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The Major, unlike Doc, was fully dressed when he strolled into the lab, looking awake and quite amused when he caught sight of the bed-ragged man sitting at his desk, a stack of binders leaning precariously on his desk. "No more sleep today, Doctor?" The blonde-haired man turned his attention away from his work and gave his superior a withering look.
"I thought I'd find you with Miss Harker," grinned the rotund leader, ignoring the doctor's glare and glancing around. "Have you taken pity on the little thing and sent her back to bed? That's very unlike you…"
"You may go, Lieutenant. I have matters to discuss with him." Doc addressed the woman fidgeting with the strap of her rifle, cocking his head towards the exit without dropping his glare. Flustered and looking a bit upset, she spluttered out an apology and then a farewell that dissolved into nervous babble.
"You don't wish to share with the others…?" The Major's humor was insufferable.
When the Lieutenant was gone, Doc pulled off his glasses and rubbed the corners of his eyes. "I'm sure you were updated before you walked in... There was a…an incident this morning, between Miss Harker and the Captain. I was given a brief summary of events and I've only had time to watch security footage a couple of times." He fit the glasses back on the bridge of his nose and suppressed a yawn with a sigh. "I haven't been able to question her thoroughly, but I will, soon; once the Captain is finished interrogating her."
"The Captain is interrogating her? Shouldn't he be resting?" A thin eyebrow rose on the Major's forehead, his grin still in place.
"You think he's going to bite her head off?" Doc retorted, scornful. "You were willing to accept that risk when you decided he would take over this stage. We discussed this for days, Major. Are you having doubts—"
"My dear Doctor, I think you are in need of rest more than anyone in this facility. Exhaustion does terrible things to your temperament and I hate to see you like this."
Doc crossed his arms and propped his elbows on the desk, his posture rigid as he leaned forward and lowered his voice. "It's not the Captain, Major. It's her. I want to talk about her."
The Major paused for a moment before speaking, his voice sly. "You want to convince me to make a decision regarding her treatment… That would make the Captain's consent obsolete."
"…Yes," the man behind the desk huffed, cursing his bluntness. The short, round man was too often underestimated, was too intelligent, too observant—picking up on cues and habits that gave thoughts and intentions away with an ease people such as himself struggled to attain. "Yes, I want your permission, Major. I don't see any reason why the Captain would disagree after what's happened—"
"But you don't know for certain what's happened, do you? You must collect and compile the data, your information, analyze it, and make your report. Then comes the decision-making. Not enough time for that now, eh?"
"I don't trust her."
The hum of the lab filled the silence for several seconds before the Major let out a giggle. "How long have you trusted her, Doctor?" Wide, golden eyes bored into him. Gleeful, mocking, curious, admonishing.
"No, that's not what I meant. You know that," Doc argued, swatting the question away with a hand that nearly knocked over the tower of binders beside him. "There's something she's not telling us. Up until now, she's only manifested shadows when conscious. She has a guard nearby when she sleeps, and we're going through the data her chip sends during those hours, too. Something has changed. When I drew blood from her arm this morning… I can't describe it to you, but there was something different about her. Not wrong, neither good nor bad, just…different. And the moment I realized—convinced myself of its existence—it was gone."
"And what is your request, Doctor? If I recall, your counter-measures for She did not elicit the responses we hoped for."
Doc bit the inside of his cheek, holding back an angry retort. Reigning in his temper, he managed, in an even tone, "Twenty-four hour surveillance."
The Major slipped his hands into his coat pockets and propped his hip against the front of the desk. "You want more cameras? When will you have time to watch the footage? If you suspect something is changing inside of her, why focus on the external?"
Doc settled back in his chair and seemed to deflate, his lab coat swallowing him whole. "I don't know." He was unhappy with his own answer. "I considered having a monitor with her at all times—the way the Captain is almost always nearby. But can human or inhuman perception notice every detail? Retain memories unaltered by stress, emotion, surprise? If she attacks someone, do they have the ability to fight back and restrain her? Is there something—anything—that could inhibit one from doing the job they're tasked? The more I thought on the matter, the less confident I became in this organization's individuals. Cameras seem like the better option. Unobtrusive. Unbiased."
"They won't put up a fight if attacked."
"She'll still have a guard, of course…"
"I doubt they'll catch the details you're looking for."
"She's still going to have company more often than solitude."
"And where would you put these unobtrusive cameras?"
"I'd like a couple in her room, in opposite corners on the ceiling. A few more placed in the lab—both labs, now that the other hangar is in use. And at least three in the bathroom..." The Major wore a toothless grin and hummed a single note as Doc's expression warned: 'Don't you dare say a word.'
Amelia drew herself into the corner of the room farthest from the skeleton of the bed, put-off by the cold, hard frame and the cuts in the wall around it that she hadn't noticed before. It looked like someone had swung an axe in a fit of rage, and, feeling guilty about it later on, tried to hide the damage behind a new coat of paint. But the fresh white stripes on the wall only seemed to highlight what was wrong; they didn't repair anything.
The Captain set the stool down beside the bed, looked at her, and pointed. His gaze remained on her as he reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a bent notepad and pencil. She did not move, and he gestured again. Without his cap to cover his face—his human face—he took on the appearance of a tired professional who had agreed to work one too many night-shifts.
He turned his head to sit on the bedframe, the wooden slats emitting a creak as he settled on the makeshift seat. There could be no doubt that he was not comfortable sitting there, but he seemed resigned to suffer, for he started flipping through the notepad. Amelia watched him closely, taking in the clean and untorn uniform; the way he moved, hunching slightly as he began writing; his focus and lack of expression, even as he scribbled the pencil over the pad and damp white hair slipped forward over the bridge of his nose, partially obscuring his left eye.
I don't know if I can talk to him. I don't think I can sit there and look at him. He stopped writing and looked up, just as her gaze swerved from him to the stool in front of him. The doctor wasn't wrong when he stated that the Captain had frightened her. She had been reasonably frightened, and she was still afraid of him, even with the anger boiling inside her.
Seeing the Captain bowed over the notepad stirred disbelief, too, and she was disgusted that in spite of everything that had happened in the past couple hours, he acted unfazed. Their last encounter, violent, bloody, sudden and surreal, left him unchanged. While she…
I have not changed either.
Something like despair sunk deep within her.
I haven't changed.
She might be treated differently, examined and analyzed in a new light, be made to suffer through more inhuman, brutal experiments and tests. Yet she would shy away from pain, have a brief outburst, and subsequently duck her head in submission and tear herself apart on the inside. As she always had. She was doing it right now.
Lost in this revelation, she did not notice the Captain again until he was standing in front of her. She startled at his proximity and took a step back when he lifted his hand to show her the notepad.
'I know you tried to bring him here. Why?'
She flew into a panic. He knew. He knows. He knows it was Alucard. He knows! What… Oh my God, I never should have… I didn't know, I wasn't thinking straight! How am I supposed to fix this? What if I can't fix it? What'll he do to me? What if I say nothing?
There was a familiar ache in her chest as her breath shortened. "Don't ask." Her left elbow bumped against the wall, reminding her that she had backed herself in a corner where she had little room to retreat. "I don't want to talk about it." She pressed closer to the wall and began to shuffle along it, hoping to work her way past the Captain and out of the corner.
If he noticed her creeping evasion, he wasn't particularly concerned, as he had already returned to writing after the first comment left her mouth. When he moved towards her again, it was after he finished his response.
'Do you think he will help you escape? Do you know what he will do to you? He is not human. What do you think will happen if you bring him here?'
"It can't be worse than this!" She shouted, the vocalization sending a sharp pain through her side. "I don't know! I don't know that! But I know this—!" The coat fabric strained between her fingers, threatened to rip. An exclamation punctured her uneven breathing as she hurled the clothing across the room, the material snapping as it hit the floor. "This!" She made a violent sweeping gesture around the room, her gaze covering everything but the Captain. One hand gripped the open collar of her shirt as if it had choked her; the other tugged loose the front hem of the shirt from where it was neatly tucked at her waist. "This won't change! None of it! Nothing will change!"
I won't change.
Hyperventilating.
I haven't changed. She couldn't speak anymore; breathing was difficult enough. This won't change. I know that. She took a couple steps away from the wall, her skin tingling as her chest rose and fell in a repetitive, exhausting pattern. Easing down to her knees, she clutched at her shirt, blinking rapidly as she watched small licks of black shadow pulse over her knuckles and down her forearms, bursting to life with each thud of her heartbeat.
No! Stop it! She curled in on herself, panting sounds that she imagined were pleas and prayers until her forehead came to rest on the floor and the smell of cleaning products overwhelmed her nostrils. Don't do this to me! She begged the shadows, tucking her body close in hopes of smothering them. Don't do this! I can't take it!
Minutes passed in phases of nausea, dizziness, confusion, and finally, exhaustion. Her muscles ached, joints protested the unnatural posture, her forehead hurt from the force with which she pressed it into the tile, but she did not move. If she did, she didn't know what would happen.
Eventually, her breathing began to slow, her face contorting into a grimace as the pain in her chest, knees, and back became unbearable. A light touch fell on her shoulder and remained there. She did not stir but willed it away, to no avail.
"Leave me," she rasped into the floor. The hand withdrew, but she could still feel the presence at her side.
When she had lost all feeling in her lower legs, she finally gave in. Unclenching her fists, she braced herself and gingerly lifted her upper body from the floor, adjusting her legs so that her knees and shins no longer supported her weight. The shadows were gone, and her skin and clothing, as well as the tiles beneath her were undamaged. Groaning softly, she eased back down to the floor on her side, staring at the blurry junction of the floor and the wall, her back to the man beside her. She could hear the scrape of pencil on paper.
"Whatever you're asking… I don't know the answer." She closed her eyes, her forehead wrinkling into a frown. "So you might as well leave."
I just want to sleep. Without dreams. Without monsters. For a long time…
The Captain shook her arm to get her attention. He had stopped writing. Now she was supposed to read.
She put her hand out, feeling blindly, her fingers brushing against the notepad before closing around the edge. She pulled it towards her and felt resistance. From the corner of her eye, she saw the larger hand still holding the other side of the pad. They would tear it in half fighting over it. Or he might just let go…or not. And then she risked having a monster bear down on her again.
De-escalate… Her shoulders tensed, but she forced herself to slowly let go of the notepad. It's not worth it.
The second her fingertips left the paper something else was forced into her hand, and she recognized a moment too late the firm grip that tightened around her knuckles, did not have time to react to the tug that rolled her onto her opposite shoulder. In the next second she was sitting upright, her final posture the result of being lifted upward by a strong arm and her own mad scramble to not remain vulnerable.
"I don't—I-I'm paying attention! I'm up, I'm up!" The Captain did not crush her hand in his, but he did not allow her to pull away either. "What?" She looked from their linked hands to the notepad at his side, the writing illegible from her position. "I'm paying attention! I'll read it." She twisted her wrist one way and then the other but he did not release her. "I'm trying to… I don't understand. Please…" Feeling powerless and once more on the verge of panic, she extended her other hand towards the notepad without grabbing it, hoping his fixation on her hand would divert to his written message.
The Captain made no move to give the booklet to her, and she lifted her head to plead with him again. She had nothing more to say, nothing new to say, nothing she could think of at that precise moment that hadn't already failed to elicit mercy.
And perhaps her silent attention was all he required.
When her gaze rose to his face, she found his there to greet it. The intensity was strong enough to push all thoughts aside and nearly enough to bow her head. She was aware of her face tilting downwards a few degrees, her eyes itching to follow suit, blinking as she strained to keep her gaze level, though he seemed to overwhelm her even in a crouch.
Emotion radiated from his eyes, giving him an expression without altering his features; but it was not one—or a combination of emotions—that she could identify. Round pupils expanded and contracted by miniscule amounts, red irises rippling around them, a mixture of human and inhuman anatomy and physiology that was terrible and hypnotic to observe.
For all that she could see, she could not interpret—whereas for him, he appeared to need no translation. Her thoughts came slowly. What is he reading about me, and why? Why can't I read him? Her muscles tautened as she straightened her spine and eased forward, letting their joined hands balance some of her shifted weight. She hadn't blinked for a long while now, believing, as she continued to stare, that she might lose something within her grasp if she did.
If I could see his entire face… Would I know? Would I understand? There were no words to say.
Amelia lifted her hand calmly, surely, towards his brow, and the Captain turned his head, breaking eye contact. She froze with her hand in the air between them and blinked as though dazed. Her gaze rapidly cycled from her outstretched hand to the Captain, her own posture, and returned to her hand.
What are you doing? She whisked her arm back, curling it against her abdomen and watching it like it was something she had no control over. Was it him? Like Alucard, when he made me talk…? But she hadn't said a word, and neither had the Captain. So what did it mean?
"You want to keep me locked away in here. If—if he—came, he would probably try to take me away, and you might not be able to stop him. But you once told me that you only needed my blood…" His grip on her hand slipped away. "Well, you have it. You have plenty of my blood, so you don't need me anymore, you just want me, want me to…want me as a captive. I'm some sort of trophy. That's what the nice clothes are for—" The notepad was set in her lap, cutting off her clumsy attempt to untangle logic and the unknown. It was opened to a new page, filled from top to bottom with words.
'Millennium's days are numbered. When the time comes, if you still want to escape, I will not stop you. No one will stop you. But until then, you must remain here. If not for your own sake, then for the sake of everyone and everything you know. I don't care if you hate us for what we have done and what we will do to you. We will die content with your resentment, without forgiveness. Because we cannot wage this war without you. You are not a monster. You are not a human. You are not an experiment. You are a miracle.'