Shadows Over Camp Darkness

All Quiet

The second week of the Camp started off suspiciously tame. Gideon held her temper surprisingly well once she regained consciousness, not at all exploding into righteous anger like Virgil had feared; instead she calmly accepted the loss of her eye as well as the fact that he had tricked her. And Virgil wasn’t sure if this eerie calm was due to her preoccupation with the Hell Cat, or an attempt to lure him into complacency until she could wreak proper revenge. Almost more unsettling than Gideon’s calm acceptance was the fact that she did not argue with Healer Tenu, and stayed in the Healing Ward for the first two days of week two. It was without a doubt the most boring pair of days Virgil had ever endured at the Camp. Worse yet, Gideon’s Intake seemed to wilt without her around to galvanize them in her own unique way. Hasselberry tried to connect with them but it was fairly obvious that the Dragon had given these kids to Gideon for a reason; each in their own way needed her.

All of that made things a little awkwardly tense as Gideon walked into the Mess and Meet on Wednesday, a bandage across her savaged eye and the angry red scratched down her face only partially Healed. Normally Portentums would surreptitiously watch her out of fear and fascination; now all eyes were on her in stunned shock. The Fury seemed completely unaware of the attention as she casually swaggered in, ignoring the painful silence as she sat with her friends.

“So no one’s going to crack a Nick Fury joke on me? Come on people, it’s the perfect opportunity!” Gideon smirked as she joked, rewarded with awkward laughter .  

“Well unlike you Madam Cyclops, it takes some of us an adjustment period.” Xavier recovered first and joked back at the Fury. Virgil felt his jaw tighten in frustration. Part of him wanted to get mad at the others for being able to joke, and the rest of him was actually a little fearful of bringing his lovers attention to him because she still hadn’t given any kind of reaction to being knocked out.

“Yeah I know I’m about as pretty as you are now Xav, but you still seem to get tail on a regular basis so I’m not too worried about my chances.” Gideon shrugged with another grin. It was a little painful to watch because the scar tissue forming on her face now twisted her smile into more of a grimace than grin.

“Is there a reason your remaining eye has gone from regular to pure black? Normally you don’t rock the full Fury look so obviously.” Lisa asked, voice forcefully easy sounding.

“The eyeball popped and was unsalvageable, but something about being a Fury means I can still see with both sides of my face as long as I’m going for the whole spectrum. Black eyes lets me see without walking into furniture.” Gideon answered and received shocked silence in response.

Even Virgil hadn’t known that she could do that without the eyeball being there anymore. “How’s the pain?” he finally asked, knowing more than the others how badly it had to still hurt. He knew his Fury love well enough to realize she would refuse pain killers.

He was sitting on what was now officially her bad side, so Gideon had to swivel her whole body to look at him with her ‘good’ eye. “Nothing I can’t manage. Healer Tenu did a thing, so now I just have to eat almost my entire body weight in food for the next while. Doc told me that you’ve been playing babysitter to the Hell Kittens for me while I was locked away. Thanks.” She seemed perfectly cordial and it made Virgil nearly die inside. She was acting like she had back before they’d become a couple; polite, friendly and distant. Worse yet was the sympathy he spotted in Lisa and Xavier’s faces as they seemed to pick up on it too.