Beyond What's Known

Chapter 13

thanks for your patience while art fight was going on! i did a ton of slugterra stuff so check out https://artfight.net/~CyanSparks :)

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"Yeah, that's okay. You guys can keep chatting, just catch me up later," Alana told the gang. They all nodded, seeming unbothered - Sam wanting to talk with Alana wasn't exactly anything out of the ordinary. She was an honorary older sister at this point.

Alana stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. She expected to just stop in the hallway to chat with Sam, but Sam walked her down the hall to the third (and last) room, which was where Kord and Pronto had been prior to rejoining Eli, Trixie, and Alana. There was a bed and a futon, and both Alana and Sam sat on the futon once Sam closed the door.

"Is everything okay?" Alana asked, confused as to why whatever they were going to talk about warranted this much privacy.

"Yeah, sorry, everything's fine, I just didn't want to talk in front of everyone," Sam said, bouncing her leg nervously. Alana saw that as a sign that everything wasn't fine, but she didn't comment. "Well, Junjie still has some minor injuries that didn't get healed from whatever Boon Doc shot he had earlier."

"But he walked all the way here from the King of Sling's!" Alana said worriedly, her heart dropping. "He didn't seem like he was still hurt. I think? I wasn't really... focused. But Trixie was there too, I'm sure she would've seen. She would've said something. Mage has literally just been on my shoulder, he knew I had her, why wouldn't he say anything?"

Sam looked a little relieved at Alana's reaction, which Alana didn't quite understand, but she didn't question it.

"He, um- I'm not saying you did anything wrong," Sam began.

"That's not a great start to whatever you're about to say," Alana laughed nervously, glancing down at Mage, who shrugged, looking just as genuinely confused as Alana felt.

"Sorry," Sam sighed. "It's a weird situation. He purposefully didn't say anything because it's you who had Mage. He didn't want to ask you for help. He seems to think you're scared of him, or at the very least don't like him."

Alana winced and sighed, letting her face drop into her hands. Guilt immediately gnawed at her - if Junjie "seemed" to think she was scared of him, instead of knowing she was scared of him, he clearly didn't remember his attack on the West. So as far as he was aware, Alana was a stranger who disliked him for no reason. Or at the very least, for attacking her and her friends, which clearly wasn't his doing.

She was scared of Junjie. It was the same kind of instinctive fear anyone would feel when facing someone they knew had done them harm in the past, regardless of whether or not it had been purposeful. The same instinctive fear that a smaller part of her brain felt when she was staring down the barrel of a blaster, even though she knew that with her skills and her team she'd be okay.

But that didn't mean she disliked him. From what Alana had been able to see of the real Junjie, and not the possessed version, he was kind and passionate about keeping others safe from the Goon, which was a goal she could get behind. It certainly didn't mean she would ever deny him medical care.

"So from your reaction I guess you've already got an idea what he's on about?" Sam asked gently.

Unsure how to respond and ashamed she'd made Junjie feel like he couldn't ask her for help, Alana just shrugged and nodded, keeping her face in her hands.

"He told me about how you were acting around him. It sounded like Trixie had to guide you back here from the King's mansion. From the sound of it, you were dissociating the whole way. And even when you got back here, he said you seemed jittery," Sam continued. "Jumpy, and you wouldn't look at him when you talked to him."