all thoughts finish themselves eventually [Marr]

Wander's legs escaped the brunt of the damage. Despite best efforts infection had set into the bitten and otherwise battered hand, which now sits tucked against vis torso in a sling because no one—including, if ve feels like being honest, Wander—trusts ver to not try to use it. The surgeon, sighing sharply at Wander's defense of Temple's stitching, said they put new stitches in both the arm and vis head. By comparison, the catalogue of scrapes and bruises and sore toes barely register; it hurts more to breathe, between the broken ribs and the ragged gash above them, than to walk.

Still, it does hurt, the same way that existence stings right now. Wander tries at first to favor vis right leg, until vis thigh wrenches and ve switches, until ve pulls vis left hip wrong and switches again, at which point the nurse in charge of physical therapy huffs even harder than the surgeon and lays down a scolding about range of motion.

At least there's nowhere far to go, here.

Once they release Wander across the curtain, finding Fiona only takes a few seconds. Her bright hair stands out in the drab room, not quite swallowed by the light of the massive display in front of her; the angle hides her expression, but she sits alone and by all appearances intent on staying there. Wander hangs back long enough to check the screen—currently featuring no tributes and nothing ve recognizes as important, only a lumbering beast with a short snout like the mangled one ve turned over in the forest—before making vis way toward her.

As soon as ve rounds the row of seats ve stops short. What ve expected, ve doesn't know—an eye patch, maybe—but the bandages wrap all the way across, cutting Fiona's face in two. Reflexively Wander touches vis free fingertips to the corner of vis own right eye, remembering blood on that same face and fighting the abrupt temptation to walk away.

She wouldn't know. She might not—probably won't—even welcome this, and they've both had enough stress for a lifetime. (Or two.)

Even if the doctors leave the bandages on, even if no one tells her upfront, Fiona will recognize Wander's voice or hear someone call ver by name eventually. Better to do this now, openly, before something explodes later, and better to do it at all—or at least try—than to leave this place with an extra regret. Wander puts vis hand down, draws a deep, silent, breath, and takes the last handful of steps to kneel on the folding seat of a chair one row down and lean over the back.

"Fiona?" Ve jumps once again at the high-pitched creak of vis own voice, then shakes that off to join the feeling from moments before. "It's Wander." Shit, now that ve thinks of it, does she even know who that is? Wander only recognized her at the last second, and still isn't sure which District she's from. "From the beach. I just wanted to say I'm sorry." Unable to decide whether it would be polite or insulting to ask how she is, ve settles on coming back to it later. "And, uh—I don't know how much they've already told you, but Carmen's fine." Inasmuch as is possible, in an Arena. For now. "We never touched her" —and Wander wouldn't have, not until the impossible decisions became unfathomable, but Fiona has no reason, really, to believe ver or to care— "and Quest's got her back."



title is from "Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede" by Richard Siken. I'm actually not sure I'd call it super relevant, but I'm not sure I wouldn't, either. (What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be / alive.)