Negative Space
Chapter 10: Adium
Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik Football and I make no money from this fanfiction.
Ciaran, Gabby and Liadan are my OCs because we don't know the names of all the members of the Akillian Team.
Adium's the first one to arrive to Bleylock's testing.
Of course.
Bleylock tells her to wait in the mostly empty testing room, whilst his assistants scurry around on the raised platform containing some computer equipment and such, completely ignoring her presence. She reads the news on her holo-phone for a while but she doesn't have to wait long, Ciaran showing up promptly.
"Hi," she says, a strange awkwardness creeping over her. It hasn't been that long since they last saw each other, a few weeks maybe, but then again, they all used to see each other every day. It's probably the contrast. Having a General of Technoid in room with them, no matter whether or not he was paying any attention, probably isn't helping matters either.
"Hi Adium, how's it going?"
She tells him about her job because that seems like the safest topic and they talk about that for a while until Liadan enters.
Liadan's characteristically monosyllabic in her answers but from what Adium can gather she's started working as a club bouncer at a friend's club and she had already been forced to physically restrain several rowdy drunks. It sounds nightmarish to Adium but Liadan seems relatively content with that state of affairs.
Soon Gabby arrives which takes the burden off of the rest of them – she could carry on a conversation single-handedly for hours at a time. She tells them about going back home and how she's going to completely make-over her childhood bedroom now that she's back living with her parents. Adium just nods as she talks about paint samples and wonders whether Gabby hadn't considered a career in radio.
She immediately feels a little mean for thinking it, especially considering that Gabby's undaunted demeanour is doing wonders for making this whole experience seem normal.
Norata comes in last, walking into the room with a slow, uneven stride. There's a moment of awkward silence before everyone starts talking at him all of a sudden, saying how good it is to see him. Norata blinks and looks slightly taken aback.
Then they all just stand there for a while and Adium can't help but think how much smaller the team seems now. She hadn't realised how much he'd completely dominated the room until, all of a sudden, he wasn't there anymore.
"Now that you are all here, we can begin at last," says General Bleylock, looking up from behind his computer screens. He makes a gesture and his technicians bring out a case with some equipment.
"We're just going to put these on you to measure your vitals – heart-rate, blood pressure, that sort of thing," he says, vaguely, as the assistants bring out bands to place on their arms.
It feels a little weird but not uncomfortable or anything.
"Right," says Bleylock. "I think I'll get you jogging around the room first of all."
They do as they are told.
Adium had imagined all sorts of things ever since Bleylock had told her about the tests but in actuality it's actually not too dissimilar to one of their old training sessions. It's actually kind of fun, the team falling back into their old patterns. Some of them seem to have gotten slightly out of practice but not to a significant degree. Norata's the only one seriously struggling.
He gets them doing dribbling practice – that had always been one of her favourite parts of training. She loves just weaving in and out between cones, combining speed with precision and control. She's missed this more than she realised.
A sudden sound snaps her out of her thoughts.
She turns to look and it's Norata; he's tripped, knocking over several of the cones and lying out on the ground. The team all rushes over there and the room fills with the sound of people asking him whether he's okay, so much so that his answer is drowned out. Ciaran offers his hand.
Perhaps Norata doesn't see it. He struggles to his feet on his own, brushing himself off in an awkward fashion.
"I'm fine," he says.
"Resume testing," calls Bleylock and reluctantly they all get back into position.
"I think that will be enough from you all for today," Bleylock says after a few more assorted tests. "Thank you for your assistance; I'm sure I'll be in touch soon." To Adium's eyes, he looks like he's trying to hide his frustration and if she had to guess, she'd say that he hasn't found what he's looking for.
She can't say she's surprised – she hadn't allowed herself to hope that the Breath would come back after everything that had happened. Still, she feels a twinge of disappointment at having it pretty much confirmed.
He gestures to the assistants to pack up and strides out of the room without so much as a goodbye.
"Guess that's that," says Liadan, flatly.
"Why don't we go out for a quick drink whilst we're all here?" Gabby suggests, looking around at everyone.
"Why not?" Ciaran shrugs. "I feel like I need a drink after that."
Liadan scoffs a little (no doubt remembering what a light weight he always was).
"I need to go home," says Norata, quietly. "The baby, you know…"
Everyone nods, sympathetically before turning towards Adium.
Adium sighs. "Sorry, I can't make it either – I told work I'd be back as soon as the tests were done."
"Another time then," says Ciaran, though that seems very a vague concept at this moment. They had all lived together as a team but now there is no more team, there is no more reason for them even to live in the same area. Everyone's gone home to their parents.
"Right," she says, regardless. It's only polite. "I'm sure I'll see you all soon."
They all scatter off in separate directions and she walks off to work.
Her co-workers don't seem to notice but she still feels a little odd just walking into work in the middle of the day. Coach would never have allowed her to just take half the day off even if it was for some important Technoid Experiment. He would have at least assigned her some extra hours so that she didn't fall behind. She supposes it's just different with office jobs.
She sits down at her desk and gets to work immediately, feeling that she has to make up for lost time.
An hour and a half passes and the feeling of urgency to get working has more than worn off by now. She pinches the bridge of her nose, looking down, resting her eyes for a few precious seconds. She's still needs to get used to staring at the holo-computer all day – there's something weirdly exhausting about just sitting there for hours on end.
It doesn't help that the files on the office server are so badly organised that it takes more time just finding the relevant document than it does to actually carry out the required tasks.
Like now, for instance, she's looking for some record of the dietary needs of a particular Wambas Player that she could have sworn had casually mentioned to her that he had an allergy to something or other (she couldn't remember quite what). The only problem is that she can't find medical records anywhere on this system. She sifts through folders until she finds one named 'Player Data'.
The files within are, rather frustratingly, numbered rather than labelled so she clicks the first file in the folder, hoping that she's at least on the right track. A document with a list of names pops up onto the screen. Names she recognises – these are names of players in the League grouped by team apparently. Next to the names are numbers.
Phone numbers.
This wasn't what she was looking for, she knows she should turn back, but she doesn't. Instead, she scrolls down until she finds the name she's looking for. She enters the number into her own holo-phone then shuts down the document, looking around to check that no-one has noticed.
She feels edgy and impatient for the entire day and it's only made worse by the fact that she doesn't have quite enough to do to fill up her work hours - she ends up just checking her e-mails and pretending to be busy for half the time and just wishing for the end of day. She can't stop thinking about it – what will she say? What will he say?
Time seems to slow down to the point that when it's finally time to leave she can barely believe it. Walking out into cold air almost feels like a novelty because for a while there, she'd been utterly convinced that she'd spend the rest of her life in that building. The novelty soon wears off as Adium remembers that office-wear is not particularly great for walking in cold weather, even with a humongous coat thrown over the top.
She walks briskly until she reaches home and barrels straight up to her room, flopping straight down on her bed. She pulls out her phone and hovers over the number she's saved, not daring to press call. She's been thinking about what she would say all day but now she's actually here she just doesn't know what she'll say or more importantly, what he'll say.
Perhaps she'll tell him about the testing and seeing the team today. Perhaps she'll tell him about Norata. Perhaps he'll do most of the talking and her questions will finally be answered.
She takes a deep breath. She has to do this; she'll just keep thinking about it if she doesn't…
She dials the number.
Her heart is pounding in her chest at she hears the phone ring. It rings for so long she thinks it's just going to go to voicemail and then…
"Hello?"
Her heart stops. It's not the voice she wants to hear. Right of course, makes sense that they're roommates at the Shadows' training facility.
"It's Adium," she says, shakily, trying to keep it together in the face of her shock. "Is -"
He cuts her off before she can even ask, a distinctly sour tone in his voice – but what reason does he have to be angry with her. She isn't the one who abandoned everyone without so much as a note. "He doesn't want to speak to you."
"What? Please can you just -"
"Don't call here again," he says. The phone goes dead as he hangs up.
Adium's mind is reeling – all of her worst suspicions have been confirmed but she still just can't understand why…What had she done to deserve the anger of one and the silence of another?
She contemplates throwing the phone at the wall but she resists the urge, and instead carefully puts it away into her bag.
That's it for this chapter; hope you enjoyed! Sorry it took a while, I've been a little under the weather recently so it kind of got a bit delayed. Please review; reviews really do make my day!