A few minutes after Arthur collapsed, Shiro Mori disengaged. Lance watched her stagger off in Vivi's direction. She looked more than a little wilted by his measure.
Right away, a truck pulled up and unloaded tent supplies next to the Kingsmen clan. Lance took one look and got to work. Nobody was going to shunt him off to the side this time. He grabbed poles and screwed them together, then passed them to whatever hands were waiting for them. He kept this up until the pile of tent poles ran out, then helped hold the frame in place while Dib's grunts tugged and pushed and staked the tent steady.
Several yards off, a second canopy began taking shape over Dulcie and her sleeping unicorn friend, but Lance didn't jump to help. Instead, he ducked out of the blistering, afternoon sun into the newly dubbed Medical Tent. Nothing inside had been set up, yet, so he sat next to his nephew on the ground.
Even unconscious, Kay was wrapped tight around Arthur. She didn't relax like a sleeper should. Lance tugged on her arm, hoping to loosen her grip. She groaned, tensing more. Claws poked through her fingertips. He sat back with a sigh.
Artie's age-lined face filled his vision. In the stillness, a thick, black feeling crawled through him. That was a face Lance should never have lived long enough to see once, let alone twice.
Tree lady had promised to do what she could. She hadn't killed his boy yet. He had to hold onto that. Maybe she could do something special, like that other goddess Artie had favors with. Maybe this wasn't irreversible. Artie was going to be a Dad, or so Timothy said. He had to get better for that, right?
The tent flaps parted as Dib and some other labcoat dragged in a pair of hospital beds. Lance snorted. "Think ye can pull 'em apart long enough for that? Break 'er arms, more like. Already tried. Lookit." He gestured at the two of them. "Think she's cuttin' off his circulation as is."
Dib frowned. "I could sedate her. Muscle relaxants, maybe?"
Lance shrugged. "Or one bed."
"That is going to make it difficult to treat them."
"Manage it."
And so, four sets of hands carefully transferred the pair from the ground into a medical bed. Lance stood, brushing the dirt and sand from his jeans as Dib adjusted their IVs and began attaching electrodes to Arthur's forehead.
Lance grabbed a folded camp chair from the mess of supplies in the corner and opened it by the bed, plopping into it. Dib glanced at him, then refocused on his work.
"What you think, Doc?" Lance asked.
"I think I want all the data I can get before I go recommending a good morgue. Knock the mope off, would you? He looks bad, but that doesn't mean he won't make it. He's tough."
Lance grunted, settling back in the chair. Doc wasn't wrong. Just…
"Why?" Dib asked, attaching another plasticky circle to Kay's wrist. "What do you think about all this?"
Lance's fingers curled around the armrests. "Honest? That it's her fault. That he's like this." He jerked his chin at the couple. "Her an' the whole damn Pepper family."
Dib's mouth quirked a little, but he said nothing.
"I mean… it was funny, y'know? When Artie finally tol' me he was into someone. Year ago… little more. It was great. I was happy for 'im. Now? Give anything ta tell my old self ta pick up an' move us over to another state ASAP. Tell 'im ta find someone else. Anyone else. Sweet girl, but..." He flicked his hand in their direction. "This? Can't be worth it."
Dib's lips stretched into a thin smile. "Isn't that funny. Here I was just thinking I'd kill to have something like this."
Lance stared at him. "Missed yer psych doc lately?"
Dib shrugged. "My last five quit on me, but that's irrelevant. Actually relevant? How hard it is not knowing if a relationship is going to pass tests this rough. Divorce statistics can be nightmare fuel, y'know. A lot of people would kill for some sort of assurance they made the right choice. Very little chance someone like me is gonna find someone who doesn't know me as Doctor Dib Membrane, utter crackpot, possible genius, and inheritor of his father's empire. Hard to trust there aren't ulterior motives at play, and that kind of thing will fall apart. 100% certainty. Plus, it'll be messy."
Dib finished applying the circles to Arthur's torso and turned to fiddle with dials on the equipment he'd brought. "I'd trade an awful lot for someone who didn't have a doubt in the world that I was the right choice and backed it up by traipsing through the underworld. Or by leaping onto the back of a terrifying monster and galumphing off into the great unknown. I'd be lying if I said I don't have to fight envy tooth and nail to still be your nephew's friend. He probably smells it all over me, but he's kind enough not to say anything about it."
Lance clenched his jaw.
Dib sighed. "Don't know what it's like to see your kid waste away, Lance. Can't relate to how bad it hurts. You're the one that raised him. Do you really think you made a mistake, raising such a decent human being? Someone who'd break natural law to protect his own? You think that wouldn't be you," he gestured at Arthur, "if you had that power and could use it to save him somehow? 'Cause, given what I've seen, I'm pretty sure the apple doesn't fall far. You just don't have the same power. Instead, you're the one that has to look at the results."
Lance reached up and tugged a few strands free from his beard, still staring at Arthur. "So. Whaddaya suggest?"
Dib shrugged. "If he pulls through, he's going to need you. They both will. And you have a grandkid on the way. Grand… nephew. So, whatever grieving you gotta do? Strongly suggest you do it on your own time, in private."
The tent flap opened and Shiro Mori stepped in. She paused at the door, glancing back and forth. "Am… ready to continue the workings on Arthur…?"
"Five minutes," Dib said, moving briskly between generators and monitors. "Grab yourself a chair from the corner if you like. Do you need anything?"
"No sits thank you. Bringings of the water will help, please. Verymuch water."
"Timothy and Teles are on food supply. Lance, can you take her request over to them?"
Lance scowled at him.
Dib sighed. "I'm not getting you out of the way. I need to be here, and it would really help me if you could run the message. You can come right back."
Lance heaved himself out of the chair, levelling his glare at Shiro Mori. "You wait 'til I get back," he rumbled. "I wanna be here for 'im."
Shiro Mori pressed her fingertips together and dipped her head over them. "Am waiting."
She's back, she's back, she's back she's back she's back she'sbackshe'sbackshe'sbackshe's—KAY. KAY. WHERE IS KAY? GODS, SHE GOT RID OF KAY, SHE'S GOING TO KILL US, SHE'S—
Calm. Calmer. Shaking, but Artie… Artie took it… where is Artie… I don't…
Oh. We remember this.
Once before, we collapsed into each other because we were so exhausted that it was all we could do to function. Now, this time, Artie has taken much of the fear for himself. Now it is shared and we can… think. Together. More. But now it is difficult to know where one of us ends and the other begins.
Kay is not here. Dulcie and Chloe are also gone.
Shiro Mori is here. She is inside our skull. We feel her touch, like roots. She grows herself through tiny cracks in our skull bones and stretches a lacy net over the surface of our brain. Then she burrows deep in the folds of it, and we can do nothing to protect ourselves.
We are out of tears. We are out of screams. All that is left is helpless horror as we wait for her to take us apart neuron by neuron.
"Who is the Gareth you yelled in my face?"
Her question vibrates through our head and catches us off guard. For a moment, we see ourself from her memory, our eyes bloodshot and ringed, face lined and sagging around a mouth stretched to shout in her face, "You have to fix it! Gareth didn't mean to mess it up. You have to fix it so that he didn't mess up!"
It was such a relief to come out from under that compulsion.
"Hmm?" She prods that thought, tracing it backwards through nearly two days of waiting. Trying to distract ourselves. So sure we would shatter from the pressure of two compulsions and our own terror. Back to warm sunlight in the mountain meadow. Two faces turned up to us, one chattering with excitement, the other silent, but no less excited. That one, the silent, smiling face. He ordered us to say those words, so afraid it was his fault, that he'd ruined his chance of saving us.
"Gareth." Bewildered? She prods the picture, but she is not only in this memory. She is in this memory and also in the depth of the cave, watching the Shiker torture and harvest children. At the same time, she stands by as Demeter starves her creation empty. Elsewhere, she sees her creation bounding around the feet of her younger self, full of worship and love. The roots anchor deep in every part of the life that creature left behind, but the memory of Gareth is only brushed with the lightest touch. A question.
She does not know Gareth. She should, though. We have the silly notion that everyone should have a chance to know him, and his sister, Ginny. They're just too special. Anyone who doesn't ever meet them is an unfortunate person. It's a ridiculous thought, but somehow we believe it. Is this being a parent?
"Yes." Her answer is heavy and swollen in ways that overwhelm our fear with sorrow. "That is the making of a beautiful creature. To be thinking that the everyone should know them and see their shiningness."
It wasn't long after Shiro Mori began her work that Dulcie poked her head through the Medical tent flap. Lance sighed. It was easy to be mad at the "whole damn Pepper family" until the youngest one showed up. He hoisted himself out of his seat and hurried to intercept her.
"Hey, kid," he said. "Somethin' I can do?"
"Shiro Mori sent us outta Arthur's head, is he okay?" Dulcie stepped sideways to get a look at the hospital bed, but Lance matched her movement.
"You don't wanna see this. It looks… bad. Freakish."
Dulcie frowned. "I'm not a baby."
"I know, kid. But how many nightmares ya really wanna shoulder? More'n you hafta?"
She wavered. "But… is he okay? Why'd she send us out?"
Lance shrugged. "Shiro tol' me she cut ya'll off 'cause she was workin' his brain. Didn't wanna mess up worse an' wind in bits'a your thoughts, too. As ta 'is he okay,' well. Looks like hell, an' the way she's workin' him ain't a visual I'd wish on yer dreamin'. It's gonna be stuck in mine fer years. Please don't come in, kid."
Dulcie's head sagged. She reached up and pulled a hairclip out of her curls. "Then, give him this for me? For luck."
Lance took it, a smile at the corner of his lips. "Thanks, kid. He needs all he can get. Now scoot."
As soon as she left, Lance turned back to the scene he'd kept her from. Shiro Mori stood by the medical bed, eyes shut and lips moving. With one hand she cradled Arthur at the back of his neck while the other hand covered his face. They looked less like hands, now, and more like indigo tree roots growing out of her wrists. Threadlike roots covered every inch of Arthur's skin, and several snaked into his ears, nostrils, and mouth.
It turned Lance's stomach. On the other hand, Dib had double-checked the equipment, muttering how odd it was that Arthur's measurable stress levels had dropped off. Bad as it looked, his readouts gave no indication he was being tortured, so said the Doc.
Lance trudged back to the other side of the medical bed, slipped the hairclip into Arthur's hand, and plopped back into his chair. Somebody had to make sure Tree Lady didn't change her mind about wrecking his boy. He'd keep watch as long as it took.
"The Gareth," she reminds us. She wanted to know about this name we shouted and the face in our mind. "And Ginny. Is sameness of two?"
Twins. We're going to have twins. We don't understand how, but the children Kay births this year will return to us, even before our wedding. They claimed they had… will have… Shiro Mori's help. Remember... when we met them, they smelled like nothing at all.
"My blossoms. Safe passage through danger, yes, but never have met them. Will meet someday, so you say."
They tried to hide who they were. They knew we would scent them out. But Kay guessed who they were. Then Gareth said too much? And Ginny shouted for sure that…
We are dying.
"You are dying," she confirms. "Not in the now. Not at the here. Here is some healing if I can make the things right inside you. Much too much poison inside you."
The twins were sent back just before we drove here. Gareth was so upset, he told us to beg Shiro Mori to fix it all. Afraid he had ruined it by accident somehow. None of us knows how foreknowledge affects all this.
"Is nothing more for me to be doings than am already doings for you."
We thought so. But his order bound us to come. Would we have made it here without that?
"Is far too much what-iffing in your brain. Is half of reason for all wrinkles."
Her joke startles us. How is it that this is the person we feared most?
"You begin to forget why-fear because I make it so. Am doings the doing correct. What remembers you of Shiker?"
We do not want to reach back into that.
"Try. Have to know if doings correct."
Cold. Dark. We think of the cave… but all we see is Lewis' face, staring up at ours as he plunges to his death.
"Is yours. Is a Arthur-memory. Is all?"
We reach back to the time before we ever laid our own eyes on the cave. It is… blurry. There is a rustle of bones. Muted screams. A bad smell, but heavily diffused. You no longer see faces clearly, as if there were only ever generic human forms scuttling through the cursed farming cloister. Wait, was it a farm? What was being grown, there?
"We take from you. Cannot take in full, but can make as if bad dream all that is not a Arthur-memory. Softer. Blurred. Not yours to carry."
Not ours to carry. Oh, yes, please. It sounds so good. But…! Eroding these memories undermines Arcturus! What happens to Arcturus?
"Fear makes foolishness. Is no Arcturus. Is no Artie. Is only Arthur, remember?"
Something tapped Lance on the shoulder. He jerked, flailing. "Mwha? Not… I'm up… I'm..." He rubbed one eye and glanced over his shoulder.
Lewis hovered behind him with a steaming mug in each hand. In the dark, it was easier to make out the alternating pink and blue glow wisping at the edges of his form. He handed a mug to Lance. "I don't know how you like yours. I put a splash of milk and a little sugar in."
Lance accepted the mug. Deadbeats scattered around the tent, switching on every electric lantern they could find to chase back the night. Lewis set the other one down on the ground by Dib. The Doctor sprawled in a camp chair nearby, chin resting on his chest and arms dangling over the arm-rests. Snoring.
"That'll be cold by the time he's up," Lance noted, sipping his.
"I can heat it up anytime. Vivi says he never gets enough sleep, so if he's out I'm not gonna wake him." Lewis turned to face the medical bed, hands clenched behind his back. "Did Shiro say how long…?"
"Nope. Long as it takes, seems. What time's it?"
"Nearing nine. Mom and Dad grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, but there's still some leftover if you want any. How is Kay?"
"Doc says she's fine. Eased off on IV's for her an hour ago. Gave her a drop'a sleepin' meds so she doesn't wake ta this freakshow. How's Vivi?"
"Wore herself out. Passed out with Mystery. I watched them for a while, but he hasn't pulled anything, so I figured it was safe to come see how it's going over here. I think Mystery is... normal. Won't look me in the eyes. Given what he put us through, that's a good sign, I'd say."
Lance grunted, taking a larger swallow from the mug.
"I don't like this," Lewis gestured at Arthur. "It looks... "
"Yeah. I know. Roots keep growin', too. Was just his head at first. Now it's to 'is chest." They hadn't touched Kay, though, and wherever Kay was wrapped around Arthur, the roots kept clear.
"He can breathe, right?"
"So Doc says."
"I don't like it."
"Join the club."
Us is me. There is only me. I remember this feeling. It's been so long… I'll never take being alone in my head for granted again.
Shiro Mori didn't lie. I still feel battered and tired. Frightened. Wary of her. Things Arcturus used to handle are now woven back into me. He is not gone, I am just... whole. More whole.
"One more thing from you, Arthur. You give back to me the body."
Give back… the Shiker's body?
"Yes. Let go to me. Is killing you slow. Corpse is a poison. Give permission for me taking out of you."
I couldn't! I… no. Never. If I give it back, I won't be able to protect anyone. I won't be able to stop the bad things when they happen. How will I protect Kay from things like… like...? And the twins? There's so many dark, over-powered things in the world… I can't give this power back!
Gareth's face flashes through my mind, measuring me with silent reproach. Ginny's shrieks echo in recall, as she rails at Gareth over the future. The memory of Kay weeping sears me. She needs me to take care of myself. That's all she wants, all any of them wanted—more time with me.
I can't… can't keep... so tired. I've done the best I can. I have family and friends who can look out for me. Tired to the bone. Tired to the marrow. Always tired. No more.
Take it away from me. Please.
"Doc!" Lance grabbed Dib by the shoulders, jerking him back and forth. "Doc! Arse up! What's she doin'?"
Blinking, Dib shoved Lance aside and staggered to his feet. Lance turned back to the medical table. Roots covered Arthur from head to foot and a thick cloud of dust, like a pollen burst, poured between the cracks. The rank dust gagged Lance. He coughed, flapping a hand at the cloud, but that only scattered it more. Shiro Mori swayed on her feet, gasping. Eyes opened all over her body, popping off and wriggling away on tiny tentacles.
Dib swore. "Lance, get the mutt. Now. And Vivi, too, but put her in a biohazard suit. Maybe Lewis should come. Nobody else enters, got that? Nobody."
"Biohazard—what in-a-hell?" Lance choked.
"I don't know, Lance! I don't know what's going on and I don't think we should interrupt whatever this is. We're exposed already, but Vivi doesn't have to be. So get her suited up and get their asses in here!"
…...
It leaves my body a drop at a time. The Shiker invaded the cells of my body, hijacking and swelling each one. Shiro Mori attends to every cell, and as she does, each is cleansed. I am light. Lighter. Lighter still, like I am going to float away. My heart races, unhindered by the extra load. My lungs expand… how long have I been breathing at half? Wherever the corpse is removed, there is such life…
Sunrise was still an hour off. The desert was dark without its light, and stumbling around to find some blank-faced labcoat to dig up a biohazard suit took far longer than Lance wanted. Vivi was outfitted at a glacial pace, but finally Lance dragged the properly suited Vivi—along with the attached ghost and kitsune—into the Medical Tent.
Dib looked up, his mouth a grim line. "I hope you can tell me what's going on, mutt. Arthur's vitals are all over the place and he started leaking whatever this is about half an hour ago. Plus, I can't look at Shiro Mori anymore, so looks like she's melting down."
Lance glanced at Shiro Mori. Something inside his head twisted and he doubled over, retching coffee-flavored bile. He gasped in lungfuls of rancid-smelling dust, triggering another round of heaves.
He wasn't sure exactly what he'd seen standing over Arthur, but it sure wasn't Tree Lady.
Mystery sniffed a couple times, then stuck his tongue into the dust cloud. His ears perked up. "This is… it's like… dead skin? No, dead cells. Lots of them." His tail wagged. "Mother is removing the corpse out of him! But... " The tail stopped wagging. "But she's spending all the strength we gave her!"
Vivi groaned. "Hornswaggling trumpet cleaners, it took days to get her to pull together. We can't let her fall apart mid-operation. Mystery, what can we do? How do we play support, here?"
Mystery pranced on his paws, whining. "More offerings, and quickly!"
Immediately, Lewis pulled a violin and its bow out of thin air and settled the end of the violin under his cheekbone. "An ode to the strange Japanese goddess in our midst," he said softly, and set the bow to the strings.
Dib grabbed a vial from a table along the side of the tent and uncorked it, dragging it through the dust cloud. "A research project in the making, one that nobody will ever see. Understanding the composition of the shapeshifter and how it was able to permeate a human body."
Vivi shut her eyes and waddled up to the bed, astronaut-style, putting a hand on the unsee-able form looming over Arthur. "You're not alone, Shiro Mori. We're with you."
Lance turned and hurried out of the tent. At this point, all he could do was roust the others and beg them to whip up more rice balls. He hoped it would be enough.
Note: Chapter title excerpted from Good Grief by Bastille. I keep thinking I can jam more plot points into one chapter but it just doesn't work out well, so we go as slow as the plot deems. If all we accomplish is purging Arthur this chapter, so be. Thanks to Pipefoxesonthemoon for checking my chapter over while I was gone for a week!