Time stays, we go. [Tally~]

[Rhi-Rhi]

The passage of time had stopped registering. All there was was the distant beep of hospital equipment, the swish of scrubs as nurses bustled about, and sobbing at one end of the room. Opal, Roman's mother. Gabriel remembered the doctors calling her, but he didn't know when she'd arrived; he guessed sometime while he was in the bathroom washing himself clean of blood, which he wouldn't have thought to do had a nurse not made him. Common sense wasn't really making much sense at the moment.

Raley did it. It was Raley... Siren had told him. The dragon filled him in on everything as soon as Roman was behind closed doors and Gabriel was alone in the lobby, pacing back and forth, which he was doing again. His nerves were jumping and he just had to move, do something, but there was nothing he could do and he wasn't used to feeling so damned helpless. Raley shot him. Shot Cross and Liv, too. Cut off Liv's hand.

He paused before a wall of pamphlets and rifled through one about ovarian cancer just to do something with his hands, then shoved it back in with the influenza ones because he couldn't remember where he'd gotten it or what it even was. Fucking Raley.

Even anger felt superficial, forced. He tried to latch onto it, tried to stay pissed, but couldn't make it stick. He tried to focus on just what he'd do to Raley if he was allowed near him after all this, because that was something he'd be able to do and control, but the thought tapered off before it even began. He just couldn't focus, not on anything but what was going on in that hospital room, and he didn't even understand that. At one point he tried to listen in, feeding a thread of telepathy into the room, but it was filled with so much medical babble that he couldn't make heads or tails of anything but the emotions--which weren't good, and only made him feel sicker than he already felt.

After a while, he'd stopped trying and had resigned himself to pacing the room, comforting himself with one little fact: the medics were still working on him, and that meant he wasn't dead.

But gods...four bullets to the back, four exit wounds out the front. He'd stopped breathing. Last he saw, he still wasn't breathing, not on his own...and wow, go him, giving Roman the cold shoulder right before he gets fucking shot up. Go him, being stupid and mopey and distant for all those days because for once in his life he decided to let something like rank actually matter. Since when had that fucking stopped him? Since when had he let Roman get to him? He knew how he ticked. Why hadn't he tried to fix it?

Why hadn't he done a lot of things?

You know why.

Because he'd thought he had more time...

Gabriel shuddered, not just because the hospital was chilly and he was still shirtless, and scrubbed both hands through his hair, pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes for a second and took a slow breath as his throat constricted. Fuck...fuck...

Opal was still crying, loudly.

Gabriel drew another shuddering breath, careful and controlled so it didn't catch and turn into a sob, and let his arms drop back down to his sides, rolled his shoulders to loosen up the knot that had formed between them before squaring them. He pushed hair out of his eyes to give himself an excuse to wipe at them. Get a hold of yourself. That's her son in there. Fucking selfish, that's what he was being. He took another moment to compose himself, facing the wall of pamphlets until his eyes stopped stinging, then turned and crossed the room.

Sinking down into the chair next to hers, Gabriel looped an arm around Opal's shoulders, gave her a gentle one-armed hug, and then rubbed her back. "Hey, mom..." he said quietly, awkward for lack of knowing what to say. Roman's mother or not, he'd taken to calling her that over the years. When he was younger he'd done it just to irritate Roman, a sort of 'ha ha, see, your mom likes me' thing, but it had long since become genuine, and not just because she sent him cupcakes now and then.

"Hey...he's gonna be alright. Okay?" The words sounded hollow to his own ears: words you said because you were supposed to, because those were the generic, reassuring 'feel better' words you said in situations like this. Words you said to convince yourself that they were true as much as to comfort the other person. But what else was he supposed to say? He wanted to believe it, but he was better with hugs than saying things that might turn out to be lies.

The sound of a door opening got his attention, and he straightened up and twisted to look--then felt his stomach clench. August had stepped out and was coming towards them, and all the calm he'd been holding onto for Opal's sake started to slip away. No, no, they could do something for him. They could. Why the hell did he keep jumping to the worst conclusions? They had the best medical technology here. Doctors didn't come out just to deliver bad news. Calm down. It was Roman.

Something like that couldn't do him in...

He licked his lips and cleared his throat, heart thumping in his chest. "Uh...how is he...?" he asked, and gave Opal another little squeeze.

[Tally]

A sizable pile of tissues was growing larger by the minute on the small table next to Opal's chair.  She blew her nose again, and then tossed that tissue onto the rest.  Her mascara was running all down her face, she was sure.  She pulled another tissue from her purse—there was a box of it nearby but hospital tissue was crap, just crap; they should spend the twenty cents more for something better goddamnit—and with it she dabbed at her eyes and cheeks.  The tissue came away black.

"I'll bet he wasn't wearing his dragon tooth necklace."  She shook a finger in the air, and her face screwed up again.  Her baby...

"Even though I tell him...all the time.  All the time.  I'm wearing mine.  I put it on every day and do you think I've ever been in an accident?  Has one of those Edani terrorists ever struck a building I'm in?  If something protects you, you do it."  She shook her head.  "I know it was them.  I know it.  You don't even have to say anything."

He couldn't, she knew.  She didn't expect him too.  He didn't need to.  The Edani did this to her baby.  Because the Edani were jealous of their peace and abundance, and the Pilots were so brave and put themselves between the terrorists and the people, and now they'd killed her baby, oh gods her only baby. What if they'd killed him, before he'd lived half his life, and what if she had to wake up tomorrow knowing she could never see him or hug him again...

She was crying again as August approached.  He carried along a clipboard and tapped a pen against it's edge.  He tended to fidget like that when he was in thought.  As was often the case, he'd found himself appointed the unofficial liaison between the hospital staff and the Pilots, possibly because the Pilots had never intimidated him.  Even now, with nurses and doctors rushing to save the Pilots and the citizens harmed by Scheherazade's rampage, he strode down the hall at an even pace and did not rush.

It wasn't like time was an issue for Rosales anymore.

The woman beside Pilot Tierney—Rosales's mother, he assumed—looked up at him as he neared.  That was an awful look, one that gave him the power to destroy her world or save it.  Families were so much scarier to deal with than Pilots.

"You can go in and see him now," he said, pointing back down the hallway from which he'd come, and he very nearly winced at the look of hope that flashed across her face.  Someone else would have to explain to her that her son was brain dead and exactly what that meant.

She gathered up her rather enormous bright orange purse.  What was she keeping in there, camping gear?  "It's ridiculous, these tissues you provide at this hospital," she said in passing him.  "This is a military hospital, you should provide better."

It was impressive how fast she managed to run down the hall in six-inch stilettos.

He wanted to turn to Tierney and say "I must see to this tissue situation immediately," and walk off, but he doubted it would be appreciated at this time.  Since he never did know whether Pilots were reading his mind or not, he always opted to speak to them as he would to any other person.  Tierney may have already known what he was about to say, but he needed an answer anyway.

"They couldn't operate on him.  Were you aware that Pilot Rosales was taking large doses of several different brands of amphetamines without either the knowledge or consent of military doctors?"

[Rhi-Rhi]

Edani terrorists.

Gabriel didn't have the heart to correct her, to shatter her faith and tell her that the terrorists had been a little closer to home, so instead he said nothing. Opal was right; he didn't have to say anything. She was ranting enough for the both of them, and listening gave him something external to focus on.

He didn't want to be inside his own head right now.

Not that the minds of others were any better.

As August drew closer, Gabriel turned his attention on him instead and swallowed back a knot of anxiety and rubbed his clammy hands on his jeans. He wanted to know, and Gods he didn't want to know, either, but the anticipation was worse than peeling your own fingernails off so he shoved past the fear and lightly grazed along August's surface thoughts. Whatever August was about to tell Opal, or not tell her, he wanted the unfiltered truth and not just the surface. Besides, he was taking way too long.

Brain dead.

He caught that among the other mundane concerns and it took every ounce of self-control to keep the same expression, to not tense up or jerk out of his chair and head straight for that room. Roman? No, he had to be talking about some other patient. That wasn't Roman. It wasn't.

He rejected the idea as soon as he picked it up, because it was a mistake.

But Roman and Opal were the only people currently in August's thoughts--and August couldn't have sounded more apathetic. Time didn't matter anymore. Brain dead. There was a crisis going on all around him, and yet he was disinclined to hurry. Could he at least pretend to give two shits about anything? Even though Roman was brain dead? Despite struggling to keep his composure, the mask began to slip while Opal gathered up her things.

There was a reason he didn't go diving into peoples' minds all that often and this was it. You saw things about them that you didn't want to see.

By the time Opal was gone and August turned to him, Gabriel was ready to explode.

In fact, he did.

"What do you mean they couldn't operate on him? Why the fuck not?" he snapped, jerking to his feet and rounding on the doctor. At least he'd managed to hold out until Opal was out of the room. "You can do heart transplants but you can't do this?" Whatever 'this' was. He didn't know. Brain dead...it still wasn't registering.

"Oh! Right! I got it! It's because of the tissues, huh? That's what's so fucking important here. So what were they doing in there all that time if they couldn't operate? Debating brands? What are they--" His voice cracked and he cut off and drew a deep breath, scrubbing his hands through his hair, but it was really just an excuse to rub at his eyes. He wanted to be pissed off. He wanted yell and punch something, or someone, because that at least was something he could do, something he could control, and it would feel good as hell in the moment.

But even now it all felt forced; he couldn't keep it up. It took energy he didn't have.

Gabriel took another deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Fuck...is he really...? I mean...gods. I didn't know. Of course I didn't know, do you think I would've--no, you don't give a shit, I just...why can't they operate?"

Gabriel knew why, but he didn't want that to be the answer. Amphetamines. His throat tightened and he felt even sicker than before. He hadn't known. Roman was a workaholic, and he had just gotten used to his perpetually tired look, had teased him about it all the time, but that was just how he was. Chugging coffee, pulling all-nighters, working a stressful and demanding job...that's all Gabriel had assumed it was, not that he'd been popping speed. And here, all this time, he'd been nagging him about smoking...

You fucking asshole, Roman...

Why would he do that?

Gabriel shifted his weight and looked everywhere but at August, eyes down. "If they can't operate, then...then what? I mean, what can they do? He's gonna be okay, right?"

[Tally]

August leaned back and dearly would have liked to put himself at the opposite end of the hallway and just yelled the rest of the conversation at Pilot Tierney.  He suspected he may be about to get slugged.

Come to think of it, it wouldn't have been the first time a Pilot laid into him.  Huh.  Maybe it would have done him some good to be intimidated once in awhile.

He endured the fury and the fear as he always did, waiting for it to subside before he tried to communicate again.  Tierney's reaction was...human.  No more and no less than that, all of his power and status and distinction as a Pilot stripped away by one fact: that medical science had hit its wall, that there came a point where even hope died.  Everyone succumbed to that fact, and everyone found themselves, eventually, powerless before it.

When he felt more assured that physical violence was not immediately imminent, he pursed his lips and tapped his pen against the clipboard in his arms.  He didn't give a shit?  He'd never wished harder that he was more impulsive.  It would have felt so damn good to let out his sudden surge of anger.  But when Pilots were shooting Pilots, someone had to stay calm, and he had appointed himself to that position.

If by 'okay' you mean that he will never live and function disconnected from life support then yes!

August cleared his throat.  What he actually said was little better.  There was no good way to phrase this.  "There was a brief opportunity when organ transplant might have done some good, but the standard prep medication reacted badly with...something he was taking and...well, the window has closed.  There's currently no indication of brain activity, but of course further diagnostics will need to be run over the next few days.  He's on persistent cardiopulmonary bypass and mechanical ventilation."

[Rhi-Rhi]

"So in other words he'll never live and function disconnected from life support." Gabriel's voice was flat and hollow even though those words--and thoughts--had hit him like a punch in the gut, complete with having to remember to breathe. And yet there was still that strange, distant feeling of processing everything from far away, like someone else was receiving this news instead of him.

It didn't feel real, and yet it was all too real, and he could feel his chest and shoulders tightening with budding panic.

"You can cut the medical jargon bullshit. Pilot, remember?" he said, tapping his own head. "You can just...say it. Say what it means. But you're thinking he's gonna just be on life support? Never come out of this? I mean, that can't be it. There has to be something you can do. People come out of comas all the time, right? Medical miracles? People they don't think will make it, make it. Right? And medicine's come a long way, and...I mean, Roman, he knew brains better than anyone so there's no way he can just be trapped in there and..."

He trailed off, not even able to fool himself into thinking he was making an ounce of sense right now. That wasn't what brain dead meant and he knew it, but he didn't want to think about what it did mean. That it meant dead. That it meant that your body was just going through the motions but no one was home...

Something snapped inside him and Gabriel turned away and swallowed hard, blinking rapidly. Fuck no, he was not losing it here. "I...I think I gotta go. I don't...I can't..." Deep breaths. He closed his eyes and tried to find that numb, distant place again, but it wasn't working and he didn't even know what he wanted, or where he even planned on going. Just...away. Somewhere.

But what he said instead was, "Can I see him?"

[Tally]

"All right..."  If Pilot Tierney wanted it straight, with no sidestepping what August felt the be the truth, that that is what he would get.

"We can't declare him dead yet.  Several diagnostics need to be run first.  But...the human brain can only survive a few minutes—five or six—without oxygen before necrosis begins to cause permanent brain damage.  Pilot Rosales was without oxygen for around fifteen minutes.  We can't detect any brain activity and I don't believe that we will."

He paused, and wondered if he should go on.  It was hard to say, and it must have been hell to hear. But it was in his head and his thoughts.  It was out there for any Pilot to hear, and if he couldn't offer hope he could at least offer honesty.

"I don't believe that he will wake up.  Comatose patients can and do come out of it but...with this level of brain damage it would be likely he would never be able to function independently again...be able to walk or speak or feed himself.  And for a man like Pilot Rosales...I think that is no life at all."

There.  That was all of it.  August couldn't remember the last time he'd had to be so direct.  He usually left this sort of thing to others, to people who were better at softening the blow, but that all became moot when dealing with someone who could read your thoughts anyway.

"Of course you can."  He gestured down the hall, then added a quiet warning.  "I don't want you to be surprised. He doesn't look like himself.  He's hooked up to some machines and he's very pale."

[Rhi-Rhi]

He's saying they're gonna pull the plug.

That was what it all added up to. Too brain-damaged to function. A couple tests to run before they could declare him dead. Couldn't detect brain activity. Gabriel heard everything that August said, but that's what it all came down to, and that was the unspoken implication: that there was no hope, and that it would be pointless to keep his body alive, because even if he woke up, he'd be so far gone it'd be cruel and selfish.

And he knew Roman well enough that he could hear the truth in that statement.

He just didn't want to.

Gabriel didn't say anything after that. Swallowing past the tightness in his throat, he only nodded as August warned him about Roman's condition and turned away from him stiffly so he could head down the corridor. He didn't want to get angry at him again, and he felt if he stayed any longer, he would--because the man was a convenient outlet that just happened to be there, the bearer of bad news, and Gabriel didn't know who else he could lash out at.

Well. Except one person.

But he needed to do this first.

Opal was being ushered out of the room as Gabriel approached, and he stepped aside to let her pass and to stall a little. Funny how he'd had Roman's blood all over him and felt his heart stop, yet this was what he was scared to death of, this was the hard part. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and stepped inside the room.

It was kind of surreal, like looking at a stranger--but that was just all the IVs and the respirator and everything. He looked...dead. He was dead, if he were to believe August.

It was a moment before he could move. Sucking in a breath he'd forgotten to take, Gabriel crossed the room and dragged a chair over to Roman's bedside, settling down in it.

"Um...hey, Roman." He forced himself to look at him, then blinked and looked back down. "Fucking idiot. I told you. I mean...I didn't know but, what the fuck? Amphetamines? Why would you do that? They could have saved you."

His stomach clenched when he realized what he'd just said--could have--but he pushed past it.

"And now...fuck, you better still be there. You better not do this. I know they say you're...gone, but...I don't know. You can't be. Fucking Raley, seriously?" Gabriel felt his eyes starting to burn but blinked back the tears, eyelashes spiking together. He would kill that fucker if he got a hold of him, and he desperately hoped he'd get to because he'd make it last. He was still out there, right? It had been a bit since he'd heard anything--or he'd just been too out of it to listen.

"I'll put four bullets in him. But I just...I wanted to see you first. Just in case...I don't know. I guess I thought I'd have more time. Stupid, right? I mean...I sorta...always wanted to tell you I don't really hate you for candidacy. Maybe at first, but I really just like giving you a hard time. Like when I push your buttons. It's really just to get your attention...and it's just fun...and I guess I should apologize for all those pranks but you're funny when you lose it, and it was nice seeing you loosen up. I didn't really want to make your life miserable. I just liked hanging around you and it was the best way to get a response. You...kind of really changed my life. I just suck at...well, everything."

But once he'd started, he found it difficult to stop, knowing if he didn't get it all out now, he may never get the chance to--because how many times had he already lost that opportunity? How many times had he chickened out, or couldn't think of a good time or segue, or just hadn't thought about it because of course Roman would be there? Now it suddenly felt important, like something he had to do now because deep down inside, he knew Roman was gone, or going to be, even if he was refusing to process it. It didn't matter if Roman couldn't hear it, or if he wasn't even saying it out loud. If there was some higher power--and he had to believe there was, had to believe he'd be able to see his friends again after all this--then maybe they'd hear it.

"Like this. I don't even know what I'm trying to say. And you can't even hear it. Probably. But maybe it'll reach somewhere. And I just...I'm sorry. The silent treatment thing. It was stupid. I've never let you being mad at me stop me before, and...and I know I'll probably always regret it. And I hope you weren't still mad. And..." He took a deep breath.

"And I hope you knew I loved you. I never expected it back and like hell I'd ever tell you. But either way you're my friend, and...I hope you know that." He rubbed at his eyes, but it was a lost cause. His hand came back wet. "So you better stay. You better make it. I don't care what they say. I wanna tell you at least that much..."

[Tally]

August lingered for a moment, his train of thought totally derailed.  He was maybe more exhausted than he was letting himself admit.  He couldn't actually call to mind when he'd last slept without expending more mental power than he felt capable of just then.

No time for it now, either.  Coffee might help, but he got all of two steps down the hallway before stopping dead.  There was a man walking down the corridor toward him, and for a bewildering second he thought it was Pilot Rosales.  But no, this man was older and not quite so built.  Yet he looked so much like Roman, had the same face and the same midnight black hair.  More than that though, it was his eyes.  Anyone who had ever met Pilot Rosales would recognize those eyes, so blue they nearly luminesced.

There was no older brother in the family.  He could only have been Roman's father, though August couldn't recall the name.  He was in one hell of an expensive suit.  He nodded to August as they passed each other.

Certain others did recognize him, and pointed him on to Roman's room.  He was Aydan Rosales and he was a reflectivist.  His mind was a blackout zone amidst all the other psychic chatter.  He stopped in the doorway, eyes traveling over the room, Roman, Gabriel seated nearby.  His expression did not alter.  He spent only a few moments there before turning back the way he had come.

His voice filtered back from further down the hallway.  "I don't see any good I can do here.  Have someone call me when you decide to pull the plug."

[Rhi-Rhi]

Gabriel recognized the man. He'd met him before, briefly. Even if he hadn't, he would have had to be blind to miss the resemblance.

All this time, Gabriel had been holding his volatile temper in check as the other emotions, the vulnerability and fear and crushing sense of loss, pushed to the surface and trumped anger, if only by a little. It's what kept him from lashing out at August even though he'd been an easy target as the bearer of bad news, because anger was easy and so were its consequences. It's what kept him grounded, kept him on a taut, thin leash.

Aydan's comment was exactly what he needed for it to snap.

Gabriel had no real recollection of flying out of his chair, but he was very aware of the moment when his fist caught Aydan in the jaw. In a manner of seconds, Gabriel had the man by shirt and slammed him up against the wall, hard enough to knock the air out of him and break the framed medical diagram behind him.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled. "You're his fucking father!"

[Tally]

Aydan turned at the sound of pounding footsteps behind him.  He had just enough time to realize it was Tierney and realize what was about to happen before the Pilot's fist caught his face.  He was no kind of fighter.  Even if it wouldn't have been the stupidest thing for an Aedolian citizen to do he still wouldn't have been able to raise his hand to a Pilot and do any good by it.  Before he even had time to lament this, Tierney had him up against the wall, pain blossoming on his face and the alarming sensation of blood trickling down the back of his head.

Glass crunched as he shook his head a little and leveled a quiet glare at Tierney.  Everyone in sight had come to a breathless standstill to watch. Aydan licked at a bit of blood trailing from his lip, blue eyes narrowed.

"Don't," he said, "go presuming my thoughts.  And why the hell are you here, doing nothing, when you should be out there?"  The media wasn't revealing anything, but he wasn't stupid.  The buildings all around them had gone into lockdown, traffic was at a stand still, and police were streaming toward one of the big shopping centers flanking the Citadel.  Something was happening out there.

[Rhi-Rhi]

Gabriel held Aydan a moment longer, staring him down, before he released him with another rough shove and turned away. "Get the fuck out."

It hurt to admit it, but he had a point. There was nothing more he could do here, and staying only deepened the sense of helplessness.

But Raley was still out there; Siren would have told him if he'd been caught. It was Raley he wanted to tear apart, not Aydan, worthless asshole or not, and that was something he could do. Taking a deep breath, pushing down the despair and focusing only on what needed to be done and what he wanted to do, Gabriel turned and headed down the hall, ignoring the stares he got and the flurry of activity he left behind as hospital staff rushed in to tend to Aydan and clean up the mess.

"Any news on Raley?"

[Tally]

Three weeks to the day after Roman had been shot, Aydan climbed out of the lavatory mirror in the room's attached bathroom.  Secrets and treason aside, he was damn glad no one could see him trying to unfold his six-foot-three frame out of a foot and a half by two foot mirror.  He used the sink as a step ladder and nearly toppled clear to the floor, only catching himself on the edge of the opposite wall.

The things I do for my family.

It was the middle of the night, the room empty and dark, silent save for the respirator's rush of air and the steady beep of the pump.  Aydan leaned over Roman, letting his eyes adjust to the dark until he could make out the features of his son's face, the tubes and sensors and the respirator mask.

Aydan pulled out a small hand mirror from his pocket and unfolded it.  He looked into it and called up Roman's reflection, the one he had just prior to the shooting.  It was dumb luck that they hadn't passed him in front of a mirror while bringing him here.  If they had, not even Aydan would have been able to help him.  The Mirror could only call up the most recent reflection.

He held the mirror above Roman and imposed the reflection upon him.  A cold sweat broke out on his temples.  Let it go too far and Roman would heal completely.  It would cause too much suspicion.  Cut it off before it had reverted the brain damage and Roman would be lost forever.  He only got one chance at this.

He flicked his eyes between Roman's face and the screen monitoring brain activity.  The mirror began to crack.  It made tiny tinking sounds in the stillness of the room.  Roman's eyes fluttered open, then closed again.

All the sensory equipment was lighting up with brain and respiratory activity.  Aydan snapped the mirror shut and slipped into the bathroom.  He shut the door behind him.  By the time they rushed in minutes later, he was already through the mirror and gone.

[Rhi-Rhi]

"He what?"

"You heard me," the flustered nurse said, looking none too pleased. "He's on the roof." She finished changing the sheets on the hospital bed and fluffed the clean pillow a bit more vigorously than was necessary, punching it into shape. "Nothing we can do about it. He wouldn't hear it."

There was an unspoken, 'you deal with it!' tone in the words. Which sounded about right. The man could be insufferably stubborn and stupid--and that was saying a lot, coming from Gabriel. He could see it now: Roman waking up, finding out he could walk, probably yelling at everyone and throwing rank around when challenged, and heading up to the roof in his ass-less hospital gown, because dammit, if the bullets hadn't killed him, guess he was determined to break his neck instead and go out in style. Ugh.

Letting out a groan, Gabriel closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face.

...At least he was feeling better?

"Which way?"

The nurse pointed the stairwell out to him, and Gabriel took it, a strange cocktail of worry, anger, excitement, and nerves brewing within him. It had been a little over three weeks since he'd been shot and only several days since his condition made that radical change--a medical miracle. Gabriel had visited him throughout it, even when there was no hope, and visited him when he'd woke up. But this would be the first time since then that Roman was functional--and hell, the first time he'd really even talked to him since that disaster before the shooting.

Now that Roman was awake, he could feel awkward again. By what had happened. By what he'd said even when Roman had no brain activity.

And yet he didn't care. He'd almost lost him completely, so those past fights could go fuck themselves in the ear.

He climbed up onto the roof and found Roman there--in jeans, at least, and nothing else. For a second, Gabriel stared, brain trying to wrap itself around the fact that he was alive, chest tight with relief and emotion and who knows what else. Awake and up, when his last memories had been of him either bleeding out or laying in bed looking like a corpse. He swallowed hard, shifted awkwardly, and tried to make himself speak.

Then his eyes landed on the cigarette.

No. Freakin'. Way.

"Roman!" Gabriel snapped, crossing the space between them and shooting the man a disapproving frown. Not the usual 'trying too hard to look stern and failing epically Gabriel frown' but a genuinely irritated-bordering-on-pissed-off one. Without waiting for a response, he snatched the cigarette away. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Are you outta your mind?"

[Tally]

Fuck.

Why did it have to be him?  Gabriel kicked up a storm of emotion in him that he didn't have the energy to deal with.  Too many people had too many issues to take up with him, but he could brush them off, push them out of his mind and find peace in weary apathy.

He wished so badly that he didn't care that Gabriel was here.  That he could wedge that apathy between them and drive them both apart with it.

He met Gabriel's anger with silence.  He understood it, but he didn't have the strength just then to meet it.  He was only barely managing to sit up like this, back propped up against the wall of a partition separating the cooling system from the rest of the roof.

"Hey," he said.  He pulled a lighter and the pack of cigarettes Bart had given him out of a pocket in his jeans.  He had come back from the dead and looked it.  Felt it, too.  Lighting that next cigarette was a slow process of calling sore muscles into action and fumbling with the switch of the lighter.  He'd caught himself in a mirror on the way up and knew just how bad he looked, hollow-faced and thin.  He'd lost some twenty pounds over last three weeks, and his skin had a pallid cast to it.

"I have a metal heart now."  He tapped his chest.  "Imagine the jokes."  When surgery had not proved a viable option, they'd gone for an experimental nanotech treatment, injecting him with millions of the microscopic robots so that they could build him a new heart.  The old one was nearly completely gone, only shreds of it remaining.

[Rhi-Rhi]

Goddammit. It was hard to pick a fight with someone who wasn't fighting back, hard to shove against something when there was nothing to push against. And right now, he wanted to yell at Roman. He wanted to bicker and argue because he was pissed and terrified and relieved as all hell and he didn't even know how to express any that, and here the man was being stupid and risky when he'd just been given his life back on a silver platter.

But Gabriel didn't really know how to fight with someone who was already defeated. And Roman looked it. He looked awful--but he also looked alive.

With a frustrated sound, Gabriel sat down heavily next to him. "Yeah. And you're sure hell-bent on making it all...rusty. Clogged up with tar." So what if that's not how it worked? With another irritated noise, he reached over to grab for the cigarette pack.

"Would you stop that? Seriously? I already saw you dead once, thanks, so let's not try and hurry it along, alright?" he snapped, voice tight.

[Tally]

"Don't start with that—"  Roman made a slow, halfhearted grab for the cigarettes, but his reflexes had gone to shit along with everything else.  He felt...weak.  And so fucking frail.  And because of that he needed a goddamn cigarette.

He hadn't even looked at Gabriel yet, had instead fixed his gaze on some point in the distance, or a neutral place on Gabriel's chest.  But as the first stirrings of real anger came awake inside him, he looked at him then.  "Give them here."

[Rhi-Rhi]

"No. You shouldn't even be outta bed much less smoking. You're not gonna have a fucking relapse and undo all that progress just because--I don't even know! I don't know what's going through your head right now except you're so fucking stubborn!" Gabriel tossed the cigarettes away over his shoulder, heard them land and skitter across the roof.

He met Roman's eyes, then took a deep breath and looked back out over the distance, trying to calm down. He shouldn't be laying into Roman now. This shouldn't be the first thing he was saying to him after he'd been on his death bed for the last three weeks. He probably shouldn't get him upset, either, new heart and all. But Roman also shouldn't have been out here doing this.

Another deep breath. "You really freaked me out, okay? I thought you were dead."

[Tally]

"Ah, fuck, Gabriel."  Roman sank his head into his hand.  There went his cigarettes.  Now he'd have to get up and just...fuck.  The same power of will that had pulled him through candidate training drills when his limbs had felt like water and his head like a beehive now somehow got him back to his feet, along with the use of Gabriel's shoulder to pull himself up.  Pain lanced up and down his spine and he had to rest a hand against the solid stability of the wall, lest the world wobble over and turn him upside down.

Tenuous to begin with, his anger dissipated like smoke in a wind.  He couldn't hold onto it without Gabriel to instigate it.  He felt drained of soul and self, like the truest part of him had never woken up after all.  He could offer nothing of his own, could only reflect back what Gabriel gave him.

"That's my fault," he said, struggling a little for air.  Standing up took about all he had to give.  "I should have...prepared you for that.  For loss.  When you were a candidate.  Because of what we do, the job we have.  I should have prepared you for it."

[Rhi-Rhi]

Goddammit, again.

As soon as Roman got up, Gabriel was on his feet. Stupid man. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Was he gonna have to throw the fucking cigarettes off the roof? Or would Roman dive after them if he did? He shouldn't even be walking! He shouldn't be here, he--ugh. It wasn't working. Gabriel tried to keep up an angry internal dialogue, but it kept fizzling. It was painful to watch Roman like this, to see the obvious pain in the way he moved, and what he said took him off guard.

He stepped in beside him and took hold of his arm to help support him.

"You can't prepare someone for that," Gabriel muttered. "Not even you're that good." He glanced sideways at him, then looked ahead again, feeling awkward now with the fight drained out of him because without that, he couldn't ignore everything else. And he wanted to--some things more than others--and felt the nerves building just at acknowledging their existence.

"Look, it's not like...I never knew it could happen. I mean, Temple--" He cut off and swallowed to work moisture back into his mouth. No, no. He didn't need to go there now. He exhaled slowly.

"It's not like this stuff hasn't happened, and it's not like I never knew it could. I mean every mission we go on it's like--I know someone might not come back, y'know? But that doesn't mean...just...fuck, Roman. Do you think you mean that little to me?"

[Tally]

Temple.  Yeah.  He hadn't thought about his brother since waking, not until Gabriel brought him up.  He had so many people clamoring for attention in his head.  His mother, Raley, Bart, Scher.  Gabriel.

When he'd hauled himself out of the hospital bed and insisted on dressing and getting out of there, they tried to stop him.  He shouted and threw things, so they'd tried to help him instead, and that made it even worse, made him even more frantic to get away.  If anyone else were here, if anyone else came through that door, he knew he would have to push himself off that wall, away from Gabriel, stand on his own.  No help, no support.

But it was just them.  It was Gabriel, and an immense gratitude came over him for that, for the chance to rest his weight on someone, his hand on Gabriel's shoulder and his head dropping to join it as he fought off vertigo.  He wanted to lay back down, but he couldn't stand the thought of trapping himself in that room again, not yet.

He searched for an answer and couldn't find one.  The question didn't seem to need one, and this conversation was getting more complicated than he could follow in this state.  He wrapped an arm around Gabriel.  "Sorry," he muttered.  He didn't even know why he said it.  Not for any one reason.  For everything maybe.  For this and for where they were now, on a rooftop hurling anger and hurt at each other.