It's a Rapier!
"There is no way I'm touching that."
"Well, I don't want to touch it either."
"Looks like we're screwed."
On a foggy morning in December there stood two pre-med students. The room was cold and only a streak of sunlight shown through the dusty window. The only thing colder than the room was the dead body that lay in front of them. On the chalkboard was written "Anatomy Final Today." The students in question were an easily recognizable duo to many on campus as the two were rarely seen apart. One was our familiar brunette who stood in a hostile stance while staring at the dead body. The other was her new found friend, Will, who too shared the same disgusted body position.
"Will, we can't let a dead guy defeat us."
"This is true. OK, I will buy your meals for the next week if you dissect him."
"What? No way! That might have worked when we just had the dead arm, but this is a whole…dead…person." The smell of formaldehyde was beginning to overwhelm the twosomes' nostrils as they both slightly gagged at the same time.
"Fine then, I'll pay for your meals for two weeks and do your laundry."
"Although that just sounds like an excuse to see my underwear, I'll take it." Jess took the scalpel and cut into the dead man's abdomen and began the final. With every organ they came across she took it out and handed it to her partner to label.
"Couldn't you just have slept with the professor or something? It would have been a lot easier to get an A that way."
"Hell no! Stop trying to pimp me out."
"Hey lass, I'm just looking out for you. Neither of us are getting any."
"Tell me about it. It's been about 4 months and I'm going slightly insane."
"See, that's what I don't understand. Didn't you say you have a boyfriend or something?"
"Well, I don't know what the hell to call him. You must understand he's about as stubborn as myself when it comes to matters of the heart. We have something to the effect of an understanding more or less."
"Why doesn't he at least come and visit you?"
"His job has him traveling a lot."
"I see."
"I know you want to say something so just go ahead and say it."
"I'm not saying anything. I just find it rather odd that a guy wouldn't come visit the girl he fancies in a four month period. Even if he does travel a lot, that means his job pays well enough for him to get his ass over here and see you."
"Fair enough." The conversation had gotten to Jess a little. While she knew well enough that it wasn't safe for the men to come and visit her, deep down she'd wish they'd find a way. The fact that she couldn't tell Will these circumstances made it all the harder.
"Ah, love, I'm sorry. If you shut down on me all I'll have to talk to is this dead guy, and he's obviously not one for conversation."
"Haha, very well. So what are you up to tonight?"
"I was thinking of hitting the town. Seeing as Winter Holiday starts tomorrow I thought now would be an appropriate time to go wild. Would you care to join?"
"No, I have a prior engagement."
"O really? Anything this 'understanding more or less' man wouldn't think too highly of?"
"Actually, yes, but not what you're thinking. It's more a self-defense class…or something. Gross, what is this?"
"Gall bladder; is that where you have been going every other day? I feel like I'm being cheated on."
"What are you talking about? You leave me every other day for your precious fencing."
"Hey, the day someone insults you and you need your honor defended, it won't seem so 'precious.'"
"Guess what Will? I'm all out of organs! We're done!"
"Thank goodness, well have fun at your kicking ass and taking names class. Just give me a ring if you still want to do something later."
"I plan on it."
After turning in their finals, the two parted ways. For her part, Jess walked towards her dorm room humming one of many tunes and reflecting over the previous conversation. It was true, in the past four months she had never seen hide nor hair of her friends. Not even the phone brought the familiar voices to her ears. She knew they weren't dead, the news would mention the infamous gang every now and then, but they sure acted like she was. No, she wouldn't let it bother her.
"If I want independence so bad, I just need to accept a few things. I can't be jumping to conclusions anyways since I'll be seeing them tomorrow. Am I really talking to myself again?"
Upon reaching her destination, the brunette fell face first into her bed. Tonight was going to be rough. Since arriving in England, an instructor had been sent to teach and physically train Jess for the life she sought. The new work she took on was almost too much to handle at points, but time management had turned into her best friend. Being it the last night for a long while in Britannia, she knew her trainer was going to kick her ass. Her suspicions weren't far from the truth when she arrived at the assigned location 8 hours later.
"So what's the plan for tonight, sir?" Jess never knew his name and had resorted to just calling her trainer "sir."
"It's a winter final of sorts."
"I've had quite my fill of finals, but I guess another one won't hurt."
"You really don't have a choice. If you look behind me there's an obstacle course set up." Peering behind the mysterious man, the young woman saw the obstacle course in question. The snow that had begun to fall made a clear view impossible, but what she saw was quite massive.
"Looks like a cake walk," she remarked with cocky smirk.
"You won't be saying that after 5 hours of it."
"What?"
"You heard me. You are to run the course and then proceed to do 50 crunches and 50 push ups and then begin the cycle again. In fact, you aren't to stop till I return."
"You're leaving?"
"Yes indeed. You think I'm going to stay out in this cold all night? You must be nuts. Have fun, I'm going to grab a pint at the pub. See you in a few hours or so."
"Son of a bitch…"
Jess watched her trainer walk away into the darkening evening. Restraining her want to throw a snow ball at the back of his head, she turned around and sized up what was ahead of her. She knew he was trying to break her. Well, Jess wasn't going to let this guy think he could bring her down. Stretching her limbs quickly, she walked up to the first obstacle. Snow continued to come down steadily, but logic was out the window and the stubborn nature had taken over.
"Jessica…oh, Jessica!" After more than a few pints of beer, the trainer reemerged in the night. While he told her that he would be 5 hours, the drunken man showed up 7 instead. As he sauntered over to the area he had left her, the trainer jokingly called out the brunette's name. He had fully expected the young woman to have left after about a few hours of the intense work. What he found made him sober up fast.
"38…39…oh, you decided to come back." On the ground, her hands and feet completely covered in snow, Jess was counting her pushups. Her skin was completely pale just as her eyes contained ghostly dark circles. Although shivering, sweat rolled down her forehead but froze before it landed to the ground. "I told you I'd be here…" but that was the last thing she said before collapsing in the snow.
"Oye, you awake?" The trainer shook Jess but elicited no response. "Shit! Lupin will kill me if she dies." Options for the drunken man were slim. Taking her to a hospital meant having to explain what happened. It wouldn't look very good for a man out of his wits having to make up a good story on the spot. On top of it, he couldn't provide any care for her or knew of any friend of hers that could. Wait, that wasn't true. She was pre-med. Surely she had a friend who was pre-med too.
"Where are we? What happened?"
"I'm leaving you here…here." The trainer had taken Jess back to her dorm and had laid her on the front step. Handing her a cell phone he then began to walk away.
"I think I need help." Her body began to shiver uncontrollably again. Consciousness seemed like a fleeting idea.
"I…I can't do that. Just don't die, alright? I gave you a cell phone, please use it or I'll get killed! OK…bye." Seemingly more afraid of dying than the girl propped up against the door, the trainer took off in his car. If he didn't see her die, maybe he wouldn't be held responsible.
It was true, in her hand was a cell phone opened. For a trainer he was completely useless in training survivability…or courage. Jess wondered if it was worth trying as her hand was completely numb. The streets in front of her were completely bare and it seemed wonderfully peaceful to just die then and there in the snow. No, she was too stubborn to die.
"What the hell…who calls me at this time of night?" Wishing he had turned his phone off when he went to sleep, Will slowly emerged from his bed to see who it was. The cell happily indicated he had a new text message, but its contents were less than friendly.
"Help – outside dorm"
The only person who knew him well enough to call at that point in the night was Jane, Jess to the rest of the world, so Will assumed she had gotten drunk off her ass. He sauntered down the stairs chuckling at the thought of the usually in-control girl tripping all over herself, but when he opened the door he found less tripping and more of a cold heap propped up against the wall.
"Jane! Hey, wake up now!" Will shook her furiously till Jess' eyes opened.
"Will, hypothermia and exhaustion."
"I can see that plain enough love, what the hell happened? Actually, you can tell me later. Let's get you inside."
With a quick swoop, the young man took his friend into his arms. It was obvious how cold she was the moment he touched her. The fact that her hair and clothes were wet wasn't helping either. Small flakes of snow had plastered themselves to Jess' face as well and were now melting as she let her head rest against Will's shoulder. Luckily, the trek was not long and upon arriving at her room, they were able to enter without others seeing. Jess' room mate had already left the college as her finals were done a few days prior, which allowed for only two people to know what occurred. Laying her down on the bed, Will felt a bit hopeless especially as her eye lids began to shut again.
"You still with me? I need you to stay awake because I know you were paying much more attention in class." That was a lie; he wanted to keep her awake to make sure she was stable, plus it was Will who would pay more attention in class. Jess knew this but was in no condition to tease.
"Blankets…there, food…there, water…there."
"You know," Will remarked laying the last blanket on the young woman, "you aren't allowed to die. I quite forbid it."
"Why is that? Jess asked sipping some strange warm drink.
"Because then I'll have to dissect the dead things myself and that's just plain unacceptable."
"Good thing the reason you saved me wasn't because you are my friend or anything."
"Ah, there's the lass I missed." Like all the people Jess considered a friend, Will was apt at the art of sarcasm. The two were able to go at it for hours, but this moment wasn't quite right for one of those matches. Instead, they merely sat quietly by the light of a single lamp. The quiet made the two think about the current situation, which led Will to finally ask: "Okay love, I got you all safe here; you need to tell me what happened."
"Well, I think it's quite obvious that I haven't been going to a self-defense class. To be honest, I can't tell you why and what for, but I've been doing some training for the maybe in my life. Is it getting really warm in here?"
"Ah, no. Aren't you going home tomorrow as well? You can't get there in this condition."
"Yes, but 'understanding more or less' man is coming to pick me up. O no!"
"What's wrong?"
"He can't know what happened. He can't know! It'd break his heart…man, I suddenly feel so drowsy."
"It's probably because I put something in your drink to make you sleep. Don't worry, it's all safe, but you'll be out for a couple of days. Before you do drift off, though, I have an idea so you don't get in trouble. Take a sip of this."
"I don't know if I trust the liquids you give me anymore. What is it?"
"Whiskey…night night."
Right after taking a good gulp of the whiskey the brunette began to lean back and close her eyes. The narcotic had taken affect and took her to the land of nod. Will had taken the cup before she hit the pillow and pulled the covers over her shoulders to make sure she kept warm. Not sure if they would have unwanted visitors tonight, Will grabbed his only means for defending himself. And to think, she had been making fun of his fencing a half a day prior.
Sword in hand, the young man sat down in the crappy chair supplied by the college next to the sleeping brunette. She wasn't one of those people who looked happy or peaceful while she slept, more like she was listening to a boring conversation. He'd seen that exact expression plenty of times in the classes they shared. Will wondered about his good friend, though; wondered why she'd insist on keeping so many secrets. He had finally realized what the Lupin gang had found out a long while, she was hopeless independent.
Morning came quickly, mostly because both people in the room were out cold. For all his good intentions, Will was exhausted. In fact, he would have slept the entire morning if there hadn't been a knock on the door.
"What the…who's there?"
"Here's a better question," came a low tenor voice from the other side of the door, "who the hell is in there?"
Just as Jess had indicated the night before, her "understanding more or less" man had come to pick her up. The whole week leading up to this point had been one of complete anticipation on part of the gunman although he would never admit to it when Lupin hinted at it. He had just imagined the look on the brunette's face and her reaction at him coming early. At the moment, though, he wasn't liking the fact there was a male voice coming from Jess' room. The door finally opened and there the two men stood face to face.
"You must be her ride home; she's pretty gone at the moment." Jigen looked into the room and saw Jess completely knocked out, which led to a suspicious glance at the strange man standing in his pajamas with a sword.
"What the hell happened to her; and why the hell do you have a sword?"
"She got quite wasted last night and this isn't a sword, sir, it is a rapier."
"A raper! What did you say? I swear I'll kill you if…"
"No, this, the 'sword' is called a rapier."
"What would friggin' possess you to name your sword a raper? That's messed up man."
"Ra-pier," the fuming fencer muttered.
"Whatever." By this point Jigen had walked into the room and surveyed it from head to toe. The situation was sketchy but upon further inspection, it was quite obvious Jess had drunk something as her breath smelled like whiskey. Whiskey? She never drank the hard liquor.
"Let me help you carry her things down, or perhaps you want me to bring her down?"
"No," the marksman answered quickly, "no, I'll take her."
When all people and luggage were loaded, both men continued to stay silent. Each had an uneasy feeling about the other but of course would not voice anything on the subject. The only one to break the quiet was Will when he remembered the conversation him and the unconscious girl in the car had the day before.
"Listen, I don't know what you do for work, but paying her a visit every now and then wouldn't hurt." Jigen merely tilted his hat in response and got in the car. He wasn't quite sure what that whole scene was about but he'd wait till Jess was awake before he'd give her the 3rd degree on it.