Chapter 26:

If he was dead, it was exactly as awful as he had thought it would be.

Darkness, heavier than anything he had ever experienced pressed down on him. Everything was cold and painful and full of persistent beeping noises.

Actually, he hadn't expected the beeping.

Suddenly the blackness surrounding him took on a dimension, one that could be contained by his closed eyelids.

Slowly, agonizingly, Wolfgang came to the conclusion that he was alive, or at least, mostly alive. He couldn't seem to move anything and there was a hot throbbing pain stabbing into his temple. The tickle of morphine was numbing one of his arms. The screech of tires echoed in his ears, like a burning afterimage, fading far too slowly. Wolfgang had a niggling suspicion car crashes might feature prominently in his future nightmares.

Unbidden, a soft whimper escaped his lips.

There was a gentle brush against his mind, golden and familiar. His entire body seemed to relax without any conscious thought, the throbbing in this temple lessened.

She was safe. He wasn't alone.

It was the thought of seeing her again that forced him to undergo the considerable effort to peel open his eyes, but when he eventually did it was to squint past a beam of sunlight and resolve a blurry silhouette, one that he would know anywhere.

"Felix?" he croaked, throat parched. He blinked more energetically and managed to focus on the features of his friend's face, and the cup of water he was holding.

Felix looked awful. His cheekbones, already lean and angular, looked sunken somehow, like he hadn't slept or eaten in weeks, deep purple shadows under his eyes.

"You look like shit," commented Wolfgang conversationally, voice rough as if he hadn't used it in weeks. He wasn't sure if he was still supposed to be mad at Felix. Or was it Kala?

"You should see the other guy in here," replied Felix, somewhat more subdued than usual. "Looks like he got run over by a fucking tank."

"Close enough," muttered Wolfgang, although he couldn't remember much of it, and he really preferred not to think about the extent of his injuries.

Silence stretched between them as Felix stared at him appraisingly, and Wolfgang tried, subtly, to assess if he could feel his legs. He couldn't.

His only source of comfort was that if it was anything truly debilitating he knew Felix would have told him right away. They had made a pact, years ago, when it became clear Wolfgang had no easy way out of his Uncle's business and that Felix had a yin for breaking and entering.

He finally shook his head and moved more into Wolfgang's field of vision, "What were you thinking Wolfie? Who the fuck taught you to drive?"

"Some, kid I went to school with; thought he was the shit for stealing his stepdad's car," rasped Wolfgang, catching the hint of mischief in his friend's eye.

Felix cracked his trademark grin, "Damn sounds like he was pretty cool."

"Yeah," Wolfgang closed his eyes, but couldn't help grinning back, very painfully. "He is alright."

The muscles of his face quivered, as if they were unused to movement, but Wolfgang couldn't help the feeling of relief; he still had Felix.

Slowly, sense began to filter into his scrambled brain and he finally had the presence to ask the question he half knew the answer to.

"Did it work?"

Felix responded by hovering a newspaper in front of Wolfgang's face, holding it steady, since Wolfgang noticed with a kind of numb horror, both of his arms were encased in plaster.

It took a minute, they must have him on a lot of drugs, but the words filtered their way into his sluggish brain. Scandal... Massive online leak... Whistleblowers from around the world... World Health Organization under investigation for funding illegal laboratory, which was conducting highly dangerous experimental surgeries... Nomi Marks speaks out, advocate for the anonymous... A new kind of mental illness...'

"Illness." Wolfgang wasn't sure what to make of that. "They think we are sick?"

"It is how they are framing it yeah. Although –" added Felix, "They do debate it a bit on page seven, they're comparing Whisper's actions to that of early asylum attempts to 'cure' schizophrenia. Discrimination, etc., Nomi is all over that shit. She has kept your identity hidden though, seemed to think you would want to stay low profile."

"Mm." Struggling to focus, Wolfgang reached out to his cluster, the connection felt unusual however; oddly intense but at the same time indistinct. As if they were all standing in the next room over, but trying very hard not to overwhelm him.

Very strange.

Unconsciousness was starting to bear down on him again, exhaustion trickling into the borders of his mind. He clenched his jaw hard, fighting his heavy eyelids; he still had so many questions...

"Where am I?" he managed, already beginning to fade. Where was Kala?

Felix grinned before spiralling erratically out of Wolfgang's vision; he just caught his last few words before drifting off:

"Brienz County Cottage Number Seventeen."

The next time he woke Julia was leaning over him with a series of concerning looking metal instruments. She didn't seem to give any indication that she had noticed him wake up, and merely continued to shine lights in his eyes and ears, periodically pausing to write things on her tablet.

Wolfgang coughed a little. She kept ignoring him.

Finally, an expression like thunderclouds began to form on her face after a few more pointed coughs. With a few definitive clicks of her stylus, she turned to leave.

"Julia?"

It seemed for a moment as if she would storm out of the room without a word to him, but at the doorframe she paused and turned. The look she gave him was a mixture of affection and exasperation, mixed with a lot of relief.

"I am increasing my rates," she announced loudly.

Wolfgang blinked. "I am raising my rates," she repeated rounding on him, "If it stops either of you bastards from getting yourselves mostly killed!"

Wolfgang decided it was probably wisest not to say anything.

"Lord almighty, have the two of you ever met a bullet you did not try to catch with your stupid, stupid faces –"

"- Technically, it was a car crash, and I got shot in the chest, not the face," shouted Felix from somewhere in the general vicinity of the living room.

Julia ignored him. "Two broken arms, a fractured clavicle, one separated shoulder, nary an un-collapsed lung on you, you nearly perforated your kidneys, every flavour of cranial and spinal trauma, one blown eardrum, and who knows how many cracked ribs, actually wait I do know, six! Six! Do you have any idea –"

" –Julia -" interjected Wolfgang cautiously, who was unsettled by this display of emotion.

She raised a threatening finger into his line of vision, "-Promise me you will NEVER pull this kind of shit again!"

Wolfgang tried to nod and then realized he was wearing a neck brace. "I promise," he said quietly, not able to meet her eye for some reason.

She watched him carefully, then nodded, "Felix barely left your side, and I basically had to set up a barricade to keep your girlfriend and the rest of your - What do you call it? Cluster? – out of here," she informed him in a low voice.

"- They're here?" interrupted Wolfgang again, earning himself a glare.

Julia nodded again, and then leaned over to fuss with his blankets. "Please don't forget that you have many people that care about you," she said at last, staring at her shoes, and her hands shook as she smoothed the sheets over his chest.

Wolfgang knew in that moment, with a familiar sinking feeling, she had seen his scars. Of course she would have. A casual viewer would not have noticed, faded as they were, but no one conducting a proper medical exam would have missed them or their significance.

She had likely undergone some sort of training for this kind of thing. Got taught to look in the inconspicuous areas, recognize the trauma caused by repeated beatings. He watched her carefully for any signs of pity, but Julia just sighed and patted his blanket-covered leg before silently exiting the room.

Distantly, he heard the echo of her voice start up from the living room, cajoling Felix about keeping up his physiotherapy routine.

"Kala?" he whispered, throat scratchy as if he had been swallowing glass.

The conversation stopped outside his room, and a set of light, measured, footsteps approached.

His eyelids were getting heavy again but he forced them open. Her face appeared at the end of his bed, surrounded by an aura of medical supplies and x-rays. She looked as tired as Felix, and cautious, but also deeply relieved.

He could see the tension she was holding in her shoulders. There were faintest traces of bruises on her face. She was wrapped in the largest, most yellow, knit scarf he had ever seen. The sun slanting through half open curtains caught the curls escaping her bun. Under his gaze, her left hand shook slightly and she tucked in her pocket.

Something twisted a little in him, and broke free.

"Come here," he managed.

He looked almost unrecognizable, face swollen and cut, most of his upper body covered in bandages. She had wept the first time she had seem him, but that had been weeks ago. And the voice was the same, if a little rough, lilting in her ears, the only indication they weren't speaking the same language.

She moved closer, barely wanting to breathe, he looked so fragile. She wasn't sure how she felt; probably just as breakable.

Looking at him made her fingers itch to touch him, as if to verify he was actually real, alive, safe.

Wolfgang made a noise that somehow indicated he knew what she was thinking.

"Closer," he murmured and glanced over, as best he could, at the space beside him.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

Kala settled beside him, moving with exaggerated care, still wincing as every nerve in his body protested the slight depression in the mattress caused by her body.

The neck brace got in the way, but she snuggled up to him as best as possible. For a long while they laid still and listened to the noisy chirping of birds outside. Kala thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he spoke very slowly.

"I think I might be angry at you."

"I know," whispered Kala. She had been afraid of that. But she was also quite sure she deserved it.

"I might even yell at you." There was the faintest wisp of humour in his voice.

"Ok," replied Kala cautiously. There was a long silence. His mind was curiously distant, anxious even. Kala worked up the courage to peak up at him. "Wolfgang?"

"I love you," he said finally, voice shaking only slightly over the words, "I wanted to tell you that, when the car was about to crash, but there wasn't enough time and I was too much of a damn coward to say it earlier."

"It's ok," said Kala fighting down the warm little lump that had formed in her throat, "Really, I knew you meant it even when you didn't say it."

"I wanted to say it," insisted Wolfgang, his chest now rising and falling in a concerning fashion. "It means something to you, and I wanted you to know how brave I think you are, and..."

His eyes flashed over to Kala and she watched him struggle for a moment, before taking pity on him and leaning over to kiss him very gently, avoiding his split lip.

"I know," she murmured. "I love you too."

He gave her what might have been a smile and then closed his eyes, the line between his eyebrows relaxed slowly, and Kala sighed. A little bubble of contentment started to grow in her, and she carefully settled her arms around them before joining his thoughts, steering them into a warm and restful place.

She left his side, reluctantly, several hours later; the delicious smell of something cooking luring her out of the front door.

It had been Julia's idea to bring them all here, after the second consecutive week in the hospital had failed to restore Wolfgang to any sort of consciousness. She, Julia and Felix had got here first, renting out an entire row of cottages. Half lost in a fuzzy sort of half panic that made reality feel like a TV with bad reception, Kala remembered spending a lot of this time sitting under the watchful gaze of Julia, and when Julia was busy, the beady eyed proprietor of Brienz County Cottages.

The weather-beaten old landlord didn't ask many questions when they showed up van full of life support equipment in tow, Kala appreciated that. He had merely handed them a jingling key fob and beamed at the sight of Julia. She seemed to have that effect on people.

The smile, however, faded almost immediately at the sight of Felix (he also seemed to have that effect on people). Kala remembered watching the landlord stump around, adjusting things and scowling, issuing seemingly incoherent threats about plates and vases. Incoherent at least until Kala remembered. laconically and then with a jolt of amusement and curious heartsickness, that Wolfgang and Felix had beat a Russian mobster half to death with most of the kitchen contents of cabin number sixteen.

Nomi and Amanita joined them next, closely followed by Lito and Hernando, filling up two cottages just a few meters down from them, and one at a time taking over the role of loyal watchdog, as she stared blankly out of the window for hours in a row.

It helped, having them near, although the shared experience of her emotions got to be a bit much sometimes. Inevitably, lucidity returned, this time for good.

Wolfgang stayed resolutely comatose, but she did not despair any longer. Instead, she and Julia tried to fill the room with bright chatter, as she exercised his limbs, changed sheets, and adjusted his IV.

Slowly, she began to feel at home. She and Nomi began to take walks to town, two city girls exploring the lush green forests, huffing and puffing in the thinner air, laughing breathlessly at the sideways looks they received from the locals, rumbling past in a curious assortment of trucks and scooters.

Lito had joined them sometimes, always scooping Kala up into an enthusiastic bear hug and planting kisses on both her cheeks, which shocked her at first, but now she found it rather endearing. There wasn't really any way to describe it; just that she had a brother and another sister now.

Sun and Capheus came next, Sun weakly raising a hand in greeting and Capheus beaming at her like a ray of sunshine bouncing off a glass building. Julia had taken to him immediately, and in the moments where she wasn't fussing over the invalid sensates, was leading him on enthusiastic bike rides all over the countryside.

Last of all came Riley and Will, and they too mixed into their little family, Will pale and weak but growing stronger steadily, he and Sun having great fun grumping about their various ailments, on days where she wasn't too weak to talk.

It felt like a dream, like some sort of half-baked fantasy. How was this her life now? How was this even working?

But as she watched, Amanita and Hernando jokingly elbowing each other, grilling something on the barbecue, while Lito and Nomi looked on, Capheus lying in the long grass his face buried in one of Felix's comic books, Will and Sun sitting quietly in the shade, and Riley and Julia playing some sort of card game next to them, she realized she was happier than she had ever been.

The happiness was complicated of course; there was a big unspoken question, and then what? The uncertainty rattling around in the back of their heads.

Isolated in their little cottage retreat, they had been protected from most of the media fallout. Yet it was of such magnitude that even secluded Brienz could not escape the news.

In an effort to stop Kala from going to jail after the police got a hold of the Chicago hard drive, Julia and Nomi had released all of the information that they had found on the other hard drives, all at once.

What had followed was a global scandal, as over 30 years worth of forced surgeries, cruel experimentation and other atrocities dropped into the lap of modern media; and with it the revelation that there was another kind of human. The shock was beyond comprehension.

It was as if the world had suddenly gotten louder.

Former BPO employees, including the nurse that had come to her aid, spoke out in support. News anchors had long winded analyses, celebrities chimed in. The earth spun on. Just not quite in the same way. Nomi had shown Kala her blog one night, each post now reaching millions of hits and the comment section exploding with a slew of opinions.

"I wonder if we did the right thing," sighed Kala skimming an abusive tirade by some anonymous viewer.

"I think so," said Nomi, "The truth is always better, people will rejoice it, people will fight it. But in the end I think, the important ones will come to accept it."

And not for the first time, Kala's thoughts turned to her family. She wondered if they had managed to put two and two together. Even if they did, they had no way of reaching her; in the rush to get to Wolfgang's side she had failed to renew her phone service.

"Come here!" cried Lito bringing her back to the present moment, scooting over so Kala could sit next to him on the doorstep. He slung an arm around her shoulders, "He seems to be doing well."

"Yeah," said Kala, sighing and letting her shoulders relax, "I think it is going to be ok."

The air had begun to cool, and Kala was glad of her newfound knitting skills. She had never known such a dry, crisp atmosphere; it seemed to suck all the heat from her skin. It was hard to believe it was only early August. Their birthday would be coming soon.

A light on in the last cabin in lane caught her eye. "She is here?"

Nomi nodded, taking a sip from her drink. "She got here a few hours ago, said you could visit anytime you are ready."

"Oh," replied Kala, suddenly feeling a bit nervous, getting to her feet and wiping her hands on her pants, "I guess I will go now."

Gravel crunched underfoot as she walked up the steep driveway, the door to the cottage was ajar and swung open when Kala knocked.

"Come in," called Marie from the kitchen. The older woman's mind was completely withdrawn from hers, inscrutable. They had not talked much since Kala had realized Wolfgang was alive. In the wild joy that had accompanied those first few hours, Marie had gently retreated, warmly pleased, but stinging with half hidden pain; Dr. Gallo's body had already been cremated.

Kala settled into a tartan armchair; all the cabins seemed to have completely arbitrary layouts, no one resembling the other. The one she and Wolfgang were staying in was sleek and open concept; Marie's seemed to embrace a kitschier aesthetic.

A purring noise by her left ear startled her, and Kala looked over to see a small black cat place one delicate paw in her lap before nosing at her hand.

Marie poked her head in, "Tea?"

"Sure," replied Kala distractedly, as the creature settled into her lap, fixing her with an unblinking green-eyed stare.

A memory of Daya feeding strays popped into her mind. Her sister loved cats; she would always sneak milk from their dad's restaurant to give the ones with kittens. Kala was forever tripping over little dishes laid out in the alleyways behind their house.

"Don't worry," said Marie briskly, entering the room bearing two cups of tea, "The cat is very friendly."

She looked all right; considering everything, although the shadows under her eyes told a different story. Kala accepted her tea silently and stroked the purring ball of fur in her lap with her free hand.

Marie settled in the love-seat across from her, and seemed to be searching for the right words.

"Her name is Bouton," the older woman began at last, gesturing at Kala's lap, "My therapist told me that it might help... with... with everything."

Kala nodded, somewhat at a loss for words, because she had been there, and knew there was nothing that could be said to fix it. 'I'm sorry,' was woefully inadequate.

Marie understood, and smiled in a strained kind of way. After another moment, she turned and reached into a briefcase tucked against the corner of the couch. She produced a thick brown envelope and passed it to Kala.

"What is it?"

"Something Izzy wanted you to have," Marie gestured that she should read it, giving her another strained smile.

Kala did. Twice. With a growing sense of astonishment, she looked up at Marie, hoping for some kind of explanation, Marie seemed to he occupied by the view outside the window.

Bouton watched her from below, eyes bright and curious.

"So –" said Kala at long last, taking a very shaky sip of tea. "If I am reading this correctly, Dr. Gallo – Izzy – has -"

"-given you ownership of Chameleon Solutions," finished Marie, when Kala started stuttering, staring in shock at the paper. "And she has transferred most of her financial assets to you."

"But, but-" protested Kala, "They should go to you, or her brother. I mean –"

Marie shook her head, "Izzy and I discussed it long ago, I never wanted her company or her money, or her family's money, because frankly there is a lot of that to go around too." She shrugged, "I am a simple person, with simple tastes and small ambitions. You on the other hand..."

"But she hated me," burst out Kala, "She even told me so herself."

Marie gave a reluctantly fond smile, "Izzy was always a bit blunt, but I have it on the highest authority that she liked you very much."

Kala made a noise of disbelief, but Marie continued, "I think, if she was cold to you, it was rather because you reminded her of herself, before Whispers. That kind of thing makes people funny, you know."

The shocked silence stretched between them. A few weeks ago Marie might have filled it with chatter, but now she just gestured wanly at Kala and stared out the window.

"I need to think about this," muttered Kala at last, cautiously depositing Bouton on a footstool, and rising, suddenly needing to be somewhere else.

Marie nodded absently and for a moment Kala thought that was all she would hear from her.

"You don't have to accept it," Marie said at last, when Kala was at the door, still staring out of the window "But I think she would have wanted her company in the hands of another sensate. Making sure there was someone protecting us."

And without another word she waved Kala from the room.

I am alive! (And so is Wolfie) - Sorry about the extended absence, university is hitting me HARD. I hope you like this one, feel free to let me know what you think, next chapter should be in a week or two from now...

Fun song suggestion: Bon Iver - 8 (Circle) from his latest album is an excellent fit for the whole sense8 aesthetic.