Four-Act Structure

[D/N]

(Andrea Raymer continued from The Cavalry Arrives)


Andrea woke up to an empty room.

What, no welcoming party?

She closed her eyes and slept again.

------

The next time she awoke, there was at least one other person in the room. Doctor, she guessed. What with the clothes and doctorly demeanor and all. Her thoughts were still a muddy vortex. Flashbacks to waking up on the island, yet again.

Hey, asshole!

It hadn't been the first or second time she'd awoken, of course. She'd drifted in and out of consciousness on the way here, not that she knew where 'here' was. There'd been pain, and then pressure on that pain, and then something came along and took all the pain away and she was on the freaking moon, and then she'd slept again.

The doctor turned, leaned over her. Gazed at her eyes. She guessed he was checking her for something. An astute observation there, Andrea. His lips moved, and although Andrea wasn't yet registering his actual words, she felt a need to at least attempt an answer.

She tried to push away the sleep that still clung to her and respond.

"buh."

Try again, Andrea.

"uh....."

Closer.

"Hey."

Good enough.

---------

His name was Dr. Stevens. Or so he'd told her, the guy seemed to be an evasive fuck so maybe it was just a pseudonym or something forced upon him by whoever the hell her escorts to the hospital had been. Some weird commando group of... someones. She'd need to get to the bottom of THAT mystery, oh yes she would. Scooby-Doo style. He told her that she'd just gotten out of surgery, so she'd be groggy for a while. He told her that they were in Canada, for whatever reason. He told her that they were hoping she'd be stable enough to transfer with the rest of the students, not that Andrea had any idea WHERE she was supposed to be transferred to yet. He told her a bunch of other stuff, but that was about all her still-murky memory could handle for now and so she didn't really retain much else. Then he left.

OK.

Now what the hell was going on again?

OK. Figure it out.

Andrea looked up at the ceiling. It looked back at her like an idiot. No answers there.

She glanced downward. Her torso was secured in this weird plastic... thingie. A something brace? Doctor guy had said something about that, she thought. Couldn't remember what.

Now, why was she wearing a something brace?

Andrea concentrated.

Beach. Boat. Sun. Gun. That rhymed. Spinning around. Grenades. Go boom. Saltwater on her face. Island. That was it. Killer Murder Carnage Island.

Oh yeah, that was it all right.

Still didn't explain the brace thing. She closed her eyes and concentrated again.

Island. Boat. Sun. Gun. Gun, that was it. Alex White. Asshole. Gun. Pain. Fall. Back. Blood. Spine.

Her eyes flew open.

Spine.

Oh shit.

A million thoughts at once flew through her head, from crappy Lifetime Original Movies to the broken down elderly customers she'd seen at her dad's funeral home. Shriveled and useless.

Shit. Shit. OK. OK. It'd be OK.

She looked down again, saw her right hand. She willed her fingers to move.







She willed harder.










FUCK YOU FINGERS YOU FUCKING MOVE.












They moved.




Well. That was a good sign.

Andrea smiled, and slept again.

[JamesRenard†]

Allen sat on the plastic seat in the hospital corridor, resting his head in his hands and trying his hardest not to throw up for the umpteenth time that day. His body quivered and shuddered like he'd turned to jelly. It felt like it was all too good to be true, that it was all just a wonderful dream and that he was still on the hellish island, still a captive of the terrorists and still forced to fight to the death.

The fact his arm badly itched was a sign it really was happening. He really had gotten away.

The inside of his elbow twinged at the spot where an IV drip had been inserted into his vein, replenishing his body with vital fluids, minerals and other things lost after those nine days of hell. He was dehydrated and starved by the time they arrived in Canada. And after nine days of living off of stale bread, crackers and a couple of candy bars, the hospital food he was offered was a deluxe meal in comparison. Though any food he swallowed just wanted to leap back up into his mouth. He could only hope in time that he'd get used to eating proper food again.

He rubbed his hand against the front of his neck, his fingertips touching bare skin where the collar used to be fastened. He'd grown accustomed to it being strapped tightly against his neck, so to not have it there anymore, that was taking some time to get used to. Not that it was a bad thing, of course. He didn't have to worry about his neck being blasted open. 'Just like what happened to Lucy...'

His fingers drifted down to the wooden bead necklace that hung loose around his neck, below where his collar used to be. He gently wrapped his fingers around it, stroking the dark brown beads with his index finger and thumb, closing his eyes and sobbed gently.

'Jennifer...'

Did his family know he was still alive? Had the people who'd rescued him and the others contacted their next of kin at all, to let them know they were safe and sound? He didn't know if that was even a possibility, since he hadn't forwarded on his contact details to his rescuers. The only thing they probably knew about him was his first name.

Maybe if he had some money, he could phone his parents. He entertained the thought for a little while, wondering if any of the doctors or nurses carried any spare change with them.

He decided against it in the end, however. What if the terrorists intercepted the call, discovered them, and hauled them all back to the island? A phone call just wasn't worth the risk.

And so he just sat there, staring at the floor and looking up occasionally to glance at the door opposite him. Andrea laid behind those walls, recovering from surgery. He swallowed, remembering the nerve-shattering boat journey from the island, Andrea laid unconscious on the deck while he sat helplessly by her, praying for her survival. That was one of the worst experiences of his life, not knowing whether she was going to live or not. He just felt so... helpless throughout the entire ordeal.

Fucking Alex White.

But Andrea was a fighter and Allen had been told that she pulled through, much to his relief. But that was all he knew, he didn't know if she was paralyzed, disabled, or suffered any other kind of horrid side effect from the bullet lodged in her back.

A man in a white coat, presumably a doctor ('no shit, this is a hospital'), came walking up the corridor and stopped outside the door to Andrea's room, looking at some notes attached to his clipboard. Allen seized the opportunity and stood up, his legs nearly giving out as he got to his feet, but he kept himself upright.

"Hey, uh, are you going in there?" he asked, approaching the doctor and pointing to the doorway.

"I am, yes, and who might you be?" the man replied, looking up and down the bedraggled boy before him. "Were you one of the-"

"Yes, yes I was," Allen blurted out, cutting the man off. He didn't want to be reminded of what had happened to them. "I just... I just wanted to know how Andrea's doing."

"She should be getting some rest right about now, and she needs a lot of it after what she's been through," the doctor said, checking through his notes once more. "If you really want to see her, you'll have to wait until she's awake and feeling up to having visitors. What was your name?"

There was a brief pause, and then he answered. "It's Allen. Birkman."

The doctor nodded. "Alright, Allen, I'll keep you informed on her condition," he said, and then he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

[laZardo†]

It all felt like a very bad dream.

The last thing he remembered was blood and water and being...seasick. Then there was darkness, like he was in some kind of pit or shelter. There were people that wanted to do...he couldn't quite remember. But they were gonna do it to him. He didn't have the strength to resist.

Not that it wasn't all bad. They fed him. They stopped him from leaking. They gave him the strength to resist...a little. They threatened him when he did. And then they tried to put him down the more he struggled. It worked, and he was afraid. He wanted it to end. He wanted to know what happened to her - the girl that had delivered him from the clutches of death and into...something damn near close. He wanted to fall asleep.

And when he woke up, things...changed.

The world was brightly-colored and tranquil. A mix of blue and white and the sounds of technology and some kind of...game show. The good kind. The other voices were more hushed and calm and...reassuring. Well, that's exactly what it sounded like after they took him off the boat. The green hair dye had been removed, leaving wavy, sort of curly black hair underneath. He felt like a doll that had been patched up to keep all the stuffing from falling out. And tucked in under a nice little sheet to prevent the dust from gathering before they sewed up new clothes to replace the torn rags they plucked him out of the dump with.

It all felt like a dream.

And considering what Cisco Vasquez had done to very nearly have the STAR team finish what SOTF started, the medical staff currently preferred it stayed that way. For all intents and purposes, it was almost as if he reverted to an almost feral state from the events of the past nine days. Not that it was the first time he'd suffered such trauma, though in this case it was more protracted than instantaneous.

But until they could get in touch with his bereaved adoptive parents and get them to sign him away to a mental institution for as long as it took until they found someone else to love and take care of (because the hell if they were going to take back a kid that actually killed someone, they figured), he was going to remain here. Sedated, physically stable, and sleeping.

Well, not really the last part. It was how he could notice that he was in this brightly-lit world, patched up as if to prevent the stuffing from leaking out. And not alone. There were figures...shades...something moving around. And others on beds nearby. There was a tingling sensation in his arms - multiple ones - like he was being filled with something that didn't exactly feel like stuffing.

"Hello...anyone..." he groaned. Okay, so they hadn't fixed his squeezy voicebox yet. He couldn't tell if his voice was even human.

[D/N]

Poke poke prod.

By the time she'd been awake and perceptive long enough to endure the barrage of tests, Andrea could already tell that she was going to hate this recovery bullshit.

She hated hospitals to start with. As a kid she'd been there... twice she thought. Once to get stitches in her knee and once when she'd had this nasty infection, or maybe it was a stomach virus. Didn't really matter which, the point was that Andrea did not like hospitals then and did not like them any better after her dad's journey through them. Maybe she just couldn't help but make the connection between the patients there and those at the funeral homes. They both got pretty much the same treatment, except that half of them were well beyond giving a shit that some stranger had rubbed their greasy hands all over them. And the way this guy was jabbing at her, testing her for feeling or stimulus response or whatever the hell he'd called it wasn't helping any.

Poke squeeze wah wah wah. Wait, did he just say something?

"Uh, yeah sure doc." she muttered, then tried and failed to return to her previous train of thought. Thinking through whatever pain meds she was on was like trying to swim through fog, a lot of effort to go nowhere and look silly in the process.

Doc took some notes and bent back over a monitor. Andrea had been able to convert some of what he'd said earlier to her long-term memory, at least she hoped so. Bullet took a good bounce, at least insofar as they can take in a human body. Broken ribs, collapsed lung, couple other things. They wouldn't know how bad the total damage was for a few days, but it looked like she'd be able to walk and all that jazz. She could look forward to some physical therapy she'd certainly loathe once she got transferred with the rest. And a bunch of other stuff, but she'd be happy with remembering the above for now.

Shit. Doc had said something again.

"Uh... sorry?"

He gave her an experienced smile, then repeated. "Do you think you're up to seeing some visitors? An-" another check at the notes, "-Allen Birkman was asking about you."

Of course he had been. Well, maybe he could help her fill in some of the gaps. Not that she'd be likely to remember them just yet, but it couldn't hurt.

"Sure doc. Send him in."

[JamesRenard†]

Allen lay sprawled over three of the plastic seats, his eyes closed but his mind refusing to switch off. He was extremely tired, having hardly gained any sleep over the past twenty-four hours. But every single time he shut his eyes and attempted to drift off, the horrors that he'd witnessed flashed before his eyes, vivid and clear as if he was right there once more.

----

Chris' head jerked back as the bullet struck him in the face, and he collapsed dead on the beach right in front of Allen's eyes, blood staining the sand by Allen's feet. And Clio stood over him, looking much more menacing than ever before. There was no rant coming from her mouth, however, no justification for her murder. And no Australian guy to tackle her to the ground, nobody to prevent her from opening fire. She just aimed the gun right at Allen's forehead and pulled the trigger, saying only two words in an uncannily deep voice as she did.

"Mr. Birkman?"

----

"Mr. Birkman?"

Allen's body jerked and his eyes snapped open. He gasped in surprise and panted, able to feel the heavy drumming in his chest. He slowly looked around and then up, noticing the doctor he'd spoken to earlier and who'd just been calling his name.

"Are you alright?" the man asked, "you're sweating a bit and you look quite pale."

"Huh? Oh... no, I'm fine, I'm fine," Allen replied, pushing himself up so he sat on just one of the chairs. "Just... relived a bad memory, that's all..."

The doctor nodded. "Alright, if you say so. Anyway, I've got some good news for you. I've just finished checking up on Andrea and she's ready to have visitors come see her, so if you wish to go in, you can."

"Oh," Allen simply said, pausing a few seconds before he weakly smiled. "Thanks... thanks very much." He got up to his feet and walked - with some difficulty - towards the door. He stopped just outside to squirt some anti-bacterial soap on his hands, rubbed it in thoroughly, and then pushed the door open and wandered inside.

"Hey... Andrea?" he asked softly, looking at the girl lying in the hospital bed.

[D/N]

Andrea turned her head to the door as Allen entered. He was still tentative, still nervous, still the same he had always been.

She couldn't help but be thrilled to see him.

"Hey Allen."

Now she just needed to find out if her brain had descrambled to the point that she could actually talk to him.

"Uhhhh..."

Ugh, think Andrea.

She'd been shot. That was a start.

"Yeah, I probably can't talk too long but I uh, guessing I don't look too good."

Yeah. Especially since her face was probably still messed up. Funny, she hadn't even thought about that until now. Apparently it took a bullet to the back to put a couple facial fractures into perspective.

"But hey, the doc says I should get through this without uh, y'know, too much damage, hopefully be up and walking soon enough."

OK. She'd successfully remembered that far back. Now what else?

She'd been shot. She'd been in the water. Then she'd been on the boat.

Ah, yes.

"So... I think you pulled me out of the water there? I'm still trying to remember how it went but uh, we can go into detail later.

"Thanks, Allen."

OK. Anything else she needed to tell him straight off the bat?

She'd been on the boat. Now she was here. Here was not the island.

And holy crap, that meant one thing.

"Hey... we did it, didn't we? We did it, Allen."

They'd done it.

They were fuckin' heroes.

[laZardo†]

Heroes.

What a fucking crock.

He probably wasn't aware enough to wonder if he was supposed to be surprised that they let someone who killed another person and wondered if he hadn't killed her savagely enough on that boat. But that did not change the fact that he was here, awaiting whatever lay in store for him. Maybe the cops or the guys in white coats after long, long last.

He had to get out. Or at least get out of the bed long enough to enjoy his freedom before the padded cells and gray concrete walls and manufactured lunches beckoned.

The latter, well, he was putting all his recently gathered strength into actually doing. His previous greeting didn't elicit any response, not like it could over the hospital ambience. So why not, he figured, reach out and touch things.

Sitting up with the kind of moan that could only come from some horror B-movie was hard enough. There was still getting back on his feet and walking out and then reaching out and touching things before the guys with the white coats realized he was out of bed and had him sedated and restrained.

The sensation of his feet coming into contact with standard hospital linoleum sent a tingle right up his spinal column, not because it was the first thing he could remember his feet coming into contact with apart from the worn-out sneakers he'd worn since whenever the fuck it was he got on that fateful bus, but more because he figured he'd tripped a silent alarm that would have him triply sedated and restrained before he could belt out an insane incoherent rant. Either way, his torso suddenly felt a lot heavier and he felt himself clinging to the stand holding the IV drip that was pumping whatever the hell it was into his veins.

Okay, so it wasn't actually the first time he'd gotten out of bed. The hospital staff had figured him cooperative enough to try to use the bathroom with an 'escort.' But moving away from the bed felt like babby's first attempt at walking with the threat of those damned white suits lucking behind every corner. Not even the doorway - the traditional "freedom!" barrier - was safe.

All he really needed to be near someone that would lessen the risk of him being restrained - and that was if he didn't end up doing something that would negate that. Fortunately, there were people nearby...over in the next room, or the next bed over, he wasn't paying attention. Someone looked like she had a visitor.

Be friendly. It's not like they're that final incarnation of death ready to strike you down just because you think you're safe.

Okay, so he hadn't quite forgotten about the Grim Reaper's grudge. Whatever the hell happened to Joe Rios again?

"...he...hey guys," he began, again in that damaged squeezebox voice.

[JamesRenard†]

Andrea's face still looked swollen and bruised from her first encounter with Alex White ('that bastard'), but it didn't look as bad as before to Allen, presumably having been cleansed and treated by the doctors and/or nurses who'd tended to her, while he sat outside unable to do anything.

"That... that's great to hear," Allen replied, genuinely glad that Andrea hadn't taken too much damage from the bullet. He wanted to smile, but the memories of the journey to safety on the boat prevented it from happening. It was a horrible experience; him sitting there, freezing cold and with soaking wet clothes clinging to his skin while he watched some members of STAR try and help Andrea after she fell unconscious. He had no idea what was going to happen to her, and that, coupled with the rough seas and his aquaphobia kicking in, made him violently sick.

Andrea spoke again, thanking him for rescuing her.

"Um, it's okay, Andrea, I mean... I couldn't just leave you there. It was me and... some other guy who pulled you out," Allen mumbled, racking his brains to put a name to the face. "I don't know who he was, b-but I don't think they let him on the boat." He sighed, knowing full well that the guy could possibly be dead by now. 'He doesn't deserve to die like that, why couldn't they have let him on? What could he have possibly done to get himself barred?'

He looked to Andrea, who was speaking again. She was right. They had made it. They were off the island. They were safe.

"Yeah... we did-hmm?"

Someone was talking to him and Andrea, or rather trying to talk to them. Allen looked up and saw a guy with black hair standing nearby. The guy looked familiar but Allen just couldn't think of the person's identity whatsoever.

"Oh, hey, you alright there?" Allen asked.

[laZardo†]

Without his infamously-dyed hair, or even that mischievous smile that indicated shenanigans were to be pulled, Cisco Vasquez almost looked like any other Hispanic student. And that perhaps worked to his advantage to anyone that didn't know who he was - which, truth be told, consisted mainly of whoever else was in this room that wasn't a doctor, nurse, or law enforcement officer/rent-acop

"Yeah...I guess I'm good..."

okay you've got a good start there just keep it up and you won't get heavily sedated.

"...I'm Cisco...who were you two again?" he added, before he suddenly started trembling.

gogdammit you're fucked now, say byebye to non-padded cells.

Okay, so he wasn't paying attention to whoever these two were. But maybe they would've paid attention to whoever he was. After all, they probably would have remembered hearing him on the announcements around the time he made the deal with the now-apparently-deceased Grim Reaper. And that meant that sometime before he finished his next sequence of thought, the thugs in white suits would be pinning his ass to the ground in a purely medical manner to the ambience of panicked screaming.

"I'm sorry..." he groaned, as he dropped to lean against the wall, trying not to accidentally unplug someone else's equipment and not go down with the dubious honor of the first post-game kill.

[D/N]

"Hey."

Someone new had come in and drawn Allen's attention away. Andrea couldn't tell who from her position.

"Hey, Allen."

Ugh, her head was pounding now. She needed more rest. But not until she'd told him-- what exactly?

She had just enough strength in her left arm to reach up and tug at Allen's sleeve.

"Hey Allen, I'm feeling like I sorta need to rest some more so uh... I'm gonna do that now."

Yeah, she'd do just that. There would be plenty of time later to talk and see who else had made it to wherever they were now. Yeah, and by then she'd be totally back up to her normal awesome self, and they'd be huge heroes and there'd be a fucking ticker-tape parade planned for them and... ah hell. That was it, all right. That was it for sure. Headache or pain or the memories of that island or whatever drugs she'd had or was on now, she didn't know why but somehow they were telling her that she needed to tell him something. And it had to be now.

"Wait."

She kept her hand on Allen's sleeve. Drew him a bit closer.

"Allen."

Say it and then you can rest, Andrea.

"Look Allen... I dunno exactly what's gonna happen from here, but I uh, I just need to say that no matter what... this is me, this here is the real me. I'm scared and I'm broken and I thought I'd figured it all out but I haven't yet and I can't fucking hide and..."

Fuck. Another tear.

"And but I needed it, Allen. You understand? I needed all of it and I needed you too. Couldn't have, y'know, done it without you and all. Thanks Allen. Thank you, I'm gonna rest some more, so go off and we'll talk later and... yeah. This is me. Thank you so much."

She let go and rested some more, and by the time she woke again she'd forgotten. Only knew she'd said something weird, something subconscious, hell maybe something she'd just dreamed saying. And that was fine. That was absolutely fine.

(Andrea Raymer continued in Tomorrow's Garden)

[JamesRenard†]

*placeholder post a go-go*

((Allen Birkman continued in The Personal Heights))