#Me: I’ve nearly passed out before giving blood will this happen giving plasma

[develation]

SCP AU

So @emeraldtrainer1 (Ao3), @writingforfunandbecauseboredom (Ao3), and DarkstarWolf53 (<-Dunno if they have Tumblr) did an SCP AU three-way Convo fic some months ago. I really enjoyed the outline and concept and asked if I could expand on it. With their permission and about a month of research into what the actual SCP Foundation is (and holy cow there is so much, no wonder people are all over this) I've finally managed to get a start on this. There is a decent amount of things that are different from their original Convo (via their permission) but it will basically follow the same storyline that they created. Please go check their Convo out, it's a very long and fun read with a lot of good fluff and Angst mixed in.

I will hopefully be drawing some of my designs soon but for now, writing seems to be the way to go. Here is a link to it on Ao3 -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/33213928/chapters/82464553

I'll also have it below in case you would like to read it on Tumblr instead.

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Error: (The End Of All But Me.) There are too many unworldly traits that spiders have that I couldn't just not give to Error, so I've kind of combined their Puppetmaster concept to my design. He has 4 arms with clawed fingertips, his tail is prehensile and his jaw can split open. He has 5 tongues still, 2 of them are spear-like, and can shoot out and impale victims. The saliva produced under the tips of the barbs on the two tongues can liquidity a prey items insides so he can drink them up (still a clean freak, using the skin as a cup and drinking up any mess leaving a skin bag behind). His other three tongues are prehensile and can extend to an unknown length, they are barbed aswell but do not carry the venomous saliva. Strings wrap along his bones from his eye sockets, which he uses to create a nest atop the ceiling of his cell.

SCP-002's (Apollyon class) cell is a blank room (it ask for a TV later on) that goes up vertically 2 floors. The top half is required to be shrouded in darkness as it likes voids of either white or black. It has filled the darkness of its cell with a nest of strings that it spends all of its time in, even when feeding. It does not attempt to attack staff, when asked why it replied with, "Not yet." Personal have not been able to decipher what it means by that statement. In an interview via speakers and mics within containment cell, it was asked why SCP-002 stares off at seemingly nothing for extended periods of time and never touches the ground. Subject responded with, "Busy." When asked what it was busy doing- "Watching." When asked what it was watching- "The world. Everything." Due to this experience, it can be concluded that 002 can view any place in the world and perhaps beyond via "screens". These "screens" are unviewable to anyone but 002 and 001 as the latter SCP had called them so, hence their given name. SCP-002 has a strange relationship with SCP-001 and it can not be determined if 002 likes or dislikes 001.

Ink created Error on accident. In the beginning, Ink didn't know what he was doing, and the brutality of Earth's natural forces of destruction were uncontrollable. If he wanted to bring life to his chosen planet he needed a way to control the chaos. And so through the storm, a new force was born. And even if Ink didn't create it, he did wish for it.

Error is a ticking time bomb for extinction. He waits and watches until he decides it's time for a "spring cleaning" and starts his work. The Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous mass extinctions were all him. He deemed the human race ready for a "cleaning" a long time ago and Ink agreed with him, ready to see and make something new. But Nightmare threatened the both of them by stating that he would make the earth forever inhabitable and they would have to kill him before he stoped his rage. Nightmare fears that if another extinction event were to occur he'd lose his boys.

Ink: (God doesn't care about what's right or what's wrong. God just wants to watch interesting things happen.) His form is always changing, different traits from different animals and organisms he's created. Ink is basically Gaia. Born when Theia crashed into Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, he made everything that ever existed. Since he's made A LOT of organisms he has a ton of favorites and the traits from them are what mostly show up when he mutates. Sometimes it's Kaprosuchus with belonged snout and fangs. Sometimes it's Tylosaurus with its marine reptilian posterior. Sometimes it's Chital Deer and their antlers. More often than not though, his tail has consistently stated having bristle-like hair at the tip of it, which is basically his brush. The concept of paintbrushes is pretty new to him since the human race has been around for a short time compared to other species, so while he does have one, his tail is his broomie. If his next from doesn't have it then he just uses his hands and his blood.

Ink can't be contained. It's that simple, he just can't. He just sticks around because it's interesting and hilarious to see his creations so intelligent but so stupid. (remember how humans are still young in terms of Earth's age, so the fact that they're so smart... on a thought level that could almost match his own is so very interesting to see and watch. even if there ruining his planet.) The SCP foundation just has to let him do his thing and hope that he doesn't override 003's and 004's decision to not have an extinction event.

His cell is basically a mini-ecosystem, with all of his favorite organisms living within whether they are extinct or not. He loves his little sample of the world and it keeps him in his cell for a good amount of time so the foundation let him have it. If any of them even touch what is HIS without permission then he rips them apart and feeds them to the baby Rhamphorhynchus. Don't touch his babies.

...Cross though... he can touch his babies... and Dream... and maybe Error... That's it though!

SCP-001 (Apollyon Class) is a being older than all living things, despite his toddler-like mannerisms. Even more infuriating, within an interview, 001 openly admitted to being the cause of all SCP's and their anomalous effects. It stated that they were all just mistakes and/or experiments, testing the limits of their own abilities. 001's quoted response- "You don't get it do you? I made everything here! All of your little "SCP's" are just of my creation as all of you. Sure there all mistakes but, it just proves my point that it's time to start over again. A clean slate y'know? Pfft- wow you look mad! If it makes you feel any better, I don't like most of them either. They were cool at first but... it's like flicking black paint over a finished painting. Sure, you can try to get over it but eventually, it will just bother you so much that you just can't stand it! Well... I do kinda want some of them to stay... If I could just convince Ru..." -shows evidence to this conclusion. Termination trials were approved by the 05 Council, though have not been able to start since 001's creation of a barrier around its cell, preventing entry of anything that tries to pass.

[Note: Error, Dream, and Nightmare are not included in what Ink views as "mistakes". Y'know when you're trying something new and you don't know what you’re doing, yet it works somehow. That's them, happy accidents. Ink adores them.]

Ink finds the attempt of Termination trials on him to be absolutely hilarious. The fact that humanity's insecurity about their lifespan and control is so great that they'd try to KILL HIM. Amazing. He can't believe he's managed to make the simultaneously best and worst organism ever.

Dream: (When day breaks.)  Again he was accidentally created by Ink’s actions in an intense solar storm. The flare drifting over the earth in combination with Ink’s magic still working to bring life brought him to existence. Dream’s design is almost harpy-like, with beautiful golden, sun-like wings with a small feathery crest atop his skull. Two tail-like feathers sprout from the crest that can rise up and down depending on expression and mood. He also has bird feet and legs, and a tail.

Dream adores all life, his is the warmth and growth of the sun (original form being a ball of light and plasma that literally looks like a mini sun). He is basically like a piece of the sun on earth. His cell is kinda like Ink’s, only in the fact that there are just a couple of animal species. Some deer, birds, and insects mainly. Ink obviously just appeared in his cell one day and made it for him. While Dream could be considered to be a Safe SCP, his ability to damage or completely ruin the planet if inraged prevents that classification.

SCP-003 (Apollyon Class) has proven to be a relatively docile creature. It is elegant in nature (like that of a bird) and shows greater empathy towards all life in general. Unlike SCP’s 001, 002, and 004 who view it as more interesting and admirable, more like a pretty crystal than an actual being with its own consciousness. 003 can not be fully contained and has shown the ability to travel through light rays. Its aura has also shown to be some form of anesthesia, and exposure for prolonged periods causes victims to feel more at peace and calm. 003 does have the capability to travel through the “dreamscape”, what exactly that in tails is unknown.

Dream doesn’t agree with the extinction event thing because the Holocene period hasn’t lasted for nearly as long as it should. On the other hand, he does distaste humanity/monsterkind for all it has done to the planet. Even so, he feels like they deserve more of a chance.

Nightmare: (Does the Black Moon howl?)(Death) Complete with the theme of being Dreams opposite, Nightmare was born from a black moon and the combination of Ink’s magic bringing life to the earth. He isn’t an evil force or anything, just the night to the day. His design is pretty true to OG nightmare, although his legs and feet share the same digitigrade format. His tentacles are more ghostly than slimy and they drip upwards instead of towards the ground. His bones also have a ghost;y wisp to them, but it isn’t that noticeable. Instead of only having a turquoise glint in his magic, there are sparks of purple aswell. (His original form being a black sphere of what looks like smoke).

His cell is basically an entrance to a cave system that Ink had made for him. Inside is a galaxy of crystals and gemstones that glow and sparkle like the night sky. A small stream runs through, the light refracting off of the water, adding to the glow effect. It is a nice calm place for Nightmare to just chill in, his separate own little world.

Nightmare is kind of mysterious, in the realm of Error in which he likes to watch things happen. Just lurking in the shadows, a quiet observer. Though, he wasn’t as fascinated by life as the others. So to prevent his boredom Ink made him a present- Killer. Nightmare hated the little thing at first but it didn’t take too long to grow fond of the little guy. Not too long later Ink pronounced his joy in watching Nightmare sigh in frustration by sending 2 more bundles his way -Dust and Horror- and Nightmare had to threaten Ink to stop before any more joined the fray.

SCP-004 (Apollyon Class) is an entity whose intentions are completely unknown. A mysterious being that chooses to dwell in the cave system 001 made for it. The entity refuses to interact with personal unless in interview. And when it does respond, it does so in riddles and metaphors. It seemingly takes joy asking more questions than the interviewer, turning the conversation in its favor. On such question that has been repeated multiple times - “Does the Black Moon howl?” has puzzled personal. Though 004 states that if answered correctly and explained why, then it will share its secrets with that person and that person only.

004 proves to be uncontainable like its counterparts, able to travel through shadows. SCP’s 012, 032, and 024 seem to be “followers” of 004, and regularly go missing from their cells. Most likely 004’s doing.

[Ink created Killer, Dust, and Horror during the era where dinosaurs were still alive, so they have some traits from them.]

Killer: (War) Was created by Ink for Nightmare to keep him entertained. Killer was born as a baby in Ink’s very hands, a little skeleton with curved blades for hands and digitigrade legs and feet (and little quills on his back). Growing up under Nightmare’s care was an interesting experience, but he thought Kill’s everything he needed to know.

-[SCP-012, Keter]-

Killer is fast, very fast. And he enjoys killing things (what a surprise). He’s pretty much the same cocky boi as always. His more SCP side is that he doesn’t seem to ever feel pain and the black liquid that leaks through his eyes. That can be used as a type of venomous toxin to whatever he pleases.

Dust: (Pestilence) You know Epidexipteryx and Therizinosaurus? Those are Dust hands, long with even longer claws. He can also turn into literal dust, more of a phantom or wraith in nature. He can walk through walls, and turn others to dust and grow himself if he wishes.

He and Horror could be twins since Ink made them both at the same time. Holding his little creations in his arms as they wriggled and whined in confusion at suddenly being alive.

-[SCP-032, Keter]-

Dust is pretty quiet and tame. He has his episodes but he stays pretty much the same as bookwrym’s, writing’s, and Dark’s Dust.

Horror: (Famine) Since Horror is a vent crawler I based his design on that. Horror’s second set of arms are like a praying mantis with an extra joint, hands serrated blades almost like Killer’s. He used to sit in trees and wait for prey to walk underneath him, plucking them from the ground with his long arms and eating them alive.

Same thing when in vents, just waits over the openings and plucks a person off of the ground and into the vent (if personal don’t keep up with his feeding times)

-[SCP-024, Euclid]-

Other than his design Horror is pretty much the same as bookwyrm’s, writing’s, and Dark’s concept.

Outer: [SCP-044, Safe] His stardust makes him have luminescent galaxy and star patterns on his bones. He floats regularly without control over it and can sometimes make other objects float, in rare cases people, aswell. Ink made him a jacket where pieces of its hood and aglets float off like a sort of fluffy foam. The pieces orbit him like planets to a star before joining back, making a continuous cycle.

(And yes writingforFUN, he will still keep his anime sparkling eyelight’s).

Cross: [SCP-00X, Thaumiel] Was created by Dr. X to help contain and terminate Keter SCP’s. Being forced to kill his brother when he turned Keter, not completely in control of his actions. Dr. X’s “programing” making him see his brother no longer as such, just an object to be eliminated. When Cross became uncontrollable Dr. X put wiped his memory without the 05’s or administers permission and an MTF was sent after him that came back empty-handed. Cross was brought back soon enough and had his memory wiped.

They bring him back in as a staff member and that’s when the story kicks off, mostly following bookwyrm’s, writingforFUN, and Dark’s original outline/convo.

(I apologize for any typos)

[arcticdementor]

Stefanie Gray explains why, as a teenager, she was so anxious to leave her home state of Florida to go to college.

“I went to garbage schools and I’m from a garbage low-income suburb where everyone sucks Oxycontin all day,” she says. “I needed to get out.”

She got into Hunter College in New York, but both her parents had died and she had nowhere near enough to pay tuition, so she borrowed. “I just had nothing and was poor as hell, so I took out loans,” she says.

This being 2006, just a year after the infamous Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 was passed, she believed news stories about student loans being non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. She believed they would be with her for life, or until they were paid off.

“My understanding was, it’s better to purchase 55 big-screen TVs on a credit card, and discharge that in a court of law, then be a student who’s getting an education,” she says.

Still, she asked for financial aid: “I was like, ‘My parents are dead, I'm a literal fucking orphan, I have no siblings. I'm just taking out this money to put my ass through school.”

Instead of a denial, she got plenty of credit, including a slice of what were called “direct-to-consumer” loans, that came with a whopping 14% interest rate. One of her loans also came from a company called MyRichUncle that, before going bankrupt in 2009, would briefly become famous for running an ad disclosing a kickback system that existed between student lenders and college financial aid offices.

Gray was not the cliché undergrad, majoring in intersectional basket-weaving with no plan to repay her loans. She took geographical mapping, with the specific aim of getting a paying job quickly. But she graduated in the middle of the post-2008 crash, when “53% of people 18 to 29 were unemployed or underemployed.”

“I couldn't even get a job scrubbing toilets at a local motel,” she recalls. “They told me straight up that I was over-educated. I was like, “Literally, I'll do your housekeeping. I don't give a shit, just let me make money and not get evicted and end up homeless.”

The lender Sallie Mae at the time had an amusingly loathsome policy of charging a repeating $150 fee every three months just for the privilege of applying for forbearance. Gray was so pissed about having to pay $50 a month just to say she was broke that she started a change.org petition that ended up gathering 170,000 signatures.

She personally delivered those to the Washington offices of Sallie Mae and ended up extracting a compromise out of the firm: they’d still charge the fee, but she could at least apply it to her balance, as opposed to just sticking it in the company’s pocket as an extra. This meager “partial” victory over a student lender was so rare, the New York Times wrote about it.

“I definitely poked the bear,” she says.

Gray still owed a ton of student debt — it had ballooned from $36,000 to $77,000, in fact — and collectors were calling her nonstop, perhaps with a little edge thanks to who she was. “They were telling me I should hit up people I know for money, which was one thing,” she recalls. “But when they started talking about giving blood, or selling plasma… I don’t know.”

Sallie Mae ultimately sued Gray four times. In doing so, they made a strange error. It might have slipped by, but for luck. “By the grace of God,” Gray said, she met a man in the lobby of a courthouse, a future state Senator named Kevin Thomas, who took a look at her case. “Huh, I’ve got some ideas,” he said, eventually pointing to a problem right at the top of her lawsuit.

Sallie Mae did not represent itself in court as Sallie Mae. The listed plaintiff was “SLM Private Credit Student Loan Trust VL Funding LLC.” As was increasingly the case with mortgages and other forms of debt, student loans by then were typically gathered, pooled, and chopped into slices called tranches, to be marketed to investors. Gray, essentially, was being sued by a tranche of student loan debt, a little like being sued by the coach section of an airline flight.

When Thomas advised her to look up the plaintiff’s name, she discovered it wasn’t registered to do business in the State of New York, which prompted the judge to rule that the entity lacked standing to sue. He fined Sallie Mae $10,000 for “nonsense” and gave Gray another rare victory over a student lender, which she ended up writing about herself this time, in The Guardian.

Corporate creditors often play probabilities and mass-sue even if they don’t always have great cases, knowing a huge percentage of borrowers either won’t show up in court (as with credit card holders) or will agree to anything to avoid judgments, the usual scenario with student borrowers.

“What usually happens in pretty much 99% of these cases is you beg and plead and say, ‘Please don't put a judgment against me, I'll do anything… because a judgment against you means you're not going to be able to buy a home, you’re not going to be able to do basically anything involving credit for the next 20 years.”

…

The passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was a classic demonstration of how America works, or doesn’t, depending on your point of view. While we focus on differences between Republicans and Democrats, it’s their uncanny habit of having just a sliver of enough agreement to pass crucial industry-friendly bills that really defines the parties.

Whether it’s NAFTA, the Iraq War authorization, or the Obama stimulus, there are always just enough aisle-crossers to get the job done, and the tally usually tracks with industry money with humorous accuracy. In this law signed by George Bush, sponsored by Republican Chuck Grassley, and greased by millions in donations from entities like Sallie Mae, the crucial votes were cast by a handful of aisle-crossing Democrats, including especially the Delawareans Joe Biden and Tom Carper. Hillary Clinton, who took $140,000 from bank interests in her Senate run, had voted for an earlier version.

Party intrigue is only part of the magic of American politics. Public relations matter, too, and the Bankruptcy Bill turned out to be the poster child for another cherished national phenomenon: the double-lie.

…

Years later, pundits still debate whether there really ever was an epidemic of debt-fleeing deadbeats, or whether legislators in 2005 who just a few years later gave “fresh starts” to bankrupt Wall Street banks ever cared about “moral hazard,” or if it’s fair to cut off a single Mom in a trailer when Donald Trump got to brag about “brilliantly” filing four commercial bankruptcies, and so on.

In other words, we argue the why of the bill, but not the what. What did that law say, exactly? For years, it was believed that it absolutely closed the door on bankruptcy for whole classes of borrowers, and one in particular: students. Nearly fifteen years after the bill’s passage, journalists were still using language like, “The bill made it completely impossible to discharge student loan debt.”

…

The phrase “Just asking questions” today often carries a negative connotation. It’s the language of the conspiracy theorist, we’re told. But sometimes in America we’re just not told the whole story, and when the press can’t or won’t do it, it’s left to individual people to fill in the blanks. In a few rare cases, they find out something they weren’t supposed to, and in rarer cases still, they learn enough to beat the system. This is one of those stories.

…

Smith’s explanation of the history of the student loan exemption and where it all went wrong is biting and psychologically astute. In his telling, the courts’ historically sneering attitude toward student borrowers has its roots in an ages-old generational debate.

“This started out as an an argument between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers,” Smith notes. “A lot of the law was created by people railing against draft-dodging deadbeat hippies.”

He points to a 1980 ruling by a judge named Richard Merrick, who in denying relief to a former student, wrote the following:

The arrogance of former students who had received so much from society, frequently including draft deferment, and who had given back so little in return, accompanied by their vehemence in asserting their constitutional and statutory rights, frequently were not well received by legislators and jurists, senior to them, who had lived through the Depression, had worked their ways through college and graduate school, had served in World War II, and had been paying the taxes which made possible the student loans.

Smith laughs about this I didn’t climb the hills at Normandy with a knife in my teeth just to eat the debt on your useless-ass liberal arts degree perspective, noting that “when those guys who did all that complaining went to school, only rich prep school kids went to college, and by the way, tuition was like ten bucks.” Still, he wasn’t completely unsympathetic to the conservative position.

…

This concern about “deadbeats” gaming the system — kids taking out fat loans to go to school and bailing on them before the end of the graduation party — led that 1985 court to take a hardcore position against students who made “virtually no attempt to repay.” They established a three-pronged standard that came to be known as the “Brunner test” for determining if a student faced enough “undue hardship” to be granted relief from student debt.

Among other things, the court ruled that a newly graduated student had to do more than demonstrate a temporary inability to handle bills. Instead, a “total incapacity now and in the future to pay” had to be present for a court to grant relief. Over the course of the next decades, it became axiomatic that basically no sentient being could pass the Brunner test.

…

In 2015, he was practicing law at the Texas litigation firm Bickel and Brewer when he came across a case involving a former Pace University student named Lesley Campbell, who was seeking to discharge a $15,000 loan she took out while studying for a bar exam. Smith believed a loan given out to a woman who’d already completed her studies, and who used the money to pay for rent and groceries, was not covering an “educational benefit” as required by law. A judge named Carla Craig agreed and canceled Campbell’s loan, and Campbell v. Citibank became one of the earlier dents in the public perception that there were no exceptions to the prohibition on discharging student debts.

“I thought, ‘Wait, what? This might be important,’” says Smith.

By law, Smith believed, lenders needed to be wary of three major exceptions to the non-dischargeability rule:

— If a loan was not made to a student attending a Title IV accredited school, he thought it was probably not a “qualified educational loan.”

— If the student was not a full-time student — in practice, this meant taking less than six credits — the loan was probably dischargeable.

— And if the loan was made in an amount over and above the actual cost of attending an accredited school, the excess might not be “eligible” money, and potentially dischargeable.

Practically speaking, this means if you got a loan for an unaccredited school, were not a full-time student, or borrowed for something other than school expenses, you might be eligible for relief in court.

Smith found companies had been working around these restrictions in the blunt predatory spirit of a giant-sized Columbia Record Club. Companies lent hundreds of thousands to teenagers over and above the cost of tuition, or to people who’d already graduated, or to attendees of dubious unaccredited institutions, or to a dozen other inappropriate destinations. Then they called these glorified credit card balances non-dischargeable educational debts — Gray got one of these “direct-to-consumer” specials — and either sold them into the financial system as investments, borrowed against them as positive assets, or both.

…

Smith thought these practices were nuts, and tried to convince his bosses to start suing financial companies.

“They were like, ‘You do know what we do around here, right?’ We defend banks,” he recalls, laughing. “I said, ‘Not these particular banks.’ They said it didn’t matter, it was a question of optics, and besides, who was going to pay off in the end? A bunch of penniless students?”

Furious, Smith stormed off, deciding to hang his own shingle and fight the system on his own. “My sister kept saying to me, ‘You have to stop trying to live in a John Grisham novel,’” he recalls, laughing. “There were parts of it where I was probably super melodramatic, saying things like, ‘I'm going to go find justice.’”

Slowly however, Smith did find clients, and began filing and winning cases. With each suit, he learned more and more about student lenders. In one critical moment, he discovered that the same companies who were representing in court that their loans were absolutely non-dischargeable were telling investors something entirely different. In one prospectus for a trust packed full of loans managed by Sallie Mae, investors were told that the process for creating the aforementioned “direct-to-consumer” loans:

Does not involve school certification as an additional control and, therefore, may be subject to some additional risk that the loans are not used for qualified education expenses… You will bear any risk of loss resulting from the discharge.

Sallie Mae was warning investors that the loans might be discharged in bankruptcy. Why the honesty? Because the parties who’d be packaging and selling these student loan-backed instruments included Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.

“It’s one thing to lie to a bunch of broke students. They don’t matter,” Smith says. “It’s another to lie to JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank. You screw those people, they’ll fight back.”

…

In June of 2018, a case involving a Navy veteran named Kevin Rosenberg went through the courts. Rosenberg owed hundreds of thousands of dollars and tried to keep current on his loans, but after his hiking and camping store folded in 2017, he found himself busted and unable to pay. His case was essentially the opposite of Brunner: he clearly hadn’t tried to game the system, he made a good faith effort to pay, and he demonstrated a long-term inability to make good. All of this was taken into consideration by a judge named Cecilia Morris, who ruled that Rosenberg qualified for “undue hardship.”

“Most people… believe it impossible to discharge student loans,” Morris wrote. “This Court will not participate in perpetuating these myths.” The ruling essentially blew up the legend of the unbeatable Brunner standard.

Given a fresh start, Rosenberg moved to Norway to become an Arctic tour guide. “I want people to know that this is a viable option,” he said at the time. The ruling attracted a small flurry of news attention, including a feature in the Wall Street Journal, as the case sent a tremor through the student lending world. More and more people were now testing their luck in bankruptcy, suing their lenders, and asking more and more uncomfortable questions about the nature of the education business.

In the summer of 2012, a former bond trader named Michael Grabis sat in the waiting room of a Manhattan financial company, biding time before a job interview. In the eighties, Grabis’s father was a successful bond trader who worked in a swank office atop the World Trade Center, but after the 1987 crash, the family fell out of the smart set overnight. His father lost his job and spiraled, his mother had to look for a job, and “we just became working class people.”

Michael tried to rewrite the family story, going to school and going into the bond business himself, first with the Bank of New York, and eventually for Schwab. But he, too, lost his job in a crash, in 2008, and now was trying to break the pattern of bubble economy misery. However, he’d exited Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College in the nineties carrying tens of thousands in student loans. That number had since been compounded by fees and penalties, and the usual letters, notices, and phone calls from debt collectors came nonstop.

Now, awaiting a job interview, his phone rang again. It was a collection call for Sallie Mae, and it wasn’t just one voice on the line.

“They had two women call at once,” Grabis recalls. “They told me I’d made bad life choices, that I lived in too expensive a city, that I had to move to a cheaper place, so I could afford to pay them,” Grabis explains. “I tried to tell them I was literally at that moment trying to get a job to help pay my bills, but these people are trained to just hound you without listening. I was shaking when I got off the phone, and ended up having a bad interview.”

Two years later, more out of desperation and anger than any real expectation of relief, Grabis went to federal court in the Southern District of New York and filed for bankruptcy. At the time, he, too, believed student loans could not be eliminated. But the more he read about the way student loans were constructed and sold — he’d had experience in doing shovel-work constructing mortgage-backed securities, so he understood the Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) market — he started to develop a theory. Everyone dealing with the finances of higher education in America knew the system was rotten, he thought. But what if someone could prove it?

The 2005 Bankruptcy Act says former students can’t discharge loans for “qualified educational expenses,” i.e. loans given to students so that they might attend tax-exempt non-profit educational institutions. Historically, that exemption covered almost all higher education loans.

What if America’s universities no longer deserve their non-profit status? What if they’re no longer schools, and are instead first and foremost crude profit-making ventures, leveraging federal bankruptcy law and the I.R.S. code into a single, ongoing predatory lending scheme?

This is essentially what Grabis argued, in a motion filed last January. He named Navient, Lafayette College, the U.S. Department of Education, Joe Biden, his own exasperated judge, and a host of other “unknown co-perpetrators” as part of a scheme against him, claiming the entirety of America’s higher education business had become an illegal moneymaking scam.

“They created a fraud,” he says flatly.

…

Grabis doesn’t have a lawyer, his case has been going on for the better part of six years, and at first blush, his argument sounds like a Hail Mary from a desperate debtor. The only catch is, he might be right.

By any metric, something unnatural is going on in the education business. While other industries in America suffered declines thanks to financial crises, increased exposure to foreign competition, and other factors, higher education has grown suspiciously fat in the last half-century. Tuition costs are up 100% at universities over and above inflation since 2000, despite the 2008 crash, with some schools jacking up prices at three, four times the rate of inflation dating back to the seventies.

Bloat at the administrative level makes the average university look like a parody of an NFL team, where every brain-dead cousin to the owner gets on the payroll. According to Education Week, “fundraisers, financial aid advisers, global recruitment staff, and many others grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009,” which is ten times the rate of growth for tenured faculty positions.

…

Hovering over all this is a fact not generally known to the public: many American universities, even ones claiming to be broke, are sitting atop mountains of reserve cash. In 2013, after the University of Wisconsin blamed post-crash troubles for raising tuition 5.5%, UW system president Kevin Reilly in 2013 admitted that the school actually held $638 million in reserve, separate and distinct from the school endowment. Moreover, Reilly said, other big schools were doing the same thing. UW’s reserve was 25% of its operating budget, for instance, but the University of Minnesota’s was 29%, while Illinois maintained a whopping 34% buffer.

When Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice looked into it, he found many other schools were sitting atop mass reserves even as they pleaded poverty to raise tuition rates. “They’re all doing it,” he said.

In the mortgage bubble that led to the 2008 crash, financiers siphoned fortunes off home loans that were unlikely to be repaid. Student loans are the same game, but worse. All the key players get richer as that $1.7 trillion pile of debt expands, and the fact that everyone knows huge percentages of student borrowers will never pay is immaterial. More campus palaces get built, more administrators get added to payrolls, and perhaps most importantly, the list of assets grows for financial companies, whether or not the loans perform.

…

“As long as it’s collateralized at Navient, they can borrow against that,” Smith says. “They say, ‘Look, we've got $3 billion in assets, which are just consumer loans in negative amortization that are not being repaid, but are being artificially kept out of default so Navient can borrow against that from other banks.

“When I realized that, I was like, ‘Oh, my god. They’re happy that the loans are growing instead of being repaid, because it gives them more collateral to borrow against.’” Smith’s comments echo complaints made by virtually every student borrower in trouble I’ve ever interviewed: lenders are not motivated to reduce the size of balances by actually getting paid. Instead, the game is about keeping loans alive and endlessly growing the balance, through new fees, penalties, etc.

There are two ways of approaching reform of the system. One is the Bernie Sanders route, which would involve debt forgiveness and free higher education. A market-based approach meanwhile dreams of reintroducing discipline into student lending; if students could default, schools couldn’t endlessly raise costs on the back of unlimited government-backed credit.

Which idea is more correct can be debated, but the one thing we know for sure is that the current system is the worst of both worlds, enriching all the most undeserving actors, and hitting that increasingly prevalent policy sweet spot of privatized profit and socialized risk. Whether it gets blown up in bankruptcy courts or simply collapses eventually under its own financial weight — there’s an argument that the market will be massively disrupted if and when the administration ends the Covid-19 deferment of student loan payments — the lie can’t go on much longer.

“It’s just obvious that this has become a printing money operation,” says Grabis. “The colleges charge whatever they want, then they go to the government and continuously increase the size of the loans.” If you’re on the inside, that’s a beautiful thing. What about for everyone else?

[spoon-writes]

Ends of the Earth | Chapter 7

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairing: Mando x OC

Read on FFN or AO3

Summary: When Sinead's husband is ripped from her, she escapes the Hutt Empire and goes on a quest to find him. Since being a runaway slave in the Outer Rim isn't exactly easy, she makes the Mandalorian an offer he can't refuse and soon they travel across the galaxy, looking for her missing husband.

Chapter index

Chapter 7 - The Stranger

A shout rendered the air followed by a crash, and Sinead's eyes flew open, her hand curling around the blaster hidden under the bunk. She could hear raised voices from outside of the ship.

It was that time of the night where the desert had had time to cool down, until it almost felt like she was back on Toola. She’d left the ramp down, in case the Mandalorian came back, but as her bare feet hit the metal floor she sorely regretted it.

Sinead crept towards the open cargo door, where eerie pale light streamed in, making the shadows in the ship seem unfathomably deep. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she peered over the ramp. The hangar was bathed in moonlight, turning the sand grey and making it seem like she’d been transported to a desolate moonscape while she slept.

The only light came from Peli’s workshop, it flickered as someone passed it. There was another crash and a male voice she didn't recognize.

"Where is it? I know you have it!"

Peli’s voice rose, sharp and angry. "It's not here! Now get the hell out of my workshop, you slimy little-"

"I know you have the child! Give it here!"

Something touched Sinead’s ankle, and she whirled around, blaster raised.

The kid looked back at her, his big dark eyes looking unfathomably deep in the darkness and seeming much more alert that he should have been so late in the night. He cooed softly.

Sinead shushed him and glanced at the workshop, where the two shadows seemed to be moving closer. Grabbing him, she snuck down the ramp and ducked down behind a stack of crates just before Peli and a human man appeared from the workshop.

The man was young, and he glanced nervously back at the door as they moved towards the ship. If he hadn’t been pointing a blaster at Peli’s back, he would’ve been handsome.

"That's his ship?" He made a face. "What a dump."

"Well, you're welcome to pick up a wrench and start workin'. I'll even hold your blaster for ya." Peli glared over her shoulder, earning herself a shove with the blaster.

The child clung to her side, and Sinead pressed a clammy hand to his head, trying to soothe without making any noise.

Peli slowed down the closer they got to the ship. "Look, if it's credits you want, I can give you-"

"You really have no idea how valuable it is, do you? When I bring this in I’ll have enough credits to buy this shithole of a port." He shot a disdainful look at the surrounding walls. "Now walk."

They disappeared into the ship, and Sinead could hear them move around, loud thumps whenever something was thrown across the ship. Sinead bit her lips, hoping that they wouldn't check her belongings to see if the child was hiding there.

"Where is it?"

"I told you numbnuts, it isn't here. Do I look like a babysitter to you? I gave it to someone to look after so I could finish the ship. Honestly."

There was a small pocket between two crates, half covered by an old tarp, and Sinead left the child, pulling the tarp over him. “Stay here,” she whispered, hoping beyond hope that he could somehow understand her. She waited a second to make sure he stayed put, and then circled around the ship, scurrying from cover to cover.

There was one final thump from inside the ship, and Peli came out, the stranger right behind her, his eyes wide. He ran a hand through his hair.

"You know, for some strange reason I just don't believe you. I've only been here for, what, a week? And I've never met more dishonest folks in my life."

"Should put that on a sign," Peli hissed, shooting a hateful look over her shoulder.

The stranger whirled her around and pushed her to the ground.

"Okay, here's how we're gonna do it." He shook his blaster at her. "You're gonna tell me where you hid the kid and I won’t feed you to a sarlacc. Got it?"

Peli fought into a sitting position. “C’mon, kid, you ain’t gonna kill me.” She wet her lips. “I’ve seen puffer pigs more ferocious than you. You don’t have it in you.”

“Wanna bet your life on that?”

Sinead swore under her breath as the stranger lifted his blaster, looking Peli dead in the eyes. Her legs moved before her brain had even finished processing what was happening.

Holding her blaster in a tight grip, she stepped into view.

“Wait-“

She ducked as a blaster bolt whizzed over her head and made a crater in the wall behind her. The smell of plasma filled her nose.

The stranger didn’t lower his blaster. “Who the hell are you?” His eyes were wide, and he moved to the side to keep both Peli and Sinead in his sight at the same time.

“An idiot, that’s who,” Peli mumbled.

“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Sinead said, taking a small step toward them.

“Stay back!” The stranger commanded. “And drop your blaster! Drop it, or I’ll blow her head off.” He gestured angrily at Peli with his blaster.

“Don’t do anything stupid, alright? Calm down.” Sinead threw her blaster in the sand. “There. You happy now?”

He snatched the blaster from the ground and threw it out of reach. “Who are you?”

Sinead kept her eyes on the stranger, scared that if she didn’t, she would end up looking at where the child was hidden away. “I’m an apprentice.”

"You don't look like an apprentice." He looked her up and down, and Sinead had to fight the impulse to cross her arms in front of her chest. She felt very exposed in her thin shirt; at least she was wearing pants to ward off the cold.

"I don't make it a habit of sleeping in my overalls. You can always come back tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll look more the part then."

"I don't think so. You see, I know you aren't an apprentice. There're two beds in there, and one of them has been slept in recently."

Well, that was that, then. Sinead bit the inside of her cheek. "So what's the plan, then? Hm? You take the child and then what? You honestly believe the Mandalorian would let you leave this planet alive?"

At the sound of that name the stranger eyes flickered to the entrance to the hangar. "He'll still be stuck out in the desert by the time I reach Navarro."

So, he was scared of the Mandalorian. Understandable.

"I'm guessing this is the first Mandalorian you've worked with."

"And why would you think that?"

"Mandalorians have a habit of always coming out on top, no matter the odds."

"I'm Corellian. I don't believe in odds."

Cocky bastard.

"That's a shame because the odds of you never leaving the planet are getting pretty high. Unless, of course, you just turn and walk away. The galaxy is a big place, I doubt we'll ever see each other again."

"Less talking," he said, obnoxiously waving his blaster, "and more finding the child."

“You still don’t get it, do you? If you try to take the child, the Mandalorian will find you. He’s a bounty hunter, you think there’s anywhere in the galaxy you can hide where he won’t follow?”

“I’m a bounty hunter too, sweetheart.”

She bit her tongue to hold back her scathing reply. Antagonizing him further would only end in death, probably her own.

A soft cooing sound froze her to the ground, her eyes going wide. For one second, her brain reeled, trying to find a way out of it.

The stranger heard it too. “Don’t move,” he said, looking from Sinead to Peli, before moving towards the origin of the sound, towards the kid.

Sinead and Peli’s eyes met.

It was now or never.

Time slowed.

Sinead launched herself at the stranger, shoulder colliding with his back, sending them both sprawling on the sand. She vaguely registered that Peli had gotten up and was sprinting toward the child.

The stranger threw her off him and got to his knees.

She kicked out and caught him in the side, pushing him back to the ground. Sand slid under her hands and knees as she crawled towards the blaster he’d dropped.

A hand closed around her ankle and she looked back.

“You bitch!”

Sinead threw herself back, fingertips brushing the blaster.

The stranger grabbed her other leg and pinned her down, pulling her away from the weapon.

She gasped sharply, her mouth and nose filling with sand. Grabbling around for something, anything, she flung a handful of sand into his face, making him loosen his grip enough so she could roll around.

He threw himself on top of her, bearing down with all his weight. He smelled like sweat and the desert.

A growl tore from her throat, vision flashing red. She struck out with her hand, and it connected with his face with a loud thump.

She fought to her feet and staggered toward the blaster. Her hand closed around it, and she looked up.

The last thing she saw was a wrench swinging for her head.

… … … … …

The first thought that came to Sinead’s head when she came to, was that she’d rather still be unconscious.

Her mouth tasted like blood and sand. It felt like her brain had expanded while she was out cold, pressing on her eyes and trickling out of her ears, pain emanating from the side of her head in waves.

First thing first, she had to find out where she was, preferably without opening her eyes in case her brain really did leak out.

She was lying on something hard and cold, and she tried feeling around with her hands only to discover that they had been bound in front of her. She choked back a panicked sound. This wasn’t the same as the Trandoshian. At least here she’d probably end up dying instead of taken captive.

Taking a chance, she opened her eyes and they nearly rolled back into her head as pain shot through her head.

It was still dark, soft moonlight streamed through the open ramp. An outline of the stranger paced around in front of the ship. He stopped when he saw her moving. “You’re not dead.” He came up the ramp to peer down at her.

She opened her mouth to say something snippy, but her brain refused to cooperate, the only clear though she seemed able to produce was that she had to get out of there.

“Nng,” she managed.

He went back to pacing in front of the ship.

Sinead took a deep breath and tried to sit up, only making it a couple of centimeters before falling back on the hard metal. It felt like her head was exploding. She took a deep breath.

“Didn’t find the kid?” Her words slurred, she could barely get them out.

“Shut up.”

Closing her eyes, she willed the world to stop turning nauseatingly. It felt like the floor was rolling underneath her.

She didn’t know how long she lay on the cold floor before the stranger grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet.

“Don’t say a word,” he said putting his blaster to her temple, “or I’ll fry your brain.”

Even if she wanted to, opening her mouth would undoubtedly end up with her being sick.

Sinead watched as the Mandalorian stepped out into the moonlight, his blaster raised. He scanned the surroundings as he carefully made his way towards the ship, walking quietly over the sand.

The stranger’s grip on her arm tightened as he pushed her towards the ramp. “Took you long enough, Mando. Was starting to think the Tusken Raider’s got you.”

The Mandalorian stopped in his tracks, his blaster raised.

The stranger was still pushing her down the ramp. The closer they got, the more his grip tightened, and Sinead felt his quick breaths on the back of her head. He was nervous or scared.

“Drop your blaster and raise ‘em.”

Mando looked at Sinead, whose head felt like it was splitting in two. Surprisingly, he let his blaster thump to the ground and put his hands behind his head.

“Where is the child?” Mando’s voice shook with oppressed rage.

“Aw, don’t you worry, he’s fine, and he’ll stay that way if you do what I say.” Sinead could hear the smug grin. “Partner.”

She tried signaling Mando, to show him that the child was gone, but there was little she could do except blink furiously and mouth the word ‘no’ over and over.

“You’re a Guild traitor, Mando. Fennec was right. Bringing you in won’t just make me a member of the Guild, it’ll make me legendary.”

The stranger let her go long enough to throw a pair of blinders, which landed in the sand in front of Mando. “Put ‘em on.”

Mando bent down slowly, looking directly at Sinead.

Through the fog of pain, she noticed something in his hands.

“I said-“ the stranger pressed his blaster harder to her head- “put it on.”

A bright light exploded from Mando’s hand, filling the world with white and purple spots.

The stranger screamed and his hand fell away. Sinead flung herself to the side, landing on the hard sand.

Blasters fired, and something heavy landed on her, driving the last bit of breath from her lungs.

The world spun and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Her mouth filled with sand.

Someone called her name.

The weight on top of her was rolled off, and strong hands grabbed her and hoisted her to her feet like she weighed nothing. As the Mandalorian let her go the world tilted and he grabbed her before she hit the sand.

“Where is he?” His voice sounded hollow and far away. She couldn’t focus.

“Sinead?” He moved closer.

 “Peli has him,” she croaked out. “She got away.”

“Are you-“

“I’ll be fine,” she said automatically, even as her stomach rolled. “Just go. Find them.”

"Sinead-"

She placed both hands on his chest and pushed. It was like trying to move a boulder. “Go.”

After he left, she grabbed the rim of the ramp and pulled herself up, collapsing on the floor when she reached the ship. Her eyes were watering, and everything was hazy. With a grunt of effort, she sat up and leaned her head against the cool side of the ship. Her hands were still bound.

She breathed hard through her mouth, pressing her knees to her chest. Looking into the dim light from Peli's workshop hurt her eyes.

The next thing she knew, Peli's face was swimming in front of her. Sinead could just make out the deep frown.

"Chela! Are you okay?"

Chela? Who's-- oh.

"Yeah," Sinead croaked out, pushing off from the wall she was slumped against. "Did the child get hurt?"

"Nah, we got away." Peli carefully prodded her head, withdrawing her hand when Sinead winced. "He got you good, huh?"

"Is fine. Didn't break the skin."

"You're gonna have a helluva bump, though." She looked down at Sinead's still bound hands. "Let's get these off ya."

Peli guided Sinead down the ramp and made her sit on a crate, while Peli cut the bindings away with a small circular saw. Sinead closed her eyes against the sparks that sprang from the metal bindings.

Not opening her eyes, she said in the approximate direction of Mando, "What happened to Shand?"

"Dead."

"Good."

The binders thunked to the sand, and Sinead rubbed her aching wrists, opening her eyes. A dark shape in Mando’s arms waved at her.

Peli looked down at the stranger. "Knew I didn't like him." She poked the corpse with her foot. "I take it you didn't get paid," she said over her shoulder.

Mando wordlessly pulled out a pouch and upended it in her hands, the credits clinking as they fell.

"That cover it?"

Peli looked spellbound at the credits overflowing in her hands. "Yeah, yeah, that about covers it." She carefully put the credits away in a little pouch that swung from her belt.

“Can you travel?” Mando asked, his head turned towards the ship. It took Sinead a second before realizing he was talking to her.

“Yeah, I can. Let’s get out of here.”

"Oh, wait a second!" Peli hurried into her workshop and came out a few seconds later holding a small jar. "Here," she said and pressed it into Sinead's hand. "Consider this a thanks for saving my life, or at least saving me from a concussion."

Sinead peered at the jar, but even in daylight and with undamaged eyes she wouldn't be able to read what it said. "What is it?"

"T'pala paste. Got it when some Twi'leks came through some time ago. It's ain’t bacta but it’ll do in a pinch.”

She closed her hand around the little jar. "Thank you, Peli. Really."

"Don't mention it."

Sinead gritted her teeth and got up, willing the ground to stop rolling under her feet, and walked slowly up the ramp.

"All right, pit droids!" Peli called behind them. "Let's drag this outta here!"

As the Razor Crest at long last left Tatooine, Sinead sat at the edge of her bunk bed applying the thick paste to her head. As soon as the greyish goop hit her scalp, a sort of cold numbness spread across her head. It still hurt, but her head no longer felt like it had been squished in a trash compactor. She decided against pouring it in her eyes, hoping that her eyesight would return to normal by itself.

She'd told the Mandalorian to plot a course towards Celvalara and that she would tell him all about it after she'd slept.

Sleep! She didn't remember the last time she'd been this tired.

The child sat on her lap, reaching up towards her head as she applied the paste, cooing gently as she patted his head.

"You as tired as me?" She asked him, replacing the lid on the jar and putting it away. "You've had an eventful day."

He squeaked and blinked slowly.

She placed the child beside her, letting him curl into her side. Her eyes drooped as the healing paste enveloped her head in cotton. She was out before her head hit the pillow.

<- Previous chapter - Next chapter ->

[snows-labcoat]

Play Among The Stars (Baby, Kiss Me)

Summary: “I’ve always been in love with the stars, but nothing compares to you, Caitlin Snow.”

Pairing: Caitlin Snow x astronomer!reader

~~

Caitlin Snow could listen to you talk forever.

She fell in love with the way your eyes shimmered as you took her stargazing, resembling the worlds you spoke about.

“What’s that one, right over there?” She pointed, your eyes following.

You could feel her breathing deep as she leaned back into you, arms wrapping around her front.

“Corvus. It means crow. They’re the sacred bird of the god, Apollo.”

“Really? Doesn’t seem like a god-type bird” She remarked, her eyes scrolling across the sky at the constellations you had been telling stories about.

“Did you know, in Greek mythology— crows weren’t originally black? See— his story is that Apollo asked him to watch over his pregnant wife while he was gone. When the crow told him his wife had begun to see a human man, Apollo blamed him for not stopping the affair. So he does what most overreacting Greek gods do— and curses the bird, scorching his feathers black”

“That’s dark. I’m assuming though, that it’s probably one of the lighter stories?” You nodded before telling another.

“Andromeda. She was sacrificed by her own parents to appease Poseidon after her mother’s vanity upset them.”

“Greek mythology is a real downer.” Caitlin quipped, a light laugh escaping the two of you.

“It’s not all bad. It can be really beautiful. Want to see one more constellation?” She nodded as you directed her to a random spot in the sky, she shifted over next to you, leaning into your side while her eyes scanned.

When you didn’t open your mouth to explain, she pushed, “What is it?”

“Psyrotas. Intimate Souls.”

“What’s the tragic story there?” You shook your head, before speaking softly.

“There was a person, and she never felt like she belonged. But— she had a fascination for science, astronomy. She fell in love with the stars. Earth can be lonely, even with 7 billion people. So she dreamed. She dreamed she was born among them, and she was floating so close. But she still felt alone. Even though she wasn’t really. Eridanus was there sometimes, so was Orion. Perseus too. But she wasn’t a part of anything... bigger.”

You could feel her eyes burning into you, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.

“Until she connected with... another, right next to Pluto. There was such a pull of gravity between the two stars. This other ball of plasma gave her hope, a reaction so big was happening and they didn’t even realize it at first. The cores coalesced. Eventually, named Psyrotas. Intimate souls.” Caitlin didn’t know what to say, so she cuddled closer into your side, her lips brushing your cheek before she finally spoke.

“I don’t know how, or why. Buuut I have a feeling that constellation is coming from a more personal place.” You dropped your head, a smile spreading across both your faces when you quipped—

“Okay okay, I know it’s no nerdonium, but I like to think it passes as a decent story. I mean— who doesn’t like a good love story?” Caitlin laughed, nodding her head in agreement as a thought crossed her mind.

“You... have always had a way with words. Storytelling. There are times where I wish this was all life was. The stars, us. No weight of the world.”

That would be perfect,

“Because every time I’m with you, I know I will be okay. Even if life really is kicking our asses sometimes, you’re always there to face the chaos with me. When you tell me these stories, when you sing, god— I wasn’t expecting this, and before you give a scientific explanation about choice versus chance— just know... I wouldn’t have things any other way.” She saw the gears turning in your head while you tried to organize your thoughts

Your mouth opened and closed before you started to rush out a sentence “SN 1006, Cait—“

“—The brightest stellar event ever observed, your favorite supernova” Caitlin finished, a blush rising onto your face before you continued.

“7.2 light years away from us. Sixteen times brighter than Venus—“ You were speaking so fast, she bet if you translated it— you could travel those 7.2 light years in a mere second. Your head stumbling to keep up with your heart.

“But I— I swear to god, it will never be as astounding as the way you make me feel.” For once, you struggled to articulate what was going through your mind, but Caitlin understood.

All she did was pull you closer to her, your head resting on her shoulder while she intertwined her fingers with yours.

You were in a state of euphoria, and it had been a while since you had truly felt at peace. Imagining that this must be what space feels like, life among the stars, where you can see everything up close.

“Have you ever thought about how people take advantage of space?” Caitlin furrowed her brows at your musings while you continued.

“See— at 10^-36 seconds of the Big Bang, the universe went through cosmic inflation. The world was in a state of chaos. Everything in flux, nothing was constant. Yet people still take advantage of the security of the illusion of a constant reality— ignoring the fact that the floating dust particles you see in the light of the sunrise creeping in, is the same star dust that fills our night sky. Our galaxy.”

Caitlin listened intently— your words painting this picture of how beautiful everything from beyond our star is. Somehow, everything you explained sounded less like a textbook and more like those poems you’d curl up at a local bookstore with.

“They take advantage of what’s thought to be reality. Planets and how many hours it takes for one revolution around the sun, our sun— it’s a constant. People accept light as a constant. We believe our human gaze, to be a passive act.”

“They don’t think about the fact that according to quantum theory, when photons aren’t being observed— they behave like a wave. In waves, there is no location to pinpoint of said photon. But as soon as they’re observed, they behave like particles, having a specific location, having a charge, momentum.” The bio-engineer could feel your heart racing, the inflections in your tone changing when she motioned for you to continue, relaxing at the sound of your voice.

“Stars... we take them for granted. We tell stories about the pictures in the skies, but nobody thinks about the fact that we need them.”

She thought about that. Yes, we need the stars. But Caitlin was thinking more along the lines of the fact that without the stars, your eyes wouldn’t be sparkling. The smile on your face wouldn’t be there, the moments you two spent under the sky... of course the stars are important.

“Think about supernovas, Cait. Without the explosions— our sun doesn’t contain the power to bond atoms into anything as heavy or heavier than iron. Earth would not exist.” She thought about how fast your mind was running in that moment. Your passion for the unknown possibilities lighting a fire.

You leave a blazing trail wherever you go, an impact that nobody could forget or ever want to change. Caitlin hadn’t been warm in such a long time, until she met you.

When you held her hand, she could’ve sworn you had the molten core of Earth right in your palms.

“That iron seeps into our oceans and into our ground, it makes our blood red, it let’s us breathe.”

In her mind, you are the center of her universe. It’s not the iron that keeps her breathing, or the tides that give direction. It’s you. You keep her grounded, while also helping her unfold her proper hands. See without each other— she knows her feet would never leave the Earth beneath, and without Caitlin, you know you’d never touch reality again.

“The stars are everything, Caity.” When she felt your lips ghosting her cheek while you sat together on the blanket, she nearly created a supernova explosion herself just wondering how nobody had named a star after you yet.

“People don’t ever think about how space isn’t just nothingness. Everyone seems to picture Earth as a separate entity from our galaxy, not as a part of it. They forget that we are a puzzle piece to something much greater. They view space as this vastly empty, yet domineering place, devoid of anything worthwhile”

A deep gravity filled the space between you two. The stars overhead meaning so much more.

“...When it’s really just a reflection of their own little world. Our universe and it’s comprehensible matter gets taken for granted. Space, light, quark matter, photons, Pluto— I’ve always been drawn to our galaxy and what lies beyond.”

Pluto was your favorite. Caitlin remembers you telling stories about when it was demoted in 2006. You believed in the little planet. You always fought for the underdog.

“I’ve been enthralled by something not even considered a real planet, 4.67 billion miles away— all the possibilities in a place we consider unknown.”

“Because it’s not space where I’d feel void, It’s here. I’ve never felt like I belonged. So I fell in love with what could be.”

“I’ve always been in love with the stars. But nothing compares to you, Caitlin Snow.”

You always felt like she must’ve come from the brightest supernova to exist. Born among the stars, galaxies within her heart, constellations and meteor showers all in one.

Her eyes looked like they carried galaxies in them. No matter who said that wasn’t possible, clearly had never felt something so passion-filled and unadulterated. Fresh, undiluted, and pure.

There was no denying the way the stars seemed to align when her lips met yours.

How even Pluto and Charon might as well have truly been pressing to see what was almost 5 billion miles away. Unlike the little dwarf planet you loved ever since you could read, the scientist was right there, in front of you and her lips locked with yours.

Caitlin Snow’s kiss, caused a coalescence between more than just elements. More than just the fire and ice that you both resembled. Your souls had met, creating the most powerful supernova explosion into a shower of interstellar dust.

~~

*𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘴: 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘴, “𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘩𝘪” 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 “𝘌𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘴”— 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦.

*𝘩𝘪 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪'𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 <3

[ts3storylines]

TS3 Freedom’s call Gen. I: Chapter III

i guys! Here I am again. Sorry for the 2 months hiatus, but unfortunatelly I was off of the internet because of the school exams. I’ve passed all but one, yea so never mind. The next year I’ll be given a baccalaureate (I hope)! Hell yea!

Now for the story.

I’ve been thinking maybe too much about this story (well I love apocalyptic themes, so), and I thought about perhaps telling it through another spectre. I hope you’ll like it! If you will, please leave me some lovey-dovey feedback <3.

Love you guys! Enjoy the latest chap!

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2

Chapter III: The calming silence

A young human lady came out again, never really closing the door behind her. Her white dress was much cleaner that it should be after the latest patient. Maybe she have changed into new one.

“Miss Eleanor Smith, please, the Doctor is waiting.”

A werewolf girl stood up. There were metalic silver drops flowing from where she has been sitting, suspiciously looking like mercury. Noone noticed it. Or noone really wanted to. There were four another people in the waiting room, and every eye of theirs was looking on the big plasma TV in the corner. 

It was turned off.

The door closed behind the two girls.

Cain got up, not minding the looks two other patients were giving her, and walked out of the room stinking of plastic and nervousness.

It was half past seven in the morning. The cold moist weather reminded her of the water prison that was surrounding them.

She breathed in and out slowly.

They have given her new clothes. The long grayish-black outfit was made of synthetic fabric that monitored her physical health. It was also much warmer than it looked. She was thankfull for that.

She also liked the regular feeding system and routine sleep.

She watched three figures going down the street. She knew one of them, but they couldn’t really talk in the public. The only place for them to freely speak was the Corner District. The one where Abel lives.

“Miss Cain Rodgers, please, the Doctor is waiting.” The monitor above the door told her in human lady’s voice.

She went back in. Then straight in the Doctor’s office and while the short time of sitting down into the patient’s chair she scanned her hand above Doctor’s desk. It beeped silently.

“Good morning Miss Rodgers.”

“Good, Doc.”

His old wrincly face dearly smiled at her. “Should I close your meeting with colleague Milsow, dear?” And he checked the screen of the computer for a second.

She nodded slightly. She is never going to see that man ever again.

She had never been at doctor’s till this place. Doctor Abram was her psychiatrist and he was not the only one she should visit once a week. But she liked him much more then the others.

“So. How have you been doing with your practice?” 

And it was him who told her about her diagnosis. 

“It is not working as it should.”

“Still trouble with sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Distracted quickly?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“Well nothing I think. And it’s still the same.”

“So you are still good.”

“Extremely.” She thought for a bit. “But it’s not unusual.”

“It is not. I gave you a book. Have you read it yet?”

“Sorry, doc. I haven’t.”

“You should. Please read it, it’s for your own good. I told you already, when the time of your mania ends you should be prepared.”

She laughed so hard that the human lady frowned at her and then at the doctor because he didn’t do anything about it.

Why should she read it? She always knew she was crazy. A sadist father, paranoid mother and that much death surrounding her. Not speaking about she’s the last of her kind. And even when she wanted to kill herself she wouldn’t. Why? Well that is the question. Maybe she just didn’t want to be with her bossy family again.

It may be the mania working, but she likes the place. She’s got everything she needs. And the drugs are much better then what she had been taking before. Even the paranoia is almost gone.

“Don’t worry about me that much, doc.” She said politely with a smile on her face. “If I’d want to end it, I’ll let you know first.”

The human lady grimaced again and doc nodded.

“Cain, what have you been doing this past few days?”

Cain looked at her pale white hands. Images screened before her eyes. She has had so much energy. 

“I cooked pancakes.”

Then she was thinking silently.

“What else, Cain? Please go to the details as always.”

“Actually I have cooked lot of stuff. But I don’t remember the names. I found recipes online. But I couldn’t eat all of it so I brought it to work and some of it to the District. I also tried to cook something for Alexander. But he is nearly never there and I couldn’t bring it anywhere you know. Because of the blood. Do you maybe know about other vamps? I’d like to know if they can eat food prepared like that.”

She spoke slowly and too steady for the doctor to stop her. Well he wanted her to talk so why should he.

“I made something for the dog too. He didn’t like it. After he ate a piece of it he threw it out and wouldn’t come near me for few hours.

And when I was bored of cooking I cleaned the house. There are these mini cleaning robots there and I didn’t know how to turn them off, but one day they just didn’t leave their station.”

“Have you turn them off?”

“No, Alexander had to. I don’t understand technologies. But he didn’t tell me. I was really surprised.”

“Are you two talking at last?”

The room became silent for some tense seconds. 

He was handsome, just as every pureblood was. Tall and charming. But cold and silent. He wouldn’t speak much. He wouldn’t look at her.

He greeted Cain politely that first evening. And when he stood up and walked past her up the stairs and towards bathroom, her eyes, her full being immediately focused on the materia medica on the counter.

Cain would have thought her given partner is mute if it weren't for their first meeting.

“No.”

“Have you asked him why he wouldn’t talk to you? Since our last session?”

She didn’t ask him anything. Actualy she haven’t spoken a word in the house too. And while the office silence at her work was playing on her nerves, the house hush was calming.

“No.”

After 10 minutes of straight dialog a timer went off. 

Cain beeped her hand scan again.

“Cain, wait.”

She turned halfway between the chair and the door.

Doctor’s face became still with concern. “I’ll call Dr. Milsow to change your check for tomorrow. Please, don’t get into trouble and go. You know what happens if you won’t go.”

 She then left the room. With two new boxes of prescribed pills.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2

[thelordfool]

When The Sun Rises - Chapter Three

Non Facias Malum ut Inde Fiat Bonum

“Why don’t you come with me?”

Between the two men sat a long period of silence. Arcade turned the helmet of the riot gear over in his hands a few times, feeling the weight of it, humming at the possibilities presented to him. Aberdeen patiently sat, fingers folded across his torso in a relaxed stance.

“Well,” the doctor finally sighed, “I have a few questions, first.”

“Shoot.”

“One, why do you have a spare set of this armor? Two, where did you keep it to return so quickly? Three, why me?” Arcade had a look of... bewilderment. All of this was happening so quickly. “And I have a fourth, depending on your answers to the previous ones.”

Aberdeen sucked in a breath. “Well,” he sighed out, “it’s always a good idea to have a spare set of armor around in case yours starts to fall apart - which mine has - but I figure, it’s been the best set of armor I’ve ever had and probably will ever have save for a set of power armor, which I’m not even able to use anyway.

“To answer your second question, I had it stored nearby in McCarran. They owed me a few favors so I’ve got a little temporary setup over there since it isn’t exactly easy to travel to and from Novac every night for some decent sleep. Can’t sleep with all the lights and noise of the Strip right on my doorstep, personally, so a short walk is fine by me.

“And third...” The courier paused. Underneath his own mask, his lips were stretched taut. Why did he want to travel with Arcade? “You said I needed a friend. I think we could be friends.”

“Aren’t you blunt.”

“I seem to be getting that a lot today. Are you people not used to honesty, or something?”

Arcade snickered. “Unfortunately, we aren’t. Around here we get a lot of addicts, gamblers, and youth who are always trying to find an excuse for what’s happened to them.” With this, he sighed, finally setting the helmet down. He noticed something carved into the back of it - the word FORGIVE, just like that. He briefly wondered what that meant. 

“You said you had another question,” the courier interrupted his thoughts. “Hopefully I answered you in a way that allows it to be asked.”

“Well, Courier, I’ve heard of what you’ve done. Everyone talks about it - talks about you, I should say. How you found a way to peacefully settle what would have been a bloody battle in Goodsprings, right after you crawled back from death’s grip. How you got Primm back into working shape.” The name of Primm made Aberdeen wince, and it was a good thing Arcade couldn’t see his face. Aberdeen could only think, in that quick moment, of the eyebot that had been in his life so briefly. The doctor continued, “Providing medical relief to various NCR camps, farms, villages, and you’ve gained quite the reputation in the Legion, as well. My question is, with all the help you’ve given to others, do you plan to continue that in Freeside?”

“Of course,” replied the courier without hesitation. “I’ve seen... I’ve seen what war can do to a man. What the wastes can turn people into. The people of Freeside are no different. If the Legion had an ounce of basic human respect in their blood, I would be giving them the same treatment.” He sounded bitter about this, like he had lost an old friend to Caesar's reign. “The NCR has its faults, and quite frankly, if the Followers were in charge of everything... this world would be a better place,” he finished quietly.

“We’re not all that perfect,” Arcade admitted. “Caesar was once one of the Followers. Before my time, of course. He wanted to rebuild a new world in the image of the old. A sad story of good intentions gone bad. In that regard, he’s hardly unique.  If you set aside his leadership capabilities, extensive knowledge, and ruthless cunning... he's just another jerk who steps on people to get his way." He shook his head, rustling the hair that he had managed to relax back down on his head from right-out curly q’s to something a little more manageable. “If the Followers can produce such a man, then-”

“Then you are not at fault,” assured the courier. “As a whole, I mean.”

“We know that, just... abundans cautela non nocet.”

“Fair enough, I suppose. Don’t let that caution get in your way of pursuing what is right, though.”

“You- you speak Latin?” Arcade sputtered.

“Semper paratus,” Aberdeen said with a wink, who then realized that he still had not removed his mask. “It was more out of necessity than anything.”

“What could have possibly- you know what, no,” Arcade slapped a hand down on the table. “Actually, I don’t even care. From your actions alone, I can say - with strength - that I will come with you. I’m not sure what help I’ll be out there, but... Something in my gut tells me this is right.”

Somewhere, in another area of the Fort, Julie Farkas was hit with a sudden and great wave of relief and joy.

“But.. one last question.”

“Hit me.”

“Uh, do I have to wear this?”

“It’d make me happy if you did. It’s a security measure. You won’t be protected from Fiends - or the rain - in that lousy lab coat of yours.”

Arcade looked down at his coat. It hadn’t been washed, in, well, probably a few years, if he had to be honest with himself, and running out into the rain that morning didn’t count. It was actually still a bit moist, as the lone radiator in the room only worked so often, and when it did, it was barely enough to keep one from shivering, much less able to dry anyone. Even so, the doctor felt almost insulted.

“What’s wrong with my lousy lab coat?” He grinned at his childish joke, stripping it away to rest against the back of his chair.

“Yeesh, if I’d known you were that attached, I’d’ve found someone to perform marriage rights for you,” the courier was quick to retort. The two men shared a chuckle. “I’ll get out of your hair to let you change. You’ll want a dry set of clothing underneath that too - it chafes like the devil.”

“Noted.”

*

Aberdeen’s Pip-Boy chimed, signaling noon. He really wished he could figure out how to turn that off, as it’s ruined a number of covert missions. He snorted at the thought of that phrase, thinking back to pre-war spy holotapes. He’d seen a few in the Big Empty, before he ditched that place. Soon he’d have to return on his monthly trip there, though, if not for the fear of the wrath of the Toaster, but to check in on everyone. 

The last three-ish months had been eventful, every day packed with fighting, not sleeping, and a load of things he truly didn’t understand. It was right after the bullet had been lodged in his head that Aberdeen found paths that lead outside the Mojave. A week, at best. He vowed never to listen to another strange radio signal again, because a month and a half each in the Big Empty and dealing with the droning on of a voice he’d come to hate gave him a bitter taste in his mouth. Long had he wished just to taste the copper sands of the Mojave on his tongue again.

Under the cover of a mostly dry overhang, the courier lit a cigarette. He wondered if the good doctors here in the Fort would chastise him for such an activity, but as soon as the nicotine hit his brain, the thought dispelled and flew away in a puff of exhaled smoke. He let the next inhale simmer in his lungs as he stared into the relentless rain. 

What am I going to do today, he thought. More importantly, what is taking him so long?

Arcade should have been finished dressing himself by now. The courier gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that not as many people would be ready to go as quickly as he would be. For now, the courier sat on the lone, rain-moistened stool, elbow propped on a table. There was an ashtray, a radio, and a few playing cards turned indecipherable by the water. Lightning flashed overhead, followed by the cursing rumble of thunder, and the radio, to the courier’s astonishment, flickered to life. 

Like earlier, he couldn’t really hear it, but he heard the unfamiliar words “Sierra Madre” and reached to turn the volume up. Leaning in, he could make out the broadcast.

“... s inviting you to begin again. Come to a place where wealth, excitement and intrigue await around every corner. Stroll along the winding streets of our beautiful resort, make new friends, or rekindle old flames. Let your eyes take in the luxurious expanse of the open desert under clear star-lit skies. Gaze straight on into the sunset from our villa rooftops. Countless diversions await: Gamble in our casino, take in the theater, or stay in one of our exclusive executive suites that will shelter you and cater to your every whim. So if life's worries have weighed you down, if you need an escape from your troubles, or if you just need an opportunity to begin again, join us, let go, and leave the world behind at the Sierra Madre grand opening this October... We'll be waiting."

There was about thirty seconds of buffer silence before the dialogue repeated.

“Oh, hell naw,” he scoffed, smacking the radio off. 

“Something the matter?” The suddenness of Arcade’s voice made the courier jump with a yelp. Arcade chuckled. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” The doctor now looked nearly identical to the courier in his riot gear, and, Aberdeen noticed, he had a plasma pistol strapped to his side. 

“No, just...” Aberdeen hesitated. “You ever hear of a place called the Sierra Madre?”

“Hm... Yes, on the radio, and in passing some time ago from... someone I used to know.” He was omitting something there on purpose, but Aberdeen didn’t want to pry. “Why do you ask?”

“Just heard it myself on the radio here,” he gestured to the radio with a now-broken switch. 

“Think the signal might be worth checking out?”

“Aren’t you eager to get out and about. No, I’ve had my fun following lost signals. I have other things to do. So, who around here needs some help?”

*

This is part three of ? of a slow-burn Courier Six (Aberdeen)/Arcade Gannon fic. If you like my work, consider buying me a coffee or donating to my PayPal. I am remaking my commissions post, but I also do artwork.

If this is your first time seeing this, you can start here with chapter one on tumblr or on Ao3.

[folderaman]

The Worst Trauma I’ve Personally Been In

By: #LifeofaMedStudent https://lifeofamedstudent.com/2016/08/03/the-worst-trauma-ive-personally-been-in/amp/ The other day I tweeted about the worst trauma, at least by amount of blood product given, that I had personally been a part of. This got a lot of reaction, so I decided to tell the story. Also, this will give some insight on how the trauma care works from an anesthesiologist perspective Disclaimer: The following is a fictional account based loosely on a mix of several events. Details have been changed to protect those involved. Any likeness to any persons, procedures, or health care systems is purely coincidental.  We have one major trauma hospital we train at routinely. As an anesthesia resident, you are in-house for the duration of your call, to be immediately available if a patient must be rushed to the OR. This is somewhat infrequent, as often/hopefully there is time for CT surveillance of trauma patients (aka the “pan-scan”) prior to operative intervention. This was in July of my 2nd anesthesia year (PGY3) and this was my second call as the upper level resident. I would then be working with/supervising a new anesthesia resident in only their first month of anesthesia training. As good luck would have it on this night, I had a very good if only inexperienced younger resident, “named” Jessica. My attending draw that night was also excellent luck, probably the best trauma anesthesiologist in the academic system. If I’m ever injured or shot he is who I’d want looking after me. I believe this was also his worst trauma product total as well. The night started out very promising. We had closed down the final OR cases by about 8pm, the Anesthesia attending had bought us dinner, and we were tucked away in our call rooms. It had been a quiet night, with no trauma pages (we respond to all trauma pages down in ER – this can keep you up even if you don’t go to OR). Then at ~1am the pager awoken me from a deep sleep, and unbeknownst to me my night was about to take a turn for the worst. “MALE 45yo MULTIPLE GSW TO ABD, LLQ. BP 90/palp, HR 135. ETA 3 min”   As I read the above page, I knew this had OR time written all over it. Already hypotensive and tachycardic as well, never a good sign. I rushed down to the ED to find a chaotic mix of blue gowns rushing in and out of trauma bay 1. “Shit. Looks like they are already hanging blood. ” I think to myself as I peer into the bay. Before I could think of anything further, the trauma surgeon burst out the trauma bay proclaiming “We are going straight to the OR, NOW!” Bam! I’m on the phone, calling my Anes attending – “Sir, we have a multiple gun shot victim coming up with blood hanging. Pressures are soft but reasonable at the moment, with increasing tachycardia. Single IV access. Jessica is going to get him intubated upon arrival, and I’ll work on art line and more IV access. ” I see Jessica on the way, pass along what little information I know, and direct her to the plan. We three arrive at OR 1 just moments before the patient. “Hey guy, you are about to have emergent surgery, any problems with anesthesia? Any allergies? Medical problems?” I yell towards the patient as he comes through the OR door. He mumbles answers mostly no, but he was at this point clearly loosing consciousness. “What was his last pressure?” I ask the ER nurses. “70s systolic.”  Ok. Let’s do this. The Anes attending  gives 2 of versed, 50 of ketamine, and 180 of sux. Rapid sequence intubation is successfully preformed by Jesssica. As soon as I see end tidal CO2 I begin working on an art line. I can palpate a pulse, barely. Quick alcohol swab of the skin, I aim the Arrow 20ga arterial catheter towards the pulse, quickly reaching bone with no flash. Withdraw, move medial, re-advance. BOOM, flash. Advance guide-wire, thread catheter, remove needle – a squirt of blood and I know I’m in! The trauma surgeons are opening the belly as I tape the art line. Pressure reads 65/38. Across the patient my attending has inserted an additional 16ga peripheral IV. Jessica has started giving blood through the rapid transfuser. He received 4 units packed red cells (PRBCs) in the ED, another 4 already here. Time to start thinking of balancing out our blood products, I hand Jessica two units of fresh frozen plasma (FFP). (Educational Note: In trauma literature the movement has been to a 1:1:1 ratio of blood products, that is 1 unit of PRBCs to 1 FFP to 1 of platlets. In actual practice this can be challenging to maintain. The massive transfusion protocol at this hospital brings us a cooler of 6U PRBCs and 4U of FFP and then 1 bag (6pack) of platlets every other cooler. So this sets you up for a 6:4:3 ratio. Good but not quite 1:1:1. ) We have at this point given about 16U of blood, 8U FPP, 1 bag of platlets. The blood pressure is up to 80s systolic – compatible with life at least! The patient gets little more versed and ketamine for amnesia and some cisatracurium to maintain paralysis. The trauma surgeons are surveying the abdomen and have found bleeding from multiple sites, most concerning is significant damage to the iliac system on the left side. They have clamped the artery and at this time shout for the vascular team on call to come into the OR. Another cooler full of blood products is rapidly transfused into the patient. Our first blood gas shortly into the case had been 6.9/29/390 (ph/co2/o2) with a base excess of -8. This signifies tissue hypoperfusion, in this case due to the blood loss and hypotension. Our next gas has improved, now 7.21/30/375/-3. But we note the calcium has dropped and our potassium is steadily rising. (Educational Note: During massive transfusion, it’s not unusual to have several changes in blood chemistry, most notable calcium will decrease while potassium rises. Why? Calcium in the patient will become bound to the citrate component in PRBCs. Citrate is used as an anticoagulant in red blood cell product. Eventually, your liver will metabolize the citrate and calcium homeostasis will return but during the initial phase of massive transfusion hypocalcemia can be a real issue. Potassium rises because the preserved blood cells will leach out potassium ions as they age. Thus this is more of a problem with older units of PRBCs and if potassium is a concern newer units should be used (when possible, but at the rate we were infusing this wasn’t an option). ) The vascular surgeons are in the room now working hand in hand with the trauma team. We are riding a roller coaster with blood pressure, basically only able to keep our systolic above 80 while actively transfusing. But we are doing well enough that we are keeping the patient alive while the surgeons work. Suction canister after canister is filled with blood from the surgical field.  Cooler after cooler of blood products are administered. Calcium continues to be repleted, but potassium levels are now getting dangerously high. (Educational Note: Standard treatment for hyperkalemia should be drilled into the heads of every med student. Not only is it frequently tested on boards, but it’s fairly routine to see as an intern, regardless of specialty. Usually it’s chronic due to renal failure. A common mnemonic for remembering treatment of hyperkalemia is “C BIG K Drop.” Calcium (doesn’t lower levels but stabilizes cardiac membranes against depolarization/arrhythmia)Beta-agonist (activates Na-K+ ATPase, driving K+ into cells, lowering body serum levels)Insulin (insulin stimulates glucose ATPase to drive glucose and K+ into muscle cells)Glucose (given simply to avoid dangerous drops in blood sugar following insulin administration noted above)Kayexalate (lowers total body K+ via GI excretion)Diuretics (lowers total body K+ via urinary excretion, “Loops = lose”) Other treatment options include hyperventilation and bicarbonate. Both of these will increase body pH (alkalinize) which drives K+ into cells as well. Lastly dialysis is the often final pathway for removal  of K+ in the chronic renal patient or very acutely sick patient. ) In the OR, we have only a few of those options at our disposal. We were already hyperventilating the patient to offset his acidosis and we are already giving significant amounts of calcium due to the PRBC-citrate cycle mentioned above. We did give some bicarbonate, though its effect was probably minimal. Once we went to lasix and giving insulin/D50, this finally reversed the rise in potassium. We had managed maintain anesthesia with a bit of inhaled agent but mostly intermittent ketamine to provide more stable hemodynamics.  Blood pressure continued to range from 80s-110s systolic but would drop shortly after any pauses in delivery of blood products. We had at this time crossed 100units of product given as the rapid transfuser had been running nearly continuously for 2 hours. The surgeons eventually managed to place a shunt around the damaged portion of the Iliac artery.  The venous portion however had  been nearly completely destroyed and they were struggling to stop the bleeding from this part. We had been in the OR for about 3.5 hours at this time.  In final desperation, they packed the abdomen and planned to leave the belly open, with an abthera vacuum (temporary abdominal closure device) in place. During the final 30 minutes of OR time, the surgical residents struggled to get the abthera vacuum to adhere due to blood literally continuously seeping out the edges of plastic seal.  We moved the patient off the OR bed and prepared to transfer to the surgical ICU. We infused 2 more units of blood and a unit of FFP via the rapid transfuser and hung 2 additional units for the ride upstairs to the SICU. Upon arrival to the SICU, we were greeted by the surgical ICU night team, who happened to be made up of an anesthesia resident and attending. We discussed with them the case and the continued necessity of transfusion to maintain blood pressure and the likelihood that despite multiple hours in the OR, this appeared to be a non-survivable injury. The patient received another 2 units of blood in the ICU while the patients status was further discussed with the surgical and ICU teams. Eventually the decision was made to withhold further treatment due to the futility of the heroic effort. The patient passed away less than an hour after reaching the SICU. This case was a great learning experience for myself. It touched on emergent and trauma anesthesia, complications of massive blood transfusion, and futility of care. Anesthesia in these situations is often simply doing every thing you can to keep your patient alive, while the surgeon fixes the problem. This patient’s injuries from the multiple gun shot wounds were probably never survivable from the beginning and its surprising he even made it into the operating room. However, once in an OR with a dedicated anesthesia team, we were able to give the surgical teams every fighting chance to save this patient’s life, even if they ultimately could not. That is why I love my job. We routinely give even the sickest patients a chance to survive. What else I remember so vividly about this case was the amount of blood*. The stack of blood packets on the floor. The estimated 30 LITER blood loss and the numerous canisters filled in the OR. The trail of blood that lead from the OR to the ICU. The slosh of blood to the floor when the patient was moved on to the ICU bed. Medicine is not for the faint of heart, kids. *The second thing I remember from this case is the amount of paper work required to give the massive amount of blood products. That took hours afterwards and still haunts me (I hate paperwork).

[ben-j-man]

Secret War chapter 31

Link to chapter 1- http://ben-j-man.tumblr.com/post/180097372453/secret-war-chapter-1

A microsecond after my feet hit the debris; I was running diagonally across the width of the corridor. My eyes fixed on the Space Marines as their bolters opened up in a deafening crescendo and strafed my wake.

It was only four metres between them and me, but it may as well have been miles. As it was earlier, time seemed to slow. I could see and feel it all innately, when they were pulling the triggers and where exactly they were aiming a microsecond before it happened.

I weaved, ducked and darted countless bolter rounds. I'd lost sight of Darrance in the utter chaos of light and sound, being too involved in me living from one split second to the next.

My progress slowed to a snail's pace; I'd barely been at it for a second or two, only made it half a metre before feeling fatigue ebb at my limbs.

Hellgun lasers started to stream overhead and sliced into one of the Space Marines' torso. The bastard barely flinched and just fired at the shot's source.

I cursed, smashing away a bolt round flying for my head. I needed to get into close combat to stop them firing at the others, but I couldn't. I knew I couldn't. Even if I did, even with my enhanced abilities there was no way I could take on four of the Emperor's finest for very long.

"Faleaseen!" I screamed through clenched teeth. "I could really use your help right now!"

There was no answer, nothing, as a bolt round managed to skim my shoulder, but luckily didn't detonate making me reel back. Utter agony and blood abruptly ran down the length of my arm.

I cried out but managed to keep my focus.

"Frig it!" I roared, giving up on trying to advance and purely devoted myself in deflecting the bolt rounds, sending countless of them hurtling away to detonate on the walls or floor.

Another shot skimmed me, glancing off my ribs, throwing me off my feet and to the floor.

Winded, gasping in agony, I kicked out my feet and was up again darting and winding through the fuselage to draw their fire. I wanted dearly to look back to how my comrades were faring, but frigging didn't dare.

For a split second the Space Marines seemed surprised at this, then concentrated their fire even more on me.

"You aren't going to kill any more of my friends!" I snarled. "You ugly, misshapen bastards!"

+Attelus!+ Karmen cried. +Everyone is off the flier now! Get back and down, now!+

"Why?" I snapped. "What the hell do you plan on doing?"

+Just do it!+

I threw myself to the floor, screaming at the pain it caused, just a nanosecond before the flier smashed suddenly through the left side wall and into the Space Marines. The impact rocked the whole tower to its very foundation. The integrity of the entire corridor had already weakened, cracked by the Lascannon fire or else this would've been impossible. The flier's momentum caused it to slide and screech briefly across the floor then crash out the opposite side of the corridor. It transformed into a hurtling fireball that plunged through the sky like a meteor, and I could see the now laughably small figures of the Marines falling along with it.

It all happened so quickly that it seemed they were there, then they just weren't.

Then the void shield flickered and disappeared.

+Move! Move!+ urged Karmen. +More of them will be here soon!+

Slowly, I picked myself up, still awed by it all as the others hurried passed me. I saw much to my surprise that both Verenth and the stormtrooper (Who I was ashamed to admit, I'd already forgotten the name of) had made it. Verenth was helping the medicae assistant, while the stormtrooper did the same for Helma.

Arlathan was now up, helping the somehow still alive and breathing Jelket. Darrance walked by too, looking unharmed besides his broken arm and was supporting Hayden, who seemed pale and pained. How the hell the sniper was still conscious after suffering his injury was beyond me.

Next was Adelana, she wheeled Karmen's bed, and I tried to meet her gaze, but her attention stayed firmly forward. Her mask of fearlessness was gone, and she looked terrified, completely, utterly terrified. I had a horrible feeling she was scared of me.

Lastly, it was Vex, and the old woman, both of them had Torris' arms laid across their shoulders. Her attention was to the floor, but Vex was looking at me.

"Remind me to never to punch you again," he said, raising his black bruised knuckles to me. "Still hurts like a frigger and after seeing you do that..."

I nodded nervously, after seeing what I'd just done. Dodging and deflecting all that, they must've thought I was some freak, that I was as unnatural as one of those Space Marines and I was, to an extent.

With a sigh, I deactivated my sword's power field and sheathed it, slipped my hands into the pockets of my pants and followed them.

I was entering through the crimson curtains when I heard the elevator open and turned to see another two Space Marines emerge.

One was wearing very modified power armour and carried a bolter, a large crane jutted from the top of his back, and I could see he had the cog on his left shoulder plate, announcing his allegiance to the Tech-Priests of Mars.

He must've been the one who had hacked the security of Taryst's personal elevator, that was how they'd been here before we'd arrived.

The other was in very ornate armour his left hand was a power claw, sheathed in dancing light. His right held a plasma pistol.

I smiled at them, and as they raised their weapons and opened fire, I'd already stepped through the curtains, and the void shield was activated.

+Yes, Attelus,+ said Karmen. +Taunt the Space Marines, such a good idea.+

I took out a lho stick, placed it in my mouth with index finger and thumb then lit it.

"Come on Karmen," I breathed, even though the very act of speaking hurt. "Allow me some fun in life, please."

Her reply was an exasperated sigh.

In silence, we rode the elevator down to Taryst's quarters. I sat alone in one of the corners trying to cope with the constant agony.

All of us were exhausted or injured in one way or another. I was both. There was a massive tear right through the skin and tissue, down to the bone in my left arm. But already, the blood had clotted despite the hideousness of the wound, frig it was agony. It seemed my bone had deflected the bolt before it could properly detonate or else I would've ended up just like poor Jelket.

Disarmed, literally, and I couldn't help but smile at the terrible joke.

The bolt round that had hit my side had torn a huge gash in my bodyglove; there, a horrific blue-black bruise was in plain sight. Again my wraithbone bone structure had deflected the shot before it blew a hole in my torso and before the kinetic force could pulp my internal organs into mush.

Adelana was kneeling next to the old woman who was curled up in pain against the opposite wall. I don't know what I'd broken when I'd thrown her, but she'd seemed to be able to cope with the pain it caused until now. She was quite a tough old bird; I had to admit. It didn't lessen the guilt I felt over hurting her, though I'd saved her life. I could've been a bit more gentle in the process. Guess I didn't know my own strength.

Adelana suddenly noticed I was looking at them and looked back at me with wide eyes.

I smiled at her and despite the pain it caused gave her a small wave, but much to my hurt she flinched and her eyes abruptly fell to the floor.

Arlathan approached, limping the way while clutching at his side then sat beside me but said nothing.

I sighed, "what, you think I'm some kind of freak as well?"

"No," he said, and my attention snapped to him, seeing it for the lie it was instantly.

Arlathan sighed too and with a pained grunt adjusted his seating, "yeah alright, maybe a bit. We all saw you do all that stuff, dodging all those frigging bullets. I've never seen anyone move nearly as fast as you. Then we saw you get hit not once but twice, but still get up and still keep going, that's just...that's just…"

"Impossible?" I said.

Arlathan only shrugged, "it's more, unnatural. How? How did you get that way?"

I hissed through clenched teeth and closed my eyes as a new wave of pain passed through me. I almost lost myself to sleep in that second; it was an act of tempered will just to open my eyes again.

"It's...It's a long story," I hissed. "I'll tell you later."

Arlathan looked pointedly at my arm, "and that wound. I was given basic medicae training in the scholarium, and that wound shouldn't have stopped bleeding, hell you should be unconscious from blood loss!"

"You say that with Jelket in the room," I growled. "Now can you leave me alone, it's pretty frigging obvious I don't want to talk about this right now, okay?"

"You were the one who brought it up," said Arlathan with a shrug he instantly regretted. "At least give me smoke, could really use one right now."

With a heavy sigh, I opened my case of Lhos and handed him one. I was getting low, only five were left.

Arlathan smiled, took it and I hesitantly lit it for him with my igniter.

"Think about this," Arlathan said as he exhaled smoke. "If I thought you were some; therefore, would I be sitting next to you, smoking your Lhos?"

"Yes," I said, without missing a beat.

Then we laughed, laughed like there was no tomorrow, laughed with the idiot joy that only those who knew they had survived something they shouldn't have survived, could. I laughed even though each time it hurt.

Our laughter drew all attention to us and took us a good half a minute for us to stop.

I looked at Adelana once finally done, her expression was one of bemused, gaping horror as she gazed at me. The old woman had regained some of herself as she smiled at us in understanding.

"I can't believe, we are still alive," gasped someone, and we looked to see it was the stormtrooper, he kneeled on the floor, his Hellgun pointed to the ceiling. "We should all be dead, Space Marines I can't believe it, I just can't…"

He trailed off in his sentence, then he turned to me, his expression unreadable beneath his helm, "all because of you."

I furrowed my brow, unsure what to make of his panicked tone and started to get to my feet, sensing something wrong, I reached for my sword.

The stormtrooper tore off his helmet revealing plain, ruddy features and short messy blonde hair stood up and abruptly approached, his heavy boots clanging across the metal floor.

Then he suddenly fell into a kneel.

"Surely you are blessed," he said. "Surely you are an avatar of the Emperor's will! To be able to move so fast and survive those bolt rounds, you truly must be. The God-Emperor must have sent you to protect us!"

I took a step back, utterly bewildered and Torris burst out in a bitter barking laugh, followed immediately by a horrid groan of pain.

"I'm not, I'm not," I stammered.

"Yes you must be!" he said on. "In the scholam, they taught us of the saints, ones said to be an embodiment of the God-Emperor himself, they taught us they fought with inhuman strength, speed; Iand endurance. Just the same as you."

I laughed nervously and realised everyone's attention was on me. Arlathan looked on with an amused smile. Adelana's expression was that of deep confusion, but I could see a bit of understanding glinting in her bright blue eyes, she too must've been wondering how I was able to do what I did and she must've thought his explanation made sense, the old woman had a very similar look. My heart sunk at such a thought.

Verenth's brow furrowed, and his arms folded over his chest as if the mere thought I could be the chosen of the Emperor made him want to break something, probably me.

Vex was sitting, arms wrapped around his knees, looking up at me through his glasses, his expression unreadable and yet again I was reminded how frigging young he was.

Torris seemed amused like Arlathan, but sarcastically, as though he knew that I was so far from being chosen by the Emperor the Stormtrooper couldn't have been any more mistaken.

And I wholeheartedly agreed with him.

"I'm not!" I snapped managing to regain my wits. "Get the frig up, now!"

"But..!"

"Get the frig up!" I yelled, anger abruptly overtaking me. "I don't even think the Emperor is even a god! I Haven't even been to an ecclesiarchy service for years! I'm the least pious person you could ever meet! You're so frigging mistaken it isn't funny! Now get the hell up!"

Again, the stormtrooper hesitated.

"Now!" I roared.

He slowly got to his feet, glaring at me balefully and almost nose to nose, "so, what are you then, huh?" he snarled through his teeth.

I said nothing, just glared back, a glare that said, 'someone who can kill you before you can blink, so shut up and back down.'

The stormtrooper did, spitting on the floor before retreating into a corner, his face foul.

I held back a sigh and turned away, trying to look discretely sidelong at Adelana, to see how she'd reacted to that. She watched me walk by, gaping up at me in what could've been awe or fear in equal measure.

The elevator then abruptly found the floor, shaking to a halt, before the doors slid swiftly open.

I was the first to step into that familiar white, brightly lit corridor, the cells lining the sides of the walls and couldn't help but blanch as I realised the others were going to see the corpses still in them.

Vex who was helping Halsin was the next out; then it was the stormtrooper with Helma and Verenth aiding Jelket. Last were the bewildered Adelana and old woman, pushing Karmen's bed I meant to ask what the woman's name was, but felt would've seemed rude.

I allowed the others to pass and fell in step with Adelana.

"I'm sorry, Adelana" I whispered to her. "I have no idea what you can make of all this."

She looked at me there tears were welling in her eyes, "I don't understand what's going on, Attelus," she hissed through clenched teeth. "Space Marines? Why are we here, why are they killing us? I heard you talking to yourself, or her," she nodded at Karmen as she laid lifeless on the bed. "You were saying something about this world dying soon and that you feel guilty about it, that at least when she dies she could escape her guilt, but you won't be able to, what did you mean by that? How were you able to hit the Marines gunshots with your sword and dodge them? If you aren't chosen by the Emperor, then how were you able to do all of that? The way you said it, it seemed you knew for a complete fact that you weren't and she's a psyker, how did she become part of this organisation? I...I...I."

She looked like she was going to have a panic attack and I reached out to comfort her, but abruptly drew it back as I thought better. I barely knew her, she barely knew me, I didn't know if it'd be appreciated.

"I'm sorry Adelana," I sighed and shook my head. "I will tell you everything soon, I swear I will, but I will say this. This is reality; this is the era we live in, there is only war, Adelana. There may not have been war on Omnartus, nor most worlds in the Calixis sector but it is always somewhere. It has found you; I'm sorry to say, as it had found me, as it has found countless upon of others. Trillions before us and more to come. I'm sorry, so, so sorry."

She looked at me, a sad almost sympathetic smile on her face, that seemed to say, 'what happened to you that made you like this? Whatever it was, I am sorry.'

I looked away, unable to stand her pity.

"What's the password?" growled the stormtrooper, he stood at the keypad, his eyes hooded sullenly and looking at me. Everyone else looked into the cells with wide-eyed horror."

I cleared my throat, "it's j-garrakson."

The stormtrooper raised an eyebrow, but that was that as he turned away and typed it in. The door swished open, and he flinched in slight fright.

"Vex!" I said, he was staring into the cell that contained Interrogator Heartsa's corpse. He instantly snapped from his stupor and looked at me.

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"Get onto Taryst's cogitator," I said, even though I knew he knew what we expected of him. "Hack it and get all the data you can."

Vex nodded, and we filed into the small room. Jelket was placed on the bed along with the Halsin and Helma, while the rest of us milled around the room. I fought the urge to join them and my eyelids from closing.

Vex pulled out a miniature cogitator from a bag slung under his shoulder, pulled out a cord and connected it into the giant black table and began to type into it loudly.

I leaned my back against the wall and began to take out my ceramic case of Lhos. Then I caught Adelana looking at me again from the other side of the room, still with that damnable smile and she didn't look away when I looked back.

I wanted to tell her to keep her pity to herself but felt it was more than I deserved from someone like her. But the more I saw, the more it didn't seem like pity; it was something else, something I couldn't place my finger on.

Before I could think more on it, Darrance walked up to me, "we have better take a look at that ship. You know where it is, there might be medicae facilities on it."

I nodded, pushed myself off the wall and walked for that small door. It slid open, and we began down the corridor lined with shelves holding many plasteek supply boxes.

"Attelus Xanthis Kaltos," said Darrance and it made me stop in my tracks and turn back.

"What did you just call me?" I said.

Darrance, shrugged, "your name, or has it been so long since you have heard it, that you have forgotten it?"

"Is that your idea of a joke?" I asked with genuine bemusement.

He shook his head, "you really don't know anything about me, do you?"

"No I don't," I said with an uncaring shrug and folding my arms across my chest.

"Just like I don't know how you became what you are now," he said. "But I do know that it all happened after that psyker had visited your medicae room. It seemed strange to me why Glaitis had made them keep you on life support for so long after the Twilight Bar incident, and now I know why. You were going to be her new little super assassin, that you were made, no. Engineered to be the one to finally kill your father. What did that psyker do to you, exactly? I saw frigging bolter rounds bounce off you. It has scared the others, but you know that already, right?"

"Yeah I know," I sighed and turned to start. "It's even more complicated than that, believe me."

"You just have to be careful," he said. "If an Inquisitor besides Brutis Bones sees that, they might have you captured and on an operating table before even you can blink, okay?"

"Good to know you care, Darrance!" I said with a slight wave of my hand still walking and keeping my back to him. "I'll keep that in mind."

"You bloody well better!" he snapped at my back.

The small door slid open, and I stepped into the hanger. The massive ship loomed over me and dominated the place. Weapons bristled all over it; there was a Lascannon on each wing, three high yield heavy bolter turrets, one on top, one on the bottom and one on the back. Lastly was a Plasma cannon set underneath the nose.

It was streamlined and smooth, made for speed as well as comfort, thirty metres long and a good sixteen wide, excluding the wings which were both about half the length of the body. I couldn't identify what design it was or make; I didn't have much knowledge in such subjects. But I could tell it would easily transport us all no problem.

I just hoped it was warp travel capable, Glaitis' ship in orbit had warp drives, a Geller field all of it, assuming it was even still there, with the vox down there was no way to know.

The door swished open behind me, and I heard Darrance let out a long whistle.

"Nice," he said, and I looked over my shoulder at him.

"What's nice?" I asked.

"Why the ship of course," he said. "A Salvani class VIII Guncutter, I can see Taryst spared no expense and had a good taste while at it."

"A Guncutter?" I said. "So, not warp capable?"

Darrance snorted and shook his head with an amused smile then approached the ship, rubbing his hand on it's sheened metal surface.

"A ship this size isn't even slightly large enough to house a warp drive let alone a Geller field, too," he said. "You show your ignorance spectacularly."

I pursed my lips and shrugged, feeling he was merely stating a fact rather than trying to insult me.

"We all can't know everything about everything," I said.

It was Darrance's turn to shrug, but he said nothing, so enraptured by the Guncutter.

"It'll have an internal medicae capability, right?" I said. "If this ship is so frigging super special awesome and all."

"Yeah," he said while beginning to walk around the ship, gaping in awe.

I had no idea that Darrance was so into ships, he would've been the last person I could've imagined being interested in such a subject.

"I would even say the medicae facility would even be automated," he said, after a long pause. "I would suggest you get the psyker and the other injured here."

"She has a name, you know," I said.

"I'm sure she does," he said almost wistfully, still keeping his back to me, still sliding his hand across the Guncutter.

"Fine," I said. "Be that way, then."

I turned to walk away when the door suddenly slid open, and Adelana stepped into the hanger.

"Oh, hi!" I said and felt a smile unintentionally crossing my face.

She smiled back, but it didn't reach her eyes, "Vex sent me, he's managed to get into the cogitator's vox system. We've received a communique, and she wants to talk to you."

I nodded, she looked very visibly scared all of a sudden.

"Yes," she said, shivering despite the warmth in here. "She said...She said that she was an Inquisitor."

Adelana, Darrance and I emerged back into the quarters.

Everyone who could still stand was crowded around the cogitator desk gazing down at the large display. It was now showing the image of the head and shoulders of; I woman wearing black, ornate power armour. Her skin was a dark, chocolate brown and her blue eyes incredibly piercing that suggested they were extremely advanced augmetics. Her long, thin white hair tied into a top knot.

I stepped into view of the display the others stepping aside to allow me in.

The woman's eyes narrowed as she saw me.

"You are Attelus Kaltos," she said, her voice boomed from the speaker, it was the confident voice of someone who was a leader, a true leader and who knew it but didn't revel in this knowledge. It was a statement, not a question.

I managed a nod, and she smiled, it was a sensual smile, but it wasn't pleasant at all. It was almost predatory.

"Yes," she said. "Wesley had told me much about you in his reports. I apologise, allow me to introduce myself. I am Inquisitor Jelcine Enandra of the Ordo Hereticus."

She held up a Rosette, briefly, casually as though such a thing didn't give her power and influence beyond measure.

"I have just arrived in the system," she said. "I have brought with me ten ships of the Calixis battlefleet and they are about to engage the Space Marines."

I involuntarily flinched as some of the others suddenly let out a cheer.

Their elation didn't last long as Enandra's expression darkened and said, "I doubt they will last long, though, they are merely a distraction."

"A distraction?" said Arlathan. "A distraction for what?"

She sighed, "a distraction for your escape. My personal ship, the Audacious Edge is built for battle and stealth, and we have entered the system undetected. We are orbiting the blind spot of the local star. It is at great risk that I am talking to you now."

"How?" said Darrance. "How did you get this frequency?"

Her eyes narrowed again, but in bemusement, "Wesley gave it to me in one of his astropathic messages, he never told you that?"

"No," I said and wondered how the hell he got it in the first place, he seemed to have neglected to tell us a lot before his death.

+I gave it to him,+ said Karmen. +I gave him this frequency, I knew Taryst had a high powered vox situated down here, one capable of interplanetary communication. I felt that the reinforcements he sent for would need to know it, although I didn't believe it would amount to anything. Obviously, I was wrong.+

'Wesley also told us he never got any reply," I said. "Did you send anything back, mamzel?"

Enandra's eyes widened and straightened as if I'd asked the most stupid question in the verse.

"Yes, of course, I did," she said. "Where is he?"

"He's...He's dead," I answered hesitantly. "I'm sorry."

"Really?" she said but didn't seem at all upset by this, more surprised. "Always thought that old bastard was indestructible. Tell me later how and why he died, we don't have the time now. It's sad to hear; I was hoping he might be able to talk my former master down from this, rather disproportionate, retribution for Omnartus and it's people."

Adelana and the old woman looked at me then, looking very anxious all of a sudden.

"You two should get to the ship," Arlathan said to them. "Take Karmen with you, please."

They both nodded and hurriedly, they took Karmen's bed then left the room.

"Did I say something wrong?" said Inquisitor Enandra.

I hissed air through clenched teeth, "not everyone knows everything."

"Frig yeah we don't," said the Stormtrooper sullenly.

"What's happened to the System Defence Force ships?" said Arlathan.

"Already dead," stated Enandra. "Or to be more precise, destroyed. The Space Marines had lost none of theirs in the process, but a few were damaged. The Marine ships are all now in orbit, blockading the planet's air traffic and destroying the orbital platforms and soon, very soon they'll initiate the Exterminatus once the orbital battle is won."

"What about the surface to orbit defense turrets?" said Arlathan.

Enandra sighed again, "from what I understand, according to the PDF vox; he I have been monitoring, they seemed to have been...sabotaged."

"What?" said Arlathan his eyes wide with disbelief.

Then it hit me, "it might've been the Adeptus arbites!"

Enandra turned her head and said sceptically, "Adeptus arbites?"

I nodded and quickly relayed the events of their earlier ambush. It was rushed and abridged, and I withheld some details.

Enandra looked at me sidelong once I finished, her jaw clenched slightly. She could tell that I'd skipped some things but after a few seconds of pondering she eventually nodded.

"I see," she said. "After you had informed me of that, your theory does have some merit, that they are either under the influence of my former master, or Inquisitor Edracian but at this point, it matters little. Do you have a void capable ship?"

"Yeah," I said. "We also have a ship in orbit…"

"I don't care if you do!" Enandra interrupted me suddenly. "You are to go to my ship and none other! Any other ship is suicide at this point and besides."

She smiled but again it was that predatory and strangely sensual smile, "I would like to talk to all of you face to face, and I mean literally, so I can make sure you are…"

She paused and raised her eyes to whatever ceiling was over her, in mock, exaggerated imitation of someone struggling to find the right word to use.

"Proper," she said eventually.

"In all honesty, mamzel," I said, leaning close to the screen. "The way you said that, doesn't give us much incentive."

She laughed, and it was a genuine laugh, it was almost musical and couldn't help but like it, "yes I guess it wouldn't. I like you, boy. From what Wesley told me I knew I would like you, Attelus Xanthis Kaltos. Son of the infamous Serghar Kaltos, it seems you didn't inherit his anti-social qualities."

"You know my father?" I asked as I felt my face flush.

"No," she said, for the first time smiling genuinely. "I know of your father; there are very few within the Inquisition who do not."

"Of course there isn't," I sighed.

"Anyway, your ship has more than likely been destroyed anyway," she said, becoming sober and professional again.

"So, what happens now, mamzel Inquisitor?" said Verenth, his voice shaky.

"The Calixis battlefleet ships will be first engaging the Marine spacecraft in about half an hour," said Enandra. "They will be fully engaged another fifteen minutes after that, so I need for you to wait for that timeout then leave Omnartus. Fly for the local star and once you are ten thousand kilometres away send me a brief communique on this frequency. There I will give you the coordinates of the Audacious Edge. Then I will allow you to board and from then on wait it out until the Space Marines and my erstwhile master have left the system. Does that make any sense?"

"Wait, with respect mamzel Inquisitor," said Verenth and I couldn't help wince and hiss through clenched teeth. "Did you just say, 'wait it out until the Space Marines leave?'"

Enandra glared at him, her jaw twitching slightly, dangerously, "that isn't quite verbatim, but it's close. So, yes."

"Aren't we gonna do something?" he cried. "We can't just stand by and watch! They're gonna destroy my world!"

Enandra sighed, her eyes falling to the floor and for a second there was true despair on her attractive face.

"Yeah," she said as her gaze suddenly snapped back on us, a look of fiery determination on her face. "Yeah I do and if you don't want to there is another option. You have a weapon, you can use it on yourself, or I could do it for you. I'm sorry, I am. I wish it could've ended in another way, but it's too late. Just too late."

Verenth listened with wide, teary-eyed horror, his mouth gaping and I felt sorry for the Hammer.

"I must end this communique," said Inquisitor Enandra. "I have almost gone over the safe time gap already. I am sorry, I wish all of you luck and hope to see you soon."

Then the screen abruptly went blank.

For a long time, we were silent. The only sound, the pained moans, and groans of the injured.

The first one to find his head was Arlathan, "alright!" he snapped. "We've got three-quarters of an hour to get things ready! Attelus, Darrance, Verenth, Vark! You four get the heavily injured into the ship."

"What are you doing?" said a voice and we turned to see Helma was groggily getting off the bed, she was smiling at us. "Brutis Bones put me in charge, didn't he?"

"You shouldn't be up, captain!" cried Vark but she waved him off.

"I have been unconscious and useless for much of what has happened," she said. "I'm sorry, now it's about time I will be of use."

Helma turned away and hauled up Jelket by his good arm, then placed it across her shoulders,

"I heard what the Inquisitor had said," said the captain. "She's right; we can't stop this. But if we escape with all we know we can make sure that Etuarq will never be able to do it again."

She started to the door, and I held out my hand to offer help, but she shook her head in decline.

As she passed, I once again saw the enormous black bruise on the side of her skull and fought the urge to flinch at the sight of it. I had no idea how she was awake let alone moving.

I reached down and hauled up Hayden; he was the heaviest of the injured so thought it fitting I was the one to carry him.

"Well!" I said. "You heard the mamzel! We've got work to do."

It took us a good ten minutes to take the injured into the ship. The interior was almost beautiful, comfortable and well made. Soft, red carpet with slight gold lining was on the floor the walls were cream, curling waves produced from thin lines of gold. The corridors were as thin as any other ship its size but seemed slightly wider because of the decoration. Darrance was with, he seemed to know the ship's layout and showed us to the medicae area. We laid Hayden, Jelket on two of the four gurneys while Torris who was still conscious laid himself down. The two servitors which staffed it immediately began to treat their wounds. Darrance left for the cockpit claiming he needed to 'get to know the controls.' Or something.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure if I was at all comfortable with Darrance piloting, but kept this thought to myself.

I wandered off to explore; I found the lines of small personal quarters, near the medicae area, eight of them on the lowest level of the ship, all of them a good size and luxurious. Then the engine room at the other end.

I ascended the stairs into the large common room, kitchen and found both Adelana and the old woman were there. The old woman's torso was covered in bandages, and they sat in silence in the corner, on one of the large comfortable couches. Adelana seemed to be staring out into space, looking hunched and defeated, my black flak jacket laid crumpled on the floor at her feet. The old woman was asleep, her head hung forward, and her snoring reverberated through the room.

For a few seconds, I stood, looking at Adelana and admired yet again just how attractive the young redhead was. Quickly, I decided not to disturb them and turned to walk up the stairs I assumed led to the cockpit.

"What's going to happen, Attelus?" Adelana asked abruptly, making me stop in my tracks.

I turned back to her, but I had no idea what to say, what to do.

Then again she started to cry, "how?" she cried. "How could this happen?"

My attention fell to the floor.

"My world!" she yelled. "Is my world really going to die?"

All I could manage was a slight nod; I saw no reason to lie anymore.

"But why?" she whimpered. "Why?"

I didn't answer, couldn't answer.

"What's going to happen to my friends? My family? My mother, my father, my little brother and sister? Can't we save them?"

I only shuffled my feet.

She shuddered with tears and looked away.

"Why? Why did you save me?" she cried her face abruptly turning into a mask of anger. "Why have you brought me here?"

"I thought…"

"No! I bet you didn't think!" she snarled. "You never stopped to consider what I wanted. Was it because I was nice to you? Talked to you? Are you really that pathetic? You said that this was reality, this was the 41st millennium, that there is only war. What if I didn't want to know that? What if I wanted to live in ignorance? What if I wanted to die in ignorance?"

"It's not just that," I murmured, fighting back the tears starting to well in my own eyes.

"What?" Adelana snapped.

"It's not just that!" I cried, my hands curling into fists at my sides and just then Helma, Verenth and Vark walked into the room. "...It's not just that."

"What is it then?" she yelled.

"I'm...I'm not a good person, Adelana," I said. "I've killed a lot of people, and I'm going to continue killing a lot of people."

I pursed my lips and gave Helma, Verenth and Vark a glance.

"When I met you Adelana, when we talked, it lent me a new perspective," I paused. "No, sorry it renewed an old perspective. I'd just been through hell, but you, talking to you made what I'd went through, worth it because it assured me that there were good people out there worth fighting for and worth dying for. Even though this galaxy is a horrid, dark place and I've seen the worst of it, I believe that you deserve to live and…"

"So, you wanted to save me, just because it inspires you?" she interrupted, sounding horrified.

"N-no, that's not what I meant," I stammered. "I couldn't save Omnartus, hell I couldn't even save your friends! I...I."

I stopped and sighed, "no, no you're right, Adelana. I brought you here for selfish reasons, I never even considered how you would feel about. I was warned, but I didn't listen. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

"Go away!" she screamed, and the abruptness made me flinch in fright. "Get away from me!"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't even talk to me!" she roared. "Leave me alone you selfish bastard! I hate you."

I recoiled at her fury, nodded then turned and started toward the exit. The others moved aside to let me past.

I paused at the peak of the stairs and looked over my shoulder at her, "I still intend on telling you the truth, Adelana," I said. "When the time is right, of course. I'll tell you everything I know, and once you know it, you will have a new purpose, a reason to live. You can hate me all you like, and I understand if you do, but please don't hate me. I was selfish and idiotic, without a shadow of a doubt, but that's because I'm only human. I'm a flawed, idiotic human. But hate, hate, Adelana is the worst emotion us humans possess. It has been the source of so many of our problems; it can be manipulated by those who know how. It can twist and contort and drive good people like you into becoming monsters. Monsters like me, like my master, like the man who has ordered the death of this world, like my father. So I ask you not to hate me, not because I don't want you to hate me, but for yourself, for your humanity and your sanity. I hope you can one day forgive me, Adelana. I truly hope you can, but I'd understand if you can't."

She continued to glare at me, her expression still set in anger, but I could see in her sea blue eyes, that she'd understood what I'd just said.

I turned and started down the stairs, ignoring the others as they watched me leave.

"I'm sorry," I said under my breath, finally letting the tears to flow down my face freely.

In sullen silence, I went to the medicae servitors and had one bandaged my arm then applied soothing salve to my ribs while I smoked my last Lhos as I winced and hissed with the pain.

+Attelus?+ Karmen said as I was in the midst of slipping my body glove back on.

"What do you want, Karmen?" I growled.

+I heard what you said to that Adelana girl.+

"Of course you did," I sighed.

+Now are you aware of what Glaitis tried to make you into?+

"Yes."

+Do you remember what I said to you in this bunker a day ago?+

"You said quite a few things back then," I said. "Elaborate."

+I said I was here to save from losing your sanity,+ she said. +Like I had back in the ruins of Varander seven years ago, do you remember that?+

"Yes I do," I said. "And I'll always appreciate what Estella Erith did for me back all those years ago, no matter how much she has changed. I needed you back then when I was a stupid teenager…"

+But you don't need that now,+ she finished. +I don't know how you managed to keep your sanity after all you've been through in the last few months.+

I laughed suddenly, bitterly, "how do you know I'm still even sane, Karmen? What does that even mean? Is there some indelible line between sanity and insanity? Torris had said that I suffered from something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That doesn't sound sane to me!"

She didn't reply.

"No, I think you need me more than I need you," I said. "The woman that was once so caring and kind is now a woman who can callously control and have thousands of people slaughtered..."

I paused and sighed, "the woman I'd once loved, now I know she is capable of such acts."

+I...I won't try to justify what I've done, Attelus+ she said, her voice breaking with utter sadness. +I'll just say I did what I believed I had to, that none of us would be here right now if I didn't do it. But you are right it is morally wrong.+

Yet again I sighed and remembered the saying, 'anything and everything to win,' Karmen had adhered to it too it's most logical extreme. She was the embodiment of pragmatism; she was far stronger than I could ever claim to be. Karmen showed the dark side of that philosophy, the philosophy I've always tried to live to, I hoped that I wouldn't wind up that way.

But was sacrificing all those men worth it? Just to save the few of us? Just because of the meagre knowledge we know. In all honesty, I wasn't sure.

Inquisitor Enandra also adhered to that, sacrificing all those ships, all those Navy personnel, so that we could escape the fate of Omnartus. A fate we had a hand in causing. I should've felt privileged I suppose, but it made me feel sick more than anything else.

+Do you hate me?+ she said, interrupting my train of thought. +Do you hate me, Attelus Kaltos?+

"No," I said without a second's hesitation. "Do you think I'd hate you after what I'd told Adelana? That'd make me the biggest hypocrite in the millennia-long history of hypocrites. So no I don't, I won't."

She sighed with palpable relief.

+But you don't love me anymore?+

"No," I said, it was a lie, but it was one of those few lies that needed to be told. "I can't, I'm sorry."

Her reply was silence.

I left the Guncutter and walked back to Taryst's quarters. Only Arlathan and Vex were still there, and both glanced up at me as I entered. Vex was knelt in front of his portable cogitator his fingers a blur as they worked over the keyboard while Arlathan stood over him, leaning forward to watch Vex work. I was surprised the temperamental little teenager would put up with that.

"How goes it?" I asked, trying to attempt to hide my severe depression under a mask of fake cheer.

"As good as it can go with such a short time limit," said Vex sullenly. "I have managed to hack in, and I am uploading as much data as I can into my cogitator, but it's all frigging encrypted. It's an encryption code I've never seen before. I'm hoping that I can find something, anything I can use to decrypt it."

I sighed and scratched the back of my head, "I know that the sniper, Hayden Tresch is also pretty good with cogitators. He'd hacked into the Adeptus Arbites data stream a few months ago; he'd have been able to help you if he wasn't fighting for his life right now."

Vex shrugged, "I wouldn't want his help anyway, I am Vex Carpompter. Vex Carpompter doesn't need any help."

"Don't be stupid," I said, folding my arms across my chest. "Everyone needs help from time to time. You needed help from sergeant Garrakson so you could effectively punch me in the face. I've needed help on numerous occasions to survive many of my battles."

Vex shot me a withering glare, "that is all to do with physical violence. When Vex Carpompter works with data, Vex Carpompter does not need help!"

I shared a bemused look with Arlathan who smiled and said, "Vex Carpompter better stop referring to himself in the third person. It makes Vex Carpompter sound like a complete arsehole."

Vex let out an animalistic growl. "Okie frigging dokie!" he snarled through gritted teeth. "Just shut up and let me concentrate, okay?"

I smiled and shook my head; if I was even half as skilled in something at the same age as Vex. I'd have been almost as arrogant as him.

On second thought, perhaps not, I could've been classed as a master swordsman at seventeen. I guessed the difference between him and me would've been that I didn't know I was as good as I was. Vex knew he was, his skills were in huge demand, in fact, he'd probably earned more thrones in his short life than I would in decades. Also, I'd never intended to use my martial arts and fighting abilities besides being a mere hobby.

I was just another killer, an effective one but still only one among billions upon billions of others. Now Vex, he was one of the very few who held such skill outside the Adeptus Mechanicus, and I couldn't help but wonder, how he'd gained such knowledge, especially at such a young age.

We acquiesced his request, Arlathan and I wandered the room in silence as we waited for Vex to finish his work.

I kept glancing at my wrist chron, seeing the remaining fifteen minutes quickly whittle away. Every once in a while Vex would announce some set back with another animal roar of frustrated rage, and he hit the floor with his fists.

It wasn't until one minute remained when we heard something other than an utterance of anger from the young Hacker. It was a whoop of triumph.

"Got you, you son of a bitch!" he cried. "I've got you!"

"What did you get?" I asked as I approached.

"This!" exclaimed Vex, pointing at a line of code that looked like all the others to me. "This will allow me to decrypt the data! It's all binary, but binary made in numbers from another language! I see it's Cartharsian! A language from…"

"Yes, that's all well and good and all," interrupted Arlathan. "But how much data did you get, exactly?"

"As much as my miniature cogitator's memory core is able to hold," he said, the sullen tone returning. "Only about two hundred years worth, if I didn't have to leave my main cogitator behind…"

"Oh shut up!" snapped Arlathan. "We couldn't bring those with us even if we weren't running from Space Marines! Two hundred years will have to do, now come on! We've got to go!"

"But I still have to decrypt it!" Vex whined.

"Can you do that later?" I growled.

"Y-yeah."

"Well then do it later!"

Pouting his lips in anger, Vex abruptly tore out the cord and climbed to his feet.

Arlathan grabbed Vex by the arm as the hacker closed the cover of his portable cogitator and we moved quickly out the door. Most of the plasteek supply crates had been taken off the shelves, carried into the ship I assumed.

"So," said Vex as he tore his arm from Arlathan's grip. "What happens now?"

"Now," I said. "Now we're onto the hard part."

[eremika0000]

(Ferriswheelshipping) Awakened Emotions Chapter 17

Hey guys, just wanted to say thanks for all the feedback so far! The reviews/comments, favorites, rates, and follows all mean a lot to me and keep me motivated! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

N and White skip through the sunny meadows hand in hand as wide and cheerful grins are upon their faces. N stops for a moment to watch White as she continues to skip around joyfully, her bright blue eyes shining. He finds himself never wanting to leave this bright meadow filled with flowers and smiles.

N approaches White, taking her in his arms as they embrace intimately. He takes in her delicious scent, which was that of strawberries and pine trees. She nuzzles her face into his chest as he wraps his arms around her slender waist. She looks up at him after a few moments, and he looks down at her. Her cheeks are delicately flushed as he gently tilts her chin up with his fingers, lowering his head and pulling her into a soft kiss. Her lips feel soft and moist against as own as they eagerly move against each other, and they soon return to their warm embrace.

"White, I love you. I love you so much." N whispers as he brushes his lips against her soft fluffy hair. He kisses her again upon the forehead, hoping to hear her words of love as well. Moments pass, and he notices she is shying away from his embrace. He pulls back to look at her in confusion.

His eyes widen as he realizes her wide grin and cheerful expression has turned to one of disgust. His heart feels like it is being broken in two as she pushes him away like he is worth nothing to her. She crosses her arms, looking away. "I don't love you, N. I never could. I would much rather be with someone like Steven. You're just a toy to pass the time to me."

N reaches his arms out desperately in a futile attempt to keep her near, but she turns her back towards him, fleeing the sunny meadow filled with flowers. N cries her name as her figure fades away, and the beautiful meadow fades as well. The last thing he sees is White leaping into the big open arms of Steven Stone. He catches White, his face overjoyed as he holds his love. White is happy as well, and they share an embrace before they both fade to black.

N finds himself awakening from the dream with the feeling of wetness upon his face. He blinks desperately, noticing that his vision was blurred due to an onslaught of tears that streamed down his face. His head was throbbing, he was incredibly dizzy, and his whole body was sore, but it was nothing compared to the ache in his heart after the dream he had. He sniffles, attempting to calm himself as his vision focuses. He looks up, realizing that he was laying down on a bed with the hot spring's hotel ceiling above him.

A sudden voice startles him. "Steven, he's awake! N! Are you fine? How are you feeling?" White rushes to him, her voice incredibly worried and shaken. N notices how she is hobbling towards him with a sort of exhausted limp, and he finds himself become very concerned as to what had happened to her. She didn't seem healthy.

"I'm fine..." N rasps out, his voice not sounding quite right after crying so much. "White… What happened to you? Are you alright?" He prays to himself that nothing bad had happened to her while he was passed out. As he continues to inspect her from his bed with increasing worry, he realizes there was a very large bandage upon the crease between her upper and lower arm.

White nearly trips as she makes her way to N's bedside, but Steven makes his appearance and grabs her shoulders to steady her before she falls. Steven looks over to N. "When that guy pushed you, you fell and got a bad head injury as well as well as lots of other wounds from the rocks. You needed a blood transplant badly, and lots of it. White was the only one compatible with your type. She donated quite a bit of blood for you, more than she should have..." Steven doesn't seem too concerned with N's condition, and is instead still looking worried over White, making sure she wasn't going to fall over again. "She really saved you there, you know. There weren't any hospitals around, and we ended up having to call in a nurse from far away. By the time you got here, you already lost a lot of blood even though we tried to stop the bleeding. You should be grateful." Steven looks at N in annoyance, as if he was blaming N for the mess they had all gotten into.

Another tear slips out of N's eye, caused by the pain of his extensive injuries as well as how much White had done for him. "T-Thank you so much, White." He sniffles again, trying to stop the tears so White wouldn't see his weakness. He found his heart swelling in love for her after all she had done for him. Once again, she had saved him. He never knew how he could repay her endless kindness…

White grabs onto the bedpost for support, shrugging off Steven's supporting arm in order to steady herself on her own. "Oh, Steven makes it seem worse than it really was. Donating some blood for you really wasn't too bad." White attempts a little smile at N, although her dark circles under her eyes and her shaking arms were showing that it wasn't at easy for her as she said it was. She reaches a trembling hand towards N, and pats him lightly on the head like she always does. N smiles up at her, comforted by her kind gesture and closes his eyes as he leans a bit into her soft touch. Steven watches the scene unfold with narrowed eyes, but he doesn't say anything.

Moments pass, and Steven breaks the silence. "I booked us another night for the hotel so you two can rest up a bit. But we're out of food, so I'm going to go grocery shopping now so I can make dinner for us later. There sadly aren't any restaurants around here..." Steven shakes his head in exasperation as he continues. "I'll be heading out now… You two will be alright here, right? I had some pain medications in my bag so I left them on the table for you guys to have if you'd like."

White's lips curl up in a little smile. "Yea, pain medication sounds really nice right now… My arm hurts so bad. I bet N would appreciate some too. Thanks, Steven. You're the best." She makes a weird noise of approval as she climbs gently onto the bed with N, being careful not to brush any of his injuries. "You're really a lifesaver, Steven." She murmurs into her pillow.

Steven chuckles, finding her actions a bit cute. Although he didn't like the idea of them being alone for a while, he felt bad for the two of them being so injured and he wanted to help them in any way he could, just like how they had helped him out in the forest not too long ago. He mostly wanted to help White, though.

"I'll be back in an hour or two, call me on the xtranceiver if you need anything." Steven heads out the hotel door, closing it behind him with a thud, leaving N and White alone together.

White sighs, stretching her arms tiredly as she slowly rises from the bed, heading over to the wooden end table to gather the chewable pain medications Steven had left behind for them. N watches from his bedside as White crawls back into bed with the two small chewable pills for them in hand. She hands one over to N, and he gratefully complies, hoping the pill would provide some relief to the burning and throbbing on his forehead. They both take their medication and White lays down next to N again upon the bed.

N finds himself very comforted by White's presence that was only a few inches away from him. He could feel the heat radiating from her skin, and he finds himself wanting to be closer. He gently turns around on the bed so he is facing her. He then inches towards her, liking how her face was becoming flushed at his close proximity. He pulls her into a soft embrace, nuzzling his head upon her shoulder as she lets out a small puff off hair as he squeezes her a little tighter.

"Thank you again White, for donating your blood and helping me out. How can I ever repay you?" N lightly traces little circles upon her back, hoping to give her some pleasure that might make her happier. She arches her back a little as his fingers trace past a sensitive part of her back between her shoulder blades. N continues to rub her back, despite her little squirms. "I'm really pathetic, aren't I? In the past few weeks, I've been sick, got my arm hurt, and now I injured my head. Really, why do you put up with me?" N chuckles lightly, although he found himself wondering why White even wanted to be with him when he found himself being a nuisance all the time. Some sadness consumes him as he realizes she is probably annoyed that he got himself hurt again, even if it was while trying to protect her from some perverts.

"You're welcome, N. But you don't owe me anything… But if you want to repay me, how about you just keep traveling with me? I really enjoy having you around..." She stares up at the ceiling.

*I enjoy having N around a little too much…*

She continues her sentence. "But you're not pathetic, N. You might get hurt a lot, but it's usually when trying to protect things important to you. I really admire that about you, N. Steven told me about how you tried to fight off those creeps who were trying to look at me in the bath. If anything, I owe you!" White hugs him tighter, a smile growing upon her face. "You always help Pokemon out, too. Like when you got hurt while trying to protect the Dialga from team Plasma at the mountain a little while ago. You're so kind and selfless, you just don't realize it."

A big grin spreads across N's face as he kisses her cheek in affection. He was once again reminded of how she was the first to ever treat him with such kindness, and how she made him feel so many new things.

*I love White so much… I want to tell her… But is this really the best time? White told me that confessions should be made in special places… I want to tell her now…. But perhaps I should wait until Steven has left and we are both healed and I can take her someplace nice with just us? I don't know…*

He decides to wait until he has the perfect moment to tell her his true feelings, even though right now he wanted nothing more than to tell her all his feelings of love an affection he had for her. He wanted to tell her how she made his heart soar for the first time, and how she was the first to ever make him feel so warm and fuzzy inside. There were so many things he wanted to tell her…

*I'll wait for the best moment. Maybe then she might accept my confession…*

As the pain medications begin to kick in, N finds himself quickly slipping to sleep without a single choice in the matter. Meanwhile, White finds herself unable to sleep despite the drowsy effect the medication was having on her. She noticed N had fallen asleep quite a while ago, and she continues to toss and turn hoping that sleep would come to her. She also wondered where Steven was, since it had been more than an hour. As she began to think deeply about random things, a sudden noise interrupts her.

"Ugh… No…." White quickly looks to her side to see that N was sleep talking. In his sleep, his expression seemed twisted and pained. It made her heart ache to see him in such pain.

"White..." White gasps as N mutters her name in his sleep, and blood rushes to her cheeks as she realizes N must be dreaming about her. However, his expression quickly becomes pained again as he scrunches up his eyebrows in what seemed like agony. "Don't go, White." He murmurs.

Her heart aches for N as he continues to toss and turn murmuring her name in what seemed like emotional pain. She wondered what exactly he could be dreaming about. The only clue she had so far was that he didn't want her to leave.

His little murmurs of distress soon turned louder and his expression became more pained, and White decide to intervene out of concern for him. She didn't like him being in such pain, and she hoped she might be able to soothe him so he might fall back asleep to pleasant dreams. She gently shakes N's shoulders. "N, what's wrong? Wake up please."

At her soft and seemingly angelic voice, N slowly rouses from his nightmare. He is greeted with the sight of White nearly a few inches away, and he quickly crushes her into a hug. "White… White… White..." He murmurs, not wanting to let her go ever again.

He had the same nightmare again of the sunny meadow. He had dreamed of his and White's happiness. They were embracing, kissing, and seemingly in love. But when he confessed his feedings, she rejected them in disgust and went to Steven. She had thrown him aside like he were nothing, and N hugged White tighter trying to banish those thoughts of his horrible dream away.

White returns his desperate hug, trying to calm him down. "Did you have a bad dream? What was it about?"

N blushes, not wanting to admit his weaknesses to her, but he knew she would definitely want answers. "I… I dreamed that Steven stole you away from me. I dreamed that you left and forgot about me and went to him..." He turns his head away, ashamed and hoping she wouldn't mock his dream.

Her heart aches for him, and she feels bad that he had such a dream. "Why would I do such a thing? You're very important to me… You always seem to forget that."

N nods, still avoiding her gaze in embarrassment. "I'm sorry about this… The dream really upset me… I'm sorry for bothering you with it."

White shakes her head furiously. "No, it's no trouble! I don't like when you're upset, so I wanted to make it better. Just know that I don't plan on leaving you, N. Definitely not for Steven, either." White chuckles as she thinks of the former champion. She couldn't imagine herself ever abandoning just to travel with Steven.

N smiles, contented with her answer. His heart warms as he inches closer to her, moving as close to her as possible before finally relaxing to sleep again. The two embrace as they both begin to drift to sleep together, except this time N's dreams were much more pleasant.

About an hour later, Steven returns to the hotel room with groceries in hand.

"Well, so much for dinner." Steven murmurs to himself as he sets the bags down. He finds himself staring at the sleeping couple embracing tightly together on the bed, and jealousy consumes him. He wished to be in N's place, to hold and be held by White. He remembered how upset White was when N was hurt, and how desperate she was to do anything she could to help him.

*He doesn't know how lucky he is… She cares so much for him.*

Steven continues to stare at the sleeping pair. *What exactly is their relationship, anyways? N says he loves her, but they don't quite seem to be dating yet… Do I still have a chance? But they sometimes act as if they are in a relationship… But sometimes not. Am I just wasting my time here? But no matter, I'll never give up.*

He clenches his fist in determination, steeling his resolve.

Yay, another chapter done! I hope you guys enjoyed, please review/comment, it means a lot to me and gives me motivation! Anyways, please stay around for the next chapter!

[axelandmonroe-blog]

Axel

I will be 17 in two weeks. I have dark hair and a slim physique. I like to work out and play sports. I like computers, reading and music. I grew up my whole life pretty much like any other kid. Had a house in a small town, went to school, played sports had the same school mates since grade school. My parents were never around much so I didn’t form any bonds with them. They “worked” a lot of the time, out of the country. That left my brother Max. He is older He is pretty cool when you get to know him I guess. He would appear odd to some. Others seem to like him, but his presence can be, how do I say this…. un-nerving? He can be strict. He doesn’t mind “enforcing” his rules either. The guardianship thing is rather new. I mean he was around when I was younger way more than my mother and father. I don't really recall them.

Max had to leave for a few years as well, and while he was gone I was left with family friends The Villareals. They basically kept to themselves, they treated me well, really well, but nevertheless they kept to themselves and allowed me basically to go about my business as I pleased. So I guess Im kind of a loner. I’ve never really gotten close to anyone, nor have I really felt the need to be. I knew what was coming. Why would you get close to people if you understood the consequences. I turn 17 on September 7th, so that gives me 1year and 3mths before either the inevitable happens (so I’m told) or I get the hell out of here without a trace by my 18th b-day. I mean I suppose it doesn’t happen just like that, and the transition takes time, and maybe it will be within my 18th year and not on the actual day, but one thing is for sure, if I don’t want to travel that road set out for me then I better have another route to take. One that can help me disappear. So anyway, brother comes back, for the most part pretty cool atleast to me. I get how others may think he is a bit of a dick, or stand offish. He treats me like an adult and does not put too many restrictions on me but he does have some rules. #1 rule always come home by dusk. This rule may seem strange. You see, my brother is a vampire. His life basically begins at dusk. He needs a little kickstart of human blood to get his senses going. He never drains me, he takes just enough to get him going. He says he does not feed off of other humans, but I don't believe him. I don't understand how he could be so strong and smart if he was taking just enough blood to get him through. I have heard others do that as well so as not to hurt humans and live amongst them, they then live off of small animals and plasma juice. The plasma juice has been engineered and distributed in an effort from the humans to co-exist with the vampires….yet from what I have read and heard there is nothing like the taste of real human blood. It gives the vamps, power. It ignites their entire body and can make a vamp perform in god like ways. Many vamps get off on it, but where we live, it is a community of co-existing so long as everyone plays the game.

So the way our line works is this…… During your 18th year you are bitten by your master vamp….which in this case is my brother. My parents turned him, and once his transition was over he returned to oversee mine.  He was gone for 3 years. Training, learning, educating himself on lore and all things Vampire. During this time it is told new vamps feed on humans to make them of strong mind and body during their re-birth. This may be a rumour, but other stories I have heard lead me to believe it is more fact than fiction. I haven't been privy to a lot of this information. I have been given what I need to know and not what might actually be useful information to have for someone about to have a life altering event happening to them in the not so distant future. I thought vampires were made, but not like this. I find it all confusing and Max doesn't give me much information. He tells me I will know when the times comes and that will be time enough.

All I know is I’m running out of time to be me. I am marked for this. Is it worth fighting? Should I run?During my 18th year I will become something else. Not fully human. Monster? I don't know. The thought of turning scares me, I could never say that out loud, because if I did it would make me sound weak, and that is not allowed. For some reason I have to be strong. Im chosen for something bigger than this mortal life. But why? I don't know if I am scared of becoming powerful or losing my humanity. Will I lose my humanity? Max is still normal, he can pretend very well. I suppose that is part of the learning. Figuring out how to fit in without drawing too much attention. I mean, we…. he lives among humans, many vamps do. It is normal now. Some people ask to be turned if only for  perks to being immortal. There is still so much to understand. Like where the hell have my parents been my entire life. I don't remember them being around from a young age. As a matter of fact all I really have memories are, are with Max. Max looks the same even now. A body frozen in time with a mind that ages with each passing season year after year. A prisoner to his youth. I had to get out of my head. I had to forget about this all if only for a little while.

Summer flew by and we were nearing the end of my last mortal summer. I did my best to enjoy the time I had. Michael Villarreal was my only real friend and I'm not so sure he really had a choice in the matter, but we ended up pretty close as two strangers could get who were thrown into a weird situation. Luna and Michael threw an end of summer bonfire. The usual crowd from school was there. The evening was uneventful for the most part and I was thinking of heading home when this girl in white began approaching the fire. Luna bounced out of a dark bush and nearly scared the life out of the girl. I felt sorry for her, wished I could make her feel better in that moment. (mental note) I don't even know her, why would I care? Turns out Luna knew the girl. She was new in town and would be in 12th grade as well. Her name was Monroe and she moved here with her mom. Apparently she was quite the pianist. Ofcourse this all trickled out amongst other guests at the party. I never actually heard it from her. Luna had met her while in town. She invited her to the bonfire to introduce her  to some people so she wouldn't feel like she didn't know anyone come the first day of school. From what I could tell she would be popular amongst the crowd. I strolled around the party hovering around her as she got introduced. I listened to her talk about moving from Whitsbe to Kerteece, She didn't give away too much personal information other than she liked music and art. I began feeling creepy. Following her around the party. I wondered if she had noticed me lurking and thought that I really was creepy. I wanted to introduce myself. I had to. I wanted to hear her speak to me this time. I gingerly went up and said “hey!” pretty sure I had a too wide double chin dopey grin on my face. If I did she didn’t say anything about it. She simply responded with “hi.” I recovered quickly and told her my name was Axel. She in turn responded with the obligatory “nice to meet you, my name is Monroe, I’m knew in town.” We chatted for a while, and by awhile right up until everyone else was gone and it was just her and I. We both loved music. I kind of explained my living situation but not in great detail. She told me a bit about herself but still kept guard of how much she was saying. I could tell she was holding back, but who was I to judge when I was doing the same thing, and with good reason. I felt comfortable talking to her though. Her voice was warm and she smelled sweet. Was that how she smelled or was I really smelling her. Was her blood so sweet I could smell her even now? No, I refused to think that. Maybe that was the strawberry cooler on her breath, she smelled sweet, naturally sweet. She had these kinda too big for her face red glasses and beautiful thick long black hair. She told me contacts scared her but maybe one day she would try them just not anytime soon. You could tell even with the glasses that she was beautiful and the more we talked over the night I realized it came from within her. She was genuinely a sweet innocent girl. She wore a necklace with a small crescent moon. Her dress was white and framed her body but still hung loosely as not to give her shape away. In that moment I realized I should walk away and not get involved. This couldn't end well if it ever became anything at all. I just met her. No feelings have been hurt. No one would care if we never spoke again. Walk away Axel, just walk away. She asked me if I wanted to watch the stars before we went home, and the stars in the sky were putting on quite the show tonight. How could I say no when she asked, and looked so cute not to mention I think she was on her 4th cooler.  It was only another 20 minutes maximum. Then I would go home and do my best to ignore her for the school year. 20 minutes is apparently all it takes. All it takes for your heart to start to want something and want it badly is 20 minutes. I had never made any real connections with anyone as I grew up. Michael is my closest friend and then there is just my brother. I have never wanted to be close to anyone. Yet, I just met her. Monroe. I didn't know she existed a few hours ago and now I cannot imagine never having known her. Wow. Im overwhelmed with a desire to be near her, to be with her. Im wondering if she is feeling the same way, although I doubt it. Other than agreeing to watch the stars with her I have tried to give her zero indication that I am even the slightest bit interested in her.  Although I will admit now in these final moments where I know any second she is going to tell me she has to go home I can't help but hold on to the moment. I realize I'm holding my breath and decide I should breathe out. Breathing is good. Intense. This has never happened. I mean I have dated the odd girl. Nothing serious. I never felt like this though, and I don't even know her. As predicted she turns to me and says she has to get home it is nearly 3am. She looks sleepy and is a little drunk. I tell her that I will walk her, it is too late for her to be out walking alone. She gladly accepts. She laughs as we walk the short distance to her house. We all live in the same neighbourhood and our backyards make up our hang outs. Good to know where she lives. She really didn't need me to walk her home. “Thanks,” she says with a giggle. “I guess I will see you when school starts next week then” she said. “Sure,”I said still trying to play it cool, but just incase she was doubting I added "Unless I see you before.” She smiled an awkward smile and well so did I. I turned around and went home. I went to bed that night kicking myself for  the “unless I see you before comment” I mean how dumb. I should have just said cya and went home.  I fell asleep thinking one week before school...how do I see her before school starts. I can't wait a week. zzzzzzzzzzz