32. I Have to Take This Call

Almost immediately after Illumi's face touched the ground, it reverted to the rich carpeting of VerHoffen's study. And there was something else, a most welcome sound, the one he had been waiting for for hours, a Zaoldyeck transmitter was beeping. But it was his father's, not his.

Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and was turning him over causing vertiginous disorientation and nausea to overwhelm him again. He closed his eyes, but he knew it was Lucia. He could sense her aura, depleted though it was by her recent expenditure. He must have been cut, because she was wrapping his head with something, every movement feeling like a hammer blow inside his skull.

She was whispering into his ear. He was glad that she was still alive and he could hear her voice, and he appreciated the fact that she was keeping it very low to avoid causing him pain, but he wished she would stop. Not only because she was saying some nonsense about thanking him (for what, allowing her to be killed?) and how great he was (his present virtually incapacitated state all the evidence he needed to put the lie to that), but because he wanted to hear what Silva was saying. Though his father's responses were often not revelatory and very curt: Yes, No, OK and such. Then she kissed him and took his hand and Illumi decided that there were worse ways to find himself as he worked with his aura to speed his recovery and restore his body.

Putting her right hand behind her, Lucia leaned slightly back from Illumi. She remembered how Dewalt had fallen toward her, and she didn't want to follow that example and fall on Illumi, when she was killed. He was looking a little better, she thought, eyes still kept closed and with what she took to be a look of concentration on his largely expressionless features. The perfection of his skin was marred only by that crooked stripe of red down the side of his face. She could feel a tingling sensation through her skirt where his head and shoulders were resting, so he seemed to be healing himself with his Nen.

Looking at his face, she decided she had been wrong about how she wanted to die. As lovingly as she had crafted her ersatz Kukuru Mountain's beauty, it could never equal Illumi's. She had to restrain herself from running her fingers through his hair, now spread across her legs and down to the floor. Even if this was her last opportunity to do so, she didn't want to take the chance that it might hurt him in his present state, and she had put her hands in it once before, hadn't she?

She let go of his hand and wiped her face quickly with her left hand, so tears wouldn't fall on him and disturb him. This was the best way to leave her life, with the vision of Illumi's face in her eyes, the weight of his head on her lap, and the music of his breathing in her ears. Except that was being drowned out now because the beeping had started again…. and this time it was coming from Illumi.

It was ringing. His transmitter was ringing; that was a good sign. There was only one person it could be. For the first time in hours Illumi allowed himself to hope. Lucia was still alive, that was another very good sign. She was rooting around in his clothing looking for the source of the sound. Not only was she unlikely to find it but…

Oops, too late. Illumi opened his eyes and raised his arm to stop her, but she had already put her hand on one of the pins stuck through his vest, triggering a nasty shock. She snatched her left hand back, cradling it to her chest with the right one, and regarded him with a very sour expression, her bottom lip stuck out in a reproachful pout.

Illumi ever so slightly smiled. She had moments before been almost blasted apart, and now she was complaining about a little zap? "They're protected with Shu," he explained; glad to discover his speech had returned to normal. Now if only this headache and dizziness would leave. He put the arm he had been trying to stop her with across his chest and moved his hand under Petersen's jacket, finding the opening to his vest.

It wasn't as if he had asked her to retrieve it, he justified to himself. She was going to have to defer to him a lot more in the future and not just go off doing things on her own without checking with him first.

He slid his hand under his vest and removed the transmitter from its pocket, bringing it out. His still slightly uncoordinated fingers were having trouble with the small earpiece, and Lucia reached down with her right hand and deftly took it from him and fitted it into his ear, smoothing his hair behind it. As if she would ever stop acting impetuously, he thought… in the future… which she would now have. Illumi smiled again. In their future, he corrected.

She was going to find it. That thing that Mr. Zaoldyeck had been holding, Illumi must have one just like it. It sounded like it was coming from-

Ouch! Illumi had shocked her. And it hurt! His eyes were now open and he was smiling. Did he think it was funny? He was going to have to be a lot more considerate in the future and tell her beforehand when he knew something like that would happen.

He had it out now, an oval object that fit easily in his palm and had a six pointed star in a circle inlaid on the front. At the top there was a small earpiece that Illumi had pulled out, attached by a flexible wire. He seemed to be having trouble manipulating the earpiece. She had forgotten how badly he had been injured in his defense of her. He might not have asked, but he needed her help, which she would gladly give. Lucia smiled; and as a reward, she would get to touch his hair, smooth as satin.

Suddenly she realized she had been thinking of the future. Surely there would be a future now; Illumi wouldn't be looking so pleased if there weren't. It must have something to do with these beeping things.