Starring:
Date: February 4, 2010
Summary:
The Haitian heat doesn't agree with Hallis' hair or Adam's girlish figure.
"I'm Here, Afterall"
A Tent Somewhere in Haiti
A few hours after the Haitian man left, Hallis begins writhing in pain on the cot. The adrenaline of the days events has quite worn off and now there is a true fear of death. She's quite aware that she's no longer immune to it due to already being dead, her dream of purgatory has been crushed in the dirt along with Samedi's dreams of Haitian domination. One of the little orphans is still in the tent, watching over her at the behest of the nurse who had escorted them in before, other than her, the tent is barren.
«"Water, please I need water…"» she says in a whispered voice, the sweat on her forehead has soaked into her hair. The helicopter is late, who knows what lays in store for the Americans caught in the country.
Uh-oh. Things are not looking good for Homestar Runner. Already trusting in conventional medicine, it doesn't look like the limited supplies this tiny village has are doing much to slake the infection raging in the bullet wound and keeping it from healing. For a while now, Adam's been looking on, having a rather first-hand knowledge of when medicine tends to be working and when it doesn't; this is certainly a case in the latter category. They don't even seem to have enough morphine or anything to go around, so Hallis gets the short end of the stick.
He'd been looking for a brief second here and there, but no matter what, it was always that nurse or one of the kids sitting around to watch. This is the opening though. «"Go get her water…I'll see to her,"» he tells the kid in French, and waits for him to leave before working some miracles.
Syringe? Check. Regenerative blood? Check. Maybe it's stupid, but…he snatches a needle and syringe, thankfully fresh and sterile from the tiny medical supplies bin, a beat-up relic of former foreign aid. He can only shake his head at the foolishness of it all…had he acted on his plans of some time again, this would be on the market, for everyone to use. The needle goes on the syringe, then the needle gets jabbed in his arm with a wince. When the plunger comes up, it's pulling that crimson, non-Newtonian fluid, filling the big honking syringe up to full. "I somehow doubt there's going to be cookies and jucie after this donation…" he mumbles, before kneeling beside Hallis' cot, squeezing her skinny lower arm tight, and looking to find a vein in her elbow.
The small woman has been slipping in and out of lucidity for a little while. When Adam grabs her arm, it's at a point where she doesn't realize exactly where she is. Her skin is cold, too cold for the temperature of the area they're in, and quite clammy. Her pale arm doesn't even seem to have ever tasted the rays of the sun. It's his lightly tanned fingers that catch her attention first. The squeeze doesn't even register due to the searing pain in her side.
Tilting her head somewhat to get a better look at Adam's face, Hallis' eyebrows furrow just a little as she realizes just who is beside her. "Adam, I'm scared…" She has no idea what's happening, half delirious from the pain. "I don't want to die alone again. The first time I died with my dog. It didn't hurt as much as this." She hasn't complained once, not to anyone, not until now. It's unusual behavior for her, until a few months ago, she likely would have been whining for the entire limited supply of morphine.
"Don't worry…you're not going to die. Didn't God tell you I can work miracles?" he quips, grinning. Of course, that grin is like 90% sure that this is going to work, and hides that 10% uncertainty. "And besides, even if you did die, you wouldn't be alone. I'm here, afterall." It's a little grim, but it's the truth! That being said, the vein is pretty easy to find, since she's so skinny and weak. Makes it easy to dig that needle in (yes, the used needle, but he's pretty sure there's nothing infectious in his body…and even so, herpes is treatable), and push that plunger down. His own blood pours into Hallis' veins, and…that's about all he can do. Sit back and watch now, and just in time: he can hear that kid coming back with a sloshing bucket of water and a clanging metal cup.
By the time the child trundles back into the tent, Adam's blood has mixed with her own and is circulating throughout Hallis' system. When metal cup is dipped into the pail and offered up to the blonde woman, she is just strong enough to reach over and take it. The yellowed liquid likely would have given her pains of a different sort were it not for the Englishman's help and despite the horrible taste, she drinks like a camel deprived for months. As the last drops are emptied into her mouth, the wound has already started to heal itself.
Hallis hands the cup back to the child and gives her a smile, «"You have magic water, I feel much better already."» Looking up at Adam again, she gnaws on her lower lip. "Thank you." She's still not completely sure what just happened, just that he saved her life. "I saw you get shot so many times, I was scared that you were dead." It's not a subject that comes up in every day conversation much, the ins and outs of immortality, so she's not completely certain how to broach the subject.
Good idea switching to English. Not only is his French a little rusty (not bad, just, rusty), and not all of the Haitians are likely to understand English. "Well, you can see that there's no real reason to be scared of that, at least. Bullets don't really affect me all that much." The "drug" delivered, Adam stows the needle away out of sight, out of mind, and settles back onto the rough, battered metal stool he'd been sitting on for some time now. "It's a handy little trick that's gotten me out of some pretty hairy scenarios." That tends to happen in 400 some years of life.
"And me now." Hallis smiles faintly, finally feeling well enough to actually sit up on the cot. She swings her legs down to touch her feet to the ground and smiles at the child, «"I'm alright now, you can go."» The young woman isn't sure if the child was told to watch her, but the fact that the American is no longer writhing on the cot is enough to send the little one out of the tent to share the magic water with all of the sick and injured of the tent village. "I have so many questions, but … Would it be rude to ask them? Or do you mind?" It's obvious that the socialite feels just a little uncomfortable asking, who knows how he'll react. "I won't, if you don't. I mean. I don't quite know. Just how?"
On the stool, Adam runs his fingers through the short-trimmed hair, and then interlaces them as he holds his hands to the back of his head. This certainly wouldn't be the first time anyone's learned about his power, and besides, she saw him sponge about three clip-fulls of bullets back there courtesy of Samedi's men. "Regenerative blood…" he says, dryly, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth, over his gums and what have you, in a very nonchalant way. Like being a few centuries old is no big deal. He saves that gem for himself though.
A long drawn out breath is let loose as Hallis digests the full extent of those two words. Her lips form a small 'o' as she comes to a silent understanding of what it means. One, she's going to live, two he can't die. "So you can't ever die? Infinite life?" No end is rather unfathomable, she's caught between staring at him in disbelief and awe. "I don't think I could ever imagine not dying. In the hospital, I kept having dreams that I was dying over and over again. You were in one, you killed me with a sword."
"Well, there's been no dying thus far…" he says with a nod. Nothing permanent, at least. Nobody's going to voluntarily learn his weaknesses from his own mouth, that's for damn sure. "Welcome to my life, sometimes. You dream of living, and death is the nightmare. Sometimes it gets to the point where those like me dream of death and life is the nightmare," he says with a wan smile and a little chuckle. "Not to say life isn't good, just that it does sometimes feel as if it's gone on far longer than I'd care for. Strange that I'd be in your nightmares though…"
"It is strange, but it was you. We were in a mansion, having dinner. It was really, really sad." Hallis utters with a small nod. Her hands move up to her face to cover her eyes as she rubs her forehead. When all of the grime and dust has been rubbed as far away as it can go, she lifts her eyes to look at Adam again. This time she gives him a much warmer smile, "I hope that it never comes true, the dress was too pretty to ruin." He has rather good taste for a man, at least in her dreams.
The smile fades as she licks her chapped lips and then swallows. "Adam, who is Angela Petrelli? The woman that sent you here, that's her name, right? Is she related to the senator?"
The mention of a dress has him quirk his left eyebrow up a bit and look at her oddly. "Well, I'll have to take your word for it. I've never had a dream like that in my life." As for Angela Petrelli…well, that's a whole new can of worms, stuffed all the way down at the bottom of a deep well, and then some. He seems hesitant to touch her in order to comfort her, but sits back and smiles a little as well.
"Yes, Angela Petrelli is the Senator's mother," he answers succinctly, if repititiously. He leaves personal opinion out of the matter…for now. There's some very unsavory things he could say about the woman, but no sense in dragging her through the mud yet. Plus, it's so much better when she's around to trade barbs with.
"I'm glad that you didn't have a dream like that. I think the only thing creepier than me dreaming about you killing me is you dreaming about killing me." She answers in a low voice, there's a certain edge of humor in it though. At his explanation of Angela, her eyes widen just a little and her eyebrows raise. "I wonder if Grandmother knows her, she knows a lot of people." Her voice drifts off a little as she considers the chances. While the family is from the same social hierarchy it doesn't seem likely that the elder Van Cortlandt would mix with someone with the last name of Petrelli, just for the simple fact that it sounds a little too organized crime.
Oh, and how vaguely right her grandmother would be. The Company wasn't necessarily criminal, but definitely organized, and operating above the law. "Everyone knows the Petrellis, it seems," he adds with a wry smile and a little chuckle, secretly breaking the fourth wall…should there be one. "It's good to see you up and about, however. There was a period where I was attempting to market that sort of miracle cure, a throwback to the old miracle elixers of yester…century. To my great surprise, the FDA doesn't really care for people using their blood as a cureall, though."
His chuckle brings a brighter smile to her face. "I would imagine that if they ever decided to use it that they'd bleed you dry or something like that. I don't think I'd like to even imagine you on a table with tubes running in and out of you, like they do on those movies with aliens in them." But Adam isn't an alien, at least she doesn't think so. She turns her head toward the door of the tent. The sky outside is dark and there's still no sign of the helicopter. "Adam, do you think the helicopter forgot about us? Or got shot down or something?"
"It's hard to say about the chopper. Maybe the FAA's just being a bitch about private charters to Haiti given all the…recent events." Between the earthquakes and natural devastation, as well as the devastation of crazed warlords looking to rule the people like gods, it's probably some government red tape or something. It seems unlikely it was shot down, since it's flying pretty much unmarked, and only the people that came on the rescue knew to expect an escape chopper. "It shouldn't be hard to slip aboard a returning aid ship, however, if you're so concerned about getting back to your fancy parties and shoe shopping, Rambo Barbie."
"Rambo Barbie? I — " Pause. "No, I'm not concerned about getting back. I don't want to go back." She admits a little bit sheepishly. She still hasn't thought about what she would do when she goes back, what she would have to face there. "I was thinking about staying for a little while, I think I can help or something." Help doing what is questionable at best, she's not exactly the most capable human being on Earth. Especially when it comes to physical labor, and that is the sort of thing that might be needed most around here.
Never one to mince words, Adam pretty much just says that. "Sure you won't break a nail or something? It's actually quite surprising that Angela would've sent you down. Myself, as questionable as my morality may be, I can imagine. Who better to eliminate an indestructible man than an immortal man?" Well, and the help of the Human Brain Scrambler (Rene, for short. Though his robes are probably monogrammed HBS). "What's down here for you? Redemption? In whose eyes? Are you hoping to impress burned friends and spurned lovers by showing how benevolent you can be to some of the least privileged folks in the world? Perhaps you should start looking closer to home, Barbie."
Adam's words sting, it's a pain as visible as the one suffered from the bullet wound. In response Hallis winces and shrinks back on the cot. Pulling her legs up, she hugs her knees close to her body and lowers her face to shield it from him. Her eyes brim with tears that she blinks away in an effort to remain as composed as her grandmother always appears. "You don't have to be so cruel," she murmurs in a low voice, the end hitching just a little bit as she tries to choke back the hurt. "I don't want to impress anyone." She doesn't explain the story behind the insanity, he's likely heard enough of it while she was in and out of consciousness earlier.
"Well, my two cents on the matter. I'm growing tired of this heat, however. It doesn't agree with my hair…" he says, running a finger through what little bit of hair he does have. "…or my girlish figure," he concludes, standing up off the stool. "That being said, I'm going to try and arrange for return transport, in case the helicopter is indeed lost, maybe in the Bermuda Triangle. You're welcome to return or stay as you please when arrangements are made." He shrugs his shoulders, and starts for the door to the hut, recognizing that she's hurt. Adam's not the most empathetic person in the world to help her, however.