Disclaimer: I do not own Venom

A/N: Hello, again, my good readers! Finally got a new chapter out. I'm sorry for the long wait. A lot of stuff has happened. Just started a new year at uni, the exams are coming up, working two jobs, and so forth. In a couple of weeks, internships are starting for nursing students, so you can imagine it's been hectic, but I finally managed to pull through with a chapter.

Also, we're getting close. To be honest, it's a little embarrassing that it's been so long and we're still in the first movie now that Venom 2 is coming out soon, but oh well, I'll make due. Can't wait for Carnage to finally come on screen! Unfortunately, the movie won't be released in my country until november. Shucks.

Anyway, have at it! Thank you all for being patient with me, it really means a lot, and I'll try and get another chapter out before internship starts, but I just gotta pull through with another excruciating exam.

Aditional art will be put on my deviantart account: X-KuroShiro-X

Chapter 35: Calm before the storm

Somehow it seemed like life always found a way to make a situation worse than what it already was, and if anything was an indication that it was true, this was it.

Anne Weying was present now, not quite understanding that the danger that stood in front of her came close to the actual danger over her head by a thin margin. While Eddie tried his best to remedy the situation, desperately wishing that his ex-fiancé would stop screaming and getting away from him, Evelyn stood in the backs and observed the spectacle for a short while until disinterest overwhelmed her and she shifted her attention back to the guards that laid scattered about.

They really had done a number on them, hadn't they? Ordinarily, such violence would have disturbed her, or at the very least made her grimace in disgust. Now, on the other hand, it was as if the constant exposure to danger had desensitized her. She felt few – if any – emotions at the moment. Her mind was a blank slate; void of anything akin to human sentiment. She presumed that since they were alive, albeit wounded, it was enough to satisfy her. She hadn't killed anyone, not more than she had inadvertently committed herself to before with the LF, at any rate.

Her hands were stained, that much could not be denied. For now, when it came to this particular incident, they were clean. Or rather, they had not been stained further.

"No, I am scared! … And I need help,"

She snapped her attention back to the bickering couple, her heart weighing heavy in her chest as Eddie's desperation seeped through his words. His terror. This was perhaps the first time she had witnessed the full extent of it all, and now that she finally had, a new kind of guilt sprouted roots in her chest that further contributed the growth of her self-loathing. She had done this to him, and now, she was experiencing the repercussions even if they weren't inherently aimed at her.

Heaving a tired sigh, Evelyn walked up to the two of them and sent Ms. Weying an even look that could freeze water, though there was no malice intended. Before she had the chance to speak her mind, the other woman gave both of them equally sharp but perturbed looks and pointed to her car. "Hospital, now,"

Well, this certainly wasn't going the way she initially expected it to, but while a part of her wanted to decline the command and walk her own path, the determined look in the other woman's eyes halted her retaliation.

Eddie was ordered to sit in the back, while Evelyn haphazardly took the front seat next to the driver, not even listening to Ms. Weying's words of complaint before she firmly shut the door after her. After some minutes of deliberation, the other woman finally got inside as well, her shoulders stiff and movements altogether tense, like she expected to get attacked like the soldiers at any moment now. Human fear was truly something to behold sometimes, but Ms. Weying wasn't afraid in the orthodox sense of the word. She was firm, determined, but who wouldn't be the slightest bit on edge considering what she had just seen?

Evelyn couldn't hold that against her.

The drive was mostly quiet about halfway, neither party offering any words to break the tension that had planted itself between the three participants. Evelyn sat with her arms crossed, trying and failing not to close her eyes. She was still tired, exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to throw herself down at her bed and let herself succumb to sleep. She was used to working long nights, but this wasn't exactly ordinary sets of circumstances.

"It's been a while, Dr. March," Ms. Weying finally spoke, though her eyes remained on the road ahead. "Never thought I'd meet you again like this,"

"That makes two of us," Evelyn offered vaguely in return, forcing her eyes open once more to catch a side-glimpse of the driver. "It would have been preferable if we met someplace else, if anything,"

"Yeah … it probably would," Ms. Weying sighed. "Then again, you never particularly struck me as the kind of woman to want to catch up for a cup of coffee,"

Well, she wasn't wrong about that.

Ms. Weying used to come by at the hospital to meet up with Dan on occasions, and whenever Evelyn found herself in the vicinity, the other woman would almost always greet her with a polite yet composed smile. The oncologist had rarely paid any attention to it, both deliberately and otherwise, so there was never a time where she thought to rectify the situation. She respected the attorney, that was as far as she was willing to go, but she had little interest in getting to know her outside of her relations to Dan. That area was … outside of her expertise.

"Maybe a glass of whiskey," Evelyn offered, returning her attention to the road as well. "Maybe two,"

Ms. Weying said nothing to this, which prompted her to keep quiet again.

"Dan informed me lightly of the situation," the other woman finally said, her grip on the wheel tightening until her knuckles turned white. "Sounds like you got mixed up with some shitty stuff, along with this idiot," she threw a thumb back to gesture to Eddie, who's response was to look offended.

"Excuse me?"

"It's true, and you know it," Weying added without skipping a beat and her hand returned to the wheel. "What the hell did you get into? Those guys, they're from the Life Foundation, the very people genius back there pissed off half a year ago." She heaved another exhausted sigh, and rubbed her temples. "Well, if anything, turns out you weren't that off the rocks, as it were,"

Things would have been much easier if Weying and Dan were uninvolved. Half of Evelyn's mind wanted to tell them to stop the car and let them be off on her own, tell them about the dangers they were in by getting involved with them. Anyone with half their mind intact knew that Drake wasn't above snipping off loose threads were it suited him, so they were no exception to the rule. And Treece… He did his job well on occasion, to the extent that ridding the world of a surgeon and an attorney would hardly be considered a predicament. In fact, it would be like child's play, and he would not put in any effort to make the process fast and efficient either. He would make it unbearably slow.

Evelyn decided that she couldn't afford to get any more blood on her hands.

When she tried to open her mouth to argue against the idea of bringing them to the hospital, her lips were promptly glued shut on command, preventing any words from passing through the sealed entrance. She grit her teeth and tried to pry her mouth open, but it wouldn't budge. No doubt it was because of Lasher, and she was willing to bet her entire career on the assumption that they were doing this both out of necessity and amusement.

After several minutes of silently trying to part her lips, she gave up and succumb to a stubborn sense of silence the alien had forced her to comply with.

The rest of the car-ride was mostly quiet, save for some verbal exchanges between Weying and Eddie. The talk about a symbiote's weakness made Evelyn's heart plummet further into her abdomen, weighing heavily on her as she recalled the many victims who had fallen prey to their mutual weaknesses. The guilt of resenting humanity as a whole, including her own, had created a Pandemonium of her own making that had no foreseeable exit.

Never before had she wished to go back to the past to correct her mistake as much as she did in this current moment.

The halls were mostly empty inside the hospital, save for some of the staff members who were making sure everything was relatively stable for the night. The silence was an unwelcomed visitor, and it felt like it had been years since she last stepped through these hallways. So much power, responsibility, everything that previously rested on her shoulders had succumb to ashes in the face of her failure.

Just how much was hers now? How much had she taken for granted?

Evelyn turned to observe some of the abstract artworks that hung on the walls. She had walked past them a thousand times, yet only now did she finally take the time to truly look at them. Misshapen figures, some less so than others, uneven colors and ambiguous sentiments clung to the deeper meaning behind them all that she could see more clear now than ever before.

"Evelyn?"

Upon hearing her name, she turned around, and froze like a statue.

There was Dan at the edge of the hallway, a clipboard in his hand that promptly descended to the floor with a soft clank as he laid eyes on her. She must have looked like hell where she stood, which was true in every sense of the word, but upon seeing him standing there; safe and secure thus far, she felt someone she hadn't had the liberty of feeling in what felt like ages.

Relief.

"Dan," she addressed, voice blank and face matching her tone as she turned to full face him, the distance between them narrowing as he all but sprinted towards her. In a ghost of a second, his warmth embraced her with all his might, and she stiffened upon contact as she felt his arms wrap around her like she was his only lifeline in the vast ocean of despair.

"Shit, Evelyn, you're okay,"

It was strange, this feeling that blossomed in her being. For so long she had tried to keep him at arm's length, tried to steer him clear of the damage that was her. She had made every excuse in the book to contribute to the motivation; he was too exasperating; too bothersome; too caring. She had known him since med-school, and even when they pursued different branches within the field of medicine, he was always at her side.

How could he be this relieved to see her when she had given him no motive to feel that way?

And yet, for all it was worth, she hesitantly reached her arms up to reciprocate the embrace, albeit rather awkwardly. Now was hardly the time for such, but she had been on the run for the past couple of … days now, so exceptions were due, however inappropriate.

"Hey … Dan" she offered quietly, a part of her wishing that he hadn't heard her, but all evidence written on his face as they pulled apart indicated that he had.

"'Dan', huh? What happened to 'Dr. Lewis'?"

She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. "If you're going to be like that, never mind,"

"Okay, bad timing, got it," he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Not going to deny that I don't have a lot of questions, but you should probably get some better clothes. You look like hell,"

"That's not an incorrect assumption," she agreed with a curt nod, glancing back at where Weying was assisting Eddie with walking.

"You should probably get some for him too," Dan said. "Just get some from the storage unit, then meet us at the MRI scan afterwards,"

She gave him a sharp nod and didn't waste time making her way down the hall, but halfway down, she called back. "Dan,"

"What?"

"… It was good to see you again,"

His response was to give her a short-lived smile before they both headed to their respective destinations.

As she continued to make her way down, Evelyn pondered on the many things she had taken for granted in this life before, and how she was going to make an attempt at remedying those mistakes if she made it out alive.