He meant it as a joke, but Alex just nodded resignedly, as if that scenario was yet another grim possibility for him. While Alex had never been the most upbeat person in the world, since the attack on the Academy, he seemed more inclined to be gloomy, more likely to fall into one of his bad moods and isolate himself from everyone and stop talking. Vivik wasn’t sure why, and he didn’t plan to ask him about it. It wasn’t any of his business, and anyway, he didn’t feel bad for Alex, despite the circumstances. He was still painfully aware that, whatever other problems he might have, Alex could walk up to Emily’s door tonight and he probably wouldn’t be turned away. Whatever else was wrong in Alex’s life, Vivik still would have traded with him for that privilege.
“How long have Anastasia and Emily been friends, anyway?”
“I don't remember them not getting along, exactly,” Vivik said, thinking back. “They could be catty with each other, but I never got the feeling that they particularly disliked each other. I guess they started hanging out not long after you showed up.”
Alex turned away.
“Yeah, I figured,” he said moodily. “You have no idea how tired I am of hearing that.”
Michael broke up four fights in the afternoon class, two involving Steve. Miraculously, one of them hadn’t even been Steve’s fault. Eventually, he gave up on anything other than running, and they spent the session out on the track. Alex didn’t show, but he didn’t have time to worry about his absence, not today.
He had six disciplinary sessions in the early afternoon, and he barely made it back for the late conditioning session. He took one look at the surly faces of the class and didn’t even bother with his planned training routine. Instead, he spent two hours running them into the ground, working every kid he could get his hands on until they were exhausted, in the hope that they would be too tired to act out later. He ran with all of them, miles more than his norm. It took his mind off it, at least.
He hardly ever thought about what it was he was running from.
Mitsuru didn’t have to be so cautious, with Rebecca unresponsive in a hospital bed, but she was anyway, out of long habit. She’d changed into jeans and a black top she thought was cute, and she’d washed her hair and then let it hang down, an unfamiliar, ticklish presence on the back of her shoulders. It wasn’t what she would have chosen to wear, but she couldn’t afford the attention that her little black dress would draw, either. She had excuses planned if anyone stopped her on the way to the upper story of Operations, where he maintained a small apartment, but no one wanted to question anything she did, not now. They just assumed that she knew what she was doing and left it at that, eager to avoid any unnecessary contact with the Audits Department. No one would dare challenge an Auditor.
No one, of course, but her best friend, whose limp hand she had been holding, sometimes in tears, all afternoon.
Still, she checked to make sure the hallway was clear before hurrying along it, stopping at a door near the middle and knocking, softly but firmly. She heard him call out sleepily, and then there was a short delay before he opened the door, just a crack, so that all she could see of him was one eye, which widened in surprise at seeing her. Then he opened the door wide and ushered her inside, checking behind her to make sure that no one saw.
“Mitzi,” he said, reviewing her with obvious concern. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay? It’s really late…”
“No,” she said firmly. “Nothing is okay. And you know why I’m here.”
Alistair backed away slowly, retreating to the kitchen where he made an unnecessary production out of opening a bottle of bourbon and pouring a slug for each of them into two thick blue glasses, handing one to her and draining the other in one motion. He was still wearing the worn brown t-shirt and khakis that he had been wearing earlier in the office, and he still smelled like the stale cigarette smoke that permeated Operations. She sipped hers once for politeness sake, then set it aside on a handy counter while he went back for a refill.
“Mitzi,” he said softly, turning back to face her with a full glass and obvious reluctance. “You know you shouldn’t be here.”
She felt the tears trying to force their way out before they happened, and turned away so that he wouldn’t see them. She hadn’t cried since the night she’d brought Alex Warner back to the Academy, and that had been out of frustration; but since the attack, since her last conversation with Rebecca, she hadn’t been able to stop herself.
“I know what I did was wrong, and I was punished,” she said, her voice shaking more than she would have cared for it to. “Does that mean I’m kicked out of your bed forever?”
She could hear him swear, though it was under his breath. Afraid to open her eyes, she listened to him finish his drink, and the clatter of the glass as he set it down in the sink. She couldn’t hear him as he walked across the room that separated them, and for a long, unhappy moment, she thought that he wouldn’t be able to answer her at all. Then she felt his hands at her waist and she melted in relief, leaning back against his chest, pulling his arms tight around her until she couldn’t feel anything else. Eventually, he let her go, and she turned around to face him.
She could tell by his face that he wanted to say something, but she put her fingers on his lips, hushing him, staring patiently into his eyes. There was only a moment of hesitation, a flash of something that looked a lot like guilt, before he took her hand gently and led her back to the bedroom.
“You are being weird.”
“That is so not true,” Alex objected. “I was just being normal, right that second, right when you said that. If things are weird now, then it’s your fault for saying weird things.”
Eerie looked at him skeptically with her dilated eyes.
“I don’t think so,” she said gravely. “I do that a lot, so I know what that’s like, and this isn’t that. It’s different.”
“Huh?”
Eerie sighed and released his hand, stopping in the path and looking at him forlornly.
“You suck. Stop lying. Just tell me what it is. Is it because you are going away? Because I am going to Central for field study?”
Alex stopped too, and swore. He couldn’t look at her while he said it.
“I just keep wondering about that thing with Edward, or whatever it was. You did some shit to me, back there to my protocol, right? And then he said some stuff, and it kinda bugged me,” he said defensively, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.
“He said some stuff…” Eerie repeated doubtfully, clearly not understanding. Then, slowly, it dawned on her, and her expression changed, to something he hadn’t seen before. “Oh. And it bugged you?”
“Yeah,” Alex admitted.
“Why do you care? Why does it matter what happened? We helped each other, and Edward’s gone now, anyway. I never even talked to him when he was… you know. Alive. Why would he know anything about me?”
Alex looked away, and nodded, not exactly sure what he was agreeing to, or admitting too. The moment the words had left his mouth, he had known that this was a bad, self-punishing idea, and he wished that he hadn’t started at all. Nevertheless, the words seemed like they had been festering inside him for a long time, fermenting in his suspicions, and then, at the worst possible moment, before three weeks of separation and temptation, it all came boiling out of him.
“It’s just… how did you do that thing? When you made my protocol work so easily. I’ve never been able to do that, myself.”