I do not own Lorien Legacies or any of the characters.

Recuperation

*Six*

I sit on the couch of the John Hancock center and look around in silence. John is in the kitchen with Sarah, Nine is in the Lecture Hall, the room used for training, with Eight, and Marina, Ella, and I are in the living room. Ella looks tired, probably because she'd been having nightmares since we escaped the base in New Mexico. I haven't slept well either, but neither of us compared to Marina. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she sniffs ever few seconds. She clearly hasn't slept at all since we came back, except the car ride back, in which she had cried herself to sleep. She had tried everything in her power to save James. She really had. But he had lost so much blood. By the time she reached him, his heart had already stopped.

Since then, she had been crying almost continuously. Part of my wondered if maybe James had a place in her heart, right next to Eight. Maybe one that neither ever realized he did. Eight has been doing his best to try and cheer Marina up, but even he has a hard time getting her to smile. It hasn't stopped him trying, though.

After a few moments of silence, Eight walks in and holds his hand out to Marina, who looks up at him in confusion.

"We're going out to the city," Eight states. "You need to get out of here for a while."

I can't help but smile as Marina nods. Maybe going on a date with Eight will help a bit. I still feel a little bad that James never had a chance to try and win her over. Once the two are gone, I turn and look to Ella. She's staring at the floor in silence.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

Ella nods. Then she looks over at me.

"Why couldn't she save him?" Ella asks, and for a moment I'm thinking of Crayton. "He wasn't dead like Crayton or Héctor. So what happened?"

"I guess...even Marina's healing Legacy has a limit to how much damage can be restored," I sigh. "I guess James was just too far gone."

"But Eight was stabbed through the heart and she healed him," Ella pointed out. "James wasn't even hit in a spot that's always fatal."

"I know," I mumble. "I was there. I let him be stabbed to that I could try to finish Setrákus. I thought...I thought that if I could finish off that monster I could stop the bleeding and save him, at the very least until you guys came to save us. Or until the humans found us and saved him so they could question him. But..."

"It's not your fault," Ella promises. "We were never going to beat Setrákus Ra. The best that could have happened is that he die long before being trapped in that stone."

I nod, looking at the TV. I turn it on and two familiar faces appear onscreen. Hawkeye and Rookie. For a moment I think they're on the news, then I realize that it's a security camera. It's the lobby. Nine must have been watching the lobby at some point and had forgotten to switch the feed off before turning the TV off.

"The hell did they find us?" I blink.

Ella looks at the screen and her eyes widen.

"I called them," Sarah says, stepping into the room. "I found their numbers in James' phone. I remembered from what you guys told us that they were friends so I called and told them to meet us here."

"Did you tell them that James is..."

"No," Sarah said. "I figured they should probably be told in person."

I nod and walk toward the elevator, since the two of them are on their way up. When I stop outside the door, it slides open and a moment later there are two moderately handsome men hugging me. I chuckle for a moment as they pull back and Hawkeye grins and nods at Ella, who remains silent.

"Is...everything okay?" Rookie asks, picking up on the unpleasant mood before Hawkeye.

"No," I says shaking my head.

Ella and I look at each other and decide I should be the one to break the news. I sigh. She's probably right. They need to be told in person. And, being older and mostly responsible, I should be the one to tell them.

*Nine*

The tower feels empty now. Johnny, Sarah, and Six have all left to find Five, the dumbass who lit a cornfield on fire to get our attention before sending a message on the internet telling us he's trying to get in touch and giving us a riddle to ind him with. The riddle was simple, so there are probably Mogadorians on their way there. Eight and Marina are out on another date, though I don't think anything has really happened between the two, Eight's mostly just trying to keep her from thinking about what happened with James.

I'm still having a hard time adjusting to the knowledge myself. Hawkeye and Rookie are fun to have around, and Hawkeye continuously challenges me to sparring matches, even though he could never hope to win, while Rookie spends most of his day with the computers. They're taking the news better than I expected, though they both clearly are far from okay. When they got here, Six told them what had happened. Then, they had gone out of their way to avoid her until she left.

"Hey Nine," Rookie calls out, sticking his head out of the workshop where the computers are. "Come check this out."

I walk over and stick my head in and he points at a camera showing a random street in the city. A street where Eight and Marina are walking along. They're not talking, from what I can see, and Marina's eyes don't leave the ground. Clearly, their date is more walking around the streets of the city in case there's something to catch her interest and distract her.

"You're stalking them on their date?" I ask.

"I got curious," Rookie shrugged.

"Where's Ella?" I ask.

"The usual spot," Rookie sighs.

"Figures," I sigh. "Poor girl. She needs sleep."

"We all do," Rookie sighs. "Looks like they're on their way back."

I look at the monitor and see Eight and Marina heading down a street headed back toward the John Hancock Center. I check my watch but before my brain can register the time, a bright red light flashes from the control panel and an alert pops up. What timing.

Read and review.