Pass the orange juice

 

“Pass the orange juice will you,” Gary says impatiently, “there is plenty of time for googly eyes after breakfast, and I’m thirsty, damnit.”

 

“Not to mention whiny,” Luke mutters as Sera sends the pitcher spinning in Gary’s general direction, eyes far less googly than steely.

 

Jase snorts into his toast, spraying his plate with the watery strawberry jam Luke had been bitching about just moments before. He ruins the sarcasm expressed via subpar foodstuffs when he chokes on his next bite.

 

“Serves you right,” Luke tells him, once he has stopped laughing at Jase’s plight. Jase steals his cherished cherry yogurt, replacing it with his own hated peach; he rightly figures this is revenge enough.

 

“Children,” Donner says sternly, “don’t make me beat you in public.”

 

The alarmed look the party seated to their left gives them is almost worth the apple juice showered on them by Atlas, apparently too startled by this announcement to control his gag reflex. Fosher shakes his head sadly, but welcomes more proof to support his hypothesis that Captain Reller willfully contributes to the de-corruption of unsuspecting minors.

 

“Anyone know if we’re sticking to the same groups as yesterday?” Des asks, “because if I have to hear Connor make any more snide comments about Jamie’s remarkable resemblance to those zombie patients, I really can’t be held responsible for any outbursts involving sharp implements and his spleen.”

 

“Uh,” Sera says, looking around the table for any sort of clue. When she comes up empty handed, she frowns at Donner, “where are they anyway?”

 

He shrugs, taking a bite out of his bagel, taking careful note of the way Sera’s eyes cross slightly when she notices the cream cheese under the jam. “Stop coveting my breakfast.”

 

“It’s not my fault that lug,” she whines, gesturing sharply at Gary with her spoonful of granola, “took the last bagel.”

 

“Yeah, because you were too busy drooling over Fosher to answer when I asked if you wanted it, or could I have a second,” Gary says. “And stop throwing food at me.”

 

“At least she’s not spitting it at you,” Luke says, eyeing Atlas nastily as he tries to dry the large splash of juice that homed in on the sleeve of his uniform.

 

“Galligher, Jon, and Paten aren’t here either,” Atlas says, choosing to ignore Luke’s obvious attempt at baiting him into doing something stupid with Jase sitting right across the table from him.

 

“And my heart is breaking,” Luke tells him, voice waterhole after the elephants’ bath day dry at Atlas’s cheap show of maturity.

 

Tomas looks up from his studious demolishing of a plate overflowing with eggs and bacon, his stomach growling from weeks of Atlas and Galligher’s attempt at cooking, worthy of that name only because he remembers what happened to Luke, or, rather, Luke’s hair, when he dared to mention the similarities Atlas’s oatmeal and swamp goo shared. “My best guess is they’re terrorizing anyone they can find to get it out of their systems before the hospital,” he says. “The lieutenant commander accompanying us promised to show Connor the morgue incinerator if he could keep his fingers out of patients, and hospital property.”

 

“Oh,” Sera says, “I suppose that makes sense…” her voice trails off as she frowns, certain there was something wrong with that sentence, but unable to put her fing— “Hang on, out of patients’ belongings?”

 

“No,” Tomas says, “we came in just as a nurse was changing a dressing on some poor sod with third degree burns up and down his arms. Connor decided he just had to know what charred flesh really felt like.”

 

“Omigod,” Fosher says, lurching from his chair and sprinting for the washroom. Sera glances down at his plate, eyeing the half-eaten strip of bacon Fosher had been working on when Tomas decided to share. She shrugs, and stabs it with her fork, helping herself to the rest of his breakfast.

 

Tomas blinks at the empty seat, vaguely aware of the turmoil behind him as several waiters rush to help the elderly gentleman Fosher had bowled over in his haste. “What’s all that about?” He asks around a mouthful of fried eggs, dripping sunny yellow yolk on his chin.

 

“Fosh is a pansy,” Sera tells him, “you’ve got some egg, just… there, yeah.”

 

“You might also say that he’s not exactly used to burnt-out people husks,” Donner points out, “unlike the rest of you freaks.”

 

“Oh, come on,” Des says, “how are we more familiar with it than him?”

 

Donner shakes his head sadly, realizing that once again, the job of being the voice of reason has fallen to him. “Sera and Tomas are fire, so, obviously. Jase, Bella, and Atlas are life; they are used to bodies in all states of decay, well Atlas might have already met his quota of shocked and appalled for the week. Gary’s dark side, and you and Luke are just crazy.”

 

“Hey!” Luke says, “I resent that, I’ll have you know.”

 

“You’re denying that you’re out of your mind?”

 

“Well, no,” Luke admits, “but we aren’t ‘just crazy,’ well, maybe Des is, — anyway, the point still stands: there is nothing normal about our insanity.”

 

“Ain’t that the truth,” Jase mutters into his coffee. He fields Luke’s stink eye with a flat look. “Don’t even think about kicking me; if I spill boiling hot coffee it won’t be in my lap.”

 

0---

 

“Commander Byuuta, good morning, sir,” Donner says, saluting neatly. Melanie and Galligher quickly follow suit and Sera nods distractedly.

 

Luke just sort of waves, yawning into his elbow.

 

Jase hovers.

 

“Dr. Charter, Captain Reimer, Captain Westerly,” Byuuta says cordially, apparently unaware they are not exactly engaged in the conversation. “And a good morning to you as well Donner, how’s the knee?”

 

“Better than yesterday,” Donner confides, “I actually got some sleep last night.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Locked Connor and Jamie in the washroom with a dresser strategically positioned in front of the door.”

 

Byuuta fights to suppress a wide smile, having finished rounds last evening only to have to calm his staff into the wee hours of the morning, begging, bribing, and blackmailing in turn to make sure they showed up for work. He hopes Gunner remembers to have his floor nurse keep an eye on Dr. Cray, the lieutenant assigned to the molested patient.

 

“Fucking hell,” Jase says, anger forcing the words past lips pressed too tight for clear, concise pronunciation.

 

A nurse behind the main desk looks up from the intake form she is completing for a Runner with a broken hand, promising death and colonoscopies without sedative for anyone who dare curse on her wing.

 

Jase, predictably, doesn’t notice.

 

“What’s wrong?” Byuuta asks, quick to spot the flecks of blood on Luke’s lips, bare elbow.

 

Jase narrows his eyes at Luke, “good question. What’d you forget?”

 

“Coags,” Luke tells him, eyes hard, daring him to make a big deal of it now, here.

 

“Christ,” Jase says, and his shoulders are square, unmoving. “We’re in a hospital,” he says, “just like we were yesterday. Did it never occur to you to, I don’t know, say something.”

 

“Uhm,” Melanie says, looking to Sera, who shakes her head briskly, never taking her eyes off Luke.

 

Donner takes a step forward, resting an easy hand on Jase’s shoulder. “Not now?” he asks Jase quietly, “if only because the orderlies don’t have the time to spare to mop up the bloodbath before someone slips.”

 

“Fine,” Jase says, “fine. But don’t think this lets you off the hook,” he tells Luke, “because you might as well be strung up by your ankles.”

 

Luke scowls at the warm hand Jase closes around his wrist, feeling the echo of his rapid heartbeat against Jase’s palm. He frowns, however, when Jase blanches, beads of sweat at his hairline, giving off a pearly white glow. “Jase,” he says, trying to pry his hand away, “stop, stop whatever you’re doing right now.”

 

He zaps him for emphasis, the flare of lightning swallowed up in the milky glow.

 

It does its job, breaks Jase’s concentration, and he blinks his muddy green eyes into focus. He regains his color quickly, stops glowing, and stares at Luke’s hand in his. “Did you shock me?”

 

“Yes,” Luke says.

 

“Why?”

 

“If I may,” Byuuta interrupts, “you were bleeding. Energy, that is. It’s my fault, I forgot to tell you.”

 

“Tell me what?” Jase asks, voice dangerously even. Even Luke takes a quick step back.

 

“There’s a dampener over this entire hospital, seven actually, woven together into Jacob’s Pattern,” Byuuta explains. “It’s the only reason all my doctors and nurses are still alive. Jacob’s Pattern is the only thing that keeps it at bay. We were lucky to discover it when we did, the Second Fleet Hospital, at Cataplaar, had already closed, and Fifth was only a few days from joining them.”

 

Crossing his arms tight across his chest, Jase is not amused. “Jacob’s pattern,” he says, “over a hospital? What is the fucking point?”

 

“Excuse me,” the duty nurse says, “but this is civilization, if you hadn’t noticed.”

 

Byuuta brings a hand to rub at his forehead, “Nurse Faynn, I really don’t thi—”

 

“If you hadn’t noticed,” Jase echoes scathingly, razor sharp words slicing neatly through Dr. Byuuta’s peacekeeping, “I don’t give a flying fuck what you think, and there is nothing civilized about Jacob’s Pattern, you ignorant harpy.”

 

“Oh shit,” Sera mutters.

 

“It’s a damn good thing it’s here,” Faynn replies, rising to her feet behind the high desk, “so you Hatter filth don’t contaminate us.”

 

“That is enough!” Byuuta shouts, knuckles white, cheeks red as he breaks line of sight with his angled shoulders. “Nurse, I think it’s time you find the WO a bed, so I can have a word with you in private. Lieutenant, the pharmacy is two floors up; you can find the coagulants you need there.”

 

0---

 

“Sir, I—”

 

“Do you have any idea who that was?” Byuuta asks. “Any idea at all who you interrupted and insulted?”

 

Faynn stands up straighter, frowning, “I wouldn’t think it matters,” she says, “being disruptive is against hospital regulations.”

 

“Jase Charter,” Dr. Byuuta says, ignoring her. “I had to beg for them to send him here at all, let alone have him as a visiting fellow for an entire two weeks.”

 

“He’s a Hatter,” Faynn says, her h's harsh and blurred in the manner of Fell’s eastern quarter, “he shouldn’t be here at all.”

 

“I could have you removed,” Byuuta says flatly, lab coat not so much draping as hanging in crisp, clean lines unbroken by his once stocky frame. “It is also against hospital regulations to discriminate against patients or colleagues on any line.”

 

Faynn’s mouth settles into a hard line, her eyes lazily smug. “No, you couldn’t.”

 

0---

 

“’m sorry,” Luke mutters into a sleeve, wiping the specks of blood from his lips and chin with a reluctant forearm.

 

Jase sighs, looping an arm over Luke’s shoulders, pulling him tightly into his side, where he proceeds to slowly suffocate him, just because he can. “S’alright,” he says, “really.”

 

“Mmphm,” Luke replies, elbowing him in the ribs.

 

“Sorry, what was that?” Jase says brightly, “you’re cold? Should have said something.” Luke’s nose is mashed into his collarbone, his forehead inches from his chin when Jase again tightens his grip. Luke responds in the only way he can.

 

Jase screeches and shoves him across the elevator. “Biting!”

 

“What?” Luke asks, hand sliding up to shove the hair now hanging in his eyes behind his ears. It flops back.

 

“You bit me,” Jase accuses hotly, “with your teeth.”

 

“Not with my nose, then?”

 

“You—”

 

The elevator door slides back mid-splutter, a bright ding announcing their arrival on the fifth floor.

 

Luke follows Jase out onto the floor with a snicker.

 

0---

 

“Uh,” Galligher says, eyes focusing blankly on Dr. Byuuta’s retreating back, “what are we supposed to do?”

 

Sera shrugs, “bet there’s lollipops behind that desk.”

 

“Yeah,” Donner says, “for children.”

 

They look between each other, the floor, and the distant wall of glass washed in heavy rain.

 

There is a scene developing just inside room 308, someone stumbles backwards through the doorway.

 

A nurse clicks down the right hand side of the wide floor, examining a clipboard covered in lines of neon yellow highlighter.

 

“What just happened?” Melanie asks.

 

0---

 

“It’s been a long time since I was last in Lokinglas,” Jase says, glancing around them with curious eyes seeking out oddities, ears fine-tuned for drama.

 

“I know,” Luke says, tucked in beside him as they wait for the crowd to clear. They had quickly determined that 9:45 am was shoot-up time for the second floor, if the gaggle of nurses and their nametags surrounding the pharmacy could be trusted. “I was with you, do you remember? After.” He ducks his head, obviously conducting a thorough inspection of his left boot buckle.

 

Jase sighs, nudges him with a soft elbow. “Unless you plan to actually do something about how grimy that’s getting, stop giving it the third degree; you’re probably frightening the poor thing.”

 

Luke does not bother dignifying that with even a skeptical glance out of the corner of his eye. Instead, he uproots his focus, hauls it all the way up to just above the right knee of his pants, and expects it to just keep on going like nothing has changed, in this unfamiliar location, where no one knows it, right in the middle of the school year. He thinks he might have mixed his metaphors somewhere in there.

 

“It’s alright,” Jase says, “I don’t mind talking about it. It’d be nice to have a chance to remember her with someone who actually knew her.”

 

“Knew her might be stretching it,” Luke points out, still riveted by the gradually spreading threadbare patch. “I spent a grand total of eighteen days with her, in two years.”

 

“She loved you though.”

 

The tips of Luke’s ears go red, and he continues to refuse to look up. “You can’t know that,” he says.

 

Jase smiles indulgently, threading his fingers through the hair at the base of Luke’s neck. “Of course I can,” he says, “she was my mother. That, and, she told me so.”

 

“Shut up,” Luke mutters, the redness spreading to his cheeks, the back of his neck. Jase runs his palm over the heated skin as Luke leans back into the touch, soft hairs falling over his curled fingers. “It was two years ago March 13th,” he says, voice soft enough to shatter glass, “834 days.”

 

“I know,” Jase says. “Everyone knows: Ruske’s first victim.”

 

Luke pulls Jase’s other hand from his side, fingers interlocking at the small of his back. “I’m sorry,” he says, tilting his head back to rest on Jase’s shoulder, peering over the side of his face into his eyes.

 

“Her death saved a lot of people,” Jase tells him, looking straight ahead, jaw set.

 

“Bullshit,” Luke says, squeezing his hand, offering as much comfort as he can give, backed into a corner in a hospital overwhelmed by the dying, no longer a place of healing, but doomed to be a holding cell until Jacob’s Pattern finally gives way.

 

0---

 

“What’s a ‘Hatter?’” Melanie asks, neatly folded into a chair they had liberated from behind the desk in the duty nurse’s absence. She directs the question at Sera, as she is accustom after almost two months as her shadow.

 

“They’re called Mad Hatters, ‘Hatters’ for short,” Sera says, tucking her feet under her crossed knees, having taken up residence on the floor, leaning against the pot of a fichus she had gotten quite buddy-buddy with during Jase’s little outburst. “From Ruske’s Hatter region, southwest of here, I think. It is a chasm running through a massive crater, the housewarming gift of an asteroid that popped ‘round a couple thousand years ago; Jase is from there, originally, and it’s the site of the first Snow White virus outbreak. His mum, Samantha Charter, was one of the first casualties.”

 

Galligher shifts in his seat, the twin of Melanie’s, but now with extreme swiveling action. “The first,” he corrects. “My aunt was at the funeral; she and Mrs. Charter knew each other from the Academy.”

 

Sera frowns, leaning forward to rest her hands on her knees, considering the floor. “I didn’t know Jase’s mum was Fleet.”

 

“A Runner,” Galligher says, “a lieutenant.”

 

“I didn’t know that either,” Donner says, “he never said.”

 

“Hmph,” Sera snorts, looking up at Donner, eyebrows raised. “You know those two, full of secrets.”

 

0---

 

Luke rejoins them scarcely two minutes after Dr. Byuuta does, but Jase is not in attendance. “Patient vomited on him,” he says, failing to suppress the wide grin that accompanies the delighted spring in his step. “Last I saw, he was still arguing with an orderly about the tendency of your lab coats to dissolve when confronted with highly concentrated acids.”

 

“I assume he’s going to rejoin us,” Byuuta says, offering Luke a thin slice of bluish metal.

 

“When he finds something to wear other than a hospital gown, yes. What am I supposed to do with this,” Luke asks, eyeing it suspiciously. “That’s a rather lot of circuitry for a — ?”

 

Byuuta smiles, seeing the laundry room in his mind’s eye, woefully bare of any scrubs that would fit anyone taller than Lieutenant Jiiani, who has been hypothetically banned from any limbo games they might hold, not to mention their monthly eat-your-weight-in-a-foodstuff-chosen-via-a-dartboard contests. It served Gunner right, being stuck with Connor and Jaime for two whole weeks, for not bothering to read the detergent label before he tossed the week’s load into the machine, claiming a real man did not need instructions for something so painfully simple. He doubted Lieutenant Charter was going to see it that way, however. “I wish him luck,” he says, “and just stick that thing to your dog tags; it’s so you don’t set off any alarms going into patients’ rooms. Dr. Charter will also be able to track our progress, so he can find us when he’s ready.”

 

Sera snickers into her sleeve, trading smirks with Luke and Donner behind Byuuta’s back.

 

The scrape of her watch over the wide collar snug against her neck draws Byuuta’s attention, and he stares at it blankly for a few seconds before registering what he sees. “Oh,” he says, holding up a pale, dry hand, “you’ll have to remove those, I can’t believe I forgot. A lot of the machinery we will encounter today is far too sensitive for something like that close by.”

 

“Of course,” Donner says, “not a problem at all.”

 

Luke frowns at him, toying with the end of the leather strap holding the collar in place, contemplating his options. If he takes it off now, only massive overreaction awaits. If he waits for Jase, there’s nothing he can do because of this Jacob’s Pattern, same problem. If he refuses, they have to leave him behind, thus leaving Jase behind, which defeats the entire purpose of them being here, not to mention they’ll want to know why, and again — same problem.

 

“Luke?”

 

If he goes looking for Jase, they get outside the Pattern — bingo.

 

“I just remembered,” he says, “I left something with Jase; I think he might have put it in the lab coat pocket.”

 

He nearly trips over his own feet as he makes a break for the elevator, and only narrowly avoids taking Sera’s fichus down with him.

 

0---

 

“God, I’m exhausted,” Gary says, using Fosher’s head as an armrest as he slumps into oblivion.

 

“We got locked down at 7:30 last night,” Fosher tells him, shoving the leaden arm off as he hits his knee in a swift, clean, kick. Gary yelps and stumbles to his knees. “How on earth can you still be tired?”

 

Gary eyes him spitefully, lurching to his feet. Fosher will never admit the feeling of vertigo he gets watching this. “Try a yelling match next door on for size, tell me how you like it. Donner locked Connor and Jamie into the washroom for some peace and quiet, and the next thing I know someone’s hollering about their foot in the toilet, probably Jamie, and beating their victim with a garbage can.”

 

“Did you get any sleep at all?” Fosher asks, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, all the while thanking anyone who might be eavesdropping that he and Sera opted for the girls’ rooms.

 

“Connor suffocated him with a loofa around 3 am.” Gary stretches upward, back cracking as everything slots into place, albeit with some complaining from his left lumbar. He rocks back on his heels next to Fosher, he’s not about to let someone this short get the jump on him twice in one day.

 

Fosher sighs dreamily, “I’ve fantasized of doing that for years. How do you know it was a loofa?”

 

“Jamie is surprisingly articulate while being choked with tasteful shower accessories.”

 

“You could sleep in my room,” Fosher offers, “that’s about as far away from them you can get without breaking lockdown.”

 

0---

 

“Jase,” Luke says, barging into the laundry room, “we have a problem.”

 

It takes almost six whole seconds for his brain to absorb the scene his eyes are struggling to take in without tearing up with laughter.

 

“Seriously?” he says, lips quivering.

 

The look Jase tosses his direction could give a polar bear frostbite.

 

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Jase threatens, fists clenched at his sides so he doesn’t give into the desperate urge to rip his eyes out, or at the very least, gouge his retinas beyond repair.

 

“Omigod,” Luke says.

 

0---

 

“Uhm,” Sera says, hands pausing at her throat.

 

“I have no idea,” Donner says, “none at all. At times like this I prefer to pretend I never followed in my father’s footsteps and joined the Fleet — or that I died at birth, I’m not really picky.”

 

Galligher clears his throat, “so, I lifted Luke’s deck of cards.”

 

“Anyone know how to play Spoons?” Byuuta asks, “I need to practice if I’m going to take Gunner down in next week’s tournament.”

 

Melanie stares at him blankly, biting her lip.

 

Sera perks up, removing her collar one handedly while the other holds back an especially persistent fichus branch. “If that’s the one that involves flying leaps and hair pulling,” she says, “I am so in.”

 

0---

 

“You said there was a problem?” Jase asks grumpily, arms folded tightly over his chest. Luke scoffs; as if that’s going to hide the surprisingly florescent first aid cross emblazoned there. He’s about to point this out when he catches Jase’s eye, and is stampeded by second thoughts.

 

“Ah,” Luke says, “problem, right, aside from, y’know, that,” pause for an awkward gesture towards the monstrosity that is masquerading as clothing.

 

Jase’s jaw works, “Luke,” he grinds out from behind clenched teeth. Luke is listening intently, sure that crack he just heard had to be a tooth, or a bone, maybe even Jase’s last nerve. “Get on with it.”

 

Luke sighs, hand drifting up to tug on his collar. “We can’t wear these today.”

 

“Oh,” Jase says, the fight going out of him as he smoothes the hand away, easing the leather back in its place. “It is bad, isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah,” he settles under Jase’s chin, hands deep in his new pockets.

 

“It’s okay,” Jase murmurs, “we aren’t staying very long, not any more, not with that goddamn Pattern over our heads.”

 

“I just,” Luke begins, but Jase silences him with a gentle tug on his collar, unbuckling it for him and easing it away from the irritated skin.

 

“I know,” he says, and links his hands behind Luke’s neck and soothes the itch with warmth. In his mind’s eye, he can see the Pattern, and sets to work forcing it to let him through.

 

0---

 

A return to 2007 Additions.