Chapter 25: 25. Intermission: Sickbay

Sickbay is busier than usual for Elia's usual lunch time. Through the dingy window of a corner booth, a long-haired man eats a stack of pancakes and pours over a phone set next to his plate. He isn't in Elia's usual seat, so it doesn't matter. She climbs the steps and pulls open the single glass door.

The entrance's chime dings and Mitchel's head pops up from behind the serving counter, his usually unkempt tuft of hair slicked back above a freshly shaved undercut. "Elia!"

He didn't ask a question, no need to reply she supposes. She slides into her booth. Mitchel turns to the kitchen's window and fumbles with the flaps of fabric tying his apron around his waist, one hand wrenching at the knot behind his back in rapid jerks. Nothing better to do, Elia watches him.

With his other hand he slides a plate out of the window — laden with Elia's usual stack of pancakes, but some extra eggs and toast on the side. Must not be her's then? A final jerk of his hand and the knot falls away. He lifts the apron away from himself by the ring of fabric around his neck and drapes it over the counter.

Despite her lack of feelings, Elia knows that she'll regret using her mirror later. Future her would want her to be as conspicuous as possible: to draw attention to herself and tempt others to help. To set her straight. Current her would rather avoid any interruptions to her meal so she can hurry back to her world of cars and grease. So she should stop staring at Mitchel. She faces forward and pulls her scripts to the front of her mind like an actor about to film a scene.

Half a minute passes. Mitchel lays the plate — pancakes and all — in front of Elia. "Eggs and toast on the house, Chef cooked too much. Old guy hates seeing food go to waste." He places a small bowl of blueberries and strawberries next to the plate. "Fruits on me though."

There goes the scripts, scattering like a stack of papers in a sudden gust. Elia looks up from the bowl. "Why?"

He slides into the seat opposite her. "You can't just eat pancakes for lunch everyday."

She should show concern. She scrunches her eyebrows together along with an upward tug. "Are you running out of ingredients for them?"

"No? Because of healthy, balanced diets not being— not being made out of pancakes I guess. I'm just trying to say I'm worried about you." He interlocks fingers and places both his palms flat on the table. "I take it that constipated look is you trying to convince me you didn't use your mirror today?"

What a waste of effort. She knew it wouldn't work to begin with; she's never been some silver tongued car salesman. She relaxes her brow and — dipping her head to the plate — she cuts into the fluffy, three-high stack of pancakes. "Yeah. Can I eat without having to talk then?"

Mitchel waves a hand through the air. "Sure, sure. Where's Bamboo, by the way?"

Elia crams a slice of the pancake stack into her mouth; her voice comes out in between chews. "On her way, I suppose."

Crack. Bamboo lands on the table with a flourish of her tail and rushes over to Mitchel. She rubs her cheek against his interlocking hands.

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Mitchel scratches behind her ear to the tune of a deep purr. "Okay, okay. There's the good girl. Let me get your milk." He slides back out of the booth.

A pair of strawberries in her mouth, Elia turns around to watch Mitchel go about his business. Bamboo brushes past her with the same plan and Elia drags an absent-minded hand over the cat's back. Past Mitchel's shuffling, the man in the corner booth looks up — and for just a moment — he links eye's with Elia.

Time stretches inside Elia's mind. Each detail blazes out of the scene before her in vibrant colors and absolute focus. The man stares frozen in time: a yellow-green speckled strawberry peeking from the corner of his mouth; a knot of black hair sitting atop his head, but spiking out in every direction where it slipped out of the hair tie; an oversized, beige sweater falling from his shoulders.

Something about his eyes melts away all the self-imposed restrictions Elia put on her power. If she uses her power on this man, it will help him. It won't end up like last time.

She tugs a muscle somewhere deep inside her eye socket and the emotion consuming voids burble out from her pupils, encompassing her irises. The blackness writhes at the edges with all the hunger of a pit of starving snakes. She tugs on that muscle a bit harder and the man's emotions crystallize into pulsing blue orbs at the edges of the voids: grief, anger, and resignation twisting over and around each other through whatever currents swirl in the blackness. But they don't drift toward the center. The orbs fly about the perimeter, riding the shifting black edges.

Odd.

Elia heaves back on the muscle; her eyes bulge and pain crashes in her temples. The orbs drift inwards: millimetre by millimetre as if they're anchored to something heavy outside her influence. A hint of someone other than this man. The pain grow, her eyes dry out, and she loses her hold. The orbs slam back into the edges of the voids, shattering the walls containing the blackness like a spherical pane of glass. A wave of darkness drifts across her eyes until it dissipates into nothing.

Time returns.

Pain roars through her temples, tears leak out of her eyes in torrents. Shit. She flips back around in her seat and drops her face into her palms. Her senses shutdown under the overwhelming pain: the sound of hissing food from the kitchen, the smell of the syrup covered pancakes in front of her, the taste of the pair strawberry's still in her mouth. She rubs her palms at her eyes, smearing tears over her face in specular streaks.

Pain vanishes and her senses snap back into her consciousness. Blinking a few times to clear her vision, she raises her head out of her palms. Bamboo's emerald eyes stare back into hers from the edge of the table nearest to her.

Fuck, that hurt. Some mental powers interact with her own in weird ways, but that didn't feel like his. Someone else's — maybe one of the staff from the hospital next door. Maybe something worse.

Whatever it is, she isn't messing with that again. So she chews away at the strawberries and plops a couple blueberries onto the stack of pancakes.

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