Afterlife

13

Connie waited a few minutes after Hitori left before finally allowing her guard to drop enough for her to go and check on Fiara, who was still sitting on the ground beside the trunk of the tree, holding her pain filled wrist and staring at the ground with a dumbfounded look. An understandable reaction after what had just occurred, and what she'd just learned. 'That monster trained him? How... why... how could Santino have ever trusted that man? Perhaps Hitori was lying. It wouldn't be out of character after all. But the way he moved when he fought... the way he was able to analyze my fighting style so quickly and figure out a way to beat me... even the way he stood, with his hands buried in his pockets... it was all so familiar... too familiar.'

"Hey, you alright?" Connie asked as she dropped to one knee beside her friend, keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings, just in case Hitori was still nearby, waiting for a good moment to strike. Fiara heard her, but the sound of her voice was different than she remembered at first. When Connie first began speaking, her voice sounded like it was far off, almost like she was hearing it from underwater, but then it cleared up when she finally had the courage to lift her gaze from the forest floor and look at Connie's face, which almost instantly made her feel safe once more. "We should really go. We're too exposed here," Connie added as she stood up, offering Fiara a hand as she added, "I hope you can walk, because you're too tall for my four eleven ass to carry." Fiara was only about five four in height, but her build was much stronger than Connie's, especially after all the training she'd undergone with Marcus over the past few weeks, so it would make carrying her quite difficult for someone of Connie's size and build.

"I can walk," Fiara confirmed as she accepted Connie's hand, allowing her to aid in her rise from the ground.

"Great, now let's get a move on," Connie said once Fiara was finally on her feet once more, "Let's get back to the hub, and I'll fix you up," she added making a face as she finally noticed the deep scrape on Fiara's left cheek, which was now full of little bits of bark and moss from being pressed up against the tree for so long. She then held her hand and they began making their way back to the treehouse, still keeping a watchful eye out for any sudden moves on Hitori's part.

As they walked, Fiara looked over her shoulder back at the tree one more time as she considered everything that had just happened, and what could have happened if Connie hadn't shown up when she did. 'Would he have killed me? I didn't even know who he was, so there wasn't any chance of me knowing that he was violating his banishment agreement, or whatever Connie said. Then again, he seemed like the sort of guy that would hurt someone just to see the look on their face when he did. Like he enjoyed the shocked expressions on their faces when he betrayed their trust and scared the living daylights out of them.' It's hard to tell what would have happened if Connie hadn't intervened, but it wasn't something she wanted to dwell upon a second longer, so she turned her gaze away from the tree as she continued to follow Connie back to the treehouse, wishing that this horrible day had never happened.

"I'm no doctor, but Xavier taught me a few things, just in case situations like this would occur while he wasn't around," Connie said as she flicked on the lights in the small medical center of the hub. Due to Xavier being a med, he was permitted to have a small medical center at the treehouse. So the team converted one of the rooms in the hub into just that, making sure that anything he was permitted to have was stocked in the room for his convenience.

"So stuff like this happens often for you guys?" Fiara questioned as she made her way over to the nearest chair and sat down, still holding her injured wrist.

"Well its sort of an occupational hazard when you're an IP," Connie said with a sigh as she removed a medical kit from a cupboard, placing it on the table beside Fiara as she looked down at her wrist. "We've had to patch ourselves up quite a few times after missions, and sometimes even during missions. Thankfully Xavier is pretty good at both. Let me see your wrist," she added as she put out a hand, gesturing for her to place her injured one in it for her to inspect.