veturius | (no subject)

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It's cold again today. The brief, isolated change had been nice but unnatural and I'm almost glad that things have gone back to normal. I don't mind the changing of the seasons but I prefer they happen gradually, not freezing one day and hot the next. It makes me nervous.

The cold doesn't really bother me much anyway. Sometimes, it's even nice and that's why I've cracked the window in my home, letting in a crisp breeze. I've already done a bit of training, cleaned up and now I'm sitting idly, television on but unwatched.

This also makes me nervous, sitting and doing nothing. I feel that I'm either missing something that needs doing or that I'm going to be caught out and punished severely. It takes reminding myself that the commandant isn't here to set my mind off of that track.

I should go out, do something but I don't know where to go or what to do so I just sit there, tapping my fingers against my knee while a movie drones on in the background. Perhaps one day I'll be able to be still and not feel like I'm doing something wrong.

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Raven wouldn't say she's at the end of her rope, but it's been a month and she's gotten to a point where she can't lie to herself anymore. She'd spent the other night sitting in a bar alone trying to drown ALIE out with beer, which means she probably can't pretend like everything is fine. It's been a month of no pain, but it's also been a month of seeing her out of the corner of her eye nearly every time she turns around. A month of her talking, telling Raven how to build more of those chips, how to bring more people on board.

There's some part of her that knows that's a bad idea, but it's getting harder to ignore her. And then Marius had disappeared. With ALIE in her head it was like he never existed. Somebody said his name and she couldn't place him, couldn't conjure a face to mind. She knows they were supposed to be friends, knows they'd been close, but every memory of him is just gone, in a way that's beyond unsettling.

She needs help. She knows that now, but she also knows that ALIE is going to try and stop her from getting it. She's running out of options though, so she goes to Elias's apartment before she's really worked out what she's going to say. ALIE follows her, warning her with every step to turn around, but Raven clenches her fists, ignores her the best she can. She doesn't bother to knock once she arrives, thankful that the door is unlocked and he appears to be home.

"Elias?" she calls, opening the door and trying to close it on ALIE's face. It doesn't work of course; she reappears on the other side, her lips in a tight line.

There aren't too many people who will just come into my apartment like Raven does. I should, I think, just give her a spare key since she spends a lot of her time here when she's not working. To make it easier on her when she wants to come and go. I make a mental note to think on it because I've just recently told her that I love her and I don't want to pile on too much too quick.

"Raven?" I return, standing up and crossing the room towards her. When I'm close enough, I reach for her, moving to kiss her forehead in a gesture that's both comforting and familiar to me.

"Hello," I tell her, smiling. "Come in. Is everything all right? I thought you might be working today but I'm glad to see you're not."

At the sound of his voice, the way he crosses the room towards her and presses a kiss against her forehead, Raven relaxes a fraction. It doesn't matter that she didn't call ahead, he still seems pleased to see her and it's easy in a way that Raven's still not sure she deserves. Still, she can't help but melt into him a little, steadying herself with her hands on his arms and looking determinedly at him, rather than the woman standing just past his shoulder.

"Hi, sorry I should have called," she says in one breath. She should have, but she'd been afraid she'd lose her nerve if she properly planned this out. Instead she'd come over without any proper idea in mind of what she's going to say or how she's going to say it.

Now that she's here she just wants to forget the whole thing. She doesn't want to make him worry and it would be all too easy to just let herself slip into his arms and spend the afternoon pretending like everything is okay. She steels herself though, determined to get the words out. Raven can't remember the last time she asked for help. Since she was a kid she's done her best to make sure she would never have to, that she would always only rely on herself. She's never wanted anyone's help, but somewhere along the line she lost control of things this time around.

"I needed to talk to you," she says, glancing up to look him in the eye. "I think I need help."

"It's okay, you don't have to call me if you want to come over," I tell her with a quick shake of my head. I'd make time for her even if I were to be busy but that's a rare thing. I do what I can to fill time but I have so much more time than I even know what to do with here. It alternates between driving me mad and allowing me time to relax that I've never had before.

My eyebrows draw together and I'm immediately concerned, looking her up and down to see if there's some injury that I might have missed when she'd come in. She looks to be in one piece but I know Raven pretty well and her asking for help has to mean there is something seriously wrong. She wouldn't do that for just anything or anyone.

"I'll do anything I possibly can to help you," I say without even hearing what she needs. It's true either way. I'm going to help her and I'll burn the ground I'm walking on to make that happened. "What's the matter? Are you hurt? Has something happened?"

He's already looking her over for injury, his eyes raking over her, but she knows he's not going to find anything. She's not hurt, that's the whole problem. It's been weeks since she last felt any pain in her leg, since anything at all caused her any discomfort or heartache. Things that she knows should have she can't properly feel, the memories glazed over, the thoughts blocked.

Immediately he offers to help and Raven breathes, relieved even though she had known he would try. He's never let her down and she trusts that he'll listen to her, even if she knows what she's about to say is going to sound absolutely crazy.

"My leg doesn't hurt," she starts, beginning with the parts he already knows, the parts they can both make sense of. "Nothing hurts." She frowns, and out of the corner of her eye ALIE is warning her to stop, her eyes flashing hard. Raven determinedly looks away from her, tries to focus her head even though it suddenly feels like everything is too much and she won't be able to get the words out. "I lied when I said I got painkillers from a doctor," she forces out. "Someone else gave me something."

"Someone else gave you something?" I don't mean to repeat her words verbatim but it takes me a second to realize what she means. I've been here long enough to know that drugs exist and I know that there were some Masks that used things they shouldn't to make them better warriors. My mother was always good at sniffing those out so it never lasted and, consequently, neither did they.

Still, I'm a little surprised that Raven's resorted to that. I know the pain was worsening but I'd assumed she'd rather live it with than go that route.

"Okay, what did they give you?" I ask, hands still on her shoulders, thumbs rubbing slow circles there. "Something illegal? I want to help no matter what it is, Raven. It's okay. I'll help you."

Raven doesn't know if it's illegal because she doesn't know what it was. The little disc hadn't been like anything she's ever seen before, and in hindsight she knows this was a mistake, but that doesn't help her now. Instead she tries to focus on his thumb rubbing circles on her shoulders, ground herself with Elias in front of her and get out the words that she knows ALIE doesn't want her to say.

"There was a guy at the clinic, he said it would help. And it did, the pain is gone, but there's... other stuff."

She doesn't want him to think she's going crazy, but she knows her next words are going to sound it. She's losing parts of her memory, she's been seeing a woman who isn't there for weeks, and none of that is normal. There's no easy way to put it, no way to tell him what's happening to her without running the risk that he won't believe her, but she has no other choice. Besides, she trusts him. She trusts that he cares about her enough to listen to what she has to say, and then they'll go from there.

"I keep seeing this woman," she starts, her eyes automatically flicking over Elias's shoulder to where she's standing. "She's just there no matter what I do and she won't go away." She directs the last to ALIE herself, glaring at her as though she can make her disappear through sheer will.

"A hallucination?" What she's describing sounds so similar to what I went through with the poison in my blood. It didn't take my pain away but it did make me see and hear things that weren't there. It made me feel like I was going out of my mind when I knew I wasn't.

Still, I look over my shoulder to see if maybe this woman is there. I see nothing and I'm almost upset about that. I wish I could see what she sees so I could better help her. But, there's nothing but air there. Still, I don't doubt that she sees something.

"Okay," I tell her, nodding. "I believe you. What if you stopped taking what this man gave you? Maybe the symptoms will ease if we try and get you off what you're taking? Get it out of your bloodstream and things should stop. I'm not a healer but that makes most the sense."

They could stop this. The healers here were able to stop the nightweed from killing him so there's got to be a way to deal with this.

"Do you think that will work?"

He looks over his shoulder and Raven knows he isn't going to see anything, which makes it worse. ALIE hasn't moved but he stares blankly before he looks back at her and she knows he hasn't seen anything, that he can't. Whatever is going on, it's all in her head, only she doesn't know how to get it out.

The relief sweeps over her when he says he believes her though. She hadn't necessarily doubted that he would, but she knows exactly how insane it sounds and with anyone else she might have worried more. "I can't," she says, shaking her head. "I only took it once, there were no other pills." Whatever it was, she'd swallowed it once and that had apparently been all it took. It's been weeks; anything that was in her bloodstream should have been long gone but ALIE is still there, smirking at her.

"It's been a month," she says, frowning. "If it was in my bloodstream I would've stopped seeing her ages ago. She's in my head."

"It's going to be all right," I tell her firmly. Whatever's going on with her can be solved. Even if it can't be cured, like the poison in my blood, we can find a way to treat it, to make it better for her. I won't stop until we've figured this out. With the amount of technology and magic in this city, there has to be something to be done.

"I think the first step is going to a healer again," I say evenly, nodding. "They can look you over, see if there's anything foreign in your blood or head. They've done that to me when I initially went in. They have instruments that can do all sorts of things that I wouldn't think possible. It should be our first step."

The sooner the better in this situation. I can't understand how she's been handling this so well, without me really suspecting anything, for a month but it's high past time she get some relief.

"Maybe we can find whoever gave what you took the first time," I say soothingly. "He might know what to do as well. Will you do that? Will you let me take you to the healers?"

She knows that any doctor is going to chastise her for taking something off a strange, but right now Raven will take it. She knows she deserves it, and if anybody has a way of getting AlIE out of her head, she's willing to listen. She's tried to drown her out with noise and with exercise and with alcohol and so far nothing has worked, so it's probably time to turn to the professionals.

She knows as soon as she thinks it that ALIE isn't going to like it, however. Whatever her end game is, being extracted from Raven's brain definitely doesn't factor in, and the minute Raven starts considering replying yes, she can hear her voice, yelling at her, threatening her.

After a month she has more of an inkling of what's been happening, and she knows that the pain in her leg is gone because somehow ALIE has a way of shutting off the pain receptors in her brain. Logically, she knows that she has the ability to take away the blockers, and when she goes to agree with Elias, the voice in her head starts threatening to do exactly that. The pain will be back, the memories will be back, and when the warning comes she says it will be worse, much worse.

But anything is better than not having control over her own mind. Raven steels herself, nods. "Whatever it takes," she says. "Please."

As soon as the words are out of her mouth she sees ALIE frown, her eyes narrowed, and then all the pain she's been blocking over the last month comes back in a rush. It's overwhelming, the pain ricocheting through her leg and her spine, exploding in her head, and Raven screams, doubling over.

I want to reassure her. I want to tell her that I'll help her like she's helped me but I don't get the chance. I don't get to do anything but catch her in my arms and pull her against me because she starts screaming and it's a sound that I don't ever wish to hear again. Something -- someone -- is causing her pain unlike anything she can deal with and I don't know what to do.

Standing there and holding her isn't going to work but it's all I can think to do. I rub her back, press a kiss against her head and say her name over and over and over again, trying to get her attention.

"Raven," I say, raising my voice, trying to get her to focus. "Raven, we're going to the hospital. We have to go now. I don't know what to do and you need help. I'm going to carry you, all right? I promise, you're going to be okay."

In the back of her mind she registers the fact that Elias is holding her, saying her name over and over. She tries to focus on him but her eyes keep squeezing shut as the pain takes over and Raven can't think about anything else. It's pain like she's never felt in her life, like everything she's ever experienced is crashing back at once. All those cuts the Grounders had covered her in when she'd been framed for the poison, the bullet entering her spine, the surgery without anaesthesia, the drill. It all hits her at once and it's all she can do to hold on, to force her eyes open.

When she does it's not Elias she sees but ALIE, lingering close and shaking her head. "Just say the word, Raven," she says, her tone cool and calm as ever. "I can make it stop."

Raven knows what she wants, knows that all her attempts to drown her out over the past few weeks have been testing her patience. She's aggressive, for an AI, and Raven knows that if she lets her do what she wants, she'll spread herself around the city. She can't let that happen and she still has enough presence of mind to fight back. She grits her teeth, focuses on Elias's voice and manages to nod. She doesn't know how they're going to treat her without any physical symptoms, the pain just screaming in her head, but she doesn't trust herself to hold out on ALIE alone anymore.

"It's going to be okay," I tell her, picking her up like she weighs nothing, like she's light as a feather. I don't want her to feel like she's an invalid, like she can't do it herself but this will be faster. She's in so much pain and, unless I call the healers to come here, we're not going to make it there quickly when she's hurting so badly.

The screams cut at him, rip his insides to shreds and I want so desperately to be able to do more than just carry her to the healers. I want to be the one to help, not someone else.

When she's in my arms, I press a kiss to her forehead and tell her, "I love you. It's going to be okay."

All I have are words. All I can do it try and reassure her. With her in my arms, I shoulder open the door and start walking, falling into a brisk pace that I hope gets us there quick.

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