Author's Note: This chapter is a sort of continuation of the last because I felt that it fit pretty well with it. Like the one before it, it's set after the events of ORAS and the Delta episode. Sorry that there isn't much Maxie in this one. I wanted to explore Courtney's character (more specifically, her fascinating mind) more, so hopefully I have done that in a way that's accurate and not boring. Also, this chapter is pretty much a set-up for what happens in the next one, so there's a lot more of Maxie in that one. Questions, comments, criticism, etc. are always welcome. Enjoy! Oh, and just a heads up: I'll probably update once a week, sometime over the Friday-Sunday time frame.
Sickness
Frontal pressure. . . Nasal congestion. . . Abdominal pain. . . Dry throat. I. . . am ill. As a disgusting confirmation of this observation, her stomach pulls her to the bathroom toilet just in time to retch. When it's over, she lies there on the red tile floor, curled into a ball, waiting for the nausea to recede. Pathetic little moans bubble up in her throat, and though they repulse her, she can do nothing to quell either the noises or the pain. The cramping becomes tolerable after about fifteen minutes, but, even so, she has to limp back to her bed, using furniture as support. She collapses into the blankets, the prospect of medicine all but forgotten in the consuming fog of her discomfort. No matter how she orients herself, she can't seem to find an acceptable position, and even if she does manage to drift back into an unpleasant sleep, she soon wakes with hot, clammy sweats or cold, violent shivers. Leader Maxie will be displeased that. . . after all his efforts. . . I have still succumbed to sickness. Glancing at the clock, she calculates that there is still time for her to make it in to work without being glaringly late. I must go. . . it would be a dishonor not to. I. . . am not weak.
Courtney reaches for her phone on the nightstand and dials Maxie's desk phone, knowing he has likely been at work for a while by now. He answers on the first ring.
"Dr. Maximilian Asche speaking."
Despite herself—her illness, rather—she smiles at the use of his full name, loving the way it but briefly wrests command of any ear privy to it before it falls into the oblivion of the mind. All, that is, save for hers. She has lost many things, some precious, some superfluous, within that nebula, but not his name, not him. An improbable blip of light on her consciousness that cannot be extinguished—that, she thinks, is what he is to her.
"It is Courtney," she says. "An unanticipated disturbance has occurred. . . Ergo, I will be tardy today."
"I see." The other end of the line is unbearably silent, so much so that she has to breathe away from the phone for fear of him picking up on any irregularities in her respiration. At last, when she begins to wonder whether he suspects her, he speaks. "This disturbance, nothing too debilitating, I trust?"
Nothing precluding your execution of your duties? is what she hears. She is unsurprised by his treatment of her, foremost and perhaps only, as a business commodity, but is wounded all the same. "It will not impede my work performance," she responds coolly, even for her.
A sigh issues from his end. "You misconstrue my meaning."
"Do I?" Her reply follows on the heels of his words, threatening to overtake and trample them. "I find it improbable that, given this is a professional correspondence, your words could mean aught else."
"An expression of personal concern, perhaps. Had you considered that eventuality?" His voice is sharp, potent, like the retort of a creature gravely wounded.
"Concern. . ." She tastes the word, analyzing it in its syllables, rhythms, and connotations. Is this expression. . . similar to the sentimentality. . . of the other day's rain? Why. . . does he have these concerns? They are not logically necessary in the formula of employer and employee. . . So, why? Does that imply. . . such a description no longer defines us? If not that relation. . . then what? Or. . . is this all feigned? An attempt at placation. . . so he does not lose my professional loyalty after his previous slight?
Drawing herself up from the realm of her thoughts, she says, "You. . . feel concern. . . for me?"
"In light of your recent excursion in freezing rain, mild concern for your health is only rational."
She hides a cough in her sleeves. "Your concern is unnecessary. I will arrive on time for this morning's administration conference."
Her shaking fingers end the call, and the last thing she hears is him cursing sharply in German. Concern. . . Sentimentality. . . both are a lie. An impossible illusion. I never believed in them before. Why should a mere human be able to make me start now?
But she knows why, before she has even fully formed the thought. Her mind will spare her no hardship, allow her no indulgent fantasies.
To her, Maximilian Asche is more than a mere human. Thoughts, images, vivid visions of him flash through her mind and illuminate the darkness: his smirks, his chuckles, his disappointment, his surprise, his rage.
Stop it. . . She can't think of him right now, for fear of him short-circuiting her logic, her mind, the two things she holds dear. He defies the former and eludes the comprehension of the latter. Stop!
Strings of superfluous calculations occupy her attention while she prepares for work, acting more out of mechanical muscle impulses than out of conscious thought. The books she has yet to return to Maxie still lie in her bag, another irritating reminder of him. She takes them out and sets them back on her desk, knowing that she will not return them today, that she will not interact with him anymore than strictly necessary. Not needing a repeat of the other day, she glances out of her bedroom window to check the weather. Sunny. Even so, the umbrella goes into her bag as a contingency. She locks up and is out the door, swallowing a dosage of over-the-counter medication on her way. It's a poor substitute for a doctor's care, but she never cared much for doctors. Anyway, she just needs to make it through today. Tomorrow is her day off.
Once she arrives at the Magma HQ, she sees some of her fellow admins already beginning to slip from their offices into the corridors in anticipation of the biweekly administration meeting. She stops in her own office to store her belongings, and, as she is preparing to leave again, a knock stops her. Please. . . not Maxie.
"Identity. . . of whom?" She says.
The words come out awkwardly, not in their proper place, as they always do when she is distressed. Her emotions are a bane, destroying her mind's ability to reason like solvent dissolving solute: by pulling it apart at its very seams. Sometimes, rarely, the slow undoing of her mind is pleasurable—a relief, certainly, to be free of all those trillions of buzzing thoughts—but mostly she hates the inconvenience of having her mental faculties incapacitated, no matter for how short a time. More than that, though, she sees her brain as a part of her, not just as the biological aspect that keeps her alive, but as the factor that makes her herself and no other. Most people attribute the heart as the root of the human soul, but, for Courtney, everything that matters to her is in the head. Cephalization. . .
"Do I even have your attention?" the voice on the other side of the door says, somewhat annoyed, but mostly amused.
"Now. . . you do. Reiterate."
"It's Tabitha. Now, are you going to permit me ingress, or shall we fire up our parle by conversing through a door?"
"My Camerupt will show you fire. . . if you sass me again," she threatens, glowering at him as she allows him inside. "I hope you are not here to continue your streak of juvenile taunting."
"No, actually." He chuckles at both the threat and the sarcasm, but he soon falls silent as he occupies himself with appraising her. His deep red eyes, usually crinkled in mirth, are open now, and they are on her. They dart across her body, cap-a-pie, in cursory assessment, lingering, once they have finished, on her face. Courtney meets them with a steady gaze of her own, daring him to disclose the results of his findings.
"You are ill." He sounds surprised, and, unlike the coarse teasing she expected, he is gentle. "Though, if the bottle of Tylenol that slipped from your bag is any indication, I'm certain you were already aware." He picks up the object in question, tosses it lightly in the air several times, and then sets it down on her desk. "Why have you come today? You of all people should know the irritants of contamination."
Courtney says nothing, busying herself, instead, with gathering up her reports for the conference. The oblivion of her mind does not deign to put forth an answer—or, rather, it does, but not one that she will accept.
"Oh, dear, Liepard have your tongue?" He casually leans against the closed door, folding his arms across his chest, but, in reality, the gesture is anything but. It means she is not leaving until he has an answer.
"There are fifteen minutes remaining until the administration meeting," she says, a rebuttal, a threat of her own. Tabitha will not risk his stellar record, for on it rides his chance for promotion.
He refutes her threat with a smirk. "All contingencies accounted for, it will take approximately 3.4 minutes to commute to the conference room." Focusing his eyes on her, he says, "Your turn."
"I came today. . . because my research is essential to this meeting."
His eyes narrow. "Falsehood. Try again."
"It's not a lie," Courtney says, "it's a half-truth."
A wave of the hand dismisses the argument. "Mere semantics, in which I am presently uninterested. Now, the truth. Would you do the honors, or shall I?"
"I have a headache. . . "She nurses her throbbing migraine with her hands, massaging her temples and wishing that the medication would start to work soon. Kinetics told her otherwise.
"More like heartache," Tabitha chuckles as he unfolds himself and stands to his full height. "You are at work today out of your intense loyalty to Maxie. I suppose I can empathize."
"You think yourself a mind reader? Then grant me a favor. Go analyze Maximilian, because he is the one whose impenetrable, fickle mind is deserving of further scrutiny!"
The stack of papers she is holding slips from her hands and scatters onto the floor in a flurry. She kneels to retrieve them, angrily snatching them up and crinkling them in her tense grasp, and all the while, she refuses to acknowledge Tabitha's presence. Stupid. . . stupid. . . stupid girl! She knows her emotions are—have been—eroding her mind this day, and her slow loss of rationality only further agitates her passion. Verdammt! In a fit of rage,she slams the papers onto her desk, some of them spilling over off the sides and falling to the floor again. She leaves them there.
"Courtney. . . "
"What?" She snaps, whirling on him, stalking up to him, snatching him by the collar and jerking his face towards her own contorted visage. "Keep taunting me about Maximilian, come, I beseech you. Would I could give you a knife for these wounds, to make your task even simpler! Let the blood run, for, as a machine, I have no tears!"
Damn passion. . . damn reason. . . they are both naught but a vile human sickness.
Tabitha wraps his hands around hers, softly detaching her clenched fingers from his clothing. For a moment, a very brief moment, he pulls her close, wraps her in the warmth of a rare hug. She is too frustrated, too exhausted, to offer any resistance, but neither does she truly want to. Somehow, this contact is a salve to both her inflamed mind and her swollen heart. Wordlessly, he guides her to her desk chair, allowing her to hold to him for support.
"This is not a conversation to be had with me," he says. His voice is neutral, but not apathetic. Full of concern, but not judgment. "You know very well with whom. Now, you will remain here during the administration conference and collect yourself. After its completion, I will return and drive you home."
"Tabitha—"
"I'm afraid I must ignore your protestations in this situation. You are unwell, and it falls to me to care for you."
"You are hardly in a position to shirk your duties," she says, wrapping her arms around herself as a particularly nasty bout of nausea takes over. "Moreover, what excuse will you offer Maxie for your absence, let alone mine?"
"I'll take care of it." His eyes close as he smiles, and then he is gone.
She shrugs out of her Magma jacket, curls it into a ball, and then uses it as a pillow. Sleep. . . achieve precious stupor. . . For once, her mind switches off as soon as she lays down. The world, and its pain and troubles, dissolves into grainy opaqueness.
Why. . . must I be afflicted. . . by this cursed sickness?
A gentle tap on her shoulder disturbs her sleep, and Courtney reluctantly allows it to draw her up into consciousness. She watches Tabitha's hazy form glide about her office, gathering her bags and attempting to straighten out the papers she made a mess of earlier that morning.
"Do you feel much improved?" He refuses to let her carry her own bags, so she awkwardly puts on her coat and shoves her hands in the pockets. Chocolate wrappers, strips of paper, a pencil, a small, wrinkled ball of aluminum, two bolts, five nuts, a roll of litmus paper, other, stranger things.
"Slightly. . . The Tylenol has activated, at least." She stops him with a touch on his arm before he makes it to the door. "Where. . . is Maximilian?"
"In a meeting with the heads of the Astrophysics Department," he says, opening the door and waiting for her to lock up. "No need to worry about an incidental run-in."
"I wasn't worried."
"I find that statement hard to believe."
She digs her elbow into his side as they amble out to the parking garage. It is filled with black vans, jeeps, trucks, even a few armored cars, and all have windows as darkly tinted as is legal. They are abundant in their stock but not in the frequency of their use. With Hoenn's temperate climate and the restriction on automobile usage for environmental reasons, they rarely have a need for the cars save for in emergencies. Tabitha seems to think this situation warrants their use, and Courtney is grateful for his judgment, as she is by no means up to walking the twenty minutes to her home in this condition. He selects a car that looks more like a soccer-mom van—save its somber color—than something that would belong to a sleek, high-tech organization such as their own.
"Shall I stop anywhere on our way?" He asks, attempting to draw her attention away from the car window.
"Negative."
She leans her head against the window, and her warm breath fogs the glass. The coolness of the surface does something to relieve the effects of her fever, as well as her temper, too.
"Obviously, you are troubled by more than physical illness. Do you want to discuss it?"
"Not particularly. . ." She directs her gaze toward him for a moment. "Maybe. . . once I have found the words."
"The time is yours," he says, "for I am going nowhere."
"You intend. . . to stay with me today?" Her voice slips into a higher note in her surprise. Alone. . . I am accustomed. . . to being alone. "You have no obligation."
He smiles. "I am well aware. However, I took it upon myself to care for you, and I intend to see to it that you are looked after."
She sighs, drumming her fingers on her knees. Normally, she is not one for nervous ticks (in fact, it's the opposite. She can sit motionless for hours, her form without giving no indication of the whirring activity occurring within.), but today has been anything except normal. The deviation from her habits agitates her, shoves her off balance.
"Humans. . . are. . . confusing."
Tabitha's eyes leave the road for a second, searching her face in curiosity. She can tell that by now he knows her idiosyncrasies well enough to understand that she will divulge what she wants when she wants, and any prodding on his part will simply cause her to retreat further into her mind. Thus, she is unworried to leave the silence for as long as it takes her to contemplate exactly how she wants to fill it.
"Calculus, chemistry, biology, politics. . . I comprehend lucidly. Humans. . . evade my knowledge. . . regardless of how much I probe them. What. . . comes so easily to all else. . . is frustratingly impossible. . .for me. I feel. . . like I am constantly. . .on the outside of an impenetrable wall. This sickness. . .eats at me. . . and leaves me. . . lonely."
Once she has broken the silence, the words tumble out, unformed, imperfect, charged with the one thing she thought lost on her: emotion.
"I. . .believed Maximilian understood me. . .but I see now I was wrong. He. . .cannot accept my. . .defects any more than can. . . the rest."
At this point, they have arrived at her house, but, other than parking the car, Tabitha makes no indication of going inside. He unbuckles his seatbelt and turns in his seat to face her. "What evidence do you have for this declaration?"
"Three days ago, he said. . . words that I never thought I should hear pass from him. Others, yes, but from him. . . a betrayal." Her tiny hands clench into fists in an effort to steady their trembling. "He said. . . 'You are as beautifully efficient as a machine.'"
That word, the last word, burns her tongue as if it were doused in fire, weighs it down as if it were molded of tungsten. Bile scorches her throat to merely repeat the phrase, but oh, oh, the conflagration was a thousand times worse hearing it from his voice, from the man she so loves!
Tabitha says, "I cannot account for his thoughts, naturally, but are you certain you did not misinterpret his meaning?"
"How could I?" The unbidden rage returns, but this time, its potency is sharpened by her returned logicality. "A machine, a machine! What are they but servants? Good for work and nothing more! Unemotional, unloved, unhuman!"
"Courtney, I truly believe that perhaps you did not understand him. You have known him as long as I, and we both know he would not intentionally wound you." He reaches for her arm to soothe her, but she will not be soothed. She jerks away, pressing her back against the door until the handle digs into her shoulder.
"No!" Her hands fumble with the lock on the door, trying to pry it open. "All my life I have been told when it comes to man that I do not understand, but no more. I do not understand man, but neither does man understand me!"
The latch gives, and before Tabitha can stop her, she throws open the door and clambers out of the car. She ignores his protests and pleas, pausing only long enough to say, "Maximilian has given up on me, and why should I not do the same, in turn, to him?"
"Courtney—"
"Return to work, Tabitha. I need not your concern, nor anyone else's!" She slams the door on him, muttering madly to herself as she runs inside her house.
Leave me. . . to fester. . . in my sickness!
