Tempest: Chapter Twenty-Two: Recovery
"Amy? Amy, can you hear me?" Pamela gave a light slap to her daughter's flushed cheek, but the girl only stirred faintly, her eyelashes fluttering slightly at the call of her name, but she did not open her eyes, giving Pamela an unsettling feeling deep in her stomach.
She hooked one arm under the crook of Amara's knees, cradling her head in the other as she lifted her off the floor, carefully shutting the door behind her as she laid Amara gently down on her couch, pressing a palm to Amara's brow, feeling the heat scorching along her skin.
Pamela frowned, narrowing her eyes as she caught a glimpse of something white under where her shirt had ridden up slightly and Pamela tucked the shirt up in order to see the bandage that had been pasted to her skin.
Amara didn't so much as flinch as she peeled the bandage back in order to see what lay beneath. Pamela gritted her teeth together as she took in the sight of the stitches with the reddened skin from inflammation.
But the inflammation was manageable, and Pamela had some Aloe Vera on hand after she'd gotten burned a few weeks back (curse her fair complexion).
"Hang on, Amy, I've got something that might help," she murmured, pressing a kiss to her burning forehead.
That made Amara stir briefly. "Mom," she slurred the word, tilting her head more towards Pamela and Pamela's heart swelled. She knew, of course, that Amara probably thought it was Iris, but she couldn't stop herself from imagining what it would be like for Amara to call her 'Mom' and not 'Ella'.
"Yeah, baby, I'm here," she murmured, smoothing the girl's now-red hair away from her face. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise, I'm just going to get you something for your stitches, okay?"
Amara didn't give a response to that, leading Pamela to suspect that she was caught in the throes of sleep and her calling out for her mother had been more or less sleep-talking, but she appreciated it all the same.
"What have you gotten yourself into?" Pamela murmured, leaving her briefly in order to return to the bathroom to grab the jar of gel from the cabinet and grab some fresh bandages. The wounds hadn't looked like they'd been caused by a bullet, so what had it been? An arrow? Like that red-haired archer friend of hers? Pamela winced. She really hoped it wasn't him; she'd seen the boy and Amara together a lot and the idea of him shooting her daughter annoyed her –at the least, annoyance, at the most anger, but it was likely the boy didn't know who he was shooting at, so she'd give him the benefit of the doubt.
Pamela returned to the side of the couch, pulling the old bandage off carefully so as to see the wound more clearly. The inflammation must have been recent, but the wound appeared to be a few days old, but Pamela had a feeling that Amara had a hell of a healing a factor. She might not have the same level as Flash, but it was still pretty damn impressive.
"Well, at least you got something other than those pretty greens from me," Pamela murmured, a soft smile curling her lips as she squeezed out a little of the gel onto her fingers. "Now, this might sting a little but it should help with the inflammation."
It was likely that Amara couldn't hear a thing she was saying, but Pamela thought it was better to treat her like she could.
And then she smoothed it gently into Amara's skin, watching her face carefully as it pinched in pain and she flinched.
"Yeah, baby, I know," Pamela said, "it hurts, but it'll get better, I promise."
And it was likely that it was only stinging close to wound where the skin was still healing.
Pamela drew back after a few more moments in order to rip the first bandage out of its packaging and paste it onto her abdomen. "All right, now onto the one on your back." Because Pamela had felt the bandage when she'd lifted her daughter from the ground, and she wasn't about to only soothe the inflamed skin on her front.
But it was also a bit more difficult for Pamela to get to the wound on her back where the projectile –most likely an arrow at this point– had exited her body, and it involved Pamela moving Amara onto her side, trying to move her as little as possible, but there was only so much she could do in order to reach the stitches on her back.
Still, after a few minutes, Pamela had smoothed Aloe Vera over the stitches, replaced the bandages and returned her to her back.
"I'm going to get you a pillow, some blankets, and cool cloth for your forehead," Pamela said, half to Amara and half to herself. She moved to the closet, pulling out a blanket that she tucked securely around Amara as she slept on, oblivious of what was going on, even as Pamela lifted her head to place a soft pillow behind her.
Then she went into the kitchen wet a cloth in cold water before returning to the living room to place it on Amara's forehead and a moment after she'd done so, Amara expelled a small sigh, relaxing into the couch a bit more, her face relaxing as time went on.
And Pamela curled herself against the couch, propping her head on her arms before closing her eyes and allowing herself to fall asleep as well.
She didn't see how Amara's hand that was closest to her curled around her hand, as if unconsciously seeking her touch.
The sunlight warming across her face was the thing that awoke Amara the next morning as she slowly peeled her eyes open, wincing slightly at the brightness of it.
Her arm felt stiff, but her side at least wasn't bothering her quite so much as it had before. She blinked a few times, looking down to where her arm was only to blink in surprise.
The last thing she remembered from the previous night was stumbling her way up to Pamela's place before collapsing into her arms once she'd opened the door…and there sleeping beside her was the woman herself.
"Ella?" Amara murmured and the woman roused herself, pulling herself back from where she was slumped against the couch with an audible groan –that couldn't have been a good position to sleep in– blinking green eyes open that were so similar in shape and color to Amara's own, and when she saw that Amara was awake, she gave her a bright smile.
"Good, you're awake," she said, "I was a little worried when you were so out of it when you showed up last night."
A flush spread across Amara's cheeks that had nothing to do with her previous fever. "Sorry," she muttered. "I didn't know where else to go—"
"Don't worry about it, its fine," Pamela assured her with a smile, running a hand through her own red hair. "I just wasn't expecting you…your dad said you were doing an abroad trip for that online school of yours."
Amara looked to her sharply and Pamela smiled. "He didn't fool me. Want to tell me why I had to soothe some inflamed skin last night that looks like it could have come from anything from a bullet to an arrow?"
Amara winced.
"So it was an arrow," Pamela surmised.
Amara chewed on her lip aggressively for a few moments. "It's because of my father."
"Barry?" Pamela asked in confusion and it was so effortless that Amara didn't even catch on how she was faking.
"My biological father," Amara corrected, giving a sigh as she raised a hand to rub at her face. "His name is Mark Mardon, but I'm sure you've heard of Weather Wizard."
Pamela's eyebrows rose high on her forehead. "Your father is a villain?"
Amara's smile was grim and stiff, like the very idea of her father was something she hated to even think about. "Yeah, great family legacy. He had a thing about shocking me whenever I did something wrong, which was a lot."
A closed off expression warped Pamela's face for a few moments, like she was trying to come to grips with what Amara had said.
"Is he why you showed up here with a serious case of inflammation?" Pamela asked and Amara appreciated how she didn't say anything like how sorry she was that Amara had to go through, Amara really didn't care much for those.
"No, that was…I ran into Speedy and we had a difference of opinion…" Amara was trying to put it mildly, but she wasn't sure it was working entirely the way she wanted it to. Saying she'd had an unfortunate run-in worked better than saying her best friend shot her because he thought she was a thief –which she was– and oh, by the way, she was the former sidekick of Black Canary and currently was using the name Oracle.
There was toeing the line, and then there ignoring it entirely, and Amara knew the difference between the two.
"Weather Wizard hired someone to track me down," Amara explained (there was no getting around not telling her co-worker anything, especially since she'd helped look after her when she was so out of it). "I…I couldn't let my parents get involved, I didn't want him to hurt them."
"Amy," Pamela said with a sigh, "it's a parent's prerogative to look after their child, not the other way around."
But Amara didn't so much as blink. "My biological father is very dangerous man, I just…I don't want him to hurt them to get to me."
Pamela gave her a sad smile that she missed with her eyes focused downwards on the hands she had clenched into a fist over the blanket.
"I'm sure they'd like to know that you're safe," Pamela mentioned and Amara's eyes shot up to meet hers.
"You aren't going to tell them, are you?"
Pamela chewed on the inside of her cheek, contemplating the girl in front of her. "Not if you don't want me," she said finally, "but you should know that they miss you very much."
She had passed by Iris in the street a few days ago and the woman hadn't looked up from her phone, but there was a line of tension in her jaw and worried creases in her brow, like she was waiting for Amara to call but she never did.
Amara's face fell slightly. "I miss them too," she murmured, moving her hand to circle around the thick bracelet she wore to jam the transmitters on the microtrackers still filtering through her blood.
Pamela didn't comment on that as she pulled herself up into a standing position, dusting off anything that might have accumulated during the night. "Well," she said, "I'm going to take a quick shower and then make some breakfast…how do you feel about some bacon and eggs?"
"Its fine," Amara said, blinking at her a few times in confusion. "You don't have to keep helping me, you know."
"I know," Pamela assured her with a smile, "but I'm not really one to toss someone out –particularly one who's only twelve years old– when they're still healing from some inflammation…what did you do, pour alcohol on the wound?"
"Um, vodka," Amara admitted, embarrassment flooding her face before she could stop it.
"Not the best choice, if you ask me," Pamela said with a light smile as she pulled the bandage back in order to see where Jade had stitched Amara back together. "Alcohol sears the skin, it's probably the thing that made your inflammation so bad…next time use a proper disinfectant."
Amara bobbed her head. "I'll remember it next time."
And Pamela laughed.
There were a lot of flowers in Pamela's apartment, and Amara had only been there a few times before, and it hadn't quite dawned on her just how many plants Pamela had. She really liked bringing her work home with her.
The bathroom was positively floral, but the smell of the flowers wasn't as overpowering as she would have thought as she turned on the water in the shower before peeling her clothes off carefully, before examining the stitching in her side.
The redness had faded for the most part, but there was still some that could be seen close to the stitches, but that might have had more to do with the fact that it was so close to the stitches. It looked to be almost healed, so maybe in the next day she could take the stitches out.
Amara sighed, testing the water on her hand before stepping into the shower, letting the water flow over her, plastering her hair to her face and neck even as Amara ran her fingers through the loose locks.
The last shower had been a bit colder and Amara found she actually preferred when the water was warm, even if it tugged slightly at her stitches.
Amara lost track of how long she was in the shower, but she forced herself to get out eventually, pulling on the spare clothes that had been in her rucksack when she arrived in Central City.
When she left the bathroom to enter into the cramped kitchen, Pamela was humming brightly with her back to her, focusing on the eggs and the bacon that Amara could hear sizzling in the pan as she pulled out a chair against the counter to sit.
Pamela gave no hint that she had noticed that Amara had arrived, so Amara waited for her to turn around and see Amara, but she didn't, so Amara turned her attention towards the potted flower that was drooping on the counter, a red aster (a symbol of patience). Being someone who worked in a flower shop, Amara frowned, reaching out a hand to the flower, but before she could even touch it, the flower curled upright once more.
Amara leaned back, eyes wide, missing how Pamela's lips twisted upwards into a smile as she saw the reflection in the steel, and when she turned around with the eggs it was gone, and she blinked in surprise at the sight of the flower.
"Wow," she said, "you must have one hell of a green thumb."
Amara appeared vaguely startled, and then confused, even as Pamela set out plates and scraped some eggs and bacon out between the two of them.
She'd never had any skill in manipulating plant-life, at least, not that she could remember. Unless it was a latent skill…unless it was something she had inherited from her mother that was only now manifesting.
Amara was grateful that Pamela was willing to let her stay the night again, she'd assured the woman that she'd be out of her hair by the next day but Pamela had waved her off, assuring her that it wasn't a problem and she didn't mind.
And she might have liked her coworker, but there were some aspects of her life that she liked to keep to herself, which was why she waited well into the night before she opened her laptop to check a few things.
She'd already had saved files on every member of the Justice League and the villains they faced (call her a bit extensive in her efforts as Oracle, but that was the way Amara worked) with the files double-triple-quadruple encrypted so the only way you'd be able to get into them was if you had the exact password, and luckily, only Amara had that code.
Amara made her way through the listings of persons with Chloro-kinetic abilities. She wasn't all that surprised to discover that there weren't all that many skilled in it…and the one listed as the most powerful was Poison Ivy.
Her fingers shot across the keyboard, pulling up the image of the woman herself. The green of her skin was the first thing that Amara noticed, but there was something familiar in the shape and color of the eyes and the wild red hair, and the high cheekbones, as well as the curve of the jaw…but Amara couldn't quite place it.
Maybe she'd seen those features somewhere before…
Before she could contemplate further, a message had popped up on her BlackNet account from Cheshire: Find anyone to rob?
Not yet, Amara responded, my stitches got infected. I'm waiting until tomorrow at least before I take them out.
Tough luck, Jade replied, even though she was the one that had dumped vodka on the injury in the first place. Gotten a safe house yet?
No, Amara replied, blinking in surprise. The thought hadn't really occurred to her, but now that she thought about it, it wouldn't be a terrible idea…Oliver had several safe houses around the country (three of which were in Star City itself). Why?
Might want to consider getting yourself one, Jade mentioned lightly. I'd imagine flying back and forth from Fiji all the time could get a bit exhausting.
Not that you'd even know anything about that, Amara fired back. Besides, what's the point of getting a safe house if I'm not going to go back to it once I've sorted out the issue with WW?
Because then you'll at least have a place to go back to if you need time to yourself or a place to hide your stash of whatever you don't want to keep at your house…I'm sure Oracle's got enough money and enough favors to find some place to hole up in between heists…
I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Amara replied, though it was clear that she did.
Sure, you don't, Masq, sure you don't…
Amara rolled her eyes for good measure, signing off from the messaging system in order to peruse the BlackNet, searching for another job to occupy her time.
"You're sure it's all right that I leave the motorcycle with you?" Amara asked the next day at the bus-stop, waiting for the next bus to arrive. "It's just I don't think it will be all that helpful where I'm going."
She was going to get off at the first stop, once she was out of sight from Pamela, but she thought she might as well make it look like she was doing something other than flying right up into the sky, hidden by the clouds as she made her way east.
"Oh, it'll be fine," Pamela assured her, giving her one last hug. "But you are going to be safe, aren't you? Wherever you're going, that is."
"As safe as I can get," Amara admitted, even though she'd long since given up on safety; safety was a thing of the past. "I'll be back before you know it, cutting stems and making bouquets with you at the shop, just you wait."
"I'm looking forward to it," Pamela laughed. "It gets so boring when it's just Sandra and I, you make things exciting."
Amara smiled, but she wasn't sure that exciting was the correct choice of words to describe herself. But she'd give anything to be back at Bouquet Boutique, de-thorning roses, she'd give anything to sleep in her room at night, and she'd give anything to be back in her parents' arms…but Amara couldn't really get what she wanted, at least, not right now.
"You look after yourself, all right?" Pamela asked as the bus rolled into the station, slowing in front of them and the few others that would be boarding.
"I promise," Amara said, before hiking her bag high on her shoulder and mounting the steps into the bus.
Pamela waved from outside the bus and Amara waved back until it pulled out of the station, leaving her behind, watching her daughter slip through her grasp once more, but Pamela couldn't be annoyed about it. Amara had a complex about keeping others safe, even if it meant staying far away from the people she loved.
And Pamela had seen the gears turning in her mind when she had mentioned the possibility that Amara might have a green thumb…
So Pamela headed back off to work with a noticeable skip in her step.
Amara dropped out of the sky to land in Sea Isle City, NJ, a few cities away from Gotham, which was more than enough space, thank you very much.
Owning a house was a bit difficult in some areas, especially since in most places you needed to be eighteen years old, and Amara's measly twelve just didn't cut it.
Fortunately, emancipated individuals could purchase homes from their current owners, if they could prove they were emancipated and that the current owner freely gave their signature, at least, they could in the state of New Jersey. It was a fairly new law but Amara was determined to use it to her full advantage, because Amara Allen might not be emancipated, but Elisa Jäger was.
It just so happened that Amara had helped a woman out of an abusive marriage with a man who was interested in both taking her money and beating her and her young daughter before she had turned to Oracle for help.
Oracle had managed to get them a safe place to stay while providing proof of the systematic abuse to the police, allowing them to arrest the husband. Unfortunately –or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint– the husband was killed in prison, thus leaving the wife with an impressive pay-out that went right into the charity of her daughter's choice. She had paid Oracle handsomely and still promised her that if she needed anything, she only needed to ask.
It was a bit much, but Oracle knew the family possessed a few real estates and wanted to know if the ex-wife knew anything about a good safe house location (the woman may not have known Amara's true identity but she wasn't foolish enough to not know that Oracle might need a place to hide out once in awhile), and the woman had offered her a beach house she owned with her ex-husband.
"A beach house might be a bit much, Melanie," Amara had said into the phone, her voice artfully garbled.
"Nonsense," Melanie Archer had countered swiftly, "I was planning on selling it anyways, now at least I won't have to. I'll scan you the documents, just sign them, send them back and I'll have the deed waiting for you when you get here."
So Amara had given up and accepted her gracious gift, which had led her to look over a map of the city by flashlight as she made her way down the path along the beach to where the house was located.
Amara's flashlight bounced off it and she had to stare a little. "Whoa."
It wasn't big but it certainly wasn't small, so there was that. It had two floors –with the second being significantly smaller than the first– and was piled on pillars with a staircase leading up to the porch and thus the door.
"Melanie, you are completely insane giving me this for hardly anything at all," Amara muttered to herself, stooping to grasp the key where it was hidden before making her way up the staircase to the front door to grab the deed, where Melanie had tucked it under the floor mat with a post-it that read: Enjoy the house!
Amara shook her head in exasperation, but she took the key and took the deed and opened the house, collapsing onto the first couch she saw, sound asleep in moments. She'd deal with Melanie's outrageous gifts another time.
