In memory of Hannibal – my greyhound, my muse and the inspiration for Bannock in practically every way. A tirelessly loyal and loving companion, the back-seat cohort on countless adventures all around our state and beyond, and the heart of my home through seven years and seven different places. This one is for you, Boob.
As Suzaku was waging his one-man war with quiet desperation and dwindling bullets, Aurora hummed quietly in her steamy bathroom, brushing her damp hair before beginning the laborious task of braiding it. Using the mirror only occasionally to check the integrity of the initial weave, she glanced instead at the reflection of Bannock, who lay at the foot of her bed, ears up at attention and watching her intently, eyes wide with one of his patented expressions of patient, astonished focus. The morning sun angled in sharply, illuminating the delicate network of capillaries in his upright ears.
Pausing in her humming occasionally, shifting to allow the blood to drain back into her busy arms and hands, Aurora cooed and murmured to the dog, who quietly huffed and rooed in return. Whether or not they actually understand what exactly they said to each other was irrelevant – Aurora and Ban often went through this little ritual, this reaffirmation that even though they spoke in different tongues, they understood each other in a way that mattered, fostered by love and time and experience.
Winding the tie around her braid's tail, Aurora turned and strode out, snagging her phone and watch as she went, Ban leaping up on gangly legs at her heels. A brass pocket watch glinted dully on the night stand, too painful to bring along and too beloved to shun to the dark of a bottom drawer.
They came downstairs to brew Aurora's morning cup of tea, and came upon a scene of manic reorganization. As she leaned against the counter and finished fastening the band of the watch around her left wrist once the water was set to boil, her brows climbed as she watched Kendra methodically work through the monstrous array of medical supplies on the kitchen table. It was a good thing she hadn't planned for a more complicated breakfast, because there was no way Aurora could have shifted enough of the packages of gauze, gloves, syringes, and tubing to create space without incurring the wrath of Kendra on the warpath. Her sense of the perverse didn't run to blithely waltzing into destruction, Aurora mused as she idly wound Ban's delicate scrap of ear through her fingers. Didn't mean she couldn't nip at its edges, though.
"Slow day?" she asked carelessly as she turned to remove the squealing kettle and set the tea leaves to steep. Kendra glanced at Aurora without tilting her head up, peering forbiddingly over the round rims of her glasses. Her friend thus inspected and dismissed, the doctor turned her golden eyes back to the box of unopened surgical gloves. Technically expired, Kendra couldn't use them under the strictures of the network her clinic worked within. But they could be donated, and the supplies that weren't yet expired needed to be accounted for and organized to maximize their usability. Aurora would have happily done it, but she and Kendra had very different opinions about the most efficient form of cataloging and storing the supplies. And since she was the queen of the clinic, Kendra had last say.
"Yes," she responded in a clipped tone. "Stay away from my supplies – your version of cataloging is atrocious." Aurora quietly chuckled through her nose; it would seem the good doctor would never forgive her for that particular difference of opinion. "Go make yourself useful," she continued once she returned her attention to her worksheet and stacks of syringes. "The upstairs bathroom is in sore need of attention. You could finally patch that hole your dog put in the wall. You know, from that one time."
Far from insulted, Aurora turned back at the beep of the countertop timer. Pouring the tea into an ivory mug decorated with blooming stalks of lavender and indulging in a few drips of honey, Aurora took the time to snap a sharp salute. Bannock just beamed and panted at her side, wagging his tail and completely devoid of guilt. He took after his mama that way – both made their fearless way through life, each a cheery, natural student of the philosophical school of "better to beg forgiveness than ask permission."
"Aye aye, cap'n." Lingering just long enough to catch the reward of Kendra's eye roll, Aurora strolled out, Ban padding in her wake at the lazy wiggle of her hand. She had noted the absence of Kendra's husband; Chandler, no doubt, had run like a spooked gazelle at the first mention of house maintenance. Give the man a council of greedy, grumpy old white men, put him in front of a disgruntled crowd out for politician blood, square him off with a vicious reporter that was looking for that one chink in the armor to burn down a career – Chandler shone in situations that made Aurora's guts cramp. But God forbid you put a screwdriver or paint roller in his hand. Sipping the pungent herb drink and playing out Mozart's Sonata Seventeen in C on her thigh, Aurora climbed back up the stairs, strolling to the bathroom tucked away at the end of the bedroom corridor.
It was a bit of an orphan, as the other two used on this floor were connected to their respective bedrooms. Hence why it had been Aurora's choice for Ban's first bath. Needless to say, they had all been surprised when the young dog, tolerating the procedure with reasonable dignity, had leapt free once Aurora stepped back, spun a spastic circle, then tried to race out his relief at the end of the torture. Bannock, however, had disastrously miscalculated both his size and the size of the room.
His celebrations had ended promptly when he rammed head first into the wall. The resulting crater was three feet off the ground, the width of an orange, and had left everyone, Ban most of all, stunned.
Setting her tea on the sink's rim, Aurora walked over to the six-foot-long Japanese woodcut block print of a forest in twilight. Detachedly admiring it for a moment, she then reached up and pulled it off the wall, revealing the damage done years ago. Setting the artwork aside, Aurora angled her head as she surveyed the destruction, sighing as she patted Ban's skull. The dog had been relaxed at the threshold until she'd pulled down the artwork; now he slunk close, apologetic and ashamed, leaning against her thigh.
"And wasn't that an exciting day?" she murmured under her breath, scratching under the dark navy band of Ban's collar. He was free to run around unencumbered in Ireland, but Aurora dared not run the risk, not on London's occasionally mean streets.
In lieu of a vocal response, Ban snuffled the knee of her jeans before wandering over to the sink, circling awkwardly and tucking himself down into a narrow, shamed-faced ball on the dark green rug in front of the sink. She was suddenly and vividly reminded of her last bout of house maintenance – banging on the kitchen plumbing in Ireland in penance for poking hard at the blackest of bruises on Suzaku's heart.
She caught her breath at the bolt of pain that pulsed through her bones at the thought of him, and all the lancing emotions the memory of him – crouching down, arms folded atop the cabinet door, eyes raw, smile small and perfect and achingly gentle – unearthed. Aurora dragged in a shaky breath, sternly demanded under her breath that she get her shit together, and set about patching the damn drywall.
She'd purchased the supplies nearly six months ago, intending to see to the project before London got its teeth into summer. Shoving open the small window high in the shower, Aurora winced at the meager offering of a breeze. The cool of the spring rains had come and gone, and she'd been occupied with the project of a lifetime then. Now, she'd just have to endure the wet heat of a deep summer day, the muscly threat of a storm on the periphery.
Heading back to her room for her speaker and music, Aurora shucked her draped t-shirt, leaving her in a black tank-top and ratty jeans, fresh-faced and naked of make-up. The aristocracy she had once woven herself into, rubbing elbows with venomous charm and vintage champagne in hand at art exhibitions and polo matches, would never have recognized her. As for Aurora, well. True, she knew the feel of silk sheets and Stradivarius strings; but that wasn't who she was anymore. Fragments of that identity still lingered, though, shards reworked into a mosaic that, even if she now grasped the palette, the finite pattern still occasionally escaped her.
One final stop at the utility closet to gather the supplies, and Aurora was ready to begin. Once she'd stuck the mesh plate to the wall, Aurora seated herself cross-legged on the tile to begin smearing the lilac joint compound in place. It didn't take long for Ban to unfold himself, come slinking over, then collapse with a sigh, heavy head propped on her thigh. Aurora, though, didn't mind. She just shifted to make them both comfortable and kept feathering the edges of the patch.
Time passed, and the only sound beyond the electric throb of music was the scrape of the drywall knife, and breathing.
Eventually, the patch was done, and there was nothing to do now but let it dry. Rousing her hound who had drifted off to sleep in the lazy heat, his head a cement block on her leg, Aurora washed her hands and shut off the music, snagging her shirt and shoes before jogging downstairs, Bannock a cheerful thunder at her heels.
Kendra didn't even look up from her stockpile – as Aurora strode past, she held out a hand, a long list of supplies written in her doctorly scrawl flapping gently. Without missing a beat, or bothering to speak, Aurora hummed in assent, snagged the piece of paper, and headed out to her Jeep. Ban paused just long enough for an ear scrub from Kendra, then trotted after his mama.
An efficient eight minutes later, Aurora motored along the rutted road that had once been Harley Street, Ban happily flopped in a jumble of limbs on the back seat, his nose poking just out the window, snuffling the wind in quiet contentment. Already organizing her list of errands into the most effective order, she steered them north first, past the High Hedges and towards Solomon's Row.
Aurora had been raised in a system of give and take; it was second nature for her to utilize the lives she and Kendra saved. People eager to repay what they saw as a life debt facilitated the network Aurora had built in London more out of habit than with any sort of intention.
The woman whose daughter had been treated after complications led to life-threatening pneumonia kept Aurora and the Andrews in fresh eggs for the next eternity or so.
Those eggs helped keep the clinic in the good graces of the electricity tech in charge of their sector; the lines were still a finicky mess even after all these years, and the eggs bought the clinic and a few other blocks Aurora had included on the list priority for reconnection whenever they went down, which was about every other month or so.
One of those blocks housed an indestructible, eccentric old woman named Eleanor who voraciously read erotica, brewed homemade gin, and knitted wool blankets. Besides her… unique personality and endless entertaining stories of youthful shenanigans, she offered both the gin and blankets in exchange for the electrical priority.
Those items were helpful in establishing other prongs of Aurora's network, the homeless community providing some of the largest and most complex areas of the webbing. The rest was also built on trade of favors and items, an interconnected system that wove through London's recovering heart. And Aurora moved like a gilded spider along those threads, the checks and balances carefully monitored, debit and credit meticulously calculated to maintain balance. She kept it all in her head, the only truly safe repository of information, in a monstrous memory palace that spanned the city.
And she did it purely because she knew of no other way to exist – the safest person was one protected by the very system they created and controlled. The command was in her blood; the finesse had come from training. Either way, at this point, it was simply who she was – the merchant of memory, the scales of community. And Aurora didn't just adjust to her world and protect herself from its dangers – she had to defend herself from her own nature.
After her absence, the network had acquired a few holes, several of the junctions freezing or failing. Aurora spent several hours reestablishing contacts, smoothing over stilted trades, building or rebuilding agreements – in between purchasing laundry detergent and bread, scotch tape and black socks, of course.
Ban accompanied her to every errand and negotiation, a valuable asset when tensions and defenses flared. He was intimidating in the face of aggression, and endearing when presented with caution. Aurora herself was an institution built on power and trust, but Ban was an invaluable reinforcement of that identity.
That, and it could be hard work, soothing egos and cajoling action; it was nice to have her pup at her side.
At one point, she strolled down the street back to her Jeep, having negotiated cement for artwork, when a flash of color ahead caught her eye. When Aurora glanced up, she smiled and lengthened her stride, waving in greeting at the local artist coming towards them. Languidly, he approached, the two of them chatting for a bit, Aurora laughing in commiseration as he described his ongoing search to find a bassinet for his newborn son that wasn't hideously ugly.
As she waved him goodbye, Ban's ears lifted at something he saw across the street, and he began to move away from her. It was more of a feeling than anything she saw, the fading of the presence at her side that was ubiquitous on days like this.
A sharp call brought him back, looking up at Aurora with a sort of sheepish shrug. Patting him with affectionate weight on the ribs before rubbing firmly at the base of his tail, she was surprised that he'd thought to leave her at all. But the raindrop on her nose shattered that pondering, prompting Aurora back to the Jeep for her last errand. She'd saved buying pints of mango, coffee, and mint ice cream for last. Once she'd chatted pleasantly, handed over the two boxes of wood screws she'd picked up along the way for repairs needed in the shop's basement, and made her selections, Aurora figured her discipline earned her the sample the little mom-and-pop shop offered of a new flavor – raspberry lavender.
Aurora had demolished the small scoop before she drove two blocks, making a mental note to snag a carton the next time she went to Splendid Sweetness. Dusk had only just begun, but was hastened and thickened by the rain threatened since that morning finally becoming reality, beginning as a soft sprinkle but gaining heft as the minutes ticked by. Ban was in his usual spot on the back seat, left conveniently empty throughout their errands, but his nose had retreated out of the flecks of rain, switching his gaze from the window to Aurora, then back again.
Her brain elsewhere, calculating dinner and drywall and damp, Aurora nearly passed them before she caught the details. A woman was crouched by her rear right tire on the side of the road – one glance betrayed the purple jacket, hair frizzing despite the wet, and heeled boots. Slowing, then pulling over in front of the car, Aurora stepped out, pausing for a moment to murmur to Ban who stood ready to join on a new adventure, allowing the woman a chance to see that she was also female. Even then, as she strolled closer and the woman straightened, her wet expression was still riddled with caution and suspicion.
The tiny pale face peering out from the back window quickly revealed why. Not just a woman stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire – she had her young child with her.
Aurora wouldn't have called it sentiment or charity. Instead, she would have likely chalked it up to another tally in her impossibly vast columns, spinning yet another thread to pluck at a later date. But that was really a defense built thoroughly around a heart calloused by circumstance – a reason given to compulsion born of helplessness. Aurora acted now out of a sense of solidarity. Because she knew what it was, to be vulnerable and afraid and praying to any god that would listen that, just this once, that bitch Luck would cut you a sliver of a break.
It turned out that the woman's name was Kathy, and her daughter was Kayla. It took very little to figure out that Kayla was rapidly becoming that dangerous mixture of bored and scared, while Kathy oscillated between grinding frustration and crippling anxiety. Opening the back of the Jeep, Aurora pulled out a few tools, cleared some room, and called Ban to the back, settling him on the old blanket she'd spread out. Incidentally, it was not the same one she'd spread over a bleeding and hypothermic Suzaku – that one, she'd prudently burned.
Kayla was soon seated next to Ban, now entertained by the huge velvety dog who eyed the eight-year-old with patient resignation. Aurora chattered some gentle, meaningless conversation as she helped Kathy change the tire, sprinkling in tiny tidbits of advice to avoid seeming patronizing while hopefully better preparing her should this happen again in the future. It was done within ten minutes, Kathy thawing quickly once Aurora's intentions held true and Bannock babysat her daughter with admirable tolerance. She was especially grateful once Aurora managed to wrestle loose the last lug nut that had been giving her trouble.
Of course, once the deed was done, Kayla was now devastated to leave Ban, hugging him round his narrow neck with all the ferocity of a youngster. The hound knew how to instinctively bridge the gap, following when Aurora all but peeled the little girl off him and set her down on the ground, walking with her to her mother's newly repaired car. Aurora shared a soft smile with Kathy as she slammed the tail gate closed, watching as Kayla reluctantly climbed into the back of her car, Ban's tail slowly cycling in his distinctive circular wag as he nosed the little girl's elbow. Finally, the sweet sorrow of parting was done, and Ban padded back to Aurora's side.
With that, the flat stowed in the back of Kathy's sedan and one of Eleanor's blankets now draped over the back seat next to where Kayla sat, her face was again pressed to the window, this time gazing longingly at Ban. Aurora watched through eyes narrowed from the rain as Kathy and Kayla's car started, and they trundled away on their doughnut of a spare, lights slicing through the dim. She had just lowered her grubby hand from its final wave goodbye when she caught a slip of movement out of the corner of her eye – spinning around, Aurora was just fast enough to see Ban streak around the corner of a building, then disappear.
She yelled his name, but no gray shadow crept back – growling under her breath in frustration, Aurora jogged after him, calling his name again, then again. Cursing her dog, his random, stupid behavior, and the rain, she splashed through puddles, down several alleys, and around two more buildings before she heard it.
A brutal, unnatural scream sliced through the rain like scarlet lightning; it was too animalistic to be human, too obscene to mean anything but stunning pain. Panic scorching through her with scalpel-like fury, Aurora breathed her dog's name with the desperate reverence of a prayer, the whisper lost under the susurration, then began to run. Run like electricity crackled through her veins, replacing all of the blood that had sunk into the black pit of terror growing inside her.
Her earlier meanderings had taken her the wrong way; backtracking now as fast as she could sprint, Aurora was all but blinded by the rain, moving more on instinct and savage fear than the clear-headed cunning that she had cultivated so carefully. Out of options until her frantic speed brought her to some sort of information, Aurora screamed out Ban's name again and again, harsh barks of terror and obstinance. Finally, under the stark light of a streetlamp, she found him.
Bannock was collapsed on the asphalt, a large, dark lump on the edge of the light's halo. And as Aurora crashed to her knees next to his still form, even the dark couldn't hide the blood gushing from the damningly substantial, ragged wound on his neck, pooling thickly on the ground, too much for the rain to immediately wash away. For a long moment, her breathing, the world, even sound, stopped, leaving a vacuum of shock and impossibility swirling in her head. Then Ban's eyes weakly flickered open, and it all came rushing back in with titanic intensity.
Aurora was moving before the most basic of relief had a chance to trickle through her brain – stripping off her wet t-shirt, still wearing the black tank top from earlier underneath, she wrapped it around Ban's throat, tying off the sleeves in the most awkward tourniquet known to medicine. Bannock's whine was a gurgling ghost of itself, quickly choked into silence on a wheeze, and Aurora began raging through the list of curse words in every language she knew.
The dog typically flirted with a hundred pounds on the scale; still, Aurora didn't hesitate, wrapping one arm around his broad ribcage to heft him up while the other supported his rump. That sort of hold worked fine with children, although a huge, injured dog posed a bit of a challenge. But the strain of it was irrelevant – the muscles in her back and arms were already screaming, her shoulder was already hot and sticky from blood, but Ban couldn't have been taken from her arms if Aurora had a gun put to her head.
She was staggering to get her balance when she saw them. Twenty feet away, in the dark murk of another alleyway, several sets of floating discs gleamed. They were eyeshines from stray dogs, if she had to guess from the height and size of them. It wasn't much of a stretch to also guess that Ban's wound was a bite from one of the dogs that still lingered.
Several realities flashed in her brain, tumbling over the edges of each other. Ban wasn't the sort of dog to tussle, which meant that it didn't take much to trigger an aggressive response from this pack. If they still felt threatened and decided to do something about it, Aurora didn't have many options, holding her injured dog as she was. Even if she wasn't, Aurora had a hard time picturing how she could defend them without tragic results, cursing her lack of a gun, or even any sort of weapon that didn't require creativity.
Before she could decide on a course of action, though, the dogs turned and slunk away, disappearing into the dark. Waiting just long enough for their silhouettes to completely vanish, Aurora spun around and hurried as fast as she could back to the Jeep.
Every instinct screamed that she run, but not only was it unrealistic, it would likely do more damage to Ban than good. But, God, there was no time. Her fingers clenched on flesh, as if Aurora could secure Ban within his skin by sheer will and grip alone.
When the Jeep came into view, Aurora was certain the hiccupping gasp that tore from her core was simply because of the physical strain, not a sob. A desperate, groping hand was able to snag the catch to open the rear door, and Aurora laid him down on that same blanket with more gentleness than her muscles could bear, her once white shirt now completely stained crimson in a brutal band. When Ban could manage to open his eyes, they were glassy with pain and fear, the occasional feeble, instinctive movement easily stayed by Aurora's hand, which shook despite her aim for calm.
She took a moment to keep him quiet, to wrap an ugly scarf stuffed behind the back seat around his neck, knowing better than to remove the initial bandage, desperate and bulky though it may be. Once the door was shut, a part of her howling in protest at the sight of it closing on her dog's weak, frightened gaze, Aurora dashed around the side of the car, leaping into the driver's seat with a piercing sense of familiarity. She had been here before, and Aurora was just scared enough for the superstitious thought that she'd already spent what luck she had on Suzaku's life. What if there wasn't enough left for Bannock?
Shaking herself loose of that cold paralysis, Aurora got the car moving, and at a clip that would have made any cop willing to chase her down very interested. Kendra couldn't really help this time, not when the damage was so close to Ban's throat and spine – she was no veterinarian. Luckily, Aurora had a thread to tug for just such an occasion, although she'd hoped to never call in this favor so furiously. Dr. Jennifer Slane had been Ban's vet since he'd first shown up on Aurora's door step, and after Dr. Slane had been able to save half a dozen puppy litters found abandoned in a landfill with Aurora's help in both donations and connections, Ban now had the prized position as one of the doc's favorite patients. She had once told Aurora she was available anytime. Well, now Aurora and Ban needed her, right now.
As she drove, Aurora kept talking to him, trying to keep him as calm and still as possible when he was one the other end of the vehicle. At one point, she caught a glimpse of Ban struggling up in the rearview mirror – it took sincere effort to discipline he voice, to swallow the roar that wanted to erupt out of her and instead command Ban down with a reasonable, firm tone. When he just gazed at her in lost, exhausted confusion, she clipped out the hard command to lay down – "chini," which was Swahili. Promptly, he obeyed with a whining grunt.
Ban made no more attempts to stand, which was only somewhat comforting. He wouldn't dislodge anything or further wound himself, but she also couldn't tell if he was still conscious or even…
No. No! That wasn't even an option, the rarest of instances when Aurora resolutely turned from the heart-shattering truth of possibilities. She just drove faster, her jaw so tightly clenched, the vein in her temple began to pulse. The interior of the car swirled with misery and the stench of blood and garbage, and Aurora didn't realize that her face was still wet not from the lingering rain, but because of the streaming tears.
Doc Slane was just closing up when Aurora screeched to a halt in front of the clinic, blinking in surprise when she leapt out, her voice uncharacteristically choked as she called out to the vet.
"Jenny! Please! Ban's hurt, bad!" Dr. Slane had the door opened and her last two techs summoned from where they'd been flirting and putting on their coats before Aurora had Ban in her arms. Shadowed over the view of the vehicle was the scene from less than an hour ago – Ban splayed languidly over a green blanket allowing an anxious little girl to awkwardly pet him with gentle forbearance. This time, he lay alone, yet another blanket matted with blood, Bannock unresponsive, but still breathing.
What passed was a blur of gray-green scrubs, beige tile, and white rooms. Aurora stuttered out what she could manage to remember, what little she could articulate. Finally, Ban was taken from her, and Aurora was gently, but firmly nudged from the room. She stumbled back, coming up against the wall across the hallway hard, staring as the door was shut and she was left in the quiet of a deserted vet office.
Finally, the shaking overtook her, and Aurora slid to the floor, crouched and quietly keening. Dropping her head to her knees, she wrapped her arms around her head, curled into a ball of despair. Not her boy. Please, please, not her boy.
She didn't know how long she cowered there, but eventually there was a touch on her shoulder. Looking up, Aurora gulped at the sight of Chandler, who said nothing but simply wrapped her in a huge, deep hug. When she finally drew back, the senator was insistent – he urged Aurora to her feet, guiding her to the nearby trio of stark, vaguely uncomfortable chairs. When she resisted, he promised that they would stay within sight of the door. Eventually, he got her sitting down, a paper cup of water in her still-bloody hands.
It took a while for her to settle enough to allow Chandler a chance to explain. Andy, one of the techs, had taken a moment to get in contact with the clinic. Kendra had been with a patient, so Chandler had left his wife a note, then left as fast as he could.
Just having her friend there allowed Aurora to finally breathe, to reach inside where the emotions writhed and exert some control, achieve some balance. After exacting the most solemn of vows that Chandler would get her if there was so much as a whisper from the vet or the techs, she went to wash her hands, wincing at the rusty film on her skin and sparing a minute braced against the sink, weeping with silent bitterness. Quickly, though, she straightened, splashing her face and making her way back to the chairs where Chandler sat quietly speaking to his wife on the phone.
He hung up, sparing expression of Kendra's concern for later as Aurora sat again. Chandler just stroked a hand over her disheveled hair, then loosely circled Aurora's wrist with his fingers, a touch among the trio rooted in affection, concern, and stability. She shivered, swallowed, then finally allowed herself to relax, just a fraction.
Aurora never thought to look at her watch – she had no idea how much time had passed before Dr. Slane emerged from the exam room. The only thing Aurora could key into regarding the outside world at the moment was that the rain had stopped. Otherwise, she had shot to her feet and charged towards the door, only the tranquil yet tired expression on the vet's face bringing Aurora to a halt at her outstretched hands, instead of darting around. She knew that expression, just as well as she knew the other side of its coin; she'd seen it before, when Kendra lost a patient.
"He's alright, Aurora. Ban's going to be OK."
It was all she could do to keep her feet, to not collapse as every muscle tightly clenched with bone-deep fear went loose. Chandler's arm slung over her shoulder halted her sway, the warm, heavy weight clearing the cottony blank of her brain enough for Aurora to reengage, to start asking the important questions.
The wound was indeed a bite, tearing through skin and multiple layers of muscle on the right side of Ban's neck. It had nicked several large blood vessels, but luckily avoided the major arteries. Still, if Aurora hadn't acted as quickly as she had, Ban could have very easily bled to death.
Finally, Aurora was allowed in to see Ban – he'd been moved to one of the large recovery crates, his neck heavily bandaged, a ridiculously large cone on his head, and an IV drip feeding into a vein above his paw. He seemed asleep, Aurora stupidly relieved and gratified at the steady rise and fall of his giant ribcage. The techs said nothing when she opened the cage door and all but folded herself halfway into it, carefully stroking a fingertip over Ban's brows. Drowsily, he opened his eyes, his tail beating out two lethargic thumps at the sight of his mama. He sighed, then closed his eyes again.
As if she'd been recharged, that tiny exchange brought back the Aurora they all knew. She stood, all business, all brain, and a beat ahead over everyone else. She began coordinating bringing Ban home with Chandler, talking to Dr. Slane about the antibiotics and pain medications he would need to take and for how long, thanking the techs profusely and offering a favor from her, any at all, for helping save her dog. She nearly cracked again when Shelby handed her Ban's damp nylon collar, washed clean of the blood that had soaked it black, the tags a cheerful jingle in the air. Ban's ears flickered at the sound, and Aurora again bore down, coming back stronger than ever.
It was a long process, and although she could have done it alone, Aurora was deeply grateful that Chandler was there to help get Ban home. Dr. Slane wouldn't usually release such a tragically injured dog so soon, but knowing where he was going and who with, she had no hesitation sending Bannock home that night. A phone call to the clinic had brought Kendra up to speed and had her assembling the difference of Ban's meds that the vet didn't have on hand. For a moment, Aurora had to lean against the wall, a whispered exchange between the two women acknowledging the terrible, tragic potential of the situation, and just how narrowly it had been avoided.
They knew, with deadly accuracy, what that kind of loss felt like, and how close they had come to feeling it again. Aurora and Kendra were also piercingly aware that Bannock had been very, very lucky. They knew just how fragile he was, and just how easy it would have been to lose him entirely.
But her tribe had circled close around its vulnerable member, and heads of state didn't receive the kind of care, concern, and control of circumstance that Ban did for his return home.
Energized by tackling the countless steps to ensure her dog's health and comfort, Aurora worked ceaselessly; getting him settled in, checking his bandages, quietly celebrating the immense victory of Ban voluntarily drinking. He took his meds like a veteran, and she stayed sitting by his extravagantly cushioned bed long after he'd gone back to sleep.
Later, Kendra and Chandler came by, checking in on Ban and assuring Aurora that they'd unloaded the errands. Unfortunately, the ice cream wasn't salvageable, but after their near miss this evening, it was an acceptable loss. Six hours after the incident, and the household finally began to settle, the incredible tension that had gripped the family loosening its hold, just a fraction.
Still, Aurora felt as if her eyes had been glued open, staring at Ban until they began to ache. She felt restless and useless, snippets of the evening flashing through her brain, distorted until it made her skull pound. Even though she begged for it, used several of the tricks she employed to calm herself down, sleep was elusive as a phantom. Finally, at a loss for anything constructive to do, Aurora stood creakily, making her way back to the bathroom. Folding down onto the floor, staring at the patch made black by the moonlight, Aurora sorted through some tools, then began to sand it down.
Her shoulder had just started to ache when she cued into the sound of claws on the floor over the rasp of the sandpaper. Glancing over in alarm, Aurora was unwillingly charmed by the sight of Ban standing in the doorway, the enormous satellite dish of a cone gone ivory, his head low and his tail slowly swinging back and forth. She wanted to herd him back to his bed, settle him down again like she would a patient in the clinic.
But instead Ban crept into the bathroom, circling with steps made awkward and stilted by pain. Finally, he committed and flopped down, against resting his head on his mama's knees, heaving a huge sigh as she adjusted both of them to make it at least vaguely comfortable before he again fell seamlessly asleep. Aurora stared at the top of Ban's head for a very long time, the moonlight slanting in through the window she'd opened only that morning to fall on his head like a benediction. Eventually, she began to paint over the sanded patch. And as she painted, she was forced to think.
The loss of Ban could have shattered her, revealing just how easily she could break along those fault lines. The inevitable next step of logic was that she would someday see the announcement of the death of Zero in the news. What would she do then? Because tonight had illustrated nothing more than the devastation that kind of loss could wreak, the savage price exacted for love.
She could have survived without Ban; she had to survive without Suzaku. Either way, it tore her heart to bleeding shreds.
Hannibal, it's been six months to the day, and I still desperately wish I could have been there to save you like Aurora could save Ban. I made you a promise you didn't let me keep, and I'll never forgive myself or the fates for robbing us of that. Sleep sweet with your big brother Tango, and be patient – I'll see you again when the horizons change.
