“Christ,” Alex said. “Who in the hell makes up all these rules?”
Rebecca smiled and patted him on the leg.
“Alice is an extreme example,” Rebecca said. “Not every M-class has problems on that scale, okay? She insists on using her protocol all the time, maybe more than any other Operator I’ve met, despite the consequences. Other people handle it better.”
Alex thought for a moment.
“Um, so, Mitsuru’s scars, then?”
“You little shit,” Rebecca said approvingly. “How did you figure that out?”
“Well, she cut herself when she saved me, that first night,” he said, smiling. “Before she used the barrier protocol. And then with what you just said… It doesn’t seem like you’d let someone that, uh, unstable work in the field, unless they had some truly exceptional abilities, right?”
“Yeah, more or less,” Rebecca admitted grudgingly, “Mitsuru’s kind of unique, though. A long time ago, there was a plan to help her avoid having to use her Black Protocol. The surgery, right? The implant. The whole idea had, you know,” Rebecca paused and looked briefly angry, “mixed results. It won’t be repeated, that’s for sure.”
“Wait, what?”
“Another time,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “We don’t have all night, and I came here to talk to you about some important things. I can’t be the only one in Central who knows you woke up, so it will be common knowledge, soon.”
“What’s up with Eerie? Why isn’t she waking up?”
Rebecca smiled and stroked Eerie’s cheek gently with the back of her hand.
“I fixed it so she won’t wake up until we are finished. She’s fast asleep, dreaming about something that makes her happy,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “This is, actually, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Making Eerie happy is one of the things you wanted to talk about?”
Alex fought off the urge to pinch himself, just to be sure this wasn’t an extremely odd dream.
“Sort of. You see, I’ve known Eerie since she could walk without falling over, and I’ve never seen her latch on to someone the way she has with you. I think this is probably a new experience for her, and I’m not sure what to make of it — she’s not human, after all, not really.” Rebecca frowned, pulling her feet up onto the seat, clutching her knees to her chest. “I don’t know what it means, that Eerie is acting this way. I mean, she’s not totally abnormal, I know she’s gone out with boys before. But she didn’t seem to particularly care about them, one way or the other. You didn’t,” she asked, her voice tolerant and frank, “you know, do anything with her, while you were in San Francisco, did you?”
“N-no,” Alex stammered. “Nothing like that. I’m not even sure that she likes me, you know. She doesn’t always act like it.”
Rebecca nodded sympathetically.
“I bet. I’m not sure that she even knows what she likes, some of the time. But, that’s beside the point,” Rebecca said, leaning closer. “My point is this — Eerie has put a lot of effort into being the first thing you see when you wake up, right? And her reaction to this, when it happens, is likely to be, well, intense.”
“…and?”
“And I’m wondering if you want that.”
“Huh?” Alex said, puzzled.
“Alex, I can put you back to sleep for a few more hours,” Rebecca said glumly. “So that you’ll wake up when only the nurses are here. Or, if you prefer, a bit later, when Emily is around.”
“Wait, what? What does it matter?”
Rebecca shrugged.
“If you don’t care, then I don’t care,” she said. “Just wanted to give you fair warning. Girls take this sort of thing seriously.”
Alex scratched at his arm, where the tape had been torn away, leaving behind red, irritated skin.
“Consider me warned, then. I’m not going back to sleep, anyway, not for any reason,” Alex said firmly. “Besides, I thought I was supposed to be staying away from the cartel girls.”
“Eerie presents her own set of complications. But I’m not interested in keeping you away from anyone, Alex, and I’m sorry I gave you that impression,” Rebecca said, looking upset. “I’m trying to give you options, okay? Eerie seems to be kind of fascinated by you, and that’s already kind of a dangerous thing. If she decides that she likes you, well, then we are in unexplored territory.”
Alex held his hands up in surrender.
“Okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to be a jerk,” he said apologetically. “I’m still out of it and in shock, you know? Don’t take me too seriously.”
“I never do,” Rebecca cut in, cheerfully, folding her arms across her chest and sitting back in the chair.
“What’s so scary about Eerie?”
“Well,” Rebecca said, looking at him doubtfully. “She isn’t fully human, for one thing.”
“Yeah, and? I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but compared to my daily life lately, that doesn’t seem all that odd.”
“Being part of the same species is kind of a minimum standard that most people apply in dating,” Rebecca said, resting her forehead on her hand tiredly. “Beyond that, you have noticed that she has some little biological quirks, right?”
Alex nodded.
“Sure, the whole ‘my body is a drug factory’ thing, right?”
Alex paused while he recalled the room of dead Weir, and then his own somewhat fuzzy recollections of the night he’d spent with Eerie. Both seemed a touch surreal now, for different reasons.
“Yeah, that thing,” Rebecca said, smirking. “What do you think happens, Alex, when you act as a catalyst for her abilities?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, scratching his head. “What?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca admitted, spreading her hands. “And that’s the whole problem.”
Alex yawned and sat up in his hospital bed.
“This is all kind of a moot point, because I’m not going back to sleep.” Alex shook his head. “I still can’t believe I’ve been asleep that long.”
Alex felt just a bit of the panic he’d felt earlier, then, like he could feel the shape of the thing out there, emotionally, but it was still somehow distant, something to be objectively observed, but not necessarily something to be concerned over. He couldn’t help but wonder how long this particular perspective would last.
“Yeah, it has to be disconcerting,” Rebecca said, putting her hand against Alex’s forehead. “You seem totally healthy, though, if a bit undernourished. Are you feeling any better?”
“Thanks to you,” Alex said. “But, it isn’t a brand new experience for me. You lose a lot of time, being locked up. It’s weird, actually — every day seems to stretch on endlessly, but when you look at a calendar, you realize you’ve lost weeks or months, with no specific memory of the time passing.”
Rebecca smiled at him.
“It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? What we can get used to, if we have to. It’s always more than you think you could deal with, in the abstract.”
Rebecca looked affectionately at the sleeping girl curled beside her, reaching over to tuck an errant faded blue lock back underneath the hood of her sweatshirt.
“You’ve already changed a lot, Alex, since I met you. I’m interested to watch what happens from here. But you’ll be okay, you know that, right?”
“Why in the world,” Alex asked plaintively, “is Eerie wearing a Pittsburg Penguins sweatshirt? Don’t tell me she’s a big hockey fan. Is she from Pittsburg? There are Fey in Pittsburg?”
Rebecca laughed, standing up and brushing the wrinkles from her jeans.
“She says she just likes penguins,” Rebecca said, shrugging. “I’m going to stay out of your way from here on out, okay, Alex?” She leaned close to him, and then, much to his surprise, kissed him on the forehead. “You keep coming to see me every week, but I’ll stop meddling in your affairs. You seem to have everything under control.”
“Do I?”
