One In The Same: Of Poppies and Stone (Book Two)

by Jules Harper

A failed attempt to end her life on Midgard begins a new life on Asgard, unwillingly. Her time on Asgard brings her to realize her relationship with Bruce was never meant to be and rethinks her hateful position with Loki. All said, Loki meticulously works his way to her heart, obsessed with the stone within her, and eventually secures his prized creation.

3. Rebirth (part three)

For ten days straight, Jules paced the wall like a bored cougar starving for a kill. Every other day, she changed direction to break the monotony to allow the other hand to seek answers. It amazes her just how smooth the walls are. Not a scratch, dent, or indication of a possible opening can be felt on her fingertips. Yet someone beyond the gray walls insists she feeds for the box appears with food on a cycle. Her meals she left untouched but always drank the hot black tea delivered at each offering.
Sensory deprivation was driving her mad, for within the bland gray box there was nothing to hear but her heart beat, her breath, and the random male voice whom repeatedly asked the same old question. She occasionally responded out loud with a smart remark.
"Shut the fuck up!"
"Leave me alone!"
"Get out!"
But on all other counts she shrugged his question, ignoring him, and deliberately hummed random tunes to avoid his voice. Her verbal outbursts would bring the hairs to stand at attention on every man but Moose. He'd dig the wood between the valley of his gums and massage it, tenderize it, and express a low "hmm" by doing so.
Her pace is noticeably slower today with an increase in heart rate, blipping on the monitor in an orange heart. Bruce suspects her muscles are beginning to tire due to her starvation and this concerns him.
"We need the Dietitian to add sugar to her tea for lunch.", he tells Moose and does so with a quick call.
Jules hears the box slide forth, spreading an aroma of buttered potatoes, leeks, and chicken tenders. She picks up the hot tea and takes a sip.
"Sugar.", she says quietly and continues to sip. The sugar triggers a little boost of confidence, flows through her with happier memories of yesterdays, but does nothing to improve her pace. Bruce sighs out of relief she doesn't refuse it.
'Someone or something behind the wall knew I needed the sugar.'
Her body exhausted and hungry, she leans into the back wall to finish her tea and glares at the open box. Both hands grip the warm cup against the center of her chest and she frowns at the possibilities: Purgatory or imprisonment. Either isn't favorable, but she wishes death over being captured alive for there's nothing worse than not knowing what your captor has planned.
"God?", she asks aloud, just once more. Desperate for his voice. Desperate to confirm she's dead. A heavy sigh leaves her, disappointment blankets all hope of a Savior to remove her from the coffin, and sadly she heads back to return the cup. She crouches down and yells into the box for her own comic relief.
"Thank you Nurse!"
Amused, Bruce rubs his head.

An hour later, the box retracts and she lets out a sigh.
'Are you willing to carry this burden, Jules Harper?', says the man in her head. She stops at the far left corner of the Observation Room's wall, leans her body into the crevice, and struggles to hold up her body.
"Yes.", she says, giving in, for she's grown tired of his nagging request. "Fine. Yes. Whatever.", with shoulders shrugged heavily and head down. She remains still, waiting for something to occur, but the air in the room lays silent. Everyone on the other side of the wall holds still, waiting for her to do or say something more.
'Listen.', says the man.
"Listen to what?", she asks.
'To the walls.'
"I must be losing my mind.", shaking her head. "Do you enjoy torturing me? Do you?! You fucking sadist!", she yells in the end and continues her walk with clenched fists.
Moose looks at Bruce for input on whom she speaks to.
"Jules isn't a believer in God. Yet, she clearly is speaking to Him. I know, for she once told me God is a sadist."
Moose finds her lack of a religious belief humorous and laughs, for he's a full-blown Atheist. He taps out a new toothpick from the silver container and chews away as she slowly passes to the right with her fingertips sliding along the wall at waist level.
'Listen.', he says.
'All I can hear is your voice. There's NOTHING ELSE to LISTEN to!', she argues within.
'To the walls.'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen to the walls. I'm listening. Listening. Fucking silence!'
She drops her head low, and the comforter covering her head and body suggests a hint of Death without the sickle. A knot forms in Bruce's gut as she paces away, for her heart rate and body temp rose slightly. As the lights dim, she immediately lays down to rest. Her predictable nature brings her to lie on her right, tucks her hands under the pillow, and her knees rest close to her chest. Bruce runs a full body scan, due to her elevated body temperature by two degrees and holding. Finding nothing wrong, he orders a chem analysis on her last urine. A low level of ketones, due to fat conversion to energy, and a high electrolyte imbalance tells him she's hungry and dehydrated. He sends an email to the Dietitian and leaves a voice mail message as a backup with recommendations for tomorrow's meal and drinks.

A lick of the thumb helps to grip the age old paper to flip it, and the long thin fingers then press down at the center of the book. A beautiful hand drawn illustration in colored ink depicts an Alchemist working with five elements for an autoclave spell. An order for two thousand four-inch long icicle-like spear heads had come in with a specific request it be made with pure silver. The only guarantee the end product will be one hundred percent pure is with magic, and dully noted, Loki writes the formula upon parchment paper. The sepia ink flows fluidly, much like his hands. For an Engineer, his handwriting is meticulous and the energy in his cursive strokes can be felt without reading his words. As he secures the inkwell, he takes pause to focus on an unusual swirl of strength outside of his heart. With his body still, his eyes rise and slowly looks about the study. The experience suddenly ends but he continues to seek it. To bed, he lies in a short evergreen silk skirt and searches for the unusual tug upon his heart but finds nothing. Exhausted, he pulls the light brown pelt over his smooth, lean body and falls fast asleep.

At 4:46am, Bruce awakens to his laptop chiming loudly for attention. He scrambles out of bed, makes several clicks of his mouse to acknowledge, and picks up his cell phone.
"Operations. Dana Burgo."
"Her status?"
Surprised to hear Bruce on the line, he whispers "Bruce" to Lorna and she quickly pulls up the live feed from six main cams and quietly reads out the air temp and quality, pressurization, water conditions, and power supply.
"System's in the green on my end. Lorna is giving me a thumbs up."
"She still asleep? Any excessive movements? Noises?", Bruce asks as he continues to read her last hourly physical logs.
"She hasn't moved or peeped. Is there something wrong?"
"She broke a fever just short of a hundred and two degrees. I'm leaving now, but if she behaves out of the norm before I get there? Call me."

The lights brighten along with the sunrise, but Jules remain fast asleep. The comforter picks up an increase of perspiration, noting a lack of potassium, calcium, sodium, and magnesium. Worried of severe dehydration, he ensures unflavored electrolyte water is used in her morning tea. The first shift arrives with coffee in hand and polite exchanges soon follow. Moose arrives no later with a bag of pretzel sticks and passes it around to share. Bruce waves his hand to pass and provides an update on her health and his concerns for the day. Moose types away at his keyboard for a medical crew to remain on standby and urges everyone to watch her carefully for any subtle changes in behavior.
The Empress swivels easily upon the ring finger, as she stands and adjusts the comforter over her head and back. At 10:43 am, she slowly marches along the wall in the same counterclockwise direction as yesterday with her right fingers along the wall to guide her. Breakfast was delivered, which she only removed the hot tea and leaves the two slices of toasted wheat with grape jam for her viewing pleasure. Noting her leg muscles tighter than usual and making her walks uncomfortable, she slowly paces with a gentle use of magic. Floating just enough above the floor to kill gravity and ease the stress in her legs, the soles of her feet land upon the concrete floor but ever so gently. Of the four, Jim takes notice of her unique locomotion. He zooms into her feet and lets out a noticable gasp. Moose looks his way.
"Mr. Hunter?"
"She's not walking, sir."
Moose zooms into her feet and notices her smooth gliding motion.
"Nice find, Mr. Hunter. Dr. Banner? How's she holding?"
Bruce was already reading her logs before Moose could ask.
"Body temp is steady at one hundred two point seven degrees. Electrolytes up a nudge after her tea, but not nearly enough. I recommend we offer her tea every hour with the unflavored electrolyte solution. A cookie or chocolate can't hurt, either. She's dehydrated, so fluids are in order."
"About her not walking. Your assessment?"
Bruce pauses to watch her on his monitor, now noticing her gliding feet and determines two possible factors.
"Her muscles are likely tired. Probably sore due to a lack of carbs, potassium, sodium, iron, and water.
Or, she's conserving energy."
"Boys? Looks like we're beginning to get a taste of what she's capable of. I have a med team on standby, just incase she falls apart on us. Let's remain extra vigilant, for her self-inflicted punishment may bring her to bloom for us today."

The heat of molten steel brings the energy to embrace the brown leathering upon his body, yet moments after the pour he notices his body still warm. A trickle of sweat escapes his forehead and races off the left eyebrow.
"Odd.", Loki mumbles as he wipes his sweat away. He toys the water between his right fingertips in deep wonder. He never sweats from the heat of the Foundry.
"Huron. Please take over my duties for the day. My health is suddenly poor.", and walks back to his office. He sits down, allows the heat to hold him and the sweat to leave his skin.
"What is this I feel?"
With eyes narrowed, he focuses on the unusual strength swirling in his chest.

Jules hears the man in her head command her to listen once more, and her frustration brings her to break down in tears. She sobs quietly, her face obscured by Bruce's scent, and barely allows the tips of her fingers to embrace the wall. She believes the man had led her to fall ill with delirium and a fever.
Bruce's right fingertips press against the special cotton fiber and polyester blend of his slacks as he wrestles with his emotions from exploding forth, for behind the flesh he's angry with himself, with his employer, and all else holding his love against her wishes. As her sniffles carry into the room, his chest tightens much like someone squeezing the shit out of a stress ball.
'Easy. Easy. Shhhh.'
He takes a long drink out of his coffee cup, closes his eyes with long deep breaths to relax, and refocus his mind to decide how to increase her physical strength. Another cup of hot tea is delivered at the top of the hour and she gladly accepts.
Two hours of meaningless passes, feeling up the walls like a desperate pervert craving for gratification, a gentle sound finally comes to her. Random soft emotions in words or broken thoughts skirt her mind like Scrabble letters needlessly strewn about. None of it makes any sense. As she leaves the Operations wall for the next, the emotions also leave and the quiet returns. Eyes larger, she looks at her right hand and takes notice to her finger position and light touch of the surface. When she returns to the same wall, random soft emotional whispers skirt her mind in a tizzy. For another full hour she makes her pass, circles, returns, and carefully listens to the wall. Once again, she's greeted by a cup of hot tea. She accepts the offering and remains in place to drink it fully with questions to these voices.
"You asked me to listen. I'm listening.", she says into her cup.
With nothing said by her stranger, she returns the cup into the box and begins her trek once more but with purpose. Her feet moves in slow motion, gracefully tiptoeing across the gray floor. Moose walks to the window for a close look and folds his arms as she noticeably floats in slow motion. Bruce stands, mesmerized by her movement, yet curious to her reasons for her to move in such a manner. Jim's in a slight state of shock, for the God-fearing man had never witnessed such behavior or would he ever believe it would be possible to defy gravity without a mechanism. Frank smiles at the wonder before him and quietly blurts out a comment.
"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
As she approaches Moose's position, a tingle enters her fingers. It travels up her hand, to her shoulders, and ever so gently nudges her chest. She slows to a crawl yet still appearing as if her legs move her forward in exceptionally reduced time. Bruce watches her hand rise as she passes and then fall to hip level. His heart races, for he has an idea what she's after.
"What do you make of this, Dr. Banner?", turning around to view him.
"Creative movement." He jokes inside but delivers his answer in a serious tone.
"Her movement is so fluid, like a ballerina or an angel floating by. Just the slow movements alone is difficult to comprehend. Just amazing!", says Frank with much enthusiasm.
"Mr. Hunter?"
"Her hands. Something about her hands, sir. It's as if ... I think she's looking for something more than a door.", he says with concern.
"What about you?", Bruce asks Moose.
Moose watches Jules make her way down the left wall, taps out a toothpick, and smiles.
"She's looking for the door."
As Jules turns left, she feels the tingle in her hand at waist level and stops right in front of Moose. He fiddles with the wood between his lips and watches her fingers glide up to his crotch, to his belly, and stops at chest level. Appearing as if she was touching him seductively, he makes a critical error and allows his emotions to sway. Turned on by the visuals, she picks up his energy. Finger tips lightly pressed against the glass in perfect distance between the anti-magic wiring, his lustful emotions seep through. With her head forward and slightly down, she slowly turns ninety degrees to the right and up to view her hands. The comforter falls, as she releases her grip, and her large brown eyes stare at his direction. Anger rages forth inside, filling her chest with a heat she's never experienced before. She KNOWS. She RECOGNIZED. The man in her head was literally begging, pleading her to listen and she did.
The answer is now before her very eyes in a blind of gray, for behind the coffin wall stands a man she despises. Commander Michael Wavell of BlackOps-D.
Realizing her body language meant more than her searching for the door, Moose immediately straightens himself and shuts down his mind. Sensing his response, a slow smile rises into the left corner of her mouth. Eyebrows relax and her eyes narrow upon her spread eagle fingers.
"Shit.", he whispers.
He slowly removes the toothpick from his lips. The testosterone-filled room falls silent, as the men await her next move. Her right hand slowly converts to her flipping Moose the bird and Bruce breaks out into an uncontrollable giggle. She holds her opinion in place for ten glorious seconds as Moose narrows his brows in disgust. Feeling satisfactory of her message, she proceeds to pick up her security blanket, walks to the bed, sits cross-legged facing their wall with an enraged face, and wraps the comforter around her. Frank watches Bruce in amusement and follow with laughter, watching him wipe the tears of joy from his eyes. Jim clears his throat, sensing Moose is not at all pleased with her disrespectful behavior. She made it very clear she knows who holds her.
Bruce responds to the chiming of three separate warning notes on his station monitor with a reduced chuckle, but that soon washes away in shock.
"Jesus Christ! Her body temperature is one hundred and eighteen degrees!"
Moose shoots Frank a look.
"Room temperature has risen by four degrees. Its eighty-two. No? Now eighty-three. Environmental system at one hundred percent."
"It's holding at one hundred and eighteen, but how?!", Bruce argues with himself. "She'll be dead in minutes!", noting both temperature readings agree from his bed covering and the mattress.
Her innards were ablaze, reminiscent of Thai chili spices burning her stomach lining and sitting in a hot tub for too long. Sweat drips profusely from her head, runs down her neck, and the tank top soaks what it can. His blanket registers the high moisture upon the cotton, sending a red lined notification upon his monitor to warn of likely organ failure. A combination of severe fever and absolute dehydration brings Bruce to rest his elbows on the glass table and grab the sides of his head. Agony grips him. Certain death terrifies him. He's nearly in tears.
"I don't know what to do.", he shares quietly, but Moose heard him well.
Her resentful stare is unnerving to Jim and causes him to readjust his posture as if ready to defend his crew. He shakes his head, clearly expressing fear in his eyes as he looks to Frank for support. Frank only pays attention to his station, verbally noting the changes in air temp, humidity, and pressure.
"The electrical room just below her position is picking up a rise in heat by five degrees. Cooling fans are now online. Seven additional degrees and we may have an issue, sir."
"I guess I was wrong", Moose responds nonchalantly. "She wasn't looking for a way out. She was looking for us.", returning the toothpick to his lips and responds to Jules anger with a sinister smile.

Loki calls forth a Healing Elder, out of concern he may have spoiled himself with improper magic. The Elder stands behind him and holds his left hand encrusted in a jeweled glove over the center of his back. His eyebrows rise out of surprise and rests his hand upon Loki's right shoulder.
"Are you aware your heart lies with another?"
"Pardon?"
"You weep when she weeps. You suffer when she suffers. You are not aware?", puzzled that Loki truly doesn't know, for the Elder is an Empath and senses Loki speaks the truth.
"I do not share my heart with anyone. Nor have I shared my bed in countless suns! Are you certain this is not dark magic or my own doing?"
"Oh, most certain!", the Elder laughs. "This is of a woman. Strange you do not know of her."
Loki's first guess was his daughter Hela, playing a game out of spite, but the Elder would've known and shared such.
"Remedy?", Loki demands.
"None I can offer. She must care for herself or you suffer with. Just to note? This woman is not lame nor ailing, Sire. She's ill-tempered.", patting Loki's shoulder with a chortle and leaves him to be, alone in his office with a dumbfounded look.

Pizza's were ordered for lunch as Moose's way to celebrate a breakthrough in Jules' unknown status. Harboring an ability to heal, defy gravity, and radiate heat which would fry a Human brain in minutes proves she's not one of them. Bruce notes her body temperature verbally every three minutes and by 4pm, her core temp begins to drop.
Her body tires quickly, having used a lot of energy to sit angrily and stare at the man behind the wall whom forced a job she didn't want down her throat. With eyes moving down to the white comforter, she frets. Year upon year, men in black attire and heavily armed chased her in her dreams. The end result now sits around her with Moose the predator holding her captive. The job offer at Raven Rock was clearly a scam! He never intended to send her there! Caught in a web of lies, she now realizes her decision to end her life only made life's drama stickier. Messier.
'I'm an idiot. So stupid! I should've ran!'
A clear memory of events unfold upon the screen of her closed eyelids. Her desperate words to Bruce and his agony of screams bleed out in emotions, gripping the comforter tight ...holding on for dear life.
"I lost the fight. I failed to die.", she shares solemnly to her captor behind the gray wall. "I should've known better than to end it. I couldn't kill myself then. Some unknown force stopped me. And here I am, once again, not dead. Alive. In your hands."
The men all sit idle with pizza in hand with light conversations afloat, but her words end it.
"There is no God, is there?", she whispers.
"Shhhh! Quiet!", Moose quips to everyone.
"But there must be something, someone. Why? Why is it? How is any of this possible? I only asked a simple request. Much like the cliff, you continue to torture me with life. Why? Why won't you let me die!?", she shares at the wall ahead with a slight right tilt of her head and droopy eyes. "What do you want from me?"
She remains quiet with eyes now resting on the soft white cotton. When her temp reaches ninety-nine degrees, her body slumps to the left. Passed out on his bed, Bruce's fingers dance across the glass to get manual readings taken. Within five minutes, he determines she rests and exhales loudly in relief.
"She's sleeping. Her vitals are stable but she's close to critical dehydration. Body temp's at ninety-eight degrees."
He can't shake her words from his mind. She clearly meant to die that night.

Silence fills the air once more, for everyone had their fill of greasy food. Moose begins to type away, sending a message for Rose to make a visit tomorrow at 8am for her first assessment. As for Jules, the evening meal delivered a warm scent of turkey slices, seasoned potatoes, and corn. She refuses, readjusts her body, and tucks under his comfort. A deep valley appears along her heart. Grasping the edge of his creation, she takes in a deep whiff of his scent, closes her eyes, and allows her heart to leap forward. Free falling in her depressed state, jagged granite passes her by and soon her body's greeted in darkness. Asleep once more, the lights within her gray coffin have dimmed out to end the day. Lorna pulls the box of untouched food and cold tea with Bruce scratching his head in troubled thought. Her lack of appetite and mental state is very worrisome.
"She's giving up hope. Now that she knows." He presses his open hands upon his face and pulls them down with an open sigh. "I'm going to crash here for the night."

Despite sleeping well through the night for the heat had left him, Loki couldn't resist a visit to Heimdall for verification on the ailing mortal. Upon his horse and across the Bifrost, his mind begins to speculate whether it was Jules Harper afflicting him. Heimdall offered nothing to appease his curiosity, except to say, "She is well and awake."

Bruce slept in his chair with his dark gray and maroon argyle socked feet crossed upon his station. Lorna and Dana remain quiet and focused, but the quiet crawls under their skin and irritates the shit out of them. Dana pulls out the deck of cards, flashes them under his table with a smile stretched from ear to ear, and Lorna returns a fist pump of excited approval. Fourty minutes into their game of Rummy, Lorna casually reviews the monitor and leans in. Sensing something wrong, Dana leans into his and begins to click away to span the variety of cameras set at night vision. Lorna stands up and looks at the dark empty room.
"Maybe she's in the bathroom?", she whispers.
Dana nods, moves to Bruce's station, and pulls up the cam. He begins to breathe hard and nods "no".
"What?", she worries and runs a system check.
"Dr. Banner?"
Dana shakes Bruce's right shoulder and he looks at the man's worried face. He sits up fast, mumbles something, and runs a med diagnosis check.
"She's out of our vision, Dr. Banner.", shares Dana.
Bruce squints at his side monitor set in night vision mode.
"Where is she?", Lorna asks.
"System's in the green.", says Dana, back in his seat and raring to go.
"Environmentals at one hundred percent. Temperature is seventy-eight degrees."
"The motion sensors are online, but it's not picking up movement. Clearly she's moved. I'm not understanding how.", says Dana in a worried tone.
Bruce quickly leaves his chair, approaches the right wall panel near the main viewing glass window, and sets it to infrared. Lorna hollers and Dana nearly jumps out of his seat. Nearly dead center floats Jules with both hands upon the wall in a red glow. Invisible to the naked eye, her body heat cannot hide from technology. Her head rests down as she focuses on the emotions resting behind it.
"Clear your minds! Clear your emotions!", Bruce hollers in a whisper. "She's an Empath!"
Jules slowly adjusts her fingertips to get a reading, but all she picks up are fleeting emotions. They come and go too quickly to determine who watches her. Out of sight, she hovers motionless in her tank top and shorts with her hairs sheltering her face. Like a ghost, she floats to her left to locate emotions hidden from her and stops once more.
"Please let me go.", she says in a somber voice.
Bruce swallows hard. Lorna looks to him for advice and he puts his index finger up to his lips.
"I surrender. I'll work at Raven Rock or do whatever you'd like. It's just that the silence is killing me. I can't stand it!"
She adjusts her fingertips once more to feel nothing.
"If you could pass along a message to Dr. Bruce Banner? Please tell him I'm sorry for my actions."
She quietly sobs in place, waiting for an emotional response, and her tears fall directly below to the floor. Bruce brings his right fist to his mouth, sheltering it to keep from responding back.
"I failed to accept the truth and allowed my fears to dictate my fate. I'm in your hands, now. Do as you wish. I don't care anymore. Please? I'll do whatever you want."
He wrangles his emotions hard, but each whimper from her quivering lips pulls away the stitching that holds his emotions in check. Slowly, his heart caves in and unconsciously he walks up to the window. Like two magnets seeking each other to close the gap, he raises his hands to match his fingertips to hers. Immediately, her hands and arms tingle followed with an emotion she recognizes. She cries hard, closes her hands into fists, and presses her forehead into the glass.
'Appear'.
Dana and Lorna gasp at her return and watch Bruce with interest.
Within Jules' chest, a fire rages once more. Confused and angry of his presence, she wants to see him face to face. To scream at him. To holler profanities. To rip the flesh off his back like she nearly did the last time he lay inside her. She opens her hands once more and adjusts her fingers perfectly between the wires to feel his energy meld within.
"How could you side with them? Why, Bruce?", she says in a noticable quiver. "You promised to be honest, yet you stab me in the back to bring me in?"
"No.", Bruce argues loudly.
"You say you love me, but hate me enough to see me suffer by bringing me back to life and make me your bitch."
"No! I love you more than you'll accept and only work for the enemy to ensure your safety!"
"I trusted you and no one else! I'm such an idiot!", she shouts, dropping her head with eyes shut tight. "... so STUPID!"
"Please, Jules ...".
"I opened myself up to you. I'm so naïve! So STUPID!", closing her right hand into a fist.
"Will. You. Just. LISTEN to what I have to say!", he yells in desperation. "Damn it!", forgetting the microphone isn't turned on. "Dana! Turn on the mic!"
His heightened state of concern presses between the wires with ease and she reads his desperate motions to console her, but she's had enough. No amount of his sorrow, empathy, or love can sway her anger. A rage boils inside and her blood is hot like pahoehoe, coursing fast through her gut to deliver her emotions into physical form. She makes a second fist, looks down at the floor, and vanishes.
'Vanish! Protection!'
"Jules! Jules! Damn it! Please listen to what I've got to say! I can explain why you're here, but I need you to ...JULES!"
An unseen ball of orange surrounds her as she floats all the way to the rear wall and the infrared no longer picks up her body. The sound of his voice confirmed the energy which embraced her, his scent which consoled her, his anger pulling her back to the broken wall. Floating in a stand a foot above the ground with her chin down to her chest, she opens her watery eyes and raise them ahead without moving her head. Bruce narrows his eyes and scans in desperate fashion.
"Dana? Are the cams picking up anything ...".
She moves forward as quickly as she can muster, her right forearm ahead, striking the glass with an incredible impact. The air within Operations reverberates and causes Lorna to scream. Bruce, standing next to the window, falls backwards in shock and lands on his ass. He scrambles to his feet in a panic as another powerful blow against the glass sets off an alarm on Dana's station.
"We lost comm to the viewing cams on our wall! The glass is holding. System's still in the green!"
"Enviro's showing ...". Lorna screams once more for the third impact is even stronger. "Air temp at eighty-six degrees! System's at hundred percent! Oh my God!"
Jules rams the window a fourth time, and a noticable crack is heard. She stops, examines the damage, and begins to pull away the broken two-inch thick glass shards of painted gray.
"No breach to the external environment! Air pressure is steady!", exclaims Lorna.
"Turn on the lights, Dana!", orders Bruce.
"Where IS she?!", Lorna yells.
"Right in front of us.", Bruce answers softly. "She's pulling the glass away to see us."
Jules eyes Lorna first, then Dana. Not seeing Bruce, she pulls more of the broken gray with force. He quickly walks up to the window and eyes her to focus. With fingers pressed against the wired glass, she follows suit and lines her hands with his upon the inside wall.
'Remove protection. Appear.'
"Jules? Can you hear me?"
She wails out to him.
"Why are you here, Bruce!? Goddamned you! WHY?!"
"The comforter? I developed to ensure you remain in good health. The bed has an array of medical sensors which I personally developed. They're both my ticket to be by your side, as BlackOps holds you for observation. If I hadn't put my blood, sweat, and tears into Moose's project, I wouldn't be standing here. With you. To see you're well."
"Well?! WELL?! Do I look well to you? Because I sure the Hell don't feel well!", she screams.
"I know you're angry and I can't blame you, but please understand this is WAY over my head. When Moose shows up, speaking of my head, it's going to be on his chopping block for instigating your behavior. I'm going to lose my job, Jules. And you'll be on your own. All I can offer you is that comforter to ease your heart."
"But you PROMISED me. You promised to be upfront with me! Instead, you held back this dirty secret. THIS!", she points out to the room. "You KNEW I'd end up in here! Am I right?!"
Bruce swallows hard, takes in a deep breath of air and exhales slowly, for she was right.
"AM I?!"
He wasn't upfront or honest as he promised when slipping The Empress on her finger. His eyes squint in self-disappointment and brows lower.
"Disclosing the truth would've put me in Raven Rock for a minimum of ten years. Prison, Jules. I sacrified myself and sold my Soul to this Hell hole, just to be by your side! And I'm not a bit sorry for it! But ...". Frustrated, he grabs a bounty of beautiful salt and peppered hairs into each hand. "Damn it, Jules! I love you enough I HAD to take the job! I don't trust Moose or this Godforsaken place!"
Her eyes soften. Desperate to hold him and accept his apology, she rests her forehead against the inside glass. She realizes just how complex her situation is and how desperate he's been to remain close.
"I screwed up. It's my fault! Had I just listened to you and trusted you? I wouldn't be in this mess."
"No, Jules. The job offer was a joke. It never was. Moose had every intention to put you in here. Even if you stayed with me, you still would've ended up in here." He rests his forehead upon the glass to feel closer to her and presses his left fingers against the glass, so desperate to feel her face. "But I'm thankful to see you're alive. Despite the circumstances."
"What I did was inexcusable, Bruce. For you to witness my ...". She covers her face. "Will you ever forgive me?", she tearfully pleads.
"Forgiven. Will you forgive me for not keeping up with my promises?"
"Forgiven.", she smiles and they both stare at each other in a moment of silence. "How much longer will he hold me in here?"
"He wants to see all of your abilities. After that? I have no idea. I really don't. But knowing how this organization runs, it won't be pleasant. You're not considered Human, Jules. You're classified as an Unknown."
"I ...I don't understand. Unknown? What do you mean?"
"It's based on your multiple abilities. You're viewed as a potential danger to society. Unless you agree to work with BlackOps, which means enslaving yourself, then ...".
"Is that what happened to you?", she whispers.
"No. My accident occurred well before BlackOps formed. But they did try.", he snickers.
A silence falls between them as they rest foreheads against the glass and line up palm to palm. Lorna cries silently and Dana questions why Moose would hold Jules captive here and not at Site-R where all the unknowns are held.
"You'd better get some rest.", he says. "I need to figure out what to tell Moose. You know. To save face.", he smiles.
She looks at the two in the room.
"I'm so, so sorry if I frightened you both. I hope I didn't break anything. Well. Besides this hideous wall."
They both speak at the same time with "It's alright" and "You didn't break anything important".
She smiles at Bruce and floats to her bed. Wrapping herself in a cocoon, she takes in his scent and shares the words he's been waiting to hear since she awoke from her coma.
"I love you, Bruce."
"I love you more.", he says thru his smile. "Dana. Kill the lights and return it to auto. Let's all do another check assess our damages."
The mic is left on, which is a welcome change for Purgatory. Bruce left it on, intentionally, so she can truly understand how little control he has over her imprisonment. He locates the two cameras Jules knocked off-line and as he repairs them, Dana shouts which direction to direct the cam to line it properly. The only problem out of his control is the broken one-way glass which, unfortunately, is noticable within the room.