Eyes, sunken and rimmed with dark circles. Hair, limp and stringy, obviously ill-kept. Skin, pale with the greyish, sickly pallor of the terminally ill. Aspen Jitters had definitely seen better days- and those days were almost exactly one year ago.
Her hands gripped the edge of the examination table with white fingers, the paper crinkling. She was torn between hoping, praying that this time, this doctor might find something… and wishing with every fiber of her being that he didn't. It killed her, not knowing, but what if it really was killing her…?
"Miss Jitters." came the supremely unimpressed voice of the doctor as he walked in, a very thick file in his hand. "And what may be the problem today?"
She grit her teeth, knowing exactly what he'd find in that file, knowing how this would look to him. She'd been on this exam table far too many times over the past year with nothing found; but she wasn't lying. There was something wrong with her!
"Doctor Oswald, you know very well what's wrong. I've told every doctor I've been to over and over again what's wrong. It's your turn to find an explanation."
"Miss Jitters, this is a hospital. Every day the doctors here work hard to save people's lives, and there are hundreds of people being treated at any given moment. Wasting our time when there is nothing wrong with you puts those lives in danger."
She glared up at him, eyes flashing. "I'm not lying! I'm not making this up! There's something wrong with me and I need you to find it and fix it! It isn't normal for someone's body to randomly seize up. It isn't normal to keep blacking out and lose hours of time!" She gestured to her body with a wave of her hand. "This isn't normal! This isn't healthy! I'm eating and sleeping the exact same amount as I usually do but I just keep wasting away!"
"Miss Jitters, this hospital has run every test imaginable for every condition that could possibly explain your symptoms dozens of times. Every single one has come back normal! The top diagnosticians at this hospital have been mulling over your case for months and concluded that there is nothing wrong with you. If this is in fact real and not some misguided plea for attention, then I suggest that perhaps the help you require lies in another area of medicine. We have a highly qualified psychologist on staff-"
"I'm not traumatized- this is not all in my head and I'm not lying!" she bellowed, beyond frustrated. "I'm not-" she sighed explosively and pulled at her hair. "You know what? Never mind. I'm done with you and I am done with this hospital! When I drop dead it'll be on your head!"
Ash snatched her purse and jacket from the back of the chair and stormed out of the office, tears streaming down her face. Best hospital in the country her ass- if they have jackasses like him on staff who judge her before they've even examined her themselves then she's surprised anyone ever makes it out of this place alive!
It's when she gets into the car, keys in hand, that she really breaks down. How can there be nothing wrong?
Everything's wrong!
She gasped for air as if she were drowning, resting her forehead on the wheel while her arms cradled her middle. "Why? Why?"
Just when she was about to really break down, her phone rang. Ash twitched a little, startled, and then hastily scrubbed the moisture out of her eyes.
"Hey Jade, what do you need honey?" she asked, voice unexpectedly hoarse.
"They didn't find anything again." It wasn't a question.
Ash took a shaky breath. "The doctor didn't even get that far, really. He was a real as- jerk. A real jerk. He took one look at my file and assumed I'm a hypochondriac or something."
Jade growled a little, deep in her throat. "I can 'talk' to him if you want." she offered.
Ash jerked upright, eyes wide. "What? No! No, that's not necessary."
"He made you cry." she said, as if that were reason enough.
Ash smiled softly. "He's just doing his job, honey. I can't really blame him- I know what it looks like. Sure, he could've been nicer about it, and yeah, he's kind of an a- jerk, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be traumatized. The world's full of guys like him, and if you went around beating all of them up you'd be driving before you were even half done."
There was a pause, and then a huff. "You know you can swear around me, right? I've heard it all before with Dad."
Ash rolled her eyes at the very unsubtle subject change. Jade would never vocally acknowledge she's wrong about anything. "Yeah, well, I don't want to be anything like your dad, so that's all the more reason not to swear."
"Whatever." She heard some rustling on the other end, and then the sound of the fridge door opening. "We're out of milk, by the way. And bread. And eggs."
Ash's face met her palm. "You tried cooking French toast again, didn't you?" She'd learned over the past couple months that Jade can't cook. At all.
Another pause, and then- "maybe." She actually sounded a bit sheepish this time.
Ash huffed a laugh. "You're just not going to give up on that, are you?" But then, she hadn't really expected her to. Jade was stubborn like that, and a perfectionist. "Alright, I'll pick it up on the way home. I needed to stop by anyway to pick up what I need to make dinner. See you in about an hour."
"Yeah. Bye." There was a slight pause, and then- "Sorry" she tagged on a second before she hung up.
As the call cut out, Ash couldn't help but smile. Jade had come a long way in opening up since the day Ash found her on the streets of Central City, starving, bruised, and filthy.
It was clear something horrible had happened to her. When she first approached Jade was wary and tense, gripping what turned out to be a knife- one of several concealed about her person- in her dingy jacket. The first two and a half weeks she stayed at Ash's apartment she refused to say a word, and insisted that she watched the food prepared before she ate a single bite. She had a wild, hunted look about her, like a cornered animal, always casing the room for exits and jumping when a loud noise startled her or someone moved too fast.
That Jade would never have shown even the slightest hint of emotion, much less apologize. Ash was proud to have been able to help the girl as much as she had, proud of every pound she gained and every small gesture of trust that meant so much more with her than for other people. Jade was the only good thing in her life right now, and it was really Jade's presence- being needed- that helped Ash pull through the downward spiral her life has been for the past year.
Sure enough, when Ash got back to her apartment the pervading smell of burnt food hung in the air, still strong enough to make her eyes water despite the open windows and the fan Jade had turned on. She also noted- without the slightest surprise but a tinge of affectionate exasperation- that the rest of the house was clean aside from the kitchen, which was a disaster area.
Jade was at the sink, scowling at the frying pan as she scraped at it with a metal spatula. When Ash entered the room she noticed immediately, that hair-trigger reflex not quite relaxed enough to let her guard down like that. It was barely perceptible, but Ash had spent enough time trying to read her that she picked up on the way her shoulders dipped and stiffened, how her lips turned slightly paler from how hard she was pressing them together. It was probably a reflex for her to slip into a defensive stance, ready to defend herself if Ash tried to hit her, and it broke her heart every time to see it.
"I'm not mad. I know you just want to learn how to cook to make things easier on me because you think you have to repay me or something, but you really don't have to. You don't have to do the laundry, or dust the bookcase, or wash the dishes. I took you in because I wanted to help you, not because I wanted a maid."
She looked off to the side and shrugged. "I was bored."
Ash raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Riiiight. Well, whatever the reason, I want you to know that you don't have to, and next time you try to cook? Don't keep on trying until you use up all the ingredients. You could have just waited and asked for my help when I got home."
Her jaw jutted out stubbornly. "I can do it."
"I know you can, but wouldn't it be easier if I showed you how first? I actually do like to cook, you know."
Her face shifted into what Ash called her 'I-will-do-this-or-I-will-die-trying' expression. "I can do it."
She sighed. "Of course you can."
Grabbing the soap and pouring a generous amount onto the pan, she started scraping with renewed vigor. "I'll be more careful next time."
Ash set the groceries down on the counter and started putting them away, turning the radio on as she passed. "Maybe you should start with something a bit easier. Build up to french toast, you know? Things you make from scratch are always harder. It's not as easy to screw up a box of mac and cheese, for example."
Jade grunted dismissively, then set the now spotless pan in the dish strainer. They both worked for a minute, Ash at starting dinner and Jade at cleaning up her mess. Jade wasn't the chatty sort by any means and Ash didn't feel the need to break the silence so they both worked quietly, until Ash suddenly staggered in place, half falling into the closest chair.
It felt like being constricted, crushed. Like suffocating. Her limbs locked, the muscles seizing, and just when she couldn't so much as twitch a finger the pain started. Immobile, helpless, she couldn't even scream as an intense pain halfway between being burned alive and being electrocuted shot up her spine.
She'd positioned herself poorly in the chair and when her body gave that one convulsive shudder before it locked up she started to slip. Small, careful hands gingerly propped her up, then slid one hand down to grasp hers tightly. "Breathe, Ash. Remember to breathe through the pain."
If Ash had been mentally coherent enough to form a thought other than arrrrghhhh! she might have been disturbed at how steady her voice was, how calm she was in the face of pain. She would have lamented again, over and over, the fact that Jade was so knowledgeable about ways to cope with it and wondered against her will what it was her bastard of a father did to her to get her to that point. Later that night her question will be answered again and again when she dreams about the scars all over Jade's body.
When the fit lets her go she goes limp, numb, and her face falls on Jade's shoulder. Thin arms wrap around her and in the back of Ash's mind she thinks about how sad it was that his was the most physical contact she'd ever had with Jade, who tended to react poorly and with proficient force when her personal bubble was invaded.
"I'm going to talk to that doctor." Jade says with steel in her voice as Ash gasped for air, shaking.
Before Ash can tell her not to, something clatters to the floor. Ash's eyes follow the sound and she blanched. "Jade." she said slowly, voice strained.
Jade followed her gaze to the plate on the floor- or what was left of it. Despite being a very sturdy plastic the thing was torn in half, very clear indentations on the sides in the shape of her fingers.