Silver Eclipse

Chapter 8: Recouperation

Warm. The first thing that I can feel is that it's warm, and warm in a way I haven't felt in a really long time.

It feels a lot like the way The Lady made me feel when she was being so tender after what Yanta had done, but different. Everything feels softer for some reason. I'm not in the diner anymore, and I'm also not back at Chronos.

There's a bed under me, and starchy blankets over me. They're thin, and if it was cold they'd be doing nothing more than protecting me from a draft. Lucky for me it's so warm, so pleasant…

The only thing I can smell is a faint under current of cotton and… medicine? It's the oddest scent but that's the only way I can describe it. Everything smells sterile, and not in a bad way. It's more as if everything is clean as the universe must have been before all of the planets and stars started making things dirty.

My eyes feel tired and sore, but they get better when I try to blink. Everything is white, and I would say bright but it's not bright in a way that normally means - the way it used to mean. Back before my eyes turned silver, when things got too bright… it would hurt. It was like daggers - well I'd imagine it felt like daggers would feel - jabbing into my eyes. That's not how this feels. I just know that it's bright. The room is a white shade that's brighter than my skin, so that means bright.

Everything feels so strange. I try to squirm, to sit up, but my body feels so stiff. Everything, especially my spine, feels sore in a deep sort of way. Slowly I scan my eyes around the room. Nothing makes sense. I was just in the diner, and I'd sent sparks… "Where am I…?"

No one even seems to be here to answer me. I feel like a complete and total idiot. Here I am in a hospital after sparking my brain all away, and talking to myself all alone.

Brilliant…

Just as I'm about to groan and wish I could melt through the crappy hospital bed in my private room, I see Jade in the corner of the room. She's leaning on her bow, and by the looks of it, she's alone. "How are you doing? More importantly, how do you think? Apparently it was a real mess in there, months and months of reinforced work."

Even if I didn't spark up Jade she's one of the last people I want to see right now. I almost sparked her up, and she must know how close it was. She knows I only even lead her to the diner for that exact reason…

And she'd just saved my mind, too.

"I'm really sorry Jade, I really am… Uhm, let me check. I'm not sure if I'd know how well I was thinking if I wasn't thinking well though, so odds are… Well, at least I'm not shattered…" Yanta's shattering must have healed already, or… wait. I close my eyes and try to focus, try to think about The Lady, about me, about…

About Sarah LaSilvas, Silver Girl. Not Silver, and sure as hell not silver, my name is Sarah LaSilvas.

I can't believe that I was actually happy in that building! How could I have been happy as an agent of Chronos, enslaved by that beautiful, sweet, and absolutely wonderful woman… Was The Lady really all that bad? I mean, for a woman that was brain bashing beautiful super powered women left and right so that she could get richer and richer and reap all sorts of sexual benefits, was she really all that bad?

She never hurt any of us, not really. There are no visible scars… She was oddly tender after what happened with Yanta… and Dust might have been a bit of a bitch, but she always made me feel wanted. I can still remember exactly what it is that she said in that hall way when I asked her why me.

You’re Hot… New… Fun.

It's almost as if I can feel her words echoing inside of me, but it's not something I'm being controlled to feel. It's just how Dust resonates in my memory. It's almost frightening how vivid she looks in my minds eye. Her pale, clean skin glowing in that doorway, black hair so dark and not even shining in that way most black hair does, looking like a Goth girl not willing to spend too much on her wardrobe.

It's not only Dust that I'll miss though… There's Pink too. Silhouette is in there, but Pink… Something about Pink would have been fun no matter what. She was always so sweet, so kind, even when she was trying to convince me to be a giggling little toy for her to play with. Those gloves did feel very nice. She made me feel… maybe not loved, but appreciated.

You’re like a lollipop covered in bubble gum with pixie dust all over it!

Pink and Dust were part of the whole web that The Lady was using to control my mind. Windy probably was too, and who knows all of her reasons behind actually giving me Silhouette as a kitty. Was it actually to make me happy? Did I do such a good job that I truly deserved to be rewarded? I'm sure that Dust and Pink had accomplished much more impressive feats. I just betrayed a friend with a little under the table game of "sparksie"…

How do you feel?

Betrayed…

That should sadly be about right…

I hadn't even cared that I'd betrayed Silhouette! Maybe a little, maybe just enough to tell myself that it was all okay, but surely not as much as I should have. She wanted to protect me from what she thought was a threat to me and I'd betrayed her. She'd felt betrayed.

There have been other supers I went after for The Lady… Some good, some evil… I've been mostly successful… Though there has been the rare occurrence of failure. Right now I'm not sure if I should be glad that I failed or happy that I succeeded as much as I did. The fact that I still find all of the other agents of Chronos and The Lady attractive is not a surprising fact. They are. They're beautiful, in two of their cases very tasty…

But my feelings towards them remain more than just physical attraction. If one of them walked in through that door…

"Is it wrong that I can actually think clearly… but I'm still more than a bit infatuated with the women who tied my brain into a knot?" Asking Jade is better than asking myself after all. Who knows, maybe my mind isn't all the way free thinking. It's been at least a year since The Lady first met me in her office. I'm not sure I'd recognize free thinking right away.

"Uh… I have no idea." Jade's voice is honest, as unhelpful as it is. "I'm not a psychologist here…" She shrugs in her beautiful way and looks left and right, as if to find some way to dodge my question. Great, less than five minutes and I've already made a fool of myself. "At least you're up."

I look a little bit more around the room. It's a pretty simple hospital room all things considered. My condition can't be that serious though. I feel just fine! "Why am I in a hospital? I've had people do all sorts of things to my mind before, and I never needed…" With a sigh I let myself melt back into the bed under me. "You don't have to stay here, Jade."

"You're here because you reacted pretty violent to the attempts to help you… You were sedated for your own good." I guess sparking your brain to hell so that all of your thoughts turn to liquid silver would count as violent… "And don't worry about it, we couldn't find any family or anything."

It's impossible not to wince. I used to have family. Well, I used to have a mother anyway. Best not to go into that, this scene is already too depressing as it is. Let's just say she didn't agree with my moving to Midas City.

At the time, I'd just thought it sounded like a good place to be a super heroine and still have a job without much in the way of credentials. Now, it's home for better or worse.

"Don't really have any…" I shrug and look up to my lovely green clad friend. There's no way not to feel worried. "I hope I didn't accidentally hurt anyone else. I swear I tried to stop myself from hurting anyone…"

"You didn't hurt anyone, we were worried about you hurting yourself. We're all fine." She rests one of her hands on one of mine. It's such a delicate, sweet gesture, I can't help but smile a little more warmly even if I do still feel guilty for what I almost did to her back at the Diner. "I promise."

All of this is hitting me at once. I'm not sure how I should feel. Did a part of me actually… enjoy… being a member of Chronos? "She changed my name. She made me think of myself with a lowercase! I was being passed around like some sort of humanoid pint of silver ice cream!" This is so embarrassing. I wish I could throw my recovery tantrum where no one - especially not someone whose bones I'd love to jump - was watching. "Damned right I'd love to be put out of my misery right now… but I have a responsibility to at least stop the Slut Squad, and figure out what's going on…"

This is so much bigger than me. Does my choice even matter? If I choose that what Chronos did wasn't… Of course what The Lady does is wrong!

Isn't it?

"What… what we do, trying to save people's minds, save their lives, all of those things…" With a sweet little sigh I look up to Jade's eyes as absolutely hopefully as I can. Something in those depths needs to give me a sign. Something inside of her eyes needs to tell me… something… "It's not all for no reason, it's not in vain… right?"

"What do you mean Silver?" Jade smiles back and pets my silvery hand with her almond. It feels nice and soft in such a sweetly smooth sort of way. I want it to make me feel warm with arousal or cool with trusting calm, but neither fully works.

"It all means something, right? Even when we fail, the trying, it matters, right?" My eyes move from Jade's, to her hand, and then back. I need some kind of hope. There has to be hope, or else what is there?

I'm running low on everything else.

Jade gives me another of those heroic smiles that glows and screams that she should be up on a rooftop looking down as the wind blows at her dark green clothing. No one would be able to deny just how beautiful she looks. "Of course. The attempts may fail, and lead to things we don't want… but the trying is very important. And I promise you this time… was not in vain. We'll stop Chronos. We'll stop those other girls, and no one is going to take you away… I promise." She smiles, and I can almost believe it.

Almost, just almost… I can believe that she can keep me safe. She's not invincible. I don't even know if she's anything more than good with a bow. "But for now, you need to get some more rest."

I nod and she nods back. My hand squeezes hers ever so softly as I wiggle and try to melt back into the bed a little more. The pillow is hospital soft, which means it's more air than actual pillow. "All right… Thanks again, Jade. This makes three, right?"

"Counting is silly. You just owe me everything there is to owe in every way." She laughs before her voice turns warmer and she lets a smile melt over her. "So come on, get some rest. I'll be right here. I promise."

For a moment, just a moment, I frown. "Oh, you're one of those types…" I can't keep the straight face, and before long I break out into mad giggles and close my eyes serenely. The bed really is so comfortable once I stop thinking of how comfortable a real bed would be. "I'll be able to get lots of rest with you around…" With the curiosity of whether or not I should readopt girl as part of my super heroine identity, I let myself drift off into sleep.

There are no interruptions, it's just cool, sweet, soft tender warmth. When I wake up it's gradual, its relaxed, and it's ever so sweetly just… refreshing. Compared to everything that's been going on, this feels like bliss.

"Aaah, Ms. LaSilvas, you're back with us now…" I blink my eyes open fiercely to try and see where the voice is coming from, and where Jade is. That isn't Jade's voice. Jade's voice doesn't sound like she's a doctor, that voice that just screams "I know how your heart pumps blood, not just that it's what keeps you alive."

"Who're you?!" My voice slurs and I can barely see, but the woman in front of me is definitely not Jade. She's shorter, for one, with cute and beautifully styled short blonde hair. She looks like the short of doctor you'd see on T.V. and want her to give you a checkup.

Slender, almost to the point of being a little bit too thin, but only in the best of ways. On most girls it makes them look sick, but this woman looks good for it. "My name is Dr. Heinland, I just wanted to ask you a few questions, okay?"

"O… okay. Where's Jade? She said she would stay…" I try to sit up, but my body feels more than just a little bit too heavy. "Please?"

"Jade had business. I'm sorry Sarah, I can see you're not ready to talk yet. I'm come back in awhile… Here, I brought you this, a little something to help you wake up." Her pale hand holds out a plastic cup with some sort of purple fluid inside. It looks good, like grape cool aid, in a very sweet way.

Something about this scares me, but reality has not been very calm lately. It's been a long time since I had a rational thought. Can I trust my own reasoning? This woman is trying to help me, isn't she? I reach my silvery hand up to grasp the cup in my hand and somehow manage to sit up. "Can I watch some television? Some news? It's been a really long time since I've kept up much, and I'm feeling a little disconnected…"

"Of course!" Dr. Heinland smiles and walks over to the other side of the room, and clicks on the tv hanging up in the corner. "I'll be back in a while, you just work on feeling better."

Nodding and smiling just a little I sip the sweet drink. It tastes like sugar water, only with a little bit of a kick. "Tastes good! Thanks, I'll just try to relax…"

She nods and smiles in what I worry is a knowing way before she steps her way out and closes the door behind her. For now, I should just watch the tube. My mind is free, time to lose it in something most people do and not between a woman's thighs. Aaah, television.