Week 1, Day 3: Aid Your Partner
Betrayal sires two children – regret and resentment. The three walk hand in hand in the shadows, all three resurfacing where one has wandered. Regret cradles the thoughts your mind projects as guilt for ever giving yourself away to the traitor, while resentment chains the heartstrings in your chest and fuels you with thirst for revenge. All three talked to Thirteen. This entire game never worked the way it was supposed to work. It wasn't Cameron who put her trust in her and it wasn't Thirteen who betrayed Cameron, like the normal order of things would have it, if it ever came to that. It was all upside down and she had let herself blindly follow the trail to the lion's den, ever since she took the thirteen steps away from the other doctor and stopped instead of walking on like she should have.
But in the end, it wasn't Thirteen who felt more like crap.
"I'm so sorry," the blonde mumbled for about the billionth time that morning. "Are you hurt?"
Of course she wasn't; even if the pin hadn't healed her, the night would have, as it reverted even her clothing to its prior, non-cut state. But she had a feeling that wasn't what Cameron had in mind.
"Okay, seriously, what is it? I didn't stick my nose in it yesterday because I figured it was none of my business, but now I can see that whatever they took from you is making you a shitty partner. You can't focus, you can't aim, and foremost, you can't trust me. If you can't trust me, I can't trust you, and if I can't trust you, I'm not going to stand by your side anymore!" Thirteen yelled with her hands on her hips, scolding the woman, who suddenly looked much smaller then usual, like a mother would scold a child. "I don't care whether you like it or not anymore. I have to know so I know when to hide you somewhere behind the crates and go fight my battles on my own. I can't be protecting you all the time and obviously I can't count on you either!" I wish I could break this pact!
"I can't tell you…" the other woman whispered, her voice barely audible since she was clasping her hands in front of her mouth, desperately trying to look anywhere but at her partner.
"Can't tell me what? How you died or what your entry fee was? I've been there! I've seen it! You are no different than me here, except I've managed to get over myself!"
"There is a difference!" Cameron shouted when her patience finally reached its limit, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
Remy didn't expect that kind of resistance and stood dumbfounded on the spot as she watched the other doctor clenching her fists. She could swear Cameron would beat her to death if she said one more wrong word. Then a terrifying thought crossed her mind. What could Dr. Allison Cameron value more than her own life? She was too well-adjusted for it to be a selfish treat but not that pious for it to be another person's own right to live. Except maybe the one closest to her. "Oh my god, did they—Did they take Chase?" She didn't know the details of the relationship, but she was certain the two were involved in something more than casual dating, and that the blond Australian played a big part in Cameron's life. It made perfect sense, and it made her sick.
Cameron opened her mouth a couple of times to say something, but then closed it again, getting herself to calm down. "No," was the only response Thirteen would get.
The staring contest they were having was interrupted by a sound notifying them of a new text message.
"Mission 3: Free the tiger. You have three hours. Fail, and face erasure. – The Reapers"
"We've got to go," Allison murmured and moved to sneak past Thirteen. However, she was stopped by an arm pushing her back by the shoulders.
"No. We're not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is wrong with you," came the younger woman's menacing words.
"Time is running out," the blonde remarked, urging Thirteen to let go.
"I was always ready to forfeit my chance at life. The question is, are you?"
Whenever things got serious, she would risk it all, consequences be damned. It's just another game, just another set of rules, just another chance to win, and if she doesn't, who cares? She's dead either way. Her jeopardizing all she's ever had was but a sign that some kind of feelings was involved and she had taken chances twice during the previous two days. Struggling to maintain an unreadable expression, Remy could only hope she would prevail like she did most of the time. For someone so unlucky at life, she was extraordinarily lucky at gambling.
It didn't take much for Cameron to break. In fact, it only took this. "I killed myself. Now move so we can do our job," she growled as she walked past the frowning brunette.
At first, it seemed like a reasonable explanation; why Cameron didn't put her heart into the fight, almost like she didn't want to survive, and why she was always reluctant to cooperate. On second thought, this would have defied the basics of the Reaper's game. Why would Cameron have chosen to accept the offer of rebirth in the first place? Luckily, Thirteen had been a fan of CSI; Las Vegas in particular, thanks to the cute brunette and the awfully human Morpheus. What happens in Vegas can also happen in Princeton. "Really? Why?" she asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at the other woman.
Cameron shot her a look. She was getting mildly annoyed at Thirteen's continuous questions swarming from the gates of hell, but she would have to provide an answer to all of them sooner or later. "Because life isn't worth it."
"How?"
"OD'd."
"Did you leave a letter?"
"Yes."
"What did it say?"
"That I was sorry and that I didn't blame Chase for what had happened."
"What had happened?"
"We broke up."
"Strange, because I can recall a pretty convincing visual of you two smooching in the parking lot the night I died in great detail."
"It happened when we got home."
"So when did you do it?"
"A week ago."
Bingo! Bombarding interrogation never fails. "The game began three days ago. I got here immediately after my death. Even if, hypothetically, a few days were to pass with us in some sort of limbo until there were enough Players involved – which I suppose would be logical – neither of us would remember, which means you cannot possibly say for sure when you died, or that every clue pointing to the fact that it's been three days is wrong. Either you know more than you say, or besides being a lousy partner, you're also a lousy liar."
"What happened to 'trust your partner'?" The blonde let out a heavy sigh. "Look, if I'm so secretive about it… would you really want to know?"
Thirteen rubbed her eyes and shook her head. Cameron had a point. Either the cause of her death was something so horrendous that Remy would uncover some sort of conspiracy against the United States in whatever she had done and would regret finding out, or it was something so painful that barely knowing Remy had gotten it out of her would make Cameron hurt beyond imagining and Thirteen regret finding out still. As significant as the role of curiosity was in this play, it had been upstaged. She ran a hand through her hair. "Can you promise me that relying on you won't be the kind of decision that would stab me in the back later?"
The other doctor thought her answer through, but it was really just her indecision about how to put it delicately. The only thing certain was that she was not going to lie about this. "I'm sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose. I just feel…" She fumbled with her fingers, trying to get her brain to let her explain the situation preferably in a way that wouldn't sound as if the entire hospital had failed to notice Cameron's growing need for a dose of Rohypnol. "Empty. To tell you the truth, I don't know what they took from me, but something is missing and I know it was important and I just feel like I can't go on without it and I know it's stupid because I should know what the most important thing in the world is to me, everyone should know—"
"Cameron," Thirteen attempted to stop the other woman's haphazard rambling accompanied by a number of wild gestures.
"What?" Allison stopped and got back to solid ground.
Prior to this moment, Cameron had only been a sad pile of dead puppies to Thirteen, but she had been mistaken. She wasn't guilt-ridden because of her inability to focus, she was unable to focus because she was guilt-ridden, plagued by the constant reminders of the loss she couldn't quite put her finger on. Everyone should know…
This was where a decent individual would say something profound and meaningful, perhaps quoting Freud or Shakespeare or Wilde in the process, and make the broken person realize that the world wasn't ending and that they had people who cared about them and that unless your life is in danger, all your troubles are insignificant. But the world might as well have been ending, they only had one another to pick up the pieces and their life was very much threatened. Cameron couldn't fight to save her life and Thirteen couldn't help her to save them both. She started to feel sorry for the other woman. Why, why did someone like Allison Cameron have to end up with possibly the only partner that couldn't give her what she needed because she didn't have it herself and she didn't know how to obtain it? What could she say? What was the right thing to do? How could they make it through? So many questions, zero answers, and to her it seemed someone had forgotten to print out an extra copy of 'Social Relations and How to Adapt to Them' when she was born. Her own obligation – or need – to compensate for the void space in the blonde's heart made it all the more difficult. It doesn't work if you actually care.
So she did the only thing she knew, the only thing that made sense. It wouldn't make anything better. It might make things worse. For Remy Hadley, however, almost any risk was worth taking.
The simplest of things, so much easier than convincing in words, yet it means so much more. Almost like another language, understandable by every being possessing emotions, but there could never be a set definition for it.
Slowly, hesitantly, as if waiting for approval – from herself as well as Cameron – she pulled Allison into an embrace. The easy way out, but also the most comforting. Everyone should know. "Come here. It's okay." She relaxed when she felt the blonde bury her head in Remy's shoulder. "I don't know either."
So ridiculously many lies and so much avoiding over the plain cruel truth that they knew nothing about the world – and one another – until there was no time left to find out.
"You have every right to blame me, but I'll do my best not to let it happen again. I promise," Allison murmured into the fabric of her jacket.
Thirteen smiled to herself as she gently caressed her companion's back. Baby steps. "I'm sure about that."
"Though I'd prefer it if you refrained from attempting to fry things in the near future."
She grinned and drew away from the smaller woman. "Okay, no thunderbolts unless completely necessary from now on."
Allison looked up at her with uncertainty. "Pinky promise?"
Remy rolled her eyes. "Fine. It's a pinky promise," she said, intertwining her pinky with the blonde's nonchalantly. "Now come on, we'll figure this out later. There's still a mission for us to complete."
Perhaps this week was not a complete train wreck.
Except there was still a tiny issue that cried for attention. "So what do we do?"
They had left the Community Park they had – once again – appeared in (deeming the place some sort of 'default respawn spot' for the pair) and marched on into the heart of the city down Leigh Avenue. Cameron groaned in annoyance when she scented the sweet smell of seafood and carne asada coming from behind the peculiar, almost a little inappropriate green front wall separating the cozy interior of Tortuga's Mexican Village from the rest of the world. "I normally don't do Mexican, but I'd kill for some of that right now just to remember what it was like to eat."
"Uh-hum," Thriteen nodded. "Stop thinking of salsa and focus on the problem! Free the tiger, free the tiger… Last time I checked there were no zoos in Princeton."
"Unless we've slept through a couple of years and they built one in the meantime."
Remy lowered her head looked up at Allison from under her eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"It's a theory, though a bad one," the blonde replied with a shrug.
"Let's just not go with that. What else do we have?"
"The tiger is the symbol of Princeton, but that makes no sense either. Free the city? What from?" Cameron wondered aloud and then stopped abruptly, staring into the distance.
"What is it?" the baffled Thirteen asked, waving a hand in front of the other woman's face.
She looked the way Cameron was staring to determine the cause of her sudden lack of movement. Her eyes glimpsed the vague outline of trees lined up to the side of the road, a group of children chasing a ball, and the bold letters 'University Medical Center' at the end of the street. "Cameron, this isn't our hospital," she said quietly and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
The blonde shook her head and resumed her pace. "I know. I just never thought I would miss the rat-race of my job so much."
"I hear ya." Thirteen sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I hate riddles in which I have no possible answers to choose from! Maybe they mean tiger in a metaphorical sense? Such as – such as – a miserable loner with a limp we need to hit in the head with an anvil?"
The two shared a sympathetic look.
"I think I've got it!" Allison exclaimed suddenly as they reached the crossroad in front of the medical center. "Here's a riddle for you:
Although Yale has always favored
The violet's dark hue,
And the many sons of Harvard
To the crimson rose are true,
We will own the lilies slender,
Nor honor shall they lack,
While the tiger stands defender
Of the Orange and the Black."
Remy smacked her forehead. "Tigers guard the university! But which one? There might be dozens of tiger statues and sculptures around the campus."
Her companion smirked in victory. "You said it yourself; some of them guard the university – the Nassau hall's couple. They're the iconic pair. Don't you think they deserve to get some rest after a hundred years?"
"I think I'm beginning to understand what they all see in you. Let's go!"
As Remy took the right turn and ran down the crowded Witherspoon Street not waiting for her partner to catch up, she missed the sad frown that appeared on the blonde's face momentarily before she, too, took off.
2:19.
Dressed in a light coat of snow, the tigers of Nassau stood still, patiently awaiting the next challengers under the dim light of the clouded sun, their backs illuminated by two old lanterns, each to accompany one of the guardians on their duty.
"No students," Thirteen remarked as the two women passed through the ornate iron gate onto the campus grounds. The daunting tingling in their backs suggested that the two stone eagles watching over the entrance had their void eyes set firmly on them, as did the leafless oaks, but that was impossible. Or was it?
Cameron shivered, but it would be naïve of anyone to blame the cold. "So?"
"Less people, more Noise," the brunette replied. "We're heading the right direction."
"Cheerful," Allison mumbled under her breath.
The gate laughed a creaking laugh as it shut its jaws. The two doctors swiftly turned around just to see the eagles grinning at them with their wings spread halfway. Weren't they facing the other way a minute ago?
"I have a bad feeling about this," Cameron whispered. "Let's get out of here."
"Couldn't agree more."
So they ran, through grass and sand roads and the ragged coat of snow, around the many reneissance windows of all the different halls. Clusters of climbing ivies protected the slumbering buildings from the awakening's winter's breath and giggled mischievously at their visitors. Gradually, trees became bricks and roads became streets, like an ancient city within a city. Their goal was set, marked by the bell tower soaring overhead, still standing in all its glory since times long past.
1:49.
At last, the two Players reached the gauntlet. However, aside from the ravens and the lamps and the two tigers, there was another observer. Cameron stumbled over to a dark hooded figure sitting on the ground and leaning on the side of the first tiger.
"Son of a bitch…" a low voice muttered.
"What happened?" Thirteen asked, watching as her partner kneeled next to the boy and took off his hood to examine the cuts on his neck and chest, revealing pale blond hair. The one from yesterday.
The boy coughed blood. "They erased my partner. I don't have much time before—"
"Who did? There's no one here! Who erased you? I can heal you!" Allison went through her pockets desperately trying to find the right badge, but her efforts were in vain.
There was a husky smirk. "'Cause I've lost my partner, there's nothing you can do. Kick 'em good for us and beware of the fire, will you?"
"What do you mean 'beware of the fire'? Wait! Come back!"
A ray of blinding white light later, the pair was once again left alone in the middle of the abandoned battlefield. Cameron looked up at her companion, clearly frightened. We're next.
"Maybe we should try using the Player pin to see if we hear anything around the tigers, because this place is deserted," Remy suggested.
The ER head nodded. "Ready?"
"Never."
…
…
We're so scewed, we're so screwed…
Cameron, you're not helping.
Eh, I'm sorry! Wait, you can hear me?
Apparently. Woohoo, it's like an afterlife transceiver. Falcon to stork, falcon to stork, do you read me?
Shut up and listen! Can't you be serious for a while?
I would, but that would make it harder to have fun.
Hear anything?
Just the few birds and the wind and your subconscious being pissed at me for calling you a stork.
Listen not just to the sounds, listen to what's behind the sounds. And I'm not offended; storks are noble creatures, just so you know.
Hear the tiger roar
Rolling up a score
Better move along
When you hear the tiger sing his jungle song.
Okay Cameron, that is not a reasonable form of revenge.
You mean that wasn't you?
I want your soul!
WAKE UP!
Thirteen gasped for breath and fell to her knees. The icy air felt like needles in her throat, but that was the least of her troubles. Cameron! She looked about frantically, but her partner was nowhere to be found. No, no way! They couldn't have gotten her that fast! "Cameron? Cameron!"
"I could use some help over here!"
She never thought would ever feel such relief at hearing the older doctor's voice. She turned around to see Cameron building a barricade across the road using her psychic powers with everything ranging from carefully positioned poles to benches and lamps. "Skeletons."
"As in bones moving by themselves with axes to chop our heads off?"
"Do you want to see for yourself? Help me!"
"I don't know how! I'm the damage dealer here!" There was a low growl. Thirteen froze in place as she looked over her shoulder. "We have another problem."
It could have been a sight to behold if it didn't make the Players' hearts sink even deeper. A dark cloud started to form itself above the twin statues. There was no need to rush now that the way out had been sealed by the prey itself. As it waited for the snow floating down to cover the scene, turn black and melt with the smoke, it got thicker and thicker until the adjacent lanterns faded into the night in the middle of the day. Then blueish, bone-like sticks began to emerge from the cloud, one by one, as if walking forward. First, pointy little nubs got together with a dozen of other bones, joined by a tibia, a joint, all the way up to the spine. Vertebrae ran up and down the skeleton and past it to form a whip-like tail. When two almost complete creatures were ready to jump out onto solid ground, at last skulls settled themselves at the top, revealing rows of brassy fangs.
"Tigers look much more magnificent when they have flesh. You hold the barrier, I'll take these two out," Thirteen stated.
These Noise were patient and persistent, capable of biding their time until their prey made a single fatal mistake, a single wrong look or step. Each walked to one side of Thirteen and glared at her with the bright red orbs that substituted eyes. They're trying to separate us. She was having none of that, though, and backed away to her slightly more alive companion. She noticed the blonde shooting a nervous look in her general direction. "Don't worry; I've got your back."
Without slowing down, but without speeding up or increasing their pace, the two bone tigers leapt simultaneously at the brunette, hoping to catch her unprepared. She quickly ducked out of the way and slashed the air above with the spirit sword already out and ready in her hand. When she heard the leg bone cracking, she knew she had hit the mark. She spun around and saw one of the beasts growling (how, she had no idea) sprawled on the ground, its hind leg decorated by a fence of thorns where its femur should have been, and the other tiger aiming steadily for her unsuspecting partner. Before she could even warn Cameron, the creature found itself wrapped in the cruel embrace of a barbed wire. "Good one!"
"Finish it off; they're getting through."
While Thirteen had her hands full trying to end the two cubs' suffering, the ground shook. Glass fell out of the pile and shattered to pieces, here and there, gradually increasing in frequency. Cameron was too exhausted to repair the holes; her breathing was quick and labored and every inch of her body felt as if it were never able to move again. The pins had taken most of the remaining energy she had. "You're the damage dealer," she huffed out quietly before collapsing to the ground.
Snow. She could feel it under her fingertips, smooth like cotton. Snow. It had been there that fateful night, and now it came back for her to take her away. Was that what it meant? Was it there to claim the toll? But there was Thirteen. It would take her too. That wasn't right. She didn't deserve it. Don't make me fight snow.
She could only hear the wall crashing to the ground as three more skeletal beasts tore it down, one larger than the others. Mommy's home.
"Cameron!"
No. She wouldn't let it ruin everything again. No. She wouldn't blame it again.
The two smaller tigers lunged at the Players but were stopped by a point-blank shot of a wire interlocking with their ribs and therefore preventing them from further movement. With nowhere to go, the beasts' red eyes were forced to witness a surge of light bullets coming at them and cutting them to pieces.
The mother tigeress' jaws opened wide in what one would expect to be a monstrous roar, but no sound came out. Instead, a spark that could barely be seen ignited in her throat.
Beware of the fire.
Thirteen swiftly shoved Cameron out of the way of a rather formidable fireball, but not swiftly enough to notice the monster already running at the two of them lying on the grass through the fire. Just as it was about to dig its claws into their flesh, an icicle no less than ten feet tall split it in the middle in mid-jump and a soundless thunder pierced the sky, burning the foe to a cinder.
Lifeless carcasses of the Noise dissapeared into thin air and the murder of crow spectators dispersed into the distance.
"In my defense, that was definitely necessary," Thirteen said, breathing heavily.
"Thank you," Allison whispered before falling sound asleep on the spot.
"Thank you, too," Remy repeated with a relieved smile on her face and her arm still supporting Cameron.
0:00
Author's Note: All landmarks mentioned in this fanfic are purely real and I am quite proud of including them. Also, the things I've learned about Princeton while writing this fic. That town rocks. Did you know Albert Einstein lived in Princeton? *gets shot*
