Lily | Sophia
𝕋: 𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟙𝟝, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕃𝕒 ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕒, 𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕪𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 / / ℍ𝕠𝕤𝕡𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 / / ~𝟚𝟚𝟘𝟘
When Angelique left her room, Lily wondered why she was being kept in the hospital when she was perfectly fine. A few cuts and bruises weren't life threatening and they had hydrated her enough for her body to replenish the blood she lost in the battle. She looked at the closed door and narrowed her eyes at it. All she really needed to do was walk out of it, right?
With a determined nod of her head, she gently removed the tape that held her IV line secure on her arm. As soon as she had removed it, she took a deep breath and gave the IV line a quick pull.
"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose when blood oozed out from where she had pulled the IV cannula from. She grabbed a couple of cotton balls from the table near her bed, pressed it onto the small wound and applied pressure on it.
And then without wasting any time, she swung her legs to the side of the bed and got down. She kept a firm grip on her hand to make sure that she didn't continue bleeding. If the doctors and nurses see that she's bleeding, she'll never get out of this boring place. She slipped on her shoes and hurried over to the door. She pressed her ear to it for a few seconds, trying to hear if anyone was coming. When she didn't hear anything, she opened the door a crack and peeked out.
The hallway outside was empty.
Perfect! You'll get caught and they will strap you onto the bed like a madman, you know, came the all too familiar voice in her head.
"Says you," the blonde hissed irritatedly and then stealthily slipped out the door.
It had taken Sophia a long time before she had been ready to leave her motel room again, with its unfamiliar yet somewhat comforting bed. She would rather remain in the room, so she wouldn't have to see anyone or the town that was yet another place she didn't know. But Lily was supposed to be her friend-- they
were friends, so it would only be right to visit the Aberration. Especially considering that Lily was in the hospital, and considering the girl's powers.
Still, she was tempted more than once to turn around and head back again. She'd had to find one of the guards to
talk to so as to let them know she was leaving the building. And then she would need to talk with Lily. It didn't help that Sophia had no idea what mood her friend would be in when she arrived. Memories of a cheerful, grinning Lily contrasted with images of a distraught, scared girl as she walked, making her way towards the nearby hospital.
Once in the hospital, she found out where Lily should be within a few minutes, but it wasn't easy as it should have been. Her normally quiet voice was even more muted today, only just loud to be heard by the two people who were used to her quiet whispers: her two sisters. It had taken many tries before she had gotten the information she needed regarding which room Lily was in.
At last, walking down that hall, she spotted a person of shorter stature, and a golden head of hair. Quickening her pace to catch up with her girl, she whispered,
"Lily?"Lily had just decided to head over to the door at the end of the corridor when she heard someone whisper her name. The voice wasn't really loud and was somewhat familiar but it still made her heart beat faster than normal. She froze in place, one leg lifted to take that supposedly quiet step towards freedom. She would've thought it was funny if it weren't for that irritation of being caught.
Her mind scrambled for an excuse on why she was out of the hospital room.
"I-I was just gonna go look for something to eat. Donuts. I think someone forgot to bring me some and..." she slowly turned around as she voiced out her alibi.
As soon as her eyes fell on Sophia's face, a relieved look came over hers and she grinned widely.
"Oh, it's you, Sophia! I thought you were one of the nurses or doctors," she giggled, obviously in one of her happier moods.
No one had brought Lily donuts? Perhaps that was one of her favorite foods. Noting the relief, then the grin on Lily's face, she responded with a small smile of her own, starting out a little forced but growing more genuine as she saw that Lily looked well enough.
"Yeah, it's me. Sorry I didn't bring anything... am I interrupting?"Lily grinned sheepishly.
"I was actually trying to sneak out," she admitted with a quick glance around.
"Was it difficult to get in?""Sneak out?" Sophia parroted Lily without realizing it. Were the nurses not treating her nicely? Or did she just not like hospitals?
"Well it wasn't hard, but... I got noticed. There are guards around and all?" She looked Lily over once more.
"They haven't been mean?"Lily wrinkled her nose. How would she sneak out if there are guards?
"No, they haven't been mean. They mostly stay away from me. And I was just bored," she explained.
"Mhmm." Okay, so it was boredom. Good thing that she had come then, right? Except that she didn't know what exactly she should be saying now. It was nice to see that Lily was fine and everything, but apart from that she wasn't much of a conversationalist.
"Well... I came to see you and uh, maybe keep you company and make sure you were alright? After the battle and everything?" Was the fighting something she should be bringing up? Ugh. To her dismay, she felt her eyes begin to sting, a sign that tears might very well be on the way if she didn't do something about it. Turning her head away, she blinked rapidly before looking back at Lily, smile gone.
"Oh, I'm okay. I wasn't really hurt... well, not really after---" Lily stopped short, noticing the change in the other girl's mood. With a sigh, she stepped forward, grabbed her hand and led her back to the room she had been confined in.
"Might as well make sure I don't get you in trouble," she said as she pulled Sophia into the room and shut the door carefully.
"Are you okay?"It felt strange, to be taken by the hand and led by someone else. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Then there was that question.
"Are you okay?" That was what everyone always asked, but how many people ever really got a truthful answer? It was often just too hard to explain properly, and it took her too long to begin. So long that they would walk away before she was even ready. And so,
"I'm fi-" Sophia stopped abruptly in the middle of that well used word. She used it often, but this time, maybe, she didn't want to use it again.
But she always took too long.
"I don't know." She sighed, fighting the pricking in her eyes once more.
"I should be."The strangely perceptive bipolar Aberration peered into the taller girl's face with a curious look.
"It's okay not to be okay. We were hurt, people died. I would be surprised if you were happy and cheerful," she stopped and blinked, realizing that she was describing her current mood.
"Uh... not that I'm happy and cheerful about what happened," she quickly explained.
"It's just nice to have people visit," she gestured towards the table where the bouquet Emma brought her laid.
Sophia listened to Lily, turning her friend's words over and over in her mind. She still thought it wasn't quite right that it was Lily trying to comfort her, it seemed strange. And she didn't want to burden her, when the girl had many more issues than she did. There was silence for a bit between them as Sophia thought, her gaze flickering over to Lily before looking around the room instead. When she spoke again, there was a heaviness to the quiet voice. She got what Lily had said about being happy out of the way first.
"No, I think it's... good that you can... remain happy even after everything happens?" She sighed.
"I like seeing you smile." A small smile to accompany her words.
There was still more she wanted to say, but... it wasn't necessary. She shouldn't bring up Sav. She struggled to come up with something else that sounded
okay, but instead something else burst out as she twisted her hands together.
"It's not okay to not be okay." She began to shake her head slowly, tears now beginning to fall.
"Because everyone else isn't okay either... so then... if they all thought the same way, then no one would be happy. We all have something that isn't right, something that's happened and-- I don't know." What was she babbling about? Was she even making sense?
"Someone has to look okay.""Someone has to look okay..." the small blonde repeated, paused for a beat and then shook her head.
"At one point we all try to look okay. But once in a while, it's okay to show that we're scared and we're sad. And we just have to do our best to stay together and stay alive..." a dark look settled over her face as she remembered the faces of the dead. Savannah's face was mixed in with Padma's and Alexis' and those 'fake' people she killed in Ground Zero.
With you, everyone will eventually die, a single voice in her head whispered.
"If only I had a power similar to Benediction..." she muttered in a low voice.
A sniffle. Then a nod. Pressing the palms of her hands to her eyes for a moment, when she removed them she made an effort to look a bit more perky. Lily was probably right about what she was saying, but still, it was hard to fight off the feeling that it was her duty to stay okay. Though maybe she could let herself be sad and not okay for a little while. Then once they returned to USARILN East, she could start again and be "okay" once more.
Maybe I can even try to get stronger and better? Maybe? Missing whatever it was that Lily had muttered, she nodded once more.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. We just have to do our best... and yeah." Meeting the Aberration's gaze, she whispered,
"Thanks."The thanks that Sophia whispered made Lily perk up just like she did when Emma invited her to hang out with her and when Angelique spoke encouraging words to her. She felt needed and useful. It was a wonderful feeling.
One that was dampened a little by the voices that continued echoing in her head.
You're not useful. You're not helping anyone. You're good for destruction. The bringer of death."I wonder if I would have been better if I chose a different path..." she wondered out loud, openly staring at the white mark on Sophia's cheek.
Seeing how Lily was looking at a certain spot on her face, her hand drifted up to trace the white mark there. Arbiter versus Aberration. She still didn't know much about the two different groups, but she knew about the Stigma. And the dreams. She could still remember her dream, she doubted she would ever forget it. Things probably would have been very different should she have chosen the other path, but different how?
"I... don't know, Lily. I don't know if anyone will ever be able to figure out what would have happened if we would have chosen the other path. But..." she thought back to what Lily had just said a minute or two ago.
"You said it yourself. You still just have to do your best, and as... bad as it sounds, there's no changing it." She rubbed a finger roughly against her mark.
"I've wished many times that I could just rub this away and go back. But I can't, and we just have to deal with it." Another sigh.
"I'm not helping, am I?"Lily looked lost in thought and didn't appear to be listening. But when she spoke, it was obvious that she heard every word.
"Yes, there's no changing it. We just have to do our best," she agreed.
"Sometimes I just wonder what made me choose what I chose. I can't even remember the dream and the nightmare that came with it..." she paused again, a thought occurring to her.
"Arbiters are good and Aberrations are... well, anomalies, right? Does that mean that we'll eventually have to fight each other?"Wait, what? Sophia looked surprised, her eyes widening slightly.
"No! I don't think so. It wouldn't make sense, they've already made us a team, right? We're supposed to work together as a team. They wouldn't bring us together just to tear us apart later. Don't think that, Lily." She spoke with unusual firmness, not allowing herself to believe that even USARILN would have such... unpleasant plans for them.
Lily pursed her lips, looking thoughtful for a moment before finally nodding her head.
"Okay," she said. She looked like she was about to say something else when the phone she had left on the bed began ringing, the name Sebastian flashing on the screen. The golden-haired girl furrowed her brow and glanced irritatedly at the gadget.
"That person keeps calling the phone. I should really return it to USARILN the first chance I get. I don't know why they would give me a phone that belongs to someone else," she muttered in a frustrated tone.
The ringing of the phone made Sophia start, and she looked over at it curiously.
"That's strange," she admitted.
"Have you tried picking up and asking what the person wants or telling them it's the wrong number? Then maybe he or she will stop.""But is it the wrong number if it belongs to the person he's calling?" Lily made a small humming sound while tapping one foot irritatedly.
"He's looking for someone named Hailey."Oh, oops. She had forgotten the part about how the phone might have belonged to someone else. But it didn't make sense, how Lily would have ended up with something that wasn't hers.
"Hailey..." she mused over the name, wondering who this Hailey might be. If this Hailey kept getting calls from the same person, maybe she was important to this caller.
"Where did you get the phone, anyway?""The doctors gave it to me when I woke up. I think they thought it was mine. Maybe belonged to someone else they brought in the same time as me," Lily explained as the phone finally stopped ringing and instead chimed several times signaling the arrival of several text messages.
"Hmm... maybe," Sophia said, gazing thoughtfully at the phone. When it started to chime, she bit her lip. What was so important that this person kept getting messaged and called? Repeatedly, from what Lily had said. She felt her curiosity peaking, wanting to know more about this mysterious caller and person.
"What do the messages say?" The question was asked tentatively; would Lily get angry if Sophia seemed like she was prying?
"I've read a few of them. He just keeps apologizing, asking how the owner is doing and promising to come and get her." A dreamy look came over the X-marked face.
"It must be nice having someone worry that much for you..."There wasn't really anything that she could do about these calls, though it did kind of bother her that there was someone out there looking for this girl, not knowing that the owner of the phone had changed hands.
"I hope he finds this girl one day," Sophia murmured. Changing the subject, she glanced around the room that Lily was staying in.
"Do you know when you'll be let out of here?"The change in topic made Lily immediately forget about her concerns about the phone, Hailey and Sebastian.
"I don't know. I wanted to go out now. But if I get caught, they'll drag me back in here and you'll get into trouble too," she pouted.
Sophia frowned, thinking about the time. It had already been getting late when she had come here, so it would probably be best to head back to the motel soon.
"Maybe you could go and ask one of the nurses and convince them to let you out? I probably will be going back soon, so...""I didn't think they'd listen to what I would say..." Lily said in a small voice but walked over to the bed, pocketed the phone and nodded.
"I think they're too afraid of me to actually want to keep me here so I guess it's worth a shot." She headed towards the door.
A few minutes later, a giggling Lily walked out of the hospital side by side with Sophia.
"That was easier than I thought!" she exclaimed. She just barraged the nurses with one sentence after the next explaining why she should be let go and how she was feeling fine. The poor flustered woman merely stared at her and nodded.
Now outdoors, Sophia performed a cursory glance of her surroundings, finishing with her gaze on the giggling Lily.
She's the only person I ever talk to, she realized. Her interactions with people inside of USARILN East had been limited to a few muttered sentences here and there, nothing more. But with Lily... she got the feeling that Lily would not judge her so heavily, at least not as much as the other students might? They had only really interacted three or four times so far, but she hoped that it would continue this way. She hoped, even though there were many doubts and worries that the more she got to know Lily, the harder it would become to talk.
She shouldn't be thinking about that now.
Enjoy it while you can."The motel we're staying in is just a few blocks away."Lily nodded and continued walking side by side with Sophia.
"It should be fun to be staying with other students for a change. Although, I should probably look for a single room to stay in alone. Just like back home..." she paused.
"...I mean USARILN East."It’ll probably sound weird to Sophia that she called the school home. But to Lily, who had no recollection on who she is and where she came from, it made sense to call the place home.
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