knowthyexits | (no subject)

She's only been in the clinic for hours and the only battle wound she has is a new IV puncture -- one to add to the collection -- but she feels like an idiot. She used to be taken down by far more than a little side-effect, but something's wrong with her system and her body shuts down on her. She doesn't know when this happened, but Sarah fears it's just one more domino in a cascading series where her life is slowly being pried from her and the battle has been reduced to her white and red cells.

She's asked Neil to get Cal. If she's going to get escorted home, she's going to get the stubbornest. Once there, the new pup will do his damnedest to watch out for her -- Sarah's been training him for exactly that purpose. Now, she sits at the end of the bed, her wig settled perfectly on her head. She wants something to fight and she keeps losing.

When she hears footsteps, she looks up and keeps her eyes on Cal as he enters. Maybe there's another purpose for her request. After all, she's still not sure how he's coping with the fallout from his accident. She wants the damn spider in front of her so she can shoot it dead. "Hi," she greets him, head tipped to one side as she starts to collect her things to leave.

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She turns on her heel, giving him an incredulous look. "Cal, listen to me," she says sharply. "I love you the way you are. I'm so beyond screwed up that I don't even know what's normal anymore, but all I know is that I want to wake up some mornings and not think to myself 'what's going to go wrong today'. That is my happy, so yeah, I guess I have a bullshit preconceived notion," she admits. "I don't want to mother you," she says sharply, taking a dangerous step closer to him, right in his personal bubble.

"You know what I think is wrong? I think you having amnesia is wrong. I think you being dealt a shitty hand in life is wrong, but I don't think you are. So, get that through your head," she grits out, her throat thick and her jaw tight with stress. "This isn't about you being someone else. You say you're fine with things, so I believe you because I trust you. So believe me right back, Caliban."

"But I'm not fine, okay? And I'm not happy and I can't cope with that, but I will. I've made do with worse," she says, stripping the emotion down until she's left with nothing but the stoic truth.

Apparently all that time we hadn't been talking about me at all, but rather Sarah, and her illness, and everything that came with that. Agonizing as it was, I think I would have rather the focus stayed on my inability to be happy with my place in the world.

I didn't know what the fuck to do or say, Sarah right up in my face all fierce like she was daring me to contradict the ravings of a dying woman. My fingers had stilled, but they were paused against the beaded bracelet on my wrist, a tiny anchor to sanity.

I sucked in a deep breath. What Would Niko Do?

"Alright," I conceded with a short nod. "Just…relax, okay? I'll just keep my mouth shut from now on."

She takes in a deep breath, fraught with the frustration of dealing with Cal and the incessant fight that she keeps having to counter. "You don't have to," she allows, when she takes in that deep breath and calms herself. It's like she goes straight to being high-strung when he's around and she needs to somehow stop that. "Cal, you know I just want you to be. It just always helped take my mind off my own issues when there was someone else to focus on. John was good, that way."

And Charley, too, while she had him -- before...well, before everything got complicated.