Phoenix's Lies

Flatline....

(For during and after Elena's death) 

Phoenix

The next few weeks are hard to get through, even before it takes a turn for the worse. Lena's condition remains stable but not in a way that makes it any better. Rather she remains in critical condition. Holding on to life as best she can, even when it looks more and more likely that she won't make it. No matter how much we all wish she would. For Riv.

That's the other hard part, watching how this breaks the one girl I love more than anything else. More than when I left five years ago. Than her mom's abusive behaviour. Even than what happened to her with her ex since her sister was everything to her. Her siblings' deaths had been hard since I'd seen the unofficial reports saying all died from 'accidents', but I know from seeing her that Lena....Lena was her whole world.

She spirals more as the weeks go by. Nightmares almost every night. Screaming and crying when she woke up to the point that some nights even I couldn't help her. Her appetite vanished again too, though that could be to do with when she was drinking. Something she did more and more of. Letting me watch as she slipped, just like Ari once said she did after we fought and she hid from the pain behind drugs and alcohol. Just to get through the day and attempt to hold onto the idea that she might not lose her sister. Her family.

That didn't mean it wasn't hard. Isn't hard. To watch her lose herself again, even if just a little, since she didn't shut the rest of us out. Not like before when her problems caused her to pull into herself. Instead, I found her looking for me more and more as the days went by. Looking to see if she could find a way to forget, to live in the moment and get through the day.

"Is she still not in school again?" Ari asks one morning about two weeks after Riv woke up, standing by my locker as I watch the doorway, hoping she'll walk through, even if alone. Ari sighs. "I hate seeing her like this."

I slam the locker door shut and see the world tunnel in as I fixate on it. Clenching my fists to see if I can work through something in my head to avoid breaking something. "I-I can't help her Ari. I-I don't know what to do to help her and it's killing me that I have to just sit there and watch. I just wish I had a way to help." I sigh, closing my eyes and punching the locker door hard enough to send a wave of pain up my arm. But it feels good, a reminder that I'm here. So I do it again. And again and again. Until Ari stops me by putting her hand in front of it and I feel something inside me stop before I hurt her. "I just wish I could help her with this."

Ari sighs again. "We all do Nix. Trust me we're all trying to help her but we don't know what it's like so it's hard. We've never had to stare into the face of something we can't control all for the last of those we were born with, that we love in a way that's never complicated, never impure. Not like this. That's what's messing with her. She wants to save her sister but cancer isn't something we can just wish away. No matter how much those of us watching on the outside wish we could, for those stuck living it." Her tone is sad and I can only guess why.

I let out a breath then, trying to uncoil the tension I can feel inside. Relaxing my hands to feel the blood where my knuckles have split. Seeing how the locker door is dented. "I would if I could. I would take it all away. She loves Lena. I can't bear to see her this sad. This will break her Ari. More than anything else this is what he can do to break her. And he knows it. He knew that if what happened with me didn't do it, then taking Lena from her would since he'd seen how close they were. Are."

Ari looks over her shoulder and I see her share a look with Hunt who seems sadder than usual. A strained look in his eye that I don't recognise. "Is she still at the hospital?" She turns back to me and I nod, having heard Riv when she woke up at six am. Not that I know why. "Go, be with her. I can cover for you two, Hunt will help." Again her eyes flash to her twin and I see him look up, nodding. I frown about to protest when Ari shakes her head, pulling me in for a hug so she can whisper the next words to me. "They don't think Elena has long left, go be with her, she needs you."