kukkijar | Teddy Altman ; APPOINTMENTS

Is he? [Her tone agrees with Teddy's thoughts - Billy should be sleeping, none of them are going to get much peaceful rest for a while and they should claim it when they can.] I won't stay long. How is he doing, when he's awake?

[She keeps her voice down to just above a whisper, just in case.]

[He closes the door behind her once she's inside, slow and gentle, and keeps his hand on the doorknob as if to figure out how to answer that question. How is he doing when he's awake...]

He's... better than he was on the draft. But he's quiet. He doesn't eat much, doesn't sleep much, apologizes for nothing sometimes... [Teddy leans against the door, arms crossed and gaze on the floor.] I know I've got no business diagnosing anything, but I think it might be PTSD. Or something like it.

[Despite all of her reading and studying the sicknesses of other worlds since arriving here, that's one she still isn't clear about. She gets the general idea, though. Mia looks down at the floor.]

We...went through a lot. Billy moreso than most others, I think. [She found him invisible, shaken, in a corner in a dark room.] He will probably think there is some sort of time limit on getting "better". Try not to let him believe that.

[Since she didn't come to their apartment to throw their burdens all over the floor, she forces a change of pace and looks up at Teddy with the hints of a sly smile.]

And you? I heard a thing or two about you.

[Teddy's lost in thought for another moment, thinking about Billy and wondering just how much he went through, what happened to make her think he suffered more than others. After that, though, Teddy blinks, shakes his head, and gives her his attention.]

... What? What about me?

[Oh, if he wants to discuss Billy, she'll tell him what she thinks he should know in order to help him. For now, the steal-a-fry mischief shows up in her eyes.]

I heard Luceti became a...a battle hospital, of sorts. Before reinforcements came for us.

[Oh... She heard about that? Teddy isn't sure if there should be the sort of mischief he sees in her eyes over that, making him glance to the side.]

Yeah... Yeah, it did. Almost as soon as you guys left.

I heard that you helped.

[Oh, no, why isn't he looking at her? Maybe when she tried to look pleased, she just appeared tired and confused instead, or something worse.]

Helped a lot, I should say. I was proud to hear that, and I am still proud of you now. [The corners of her smile fade, and her whole face looks honestly tired.] I wasn't here to see it, but I know you did a wonderful job.

[She wasn't there, which is why she didn't know about the people Teddy had to sit by, holding their hand and smiling to them, talking to them, give them someone who cared while they slipped away, their injuries too great for him to work on, the healers all busy with other injured patients. She wasn't there, which is why she didn't know how Teddy held his head in his hands and couldn't get the image of the light fading out of someone's eyes, the sensation of their hand going limp still in his own. How that, as well as seeing the people who were still alive, made him so focused and resolved on what he was doing.

When he looks back at her to tell her these things though, he sees the tiredness on her face before anything else, and that clues him in to the fact, the fact, that she's hiding something. Likely how she's feeling after the draft - if Billy's feeling terrible enough to not talk to him, then Mia...]

... What about you? You were out there...

[The pause, the short silence, is damning enough. I said something wrong. That she could hurt him with real praise is an angle she just doesn't want in their friendship.

Thus she scrambles to recover when he turns it all back to the draft itself.]

Well, you...you found me, remember? I'm doing better now than I was then.

[Oh, so dishonest. So cowardly, to hide any of this from him when there's a solid chance he feels some of it himself. This isn't the kind of teacher she wants to be, the kind of friend she wants to be.]

[Hesitation, trying to recover when he caught her off guard.

... Yeah. She's keeping things hidden. And it stings, knowing that both Billy and Mia are pushing him away. Is it because he wasn't there? That he can't understand? His jaw clenches slightly before it relaxes again, and he moves forward to hold her shoulder, gentle and supportive, honest concern in his eyes.]

Mia... You're not hurt now, not physically. But things aren't really better, right?

[When did he gain such intense eyes?

She did not come here to worry him, or to talk about things that would lead to worrying him. All her mental backpedaling doesn't stop a faint flush across her cheeks or the tremble in her voice.]

They are, at least a little. We're...here.

Yeah. We're here.

[He takes another step forward, getting both arms around her and pulling her into the best hug he can manage. He heard the tremble, saw the flush, can see how she's trying so hard to keep strong. But...

We're here now. We're safe.

So trust me?]

[From Mia's perspective, she continues talking. She says, in what she thinks is a gentle voice, that she just needs space for a minute, she's staring to feel unsettled and maybe a little dizzy.

In reality, in a world Mia's mind did not create for her, she is very still and blank-eyed as Teddy hugs her; she says nothing, picks up an all-over shudder for a few seconds. One exhaled, actual "dizzy" is all that makes it out of her head and into words. Then, she faints.]

Mia? Mia!

[He holds her up easily; super strength has several advantages, after all. And he tries to be quiet, knowing that Billy's sleeping and... actually sleeping, and Teddy doesn't want to ruin that with this. Especially since he knows Mia would hate it if there were two people hovering over her.

So after a brief moment of panic followed by a brief moment of not knowing what to do, Teddy scoops her up and brings her further inside to the couch, laying her flat on it, save for her feet up on one of the arms of the couch. There, he sits on the floor beside her and waits. Fainting spells usually don't last long, so...]

[It doesn't last long, she's coming to - slowly - right as he sits down on the floor. Training and learned instinct take over and she keeps her eyes shut, though it means she doesn't remember where she is right away. After a few very deliberate breaths, she feels all pins-and-needles everywhere, instead of feeling nothing.

Feeling, such as it is, brings memory with it, and she does try to open her eyes a little bit.]

Teddy? [It's quite slurred, still.]

Hey. [He reaches out to lay his hand on her forehead; it's not cold, no, but he hopes it'll give her some comfort anyway.] Just give yourself another minute, all right?

[It is comforting, though she wants to withdraw from the closeness as she did just a minute ago.

I'll give you a few.

That shard of memory is all it takes; Mia draws in one quick, deep breath, crying without opening her eyes again by the time she exhales. It's too late, she doesn't have enough control of herself to stop herself (one hand lifts, sheet-pale and limp, like she wants to cover her face or wipe her eyes but she can't); she remembers, vague and disconnected, that Billy is sleeping and she needs to be quiet because something tore him up so badly he disappeared and begged her to be able to help somebody.

She can't look at Teddy now, not like this.]

[Teddy's pretty sure he's never seen Mia cry before.

He wants to hug her again, but after just fainting, jostling her might make her feel even worse. So he takes the hand she has lifted in his instead, stroking the back of it with his thumb, his other hand moving back enough to lay on the top of her head instead.

Mia might be trying to stop herself, but Teddy knows that this is what she needs. So he doesn't make a big deal of it, doesn't try to talk to her. Just lets her cry.]

[What scares her the most is that she can't stop. Even when the prickling retreats from her arms and hands, and some of the black fog clears out of her head, everything feels stiff and useless and she's still crying.

Finding the strength to look at him is so hard. She finally does, red-eyed and still very pale, and he looks so worried. Mia can't face that, the slow realization he must have that she isn't responsible or dependable at all when people are hurting, all her gathered failure out in the open. She couldn't even tell him he'd done well without ruining it.

'I'm sorry,' she tries to say, but between the whisper and the cracks running through her voice she might as well have stayed silent.]

Hey, hey...

[With Mia able to look at him, Teddy can't really hold back any longer. He leans over just as he slides his hands under her head and shoulder, and he lifts her up just enough to pull her into a hug. Enough for his arm to slide around her back and his free hand to hold the back of her head, letting her cry on his shoulder. He shuts his own eyes, hoping that she'll take as long as she needs rather than try to gather herself up in front of him.]

It's okay... it's okay...

[At first, for a few seconds, she feels smothered and closed-in within his hold, calling up with intensity the memory of the boiling bloody sea beyond death. Mia's breath catches on it, and there she realizes she can still breathe just fine; what's more, with Teddy holding her like this she doesn't have to worry as much about the quiet, and she starts to cry in earnest, temporarily abandoning every feeling that isn't desperate loss.

It will take her a long time to settle, because she is not trying to collect herself. She can't, not this time, not on her own.]

[Teddy's fine with that. He knows that just about everyone who went on that draft should probably just cry for a while, even someone who's strong like Mia. That was a horror that no one could come back quite the same from, and the loss they all felt is deep within them. It's a loss he can't identify with, but by god, he does not want that to be the reason why people shut him away.

So for more reasons than one, it's a relief to feel her cry against his shoulder. It's a dam being broken as well as a friend being trusted.

He rubs circles into her back, continuing to whisper comforting nonsense, just to give a soothing voice in return for making her breath catch like it did earlier. Holds her like she means something, because she does, and he hadn't been lying when he said he was glad to see her back in the draft. He was glad to see her alive.]

[After a while, it shifts from raw, painful sobbing into something gentler but hardly less painful, a mixture of loss and failure and not knowing how to stop crying anymore, despite how exhausted she is. Every third breath or so catches, now, on the inhale, the sort of half-hiccup sound that comes only with powerful tears.

Finally, finally she thinks she has some measure of control over herself, and she finds herself still weak and drained; one hand closes with a visible tremble around a bit of Teddy's shirt.]

I'm- so- sorry.

[Each word separated by a few breaths and punctuated by that now-unbearable hitch in her throat. Just that much is enough to bring fresh tears, renew all her feelings of how much better she should be than this.]

It's okay... Don't be sorry.

[He's not sure what she's sorry for, if it's for crying on him or... or maybe it was those hidden feelings that he could never quite pick past, always hung back on, because it reminded him of what he himself could be like.

Teddy stays quiet after that, not wanting to press the issue too much. But he does want her to know that she really doesn't have to be sorry, not for anything she's done. It's okay.]

But I- shouldn't-

[No, she tells herself, no you need to not talk until you can do it in whole sentences. Even short ones. Teddy already spent all this time comforting her when he must be hurting too, for himself and for Billy and his other friends on the draft, and yet he hasn't let go. For the first time since dying that day, she feels safe enough.

So she cries a little more, without trying to explain herself; it's another few minutes before all the jumps in her breathing resolve to just one or two every once in a while. Mia lacks the strength to so much as lift her head yet, but she'll get there.]

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