Rafe Pretoria lay on his medical bed capsule. The burns had vanished, skin had been restored, even the hair were beginning to return in a soft dark shadow across his scalp.
His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm. There were no tubes or ventilator supporting him now.
The vitals across the board displayed normally functioning heart, neural activity in deep sleep patterns, and the readings of a perfectly fine core.
Even the core...something which was considered irreversible, was working fine.
Saige stood at the foot of the bed capsule with both hands braced on the rail, staring at the body as if it wasn’t real.
Her usual composure had cracked clean through.
"This...isn’t possible," she whispered.
"Full-thickness burns across the surface, collapse of outer cartilage, soft-tissue damage that should have required months, if not years...it all healed. Within...minutes?" She couldn’t believe any of it.
She turned her head toward the sofa without fully looking away from Rafe.
"Explain it!" She growled in a low tone, as if the whole matter was meant to be secretive.
Marcellus sat on the long medical sofa against the far wall.
Maeve lay stretched across it, she was unconscious and her head was resting in his lap.
The loose black shirt had ridden up slightly at her waist, with one of her arms hung relaxed over the edge of the cushions.
Marcellus had one hand buried in her hair, his fingers moved slowly, and repeatedly from the crown down to the ends, lifting strands and letting them fall in soft ruffles.
"You don’t ask a magician to reveal his tricks now do you?" he murmured, and glanced at Rafe’s face, then returned his attention to the dark strands sliding through his fingers.
"Well, this isn’t a mere trick," Saige’s jaw tightened.
Marcellus smiled.
"You sound disappointed," he then glanced at Saige.
"I’m trying to understand what I just witnessed," she replied.
"Let me guess...a really handsome and prodigal neuro-scientist doing doctor’s work?" He scoffed.
"No...and when did you become a neuro-scientist Mister Severan?" she asked back in frustration.
"Last life, though I must say it was one hell of an experience," he replied.
"Quit joking around, will you? This is serious." She growled.
"I am being serious." He said.
*Thud*
Siage banged the rail of capsule bed and took in a deep breath.
On the sofa, Maeve’s breathing changed. It deepened and slowed, the tension that had kept her under began to loose. The hand in her hair never stopped, it’s movements were steady, repetitive gentle strokes from the crown to ends.
She floated in it for several seconds, not yet aware of anything except the quiet pleasure of contact. Warm thigh beneath her cheek, and faint the scent of clean skin and antiseptics.
’Wait...antiseptics,’ then the rest of her body reported in. Her shirt that had ridden up let cool air touch the bare skin above her waistband.
’This is not a pillow!’ She thought realizing what her head was rested on.
Her eyes opened, and medical ward resolved in pieces...white ceiling, soft blue-white light, she saw the edge of capsule bed and Saige’s rigid back.
And much closer, the underside of beige coat and the clean line of white shirt.
She tensed, and readied to push herself upright, but the hand in her hair slid down, and settled against the side of her head, keeping her exactly where she was.
"Rest," Marcellus said quietly, and then looked back at Saige.
’What?’ Maeve’s breath caught, she turned her eyes upward without lifting her head.
"Nevertheless---I don’t think I will be able to contain this situation if you ask me to, Marcellus," Saige said, calming her breath.
"You don’t have to," Marcellus replied with the usual smile.
"You realise what...what could occur if this got out, don’t you?" she questioned back.
"Well, Rafe’s change in condition is witnessed by exactly three people, but it doesn’t happen in a vacuum," Marcellus continued playing with Maeve’s hair.
"You used your own credentials to unlock restricted diagnostic room, which means there’s an institutional log of exactly what happened, separate from any of the testimony we try to provide."
"A paper trail...a clean trail at that, still exists that gives away answers, and when it comes to you, I doubt you will lie if asked by someone of higher authority," he concluded.
"But why’re you so interested in any sort of powers that I might possess? You do realize the gap between our positions, don’t you?" Marcellus asked.
’...’ Maeve couldn’t believe what she had just heard.
’Did he just...belittle a professor?’ She thought looking up at him.
"What? Did I hear that righ-"
"You heard me." Marcellus cut of Saige’s words.
"You see I have a sort of deep hatred buried in my heart for people who try to control my life, and I must say I am starting to dislike the way you talk to me," Marcellus said.
Saige did not answer immediately. Maeve felt the hand in her hair stop, and the silence that followed was different from the one before.
"Wait!" Maeve pushed herself slightly upward and Marcellus looked down at her.
"Don’t," she said.
"Don’t what?" Marcellus asked back.
"Look, I know the sudden switch in personality, but just please, stop. Don’t start again, and breathe, calmly. Ok?" She said.
"I wasn’t---" His brows tightened.
"Yes, you were." She said in a quiet voice.
"Just relax," Maeve put her hand on his chest. "She is a professor, she saw something nobody else has seen, ofcourse she’s going to ask, she’s not trying to control you."
"Ok?" Marcellus was a little confused, he had not realized the sudden switch of his personality again.
"What’s this?" Saige finally spoke, but she asked Maeve.
"I know...it’s just, he just switches his behaviour so often it’s so unpredictable," she replied.
"I do that?" Marcellus asked.
"Yes, you ---you stay quiet, you don’t even know what happens to you all of a sudden," Maeve looked at him, standing up.
"I am fine, though?"
"Yes, ofcourse."
Maeve had seen the change before, even if she didn’t understand it completely.
There was something deeply wrong with the way he shifted between emotional states, and it wasn’t random.
Certain subjects, like nightmares, sudden spacing out, epitomes of control, authority, responsibility were the cause of the change.
And the change never lasted long.
Saige’s eyes moved from Maeve to Marcellus and then, Rafe. She furrowed her brows to what had just happened.
"So you don’t remember doing it?" She asked.
"Doing what?" Marcellus replied.
"The way you were just speaking,"
"I was speaking normally."
*Thud*
Siage banged the rail of capsule bed and took in a deep breath.
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