The Drapery Falls

[Kuzo]

"Thank you," she replied absently to the voice that came through over the comm. It was reflexive. Her mind, after all, was elsewhere.

She didn't look at Xena as she prepared the injection. The arrival of Pravus on the other side of the transparisteel a few minutes later was noted, but with a clear air of distraction.

"Isolation suit, Doctor Toydaver," she spoke into the comm, her voice drifting out into hallway over a speaker.

In her distraction, she wasn't wearing the isolation gear that she had so thoroughly insisted on for [member="Pravus Zambrano"] when he had been there in the past. She didn't need it, after all, and subterfuge and lies did not come naturally to her. So with her focus on [member="Xena Amonali"], it was such an easily neglected detail. Maintaining that lie was simply not on the forefront of her mind.

The dark haired woman stood in the isolation room with nothing more to protect her than a crisp, white lab coat. Her mind at once focused on the vial in her hands and also a million miles away.

"Are you sure about this, Xena?" She said quietly as Pravus suited up. "Because you can still change you mind. No one would think less of you, if you did."

 

[Xena Amonali]

Xena sat where she was in silence, looking back up to [member="Irajah Ven"]. The light twinkling of her previous tear lit up her calm golden eyes a bit, she couldn't help but crack a smile. Of course the sight of [member="Pravus Zambrano"] in a full isolation suit didn't falter her resolve.

"I am sure."

It was the only thing she had to say before leaning her head back forwards, creasing up the neat and tidy hospital gown she was wearing. It was surreal to think that only a few days before she had been relaxing and having fun, finally enjoying her freedom. Now she was back in another transparisteel prison, but she had a decision for this one, having entered it under her own free will.

Her head leaned forwards, her hair was held up in a bun just to keep it out of the way. The hair style certainly didn't fit her though it was better then having it get in the way. She motioned her arm out to get it ready, each breath was calm, unnaturally calm for someone who was potentially being sentenced to death. In her mind however Xena knew that she wasn't going to live forever, she had seen so much cruelty and death already that she knew she needed to do this, maybe to redeem herself.

While leaning forwards something may become clear to Irajah that wasn't obvious before as her hair normally covered it. A deepset black tattoo that resembled some sort of scan-able code lay set at the base of her neck. Considering how the rest of her form was unmarred by any other injury or any other marks from her past life this sort of thing just seemed so incredibly out of place.

Xena let the force ebb and flow through her to prepare her body for the trial it faced, it was not going to be easy but really, what good thing ever was? Going for the easy route out, that is what lead others down a dark and winding path in her experience. It lead to accidents, loss of friends and loss of life. She was not going to let her willingness to live, and her mind's urge to put herself first get the better of her; not when everything had been set up to have her go through with it, and not when she had worked so hard to get herself to the point where she agreed with her decision.

"And now... we see just how bad this thing is"

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

The Isolation Suit, the nemesis to everything tactile. He recalled the way it felt when he put it on, the protection proclaimed but the sensitivity rendered all but absent. A studio might as well demand that an artist use prosthetic limbs to paint a canvas of art. He needed to feel, he needed to touch, he needed to engage with the disease. To become familiar with it, intimate even, he could only hope for so much. Of course, he desired not the affliction and its symptoms. He wanted the one night stand knowing full and well that a long term relationship was the only thing on the menu. Just as he had done with every romantic pursuit of his life, he would continue to stalk from afar until the appraised time arrived.

But that didn't mean he missed things!

He didn't miss that she wasn't wearing a suit!

But that didn't give birth to some suspicion that she carried this disease or that she was the true harbinger of this pandemic, which seemed so fixated as to only afflict the lucky few. No, what birthed from sight of suit-absence was jealousy. He ground his teeth as he looked through the glass, watching as she engaged unencumbered. Was this some arbitrary practice she was placing on what she assumed was a novice practitioner of medicine? Had his credentials not been enough? Was the story about the chicken too much? Did he need to kill more, control more, and manipulate more to prove that he was worthy of work without the isolation suit? He knew it was contagious and he knew it was viral but as the teen sits on the couch, sure that he was immune to the effects of alcohol, Pravus assumed he could rise above it. Just as Dr. Ven had.

He let out a long sigh, inaudible to those in the room, as the suit slid on one foot at a time. Hobbling and bouncing awkwardly, he managed to get the suit half way on. With a bend backwards and a zip up, he was encased in white sterility and all that came with it. Breathing in, he felt the suit suck in and back out, as if indicating every breath he took.

Just as the glass slid open, he entered. And then it closed behind him. Pressurizing, he entered the area where Dr. Ven sat with her new patient. Or maybe it was an older patient. Maybe it was a homeless person that she ripped off the street or tore from another hospital room. The options boggled the mind of the spellcrafter as he lifted a datapad. Going to lick his finger, as if to turn the pages of a parchment book, he stopped and realized the error as his finger pressed against the glass of his suit helmet.

"Well...I must say...I am excited! Science, you can almost smell it!" Or perhaps what he smelled was pure distilled oxygen, providing just the high he needed.

[member="Irajah Ven"] | [member="Xena Amonali"]​

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah frowned slightly, drawing one of the imagers over and simply taking a quick shot of the barcode without offering a further word. It caught her attention, but it seemed such a small thing, compared to the enormity of what she hoped to discover here. Later, in her office, she would investigate. And where no one could see her, she would weep.

But here and now, the growing tidal wave that was the presence of Gideon out weighed everything else. There was no splitting her attention, not enough to make an impact.

At her core, Irajah was selfish. She understood that better now, than she had before. And while she had yet to fully embrace it, she had a certain grim forgiveness for herself. She had earned it. There wasn't room outside of survive. At least, not much of it. Not as much as she had once thought.

Not as much as sometimes she wished she had.

Enough though. Enough that the nearly bubbly tone of excitement from her fellow doctor drew something from her that he hadn't been on the receiving end of before.

A long, appraising side eye glance. The barest trace of disapproval at the corners of her lips.

This wasn't the dying strangers she had taken into the depths previously. This was a young girl, a child- and one who, while there was little enough room for it, she cared for insofar as she was able to these days.

For the first time, a shred of doubt about the suitability of his presence flickered through her thoughts. And through those hazel eyes.

It was gone again in a moment as, once again, she refocused on the task at hand.

"Injecting Gideon, oh-six hundred hours," she murmured, the recording equipment she always kept running in these rooms picking up every word, no matter how quietly whispered.

Her gaze flickered over the back of Xena's head again.

Force forgive her for what she was doing.

Because surely she wouldn't forgive herself.

*****

It didn't take long. Longer than with the previous subjects, but each of those had been sick, dying in their own way already.

Six hours in, the first symptoms appeared. The slight ache would be easy to mistake for something else. But then chills. Fever.

The pain would only escalate from there.

Every hour, then every half hour, Irajah was taking measurements, running tests. Handing off samples to Pravus, or getting water for Xena as a burning thirst would take hold.

Unlike the previous times, Irajah did not leave the room. Pravus was free to come and go as he pleased, provided he kept bio-security, but Irajah remained.

At twelve hours, she noticed the first sign of blood, seeping from the girl's ear.....

And that was the point forward that they knew Gideon had fully taken hold. And the war between it and the girl's heightened healing arose in earnest.

[member="Xena Amonali"] [member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Xena Amonali]

She had been warned of what the virus would do, but it hadn’t truly registered. In her mind until after she was afflicted with it. First came the weakness, pains as if she had been working out too much. Had she not known what was going on Xena would have assumed that it was just from something else, perhaps her overexerting herself.

The escalation in the pain and aching grew steadily from a mild prick to an annoyance. The young firrerreo was no stranger to pain however having been through hell by two parties who sought nothing but their own selfish gains. But that pain had come in spikes, it wasn’t like a long growing pulse that wouldn’t go away. Her insides felt as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, the light gnawing of the virus within her as it began its long winded war with her immune system and healing. Flesh mended and broke in a cycle that repeated all throughout her body, with the occasional burst finding its way to the surface. Starting with the small trail of blood that came from her ear… from there it was an uphill battle to gain a foothold on an invader who felt like blitzkrieging across her whole body until it was left as nothing but a husk of its former self.

The minutes ticked on into hours, hours into a day. Xena remained curled up on her side in her room, the occasional twitch and movement indicating that she was still alive. Large deep purple bruises began to form across her body, highly contrasting the new silver hue that her skin had taken. By day two it had been clear that the virus was having a very hard time with her. With each bruise or bit of progress it made, her body followed along quickly to repair the damage. Mending flesh and bone, no matter where the virus went. IN the waning hours of day 2 she had begun to bleed from her nose, it was steady and it appeared that no matter how much her body worked, it could barely stem the flow. She was constantly accepting water and whatever [member="Irajah Ven"] and [member="Pravus Zambrano"] gave to her, even if her body felt like it couldn’t.

As time went on it began to grow very clear that her body was in a losing battle, if it didn’t find something soon then she may be a goner, with only time as her ally. Small convulsions wracked her body and she constantly felt on the edge of blacking out, be it from the pain or the draining weakness that overwhelmed her like a plunge in an icy lake. In this state Xena had begun to ask Irajah to stay closer, to read her stories and to just tell her things were ok.

“It hurts… so much… why won’t it stop… Is this what being sick feels like? Is… is this what death… feels like?”

Her voice was hollow when she spoke; it held the first hints of real fear. With every tremble her body stumbled back against the brutal onslaught. She realized that no matter what happened, she would carry the scars of this; either as nothing more than a corpse or a battle hardened survivor, one of only two.

Days turned to a week, she was still holding up strong though the bruises had begun to remain for much longer. Her body had begun to bleed from all over, her pores, her eyes, her ears, her mouth. It didn’t matter anymore. If the damage didn’t kill her then the blood loss just might. The situation in full was starting to look very dire, with more than one close call. Though all signs were showing that she was fading, it wasn’t quick, but it was happening.

Each day Xena gave both Pravus and Irajah her warm smile, let them do their work but she always looked weaker, more drained and more vulnerable. She seemed to really enjoy the company of others during these days, often asking for something mundane just so someone else could be closeby. The force around her shifted and moved like a beast, wanting to snap out but knowing that it shouldn’t for fear of something lashing back. On the occasions it did lash it the flickering of the lights and movement of tools and machinery accompanied it, always dying down and ending whenever someone came in to calm her. She hated that she was losing control, but what could she really do? Her days were currently numbered and the beast that was her body wanted only one thing, no matter how it achieved it; life.

---

The barcode that Irajah had scanned began to give up its wealth of information. What had seemed like a normal identifier had proven to be much more, especially when applied to the database of The Unit. Information began to flood forward for Irajah’s consumption; it was as if the girl herself had been given her “tattoo” with the purpose of having it as an encryption key. Terabytes of data became available, each section of it being highly organized, dated and separated.
With a small check Irajah found a detailed history of Xena, more specifically that the girl was no stranger to these sorts of situations. Even more so, with every log that she looked at, Raj found the absolute horrors that scarred the girl. They seemed to explain at least Xena’s reoccurring nightmares that kept waking her up in a cold sweat, or maybe that was the Gideon Virus?

Each log opened up with an introduction from a figure in a full hazmat suit, their face obscured by a heavyset filtration mask. This being had always introduced itself as Dr. Zen. Every introduction was followed by a brief summary of the previous days test and what was on the chopping block for the current day. Given the escalation and the grim, sinister, glee in the Doctor’s voice everytime he spoke about a new development, it gave the sense that this being cared not for the life that he was mercilessly abusing. Many of the logs were accompanied with videos that were often so damn brutal that they rivalled some of the horrors that she may have seen from a battlefield, with Xena often being left clinging to the strands of life. The one thing Irajah recognized from all of it was Xena, her pleads of mercy, her shrieks of pain and the looks of terror that could break down even the hardest veteran.

And yet, here they were again. No matter which log it was, no matter which report it all showed the same thing. It showed someone who was simply used for their species, all because they could heal like no other. It even outlined tests done to further enhance her regeneration; to make it, as the doctor lovingly stated, unrivalled. His actions, his words, his work, all of them to build up the perfect weapon for his benefactor. A quick skim of the data revealed something else; this had been much of her life, over seven whole years of it.

With a quick glance back it would be clear too, that the tests she was putting Xena through right now were on par with what she had been through. To the girl, it must be like reliving that hell again. Yet she had gone in willingly; even as Xena lay where she was coughing up blood, her vitals dipping down to a dangerous state.

---

The blaring of a siren sounded, it was 3 am and Xena’s vitals had suddenly plummeted; her heart rate dropping to a point where the machines weren’t sure if she was alive or dead. The crisp hospital gown she had been wearing was stained with dark blood; her body had grown incredibly still. She was breathing, that was for certain, but it was faint.

Moments before she had been doing ok, she was losing the battle with the virus of course but she was still doing fine. There was no reason for her to suddenly just drop down. To appear as if she was on death’s door once more. Maybe the whole endeavour was just too much for her. Her still form, her closed eyes and dark hair held onto the sterile sheets like a snapshot; a beautiful, though morbid, picture of a fleeting life.

 

[Kuzo]

The first 48 hours, Irajah didn't sleep, opting instead to stay with Xena the entire time. Eventually though, the base needs of the body out weighed everything else, and while she spent almost all of her waking time in the lowest level of the labs with the girl and Doctor Toydaver, sleep and food were unfortunate necessities. Beyond the tests (unending tests and samples taken), she read to her, or sang softly the strange music her own mother had sung to her as a child. It was not simply the least that she could offer- it was all she could offer.

Was it difficult to watch? Certainly. Perhaps less so than someone else would expect, if they knew Irajah. Or at least, thought they knew her.

Oddly, the fact that she knew exactly what, as far as Gideon went, [member="Xena Amonali"] was experiencing made it easier. Irajah had lived with the virus for well over a year. Had experienced the pain, the exhaustion- it was only the Force that kept it at bay enough to function day to day, and even that failed her on the days she needed to move Gideon around her body and wall it off in a new location. Those days were agony, new bruises blossoming on her skin before her eyes, tiny internal bleeds caused by moving the virus from one organ to the next while the damage to the last could be repaired. Most of it. The attrition was real, and Irajah knew all too well that the clock was ticking until she could no longer repair enough of it to matter.

The fact that this suffer she knew, intimately, may mean that she would live?

It was amazing how that made watching it bearable.

The discovery of the data from the tattoo, however, warred with that. Not enough to stop anything- not that she could have even if she had wanted to- but it helped keep her gentle even when she occasionally wanted to snap 'I have been living with this for a year, you can stop whining for five minutes'. She didn't act on that, and even without the information probably wouldn't have, but it did help. Irajah was not a font of endless patience or compassion, and she didn't pretend she was.

Not any more at least.

There was also a small part that watched the vids with a critical eye. Not because she had any desire to recreate the experiments, most of them were only to serve a voyeuristic curiosity, rather than a true scientific method, after all. But because she was a little appalled at the level of unprofessionalism in the man. The fact that his last name was only a single letter off of hers was a detail she registered, but dismissed as irrelevant.

If Xena survived, Irajah thought to herself as she leaned back in her chair, I'll do everything in my power to keep her from this sort of treatment again. Including protecting her from myself.

The sound of the alarm snapped her out of her reverie.

Because she could not trust nurses or orderlies in this area of the lab, Raj had temporarily set up her office in the adjoining suite, and another had been set aside for [member="Pravus Zambrano"]'s use, if he chose to. It only took a minute to make it to the bedside.

"Maw ridden chit no," Irajah growled.

Xena had survived for longer than anyone infected with Gideon and not protecting themselves with the Force had any right to. There had been hope, that maybe, just maybe, this time would lead to something more than a dead end.

Irajah barely registered how far she'd needed to divorce herself from the girl in order to have that be her first reaction.

She moved swiftly, a syringe drawn from the sideboard, filled and tapped and pushed into her IV. Turning up the drip, forcing fluid in at a faster rate, both for the chemicals to reach her heart and get it jump started faster as well as to bring her blood pressure up.

"Come on Xena, fight," Irajah murmured, leaning over and searching the still face. "You can beat this, I know you can, come on."

She had to.

For both their sakes.

 

[Xena Amonali]

The machines that told the living from the dead remained in a stalwart silence. Light pumping and low drips were all that were heard in the room. Xena was breathing extremely slowly, her body starting to pale a bit but no new patches of blood showed along her form.

Moments turned to hours, and an hour turned nearly into a day. Still Xena remained in her state, as if held by stasis, a snapshot of youth and of the horrors that the virus could inflict. With her mind perceiving itself as dying, it took a moment to let her relive her best memories, a little touch of good for her broken mind. They began to fly to her vision like a rough slideshow, internally she couldn't help but smile letting a tear come down from her closed eyes, creating its spot on her pillow.

All the while her body started to do its work, though it appeared dead or dying, there was so much more waiting to be seen.

---

Fields of greenery, large trees, the sound of laughter. They came to Xena again like a warm wave across her conscious. Her mind smiled, gaze moving along the rolling fields with their pockets of colour, every bit swaying in an invisible breeze. The large wroshyr trees in the distance standing like stalewart pillars of nature, casting their shade and their protection for the inhabitants below. Off to her left grazed a herd of Arrawtha-Dyr, the peaceful creatures moved with a small shimmer to them, as if she was merely watching an afterimage of them. Rubbing her eyes a bit Xena tried to focus in on the elusive creatures, only to see that the herd was gone.
A light push knocked Xena bit to the left, then to the right, her eyes tried to find what bumped into her, only noticing shadows from her past running past her towards the water and beaches that were in the distance. Every one of them were people that she merely recognized from visions and faint elusive memories that ever evaded her focus. As another ran past her she made an attempt to grab onto one of them only to find her hands passing through the being as if they were a ghost, a memory. Nothing truly tangible for her to grasp onto, just like the mists and fog that had begun to spring around and move in closer.

Voices sprung up around her in many different languages, urging her to run and hide. They were coming. She wasn't sure who they were but it was something she feared, so she ran. She did not stop running as shadows began to close in around her, each holding one of the voices that urged her on, to run towards safety.

Breaking into a clearing, the fog began to lift around her. The chocking tightness was replaced once more with the sense of calm. Figures began to emerge from the remnants of the fog, each of them was an important figure of good in Xena's life. A set of firrerreo, a few wookiees and a cathar with pink hair stood before her, each beaming a smile that compelled Xena to walk towards them.

"Come, my child.. it has been so long. Come give mother a hug.. my how you have grown, into such a beautiful young woman." The soft, motherly voice of the female firrerreo filled the clearing. She had kneeled down, smiling to Xena who could only stand still, a bit shocked.
"M-mom? Dad..." tears began to form in the girls vision and she just walked forwards to give her mother a hug. But the feeling of warmth, the feeling of her parent's embrace didn't come to her, instead her hands passed through them, their forms being like the shimmering mirage off the fog that had once again creeped in around them. The gaze down to her hands started to break her, though her gaze revealed to her the deep crimson red marks of blood across her form. With frantic eyes she gazed to her loved ones only to see them starting to break apart and decay before her, with the ground cutting out. She wanted to run over and give her mother that hug before they became nothing but fog.

An invisible force gripped onto her, pulling her back even as she clawed at the air, screaming and fighting to get back to her loved ones, with all of them fading away into the crumbling mindscape ahead of her, only disappearing into a cloud of icy blue ashes that were swallowed up by the encroaching fog.

"NO! No let me go back! MOM! DAD!!! COME BACK!!!"

Her voice fell onto deaf ears, she was left in the blackness of a new field, dark grass and skeletal trees surrounding it. Creatures began to come out, demonic shades which held little form but moved towards her, eager to sink their claws into the remaining life she had. Broken down to a husk with the realization that she would never see her loved ones ever again, she just sat on her knees, letting them start to tear into her form. Every attack from the beings ripped off a wispy chunk of flesh that disintegrated into amber sparks and ashes that flowed off into the deadened forest around her. Under the watchful gaze of the bloody moon that hung like a watchman overhead, the beings did their work. She felt the pain, the tearing and destruction that was ripping along her form, yet she had no fight left.
The years of relentless fighting had hollowed the girl out, all she wanted was to be with someone now that cared, all of her loved ones had been torn from her. She had no one left. In the loneliness, with the every attacking shades she had begun to accept her fate, one that decayed her body and demolished her soul.

"Fight"

A frantic voice broke across her mindscape, each of the shades paused to hiss at the source of it.

"Xena! Fight!"

Once more the voice broke through, caused the creatures to step back once more as a brilliant light began to fill through her mind, around her shattered and broken self.

"You can beat this! I know you can!"

It was a voice Xena had heard many times over the past few days, a voice of a figure who had cared for her, the one that she had put her life on the line for.

"Come on Xena! Fight! You can beat this! Just fight!"

Perhaps the creatures realized what was going on, but they all moved in, going for the killing blow; though it never came. In the enclosed expanse of the clearing a shimmering shield had formed around Xena.

"Go on, fight. You can do this. I believe if you Sala... I believe that you can do this, we all do"

Her eyes gazed about, seeing all of those she had been with, those that she has touched, and the one who was wishing her to fight the hardest. The view of [member="Irajah Ven"] standing there, wispy wings hugging her back.

"Xena you can do this!"

Her, and those that were with her, produced a single luminescent blade which they used to slice down the shades around her. Turning herself back to the others, she gave them all a big hug, with those she cared for swarming in around her, giving her hope, given her life, giving her a will to fight on. They began to disappear until one remained, the visage if Irajah standing before her with her hand out.

"Come on, let's bring you back"

---

A surge of the force was suddenly blasted out from around Xena, lights shattered, instruments went flying into the walls and the glass that kept her infection from the rest of the unit stated to crack. It was like someone had just tried to shoot a gun from inside of a very enclosed space, the sheer pressure of it all being being a bit overwhelming. Irajah herself was launched back into the wall by the blast.

Time grew still in the aftermath, the eerie green of the machines illuminated the room. Cracked displays showed their errors and the light sockets sparked from the forceful destruction that had wrecked havoc onto the room mere moments before. The deadened silence was broken as the heart rate monitor kicked back to life.

*Beep*



*Beep*


*Beep*

*Beep*

A steady beat had begun to play through the distorted machine, the cracked display showing a growing, healthy heart rate. It appeared that she had begun to rebuild back again, to claw back to life from the depths of death that had gripped a hold of her. Even in the green light it was evident that the dark bruises were started to recede and repair back to the flesh they had been. The force moved around her like a living beast, going in and out of her form, willing cells to rebuild and isolate the virus while newer, specialized hunter-killer cells worked to overwhelm the Gideon virus, heating it up and literally breaking it apart like a group of Japanese honeybees working to take out a Japanese giant hornet, effectively killing the relentless invader.

Xena slowly opened her eyes, preferring not to move as her body felt like it was on fire while her cells did their destructive work. She remained conscious, looking for the voice that had broken through to will her to finally take the steps to halt an unrelenting force.

"Thank you.."

The soft tones of her voice were heard among the steady beeping of the heart monitor. She knew where she wanted to go, she had family and those she cared for and she would never lose them again.

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah had just a moment of warning, a tingle in the force- just enough time to bring her arms up around her face before the Force exploded around [member="Xena Amonali"]. She hit the wall, hard, but gritted her teeth and bore it. Shards of glass rained down around her, and she felt the needle sharp edges slice against her skin. She stayed in that position for a few moments after the miniature maelstrom, only lowering her arms slowly once she could hear the beep beep beep of the equipment again.

Cautious, slow, she moved back toward the bed, not sure if another blast was immanent. But both the Force and the slight form on the bed were still, so she let out a small breath. Hazel eyes flickered to the read outs, then back to the pale, still face.

Glancing around the Lab, she frowned ever so slightly. In truth, raw power had never particularly impressed Irajah. It was what people did with it that mattered. She made a mental note, however, to next time take into account a subject's force sensitivity when arranging the room. Because this was a mess.

The sound of the girl stirring brought her back to the present moment, and she closed the distance to the bed again. One hand reached out, pressing against her cheek. The other was already drawing a syringe. The read outs were scaling upward, her body was finally, in truth, fighting off the infection. All of this, everything they (no they, she, Xena) had risked would be for nothing if Irajah didn't attempt to find out just what, exactly, had turned the tides.

"You did all the hard work," she murmured softly, smiling at her. Yes, she was glad she had pulled through, and not merely for the sake of her research.

It wasn't Xena's power that impressed her. But someone who never gave up? Well, that she respected.