See Part One for disclaimers and author's notes.
Chapter Three
-- Arrivals --
The last thing they remembered was being overwhelmed by Shadow Priests. The black robes had encompassed their universe. They were suffocating. They were -- landing on dirty pavement in a very, very strange place. For a moment, they just lay there and breathed. The air tasted funny, but it was better than black robes.
Taja sat up first. She looked around. It seemed to be an alleyway of some sort. There were containers of refuse scattered about the area, some of the contents spilling out onto the extremely hard ground. The ground was wet, as though it had just rained. It was also grimy. It left black, oily dirt on her clothes and skin. She looked over at her companion. Siro. Okay. He was looking blankly up at the sky. For a moment she thought he was dead. Then he blinked. She looked up. The sky, what little she could see, was gray.
"Siro."
He jerked slightly at the sound, then looked around, cautiously. His eyes widened slightly. His breath caught in something that sounded suspiciously like a sob which was quickly squelched. He sat up carefully. He took a deep breath and, yep, the ribs twinged. The grimace crossing his face told Taja he'd cracked those ribs again. "Taja."
"Ribs."
He gave her a quick look, then nodded. "Yeah. Ribs."
Taja got to her feet and gave her companion a hand up. His hand went instinctively to brace the ribs. Middle left side. One of these days she was going to build him armor for those ribs. A shaky laugh escaped her at the thought.
Siro gave her a bewildered look. How could she laugh? They were -- they were -- He started to frown as memory seeped into his numbed brain. They were dead? That didn't make sense. Why would his ribs hurt if he was dead? So, that left -- OutWorld? He looked around again. It was gray. It was dingy. It was noisy, he suddenly realized as the sounds of traffic passing either end of the alley suddenly came into focus for him. His frown deepened. Somehow, the noise did not sound like the kind of thing he expected from OutWorld. Siro hated to admit it, but he was lost.
Taja watched a lot of things cross Siro's face until it went still. Siro was out of his depth. Siro's world had always been one of order, loyalty, boundaries. His friendship with Kung Lao had shaken the boundaries, but not the rest. Now, all he had left was loyalty. And an ex-thief was a really shaky foundation for loyalty. Taja's wide mouth curved up in a grin. "What are you smiling at?" Siro didn't sound angry, or annoyed, just tired.
Taja's look swiftly changed to one of concern. She ran sensitive fingers over his ribs. Oh. More than cracked. Broken. She could feel him react as the bone ends grated against each other. His color dropped another couple of shades. This, to put it mildly, was not good. She gently propped him against the nearest wall.
"Stay here. I know, like you're going anywhere. I'm gonna take a look and I'll be right back. Okay?"
Siro took in the earnest look in her eyes and nodded. He thought he might just concentrate on breathing without moving his ribcage. He watched as Taja moved to the end of the alleyway and took a look around.
She had realized that this place was far different from her own as she walked away from Siro. The noise level alone was worse than any bazaar or city she had been in. She really wasn't ready for the street ahead of her. She pulled back and flattened against the wall to her left. Madness. Insanity. There weren't many people on the street, but there were -- things -- big, noisy, metal, things. The things stopped moving. People. Really -- oddly -- dressed -- people.
Moving with the crowd that surged along the sidewalk was a tall, arrogant looking woman in a long leather coat. She seemed supremely untouched by the rabble around her. Taja sized her up quickly. She seemed the most likely to carry a heavy purse on her. It was obvious she and Siro needed clothes to blend in and money to get his ribs tended to. Unaware of just how eccentric her own garb was, she slipped out of the alleyway and into the crowd.
A hand like an iron vise clamped around her wrist. Eyes like a really bad thunderstorm met Taja's much warmer, and very alarmed blue. The look up and down made her feel like she was standing there naked. She didn't pull away. She just stood there as the crowd thinned around them. Though she did note some of the looks they got, annoyed looks and at least one of pure loathing directed at the dark-tressed woman in leather. The traffic started moving again. Taja flinched at the noise in spite of herself.
The hard look on the woman's face shifted slightly. She started to speak, but was forestalled.
"Well, well, well. Look who we got here, homies. Looks like the cat done brought us a canary."
Laughter.
"Mo' like a blackbird ho'," someone else chimed in.
"Don't move. You leave, I will find you. Believe me."
Taja did. She stood as though rooted to the concrete as her wrist was released and the other turned to face a half dozen home boys.
This was their turf, their 'hood. And the leather coated woman was an intruder, a well hated intruder. One of them tapped his open hand with a baseball bat held in the other. One opened and closed a bali-sang butterfly knife with quick, assured flicks of his hand. Two were just standing there leering, their bulk lending them assurance. One stood lookout. The other constituted himself leader. He stood a step forward of his bro's.
"What you doin' here, ho'?"
A lazy look around and back to him. "Ho'? Do I look like your girlfriend?"
He stiffened, then relaxed. Six to one. She was dead. And so was the red- haired weirdo with her. "You and yo' girlfriend in the wrong part of town."
"Indeed."
"Yeah." He swung. She countered and tossed him into the one with the bat. The knife wielder closed. Taja heard the snap of bones as the woman broke his wrist. He dropped the knife with a howl. The bruisers bore in. Unfortunately, two against one is not always good odds. Especially when the two rely on strength alone. Speed was not their style. It was hers. The look out took a look back to see what was on, his eyes showed white all around the dark irises as he took in the fallen bodies of his companions. He ran.
The one with the baseball bat started to get up. She kicked him in the ribs, stomped on the arm holding the baseball bat and clipped him in the back of the head with a fist. He stayed down. The leader was pushing himself off the concrete when something cold and metal snapped around his left wrist and a knee was planted in the small of his back to hold him down. She knelt on him as she pulled his other wrist into the handcuffs. Rapidly, cuffed the others, read them their Miranda rights in Spanish and English, pulled out her mobile phone and called in to request a pick up.
She looked around at Taja who was still standing there looking awestruck and approving. "Dispatch."
"Still here."
"Log me out. Must've taken a shot to the head. I feel like a migraine's starting. I'm headed home to take care of it."
"Got it. The Cap's not gonna like it."
"He'd rather have me on the street with tunnel vision and puking my guts out?"
"Go home."
She closed the cell phone cover, tucked it back in her pocket and walked back over to Taja. "You are lost," she said simply. Statement. No question.
Taja thought about it for a moment and nodded. "Completely," she shot back over the roar of the traffic.
"Come on," the other said with a nod of her head back the way she had come.
"Uh --"
"What?"
Taja hated the way the other's mood seemed to swing from hard to helpful and back so swiftly, but she was not going to leave Siro in the alley. "Siro."
"Siro? What --" She followed Taja's look back at the alleyway. She frowned. But it didn't feel like a set up. Any more than the initial attempt to rob her felt like anything more than desperation. She gestured for the redhead to lead. Weren't there laws against looking like that in public? She shook her head at the thought as she stalked along behind Taja.
Siro was a shock. Her eyes widened at the sheer mass of the man. Then she realized he was working on going into shock. He was pale, sweating, beginning to shiver. Taja slid under the incredibly muscled arm on the side without the broken ribs to help him walk. He looked at her with something like warmth in his face, then caught sight of the other. His face froze into chiseled planes of wariness.
She looked from one face to the other and back. What the hell. "I'm El. El Delacroix. Looks like I'm here to help. Let's get you back to my car and see what we can do from there."
Neither Taja nor Siro had a clue what a car was, but they definitely needed help. She let Taja and Siro follow her, took a quick scan of the area as they stepped out of the alleyway and led the way back to her car. It was not the lean, sleek thing most people expected. But it had lots and lots of room, and horsepower to spare. El loaded the two into the back-seat, belting them in over their unspoken misgivings and slid into the driver's seat. Taja was a little more comfortable with the seatbelt thing when El latched herself in. She was not happy about the roar of the big block V-8 when El started the car. She was a little surprised to find Siro's hand holding on tightly to hers as they pulled into traffic. She looked around at him and realized he was barely holding on to consciousness.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I won't let go." Something flickered in his eyes at that. Relief? Acceptance? She wasn't certain, but the iron grip loosened a little.
He was still conscious when they pulled into the parking garage of the apartment tower that El called home. She helped Taja slide him out of the back seat and slid under the arm on the damaged side to lend some support to the barely there warrior. The elevator was not an experience Taja wanted to repeat as they rose eight floors in a very short amount of time. El was glad it was mid-morning. Stop and go elevator rides were not fun when toting the wounded.
El's apartment was impressive from a 1990's point of view. It had just about as much floor space as the trading post Taja and Siro lived in with Kung Lao. El had scored about half a floor in the building. There was a daybed/sofa against one wall. They carefully lowered Siro to the surface. El helped Taja get him out of his shirt without doing much more damage. The skin over the ribs was darkening. El leaned an ear against his chest and asked him to take as deep a breath as possible, without actually grinding bone ends, and let it out. She nodded approval. Her hands were surprisingly gentle as she checked the break.
"Don't move." She removed her outer coat as she moved with speed to the first aid chest she kept.
She returned with an array of items, all unfamiliar in form to the two warriors. She dumped the things on the couch beside Siro, rolled up her sleeves and with Taja's help, got his ribs wrapped and taped. The pain subsided. It ached when he breathed, but the bones weren't grating anymore. He gave her a grateful look.
She held out a glass of water and dropped a quartet of colorful pills into his hand. "Nothing dangerous. Pain killers. Don't chew. They taste terrible, but they work nicely."
Siro had his doubts, but he took the pills, swallowed and washed them down with the water. It tasted odd. But any water tasted odd until you got used to it. He handed the glass back. After a few minutes, the ache seemed to fade. He breathed deeply. His eyes closed. He slept.
"Hey!" Taja discovered his defection with alarm.
"It's okay. Honest. The painkillers will let him sleep. He needs it. Here." She moved the pillows around so that they could get him stretched out horizontally. El threw a thick, warm blanket over him. She turned to Taja. "Hungry?"
Taja gave Siro a worried look, then turned to El and nodded. "Ravenous. We -- had a long walk," she elucidated with a frown.
El regarded her solemnly, then surprised Taja with a smile. It seemed to change the entire structure of her face. El was a lot younger than Taja had thought. She turned and walked into the open kitchen area before Taja could say more.
Silence. She cooked in silence, Taja watching a kitchen with little resemblance to the ones she knew in awe. They ate in silence. El watched the redhead almost start to speak a dozen times, but stop. She suspected that the girl was having a hard time finding a place to start. El was a little concerned that she might not like what she heard when it finally broke. She was right.
Taja's words came in a flood when the dam finally gave. Shao Kahn -- OutWorld. Mortal Kombat. Kung Lao. Siro. Rayden. Through it all, Rayden. Always there, always in the background, always sarcastic but dependable. Failure. When he needed them they had failed. Engulfed in the darkness of the Shadow Priests. "And then we -- were here."
"Your friend?"
She shook her head, the deep red hair shifting in the movement. "I don't know. And Rayden." Her eyes shown with unshed tears. Rayden who had shared her sorrow at Tomas' death. Rayden who had saved her life when Quan Chi's potion had released the worst of the thief within. Rayden who had sometimes taunted, sometimes teased, always known -- except forward, of course. If only he had been able to remember forward. A tear slid down her face, followed by a second, and a third. She was crying silently, as she had cried since childhood when she had discovered herself abandoned by her family, knowing that to make too much noise was to draw attention.
El moved to hold the girl. She wrapped her long arms around the younger woman and let her cry. The red hair flamed against El's dark as Taja accepted the comfort that had not been there for so long. Silent sobs shook her slender form. Finally, the worst of the storm passed, she took a deep breath and hiccupped. It caught her off guard. It happened again and she giggled. How could she laugh at a time like this? She hiccupped again. She pulled back from El to find a grin on the woman's face.
A drink of water quelled the hiccups.
"So --- now what?" Taja asked.
"Well, we wait for him to wake up." El nodded to Siro. "And I'm not sure what we do after we feed him."
"Wash dishes," came Taja's practical answer.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The visiting doctor looked in at the patient in room 4 in the extremely disturbed ward. Even through the little plexiglass and wire window, she could see the sheen of sweat on his face, his arms. She looked through the file again. He had been hit by a car. No bones broken, no internal injuries, even the bruises and lacerations caused by hitting the pavement at speed had faded. And the amount of Thorazine listed was -- she shook her head. That had to be an error. It was like putting it in an intravenous drip and letting it rip. He should be dead.
She blinked. She looked again and frowned. He was on an intravenous drip. What the hell? She walked determinedly back down the hallway. She had to be able to talk to the damned patients to do her research. This was -- this was insane. Which worried her, as the doctors were the ones who were supposed to be determining the sanity of the patients.
She walked into the supervisor's office. He was working on something on his computer. She waited politely. Seconds ticked off into minutes. Very long minutes. She cleared her throat. He jerked and looked around. She could see his fingers fly over the keyboard to his mouse to close the file he had been working in. That was curious. Patient records, perhaps.
"Yes?" he rapped out, annoyed that she had walked in unannounced, unaccompanied and nearly caught him in that file.
"Room 4."
"What about it?"
"The patient has been here 24 hours and you still don't have a name for him."
"Your point?"
"Hasn't anyone inquired?"
"No."
"And I believe I found an error in his records." She pointed out the dosage on the Thorazine.
He started to pooh-pooh the error, then really looked at what she was pointing at. He blinked. "Oh. Well," he said with a laugh. "That is a good one, isn't it. Elephant would be dead on that. Let's see." He looked through the file. Made a couple of notations and dropped the zero off the end of the amount. Much better. Still high, but not unheard of. He looked struck for a moment as he hoped no one had actually given the patient that much Thorazine.
"He is -- er --"
"Still breathing? Yes. I suspect the error has been overlooked and corrected without being brought to anyone's attention. However, there are those who might take it as read and -- Well --" She let the thought hang.
"Quite. Good work. Later."
"Later."
She closed the door behind her, a frown marring her usually smooth forehead. There was something off here. She wondered what. Well, it would take a while for room 4 to sober up. Room 3A. Now there was a challenge.
It was mid-afternoon before she looked in on room 4 again. She frowned. Cautiously, she unlocked the door and stepped inside. She looked at the restraints. Metal. Un-padded metal. His wrists looked red where they rubbed against the edges. Well, dangerous was one thing, but this was supposed to be against federal regs to bind a patient in restraints that could harm them, or on which they could harm themselves.
She swiftly and efficiently took vital signs, ending with pupil reflexes. She gently pried up one eyelid and let it drop back into position very swiftly. She shook her head and gave a weak laugh. Nyah. Not possible. Very professionally, and gently she lifted the other lid. Oh. My. She swallowed hard. She let the lid slide down over the very, very odd eye beneath. Hot plasma shot with lightning. How very fanciful of her to think that.
He moaned, groaned, called out and tried to sit up with a jerk. His eyes were open, though somehow unfocussed, she felt. And they were still that seething, star-heart look instead of anything remotely normal. He strained to sit up, pulling against the restraints until the skin broke. He sagged back against the bed, panting. He was staring wildly, as though you could do much else with those eyes. He focussed on her, slowly. Her breath caught in her throat. Oh. God. The thought was a tiny little voice in her head. The smile on his face was a travesty. For a very long moment, their gazes locked like those of a predator and terrified prey. Then he relaxed against the bed, his eyes closed, something akin to a wry smile curving his lips as he sank back into nightmare ravaged, drug induced sleep.
Just before he lost completely, he mouthed two words. Help me.
She skittered out of the room, closing the door behind her with almost exaggerated gentleness. She turned the key in the lock. She looked up and down the empty corridor. She slid the key off the ring and into her pocket before walking off down the corridor to the check in desk. With a blythe, "I'm out for the day," she dropped the ring on the desk and left.
She ate an early dinner and went over her notes. Her mind kept drifting to the man in room 4. She catalogued him. Gray hair, in disarray, dirty. Skin -- oddly pale, clean, no needle marks, no scars. Odd. Teeth: all of them there. Which was odd in a really violent patient because their own actions generally caused them to lose them. Face: unmarred by violence. She thought about that one for a long time. How the hell do you have a violent patient who never, ever got his face dented? Answer: not likely.
She stopped that train of thought dead. This was no time to get -- whatever. She went back to the catalogue. Eyes. Oh, boy. Eyes. That had to have been the craziest hallucination she had ever had. Only, how does one hallucinate something like that out of the clear blue?
Help me.
No yelling. No crying. No threats. No sound. Just two words.
She shoved the thoughts away. Incarcerations of the sane only happened in the National Enquirer, in movies and on TV. She had never, in her five and a half years of sanctioned practice, met anyone in a mental institution who did not belong there.
She shoved away the part of her that objected to this evaluation with dialogue and pictures. After all, the one guy had turned out to be a cannibal. The rebellious part of her shot back.
She went for a walk. A long walk. She was somewhat amazed when she ended up in El's neighborhood. She stopped as she realized where she was. No. No. Definitively no. She walked over to the entrance and stepped inside. The hallway stretched to infinity before her, or so it seemed. She stopped and stood. There was no way she was going to go up and see El, and talk to her. No way. It wasn't going to happen.
She realized she had lost the argument when she stepped out of the elevator eight floors up. What the hell was El gonna think? She almost turned around and stepped back into the elevator, only the doors closed and the chiming noise of an elevator leaving stopped her. She turned back around, squared her shoulders and stalked down the hallway.
At El's door she almost faded. After all this time, what do you say to the college buddy turned cop? The door opened, saving her from the dilemma of knocking or leaving. El said something to someone in the room, turned and jerked to a stop before she walked into the woman in the hall. Gray eyes met blue. Blue blinked, then smiled.
"Hi, El. Long time."
El looked a little like she'd been poleaxed from behind. Her mouth dropped open. Then she smiled, one of those that lit the somber eyes. She swept the slightly smaller woman into a hug that threatened to crush her ribs. She let her go and looked a little self-conscious.
"Hi," she returned nonchalantly. They both laughed.
"Can I -- come in?"
For a brief moment she thought El would say no. Then with a gesture, she invited her in. She stepped past El to enter the apartment and stopped short. It wasn't the outrageous good looks of the redhead that stopped her, it was the disorienting feeling that here was another part of the puzzle. The room swam. El steadied her with a concerned look. She guided her new guest to a stool in the kitchen and handed her a glass of wine without thinking or asking.
She took a long drink and grinned. "You keep this around?"
El shrugged her shoulders. "You never know."
"Yeah. You don't." Her eyes drifted to Taja and then to Siro's sleeping form. "I'm Delia Tannenbaum. I'm a friend of El's. I think."
"You are," El confirmed. "It's all right," this was to Taja. "Lia, this is Taja. No last name. The one on the bed is Siro."
"Also no last name."
El gave her a familiar look. Lia grinned. It had been sooo long since she'd seen that look. It spoke volumes and accepted her ability to make statements like that in ways no one else had ever managed. She felt that guarded part of herself relax suddenly. No hiding from El. No need. She tossed off the rest of the wine with a grin.
"So -- what've you been acquiring?" Soon enough, she would tell what brought her here. Soon enough.
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