The Girl Who Sold the World

[Suji]

Suji was watching Drake when she heard someone knock at the door. She felt him pull away and immediately did the same. The fact that he moved away so readily sent a flare of uneasy butterflies zipping through her stomach. Strangely it was more pleasant than not, and she quickly boxed her thoughts on the subject away, perhaps for later.

Her attention turned towards the voice of the woman who was now coming through the door. Luce, Suji thought, and felt her mouth pull up at the corners into an involuntary smile -- shaky as it was. Drake smiled at her and she smiled back, and casually retrieved her arm from around his back as Luce came in. It'd probably take Luce's eyes a moment to adjust to the very dim light, anyway.

"Hi Luce," Suji said, her throat feeling dry.

[Jullian]

Luce opened the door when she heard Drake's response and just stopped and stared at the scene that greeted her. If there was any expression on her face it may have been one of confusion...or maybe suspicion...perhaps disbelief or that of someone who is waiting for something. The truth was there was not much of an expression to see and so any meaning attached to it would have been a makeshift interpretation at best and would not really have given the interpreter any true understanding of Luce's feelings.

Her face was serving as a very poor medium of expression because it wasn't sure what she was feeling. Like a majority of the world's current population, Luce had seen Suji's dead and mutilated body strung up and put on display. She remembered very clearly looking into the eyes of her dead friend and trying to push away the horrible certainty that there was no life in them anymore and never would be again. At the time accepting that truth had seemed so impossible that she had felt like it would rip her psyche apart to do so. She had seen people die before but never had she been caught so completely off guard by such a gruesome scene of death as the one she'd witnessed that day.

Over the past couple of days (week? weeks? how long had it been?) the initial shock and pain had faded away, leaving an empty exhaustion behind. She had found herself crying at the oddest moments during her day. When she had to make up a bed or climb up to a roof or morph. These small tasks should have been easily accomplished and yet she had no will with which to do them.

This discovery always sent her searching within herself to discover the source of the drain on her spirits and when she looked she always found the twin pains of Suji's death and Sedra's absence. Even when she was not consciously thinking about either of these things it seemed as if a part of her soul was permanently devoted to grieving the losses and had been borrowing energy from the whole to do so leaving her will a blighted shadow of what it should have been.

To a woman used to willing her way through the world this discovery was troubling and was the cause of her miniature breakdowns that almost always resulted in tears and, at the very least, led to a long delay in the completion of the initial task, no matter how small or simple. In the quiet, deeper exhaustion that these bouts of weeping...yes, weeping, that was a good word, left behind Luce found herself wondering if this was just the normal grieving process or if she could expect to live like this forever. Was there something inside herself that was just irreparably broken? Like a leaky pipe or a perpetually bleeding wound, would this injury to her spirit stay with her and keep her from ever being healthy again? Could she hope that one day she could fold a blanket or clean a room without crying? Or would she remain this weakened, pitiful version of herself forever?

They, and who knew if this They could be trusted, counseled that time healed all wounds and Luce could only hope that time would heal these though her own experience with such things told her that time only distanced you from the pain, no true healing was actually done. But before she had even gotten a chance to discover what time's effect would be Suji had shown up on the equivalent of their doorstep, sick, weak, unconscious...but alive.

Alive. It was a weird word because Luce was no longer sure exactly what it meant. Did it just require that a body be breathing? If that was so then she was alive and had been during the time of her infestation. And yet, during that time, she had felt very much like a walking corpse and the past few days, weeks, however much time had passed, had done a lot to remind her of that feeling. And when she'd seen the state that Suji was in she hadn't truly allowed herself to feel any sort of relief or happiness, not yet. She knew how dead the living could be and she had been afraid of the person who would wake up, if Suji woke up at all. She had buried herself in the work of keeping Suji's body alive, keeping it breathing, and hadn't even looked far enough into the future to hope or pray for any particular outcome.

But she had woken up and now she was sitting there, looking at Luce and even speaking. She was a little worse for wear. If Luce had thought Suji looked a little faded or torn around the edges when she'd arrived in Vegas from Chicago, it was nothing compared to how she looked now. But, even diminished, she was still Suji. Not just a living, breathing body, but a person and her friend. Luce locked eyes with Suji and for a moment she had the disturbing experience of seeing them as she's last seen them, dead and empty. But then the present asserted itself over the past and Luce's moment of emotional uncertainty was over.

She felt tears come to her eyes and she sagged against the door frame. A devourer of books when she was younger, Luce had often read about bodies dropping as if they were puppets whose strings had been cut but this was the first time she had felt it. She found that the analogy described the feeling very well. She could see a puppet in her mind hanging from thin white strings and she watched as they were all cut at once and the puppet fell to the ground below, body collapsing once it had no means to support itself. She didn't feel exactly like that. If she were a puppet maybe only one of her strings had been cut, perhaps two, no more.

She put her face in her hands and thought about just letting her body slide down the door frame until she hit the ground but she found she didn't want to be that far away. Instead she managed to find the energy to push herself away from the door and across the short distance to the hospital bed before neatly collapsing there. She laid on her back and stared at the darkened ceiling, %90 sure that the things she felt underneath her were Suji's legs, legs attached to a living, breathing person. She hoped that she was making Suji uncomfortable, maybe it would inspire her to shift position and so further prove the fact that she was indeed alive.

"Don't ever die again," Luce found herself saying to the ceiling with the tired tone of someone who has spent all day working at a difficult task despite the fact that she had just woken up. "Ever. Like, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, again," Luce continued, saying each 'ever' clearly as if it made complete sense to repeat the word despite the fact that it would normally be considered childish or immature.

She turned her head to look at Suji who was now looking down at her. "Like ever. I'm serious."

[Suji]

Suji watched Luce collapse to the bed. The other woman was a welcome sight, even if she could barely see her in this lighting. Figuring that it must be uncomfortable to have her legs digging into Luce's back, she shifted them to the side the best she could, trying not to encroach on Drake's space. Luce told her not to die again, and Suji smiled thinly as her friend greatly embellished her "evers."

"I was gone for while and you assumed I was dead?" The playfulness in her voice was seriously diluted, but there. "Have a little faith," she added, though she couldn't even force her mouth to smirk like she wanted to. She just sounded tired. And really, they had every right to figure that she was dead -- Dallas had been destroyed, and she'd wandered off. She would have thought she was dead.

[Drake]

Drake sat quietly and smiled at the way Luce was acting. It was almost as if she were a kid or something. Kind of. Maybe. But then Suji responded with, "I was gone for while and you assumed I was dead?" It confused Drake. But then he realized that Suji hadn't seen the broadcast.

"Umm, Suji. We didn't assume you were dead. We saw that you were dead." A shiver went up Drake's spine as he relived the moment when he saw that image. "The yeerks broadcast a... show, before Dallas was destroyed. And in it they showed you. You were dead. D. E. D. dead."

Drake took a deep breath and then exhaled. "But obviously it was a fake, right? Some high-tech alien special effects? It just doesn't make much sense is all..." Drake looked at Suji questioningly. Perhaps she knew something about it.

[Jullian]

"Maybe, I guess it must have been," Luce said sitting up. "Though, from what I know, yeerks don't really go in for entertainment. They hardly managed to grasp the concept of news. Why would they fake her death and how would they get her image in the first place to build it?" Luce continued. Despite the gruesome topic it was a relief to be talking about something that wasn't, 'you're alive. how did that happen?' Now that Suji was alive it was much easier to think back on that day.

She looked over at Suji and shifted a bit to get more comfortable. The bed now had three times as many occupants as it was made to fit comfortably but she wasn't about to go any further away. It was irrational, but she didn't want to get too far lest Suji disappear or fall unconscious again somehow.

"It wasn't...it was bad. The images they showed. I don't think you'd want to see them but I'm not sure you can anyway. In the old days the video would have gone viral and there would have been no way to keep it off the internet. We could have found a copy of it somewhere but now? It was a YPM broadcast but I'm not even sure they saved it and we haven't really had much contact with them since Rian died. There's no way now to tell if it was a fake or why someone would do it."

[Suji]

"But obviously it was a fake, right? Some high-tech alien special effects? It just doesn't make much sense is all..."

Drake looked and her and Suji felt her mouth go dry and her blood chill over. Saw her dead? A broadcast? What-

Luce started talking, and Suji turned to look at her, feeling like she was underwater. Everything was so surreal. There was a broadcast? Of what? Had everyone thought she was dead?

"...haven't really had much contact with them since Rian died. There's no way now to tell if it was a fake or why someone would do it."

The distant, hazy feeling got worse. "Rian's dead?" Suji blurted out, face contorted in surprise and pain. She hadn't been incredibly close with him, but they had had some understanding of each other. Together they'd hatched the plan to blow up the Dam. He'd trusted her to protect his faction when they had to rescue those children in Indonesia. He'd been a good leader, possibly the first leader she'd have trusted to live up to that title in this war.

"When? What? He wasn't in Dallas, was he?" Her face showed horror. At least Andre's death had made sense, in a cruel and twisted turn of fate. But if Luce was still here, and the faction was still here, how could Rian be dead? Then, very quietly, she added, "Who's... who's leading now? Is everyone else in Vegas okay?"

[Jullian]

Luce realized her mistake too late to take it back. To her, Rian's death was just one more sad fact of a horrible day and not even the worst one. She had never been close to the boy general but she'd come to trust him as her faction leader and his loss had been hard. She was a little sad to realize that she had worried more about how it would affect the faction and the animorph organization as a whole than how it affected her. And yet, he'd trusted her again when he hadn't had to. He could have easily kicker her out for what she'd done under the Dam and he hadn't. He was one of the most suspicious people she'd ever known, a trait she'd found admirable in a rebel leader, and yet he'd take these surprising leaps of faith and put his trust in some unusual choices of people. She wasn't even sure if he realized he did that...had done that. Maybe if he'd been less trusting he wouldn't have died the way he did.

"I'm sorry Suji, it isn't something you need to deal with now. I just forgot...it all happened the same day. He went into town to meet with the YPM after we got the news about Dallas and a random human killed him. It was a revenge thing, it was stupid," anger came into her voice as she thought about how pointless it had been. "Robert is in charge for now, I don't know if Cassie will keep it that way but...I guess she will I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure I care," she trailed off. "It's just hard to care very much about the larger war effort and all now...so many are-" she cut herself off and pulled out of the depressing thoughts. "But at least one of them is back so I think I'll concentrate on that for now."

[Drake]

Drake gave Luce a sideways glare when she first mentioned Rian. Suji didn't need to deal with that right now. Not to mention it brought up a pang of sadness in Drake's own gut. But surprisingly, Luce managed to recover the topic quite well in Drake's opinion. Hopefully Suji would share a similar view. This couldn't be easy for her.

"But at least one of them is back so I think I'll concentrate on that for now."

"Yes, I agree. We should concentrate on that." Drake was eager to stay off the subject of past animorphs. "Oh, do you want some water or some food or something? You've been laying in that bed for so long hooked up to that I.V. You must be famished. Just tell me what you want and I'll go get it for you, even if I have to go all the way to the city to get it."

Drake was honestly trying to be helpful, but he also thought her and Luce may want to have a girl to girl chat or something. He wasn't really sure though. Situations like this didn't exactly come up too often.

[Suji]

Suji listened to Luce, but only one in five words seemed to sink in. She was still letting another death sink in, this time when she thought she was out of the clear. Part of her wanted to ask if they were hiding the news about anyone else's death, so that it could get out of the way now... but that was too bitterly ironic, even for her.

Drake offered to get her something, even to go into the city. Involuntarily, Suji tensed, luckily quick enough to bite down the cry of dissent that had risen in her throat. "You don't have to do that," she said, perhaps a bit too quickly. Her heart raced, and she resisted the urge to grab him by the wrist and stop him. "I mean, a glass of water would be okay. I... I should eat something, but I'll get it, later, from the storage here."

Now that she thought about it, she was hungry. Hungrier than she'd ever been before. How long had it been since she'd eaten? Even back when Liam had been alive she'd been losing her appetite -- she hadn't been able to keep anything down since the last day in Dallas, definitely. "Actually, um." Suji looked at her lap. She was afraid if she tried to get out of bed she wouldn't be able to stand properly, and she made a quick calculation: asking to be brought food and trying to stand later when she was alone, versus standing now and proving just how weak she was, would probably be less embarrassing. "If you find anything to eat, that'd be good. Probably something high-calorie," she added not needing a mirror to know that she'd certainly lost weight. "Thank you, Drake." She smiled, though it hurt her pride to ask to be brought something.

Then, the smile fading, she turned back to Luce. "...tell me more about the broadcast," she said quietly.

[Drake]

Drake was taken by surprise by the way Suji said he didn't have to go. Almost as if she really didn't want him to go. But then she asked him for some water and food. He was more than happy to oblige. "I'll be right back," Drake said as he stood up to go get some stuff.

He walked out into the main room of the little hospital building. It was dark and Drake couldn't see where he was stepping very easily. He probably should have turned on the light for the room, but he didn't for some reason. It just seemed as if he shouldn't.

He finally made it to a cupboard and started trying to read the labels on some food packages that were inside. He had to hold them up in order to catch the dim light coming from the doorway in Suji's room. He didn't exactly relish the thought of making Suji suffer through the animorphs' version of hospital food so soon, but it couldn't be helped.

[Jullian]

"I'd really rather not," Luce said softly as Drake got up and left. "I'm not sure what you want to know. The YPM managed to sneak footage of Dallas' last few hours out on their channel. Some of that footage included images of your dead body. They had it up on display," Luce said with a grimace, remembering what it had been like to see it, remember Andrew's face when he couldn't look away, when his eyes started to fill with tears. "It was just bad Suji. Nothing but a lot of bad. It's how we all knew what happened and knew to expect Drake and the others...or at least to hope for them. We didn't know if anyone had made it out. It looked like everyone was trapped."

She shook her head, trying to shake the memories off. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to remember what it had been like. If they wanted to sit around and come up with conspiracy theories about how they could have faked Suji's death and why Luce could do that. It was a step removed from the actual memories of the broadcast. But to relive the broadcast itself.

"I wanted to quit," she said suddenly, looking up at Suji. "After I saw that, after I saw you...I wanted to quit. I couldn't see the purpose in any of it anymore. I was going to quit, I was going to tell Rian that very day but...by the time I got back he was gone and I couldn't just leave Robert like that. So I stayed but...I don't know if I'm gonna stay forever. I'm sick of it Suji. What's the point? We fight and fight and fight. We kill and sacrifice pieces of our own humanity and for what? So a handful of yeerks won't see the light of day. What are we changing really?"

She turned away from Suji slightly ashamed. Suji had just risked her life, maybe sacrificed her life, who knows what had really happened, for a cause. All for a cause and here was her best friend telling her she didn't even believe in that cause anymore. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

[Suji]

Suji looked down at her lap. How widely cast had the YPM footage been? Forgetting the horrible things she'd done in Dallas for even a moment, there had been a time when she'd killed a young girl because she had seen too much of the Chicago faction. Now, potentially all the YPM, and more -- if the other Animorphs knew about it -- had seen her face. Her dead body, apparently. Her stomach went cold; what if her parents had seen it? Her sister?

Thinking about the family she'd abandoned didn't make anything better. Suji took a deep breath, listening to Luce talk about quitting. When Luce apologized, she shook her head.

"I'm done with everything." How could she explain it? Did she need to explain it? Did Luce know anything about Crayak, or the Ellimist? "I can't be responsible for anyone else's life or death anymore. Especially not anyone I care about."

[Jullian]

Luce looked up. She wasn't surprised to hear what Suji had to say, how could she be when she'd just got done explaining the same thing. There was just a point you reached when you'd been pushed too far.

"We should go back to Mexico," she said quietly and only partially in jest. "Sit on the beach...I'll even drink if you can find something better than tequila. Just...go. Away. Away from all of this." Her eyes were focused on her dream and not on the present but she turned her attention back to the room now. "I really just want to go. Vegas...it isn't my home anymore."

[Suji]

Suji shrugged. "I don't want to move, or go away," she said, sighing as she leaned back against the wall. "I don't want to do anything. I just want to stay here and not think about the war." She closed her eyes momentarily, letting her head rest. She wasn't terribly surprised to find that she was still tired. But sleeping was lonely business, and Drake was possibly coming back with food for her. Bad enough that she didn't get it herself: worse if she fell asleep while talking with Luce and couldn't even eat what her friend brought her.

"At the same time, I don't deserve to stay here with anyone. I'm tired of running from my sins, or pretending they aren't sins, or whatever I've been doing. I have to talk to Robert sometime. And Fin. I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that I'm done having my strings pulled. Pride's one thing, but it's more than that. I don't want to be a tool of war that gets anyone killed, you know? Even if I think we are justified in fighting tooth and nail for our planet and species, I just can't do it."

Suji sighed deeply. "The body wasn't a hologram or special effects or anything. The broadcast. I'm here and I'm alive, and so is Fin according to you guys, so maybe that's what's supposed to be important. But it doesn't feel like it. I've done some really horrible things, Luce. War crimes. And what me and Rian planned, what you and me did, at the Hoover Dam... that isn't the worst of it. It isn't even close." Because at least the Yeerks were the enemy, because it wasn't personal, because they started it... and because we were all responsible. We all have to share that burden together.

"Even what happened with Toby seems mundane now. Forgivable. Not extreme. And I hate that. I hate that I don't worry about killing a kid anymore -- hell, that I feel relieved -- because at least he was a clear and present threat. But at lot of the time it hasn't been even that clear, and the stakes have been higher, and I've still gone through with... with really fucked up shit. Being ruthless doesn't mean you get to not feel any of it. It just makes you capable of doing things that no one else would inflict on themselves, or anyone else."

[Jullian]

"I know," Luce answered, a little disappointed that Suji didn't share her vision of running away. Is that what she'd really wanted to do anyway? Run away? Not really. She didn't see it as running anymore. Running implied you were running from something or running to it. She wasn't do either. She just felt like there was no place for her here anymore. She didn't want to run, she just wanted to move on.

"I don't know what you're talking about specifically, I don't know the details. But I know the feeling. I accepted a long time ago that this war was going to change me, even change me in ways I didn't like but...I guess I just didn't expect the war to change in ways I didn't like if that makes sense. I thought I could fight it forever but I can't. I don't see the point of it anymore and I'm tired of being the one on the front lines who does the killing and takes that into myself. The blood is on my hands not their's and I'm just done. She-"

Luce stopped talking. There was no trailing off, no ending. She just stopped. She hadn't allowed herself to speak on that subject and she wouldn't start now. "What the hell do we do now?" she asked looking up at Suji. "Do we even get to retire? Or do we just get to die? Is there even a court where we can be judged? I mean, what's the point of even feeling bad about all of it if there is no one there to hear about it all?"