ext_1044 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
31_days2008-01-22 10:56 pm
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2008-01-22 10:56 pm
[Jan. 22] [D.Gray-Man] End of Days, Part 21
Title: End of Days pt. 21
Day/Theme: Jan. 22/a friendly eye could never see faults
Series: D.Gray-Man
Character/Pairing: Ensemble, with a few OCs.
Rating: R
Part 20
"Are you all right?"
The soft, halting voice was perfectly clear, but Jamie remained still with her forehead against cool stone, and her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"I'm sorry I upset you, but..." A nervous laugh, and Jamie could picture Walker scratching at the back of his head in embarrassment. "I shouldn't have ranted at you like that."
"No, you shouldn't." Jamie rolled stiffly into a sitting position, one elbow propped on her bent leg. "But it was stupid of me to come talk to you. Damn stupid."
Walker didn't seem to know what to make of her. He stood there, shyly, like a schoolboy not sure if he was to expect a praise or caning from his headmaster. He held the golden golem to his chest, and she wasn't sure if he was restraining it or clinging to it for comfort.
"Sounds to me like you forgave Dark, even though he ratted out your friends to the Earl."
Walker hesitated, then nodded.
"Some people might not like that," she continued, "that you up and forgave him without their say-so."
A flicker of something showed under that pensive, hang-dog look. Shame? Fear? Anger? She couldn't pin it down, but then again, she'd never been any good at reading people. For so many years it was just doctors and the kindly masks they put on for the poor, sick child.
"I just... if people care about other people, if there's someone important to them..." He shook his head furiously, and Jamie wondered what the hell was going on in there. Weighty issues, no doubt, the kind that didn't lend themselves to easy explanation.
"You're too kind." It was a phrase that was often meant as a compliment. It wasn't, from her.
She hadn't expected to hear that her father was guilty and then forgiven. A declaration of his innocence, that she could have clung to. Affirmation of his guilt? Well, it would have been one more thing that she could attack and shout down. This, though, she had no idea what to do with. Walker had looked straight past her father's sins and to the reason behind them. How?
Jamie knew she should be touched, or that this should all be some sort of God-damned catharsis or whatever it was. She should bare her soul to Walker and listen to whatever sad, sad story was behind his desperate desire to see the good in people, and then they would both benefit from the impromptu talking cure and it would all be tra-la-la happy again.
Instead, she just wanted to kick the ever-loving shit out of him.
Fortunately for Walker, his skinny little neck was saved by the arrival of a trio of armed guards.
Their initial surprise at the guards' arrival was compounded by the fact that they were all wearing white surgical masks.
"Mister Walker? Miss Rossi? We've been asked to escort you both back to the infirmary."
* * *
Komui put down the phone excruciatingly gently. It was either that or slam it down so hard he drove it straight through the desk and three floors below.
"Leverrier's not happy?" Reever asked.
"What do you think?" Komui's response was unusually acerbic, and Reever wisely chose not to add to the discussion. Leverrier had been more annoyed about Komui's decision to stop research on the Ark than he had being refused entry to the Order. Leverrier's priorities might be skewed, but at least he was wise enough not to insist on being allowed inside a place where there was proven and as of yet uncontrolled infectious disease.
Komui pulled the five sheets of paper Reever had brought to him and arranged them in front of him. There was a long silence as Komui studied the lists for any kind of pattern and Reever carefully did not make any cracks about what it finally took to get Komui to pay attention to his paperwork.
"You made the right call," Reever said, once the quiet became too much for him. He twirled the now-required gauze mask lazily around; both he and Komui had both been around the infected people enough that if this thing was as contagious as it seemed, they were already marked men. "You can't second guess yourself, Komui. Leverrier might think you're jumping the gun on shutting down research just because this isn't smallpox or cholera--"
"That's not it, Reever. I'm second guessing myself because I didn't quarantine things fast enough. The moment Lavi became ill, I should have had that ward segregated." He pulled off his cap and swiped it across his brow. "It shouldn't have gotten this far. We now have twenty people sick," he said, holding up one of the sheets and waving it about. "Twenty that we know of. Ten Finders ill? And not all of them were ones who'd been in the dining room when Kanda was there and Kanda didn't fall ill until later that evening, which means this thing is spreading from victim to victim even before symptoms manifest."
"Can you be sure of that? Kanda would have to have to be practically bleeding out all over the floor before he'd show any weakness." Reever was being damnably reasonable, and it was driving Komui mad.
Komui pinched the bridge of his nose. He had one hell of a headache. Then there was the fact that Kanda's... special circumstances might affect how and when the influenza's symptoms showed up. "Maybe you're right."
"You know I am."
"Symptoms or no symptoms, we should have locked down the infirmary as soon as Lavi became sick." Komui rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the papers. The notes were a mix of Reever's neat but far too small handwriting, his own scrawl, Russell's damnably cryptic abbreviations, and various scattered notes that bore incontrovertible witness to the fact that Tapp was a scientist and not a grammarian.
"Well, that would have done us a fat lot of good if you're right about when this thing spreads, because we were all in and out of there not long before he got sick." He did not mention all the visits they paid to Lenalee and Miranda before and after checking in on the others, but that was what Komui heard. "Then you have Allen heading out before Kanda raised the alarm that Lavi was sick, and don't you think Allen would have said something if there was even the slightest chance one of his friends was ill?"
The list of the sick and who they had encountered (or, to be blunt, could remember encountering) was appalling. The sampling may not have been entirely accurate, but once they'd closed off the various parts of the Order according to quarantine protocol, there were only a few areas that they knew to be potentially free of infection. All of the infirmary personnel were potentially exposed. All of the Finders. Jerry and the most of the support staff day shift were clear, thank heavens, and there was a full third of the research department that should be in the clear.
"We should have immediately isolated everyone who'd been in contact with the Ark the instant they returned," Komui said. "Who knows what was in there? And we should have sequestered Rondine and his crew the instant they showed up."
Reever didn't answer that at first, and Komui took that as affirmation that yes, he had in fact screwed up.
"You didn't know this was going to happen, Komui. There was no call at the time to isolate them, and they're not sick now."
Komui looked up from the papers and glared at him over the top of his glasses. "Do the words 'asymptomatic carrier' have any meaning to you, Reever?"
"Oh, for God's sake, Komui. You did doing everything anyone could ask under the circumstances. This happened so fast we had no chance of catching it. All we can do now is try to stop it, and we're doing that. We've got people looking at blood samples right now, we've got everyone segregated..."
No, he hadn't done everything anyone could ask. The simple truth was, he'd failed. He'd failed Lenalee and he'd failed the exorcists he'd vowed to protect. Lavi, Kanda, and Marie were already desperately ill; Chaoji and Tiedoll had begun showing symptoms the next morning, Cross and Bookman later that afternoon. Chaoji's two friends were among the first of the Finders to fall ill. "You're not going to let me blame myself for this, are you?"
Reever grinned. "Hell, no. You did everything you could be expected to do. And it's not like our friends from the future had anything to say about how we're wiped out by plague in 1898. Which means, that with any luck, this'll blow itself out in a few days, with no one the worse for wear. Knock on wood," he said rapping on his own forehead. "And if there's a cause, we'll find it. We'll find it and we'll do something about it. An inoculation, a serum, something. We'll beat this." He pulled his mask back on and nodded farewell before heading back to the labs to help with the research.
Reever's confidence in him was encouraging, Komui supposed, but it was cold comfort to know that you would be spared a plague now so that people could be chewed up sixteen years from now by the war to end all wars.
Part 22 (Goes to my fic journal, and uses the prompt from Jan. 13, which I skipped at the time)
Day/Theme: Jan. 22/a friendly eye could never see faults
Series: D.Gray-Man
Character/Pairing: Ensemble, with a few OCs.
Rating: R
Part 20
"Are you all right?"
The soft, halting voice was perfectly clear, but Jamie remained still with her forehead against cool stone, and her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"I'm sorry I upset you, but..." A nervous laugh, and Jamie could picture Walker scratching at the back of his head in embarrassment. "I shouldn't have ranted at you like that."
"No, you shouldn't." Jamie rolled stiffly into a sitting position, one elbow propped on her bent leg. "But it was stupid of me to come talk to you. Damn stupid."
Walker didn't seem to know what to make of her. He stood there, shyly, like a schoolboy not sure if he was to expect a praise or caning from his headmaster. He held the golden golem to his chest, and she wasn't sure if he was restraining it or clinging to it for comfort.
"Sounds to me like you forgave Dark, even though he ratted out your friends to the Earl."
Walker hesitated, then nodded.
"Some people might not like that," she continued, "that you up and forgave him without their say-so."
A flicker of something showed under that pensive, hang-dog look. Shame? Fear? Anger? She couldn't pin it down, but then again, she'd never been any good at reading people. For so many years it was just doctors and the kindly masks they put on for the poor, sick child.
"I just... if people care about other people, if there's someone important to them..." He shook his head furiously, and Jamie wondered what the hell was going on in there. Weighty issues, no doubt, the kind that didn't lend themselves to easy explanation.
"You're too kind." It was a phrase that was often meant as a compliment. It wasn't, from her.
She hadn't expected to hear that her father was guilty and then forgiven. A declaration of his innocence, that she could have clung to. Affirmation of his guilt? Well, it would have been one more thing that she could attack and shout down. This, though, she had no idea what to do with. Walker had looked straight past her father's sins and to the reason behind them. How?
Jamie knew she should be touched, or that this should all be some sort of God-damned catharsis or whatever it was. She should bare her soul to Walker and listen to whatever sad, sad story was behind his desperate desire to see the good in people, and then they would both benefit from the impromptu talking cure and it would all be tra-la-la happy again.
Instead, she just wanted to kick the ever-loving shit out of him.
Fortunately for Walker, his skinny little neck was saved by the arrival of a trio of armed guards.
Their initial surprise at the guards' arrival was compounded by the fact that they were all wearing white surgical masks.
"Mister Walker? Miss Rossi? We've been asked to escort you both back to the infirmary."
* * *
Komui put down the phone excruciatingly gently. It was either that or slam it down so hard he drove it straight through the desk and three floors below.
"Leverrier's not happy?" Reever asked.
"What do you think?" Komui's response was unusually acerbic, and Reever wisely chose not to add to the discussion. Leverrier had been more annoyed about Komui's decision to stop research on the Ark than he had being refused entry to the Order. Leverrier's priorities might be skewed, but at least he was wise enough not to insist on being allowed inside a place where there was proven and as of yet uncontrolled infectious disease.
Komui pulled the five sheets of paper Reever had brought to him and arranged them in front of him. There was a long silence as Komui studied the lists for any kind of pattern and Reever carefully did not make any cracks about what it finally took to get Komui to pay attention to his paperwork.
"You made the right call," Reever said, once the quiet became too much for him. He twirled the now-required gauze mask lazily around; both he and Komui had both been around the infected people enough that if this thing was as contagious as it seemed, they were already marked men. "You can't second guess yourself, Komui. Leverrier might think you're jumping the gun on shutting down research just because this isn't smallpox or cholera--"
"That's not it, Reever. I'm second guessing myself because I didn't quarantine things fast enough. The moment Lavi became ill, I should have had that ward segregated." He pulled off his cap and swiped it across his brow. "It shouldn't have gotten this far. We now have twenty people sick," he said, holding up one of the sheets and waving it about. "Twenty that we know of. Ten Finders ill? And not all of them were ones who'd been in the dining room when Kanda was there and Kanda didn't fall ill until later that evening, which means this thing is spreading from victim to victim even before symptoms manifest."
"Can you be sure of that? Kanda would have to have to be practically bleeding out all over the floor before he'd show any weakness." Reever was being damnably reasonable, and it was driving Komui mad.
Komui pinched the bridge of his nose. He had one hell of a headache. Then there was the fact that Kanda's... special circumstances might affect how and when the influenza's symptoms showed up. "Maybe you're right."
"You know I am."
"Symptoms or no symptoms, we should have locked down the infirmary as soon as Lavi became sick." Komui rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the papers. The notes were a mix of Reever's neat but far too small handwriting, his own scrawl, Russell's damnably cryptic abbreviations, and various scattered notes that bore incontrovertible witness to the fact that Tapp was a scientist and not a grammarian.
"Well, that would have done us a fat lot of good if you're right about when this thing spreads, because we were all in and out of there not long before he got sick." He did not mention all the visits they paid to Lenalee and Miranda before and after checking in on the others, but that was what Komui heard. "Then you have Allen heading out before Kanda raised the alarm that Lavi was sick, and don't you think Allen would have said something if there was even the slightest chance one of his friends was ill?"
The list of the sick and who they had encountered (or, to be blunt, could remember encountering) was appalling. The sampling may not have been entirely accurate, but once they'd closed off the various parts of the Order according to quarantine protocol, there were only a few areas that they knew to be potentially free of infection. All of the infirmary personnel were potentially exposed. All of the Finders. Jerry and the most of the support staff day shift were clear, thank heavens, and there was a full third of the research department that should be in the clear.
"We should have immediately isolated everyone who'd been in contact with the Ark the instant they returned," Komui said. "Who knows what was in there? And we should have sequestered Rondine and his crew the instant they showed up."
Reever didn't answer that at first, and Komui took that as affirmation that yes, he had in fact screwed up.
"You didn't know this was going to happen, Komui. There was no call at the time to isolate them, and they're not sick now."
Komui looked up from the papers and glared at him over the top of his glasses. "Do the words 'asymptomatic carrier' have any meaning to you, Reever?"
"Oh, for God's sake, Komui. You did doing everything anyone could ask under the circumstances. This happened so fast we had no chance of catching it. All we can do now is try to stop it, and we're doing that. We've got people looking at blood samples right now, we've got everyone segregated..."
No, he hadn't done everything anyone could ask. The simple truth was, he'd failed. He'd failed Lenalee and he'd failed the exorcists he'd vowed to protect. Lavi, Kanda, and Marie were already desperately ill; Chaoji and Tiedoll had begun showing symptoms the next morning, Cross and Bookman later that afternoon. Chaoji's two friends were among the first of the Finders to fall ill. "You're not going to let me blame myself for this, are you?"
Reever grinned. "Hell, no. You did everything you could be expected to do. And it's not like our friends from the future had anything to say about how we're wiped out by plague in 1898. Which means, that with any luck, this'll blow itself out in a few days, with no one the worse for wear. Knock on wood," he said rapping on his own forehead. "And if there's a cause, we'll find it. We'll find it and we'll do something about it. An inoculation, a serum, something. We'll beat this." He pulled his mask back on and nodded farewell before heading back to the labs to help with the research.
Reever's confidence in him was encouraging, Komui supposed, but it was cold comfort to know that you would be spared a plague now so that people could be chewed up sixteen years from now by the war to end all wars.
Part 22 (Goes to my fic journal, and uses the prompt from Jan. 13, which I skipped at the time)