Ezio remembered that warning he had given Duccio three periods ago, and hoped he'd have the brains to listen. But when he saw Claudia being kissed by the bastard at lunch... well, you can guess, right?
He stormed over to the table, and without taking more than two seconds to think about what he'd do, he shoved Duccio's head down into his lunch tray. Claudia immediately pushed Ezio's hand off of Duccio's head and glared up at him.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" She snapped.
Duccio sat up, half his face dripping with grease and sause from his pizza slice. But he was about as confused as could be. Didn't mean Ezio felt bad about what he did. In fact, he still wanted to do more things to him than what the rules would allow.
"I thought I told you to keep your fucking hands off my sister!" Any sort of anger that Claudia's words caused was shot at Duccio. Not that it was so hard.
Claudia's eyes could probably kill right now, then she turned to Duccio and the look softened. She grabbed his arm and pulled him up before leading him around Ezio with, "Come on, let's find somewhere else to sit. I don't know what's gotten into him today." Then they had left the lunch room.
But Ezio was still fuming. Yup, he'd make sure Duccio would back off.
Claudia was still pissed at Ezio, even after school. Why'd he have to smash Duccio's head in his food anyways? He didn't do anything wrong.
So, in an attempt to avoid her brother a while longer, she decided to pay Malik a visit. Besides, she said in the note that she'd come back anyways. Might as well be now.
Her mother was fine with driving her, and spent the entire car ride saying how she approved of Claudia's visiting the student now when he needed someone he could talk to. Well... at least it wasn't silence. Claudia never really liked silence unless she was mad at whoever else was with her. Still, when she got to the hospital, it was not so bad to escape the ramblings of her mother.
Check in, then she was on her way up to Malik's room. Second time around, navigating the hallways of the hospital wasn't so bad. Maybe the smells of cleaners and other... hospital-like smells was a little unnerving, but nothing seemed so bad here.
This time around when she walked in, Malik was standing at the window. And unlike last time, he seemed to have a calmer air to him (but then again, this was just her staring at her back). Almost reluctant to disturb him, she lightly tapped her knuckles on the door to draw his attention.
The overall air to him seemed a hellova lot different seeing his face, stained with drying tear streaks and the exhaustion clear. It was almost like he could have been hollow. Like the first time, her heart seemed to drop somewhere down next to her stomach, and right now they were fighting over that cramping space.
"What do you want," he asked, almost coldly. It seemed like he wasn't very open to visitors. The first form of some sort of human emotion he showed was confusion. "I... don't know you, do I?"
Claudia mentally snapped at her heart and stomach to quit brawling before she answered, "No, you don't know me. But I know you..." Damn, I sound like a creeper! She tried to fix that statement. "Or, well, I knew your brother and ah... I wanted to do what I could. To help, I mean and... I sound like an idiot..."
"Completely," Malik agreed, not really moving from where he stood. His fingers were toying were the IV line at his wrist.
Rubbing the back of her neck she explained, "I came in here yesterday to see you, but you were asleep, so I just left the flowers and wrote that note. Did you see the note or-?"
"No, I saw the note," the patient confirmed. "By the way, you forgot the sign your name."
Did I? Oh god... I did... Claudia might as well be blushing, but she really can't get that result unless she's drunk. Not that she was ever drunk, that is. "Oh, eh... sorry about that. My name's Claudia."
"Weird kid, aren't you, Claudia," Malik remarked. A moment later, he added, "But thanks."
It seemed like in those words, Claudia was able to calm down enough so she wasn't babbling senselessly. "Your welcome."
She watched Malik sit down on the bed and glance back at the two roses. "It's a shame though that they'll just die."
"Yeah," well it was true. It seemed like the pretty flowers always died. Then a question came to mind. "So how long are you going to be here?"
With a shrug, he answered, "I thought I heard the nurse say something about Sunday, but I'm not sure. Besides, that's just when I won't be here, as in this part of the hospital. If I'm not mistaken, they want to send me to rehab so I can work a prosthetic."
"That sucks," Claudia agreed, leaning a little on the wall.
A that point, it was Malik's turn to ramble. He was holding onto the stump left of his arm as he went on asking (partly to himself, I might add), "I don't really need a fake arm, right? I can just go on without it. I don't want to stay here, but the nurse keeps insisting that I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know if she's right or just being persistant or what..."
Claudia lightly put a hand on his shoulder, "Hey it's alright. You know what you really want, it's not like that nurse can make you live in any way."
"Yeah, I think you're right," Malik said.
Then there was something else she wondered. "Did anyone else visit? When I came in here the first time, it's like no one else even bothered coming in. And nothing's really changed since."
He looked down at the floor.
Oh god, did I strike something a bit too personal?
"Altair bothered to show up," he answered a long minute later. "And my mom earlier..." By the way he had to force out 'mom' didn't sit well with her.
"Did something happen then?" She wondered.
"You could say that I guess," he murmured. Then he let his head fall in his hand. "It's nothing though... Don't worry about it.."
Right away, she caught his voice starting to fail. Is he...? Oh man, he's crying. She let the maternal side (which was usually brought out by her little brother) come out and pulled her arm around him, lightly rubbing his shoulder; being sure to keep clear of the amputated limb. It surprised even her when he not only allowed it, but in fact pulled in a little closer.
"Why'd he have to die?" Malik sobbed. "It- it's all my fault. I should've told him to stay home. I- I could have saved him."
"It's alright," she hushed, "we all make mistakes. Sometimes people suffer for another person's mess ups. It's not your fault."
"Damn, is he crying?"
Claudia whipped her head up and found herself glaring at Federico in the doorway. He seemed so smug about this.
Of course, does he take the hint that now's not the time or place to laugh? Nope. "And you're acting like the guy's mom or something! God, Claudia, if he's a man then he shouldn't need to be cuddled over some stupid flesh wound or whatever!"
"Get out, Federico, you aren't helping anything!" She snapped, but regreted having to raise her voice in a place like this. Especially when it was counter-productive. But she also wondered why the hell he was even here. But now wasn't really the time to ask.
Federico didn't seem to back off though. He dared to even step into the room and approach the two. He pulled Claudia's hand off of Malik's shoulder and pushed her away. But there he faultered as his eyes caught hold of empty space where an arm should have been. After a couple seconds shock, he let Malik go with a shove and grabbed Claudia by the wrist. "We're leaving."
"But, Federico!" She argued, trying to pull away.
"No, I'm getting you out of this damn place," once he managed to pull her out the door he added undertone, "Little sister with a cripple. Not in a million years..."
That's about when Claudia had it with brothers. She smacked his arm and pretty much threw a fit all the way down the stairs, through the ER, across the parking lot, into the car, and the whole drive home. And when she was in their house, she pushed him away from her before shouting, "I HATE YOU" and running up to her room, slamming the door loud enough to echo throughout the house.
Federico just stood there a few moments after it all before going to the kitchen and trying to busy himself with making a sandwich. All that struggle made him hungry.
Ezio came about halfway down the stairs and hung on the banister as he asked, "What's wrong with Claudia? She wasn't even nearly this bad when I tried to take care of her Duccio problem at lunch."
Claudia could be heard from her room. "I'M STILL MAD AT YOU TOO, EZIO! JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!"
Federico hadn't even noticed that his parents were lingering in the hall, listening (but then again, who wouldn't when they hear some rediculously loud slam and a lot of screaming from their teenage daughter), "I found her at the hospital talking to that crippled Malik guy. So I pulled her out of there and now she hates me for some reason."
Both Maria and Giovanni were about to snap at him, but they were beaten to it by Ezio.
"You pulled her out of a hospital, probably making a big scene, because she was talking to a cripple?" Ezio seemed a little bit more on the shocked side than anything before that melted down and boiled to down right frustration. "What the hell's wrong with you? Crippled isn't a disease, dumbass! And what's wrong with her wanting to talk to someone in a hospital? This makes what I did so freaking minor!" Then he back-pedalled a little. "Wait, what do you mean by 'crippled Malik guy'?"
Federico seemed to be ignoring about the majority of Ezio's words. But he answered as he was slapping some ham on a slice of bread. "You know, crippled. He was missing an arm and all."
It was both the news about Malik, and the fact their son didn't seem accept disabilities that shocked his parents, who were still standing in the hall. Considering, once more, all Mr. Mualim bothered to announce was that Kadar was dead and his brother, Malik, was in the hospital.
However, this seemed to make Ezio feel a little more sickened towards his brother, "It's not like the guy's a freak! It was probably lost in that accident at the warehouse! It's not like the guy's going to become a murderer and rape her or something!"
"Wanna bet?" Federico crossed his arms. But then he tried to change the subject. "What the hell did you even do?"
Ezio glared before turning his head somewhere else. "Nothing. Now don't change the subject, this is serious!"
"Oh, I'm being serious," Federico claimed, "cripples, Ezio, no matter how you slice it, aren't normal. I want Claudia to be happy with a perfectly normal guy, not some freak missing some form of a body part."
"You're really impossible, you know that?" Ezio snapped, "I can't even believe you of all people would think something like this!" Then he walked upstairs and out of sight.
That night, Mommy and Daddy Auditore gave Federico quite the earfull. Not like that matters, right?
Just isn't Claudia's day. First she's got over protective Ezio trying to make sure Duccio keeps outside the 8 mile radius limit, and then she gets Federico (who I make out to be afraid of nonperfection (shallow in other words)) on her back just for talking to Malik. Before I get the ten million comments raging on me for this one, I'm going to clarifiy what's going on. I always thought of Federico as a guy who doesn't like people for being different. We've got the older brother who seems to know everything about fighting, climbing, and womanizing, but come on. Where's some flaw he can go and mess up with besides being a joker ass clown (and that only half counts)? Don't worry people, he'll get sense beaten into him sooner or later, but for now, he's gonna be a closed book. I'll also make a point, who hasn't ever looked at ANYONE strangely for being in a wheel chair, or are missing a limb, or using crutches, or studdering like no tomorrow (guilty)? I think everyone, especially when they're little children, are prone to being very closed off to differences. It takes correcting them for that sort of thinking to stop.
P.S. I mean NO OFFENCE to anyone with a disability at all. People who lost a limb can usually tell a pretty good story on how they lost it, and as for anything mental and things people are born with, I support them in every way, because the ones who are strong enough to live on and feel comfortable with themselves are the real heros.
P.S.S. Sorry for the run-on misspelling of Federico's name. Someone corrected me on that, so I took the time to fix it. I've always though it "Fredrico" because that's what it sounded like when Ezio said it in AC2 in the beginning. Or maybe my hearing just sucks.
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