The resistance's medical bay isn't really a medical bay - just a converted office space with some basic equipment and whatever supplies we can scrounge. Right now it's full of people getting patched up, their injuries more from the chaos of retreat than actual combat. No one will meet my eyes.
I sit on an exam table, letting Sarah draw blood with shaking hands. She's trying to maintain her scientific detachment, but I can see the fear she's trying to hide. Can smell it, actually - a new sense that hasn't quite faded since my... episode.
"Your cellular structure is still fluctuating," she says, trying to keep her voice steady. "Not as dramatically as before, but..."
"But I'm not quite human anymore?"
Her hand jerks, almost dropping the blood vial. "I didn't say that."
"You don't have to."
Across the room, one of the newer recruits - Dave or Daniel, something with D - is getting a cut on his arm stitched up. He flinched when they brought me in, actually scrambled backward until he hit a wall. Can't really blame him. He saw what I became.
The darkness behind my eye pulses with something that might be satisfaction.
Marcus enters, looking exhausted. More grey in his hair than I remember seeing this morning. "Report?" he asks Sarah.
"Still running tests. Her vital signs are... unusual. Blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature - they're all over the place. And there are some readings I can't even interpret."
"But she's stable?"
"For now." Sarah sets down her tablet. "We should really move her to the containment lab until—"
"No." I surprise myself with the force of the word. "No more tests. No containment. I need..." What do I need? My skin feels too tight, like it wants to remember other shapes. "I need air."
"That's not a good idea," Sarah starts, but Marcus cuts her off.
"Let her go."
"But—"
"She came back once. She'll come back again." He meets my eyes. "Won't you?"
I slide off the exam table. My movements feel wrong, like I'm having to remember how human joints work. "Yeah. I just... I need to process."
"Take your phone," he says. "And Vesper? The knife stays here."
Fair enough. I'm not sure I trust myself with it right now anyway. The patterns on its surface have changed again, become more complex. More like the ones I saw rippling across my own flesh when I...
I leave before I can finish that thought.
The night air helps, a little. I take the stairs to the roof - no way I'm getting in an elevator feeling like this. The herb garden is still there, still pretending to be normal. I breathe in the scent of rosemary and try to forget what reality tastes like when it's torn.
"You should be resting."
I don't jump at James's voice. Some part of me knew he was here, knew it in ways that human senses can't explain. He emerges from the shadows by the railing, and I notice he's changed clothes. No more Church robes. This is unofficial, then.
"Can't rest," I say. "Every time I close my eyes I see... I feel..."
"What did it feel like?" His voice is gentle, but there's an edge of something else. Not fear exactly. Curiosity maybe.
"Like..." I search for words that exist in human language. "Like being more real than reality. Like seeing the truth behind everything. Colors that don't exist. Geometries that can't exist. Power that..." I stop, swallow hard. "Power that felt right. Natural. Like I was finally being what I was meant to be."
He moves closer, but carefully. Like approaching a wild animal. "And now?"
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"Now I feel wrong. Limited. Like I'm wearing a costume that doesn't quite fit." I flex my fingers, remember how they looked when they weren't quite fingers anymore. "James, what if... what if this is what the Church was right about? What if this is what I'm supposed to become?"
"No." He closes the distance between us, takes my hands in his. "Listen to me. The Church twists everything it touches. They took something natural - your gift, your connection to whatever's out there - and tried to weaponize it. To control it. What happened tonight wasn't your true nature. It was what they made you afraid of becoming."
I look down at our joined hands. His scarred one, my normal-looking one that I now know can become something else entirely. "You didn't see what I became."
"I saw exactly what you became. I saw you touch power that would drive most people insane, use it to disrupt their ritual, and then come back. Come back human."
"But for how long?" The darkness pulses, reaching for something just beyond normal perception. "It's getting stronger. Harder to control. And with the Convergence coming..."
He releases one of my hands, reaches up to touch my face. His fingers are warm against my too-cool skin. "Then we'll figure it out. Find a way to help you control it without losing yourself."
"And if we can't?"
"Then I'll do what I promised the day I met you." His voice is steel. "I'll put you down myself before I let them use you to end the world."
The words should be threatening, but they're actually comforting. I lean into his touch, let myself be human and vulnerable for just a moment. "You shouldn't make promises you can't keep."
"Who says I can't keep it?" But his thumb strokes my cheek, contradicting the hardness of his words. "Besides, it won't come to that. You're stronger than they know. Stronger than you know."
A comfortable silence falls. Below us, the city continues its nighttime rhythm, unaware of how close it came to having reality torn open in its midst. My phone buzzes - probably Sarah wanting to run more tests - but I ignore it.
"I need to tell you something," James says finally. "About what I saw in their records. About your mother."
I tense, but don't pull away. "What about her?"
"The Church thinks the Convergence is a natural phenomenon - reality getting soft enough for Them to break through. But what if it's not?" His voice drops lower. "What if it's something else? Something that started the day your mother chose to maintain contact with Them through her entire pregnancy?"
The implications hit me like a physical blow. "You think... you think I'm causing it?"
"Not exactly. But the records suggest your birth changed something fundamental. Started a process. The Church thinks they're preparing for the Convergence, but what if they're actually accelerating it? Every seeding attempt, every ritual, every time they force contact between realities - what if it's all making things worse?"
I think about how reality felt when I let go, how malleable it became. Think about the patterns I saw underlying everything, the connections between dimensions growing thinner, more fragile.
"If that's true," I say slowly, "then stopping them isn't enough. Every time I use my power, every time I touch that other reality..."
"You might be helping to break down the walls." He sighs. "But if you don't use your power, they'll succeed in creating more channels, more connections. Either way..."
"Either way, reality gets more fragile." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Damned if I do, damned if I don't."
"Hey." He turns me to face him fully. "We'll figure it out. There has to be a way to stop this that doesn't involve you sacrificing yourself or becoming something else."
"And if there isn't?"
His answer is to kiss me.
It's not like the movies. No dramatic music, no perfect timing. Just desperate human contact in a world that's becoming less human by the day. His lips are warm against mine, and for a moment the darkness behind my eye recedes, overwhelmed by more immediate sensations.
Then reality reasserts itself and I pull away. "We can't."
"I know." But he doesn't step back. "Just... remember that. Remember how it feels to be human, to want human things. Whatever else you are, whatever else you might become - hold onto that."
My phone buzzes again, more insistent this time. Looking at the screen, I see three missed calls from Marcus and one from Sarah. Time to face the aftermath of what I did.
"I should go," I say. "They'll want to run more tests."
"Let them. The more we understand what's happening to you, the better chance we have of stopping it." He steps back, professional distance returning to his posture. "I need to get back anyway. The Church will be analyzing what happened tonight. I need to be there, gauge their reaction."
I think about how I looked through their eyes - power they coveted but couldn't control, proof that their messiah was everything they'd hoped for and everything they feared.
"Be careful," I say. "They'll be watching everyone more closely now."
"I'm always careful." He gives me that half-smile that still makes my heart skip, even now. "You're not the only one who knows how to wear a mask."
He leaves me in the herb garden, surrounded by normal things that suddenly feel like props in a play. My phone buzzes again - Sarah this time, probably with preliminary test results.
The darkness behind my eye squirms, reaching for something that reaches back. Somewhere in the city, the Church is probably doing the same tests on their transformed victim, learning how to replicate what they did.
The game has changed. The question is: are we still playing the same game they are?
Only time will tell. And time, like reality itself, is growing strange and unreliable.
I head back down to face whatever answers Sarah's tests have revealed. Behind me, the herb garden pretends to be normal in a world where normal is becoming an endangered species.
The taste of James's kiss lingers on my lips. Human contact. Human desires. Human weakness.
I hold onto that feeling as I descend. It might be all that keeps me anchored when reality starts to tear again.