I'm shaking.

My hands can barely stay balled into fists as I hit the punching bag. The blows are weak, causing more of a reaction from my body than the bag. Fatigue clings to my muscles. It's too early for this, too early for me to feel this exhausted, this weak.

I'm not sure what these nanites are doing in my body, but I wish it would just hurry up and get it over with. I have three weeks until I see Sage again, and I pray they pass by quickly.

I never know what the next day will bring. One day I'll feel fine, the next I'll feel like shit but still can run and do my other tasks for the day, then the next-days like these-I can barely function. It hurts to move. It hurts to breathe. My body is weak, and I feel like nothing more than a puppet that's had its strings cut but it somehow is still trying to move.

I thought I knew what I was signing up for when I agreed to take this. I didn't think it would be a constant back and forth from feeling okay to feeling like complete shit.

They work in regions, I think. But even after they're done with a certain area there's an ache that stays for a few days. I came here because I knew it would be empty around this time of day. Everyone is at the cafeteria getting food. Just the thought of eating makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Plus it's easier to be here alone. I don't want to be alone, but I can't let anyone see me like this, and those that know what's going on-well, I don't really want them to see me like this either. I've already got enough problems that I'm forcing everyone to carry, and even though they say they don't mind listening and helping me, I still can't help but feel like I'm a burden, taking up more than I give.

Plus I signed up for this. I don't want them to have to pity me when this was my choice.

And I don't want Sam to see me like this just because I know how much he hates me doing this. He wishes I would have waited, especially after what happened three days ago in that mushroom factory. Not that it would have helped if the zombie would have got me.

I told Sam and Janine what Moonchild said when I got back to Abel, and Janine assured me that we would work on it, but it may be a while since she will need to create a plan that will get me in there and keep me safe from that V-Type. Plus that fungicide isn't really our main concern. It was just something we thought might be a good backup plan until we get the bit of the Edda out. We know that it is now, but it doesn't kill them, just makes them recoil. It irritates them.

I stop trying to hit the punching bag, instead grabbing onto it in an effort to stabilize myself as my legs shake and my chest heaves.

"I hate this," I grumble to myself, even though I know I asked for it. I know it will be worth it, just like the pain was worth it when I was trying to heal my throat so I could speak again, but still, I hate it.

I hear a soft sound behind me, and I turn around just as someone enters the room. My eyes widen, and Nicole's face scrunches up in regret when her eyes meet mine. From the workout clothing she's wearing, she probably wasn't assuming I'd be in here, not when she'd been avoiding me and Sam these last few days.

"You," I say stupidly, and she rolls her eyes.

"That's one way to greet a person."

She drops her bag and starts to stretch, already looking away as if the conversation is over. I don't let it go so easily, but I know Nicole's not stupid enough to expect me to. I let go of the punching bag, straightening my back in hopes she won't see how much effort it takes for me to stand up right.

"You stole my file on Feive."

She looks at me over her shoulder. "I might have."

"It wasn't a question. Why?"

"That was a question."

I grit my teeth, walking over to her as quickly as I can without stumbling. "I'm not in the mood. Tell me why you took the file. You already know everything that was in there. None of it was about me."

"I know," She says, heading over to grab some dumbbells. She uses her good hand to get her the fingers of her crippled hand wrapped around a dumbbell, securing it there with cloth. She tests it, just to make the cloth is wrapped around her hand and wrist is tight enough to keep her fists closed, before her free hand grabs the other dumbbell and begins to curl them.

"Then why did you take it?"

Nicole huffs, her face a mixture of annoyance and exasperation. "Singer, why are you acting like this is new? I have to make a report for the A.M.T.B. Just because it's been put on the back burner due to the cure and the threat of the V-Types doesn't mean my bosses are going to not want me to tell them what I've learned while here. It's better I tell them through a report than them try to figure it out themselves by dissecting you."

I scoff. "Don't act like you're doing this for me."

"Who exactly do you think I'm doing this for? Me? They'll find it all out one way or another and sending in a report is the best way for me and you to get out of this unharmed when we go back." Her tone is serious, and I look at her with wide eyes.

"We? Nicole, I'm not going back. I'm married-"

"Do you honestly think I won't drag you and Sam on a plane to America?" She asks, dropping one dumbbell and letting the one wrapped in her weak hand hang. "I made a promise, and I plan to keep it, even if you aren't actually my sister, or mom's kid."

"I am her kid," I hiss, my face twisting into a glare. "But that doesn't really make sense about the report on Feive since that one had nothing to do with me."

Nicole's eyes are dull with annoyance, and she sighs as if I'm some stupid kid who isn't getting the hint. I feel my face grow hot in anger.

"You want to see what I'm doing with Pro. Feive's file?" She jerks her head over to the bag that she left sitting in the corner. "Go look."

I stare at the bag before looking back at her with a raised brow. "You bring it with you to exercise?"

"I bring it with me everywhere. We were trained by the same base, you know. I didn't want you to try to steal it back. Just because you've been here at Abel doesn't mean I'd think you'd forget what you knew. You may have gotten softer, but that doesn't mean you've become stupid. I don't think that lowly of you."

I can't be sure if that last sentence was a joking jab or a true statement. I never can tell with Nicole. She clearly doesn't seem to see me as a sibling, but she hasn't deemed me as useless because she hasn't tried to kill me. And she must care for me somewhat since she believes giving the A.M.T.B. a file on me can keep them from trying to outright dissect me.

And honestly, after what I've been though, I think the A.M.T.B. would try to dissect me, or they'd send me to a lab to do numerous tests and then dissect me. They made me do a lot of things there as a child. I hurt a lot of people and received a lot of hurt in return. I think dissection would be something they'd blink their eyes at and move on. At least, it would be for the Torrencers, maybe not the A.M.T.B.

I walk over to the bag, bending down and trying to make my movements look as smooth as possible so Nicole won't notice something's off. I grab the file from her bag, my fingers feeling weak as I pick it up. Leaning against the wall behind me, I open the file. I see the same typed words as before about Feive, but down at the bottom are different scribbles.

I recognize Nicole's handwriting. While she has been practicing being left-handed since Ian had her dominant hand crushed, there's still letters that are shaky and scratchy. It's readable, and that's what matters. It's short sentences, with use of different abbreviations, possibly some code, along with a few references. But there are a few things that I recognize.

'Five girls, born at different times. 3 deceased, 2 still living. See page 9 para. 13."

'Project Feive.'

'Genetically made. Artificial inseminations.'

'Waiting for certain point in time. All had to be alive. Project failed.'

My brows furrow. "Wait, is this... is this about-"

"I wrote down everything I knew about the project." Nicole says, using the dumbbells to do shoulder raises. "Those are the notes, but I've got some typed pages under those. Some are about you, although those just reference back to some of your old files, since they have your birth date and all that on them. The only thing that the A.M.T.B. file has incorrect is saying that you're deceased, but you already knew that."

"And the others?" I lift up some of the pages to look at the newer ones, all of them having titles such as 'Girl 1' or 'Girl 2' followed by a name-their names.

"I put down as much on them as I could. Girl 1 you called Catherine, or the Original. I tried to put as much as I could for each girl, and I think I've got them in the right order. I haven't been able to contact King Jaime about the uh, firefighter that he knew, but I was able to contact Nadia about New Canton Runner Five. Hopefully I'll have a file page on each of you soon enough."

I look at her, eyes wide with shock. "Do you not realize how horrible this sounds?"

"A lot less horrible than you being tested on, I'd expect." She purses her lips together, voice teetering on frustrated. "I thought you'd be happy that I wasn't going to take the easy route and just let them hurt you. I mean, they've done worse to us before they knew you were some kind of experiment. What do you think they'd do to you now?"

"The only reason they'd know anything would be because you told them."

"They always find out, Singer."

"They don't know that I've told others about them."

"Yet."

My jaw clenches, my skin feeling hot, and I have to tighten my grip onto the file to stop my hands from shaking. "You know I could take off with these, run to the burn pit and throw them in. All your research would be gone."

A laugh bubbles from her throat. "You must think so poorly of me to believe I'd be stupid enough to hand you my only copy of that file when I know how badly you don't want me to do this."

I pale. "You... have other copies?"

"Have to be prepared." She huffs. "I don't know why you're so upset. It's either this or the jabs, and I thought you'd gotten enough of that torture with Van Ark."

I flinch as if I'd been slapped, but I don't get to say anything more since a few people walk into the room. I quickly close the file and drop it behind Nicole's bag before anyone notices. Unfortunately, though, there are some people who look my way, one of them being...

"Oh, hey, Mum," Milo greets, and I force a smile.

"Hey, kid. Surprised you're in here and not running on the track."

He jerks his head to one of the girls that came in with him. "Elspeth said she wasn't feeling like it. Besides, running every day can get kind of boring, at least when I'm running inside the township."

"Right. Running without fear for one's life makes it seem kind of pointless, doesn't it?"

He doesn't seem to catch my sarcasm.

"What were you doing?" He asks, and I simply shrug.

"Leaving, really. I should probably go get changed and see if I have any jobs schedule for today. I was lazy and didn't check this morning-ah!"

As I try to push myself off the wall, I didn't realize just how much it was supporting me. My knees buckle as soon as I try to stand upright, and I am sent crashing into the ground. Pain erupts from the areas of impact, and I hear sharp gasps from the others around me.

"Mum!" Milo shouts rushing forward and grabbing my arms to help me stand. My face burns in embarrassment, but I let him help me to my feet.

"I-I'm fine. Just a little-" My legs nearly give out again, and I grip his shoulders for support. "'M just tired."

A cool hand touches my forehead, belonging to the curly-haired girl Milo had pointed at before. I think she may have been a teen from Blackmoore Castle.

"You're burning up," Elspeth says before looking at Milo. "She might be running a fever."

He frowns. "I thought you couldn't get sick."

"I can't," I reply. "I-I probably just overworked myself, alright? I probably just need some rest."

"If we go to the coms shack, Sam's going to want you to go to the hospital anyway," He argues, and I bite my tongue to keep from expressing just how much doubt that. "Come on. Let's go see the Docs to make sure you're okay."

As he leads me towards the exit, I see Nicole watching me from the corner of my eye.

•

I sit in a quiet hospital room, the smell of disinfectant so strong I feel woozy. Milo sits in a chair on the other side of the room, looking from the door to some other object in the room and then back at the door. He asked Elspeth to go get Sam for him, since he was afraid I would try to sneak out if they both left.

The silence is heavy, crushing. tried to take some tension away from the situation by telling him Elspeth was surprisingly the name of a woman in a dream I had recently. It was in those dreams I've had where I'm a different person, as if everyone else. Same faces, different names and personalities.

It didn't help much. It broke the quiet for a moment but left little impact.

Paula's already come in and checked on me, and she seemed surprised when she saw the forming bruises on my knuckles. She's been suspicious of me ever since that night that I came to get ice after getting burned. I think this has thrown her off, and it shows that the nanites are doing their job. They're humanizing me again.

I wish it didn't make me feel so terrible.

"Where is Sam?" Milo asks, his face scrunched up in confusion. "I thought he'd be running in here to make sure you're okay."

"Want Sam to get here so you can go?" I ask, giving him a raised brow, and he shakes his head quickly.

"No, that's not what I meant. I just..." He sighs. "You're all really weird when it comes to you getting hurt."

I don't have to ask him to elaborate. "It's complicated."

"It's complicated?"

"Yeah."

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. "That's what you say about everything you don't want to explain."

"I don't want to explain it because it's complicated."

"Or you just don't want to tell."

"That too."

That actually gets a laugh from him, but it fades quickly. "Are you sick, though? Really. I mean, I haven't been hanging around you that much, so maybe that's how I haven't noticed-"

"No, I'm not sick," I interrupt. "I just look sick as an effect of something that's happening to me. Kind of like side effects."

"Side effects to what?"

I rub my face, feeling exhausted. "That's what I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"I just can't. Not yet, anyway. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you soon, everyone soon." My voice softens to a whisper as a wave of sadness washes over me. "And it'll be one less burden I'll have to carry."

"You know they'll probably find out what's wrong with you even if you don't tell them." His tone carries anger, and his furrowed brows and crossed arms tells me he's tired of hearing my excuses rather than the truth.

Seeing that they didn't take my blood, I doubt it.

I keep the words to myself. But even if they did take blood, they would only be able to find the nanites if they were looking for them. It's the same way they never say that I was immortal. No one looked to see, did the tests to see, so they never found it.

Instead they did some brain scans, since Janine seems to have shared what happened at the fungus farm with the doctors. I suppose they wanted to see if this was because of what happened then. I don't think it was stupid to make such a guess. I still can't remember anything, and I doubt I'm going to without that device.

It's a shame, honestly. You'd think with everything going on in this mind of mine I'd be able to catch some sort of break. Moonchild was very adamant that what I saw was important, but I can't exactly go back without a plan, not with that V-Type there in the fungus, as fungus.

And I have to see what exactly I'm supposed to be doing at the celebration that's going to happen for the Exmoore Militia when they take control over the V-Type efforts. They have the support, although I do wish there was possibly some more allies we could stand on and trust. Exmoore and Sage's colonies are the only two that we know are solid. If one thing goes wrong, everyone else would drop like flies, even after everything we've been doing to gain trust from other settlements.

I would say New Canton is also on our side, but Amelia is the leader of New Canton and she'd dip on us without a second thought. As Veronica said before, Amelia has changed, but she hasn't changed that much.

"What's wrong?" Milo asks. "You're making a face."

"Huh? Oh, sorry," I apologize with a shake of my head. "Just thinking."

"Oh."

"You know you can go. Since they've already scanned my brain, I'm sure Paula is looking over the results or whatever it is the doctors have to do with those scans. Even if you left and I left, they'd still have the results. Don't you want to hang out with your friends?"

He gives a half shrug. "I hang out with them all the time."

"You've made quite a few of them."

"Yeah. A lot of the guys from Blackmoore have been hanging around since you can't do much anymore, plus there's been more movement from people moving in and out of Abel, so-"

"Is that why you're okay being here with me?"

Milo blinks. "What?"

"You have friends now. You're a runner and you're still working in the labs some, but now you have friends and you're doing other stuff in Abel. You're not upset at me for making you stay."

Realization flashes across his face, and he suddenly finds his shoes very interesting to look at. "Oh. I uh, yeah. I've moved on. I'm not... constantly reminded of her here."

"Good," I reply curtly. "Means you're not like me. I refused to let go of pain for a long time and all it did was hurt me. I'm glad you're not the same."

"You always say that." He look up at me curiously, cocking his head to the side. "You always say you're glad I'm not like you, that you don't want me to be like you."

"Because I am."

He huffs on a laugh. "It's funny. I've been trying to be like you since you first came to Abel."

"Well, you shouldn't. I don't want you to be like me because I want you to be better and not make the same mistakes that I made... that I make." A small smile spreads across my face. "You do seem to be doing well with that. You've been a runner for a while now and haven't had very many injuries at all."

He rolls his eyes. "That's because you're the one always going on the dangerous missions, like the one with the fungus."

"You say that as if you're jealous. Nearly being engulfed in fungus isn't a pleasant feeling, let me tell you." I smile when he laughs. "Tell you what. I don't think I'm really scheduled for any dangerous missions for a while. Well, I say that, but what I mean is the next big event is the Exmoore Militia celebration. I doubt they're going to want me to just sit there and look pretty, so maybe you can come with me and we can patrol together or something. I doubt we'll get close to dying or anything, but everyone loves a celebration."

His eyes light up. "Really?"

I nod. "Sure. Why not? I mean, this is the closest we'll get to having a solid alliance with all the settlements. We only have two that we really know of, but this could make some of the others less unstable on their trust in us, and therefore ours in them. I do wish there were other settlements we could trust, though, but I don't think there is any-"

The door opens, cutting me off, and Sam and Paula come into the room. Paula holds a clipboard in her hand, and Sam seems... oddly tense. I mean, I get that he would be tense because he hates what's happening, but there's something else.

"Are you okay?" He asks immediately, grabbing my hand, and I nod.

"I'm fine. Just my legs were feeling a little weak."

"You had a fever when you came in," Paula says, which earns her a scowl.

"Well, it's gone now, and you said they weren't any symptoms of the flu or anything like that. Did anything come back on the brain scans?"

The redhead sighs. "Nothing out of the ordinary, so we know Moonchild didn't show up. She really hasn't said anything since leaving the fungus farm?"

"Nope."

She hums. "It's strange. Van Ark's treatments have affected you. We know that much, but I thought they made you unable to get ill."

"Like I said, maybe I just worked myself too hard."

"But you've had many medical anomalies with no sensible patterns."

I shrug. "Seeing that I have another person living in my head that literally caused me to have seizures at one point in my life, none of this surprises me. Also Van Ark's treatments allow me to punch through walls. It made another woman grow a lizard tail once! None of this makes sense. The only thing I think we can do is just let it go and move on, because it's not really like we can treat this and me sitting in here is just taking up a room that could be used to treat someone else."

She hums again, not looking exactly happy but seeming to know she can't really argue. "I suppose you're right." She turns to Sam. "Still, keep an eye on her, will you? Whatever happened to her in that fungus farm could still have some effect on her. Let me know if anything else happens."

He nods, grabbing my hand as I stand. "You got it."

"You know I'm going to hold you to what you promised," Milo says as Sam and I head to the door. I pause, and Sam squeezes my hand a bit tighter, looking impatient.

"I know. I'll talk to Janine about it later. And I'm Head of Runners. The title is useless, but I can always bring it up when I need something to do with a mission."

He snorts, but Paula simply crosses her arms.

"Are you sure Janine will actually listen considering what happened at the fungus farm? You listened to Moonchild over everyone else."

"Not the whole time, and I told her and Sam why and they both understood-"

"We did," Sam says, squeezing my hand to the point that it becomes painful. "And whatever Callista and Milo are talking I'm sure will go fine. It's not like she'd let him do anything that could actually lead to him getting hurt. Now let's go so Callista can rest. Come on."

He practically drags me out of the room, quickly pulling me down the hallway towards the exit.

"Wha-hey, don't pull so hard," I wince. "I get you're angry at me for not resting, but-"

"Angry? I'm not angry," He replies, his face scrunching up. He doesn't slow down.

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise as we leave the hospital. "You're not?"

"No-well, I am a little now that you actually brought it up. But we'll talk about that later." He shakes his head. "You'll never believe who I got a message from."

He says it in a rushed, hurried voice, and I swallow down rising worry. "Is something wrong? Is it the V-Types? Or Sage with some bad news about the nanites?"

Sam shakes his head quickly. "No, no, not that. I got a message from someone. You might not remember her, but do you remember when you were Catherine?"

We reach the coms shack, and he makes sure to shut and lock the door behind him. He lets go of my hand to sit down at the coms desk while I stare at him in confusion.

"I do. What does that have to-" I pale. "Oh, God. She's not actually trying to make contact with us in the real world, is she?"

Again, he shakes his head. "No! Not at all."

I let out a breath of relief. "Good. I mean, in my last dream with her she said I'd be coming to her, but still."

"Yeah, no. It wasn't her. Does she know you've dreamed of being her?"

I scratch my head in thought. "I don't think so. I mean, I know Chrysalis dreamt of being me, but only because Tony told me. I don't think we can see if we've seen into the other's lives, you know?"

"Yeah. Well, you know how you were questioning why you had those dreams? Why then?"

"Yeah..." I reply, wondering where he's going with this. Sam finally looks back at me from his coms desk, his face holding a serious look.

"I think I know why you had those dream when you did. You needed to know who Halima was, why she called Catherine Five," He says.

I stare at him. "I don't understand. Was it because you wouldn't remember or-"

"I just received a message from her in New Oban. She needs our help, and she's asking for Catherine."

A/N: Here you go, guys! Please be sure to vote and comment! Thank you and have a blessed day!