𝙍𝙀𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙔- [MAJOR EDITING]

EIGHTEEN

LETHARGY

.

Isadora-Michelle Moore was a busy woman.

She'd be up, every morning at five AM for a six o'clock start at work, and most nights, she left the Stark Industries Lab twelve hours later. Sadie was supposed to give herself a thirty minute break every four hours, but she usually only took fifteen. Running a team of over a hundred medical innovators meant she had no time for long breaks, even though she had a brilliant team of managers to delegate tasks.

Then, she'd be training. Three evenings a week for a couple hours, and a half day Saturday at the Avengers compound. Altogether, it was another twelve hours that felt like a part time job. Sadie supposed it was a part time job, now she'd signed onto it.

The rest of her time was spent visiting her mother at New York Presbyterian- she'd take Cho's files with her, give her mother the usual back massage for her tight muscles, and pore over the files for hours while Shan slept.

Her plants were beginning to die at home.

This particular day though, her mother had called her on her way to the hospital, still mentioning this surprise that had been waiting for Sadie. It made her worry, because she'd been saying that for a week, and nothing had arrived. Shan's apparent dementia had gotten much better over the past few months, and she was progressing well with the chemotherapy. Now though, Sadie wondered if the symptoms of the brain tumour were getting worse- this sort of confusion at events was exactly how it started last time.

Sadie felt like a near zombie walking through the hospital halls, with the weight of Cho's files in her arms, but she tried to keep her back straight regardless of her soreness. As she passed by a room, she saw a woman in one of the windows. Her eyes were tired, her black hair pulled back into braids that were coming loose at the fronts, baby hairs astray. The woman's dark skin was dull, her arms ashy. It took Sadie a moment to realise that she was looking at herself.

Her mind was so spaced out as she smiled and nodded in greeting to the hospital staff she used to work alongside- she was barely aware of the spaces she passed and followed only her hearing to her mother's room. The only room from which soft reggae music played, a Boney M tune from a childhood that felt like it wasn't hers.

But there was another sound too, a melodic voice that wasn't her mother's, but that she still oddly recognised. Sadie paused at the door and listened closer. Yes, it was unmistakable.

She took a breath. And entered the room.

Sadie saw her straight away. A young lady, tall and elegant, skin dark as hers, and a face she knew. A face she hadn't seen in five years. A beautiful face, but scarred. Savannah Moore's left side had healed since Sadie last saw her, and it had healed phenomenally.

The skin was smooth, the scarring reduced only to pale discolouration where her pigments were obstructed by scar tissue. Sadie wondered how long and how expensive her surgeries had been to fix the damage she'd caused her little sister.

"Hey, Shell," Savannah said, pausing her soft singing, a small smile on her face. "Long time no see."

Savannah placed her newspaper onto the table beside her. The headline: WHO'S TO BLAME IN SOKOVIA?

Sadie was stunned for a moment, still taking her in. She sat, so casually at their mother's bedside- five years after their incident- as if nothing had ever changed. Shan sat beside Savannah, giving Sadie an encouraging thumbs up, and cheesy grin. The Rivers of Babylon still played in the background as Savannah stood.