Lazarus
I was fully prepared to die. I hadn't settled my personal affairs yet, but in the hours in which I lay there, the hours in which the chemo chemicals wore off and the cancer progressed rapidly through my body, I had taken up Hinduism, or Buddhism, or one of those religions which believes in reincarnation. If there is any justice in this world (and from what I've seen so far I could be holding my breath for a long time on this one) I'll come back as something awesome, like a tiger or an elephant or a hippopotamus. You know, one of those things that causes a lot of death and destruction. So that I can come back and settle my personal affairs.
And by 'settle my personal affairs' I do, of course, mean 'kill everybody who's ever crossed me.'
12. The Fear of Life
Wade lingered for an eternity in a grey place between life and death. In some ways he felt better, because he was no longer being poisoned by chemotherapy, but in other ways he felt worse, because he could feel the cancer working its way through his body, seeping in to every single cell. And it didn't help that Deadpool kept up a running commentary of its progress.
Yep, it just moved into our pancreas. Oh, and there goes the second kidney. Uh-oh, you don't wanna know what it's doing to our little soldier.
He didn't need Deadpool to tell him when the cancer wormed its way into his heart; the frantic bleeping of the ECG machine told him that this time he was well and truly screwed. In other circumstances, the warning alarms would have summoned a host of doctors and nurses, but Wade had signed a DNR form; Connie was the only witness to his passing from life, and when the cancer grabbed hold of his heart and started to squeeze, he lost sight of Connie as blackness enveloped him.
It was like slipping into a cool, deep pool of water. Here there was no pain. No suffering. No cancer. Just darkness, and a feeling of floating, of weightlessness, of waiting for one tiny gust of wind to carry him through the void and into what lay beyond.
But death proved to be a fickle bitch. She taunted him with promises of relief, but fled from him when he sought her out. She whispered sweet nothings of emptiness in his ear, and laughed when he was unable to respond. She beckoned him forward then lost him in the twists and turns of some deeper darkness. Until finally, like a man underwater who had held his breath for too long, Wade found he had to surface.
Consciousness claimed him, but it was hazy, like the smog-choked New York air on a hot afternoon. He was aware of the infernal machine, still bleeping away beside his bed, and of Connie, her body pressed close to his. On the edge of consciousness he remained for an indeterminate amount of time. Other figures came and went; the prayers of a padre were just discernible to his hearing, though he wasn't strong or coherent enough to form words to tell the man to get lost, that God's minions were not welcome here.
Caldwell stopped by a few times, taking measurements from the machines, trying to work out how long it would take Wade to die, asking Connie if she wanted anything to eat or drink (the part of Wade still alert enough to register verbal communication was pleased to realise her answer was always 'no').
Eddington did not come again, or if he did, it was during the times when Wade wasn't lucid enough to notice external stimuli.
Lady Lucidity, mused Deadpool. That would be a great name for a superhero.
Wade lay with his eyes closed, ignoring Deadpool's chatter. He mentally sought out the void, trying to find a path to that place of weightlessness where death waited for him. But it was futile. He couldn't find a single path back to the void; all of the ways were closed to him, so he settled for the next best thing, navigating his way to true sleep.
o - o - o - o - o
It was a dream. He knew it was a dream, because the light was ubiquitous and everything was hazy, as if some over-enthusiastic audio-visual nerd had gone crazy with the soft-focus lens. He was sitting in a house of unusual design and architecture; a place that was both familiar and alien to him. Looking around, he realised he wasn't alone.
There were men with him, dressed in the same army fatigues as he now wore. Some sat on the sofas, others lounged against the walls with arms folded across their chests, all of them focused on the person talking. It was a woman, short and slight, smaller even than Connie. Her skin was pale and flawless, her hair a tumble of loose, dark brown curls. She gestured to maps scattered across a coffee table as she spoke, but try as he might, he could not hear her words. It was as if she whispered in a voice too quiet for him to discern.
He couldn't hear her, but every time she turned her vivid green eyes on him, he could feel her inside his head, picking at his thoughts like a finicky child picks at his dinner, searching for the choicest morsels whilst casting aside the rest. Each time she looked at him, she looked into him, and through him, in a way that was both disturbingly intimate and provocatively beguiling.
Whatever she said caused the men to stand up. Weapons were handed around—Wade was given swords—and they all trudged outside. Silver moonlight coruscated across the town below, showering the buildings in the cold rays of its full glory. Everybody was getting inside a truck, but Wade hesitated. He thought he heard a voice on the wind, calling his name. He waited.
'Wade!'
Turning, he saw Connie emerging from the house. Only now, it wasn't some foreign house of white stone and gentle arches, but of brick and tile, fronted by a green lawn and a garden path, similar to the place he imagined he had grown up. Sunlight bathed the area in a warm saffron glow; in the distance he could hear children laughing, and garden sprinklers activating.
'You don't need to go, Wade,' Connie called. She was wearing an apron, and an oven mitt was clutched in one hand. It all seemed very normal. Very natural.
'Move it, Wilson, we're waiting,' said a deeper voice.
Wade turned again, and saw the men and the truck outside the house. Then men were partially in shadow now, their faces obscured from the moon's light by the angles of the truck and the nearby trees; he couldn't tell which one of them had spoken, but they all watched. He could sense their nervousness, and their excitement. The small woman, too, waited beside the truck, and he could see now that she was dressed in black, like some night-prowler. Her face was shadow-cast; all he could discern were her green eyes, almost glowing in the moonlight with focused intent. And he could feel her, in his head, invisible fingers cold as a mountain spring creeping into his mind.
'You don't have to be that man anymore, Wade,' said Connie.
At that moment he realised he was straddling the border between the two worlds; to one side was the darkness, the thrill of the hunt, the spontaneity of a life lived day by day. It was a world of deception and lies, of swirling cloaks and hidden daggers, of living or dying by one's skill and wits. A world where you had to fight for every single answer, where friendships lasted only as long as two people needed to use each other for some ulterior purpose. It was the world he had known all his life.
And on the other side was a world he had only glimpsed in brief dreams and on television. A place of light, and truth, and stability, where the greatest scandals had nothing to do with war, or death, or politics, but how much the price of groceries had gone up at the supermarket, and whose wife was having an affair with whose husband. A world of consistency, where every day was an extension of the one before it, and a smooth path into the one which would follow.
He looked to Connie. She gave him a smile, and the look in her eyes hinted something more; of things to come, of unspoken truths and soon-to-be promises. She waited for him in the light, ready and willing to accept him as she was, to help him walk up that path and enter the house and become someone different. Someone better.
'It is a dream, Wade,' said a new voice. It was the woman by the truck; he could hear her now, and she sounded suspiciously British. She spoke again but her lips did not move. 'Sooner or later, every dreamer must wake up. You don't want to be on the wrong side of the dream when you wake. Trust me; I know.'
He felt himself torn. Wade Wilson wanted to turn towards Connie, walk up the path and embrace her. He was sure if he took her in his arms, everything would be okay. But Deadpool held him back. Deadpool did not want a life of softness and supermarket runs. He didn't want to be sedentary, tied to one place, to one person, even if that person was the potential saviour of his soul. He wanted the freedom of not knowing what tomorrow would bring; and the dangers which accompanied that freedom. He wanted to live life on the edge, because when you were a hair's breadth from dying… those were the moments in which you knew you were truly alive. Water was the sweetest taste to a man dying of thirst, but to a man who stared daily down the barrel of a gun, life itself was a far more satisfying elixer.
The pavement greeted his left knee as he sank to the floor, and rough stone chippings his right. He looked up, one eye catching the blue sky and sunlight, the other finding the pale orb of the moon hanging silently in the darkness.
'I don't know what to do!'
He hadn't expected an answer, so he was surprised when he received two.
'Follow your heart,' said Connie, her eyes imploring. 'Only by following your heart will you find true happiness in a world full of sorrow and pain.'
'Follow your head,' the stranger countered. 'For 'true happiness' is a lie that they gift-wrap and sell to the masses, a way of stopping people from realising how broken the world really is.'
Four years of medical torture could not have prepared him for what he now endured; a torture not of his body, but of his mind and soul. The choice, he knew, needed to be made. To live as Wade Wilson, to have hopes and dreams, to want for better things… or to turn his back on those dreams and become the monster the government had made him, to continue as Deadpool, a living weapon.
It was a choice he knew he would have to make, but at the same time, he was incapable of making it. He didn't have enough knowledge to reach an informed decision. He didn't know what would happen to Wade Wilson, or Deadpool, if he chose one life over the other. The risk of making the wrong choice was too great, so instead of choosing, he did nothing. He knelt there, half in darkness, half in light, as the truck was loaded up and driven away. As Connie left the front door and returned to whatever was starting to burn in the kitchen.
He waited, and he did nothing, until the dream began to fade.
o - o - o - o - o
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.
Wade opened his eyes. A white ceiling greeted him.
"Am I dead?" he asked.
Connie's face appeared above, followed a moment later by Caldwell's.
"No, you're not," said Connie. Wade felt that she took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"How do you feel?" Caldwell asked.
In truth he felt like shit, but it was mostly emotional shit because of the weird-ass dream. Deadpool took a quick stock of their body.
Heart's working normally, kidneys seem to be functioning, liver's okie dokie—which is good, 'cos we need that for drinking—and all the other important bits seem to be here. Even our appendix. Have we always had an appendix? I really can't remember. Hmm… everything feels a bit weird. Tight. Like we're wearing somebody else's skin, and like all our organs are a bit more squashed in there than they were before. But everything works.
"I feel… well," Wade said after Deadpool's assessment. "Am I cured?"
"Not… exactly," said Connie. God, she looked terrible. Her skin was a pale white-grey, and judging by the dark circles under her eyes, it was caused by lack of sleep. Her eyes looked pinched, still a little red from crying. "As the cancer continued to spread, you seemed to slip in and out of a coma. At one point, we thought we'd lost you. Your heart stopped beating for about ten seconds. But then… it started again."
Wade frowned. "But I signed the DNR paperwork!"
"We didn't re-start your heart, Wade," Caldwell chipped in. "You did."
"I did not! I was there when I signed the DNR order."
"Perhaps I should say, your healing response kicked in and automatically resuscitated your heart. You were only clinically dead for ten to fifteen seconds."
"Then… am I cured?"
He lifted his hands and saw that no, he was not cured. His skin looked worse than ever… like he'd been dipped in hydrochloric acid, and then boiled in a tub of water, and then exposed to the plague. Clenching his fists, he felt the tightness of his skin, could almost feel it sliding over the lumps of his flesh.
I think I need to be sick.
"What's happening to me?"
The mattress of his hospital bed depressed as Connie sat down and took one of his hands in hers. Her skin was so smooth, so soft, it was like silk. Seeing her hand next to his merely exacerbated his own deformity.
"The cancer has spread throughout your entire body," she said. She looked like she was going to cry. How could she possibly have any tears left? "By rights, you should be dead. We have no idea how you're still alive."
"Wade, I'd like to take a blood sample," said Caldwell. "Perhaps we can learn something about your condition."
"My condition?" he said, bitterness bringing him out of the numb stupor that had settled over him at the sight of his own flesh. "My condition is that I'm a freak. A monster. But sure. Take your sample. Whatever. I don't care. Just figure out a way for me to die."
"Don't talk like that, Wade," said Connie, her eyes watering.
He turned onto his side, forcing her to let go of his hand. "Take your blood sample and then go."
"But Wade—"
"I mean it, Connie. I want to be alone. If you can't respect that, then you don't have any business being here in the first place."
The mattress sprang back up as she stood up, and he heard her quiet footsteps as she went to the door. "All right, Wade. But I'll be here if you need me. And I'll stop by to check on you later."
She left. Caldwell took a blood sample from his arm, and then he left too.
Well,said Deadpool, when the two of them were alone in Wade's head, at least there's one good thing that has come out of all of this.
And what's that?
We won't have to take up Hinduism to get our revenge.
o - o - o - o - o
He looked into the bathroom mirror, and a monster looked back. A creature twisted and tortured studied Wade from behind his own eyes… eyes which were the only part still recognisable as human. The malignant tumours which had infested every organ of his body, threaded their way beneath his skin and even warped his brain, had not affected his eyes.
Three days after waking from his last dream-coma, he'd finally been able to keep some food down. Connie had brought him fruit cups, but he hadn't let her stay to watch him eat. He hadn't wanted her to see his face; a face which would send mobs running for their pitch-forks and torches, if they saw it. So he'd sent her away, and eaten the fruit cups, and slowly felt his strength returning.
For once, Wade was grateful for Caldwell's presence, because with Connie all but exiled from his room, somebody needed to change the bandages wrapped around his arms and legs to protect his sensitive skin from bedsores, and somebody had needed to empty the bedpan, and see to the machines, and alter the dosage of pain-relief medication in his drip (although judging by how much pain he was in, he didn't think the medication was working at all).
Eventually he'd been able to sit up unaided, and after a day or two of fruit-cups he could potter around his room, to the window and back for a bit of fresh air and a change of scenery. He had been right; he was on the first floor. Too low down to jump to his death, unfortunately.
Now, in the small en suite bathroom, he could see the full, horrific extent of his illness. The cancer had ravaged his body, and if what it had done to his internal organs wasn't pretty, then what it had done to his face was downright ugly. It was, literally, a mass of tumours connected by threads of taut shiny skin, as if his face had started to melt and bubble before setting. It was a face not even a mother could love. A mother would have run screaming if she had given birth to such a monstrosity.
We could get a mask, Deadpool suggested. Like that guy. Wossisname. 'Phantom.'
I don't know anyone called 'Phantom,' Wade thought numbly.
Of the Opera. He had a mask, and he did alright for himself. I think. I dunno, I'm just making this up. But a mask is definitely the way to go.
How will we eat?
Well, we could lift the mask up. Or maybe we could cut a hole in it for our mouth…
No, I mean how will we get food? Nobody will serve us, looking like this, and wearing a mask we're likely to draw the wrong kind of attention. Law-enforcement attention, I mean.
Drive-thrus, genius. They exist for people like us.
No. They exist for people who are in a rush and want to eat on the go. Besides, we don't even have a car. It's time to face facts; we don't belong in this world anymore. There is nothing for us. Nothing.
Except sweet, sweet revenge, of course.
Of course.
Well, if we're going to serve delicious slices of vengeance pie, we might as well make a start. We don't even have to worry about packing a bag, 'cos we have no stuff to pack, and no bag to pack it in.
Maybe we should leave a note. For Connie. To say thanks for all she's done for us.
Fine, if you must. But make it quick.
He turned towards the door but stopped when he heard somebody enter the treatment room. Quiet footsteps stopped by his empty bed, then a quiet voice called out.
"Wade?"
Damn, it's Connie. Guess it's too late to leave a note. Do you want me to handle her?
No. I'll do it. You're an insensitive jerk.
But at least the audience love me.
Wade opened the bathroom door and stepped out. Connie turned to face him, and he had to give her her due; she didn't even flinch at the sight of him. Instead she offered him a small smile, and he noticed the tray of food in her hands.
"I brought you a sandwich," she said. "It's ham. Figured you were probably fed up of fruit cups by now."
"Thanks. But I'm not really hungry."
Well I am. Never say 'no' to free food. That's rule #1. Eat the sandwich. Eat it now. We need to keep our strength up if we're going to find and hurt the military assholes who did this to us. Oooh we could go after their families!
"Actually, I am hungry after all," he said, grabbing the sandwich from the tray before Connie could take it away. "Thanks."
"How are you feeling?" she asked, discarding the empty tray and perching on the edge if his bed.
He quickly swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. God, that was good ham!
"Well, I'm not dying from what should be terminal cancer. But on the other hand, my potential career as a swim wear model is shot to hell, so I guess the silver lining is half empty."
"I've spoken to Simon," she said. "Cancer isn't his area of expertise, but he agrees there's little point you staying in the hospital, at this stage. Unless you want to, of course."
"Nah. I hate hospitals. They always smell too clean. Makes me wonder what they're hiding."
"I thought you'd want to get out of here." She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment before continuing. "I went back to my apartment today. I was careful," she said quickly, before he could interject. "I took Mr. Grimes with me, and asked him to keep an eye out for any suspicious government cars. And he helped me search my apartment for bugs. He thinks it's safe."
"Oh well, if the paranoid homeless guy says the place is clean, who am I to argue?"
"Mr. Grimes was in the army," she said. "He knows what he's doing."
Being homeless must just be a cover, Deadpool said in a wry tone. The guy's clearly a diabolical genius.
"I know you probably don't want to go back to Simon's apartment," Connie continued. "But now that my apartment's not being watched anymore, it should be safe to go back there. Both of us, I mean. I know it's not as nice as Simon's place, but it's more private. And… um… it has that fire escape you like so much."
Wade took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be as easy as he'd imagined. Deadpool offered to intervene again, but Wade dismissed the idea immediately.
"Connie," he said. "I can never, ever repay you for everything you've done for me. I know I saved your life, but that wasn't personal, it was just me interrupting a crime. I would have done the same for anyone. Or, well, probably anyone. Definitely most people. But that's a whole other tangent. What you did for me… that was personal. You cared enough about me to see past my scarred exterior, and you wanted to help me, because you are a good and kind person. You are a rare and beautiful jewel, sparkling in a world of darkness and filth."
Good metaphor.
"That's nice of you to say—" Connie began. Wade quickly cut her off.
"But there can be no 'us.' As much as you may want it, and I may want it… you and I can never be."
"Why not?" A frown marred her pretty face, and he hated that he had to be the one to put it there.
"Well, for one, I have cancer."
"Lots of people have cancer. Yours should be terminal. But you've survived it. And you're gaining strength every day."
"Also, I look like I've been severely dipped in nuclear radiation."
She shrugged. "Like you said before, I've already seen past your exterior once. Do you think I'm not capable of doing it again?"
"It's not that. I know how big your heart is. I know you could see past what the tumours have done to me."
"Then what?"
"You shouldn't have to." Her eyes showed a lack of understanding, so he elaborated. "You are a beautiful young woman, Connie. You have your whole life ahead of you. You could have your pick of any guy you wanted. You deserve only nice things. You deserve to have someone who can walk down a street with you, without drawing a mob, or a military hit-squad. You deserve to be able to go to restaurants, without someone who needs to wear a hat or a mask as a disguise. You deserve someone whom you can be proud to take home to meet your mother. Someone to have two point however many children with. In short, you deserve someone better than me."
"And who put you in charge of deciding what I deserve? Shouldn't I have some say in my own future?"
"You can have all the say you want, as long as it doesn't involve me. You and I shared something, briefly, but it was a dream, and now we have to wake up."
"What if I don't want to wake up?" she whispered.
"Than stay here in the dream, and I'll wake up."
She lowered her gaze, her feet carrying her to the window, and she looked out at the people walking by. When she spoke again her voice was quavering, and he could tell she was barely holding it together.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
"I have to. There's nothing here for me now."
"Where will you go? What will you do?"
"I don't know," he lied, prompted by Deadpool.
"You do realise that if you choose to go, to leave and be alone… you're going to be alone forever. You know that, don't you?"
"That's the way it has to be."
"Very well." She turned, and there was a hardness in her eyes. But it was false. A mask a child might wear to convince his peers that he's not afraid. "I don't want to say goodbye like this. Not here. Will you at least come to my apartment tonight, so that I can say goodbye in private? In the place where we technically first met? Will you at least do me that courtesy?"
Don't you dare go to that apartment, warned Deadpool. She'll try to use her female wiles on you, to make you stay!
"I'll come," Wade agreed.
Idiot.
"Then I'll see you tonight."
She walked past him, stiff-backed and teary-eyed. After she'd gone, Wade turned to the dressed beside the bed, and took out the clothes she had bought him. He owed her so much, and part of him felt broken and guilty over the thought of leaving her. But it was for the best. With him gone, Connie could get on with her life.
And Wade could get on with his vengeance without having to listen to her serve as his conscience.
