percept+meditate]
Roll: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) VALID
niko @ 10:30AM
UNF YEAH SID YOU GET BACK ALL YOUR QUINT IN ONE GO DAYUM
Samael @ 10:32AM
Woot!