NINE / Resurrection

Resurrection. Or was it just resurgence?

Either way it was hard. Death had been easy, simple, peaceful. At least Nine had thought she was dead. She remembered the faceless monsters of her vision and how they had come to fruition right in front of her eyes. She remembered the rest of the details of her final vision, too, and how Ten was supposed to die that night at the lab but Nine could not let it happen. She had been so desperate to change it. She remembered her sacrifice as she let the monster take her. She remembered the look on her twin's face, a terrified reflection of her own, and Ten's hesitation when she told her to run. She remembered the bright light that grew nearer and nearer as all that was left of her faded away. Then she remembered the black, deep dark and endless, and suddenly she did not need to remember anything at all. Purgatory?

After an amount of time she had no way to keep track of, Nine woke up gasping for breath, surrounded by white. Heaven?

An older man, who was dressed in all white but looked too wearied to be an angel, was at her side immediately, pulling a long tube out of her throat and adjusting her bed, which was surrounded by monitors and complete with leather straps holding her wrists down. Definitely not heaven. So where was she? And who was this not angel?

The man took a small flashlight from the pocket of his lab coat and began shining it in her eyes. He started speaking in a soft tone, but everything felt groggy. Was he talking to her? She could not comprehend his words. After clicking off the light, he reached over and placed two latex-gloved fingers over the pulse point of her neck, and Nine realized she could not feel anything at all. Maybe she really was dead. But then what was this room? And the question still begged: Who was this man?

Nine opened her mouth to ask, but had a hard time making a sounds. Instead she focused in on one syllable, and was just barely able to squeak it out with a weak and raspy voice. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

"Ten?"
"I'm afraid your sister… is not with us."
"Gone?"
"I'm afraid so. You were in a terrible attack, Nine. We all were. You were dead when Dr. Brenner found you-"

The man kept talking, but Nine found it impossible to concentrate on anything other than her twin. Holding back memories and fighting back tears, her eyes clenched shut and her hands balled into fists. She willed herself to return to the vast darkness. But she never did. 'This is not real,' she thought to herself. But it was. She wanted to scream, but she could barely speak. She wanted to rage, but she could barely move. The man continued on.

"You have been in a coma for a little over a year now. It is November of nineteen eighty-five, you are now twenty years old. You are very lucky to be alive, Nine, and you have your Papa to thank for that."
"Papa?"
"I'm afraid he is unable to continue his work with us. However, I am in contact with him, and as soon as you are feeling ready, we will continue you work. In the meantime, you should get some rest."
"Gone?"
"Not gone… just not coming back."

She tried to nod, but her head felt heavy and her mind felt sluggish. As if her brain had been removed and her skull had been stuffed with rocks. He gave her hand a gentle pat with his gloved fingers before he left the room. As the door shut behind him, her clouded mind told her that it would be easy to fall back into the same routines. Nine did not know life any other way. But then she remembered Ten was gone, and Papa was not coming back, and knew life would never be easy again.

Both the best and the worst part about dying and coming back, Nine thought, was that nothing felt real anymore. In fact she hardly felt at all.

A mind and body on autopilot. She slept when she was supposed to and ate when she was told, and it made the doctor happy. But Nine just felt numb. A whole two weeks had come and gone, and reality had still not set in when the doctor, who identified himself as Doctor Owens, took her to a separate room for the first time to continue the training Papa had started.

The room next to her own was empty with the exception of a steel table and two matching chairs. The doctor motioned for her to sit while he setup the proper equipment. As he placed the monitors over her freshly buzzed scalp, he began talking. Unlike Papa who was quiet, Nine was quick to learn that the doctor liked to take his time to explain things, so whenever he opened his mouth, she prepared herself to sit for a little while.

"We will start by getting the strength of your powers back up to where they were before. Then, we will work on expanding them. Your Papa and I think you are an extraordinary young woman, Nine. We would like to see you gain more abilities."
"More?"
"More! Your natural clairvoyance is certainly incredible, but I think you are capable of much more, and I would like to see exactly what you are able to do. You see, Nine, part of what your Papa was studying was your connection to your sister. It seems you two share one power between each other, rather than having two similar, but separate, abilities. So now that you are on your own, I think you will find yourself bursting with potential. With a little help from me, I think you will be able to see more than you ever thought possible."
"The past?"
"The past, the future, perhaps more! But for now, let's just focus on getting you back to where you were previously. Then, we will grow from there. How does that sound?"

He sat across the steel table from her smiled with an extended hand, but she remained hesitant. Nine did not want Ten's powers. Sure, the ability to see others' memories kept her twin the grounded and reasonable one, but it also cast a permanent sadness in her eyes. It was as if she had never known hope. But, like Doctor Owens had said, her sister was gone and this is what Papa wanted her to do. So, she offered the doctor a small smile back. Meeting him in the middle, she placed her hand in his and was transported.

At first, Nine's visions were weak. Snippets flashed before her, but she could not hold onto any. She could not see the big picture. More and more every day Nine regained the strength her premonitions had previously possessed, until one day she felt she was back to her full abilities.

That's when Owens decided they would begin work on what he liked to call 'expansion.' He lead her out of her room and down the short hall. They were not in the building she had grown up in, Nine noticed. She wondered exactly where they had moved her, but could not find the words or courage to ask. Her bare feet pat against the cold linoleum as they walked in silence to a room she had never entered before. Inside, it looked just like Nine's. A young blonde girl lay on the hospital bed, hooked up to monitors and blinking at the ceiling. The doctor led Nine to her bedside.

"She is a very sick girl. She is unable to tell us on her own what has made her this way, and I think you are just the right person to help."

If he had asked her to, Nine would be able to look and tell him with confidence if the girl's condition would ever improve, or even how and when she would die, but Nine was not sure she could look into the girl's medical history. The self-doubt must have been written all over her face as the doctor continued.

"You are capable of great things. Seeing the past is one of them."
"I can't."
"You can! I know you can. Your Papa knows you can."

Those words struck a chord. Anything Nine ever did was to make her sister safe or Papa proud.

"How?"
"Focus your mind on nothing but the task at hand. You have to want it, Nine."

Nine nodded her head a little too vigorously, as if she was trying to assure herself that she understood. With a shaky breath, she took the blonde girl's cold hand in her own. She tried to focus her mid on the past, on the girl's illness, and concentrated until her nose bled. But still nothing came of it.

"I can't."
"You can, Nine. Ask for it by name."

With a small nod she refocused and squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of Papa. How he would look at her with all the pride in the word when she was able to accomplish what he had asked of her. She thought of Ten. How, if Doctor Owens was right, she would be able to absorb whatever was left of her sister, and how badly she wanted her lost twin to become part of herself. Then she focused her mind back on the task at hand, as the doctor instructed, and her heart wanted to see this stranger's past so desperately. Not for the girl, not for the doctor, not even for herself, but for all she had loved and lost.

Suddenly, a flash. For just a brief moment, a split second, there was a vision. A peek of the word through someone else's eyes, rather than observing from above. A flash of another time, another place, another life that was not her own. The past. It slipped away like water between her fingers before she could grasp onto it, before she could see the whole picture. But it was a memory, nonetheless, and she knew she had seen a piece of the past.

When she let go, the doctor was looking down at her, beaming with an expression similar to the one Papa had always given her. Though the challenge had worn her out, Nine wore her small victory all over her face, and she knew that in that moment she did not need words.

"Excellent work. We will try again in the morning."

He lead her back out of the room, this time supporting her exhausted body with his own, as he lead Nine back to her own room. There was a question on her mind that she did not know if she had the courage to ask until it slipped off of her tongue.

"Is she like me?"
"No… no she is not gifted like you are. But she needs our help, so it's best you get some rest so we can continue your training later."

Nine nodded her agreement. She watched as he left the room and listened as the lock clicked into place behind him. Collapsing onto her bed, Nine spent the next half hour just studying the fair skin of her hands, marveling at the potential they held.

A/N: Everything happens for a reason.

I decided to slightly alter the formatting of Nine's chapter to reflect her state of mind and living. Let me know what you think and I will be back in two days with a new chapter from Steve's POV.