Disclaimer in previous chapters. Meant to be a continuation of the previous chapter, not a standalone chapter in itself.
- . -
She was still wearing a little smile when she walked up to the doors, waiting expectantly as they sensed her and opened. Being a woman, she was not unaccustomed to doors opening for her, but it didn't happen all that often, and it was nice that she didn't feel as though she was putting someone out.
The room looked pretty much as it had when she left it, with two major exceptions. There was more equipment, and there was a rather short, older man sitting on the chair she had vacated about eight hours ago.
His expression was neutral as he turned, but it immediately perked up into a smile as he recognized her, and he jumped to his feet very spryly for someone that had to be . . . old. Very old indeed.
"Meryl Stryfe," Doc greeted, and she stepped into the room and gave him a brief hug. He returned it as though it happened all the time, and she felt herself relax a little into the gesture.
"Doc," she replied, a little unsure of what else to say. She wasn't sure what his full name was, although she could and probably should have dug up the contract papers, considering she'd made him sign them and she was sure he hadn't just signed them 'Doc.' She found she was still hugging him, and promptly released him, turning slightly red.
"How is she?" The words came out of her mouth before her brain contemplated what the two new items in the room might mean in relation to Millie. Doc's eyes crinkled slightly in the corners, and she felt her smile slide right off her face.
So not good.
He didn't answer at first, and she stepped around him, deciding to leave him the chair and sitting herself primly on the edge of the mattress. Millie still looked like a baby doll in a small child's bed, and her brow furrowed as Meryl watched.
She stared at Millie a second, but the furrow didn't vanish, and she turned quickly to find Doc had stepped up directly behind her. Any hope that this was a good sign sank at his somber expression.
"I'm afraid I don't have good news."
When she'd met him on the ship he'd been just as direct regarding his needs as far as insurance was concerned. After he'd finished laying out the contract, he'd barked a laugh at her stunned face.
"I'm afraid I don't mince words, young lady," he'd confided with a wink. "When you get to be my age, there's neither time nor inclination."
Obviously he hadn't changed his perspective in their time apart.
When she turned to more fully look over her shoulder, she noted she was carrying her shoulders high, hunched and tense. It was an effort to relax them, and she took the time to do so before she said anything.
"I know." Brain damage didn't just go away. Even she knew that. "Just tell me."
He pursed his wide lips together thoughtfully, as though choosing his words carefully. She prepared herself for the worst. Millie won't wake up. Millie won't make it through the night.
"Ms. Thompson will regain consciousness, but she won't be herself."
It neither sounded nor looked like he was finished, so she remained silent, and merely held his gaze unwaveringly. She needed the details, if she was going to be able to help Millie. She needed the details for herself. To know what Knives had done. To know what they could or couldn't have done to prevent or lessen the damage, and what they could do about it now.
He nodded slightly to her, as though acknowledging her mental readying. "The damage done by Knives will affect her motor skills, to some extent. You may observe twitching, strange gestures, or a difficulty or harshness in speaking."
Among the many Bernadelli contracts she'd investigated over her few short years, she'd come across other people who had been injured. The most horrific had been a well-drilling accident, when the support scaffolding had collapsed back on the well tunnel, bringing some of the reinforcing stones down as well on the workers. Three young men, all brothers, had been at the bottom of the shaft, and only one of them survived. His name had been Craig, and the left side of his skull, just above his ear, had been crushed.
He'd been released from the local hospital by the time she'd made it to Casal, and staying with his family. She'd been interviewing his mother about the accident, attempting to determine if negligence by the foreman was to blame, when a sound had interrupted them. It was a sound she could never imitate, she'd never heard its like. It had been Craig, trying to tell them something. Only he couldn't, because he couldn't form his lips to the words, couldn't force his tongue or throat to do any of the many subtle movements that made up language.
When she couldn't figure out what he wanted, both of them started to cry.
That will never happen to us, Millie. I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out together.
Of course, that depended on how much Millie would know. Craig seemed to understand what had happened to him, seemed to be overwhelmingly frustrated. But Knives hadn't hit Millie, hadn't used a rock. There was no way to know if the damage would be the same.
"Will she understand us?"
Doc sighed, and lowered himself to the edge of the chair to her right. "That's difficult to say," he admitted. "I think so."
Meryl turned back to Millie. During the tests they'd tucked her arm back under the blankets, but she reached out and stroked it anyway. Millie's brow was still furrowed, and occasionally her eyes would crawl beneath her lids. "I think so too," Meryl said softly.
Doc didn't say anything for a time, and eventually she looked back at him. His body language remained very dejected, but his gaze was very sharp, almost angry looking. When he realized that he had her attention, he sharpened it further. But his voice was exactly the same as it had been before, dry and slightly sympathetic.
"If she does speak, she may say things that don't make sense. She may also insist on going places for no apparent reason. Do not be alarmed by this behavior, and whatever you do, do not attempt to physically restrain her if you don't feel she's in danger. She's a very strong young woman, and she may not realize that she's using too much force."
Meryl stared at him. Clearly he was trying to tell her something, something very important, without giving it away to the overhead camera that had allowed her to watch Millie's tests. She carefully didn't respond, turning back to Millie to hide her confusion.
Millie might babble, might walk over a balcony without thinking. What was he trying to tell her . . .? What about that information would be something he wouldn't want Dr. Shrew or her technicians to hear?
What could Millie possibly have to say that they wouldn't want communicated to the crew of this ship?
"Ms. Stryfe?"
She glanced back over her shoulder, throwing him a small smile. "Call me Meryl." They'd known each other long enough, after all.
"I assume you'll want to stay by her side throughout the rest of your time here as a soldier in the commander's war." His voice became more dry, and his expression was positively droll.
"Of course." It wasn't as if she had anywhere to go, and –
Doc winked, almost so quickly she missed it.
Stay with Millie. He wanted her to stick to that girl like sand fleas.
"I was hoping you'd say that." He stood, placing his hand gently on her shoulder, and gave her a gentle, supportive squeeze. His eyes were still commanding her attention, and she willingly surrendered it.
"I just wanted to make sure you understood the difference between signs and symptoms that will be normal for her condition, and those that you should report to Dr. Shrew or Samuel, the nurse that will be caring for her."
Meryl just nodded, waiting for him to continue. It was getting harder to tell what information was supposed to have a double meaning and what information was meant to assist her in caring for Millie.
He continued, leaving his hand on her shoulder. "If she starts repeating the same sound over and over again, there's a good chance of a stroke due to the clots in her brain dislodging and cutting off circulation to other parts."
Stroke. Part of the brain dying from lack of oxygen. He was telling her that Millie was going to get worse, not better.
"It's imperative that you notify someone immediately," he continued, and squeezed her shoulder again. "Another sign would be half of her face seeming to sag, or sudden coordination problems on one side of her body."
Meryl nodded silently.
"Patients in this condition will sometimes babble, it may even sound as though she's reminiscing about something, or intelligently responding to conversation." His eyes narrowed considerably, but his voice remained neutral. "This is normal, and nothing to be worried about."
He was afraid that Millie was going to say something . . . about Knives? Was there something about the time she must have spent with Knives that they should keep hidden? Meryl considered her next phrase carefully, and nodded slowly to let him know that she'd understood at least that part.
"So if she tells me the sky is falling –"
He smiled slightly. "Normal. Nothing to bother our captors with."
She turned back towards Millie as she felt the bed twitch, and the taller girl sighed in her sleep.
"Ms. Thompson may decide to go to a particular place or commence a particular activity with no reason or instigation. Unless you think this will directly result in physical injury to her or someone else, do not attempt to stop her. She may understand simple commands, but if she ignores a simply phrased request to stop, just follow her and ensure that she does no harm. Usually periods of activity will range from thirty seconds to ten minutes."
He was putting gentle pressure on her shoulder. So that had a double meaning. If Millie wanted to do something, accompany and let her.
"She'll have a bit of trouble expressing herself. She may throw a temper tantrum, for instance, if you tell her no or take an object away. This is because she no longer has the capability of measuring how upset or happy something has made her, therefore she may have an extreme expression no matter how shallowly she feels the emotion. She may use language you've never heard come out of her mouth, offensive language. Please try to have patience."
Language you've never heard come out of her mouth. What was he trying so carefully to tell her?
There was a small crackle, as though the air had rubbed against itself, and Dr. Shrew's voice floated into the room.
"Return to the observation deck."
She sounded as she always did, slightly distracted and slightly irritated. Even knowing what she had done and was probably still doing to Vash, Meryl couldn't quite bring herself to hate the woman. She'd done the best she could for Millie, and she'd kept her word about notifying Meryl of changes.
It was apparent Doc didn't have the same problem she did. The man sighed, patted her shoulder once more, and turned for the doors.
"I'll check back with you in a little while," he said quietly. "Millie will wake up soon."
Meryl nodded, opened her mouth, and started to ask. But then she stopped herself. It sounded something like "Is heh."
She could hear Doc walking out of the room, and he didn't stop despite her nonsensical question. "He's fighting hard," the old man reassured her. "He always has."
She wanted to thank him for the cryptic answer, but the doors slid shut, and he was gone.
Dr. Shrew had called him away because of Vash. Terry had all but said he was unstable, which meant he was still in bad shape. What could they be doing to him that it would take him this long to recover? She'd seen him . . . she'd seen him take serious injuries and be trying to walk around five hours later. She'd seen him –
But she hadn't seen him after Augusta. All she knew was that a little girl and an old woman had taken care of him. Maybe this was like that. He just needed to be taken care of for a while. Maybe if they'd just stop meddling and let him rest, like –
Maybe they know better than you how to help him, Meryl, she snapped at her brain. It wasn't like Vash's unique problems were a mystery to Doc, after all. Even if Dr. Shrew was a complete lunatic, she could at least trust Doc to prevent them from killing Vash.
At least from doing it accidentally.
Millie sighed again, and Meryl moved a bit on the large bed so she was closer to the other girl, and a little more comfortable. She brushed a few oily strands of hair out of Millie's face, and watched her friend turn slightly into the gesture.
"Good morning," she said softly.
But Millie didn't open her eyes.
Meryl studied her friend closely. She didn't look much different. Her face was still as relaxed as it always was in sleep, save that worried little furrow. It was extremely uncharacteristic of her, usually she didn't worry about things until there was a reason to draw her gun or she realized she was about to be forced to witness something awful she knew she couldn't prevent. Usually in sleep and early wakefulness she was just cheerful and a little airheaded.
Was that what Doc had meant about being unable to express herself properly? What that an indication that she always worried in her sleep, and just had never shown it before?
What was she dreaming about?
Meryl ground her teeth as she thought about what she'd be dreaming about if the last thing she'd seen had been Knives' hate-filled eyes, felt the pain exploding in her head as he tried to squeeze her brain out her ears. Doubtlessly they would not be pleasant dreams. Still, she tossed out the idea of waking Millie.
It was almost impossible, for one, and whenever Meryl did it it usually scared the crap out of her. In the past, it had meant they were late, Vash had weaseled off somewhere again, or someone was taking over the sand steamer. She never purposefully woke Millie without a reason, and suspicion of nightmares wasn't a good enough reason.
She wasn't sure what she'd do if Millie really freaked out. Probably do the same.
Like Craig's mother.
"Millie Thompson, you're going to be the death of me," she told the girl softly. "You better not be having a nightmare."
Millie made a noise in the back of her throat.
Meryl leaned forward slightly. "Millie?"
A shrill, inhuman wail shattered the silence, and the room was abruptly bathed in red light. Meryl leapt into the air with a yelp, losing her seat and sliding off the edge of the bed. She landed in a heap beside it, jumping back to her feet as the wail faded and rose rhythmically, filling the room with sound.
An alarm, she realized. She'd heard ones like it before – in this ship. She'd heard it when she and Millie had been pounding down that hallway, trying to find the broomhead and his crumpled cigarette-smoking companion –
Millie tossed her head back and forth on the pillow, opened her mouth, and started screaming.
Meryl clamped her hands over her ears, taking deep breaths and trying to tune out the both the sounds. Between the claxons and Millie she couldn't even think – Doc had said that she might . . . might –
Almost as quickly as they'd started up, the alarm sirens died away, and she carefully removed her hands from her ears. The red lights continued to flash, clicking as they blinked on and off, but it was difficult to hear them over Millie.
Meryl winced, reaching first for Millie's face, then her shoulders – the girl barely breathed between yells. It didn't sound like she was hurting – it wasn't the right pitch, somehow. With every shout her face contorted more, so that she was almost unrecognizable. Her mouth was turned down, teeth bared as she let loose with a furious shriek. Her eyes were clenched shut, and the flesh of her cheeks was trembling with rage.
So she did get angry when she got woken up before she was ready.
A little hesitantly, Meryl finally decided on Millie's face. She put a hand gently on the girl's forehead.
"Millie, it's okay," she soothed. "It's just an alarm. You don't need to be afraid." Then again, she didn't look afraid. It looked like she wanted to get up and murder whoever had set it off. "It's gone now. See? Listen."
Millie seemed to hear her; her bellows tapered off after a moment, and her face seemed to relax. Her eyes unclenched, her lips smoothed, and after a few seconds her eyelids flickered.
"That's it," Meryl cooed in what she hoped was an encouraging voice. "It's over now. It stopped. You're safe, Millie. You're safe now."
The eyelids flickered like they meant it, and slowly pulled upwards to reveal dull blue eyes. Meryl could actually see the pupils contract as they took in the light, and then those eyes lazily blinked.
"Hey, Millie," she said brightly. "Good morning."
The eyelids blinked again, this time a little more rapidly, but Millie's eyes looked no more alert.
"S-smp," she slurred, then blinked again.
She could recognize them. She could speak. Meryl clamped her lips together hard to stop a sob of relief. After a moment she composed herself, and forced a bright smile.
"It's me," she confirmed, unnecessarily fidgeting with the hem of the blanket that had fallen to the other girl's shoulders in her struggles. "How do you feel?"
Millie looked around the room slowly, her eyes tracking sluggishly and unevenly. It reminded her very much of when Millie had overdone it on the booze, but this was even a little more lethargic.
"Zzweird," she replied after a moment, then focused on Meryl a bit owlishly. "Evverthnn's sllloh."
"That's because you just woke up," Meryl reassured her, patting her shoulder. "You just stay still a second. Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?"
Millie blinked, this time at almost a normal rate of speed, and her face seemed to bloat and flatten a bit as she tried to retract her head into the top of her neck. After a moment her eyebrows moved together, as if in confusion, and she swallowed noisily.
"That wazzarder than I r'member," she said, then frowned. "Whudappened?"
Meryl smoothed the edge of the sheet, that had somehow gotten clenched in her fist. "Don't worry about it, Millie," she said sternly. "You just focus on feeling better."
"Unkay," she slurred agreeably, and commenced another visual sweep of the room. This one seemed to work a little better, and if you didn't look directly at her eyes you'd think she was just tired.
She'll appear to respond intelligently to conversation, he'd said. Appear to. Since she'd just asked direct questions and responded to questions –
But she hadn't. She hadn't answered the question of whether she was thirsty or not.
"Do you want some water, Millie?"
The big girl's eyebrows quirked again. "Had some in th' truck," she replied, then got a look of complete concentration. "I guess that was a long time ago, huh, sempai."
The slur was gone.
Meryl stared at her, and Millie smiled.
It wasn't quite right. It wasn't that one side of her face didn't respond as well as the other, it was that the muscles didn't contract enough, or maybe they did it too much. The end result was a grimace that stretched her lips tight, and it looked so comical that she might have made that face on purpose at children. Meryl bit her bottom lip, and returned the smile.
"Was that a yes or no?"
Millie shifted slightly beneath the blankets. "Not yet," she replied, again without garbling the sounds. "How did I get here, sempai? How did you find me? Are we in Inepral City?"
She remembered that she was supposed to be in Inepral City.
The alarm lights had stopped flashing, at some point, and Meryl wondered uneasily if that was good or bad. Hopefully Doc would return soon, so she could carefully not explain to him that Millie seemed to be getting better with every second she was awake –
But her irises . . . something just wasn't right. They looked almost dead.
"You . . . you don't remember?"
Millie pursed her lips, and her eyes shifted to the right as she thought. She didn't say anything, but her expression clouded clumsily. "I remember," she said softly.
Meryl's breathing hitched, and she tried to hide it by patting Millie's arm. "Then you know we're not in Inepral City."
Millie shook her head slowly. "We're on a ship," she confirmed. "How long have I been sleeping? I had a really weird dream," she added without pausing for Meryl's answer. "There was a little boy, and glass and sand. They thought I was Rem. Isn't Rem the woman that raised Vash, sempai?"
Meryl blinked, trying to take everything in. A little boy turned into a they, and she thought she was Rem? Rem Saverem?
"Uh," she replied unhelpfully. "Millie, you've been unconscious for about eight hours."
"Oh, that's no time at all!" Millie tried to sit up, almost head-butting Meryl in the attempt. She looked confused when she found she had ended up in the same position she'd started in.
"Everything feels all wrong," she whispered. "What . . . what happened to me, Meryl?"
Oh god. What could she say? Meryl patted Millie's still-covered hand.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
She seemed to think for a second. "Mr. Knives was killing people," she said quietly. "And I was following him, and – and –"
Her voice rose in pitch until it was almost a squeak, and she shook her head vigorously.
"NO!" she screamed, tearing at the blankets in an attempt to free her arms. The force of her efforts nearly threw Meryl off the bed. "NO!"
Millie managed to free her right arm, which she immediately brought up to her head, cradling it tightly. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she began to rock back and forth. "Oh no," she whimpered. "No no no – "
Millie trailed off into body-wracking sobs.
Meryl hesitated, then climbed fully into the bed, moving to sit beside Millie. She caught the girl mid-rock, and wrapped her arms around her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Millie, I didn't mean to upset you-"
Millie screamed in her throat, and shuddered violently.
- . -
Candice slipped into the seat beside him, tucking her stylus back into her PDA with the air of someone who was no longer on shift. He envied her; it would be another five hours at least of observation before he could get some well-earned sleep.
"How is she?"
The twenty-six year old blonde woman tucked a golden lock of hair behind her ear and sighed softly. "Her usual self. A little disgusted, maybe. She has a few lesions, but nothing significant. I doubt they'd scar even if we hadn't treated them with anything other than antibiotic ointment."
He nodded slowly. "I'm glad I'm not the one that had to check her over," he muttered under his breath, and Candice slung out her left arm and swatted him across the chest.
"You volunteered to research this project! The least you could do is show the woman some respect!"
He oofed, mostly for her benefit, then shook his head. "No, I meant, I don't want to see that old bat naked."
Candice rolled her eyes. "Men," she murmured. "Do you guys ever grow up?"
"Nope," he replied, leaning the chair forward from its comfortable slump to toggle the second monitor. He'd been in the observation deck for the better part of three hours, acting as Dr. Shrew's eyes and ears as it came to the other patients. The woman was hard-core, he'd give her that. She actually performed the majority of the surgery on the civilian doctor before she'd finally given up and let their chief trauma surgeon finish up.
The Shrew herself was in one of the observation rooms, pulling her clothing back on in her usual slightly offended manner, as though bothered that she had to waste her time doing it. Doc, whom they'd nicknamed "the old guy" was resting in Observation two, shoulder-deep in the grafting box. She'd taken the risky gambit, which was to amputate only the thoroughly cooked flesh and hope that by replacing the ruined layers of skin on the stump and upper arm she could promote healing.
The truly bad lesions and burns had been fairly limited to his forearm, where the Plant had held him, so she'd had his arm taken off just above the elbow. Still, it was extremely conservative on her part; had he been in the theater, the entire thing would have been removed. The old man's brachialis had been, literally, cooked meat. They could have served it in the mess and no one would have been the wiser.
"Well, it could have been worse," Candice said brightly, reclining in the chair beside him.
Yes. Yes, it could have. He'd gone over the footage about a dozen times now, but it never got old. He never would have pegged her for the type that wouldn't sacrifice a civilian, particularly one she didn't like, at the price of her own health. That had been an eye-opener.
Plants. Oops.
He looked at the main monitor, showing G-101B back in its operating theater. It had been oblivious to the entire thing, sleeping peacefully despite the men that had taken it tearing down the hall at breakneck pace. He checked its scan, noting a very slightly increase in brain activity. Still well within the range of coma.
G-101A was resting comfortably, also still in its old room. The blood gas problem seemed to have cleared up as soon as the Plant had had a chance to murder everyone, though that was probably due to the release of energy and the bizarre combination of sedative and inhibitor than anything else. It was still bleeding from some of the deepest wounds, but the newly formed scar tissue was not decaying despite the inhibitors, which had been a real worry.
It almost looked like that thing was out of the woods, so to speak. At least for now.
"I wonder if they . . . you know."
Sam chuckled. "'Fraid you'll have to be more specific. C'mon, help a brother out."
"No, that's what I meant," she nodded. "I mean, I know the rumor that they didn't like each other and all, but . . . Plants are telepathic, and all the Plants within a ship will set up a network of communication. I've always wondered if they don't . . . you know. Gossip and things. I suppose that's the only way they get to be social, and I'd hate to think it's just work they think about."
"Oh, you'd rather they think about how terrible humans are and tried to kill us?" The thought had crossed his mind more than once. "That'd be great, a production Plant that wanted to kill us. Can you imagine, if they freely associated things like that? They'd start . . . crushing us in the automatic doors, or opening airlocks unexpectedly-"
Candice hit him again. "Don't be that way! I'm sure if all the Plants could talk, not all of them would be like . . . like that one." She gestured at G-101B. "Haven't you ever talked to A-20034?"
He felt his eyebrows crawl for his hairline. "Uh, no," he said, very seriously. "There's a big difference between a production, standard Plant and these two. Namely, the other ones don't talk."
She frowned. "I talk to it," she admitted. "Sometimes I think it listens back. I tell it that it's beautiful. And sometimes I say thanks when it opens the door. I just . . . what if all of them could be like this? Just like G-101A can become a Plant as we know them, what if A-20034 could become a . . . a woman? I'd want her to remember that I was nice to her."
Sam rolled his eyes, and checked G-101B's stats again. Just to be sure.
That same, odd little spike was still present. Nothing to worry about, but new. New like G-101A's steady energy output had been new.
"Ugh. Gossipy women who could potentially live for hundreds of years. No thanks."
Candice laughed a little to herself, then got up. "I'm hitting the sack. Catch you on the next shift."
Sam shook his head. "My shift's not over for a while. I better not be on next shift."
She smiled at him as she headed out the door. "But think of all the excitement you saw. Your kids will ask you about G-101A, you know."
Kids. Yeah. He'd need to find a willing woman in order to have a few of those.
The doors slipped shut behind her, and he imagined her looking up at the ceiling and 'thanking' A-20034 for opening the doors.
Sheesh.
Yes, it could have been a lot worse. G-101A could have killed them all. Could have killed the old guy, Dr. Shrew, and released enough energy to threaten them on the deck. If it'd been mobile, it could have then proceeded anywhere in the ship. Could have tried to reconnect to A-20034, tried to overload their main generator.
Maybe it would have spared Candice, since she'd always been so nice to its . . . its sister Plant.
That had been eerie. It was getting harder to think of the Plant as the – the man, that had been strapped onto that very same bed about a week ago. A badly scarred blonde man with glazed, sad eyes, watching them trying to get the doses just right. Now, when he looked at that body, all he saw was a humanoid Plant, a dangerous thing that was recreating its own flesh and trying to kill any human that got near it.
That was how A-20034 would react, if all this research concluded that normal Plants could exist in a humanoid form. Hide from them, and try to kill them. If the Plants really could do that, think and talk and go to bars and accept free drinks –
They still didn't know what that Plant had said to Tony McClinton, but the large man wouldn't come anywhere near 'Vash the Stampede.' He'd been keeping his disapproval well-hidden, lest he draw ire from the commander, but it was plain whatever happened the night he'd assisted with the Plant's capture had colored his perception of Plants, or at least that one.
He wondered how differently it would have been colored if Tony had been sent after 'Knives' instead. Or how any of the other guys that Plant had slaughtered felt about Plants after a chat with it.
Or how Millie Thompson felt about that Plant.
He'd seen some motion on that camera a little before they started Doc's surgery in earnest, and had administered a mild sedative. Ms. Stryfe had simply said that the alarms upset the girl, and that wasn't surprising. She probably didn't know what the alarms were, just light and sound her brain couldn't process anymore.
God, he hoped she was totally gone. To be aware and trapped in your body like that –
Almost as scary as the thought of a Plant murdering you.
Sam rubbed his arms absently as the hairs stood up, and he glanced uneasily at G-101B again.
- . -
Author's Notes: Yes, this one was a bit shorter, but that's because it was the last half of last chapter. I guess I don't have too much to say, except you can expect the plot to pick up a bit. I'm really enjoying all the guessing of where this thing is going, because you guys are so much more creative than I am! I'm hoping this time the clues are a little more obvious, but as I always say, things will be explained in later chapters.
This fic has officially gotten complicated enough that I might actually forget to tie up some loose ends, so I'm counting on you to remind me what my loose ends are! (gives the readers a mission!) And gooey fudgey brownies. This is such a great fandom! You guys are super supportive and sweet!
Inkydoo, you officially get a fic of your choice, I'll write anything you request in this fandom or any fandom I know, as a show of my gratitude for going above and beyond sanity to review every single chapter of this fic! I went and looked, and I think, literally, half of the reviews are yours. You're really something else. Thank you SO MUCH! I've finished vol 7 of Trimax, so soon, I can embark on the Amazing Review Return on your fics!