When Clay exits the patient's room, a bored and stressed Trucy almost jumps on him, springing to her feet within seconds. It surprises him enough that he stumbles against the wall but giggles the blunder away. The smile he has on his face is genuine.
"Your name is… Trucy, right?"
"Yeah!"
"Where's your dad?" He asks her, noticing she isn't accompanied anymore.
"Ah, Daddy had to go investigate for a trial! I wanted to accompany him, but he told me Polly needed me more than he did, even though you were here."
"I see," Clay replies as he looks towards Room 304. "Apollo's knocked out cold again, so you won't have much company to give him."
They stay silent for a second or two before he glances back at her, a hand in his jacket's pocket.
"Trucy, would you wanna accompany me to Apollo's place?"
She stays for a little while. She's wanted to see what Polly's home looked like for a little while, but she since then crossed the idea out – Polly just wouldn't let her to do that as long as he was alive. But now, she has the opportunity to do so, and it's sending her for a loop.
"Polly's asked you to go there?" is all she asks back, trying to sort out her feelings for a bit.
"Yeah. He remembered today was a Thursday, so I need to get him something from there. I thought I'd bring you along so we can, I don't know, get to know each other or something. Plus, it'll probably be more interesting for you to come with me rather than stay next to a bed with something sleeping right next to you, isn't it?"
She shakes her head and puts on her brightest smile.
"Okay, let's go then! To Polly's place!"
On that, they both depart from the clinic and head for the centre of Angeles Bay, in a part of town Trucy can only describe as a collection of "the most affordable-looking apartment buildings possible". She's never gone there, discovering the strong smells of the shops proposing all kinds of cuisines from all around the world that meddle into one single potpourri and the almost underground life that dwells in the underbelly of Los Angeles.
She should probably be scared, but all she feels is a sense of curiosity: she wants to know more about this place she had no idea existed. She wants to taste the different dishes the shops propose on their menus and bring Daddy and Polly with her. She wants to ask Clay if he knows any good spot in the area, if his best friend has ever made him discover the place – but that's not where their priorities lie, at the moment, so she keeps that to herself.
In the meantime, Clay and she exchange words so they don't get stuck in an uncomfortable silence during their trip.
"So, you're Apollo's little sister, if I understood correctly?"
"Yeah. I've actually only known it for a couple days, but I… kind of had a feeling, when I think about it. He really felt like a brother to me even before my Daddy told me about it."
"Apollo didn't seem too aware of that, though, earlier."
"I only told him about it today, that's why. My family's just weird and whimsical like that! My parents were magicians, after all!"
To be fair, he's right to doubt her, but he nonetheless drops the topic after that. "Weird story" indeed.
After some more small talk, during which she discovers Clay is a massive Steel Samurai fanboy and his motivations for going to the Moon, along with the "I'm fine" mantra he shares with Apollo, they reach the door of a small flat on the fourth floor of an old building. The corridors smell of cold tobacco and alcohol stains, the doorframes show cobwebs and papers that have been torn away long, long ago; this isn't an attractive environment to see every day for sure. Is this what Polly sees every morning and evening? That'd explain why he'd rather fall asleep on the desk while reading case files over in the office…
"Not a pretty place, huh?" Clay says as they finally settle on a floor after climbing something like five flights of stairs. "I've told him it wouldn't bother me if he went to live at my place like we used to do when we were in college, but until now, he's always adamantly refused. I don't really know why anymore, at this point."
Soon enough, he stops in front of a certain apartment, then pulls out a key from his pocket and uses it to unlock the door. As it opens in a shrilling creak and Clay's hand toggles the lights on, Trucy takes in the sight.
The place is narrow and smells like the odd mix of cheap dishwashing soap and instant noodles, of cologne and residual tobacco. She's never seen Apollo smoke (he's usually the first one to side-eye people doing so), so she assumes the previous owner must be at fault there. The ground is covered in papers, stains and discarded clothes, the table displays a layer of clutter like she's only seen in the agency.
Obviously, all of this makes her think that Apollo, who is usually a neat freak, can't be living here – but it's got to be the truth and her head has trouble wrapping itself around this idea. Maybe, one day, he'll explain to her why his flat is such a mess.
Clay immediately heads for a separate room, into which she follows him. Judging from the furniture, this is Apollo's bedroom and, sure enough, it's as messy as everything else in the place: the bed is unmade, the floor is littered with tissues, books and more clothing, the bin is filled with even more tissues and the bedside table features such things as a half-read manga, a bottle of coughing syrup, headache medicine and the box which must have contained Apollo's attorney's badge at some point.
While she's stuck staring at the aftermath of a storm as the undertones of it hit her mind in waves, Clay goes straight for the nightstand. Before she knows it, he's recovered what he was clearly here for in the first place: a little vial of some transparent liquid and a syringe. Now, Trucy doesn't know what stuns her the most: the speed at which Clay found something so specific in such a specific place when everything else is in a general state of disorganization, or the very nature of the items Apollo asked his friend to retrieve.
"Got it. Let's get out of here and back to the clinic asap," he states as he delicately wraps his loot in a small box he found nearby, which he then proceeds to put into his coat's large pockets.
"Wouldn't Polly need something else to keep himself busy?" She questions instead of moving towards the main door. "He must be really bored in that bed! I think I saw some manga around here…"
"Good thinking Trucy! Grab this one," he replies as he gives her a six-volume series with Greek-looking people on the covers. "It's Apollo's favourite. At least, that's the one he'd read when feeling down."
On that, they zoom out of the place and into the corridor, then down the stairs, coming back to society in a minute or two.
Their walk back to the clinic is more light-hearted than it was the first time. Clay shares some memories he has with Apollo: how they met, how they'd watch some cartoons at the orphanage together, how they spent their free-time during high school, how they tried to spend some time together when college was eating both of their times. Training to be an astronaut is hard, she discovers, and more intense than studying for the bar exam, may she note on the side.
Despite their happy chatter, a question remains in her head: what exactly is that thing Polly sent them on an errand? It honestly looks like something people the complete opposite of him would use for means he'd only glare at in disdain. Perhaps she should ask Clay about it before they're facing her brother again. Surely Polly's best friend, must know what this is all about, considering how undisturbed he was. Unless Clay has an even stronger poker face than her father, she has trouble thinking he doesn't have at least an idea of what's going on.
In the end, she decides to ask before the question can consume more of her mind.
"Say, Clay, what's the thing Polly's asked you to get?"
"Oh, huh…" He looks aside, then down, clearly trying to find a credible lie to give her as an answer. "It's for a, huh… for a treatment. Yeah! A treatment."
This makes her curiosity grow even bigger. Wrong move, Mr Terran!
"For what? Polly's never told us about any of it." (…even though Polly's never told them anything to begin with). "I don't remember ever seeing that stuff in the office!"
"W-well… Apollo'd kill me if I told you. He'd also probably go hide in a hole if it let that slip, so I can't tell you. Sorry."
What's that? Sounds like some dirty, dirty secret… What could be requiring injections? If it was diabetes, then surely Polly'd have injected himself in front of them to survive on each lunch they shared. Hmmm… it'd seem like Detective Trucy needs to be on the case on her own. Maybe Daddy can help her too once he's back from work. In the meantime, she can apply his techniques to her investigation.
First, cover your bases. Make sure to jot down the theories you already have that may be wrong.
"So you can't tell me what's inside the vial, then?"
"If I told you, it'd give it away."
"Is it insulin?"
Clay doesn't freeze, doesn't gulp nor reply, but his body gives the answer away.
"You really won't tell me?"
"…it's all for Apollo's sake. I promise."
But is it really? Clay doesn't seem convinced by his own words. Still, Trucy quickly understands she won't be getting any truthful information about the situation from him anytime soon, so she lets the conversation sink and switches to something else once the silence becomes too uncomfortable to bear.
Trucy has to wait for a little while before Clay allows her to enter her brother's room once more. When she does, the first thing she notices is how better his condition seems to be: he may still look like he's gone through a couple trials too much in a row and the coughing fit that escape his throat right on this moment sounds like it could tear his throat apart, sure; yet he gives her what has to be a genuine smirk. Clay seems much more relaxed than he was earlier too.
"Welcome back," Apollo tells her in a raspy voice (he has one to begin with, that's a good sign) with the breathing mask in his hand as she goes to sit on the chair next to his best friend's seat.
The second change she notices is on his arm. She could swear that, before they left for his place, his left sleeve wasn't rolled up to his shoulder, only to his elbow (she's seen Polly roll up his sleeves when they fell to his wrists more than enough to know he hates the feeling of having his forearms covered). Now, if it were just the sleeve, it wouldn't be too out of place, but it doesn't stop there.
There's now a piece of gauze pressed against his skin where there was the sleeve before. It's such a small, yet odd thing: she really doesn't have a single idea as to why it's there. It's clear it's for an injection and making the connection to the syringe Clay recovered from the flat is very obvious to make, although that doesn't give her an answer at all. Now, she's left wondering about it even further: what could possible be in this vial? Why is it so important, yet forbidden, for Polly to have asked a friend to get it from his flat while he's in the hospital? And, most importantly, why can't she know about it? It's not like she's their enemy or anything!
At first, Trucy tries to rub her own morbid curiosity away. She remembers the bag she's brought to the hospital, gets to see the grateful smile on Polly's face under the breathing mask, giving her a small "thanks" that flows down her blood. As weird as it is to see the usually fiercely professional Apollo be this emotionally naked in front of her, it's a feeling she quite appreciates. She downright wishes she could see his part of him more than the one who keeps trying to say he really doesn't see "Mr Wright" as anything more than his superior when she can easily see she looks up to him the way she does.
However, her focus keeps slipping from Apollo and Clay going through the Greek-looking manga together like they were teenagers all over again and back to the unanswered interrogations that have been festering in her head ever since seeing that vial and syringe combo in Clay's hands. It just won't leave her mind no matter what she does and, when things are like that, she knows she won't get rid of obsessions like this one so easily.
Well, she's better off plainly asking the question, if she's so curious about it!
"Hey, Polly, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, go for it."
"What did you need Clay to get you?"
"Oh, that was nothing. Just a little something to waste time."
"Are you sure, Polly? It seemed like a big deal."
"Y-yeah. It's nothing."
"There was a syringe, Polly. I don't think it's 'nothing'. You're awfully secretive about it, for something that's just 'nothing'!"
Her brother's face manages to lose the little colour it had. Her question causes him to turn to his friend and ask him in a loud whisper "did she see it?". Clay looks pained when he admits that, yes, she did see the vial. Her little interview has had the effect she wanted it to have, that's for sure.
"It's medication," Clay starts explaining, to Apollo's surprise.
"Medication for what?" She continues to ask, ignoring the urge to add "yes, I know that, you've told me this much before" with it.
"Look, Trucy, it's really none," he coughs, "none of your business."
Silence.
"Apollo?"
Silence. He frowns at her suddenly colder tone, at the snap of her voice as she drops the nickname.
"What's in that vial."
He bites his lip, coughs into his mask once more.
"Apollo," a third voice chimes in, "don't feel forced to tell her if you don't want to."
"I'm… I'm fine, Clay. Trucy's my sister. I trust her."
Polly takes her hand in his, looks at her in the eyes, allowing her to notice the spark in them that hasn't left despite the sickness. That's a sign he's going to make it, isn't it?
"It's hormones," he says in a voice so low she almost doesn't hear it.
"Which one?" she asks back with possible answers flashing before her mind's eye. Serotonin? Dopamine?
"It's testosterone."
Trucy feels like something should connect upon hearing these words, but all that results from his confession is confusion, while her brother rolls on himself in a coughing fit. She doesn't know what it means.
Doesn't know yet, that is.