Alex was pacing. He should have made her call him at every point in the flight process; after she made it through the link, when she made it through security, when she made it to her gate, as soon as she was seated on her flight, but no. According to the website, she hadn't made it to her plane. She never even checked in, and now she wasn't picking up her phone. He wanted to scream his frantic worry to the world. Instead he just dialed her number, for the umpteenth time.
"Hello?"
The eldest Hael felt his heart skip a beat. While it wasn't his little sister's voice, at least someone had picked up. "Shizuo?" he guessed.
"Ya-"
"What happened to Anni? What the fuck is going on over there?!"
"Ah, sorry about that. She's still in surgery-"
"SURGERY?!" Alex exclaimed in dismay.
"Alex…" Shizuo growled at him. "Don't ask me what's going on if you're not going to let me explain."
Taking a deep breath, "I'm sorry... I'll shut up and listen now, ok? Just, please…" he relented, pleading. He was desperate to know what happened to his baby sister, pride didn't exist here.
Anni's boyfriend sighed on the other side of the line before starting again. "She came stumbling back home last night, and started ranting something about you being right about her being part of this universe, and the link, then spewed blood and passed out. I still don't know what she was trying to say." Alex felt his heart almost come to a stop as he realized what had happened. The link rejected her. How did he not expect this? "Shinra said he couldn't deal with all the internal bleeding and stuff, so I took her to a nearby hospital. I've been waiting here for hours, and they still haven't said anything helpful about what's going on."
"Thank you... for looking after her" was all Alex could manage.
"Ya, sure. It's not like I want her to go through this either. And now all I can do is sit here…" Shizuo snarled.
"I'll let you go then. Can you call me if anything changes?"
"Uhh, I could answer the call, but I can't actually open her phone. She has a passcode on it."
"A four digit code, right? It'll be 9400. She uses that for everything" Alex explained. Right now, her privacy was the least of her worries. He should be able to trust her boyfriend with it, anyway.
"It worked" Shizuo reported after a moment of silence.
"Please call me whenever you get news then. I don't care what time it is."
"Got it" he said curtly, hanging up.
Hospitalized. Internal bleeding. The link rejected her. A sharp impact resounded through the otherwise silent room. The thick grain of the wooden desk was unharmed under his bruised fist. The veneer against his skin seemed to cool the sting of pain. God dammit, he was even more helpless than Shizuo.
-!DRRR!-
"H-hey, Heiwajima-san!" she called out, jogging slightly to catch up. Kaneki strolled along behind her.
"Maya?" the bodyguard asked in greeting, turning in place. The man who had been walking ahead of Shizuo stopped to watch what was going on.
Maya came to a stop a little ways away from the man she wanted to question. "It's just that… Anni promised that she would call me as soon as she got back to her home, but I haven't heard from her in two days. Do you know how she is?"
Shizuo took a moment to respond, quietly adjusting his sunglasses. "She never made it back home. Raira General has her. You can go try and visit if you like, but she's still unconscious."
"Wait, she's in the hospital?! What happened?" Maya demanded.
Shizuo shot her an irritated glare, stopping the demands and making her take a step back. At once, Kaneki took a subtle step in front of her, and Shizuo's friend rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Everyone's worried about her" the man in dreads consoled in a smooth tone. Much to Maya's surprise, Shizuo nodded and seemed to relax.
"Anni came home the night she was supposed to leave and said something about the link rejecting her before she passed out" he explained. "She told you about that sort of thing, right?"
"Y-ya, she did" Maya agreed.
"Link?" Kaneki asked incredulously. His girlfriend only waved him off, too preoccupied with Shizuo.
"I'll go ask around the hospital then. Thanks for your help" Maya said as politely as she could manage, adding a bow before she started to scurry off. Kaneki sighed as he followed on her heels.
"Do I need to ask where we're headed?" he wondered as he matched her hurried pace.
"Nope" she answered.
"What's this about a link? What happened to her?" he started to pry, sticking his hands in his pockets.
"Not my secret to share" Maya responded quickly, hurrying towards the hospital.
-!DRRR!-
Was this how Anni felt while she waited for me to wake up, back then? she wondered, fiddling with her thumbs. It was agonizing. The doctors weren't sure if she would survive, "If Anni pulls through this next surgery, she should have a good chance of making a full recovery" one of them had said to try and console her. Maya could only sit and hope, on that hard, uncomfortable chair.
"Are you going to go back home to sleep, or do I have to carry you?" Kaneki mused, startling her.
"I probably should go and at least change clothes, but I need to be here when she gets out of surgery" she asserted.
"She's not going to get out of surgery and just wake up, you know. Move before I have to force you. You need a shower" Kaneki lectured. His girlfriend only glared back. "You've been here for three days, I'm sure your boss loves you."
"He knows where I am, he's not happy about it, but he won't be punishing me for it. What of it?" she snapped back.
"That's it" he sighed at her, grabbing her arm and dragging her up. "You're going home to sleep and cool off-"
"-You are not about to order me around-"
"-Anni wouldn't want to see you like this over her." Kaneki finished, stopping Maya's train of thought entirely.
"Fine. I'll go home. See you later" she said grumpily, shaking off his hold and trudging past him. He didn't try to follow as she stomped out the automatic doors and on her way home.
-!DRRR!-
"She's gotten a lot stronger since she first came here" Celty showed her anxious friend before adding "I can't see her going through all this and not getting back up."
"I know, I know, but that doesn't make her wake up any faster. It's been a week, and after all those surgeries, she's still out. It's driving me nuts" Shizuo confided, snuffing out his cigarette and lighting another. Celty tried to guess how many packs he'd gone through this week. "I was expecting to spend a while without her around and all, but this is different. It feels so wrong-" His rant was cut short by a phone ringing. Grumbling, Shizuo pulled what seemed to be an iphone in an orange case from his pocket.
Since when does he have a smartphone? Celty wondered, though she refrained from asking as he pondered the caller ID.
"Hold on a moment" the bodyguard instructed, deciding to answer the call. "Maya, right?...
Ya, I keep it around so I can call her brother…"
Oh, is that Anni's phone then? she realized, patiently listening. To her surprise, Shizuo put on the first large grin she'd seen in awhile. Good news?
"Ah, thank you. I'll pass the word along to Alex" he announced before hanging up.
"Did something good happen? You're beaming."
"You could say that" he answered, getting up from their bench and stretching, phone still in hand. "Anni's finally awake! Apparently it'll still be a while before they let people visit her, but she's opened her eyes and is talking to people."
The courier stayed in place as she typed out her response. "That's wonderful! You'll have to give her flowers from me."
"Ya, sure. Thanks for stopping to listen to me again, Celty" Shizuo chimed, as a small breeze stirred the night air.
-!DRRR!-
He didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. He relaxed, falling back into his mattress as a ragdoll and bouncing once or twice. The phone the had been clutched to his face only a moment ago was no longer in his grasp, probably having landed somewhere else in the bedspread. She was safe. The worst was over, and she would survive. What felt like an immense weight crumbled away, and breathing came easily again. Alex knew that not all was right in this world, not yet, but now it could get there.
-!DRRR!-
White. It was all white again. Why did it have to be white? Any other color, any other emotion would be better. Anni would prefer if it was black. It stank too. It stank of drugs and cleaners and mass produced sterile materials. It stank of her mother's work.
"I'm sorry, little one. The cafeteria was out of pudding again. I could only find vanilla ranch dressing" the brunette told her fifteen year old. She set the tray of food she carried on the little white side table, complete with chocolate pudding.
"You're kidding! I thought you said the pudding ALWAYS sold out first!" the young girl chirped back, sitting up too quickly. The darkened world spun, accompanied by a muted throb from above her left ear.
"That's what you get. You can't just forget that you have stitches in your skull, Annibel" her mother laughed, popping open her can of soda and lounging in the chair off to the side.
"Watch me" her daughter challenged, delicately reaching for the packaged sandwich triangles.
How many had it been? Five stitches? It wasn't even something interesting that landed her those stitches, either. It was a day in the park, a missing brother, a frantic Anni, who wasn't watching where she was running, and a tree branch. Alex had shown up in time to see his mother's coworkers whisk his little sister away. Anni ran her fingers over the light scar, hidden by the hair that grew back. Her eyes wandered vaguely to the table beside her. There was no pudding there for her.
"Can I… be done now?"