The White Wolves

Comprehending

Shuri
I couldn't take my eyes off her to do anything but blink. I just wanted it to not be her; but it was not in my power to change who had to endure this torture. The girl I love had to endure and endure, endure pain and endure anxiety. It was our fault, the fault of those remarkable enough to change the world, but whether we had caused a positive or negative wave To flow through society was yet to be seen. We were a threat, a threat people wanted to match. We the  new nuclear bomb.

Convulsions, fever, shivering... Then screaming. Horrible, agony-filled screaming, like that of a dying animal, raw and untamed. I wanted to shut it out but I couldn't ignore her pain, couldn't be as cruel as the doctors who refused to talk to my brother and offered no respite from the pain they caused. My brother knew me well, and didn't offer for me to go with him into the separate room we had been given, instead he stayed with me and curled up on the floor with me, resting my head on his chest.

Finally, the screaming ended as abrupt in its seising as it was in its commencement. At this I practically leaped up from the floor and cautiously walked to Bucky's side.

His face was haggard, the effort of keeping impervious to self-harm had exhausted him to the point of insanity. I could have said, "sleep, let me watch her," or "you didn't have to stay up." Instead I found my voice issuing a impetuous, "Thank you," as if it me he had guided through the pits of hell and not her.

He was too tired to reply in length, instead resorting to a nod that told her more than he could with words. He knew. He knew how I felt about her and I knew he would stand beside us, as long as a 100 year old star spangled man wasn't on the other side of the field.

"Maya?" I asked, her almost golden eyes were closed but she was not in a slumber as every few seconds she let out a whimper that hurt me even more than the screams. The pain had not lessened, her will had simply left her to the mercy of her demons. I got no response,  my voice not capable of cauterising her wounds.

I rounded the bed, noticing how thin the mattress was that she had spent weeks of discomfort on was. I approached my regular residence in the despised chair that left a crook in my back and a crack in your barely beating heart.

I couldn't let myself sit there as if we were playing another pointless game that meant nothing in the greater scheme of things. I thought of T'Challa and how he used to lie with me when I was ill and how much better it would make me feel to share body heat as if it were love. Admittedly, that had only ever been a common cold as we had cured pretty much everything else, but I then thought of Maya, an only child. An orphan. Someone who had only felt her own body heat for the last two years. Someone who had before our arrival had felt no love for too long.

Her body was only filing half of the bed, Bucky's side, leaving a human sized gap tantalisingly close. One of the other girls had braided my hair earlier that day and I was glad of it then, there was no awkward buns or ponytails getting in the way. I collapsed by her side, tentatively lowering my head onto her chest, feeling the reassuring rise and fall of her breathing. While I settled down, she relaxed, the sobs became less frequent and the rise and fall got less drastic and rapid.

Eventually, the sobs stopped all together and I glanced up to see her eyes open, tears cascading in silent waterfalls. At first I was concerned but then she smiled slightly and I noticed... she was looking at me.

She felt this too, this rightness, like the tent pegs of life had finally been bashed into place. That it was the others hand who held the mallet.

With her there, I slept in relative peace.

Maya

With her there, I slept despite the pain.
************************************
Shuri
I woke with the light, the cheap curtains blocking a limited amount of the morning rays. My eyes were fixated on her chest in sleep and I was greeted by the gradual rise and fall that reminded me of the birds of prey that circled on the thermals at home. Then my calm was interrupted by a tsunami of sensory information. Something wasn't right. It was like when I woke, my abdomen swollen and cramping, having soaked the sheets with unwanted crimson.

It was exactly like that, the putrid stickiness, the metallic smell one hundred times worse. So much worse.

I bolted upright a horse from the blocks, spurred on by the fear of the whip. My back and legs were sodden with the stuff, my clothing stuff with time.

Blood... and it wasn't mine.

I could feel my heart in my mouth as I screamed a different scream to those that prevented our slumber the night previously. Filled with terror, not for my own life but for a love that I only just discovered. Bucky woke first, his sleep being the lightest, sometimes he really was wolf like. My brother was second and to my most unerring mollification he was lifting my shaking from the sheets just as Bucky's hand slammed down upon the blazing panic button.

The metallic screeching that ensued drowned out my whimpering as I sobbed into my brothers shoulder. White coats and scrubs filled the room and it took all my strength to focus on one thought. The machines hadn't gone off, I had watched the rise and fall, she was alive. I thanked Bast for those cheap curtains as Maya was swarmed by people of all shapes and sides, her friends being pushed back and away. Those who she would look to for help unable to do so.

An authoritative looking male, left Maya's bedside, my views blocked body mass, he approached my brother, still holding me in his arms as easily as the first time he did so, and whispered something inaudible in his ear. My brother nodded, forcing me to wait longer for the alleviation of my grief.

"There is not a scratch on her," T'Challa  told me making it clear that the confusion I felt was mutual. "The blood is at least two hours old, it's like she cut herself and healed within the space of an hour. He said it seemed to originate from her back but there is nothing but scars there now."

Relief replaced the adrenaline pumping around my system.