Day 52: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

The intercom jingle was slightly different for this shift, almost as if it had gone up in quality. The Head Doctor gave a sigh of relief, his own voice clear as a bell despite the usual electronic buzz

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[vitale]

By the time dinner rolled around, Bella was exhausted not only physically, but mentally. The day had started off fine - she had spoken to Laura and spent a little time in the Sun Room ... but lunch had just thrown her completely off, and now she was feeling the aftershock.

Sighing when she entered the room, she was somewhat relieved to not see Claire there yet. She wanted to be alone for a few minutes to compose herself, and she rubbed her fingertips over her eyes to try and calm herself down. She had to mentally prepare for what exactly was going to happen tonight. What she knew so far was that Venom was going to come and take her to Edward (which she still didn't like. At all. She was not a child, and therefore didn't want to be treated like one.) ... that was, if she stayed behind and waited for him. But really.

Still, either way, she was going to see Edward. ... And maybe something else.

Bella knew Edward had lost a lot of blood last night, and was most likely upon the edges of starvation. Obviously, she couldn't have that - she'd have to get blood for him somehow. Could she sneak her way up to the Chapel, like she had been told about? And even if she made it, how would she get the blood?

Sighing, the teenager allowed her face to drop into her hands, her eyes shutting tightly. She could do this; everything would be fine come nightfall, and even though she had a feeling Edward would be infuriated at her with whatever decision she chose, she honestly didn't care. She'd been through worse.

[autophoenix]

Luckily, by the time she was being guided back to her room for dinner, Claire had mostly put the problems that Elle's meeting with Sylar had caused behind her. She'd done a good job of convincing herself that she probably didn't need to go seek Elle out to protect her, but rather, should probably find Peter to tell him about what had happened to Elle while they were busy before. That way, it wouldn't happen again. Hopefully. None of them needed to be caught alone by Sylar in the dead of night. Not when most of them had already had the bad experience of having it happen before.

She smiled at Bella as she came into the room with her dinner tray, setting it down at her desk but not looking altogether too interested in touching it. It took a split second for her to realize her roommate wasn't looking like her usual bubbly and optimistic self. Food long forgotten, she grabbed the chair from her desk and dragged it over to the side of Bella's bed, taking a seat and reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, you okay?"

[vitale]

Bella hadn't even noticed that Claire had entered the room, as lost in thought as she was. Where would she be able to get something to hold the blood -

However, when she heard the sound of the chair scraping against the floor, she knew that her roommate was there, and that she had no more time to simply sit and sulk. Moments later Claire's hand was against her shoulder, and Bella pulled her hands away from her face, running her fingers through her bangs, causing her hair to become as disorganized as Edward's normally was.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied. Seconds later the lie was pulled back when a sudden realization struck her.

Claire's blood. The super healing blood!

"Actually, that's a lie," she said with a forced laugh, leaning back in her chair. "I'm just. Edward was hurt pretty badly last night - burns over ... practically all over her body," she told her. Her body turned cold at the memory of seeing the vampire wrapped practically head to toe in bandages. "And it's just. It's my fault. I feel terrible, and I. I don't know. It's a lot."

[autophoenix]

The admission of the lie excused the lie itself, which Claire could easily identify the minute it came out of Bella's mouth. She was used to telling people she was fine when she wasn't, the difference was Bella was the better person here and was more willing to be forthcoming with the fact that she was the furthest thing from fine.

Her first thought was to ask what could possibly give someone burns all over their body in the institute, but that was probably insensitive. Edward had been nothing but cordial with her and she shouldn't just sit there and use his misfortune as a way to get more information about the institute -- the coldheartedness of it gave her pause. Was she really that bad?

She shook it off and just squeezed Bella's shoulder as she explained, lips tightening in a thin line.

"First of all, it's not your fault. It's the fault of whatever burned him," she was nipping that guilt train in the bud. There was no reason for Bella to guilt herself over it -- Claire knew what that felt like. It seemed like every day they had more in common, feeling bad for other people getting hurt when they made it out scotfree. But, that wasn't the thing to focus on here. Instead, Claire decided it was time to provide a mutually beneficial solution.

"I might be able to help him. I mean, I didn't get to test it last night, but … I told you about my blood. If we can get it in Edward's system, it'll be able to heal the burns and he'll be fine." She hoped that wasn't too forward. Bella had seemed pretty grossed out by the idea before, and there was probably some faux pas involved in the fact that Claire was offering to swap fluids with her roommate's boyfriend, but it was a chance to get an answer on whether her blood would do any good and she needed to know.

Tact was a luxury she couldn't afford.

[vitale]

Bella sighed, shaking her head. "No, it really was my fault. He did what he did for me, because the thing would have killed us apparently if he didn't," she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. It's hard no to feel guilty, even if you say so."

Just another thing in her life to feel guilty over.

Luckily for the teenager, however, Claire's thinking had gone down the same path that hers had gone down just moments before. Turning towards the blonde, Bella bit her lip. On one hand, the blood would be good because he could at least eat, and then if the blood actually worked with healing him ... well, it was like killings two birds with one stone.

"You would really do that for him? For me?" she asked, trying her hardest not to look too excited. "I mean, I would be ... really, really, really happy if you allowed it to happen, but I just want to make extra sure."

[autophoenix]

It was easy for Claire to forget the worry of Bella blaming herself when she could instead focus on the enthusiasm of Bella to find a way to heal Edward. A part of her felt guilty, after all, there was no way of knowing that it would work, and she had the slightest worry that there might be some adverse reaction, but with an opportunity like this to try, how could she refuse?

"For both of you, definitely. I mean, it's just a little blood, I'll … grow more," grow? Would she grow blood? What was the appropriate word for something like that, anyway? Whatever. The point stood -- her blood would replenish and she'd be fine, and hopefully, so would Edward. "I'll make it happen. My uncle has a syringe of it still, we can try it on Edward tonight when the doors open."

She jumped up out of the chair, squeezing Bella's shoulder reassuringly. This was great. They'd both get out of this fine.

"Do you know where his room is?"

[vitale]

Bella nodded, smiling up at Claire even as she jumped out of the chair. "Thanks, Claire. Really. I owe you pretty much everything right now. Seriously."

Standing up herself, she looked once at her uneaten food and turned away from it, adrenaline causing her to get jittery. She wanted to get to Edward's room now, and not have to wait for the stupid lights to go off. She had never been so eager to jump into the night as she was right now.

"Yeah, I know where his room is," Bella told Claire as she moved towards her bed, looking for the bat she had had last night. "But I have to wait for someone before we go," she said with a sigh, pulling the bat out from under her mattress. "Edward's ... kind of making me. But I suppose it wouldn't be such a big deal if we met half way. I would pretty much ditch, but I'm in big enough trouble when it comes to wandering around the hallways without someone else."

[autophoenix]

There was that creepy overbearing thing again. It seemed to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune moments, and Claire couldn't help the hesitant look that made its way onto her face. Getting in big trouble with her boyfriend for … what? Doing something for herself? If West had tried that, Claire would have broken up with him on the spot -- or, well, she supposed she had.

Still, she moved past it quickly, because truth be told, it was none of her business. Four days of knowing Bella, meeting Edward once … it didn't really make her an authority on their relationship, regardless of how sketchy the degrees of overprotectiveness might have seemed to her.

"I don't want to get you in trouble, but I think we should get there as soon as possible -- and what's the worst that could happen between here and the guys' hallway, anyway?" She cast a look at the door of their room, as if willing it to open. "Edward will forgive you once it works." Because it would work. It had to. Claire couldn't take being reduced to absolute uselessness by not even being able to provide a method of healing.

[vitale]

Bella was about to answer Claire when just like that the intercom sounded, and the night announcements were made. Soon after the lights went out, leaving the two girls alone in darkness for a few moments before suddenly she clicked on her flashlight (having groped around for it for a few seconds).

Hmm.

Suddenly, Bella was moving across the room and towards her desk, setting the flashlight down before rummaging through the drawers to find a piece of paper and a pen. "You know what," she grumble, "You're right. Screw an escort. I never needed an escort before anyway."

She had gone out on her own every other night, so why was this any different? Besides, she would have Claire with her now, so she found there to be no need to wait for Venom.

After writing a quick note ("Venom - went with Claire to Edward's room. Don't worry about me.") she left it on the desk, grabbing onto her flashlight and bat once again before turning back towards Claire. "Okay. You ready?"

[autophoenix]

While her first instinct was concern for whoever Edward had sent as a courier for Bella, she let it get beaten out by enthusiasm for actually doing something for Edward. Besides, if Bella knew who to expect -- and she certainly hoped that the other girl did, if she was inviting him into their shared room -- then there was a good chance they'd run into one another in the halls on the way over.

So, instead of voicing her concerns, she dragged her chair back over to the desk, cringing a little bit when she bumped her knee against her bed in the darkness. She groped her way around in the dark to find her flashlight in the back of her closet and pulled the wooden bat out of it afterward, clicking the flashlight on.

"I know it's not far, but," she looked down at the bat, then gave a shrug. "You can never be too careful. And it should help our case about not needing an escort." The rationale was good, but also, after hearing that Elle had run into Sylar in the darkness, she was feeling extra cautious. Scared, even. He wanted her ability still, which meant if she got caught off her guard …

well, it would be her brain as spaghetti-o's. Again.

With her stuff together, she pushed the thought from her mind and pulled the door open, holding it for Bella and then following her through.

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