Memory

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

The Matron looked up from her desk wearily. "Can I help you?"
Madeleine smiled apologetically. "Yes, I'm sorry to bother you, but ... Oliver Saunders? I was coming to ask about his leg."
Her face clouded with pity. "No, I'm sorry, but he'll have to lose it."
It was what Madeleine had been expecting to hear, but that didn't take away the pang of guilt that she felt when she heard it.
"C-can I see him?" she asked.
The Matron shook her head. "He was in a lot of pain, we had to sedate him."
That was also what she'd been hoping not to hear. She nodded. "Okay. Is Macy Deltine awake? May I see her?"
Matron looked at her, frowning gently. "I'm not sure that's advisable. She's in a bit of a state-"
"No offence meant, m'am, but I think that the state that she was in when I found her was probably just as bad, if not worse."
Matron didn't really have an argument for that, and led Madeleine to Macy's bedside.

[Macy Deltine]

Macy dreamily opened her eyes to fine the same face that had saved her her cell.
"Hey.." She smiled wearily. "Um..how have you been..since..you know?" She asked. She haden't talked to Madeleine since she rescued. She remembered back to when she first saw her face in that dirty cell. It seemed to long ago, she had to sit in that bed, watching the world go by, trying to convince the nurses that she was well enough to go back to class.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine bit her lip at the sight of Macy. While most of her cuts and bruises had gone, and the cut on her nostril had been sewn up, she still had that... grey look about her. And her eyes... there was something different there. Madeleine couldn't tell what it was...
But as she looked at Macy, different, clashing memories came back to her. First meeting Macy in their dorm ... running with her and laughing after making ice run down those guys' backs ... seeing her laugh with Holden at the formal ... tied up in that horrible cell ... a puma, running with an arrow in its shoulder...
"I've been fine," she said, sitting down beside her bed. "But what about you? Are you okay?"

[Macy Deltine]

Macy shurgged. She didn't really know how she felt. She had just tried to kill her emotions. She didn't want to feel how hurt she was, how angry and annoyed she was at herself. She sighed.
"Yeah..I dunno. I just still can't..adjust. I had to tell Holden that I couldn't be with him, cause what they did to me. Like.." she looked into Madeleine's eyes. "They stripped all my dignity, all my feelings, everything. They hurt me, and hurt me, and hurt me. You don't know what they did to me, but I don't want anyone, anyone to go thought what I did." She sighed again and stared at her fingers. "It's so stupid." she said quietly.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine closed her eyes, trying not to think about what they might have done to Macy. With this enemy... they were capable of anything.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's not stupid. I know what these people are capable of. I don't know what they did to you but I've ... I've no doubt that it was bad."
She glanced at the window. She'd learned something really big from that battle - true revenge was impossible to get. A life for a life doesn't work. It doesn't take away the hatred, and it doesn't take away the emptiness. Madeleine felt sick about how she'd killed in cold blood - and it didn't feel like she'd avenged Shaun, at all.
For that to happen, she'd have to bring down the whole enemy.
And she was as sure as hell going to attempt to do just that. It was a stupid war, over a stupid reason, but the other side had been so violent...
"We'll get them, Macy," she said, softly. "I promise."
Rash, but there it was. The war would have to be won at some point.
At least now, the security had been tightened on the school. No other pupil would ever be taken from the school ever again.
No student would have to go through what Macy had had to go through.

[Macy Deltine]

Macy didn't say anything in a while, just watched a bird sitting on the window ledge. She stroaked Gypsy, who had just woken up, in the form of a grey rabbit. Gypsy had not left her once since Macy had returned. Everytime a nurse would come near her, Gypsy would eye them very closely, making sure they wouldn't pull anything.
Then she started to think about what Madeleine was saying. She could feel Natalia in the very back of her mind, smirking. Macy was scared that her alter-ego, Natalia would try to get out again, and do something, Macy could never think of doing.
she sighed again and tried to change the subject. "So, what has the school been like, when I was gone?"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

"Nothing very interesting, I'm afraid," Madeleine winced. "It'll probably get a sight more interesting when you come back."
She paused. They had been planning to hold a surprise party for Macy when she came back, but looking at her now, Madeleine wasn't sure if she'd be up to it.
"Do you know when you'll get discharged?"

[Macy Deltine]

Macy shook her head. She still hurt, but she felt better than when she arrived. She had pleaded with the matron to let her go, but she still refused. "I don't know. I want to go and move on, but I'm still hurt. Like, when someone tries to touch me, like, just my shoulder, or something, I go crazy and start screaming, and I don't know why. I don't want to, but I still think that they want to hurt me. I'm hopeing to try hard to get better this week, so I can go and get back to class." She smiled at Gypsy who had turned into a cat and was licking her paws. Macy looked up at Madeleine and smiled at her.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine looked sceptical. She couldn't help it, she just didn't believe that recovery had anything to do with trying to get better. If that was true, well then, no one would ever die because of an illness, would they?
"Well, don't rush it," she said. "You don't want to rush getting better and then collapse or something in school."
Heaven forbid.
"And ... still hurting..." she added tentatively. "I know this probably isn't what you want to hear, but sometimes it ... it doesn't completely go away."
That was what she had been thinking earlier, wasn't it? About how revenge would never take away the pain. And after all, while it felt like a big deal to her, what had happened to Shaun was probably nothing compared to what Macy had probably gone through. So, if Madeleine was having trouble getting over what had happened - what would it be like for Macy?

[Macy Deltine]

Macy closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Madeliene was right, it wasn't what she wanted to hear. But it was the truth.
But Macy was ready to push it away, though. She wasn't scared to run away from it, but then again, she wasn't scared to handle it. All she knew was that she wanted to get over it. To get it out of her mind, to feel complete. But then..to feel complete she would want to cause as much pain to the person who did this to her. She had been told by alot of people to forgive them, but she was not like them. She would not let it rest until the one how deserved it found out that she was a human being. She thought of his face, her torturer, for the first time, even though it had awoken her many times in her sleep. But she didn't know his name, where he was, or his history. "We'll find out. We'll find him." she could hear the voice from the back of her head talk. She shruddered and then tried to make it out as if she was cold, or something. She thought harder, which made her scared. What was she going to do? She placed her hands on her chest and felt a deep pain from where the bruises from her being used as a punchbag were still healing. She stared out the window again as the silence continued.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine followed Macy's gaze to the window. As she stared out over the plains, flashbacks from the battle came back to her.
Absent-mindedly, she scratched the scar on her arm. "Have your parents been?" she asked, for something to say.

[Macy Deltine]

"Yeah, my mum came a few days ago and was shouting at me for getting into something like this, how she had been so worried and she even went to Professor Hoodham and shouted at him! She was saying that she wanted to take me out of the school, but I wouldn't let her. And my dad.." She stopped, sighed and looked up at the celing. "Well, I don't have a dad..well, I have one, but I never knew him. But my mum, she dosen't have any powers, no-one in my family has them, was so scared by the students here, when she arrived she walked past a gardener who was making plants grow with his hand while doing a cross-word in the other, and that freaked her out a bit." She ruffled ehr sheets a bit, trying to make the comfortable. "What about you?"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine winced. "Aww. No, my parents are up at the other end of the country. Besides, the battle thing will happen again, it would be stupid for them to come up at every battle. They might come over soon, I don't know."
She wished they would. It would be nice to see her parents again, even though it hadn't been that long since she'd left. And her parents would like to come back to the school, especially her mum, who had been Head of the Academics for a short while. Her dad had been a warrior, and probably could give them some good advice...
But it wasn't to be. Maybe they'd come up soon, maybe not. Either way, it didn't really matter in the grand scale of things.

[Macy Deltine]

"Yeah.." Macy said quietly. She was becoming very tired now, but didn't want Madeleine to feel that she had to go so she could sleep. Her sleep patterns had become strange since she had come home. She would be awake all night, as when she slept in the dark, her dreams were haunted with the torturer coming to watch her in the shadows. She tried to hide her tiredness and keep the conversation going.
"Have you got any word on any exams, anything?" she asked. She knew exams should be starting soon, but she didn't know when. Since coming into the hospital wing, she had been visited by some of her teachers, trying to get her caught up with the class, but she had already been ahead, already reading all the text books that were meant to last two terms.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine shook her head. "No one has said anything, so they can't be for a while yet."