#This is my PSA: catch up on your inFAMOUS 1 and inFAMOUS 2 lore. We're going back to our roots

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Twenty-Four — Burden Borne

How much bloodshed? How many people would have to die so their graves could be the foundation of peace? How many more was I supposed to be able to stomach, to see as permissible? Why was there a fucking allowed amount in the first place? 

4.7k words | 16 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, injuries, natural disaster, murder, testing condoned by the US Government

“We’ll call you with results as soon as we get them,” the doctor said as the nurse rushed off with the skin biopsy. Dr. Sims nodded, thanking her for her time as she finished dressing another new set of stitches and snapping off thick surgery gloves, disappearing past the curtain and out the door. 

Dad was pacing now, his shadow casting across the floor again and again as he passed by the open window. Brent was in his chair, steering clear of his stomps lest he wished to be bulldozed over. Dr. Sims double checked the new set of stitches on my leg, shaking his head slightly. 

No one would talk, and I think that’s what scared me the most about this. I’d just found out Augustine had some mystery power when we fought, something Dad and Dr. Sims weren’t even familiar with, and no one would say anything! It felt like I was attending my own wake, like my fate was already out of my hands. 

Dad was the first to break. “You ever heard of anything like this?” He asked Dr. Sims. 

Dr. Sims stood, helping me cover my leg back up with the blanket. “A power that can negate someone’s healing? No.” 

Dad went right back to pacing. “I didn’t even know tar could be a power,” he muttered. 

“I’ve…heard rumors,” Dr. Sims said, moving back to his computer and scrolling through it a bit. “But nothing like this.”

“What do we do?” Dad demanded.

I could see how Dr. Sims tensed even with his back turned, how he hesitated for a moment before saying to Dad, “I want to get samples before jumping to any conclusions. I know someone who could help, but not without that tar.”

Dad glanced over at me — only for a moment, though. It seemed like he couldn’t stomach looking at me for too long. “I can’t go right now,” He said pointedly. 

Dr. Sims logged out of the mini-laptop and closed in, turning in place. “I’ll go back to Salmon Bay, see if I can find anything.” He was already shrugging on his jacket by the time Dad agreed. “I’ll call you if the doctors get back to me before I return,”

Dr. Sims then turned to regard both Brent and I. “If either of you can think of anything else, tell your father.”

He left on hurried goodbyes, leaving the three of us in an awkward and tense silence.

Dad wouldn’t stop pacing, and Brent refused to look me in the eye. Both seemed angry, though I wasn’t really sure why — well, no, I knew why Brent was. He was up in arms because I had the gall to give a fuck about him enough to try and keep Augustine from making him malleable. All I knew was I couldn’t stand being in the room much longer. “Dad?”

He only hummed in response. “D’you think it’s okay if I take that bath?”

I got final confirmation from the doctor that it was okay so long as I didn’t get that hole in my neck wet, and left the two of them to ruminate on their issues, giving myself the time to worry about my own. 

I wasn’t prepared to face my reflection and see that’s what I looked like. I felt like I was more bandage and bruise than human; so many parts of my skin lit up blue, like I rolled around in spilled ink. My back was steeped in iodine and littered with black stitches, the skin around the slice on my side was bright red. My neck was even a little bit swollen on the left of it where that ball of concrete hit it. I couldn’t stomach looking at myself for long. It was just another reminder of how wrong everything was. 

The shallow water soothed my aches, thank god, but all that did was clear up enough room for my nerves to take hold. All I could think about was my fear. Why wouldn’t I heal, what was wrong with me? The water slid off of my legs with a laze to it, my powers working against gravity. It reminded me of that dress of water in my…dream? Hallucination? Purgatory? I didn’t know what it was. I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to know, because that’d be some confirmation of whether Mom was real or not. I wanted her to be real, I wanted her to be there — but that’d also mean something would have to happen to me if I was to ever meet her again. And now that I was a broken Conduit…

It felt like too much of a possibility, returning to her. 

But fuck, I’d give anything to make that hug real. To make those reassurances real. I just wanted my Mom, was that so bad? I just needed someone to tell me things were going to be okay. 

I broke down thinking about how gentle she was, how I missed out on a lifetime of that. Hallucination or not, I was homesick for a place I couldn’t return to. 

I didn’t come back out of the bathroom for an hour, but it didn’t matter — neither of them changed places. Dad was still as a statue now, leaned against the wall and looking out of the window at Seattle, but otherwise nothing changed. 

Well, that wasn’t true. The television program ended to show the mid-morning news, and I froze in the middle of braiding my hair to look at what was on it. 

Elliott Bay was flooded, boats misplaced and docks completely shredded, the roofs of some shacks at the ends of piers floating freely in the flood. There were flashes of businesses partially underwater in West Seattle, of people in Queen Anne sitting atop their roofs waiting to be rescued. Downtown wasn’t spared; the base of the Space Needle was a pool, a few unlucky people in hi-vis coats wading through the polluted murk. The stream cut to a simulated chart of the flooding, captioned Christmas Eve Tsunami 2036.

“What happened?” I asked, moving towards the wall the television was mounted on. Slowly, as the ache was already permeating my body again. I might have to live in water just to make it through this healing process painlessly. I finished buttoning the spare soft flannel Dad gave me in place of a pajama shirt, staring at the simulation as ten foot tall waters overtook the map. 

Dad cursed behind me, and before I knew it, the television was off, him holding the wired remote like it was an IED. He looked at me, bug-eyed, and said, “Jean—”

Why was he so freaked out? “Was there a tsunami?” I asked, like it wasn’t painfully obvious. The west was littered with fault lines, there were three in the Portland area alone — was there an actual, big earthquake this time? Did it flood Seattle? 

Brent was white as a ghost when I glanced back at him, making me pause. “Did…did someone get hurt?” I asked. Tsunamis can go both ways, right? Did the reservation get flooded?

They both stayed looking at me like that, like they expected me to break, and I could feel realization settle into the ache between my shoulder blades as I thought about Christmas Eve. About how the last thing I did was summon a huge wave to wipe Augustine and the Archangel soldiers off of the earth. I wasn’t there to pull it back like I did the whirlpool, to control how the tides would fall. 

Oh God. There was no earthquake, otherwise the news would have said so. There was just a tsunami, and I had an idea where it came from. “Did…” I choked out. “Did I…”

Dad slowly laid the remote back on the bed. “It’s not your fault,” He began, confirming everything I needed to know. Everything except one thing. 

“How many people died?” I whispered. 

Dad shook his head lightly. “Jeanie—”

I was already starting for the remote before he could say more, but he didn’t fight to stop me. Guess he knew I was going to find out regardless, and decided it’d be better to deal with the fallout than the fight. 

I didn’t need to turn the volume high. I didn’t even really need to try and search for the answer; it was there clear as day on the screen, 134 CONFIRMED DEAD, Over 3,000 INJURED.

One hundred and thirty four dead. 

“No,” I muttered, my uninjured hand shooting to my mouth. Oh my god, I did this. I killed all these people before Christmas. “No, no, no.” 

I didn’t feel the ground rushing towards me until Brent snatched me from the air, his hold pressing into my injured side and making me yelp. None of that mattered. I deserved every bit of pain, I deserved to hurt. I didn’t deserve for Brent to catch me from my collapse and help lower me to the ground as I began sobbing, nor did I deserve Dad coming around the bed to take me from his arms. How was I supposed to act like being treated well was okay when over a hundred people were dead from what I’ve done?

I was deaf to Dad’s reassurances, barely able to see his figure past the blur of my tears — his figure on the television, I mean. There was layman footage of him pulling back a wave, just enough to make the rush an ebb before disappearing into the water again. 

The only reason people were alive was because of Dad. The only reason I was, was because of Dad. How much more reckless was I going to get? “I killed those people,” I whispered, aghast. 

“Jean, you weren’t there, you were gone before—“ Dad started, but I cut him off with my head shaking. 

“No, no.” I sobbed. 

“This isn’t your fault—“ 

“Stop lying to me!” I demanded on a screech that sounded inhuman. I couldn’t do this anymore! My entire life was a fucking lie, he didn’t tell me the truth when I asked what happened to Mom’s brother — I couldn’t stomach another something sugared in half-truths to help me swallow it down. He hadn’t even told me about this, and he had time to! 

It was my water, my tsunami, that did this. “I did this,” I sobbed. 

Was this what Augustine was trying to protect Mom from? Feeling like she was a monster because of what her powers could do?

I watched the sun set over a distressed city, all cried out. The flooding seemed to have receded mostly, if that segment was to be believed, but that didn’t mitigate the damage. The destroyed homes, the destroyed lives. My power could kill so easily, and I didn’t even stop to care about anyone else when I was freezing. 

I didn’t think at all. That was the issue — I didn’t think. 

“—anything, Jean?” Dad’s voice broke through my thoughts. 

“Hm?” I hummed, looking up. Dad and Brent were standing in the middle of some kind of delegation, Dad with his coat on. 

“I said: did you want anything from the cafeteria downstairs?” Dad repeated. 

I just shook my head, looking back out the window. How the hell was I supposed to eat when my stomach felt like this? 

There was some more muttering but none of it really reached my ears. Footsteps, the door closing—

And then someone sitting on my bed. 

I looked over to Dad just as he finished taking off his coat, and asked, “Where’s Brent?”

“Figured he could get his own food,” Dad shrugged, tossing his coat onto the seat of the chair. “Wanted to talk to you, too.” 

Oh, great. 

I dropped my eyes, raising my one hand to meet my other so I could pick at the PICC. “Jean,” he called gently. “None of what happened is your fault.” 

“How is it not, Dad?” I whispered. I wanted to put fire behind the demand but I could barely even raise my voice. 

“You weren’t…” he hesitated. “Aware for it. You didn’t intentionally push those tidal waves into Seattle.”

I might as well have. 

Dad waited a while longer, probably for me to say something, and sighed when I didn’t. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for this. You were trying to protect yourself — and Brent — and you did. You know how proud I am about that? You know how many times I had to fight Augustine before—“

“It shouldn’t be at the expense of other people,” I interrupted. “I was trying to stop Augustine from killing the Akomish and I just killed way more people than she would have if I stood by,”

“But you didn’t,” Dad said pointedly. “You didn’t just stand by. I think that matters more.”

“Yeah, tell that to everyone who lost family on fucking Christmas.” I snipped. 

“You’re not gonna be the hero to everyone,” Dad continued. Thank God he didn’t chastise me for cursing, I think I would have lost it if he did. “No matter what you do, someone’s going to see you as a bad guy. They did me—”

“You didn’t kill over a hundred people!” I cut him off, lifting my head to meet his eyes. “You kept me from doing more damage! You don’t get t-to sit there and act like it wasn’t a bad thing! You know it’s bad — that’s why you didn't mention mom killing her brother, and you wouldn’t have even told me about the tsunami if I didn’t see it! You know it’s something to be ashamed of,”

There were times, when Dad would engage us in our little arguments and debates, that he’d turn on the stoic lawyer thing and we’d definitely lose the fight. There was just something about arguing emotions versus logic against a person that made you talk yourself into a corner. He wouldn’t be emotionless, mind you — he’d validate points that we made, empathize. But it always felt like he was trying to teach us to not let our emotions be the only thing that drove us. 

Dad dropped the bloodsucker facade for this fight. His eyes softened at the tears pooling in mine, and he bit on his cheek so hard it looked painful. “You’d just gone through hell, Jean, I didn’t want to make it any harder for you—”

“You can’t use that as an excuse,” I cut him off. “I asked you about Mom and Uncle Brent days ago. You promised no more lies and the next day you lied!”

“I didn’t lie,” He stated simply. “Your uncle died because of a gang war. That’s true.”

Oh my fucking god. I ground my teeth once I realized what he did, the bastard. “You used your stupid little perjury loopholes on me?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant—”

“It was, Dad, it was very relevant!” I scoffed. 

Dad leaned forward slightly. “And you would have wanted to know that? You would have wanted to know your Mom killed her brother by accident and it haunted her for the rest of her life? Your mom was on anti-psychotics because of the damage it did to her. She’d sob about it at least once a week. Augustine used that fact to get her to do her bidding, brainwashed your mother into being her perfect little sniper. Your mom deserved to be known for more than that, for better than that.”

“I would have thought that either way,” I insisted. “I would have forgiven almost anything she did, but you — you didn’t tell me, and now it feels like I can’t even trust you to give me the chance to choose.” I motioned towards the television. “You didn’t tell me what happened so that I could — so that I’d just know—”

“You needed to rest and heal before worrying about anything like that—”

I pointed to my broken arm slung in a cast, at the way the purple of its plastic almost faded away into the purple of my bruising. “That would have taken weeks! You know it’s something I should feel bad about, and that’s why you didn’t tell me. So I wouldn’t be ashamed of how I killed people.”

“You did not kill them.” Dad insisted, stressing every word. “It’s not your fault.”

“I caused the tsunami. I wasn’t in control, I didn’t think. That’s enough,” 

Dad grabbed my other hand when I went to drop it, and it took everything in me not to pull away. “You were…you were dying, Jean. When we found you in the Sound a few days after you disappeared, you were in this mass that left you barely warm enough to have a heartbeat. If it wasn’t for the Sound doing that, you would have died. You can’t blame yourself for not having control when you were about to die.”

“You don’t understand,” I finally decided, looking away. Back outside of that window, back to the skyline of Seattle. How many of them blamed me for what happened? 

Dad inhaled, and for a moment, stayed quiet. I knew he was probably just building another argument, something I wasn’t going to relate to at all. Something I wasn’t going to accept. Then he spoke, and what he said caught me off guard: “Do you know how many Akomish died because of Augustine?”

I looked up slowly, eyebrows raising. “Huh?” 

“When you went over the Seattle Uprising in school, did they mention how many Akomish died?” he repeated. I shook my head. “Forty-eight. One hundred and thirteen were interrogated, stuffed with fucking concrete, and almost half of them died.” He sighed. “When Augustine got there after your mom and Eugene broke out, I’d just got my first power. I had it for probably fifteen minutes, max. She thought the guy I got smoke from told me about her plan — the breakout and the DUP funding, all that. When I told her all he gave me was his power…she didn’t believe me. She thought I was covering for him, that I was making fun of her, and I…I didn’t show her I had powers. I could have tried. I could have done something, anything…but I froze. I watched her put concrete in Betty’s legs and I did nothing. She went through the reservation interrogating people, sticking concrete in them all, and by the time I came back with her power so I could undo it, almost fifty people had passed. I could have kept everyone from dying, and I didn’t.

“And you want to know something else? I’ve killed.” He stated plainly, admitting to the crime. “I’ve had to, to survive. To keep you safe, like in that alley. But I’ve also…I’ve done it because I wanted to. That anger your mom felt enough of to hunt down drug dealers? I’ve experienced it. I followed through with it.” 

I could feel the blood rush from my face. Dad’s killed people too? 

“I’ve been on both sides. At fault inadvertently, and directly involved. I’ve been in a middle ground where it had to happen. I understand. And I have enough experience to know that, what you did? Is not your fault. You weren’t out of control, you didn’t do it selfishly. You were dying and you did what you could. There’ll…there’ll be death in fights like this. Archangel is out hunting for blood, and fights like this sometimes can only be won with loss. But you cannot blame yourself for every loss that happens. You couldn’t prevent any of them, you shouldn’t have to carry that burden.” 

War isn’t won in battles, but bloodshed, Augustine had said. 

How much bloodshed? How many people would have to die so their graves could be the foundation of peace? How many more was I supposed to be able to stomach, to see as permissible? Why was there a fucking allowed amount in the first place? 

I stayed silent, sitting there for what felt like forever, picking at the cuticles on the hand connected to my broken arm. “Do you regret it?” I finally whispered, unable to look up.

“What?” 

“Killing someone,” I clarified, meeting his eyes. “It…do you regret it?”

Inhaling, he nodded. “Yeah, I do.” 

“Why?” I asked, still nearly silent. “Why did you…” 

Dad swallowed hard, and he seemed to be so far away as he thought about why. “I don’t want to justify what I did,” he started, “I can’t. It was wrong. I was on a warpath and didn’t care about anything but revenge. But I swear, I regret it. It’s haunted me since. It’s not something you can just forget, no matter how hard you try. And I regret not being honest with you. I shouldn’t have white lied my way out of explaining what happened with your mom, I’m sorry.”

I nodded, not opening my mouth to spit out some form of it’s okay because it definitely wasn’t. I didn’t feel like it was, at least. All I could keep thinking about were the casualties. 

Dad squeezed my hand gently, and said, “You should eat. They’re wanting to give you an antibiotic to prevent infections and you can’t have those without food,”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “Okay.”

Brent didn’t seem like he was holding onto his anger anymore, at least. Thank God — I wasn’t sure if I could take any more fighting. He wouldn’t really meet my eyes either though, even when we were facing each other as night came, trying to fall asleep. 

That was harder than it needed to be: sleeping in a hospital. Every noise seemed to carry further than possible through the halls; every machine beep, every patient’s cough, every nurse’s footsteps. My eyes may have been closed but it sure felt like my brain stayed awake through it all — which is why it was so easy to pick up on the hushed voices on the other side of the curtain. 

“—hell do you think it is?” Dad finished. 

“Don’t know,” Dr. Sims muttered back. 

“You said you’ve heard of this shit as a power before?”

“Tar? Yeah. Way back in the day, DARPA caught this woman that worked for the First Sons, some scientist. Had tar powers. She was one of the first Conduits they started experimenting on before the DUP became a separate thing from the DoD.”

Only about twenty percent of that made sense to me. 

I quietly rolled over to face the curtain that separated me from Dad and Dr. Sims, whose silhouettes were cast against the blue wall from the light of the bathroom. Dad was holding up a long tube of something, Dr. Sims standing across from him, arms crossed. 

“DARPA? Like, the government?” Dad asked. 

Dr. Sims’ shadow nodded. “Yeah. Turns out, they were funding the First Sons, probably the whole reason Empire City happened in the first place. The tar had mind-control abilities, and they were using it for some sort of revival of the MK-ULTRA project. Killed her over a whistleblower before the media could investigate and swept it all under the rug,”

“Jesus,” Dad breathed out. 

“You’ve missed a lot the past sixteen years,” Dr. Sims laughed mirthlessly under his breath. “There’s a lot of shit the public doesn’t know. The First Sons even used this stuff to get people to attack MacGrath during the Quarantine. Made people sick too,”

Dad’s hand lowered. “And this stuff’s in my daughter? Is that why she won’t heal?”

“That’s the thing,” Dr. Sims took the tube back. “I don’t know if it’s the same, or some mutated version from the experiments, or what. I know nothing about this stuff at all.”

Dad’s next breath was shaky. “Fuck,” his head shook. “I’m scared, man. This is Abbs all over again.”

“You don’t know that, D—”

“She stopped healing first.” Dad interrupted — almost painfully. “You remember! The healing went first, and then the speed, and then the fuckin’—” he cut off when his voice caught. “I thought there was something wrong with her. I thought something about her flipped. If the same thing’s happening to Jean? That — it means it might not have been a coincidence.”

“You think it might run in the family?” 

“I don’t know.” Dad tilted his head back slightly, like he was trying to keep bile from appearing. “I don’t know if I think it’s hereditary, or if…if someone maybe did something to Abbs.”

“Del, you don’t know if that’s—“

Dad’s hand swung wildly in my direction. “My kid’s got forty-six stitches! Her arm’s broken! Only other time I’ve seen a Conduit like this is when Abbs’ c-section scar got infected. We don’t get infections, we don’t get stitches. I don’t know if it’s something hereditary, or because of that shit, but I don’t like that it’s happening again.”

I blinked out of my sleep then. Mom…stopped healing, too? That was where her sickness started?

Dr. Sims hummed gently. “I’m worried too, but remember the exact same thing is happening to those old DUP agents.”

“Yeah — ‘cause they’re forced Conduits! Jean’s prime—”

“We can’t make any assumptions until we know more about what’s going on.”

Dad’s hands came up to run through his hair, and I could hear him sigh deeply. “So then what do we do?”

“I could run a microarray on her, see if it’s genetic. I’d want Brent’s as a base sample too.”

“And if it’s not that?” Dad demanded.

Dr. Sims hesitated for a moment. “I…know someone that could help us,” he began. “Someone that’s seen this stuff in action. Might have some connections, too. But…” he drew off. “You’re not gonna like it.”

The shadow of Dad’s head cocked to the side in curiosity, and they were silent for a full ten seconds before Dad’s head snapped straight again and he said, “No. Absolutely not.”

“Del, listen—”

“Not happening. Do you not remember last time?”

“That was almost eighteen years ago—”

“And it hasn’t been long enough! You weren’t there, man. He’s weird! I got this speech that didn’t make sense and he — the fucker wouldn’t even meet me after everything—”

“You’re still holding on to that?”

“He’s not even a Conduit!” Dad hissed on a whisper that was bordering a regular voice. The closest he could get to yelling. “He has no business being involved is this—”

“He is the closest we will ever get to talking to Cole MacGrath,” Dr. Sims interrupted. His silhouette raised the tube and shook it at Dad slightly. “You wanna know what this is? You wanna help Jean? He’s the only one that can help. Him, or the government — and you and I both know how that would go.”

Dad’s hands came up, and while I couldn’t really tell what he was doing, I knew he was probably pressing his palms into his eyes like he always did when he was frustrated. But then his head raised and looked my way, and my breath froze. Did he know I was eavesdropping? 

No, he didn’t. Looking towards where I was seemed to be the last cannonball that broke down the wall of his objection, because he sighed, entirely complicit and absolutely unwillingly, “Fine. Okay. How do we get in contact with him? I haven’t talked to him since that shit with Wolfe,”

“We’ve got a system. He likes to stay off the radar, but he’s not too hard to find.” Dr. Sims tucked the tube away in his pocket, saying “Take out your phone,” while doing so.

Dad did, the click of him unlocking it echoing off of the sterile walls. “Okay, now what?” 

Dr. Sims held out his hand, and that twinkling sound that always accompanied his power came back. It wasn’t like Dad’s; Dad’s had the underlying tone of TV static, where Dr. Sims’ almost sounded like what I imagined wizard magic would sound like. Their side of the curtain lit up, making me squint in discomfort at the sudden light change, and by the time the sound ended and the brightness dimmed, Dad was in the middle of cursing. “Eugene — fuck — I didn’t mean now—”

“I can only catch his signal when I concentrate on it,” Dr. Sims shrugged. “Otherwise it’s scrambled.”

“Yeah, okay, but I’d have liked to have slept before dealing with him,” Dad grumbled, the hand holding his phone coming up to his ear. I could barely hear the ringing that came from the receiver; it sang once, twice, and then was picked up, Dad sighing as the voice on the other side answered. 

“Zeke Dunbar?” Dad asked. “This is Delsin Rowe.” His body turned slightly in place so he could look where he knew I was, a final reminder of why he needed to call. “I need your help.”