"There there," Gary rubbed her back, "get it all out."
Serena hurled her guts into the toilet.
The brunet momentarily looked away, the last few weeks since he'd found out he had a sister had been nothing but joyous. Except for last week when everyone at Hald Fest got food poisoning. Serena had held back Gary's hair while he emptied his stomach and now, he was returning the favor.
Three days after the epidemic was over.
"Other's barely lasted a day," he covered his nose with a pin, "are you sure you shouldn't get checked up?"
"Because you all received medication!" She cried, "they're refusing to treat me!"
"Why? You're the team captain."
Hearing the word team captain, her guts drenched once again. The plain horror and the betrayal were enough to make her hurl her guts without the food poisoning.
"I don't know," she pushed the flush, "I asked my mother and she... seemed to be pretty okay with it."
Ailsa had decided to train them all even before they came to know of Spencer's location. She'd brought one specific trainer from the academy, of course, others didn't recognize him.
But Serena did.
He was the one who'd tortured her in the name of 'training'. Her body shook with fear as she remembered that brutal month in the academy with Zaff, the pain, and the blood in the silver room brought tears to her eyes.
Training with Zaff along with the others wasn't as hard as it was in the academy, but it certainly wasn't easy either. Especially when she'd arrived in the hospital wing with a broken wrist and they'd refused to treat it with their 'magical' medicines.
A groan escaped her lips as she sank to the bathroom floor. Little chunks of vomit still covered the corner of her lips.
Gary gagged at its sight but still sat down next to her, offering her a bottle of water.
"Thanks," she said, "but I don't have the strength to lift the bottle."
"It's fine," he unscrewed the lid, "I can help you."
He splashed the bottle on her face.
"What the—" she cried, "I thought you were going to make me drink it! Not take a bath!"
"Oh I am," he put the bottleneck near her lips, "there was a chunk of vomit on your lips."
The blonde eyed her brother with murderous intentions as she drank the bottle empty.
They sat quietly on her bathroom floor for some time. It was Serena who broke the silence when a sigh of exasperation escaped her lips. She rested her head, still drenched from the splash, on Gary's shoulder.
"What am I going to do?" She sighed.
The brunet shrugged, "You got yourself into this situation."
"We!" She cried, "we got me into this situation! The least you can do is suggest a way out!"
"Yeah but I was the manipulator from the shadows, in everyone's minds, you're the real bitch."
"Oh I so hate you," she rubbed her face.
"No, you love me."
The blonde didn't deny it. She was too preoccupied with the person who didn't love her. Who loathed the very sight of her.
"Have you tried apologizing?" Suggested the brunet.
"Oh jeez," she said with a hint of sarcasm, "I tried climbing windows in a ferocious storm but never thought of apologizing, grow up Gary!"
"I'm just trying to help you,"
"I know," she sighed, "I'm sorry, I get bitchy when I'm sick."
"Like our grandmother,"
"But she's bitchy all the time!"
The siblings broke into a laugh and shared a much-needed hi-fi.
"But for reals," said Serena when the laughter died down, "what am I going to do? Is everything going to be alright again or ever?"
Gary didn't answer because even he didn't know the answer. It wasn't something that could be predicted. No matter how much you knew the other person.
"It'll be alright, once we save Spencer and get back the Unown, " he lied, stroking the blonde's drenched hair, "there there."
"Okay," said Serena as she leaned over the map, "this is our final drill before we go out in the real, there is the same number of people here that are going to be in the Island of Bade Khen, thanks to the intel Alain and Calem procured over the last week. Our objective is to get in and out of the facility in under fifteen minutes because that's how it'll take for them to override our little diversion. I've already assigned you all your respective positions, the most important thing is to remember... never leave your post, or else the mission is cooked and we're all fried. Let's go!"
It had been Serena's request to Ailsa to let them drill their practice in a real-life simulation of Island of Bade Khen and the underground facility where Spencer was held along with the Unown.
Much to her amazement, Ailsa had agreed without hesitation because they only had one shot at the recuse and their failure would mean deaths
The four of them disappeared into pairs of two, just as she'd planned, and as fate would have it, Ash was Serena's.
As they walked along the long dusty hallways with their weapons drew, Serena couldn't help but break the silence.
"This passage... reminds us of the one in Cave of Mirrors doesn't it?"
Ash didn't answer. There was a deafening silence between the two. The boots they were wearing had been specially designed to cut off any unnecessary sounds.
Serena would have donated a kidney to hear the thumping of his boots.
"Remember how you got pulled in to that? I mean... for a moment Bonnie and I thought you were dead!" She broke into a laugh.
A scoff escaped his lips. "I might as well have been," he opened his mouth after a long time, "if I knew what I would witness in the next ten years, I would've dropped myself in the nothing."
His harsh words pierced the blonde's heart. "Ash, I've said sorry a thousand times!" She cried, "what do you want me to do? Beg you on my knees? Done, I'll do it."
Ash didn't answer.
"Come on, honey!" She grabbed a hold of his hand.
"Don't call me that!" He roared.
Serena was taken aback, this was the first time in nearly a decade that she'd seen Ash this angry. Even before when everything in their relationship was going stale, he hadn't lost his cool.
He shrugged off her hand, "You know, I still would've taken your hand that day, even if the present me went back in time and warned myself not to. You know why?"
She shook her head.
"Because I never would've believed that Serena, my best friend, Serena, would ever betray me. That's how much I believed in you."
"Ash I—"
"Now that I think of it," a painful smile showed up on his face, "I do like the old Serena better, not because she was naive or all that crap, but because she believed in her friend, she believed in me. I... I don't even know who you are anymore!"
"I—"
"I know life hasn't been easy for you," the harshness in his voice had disappeared, "I know your world was completely flipped, but I stood by you! And you... I can't even..."
A sigh escaped his lips as he walked ahead of her, leaving the blonde behind to drown in her sorrows.