Elsie

Elsie wasn't sure what was worse: being held against her will fifty stories above the streets of Los Angeles, or waiting for fugitive metas to finish performing brain surgery on Camilla in a secret mountain lair. At least with the former, only she would have to suffer, and if facing her fear of heights would ensure Camilla's survival, Elsie wouldn't hesitate to stand on that ledge herself.

Unfortunately, there was no correlation between the two events, and Elsie was forced to wait in the cold, dull hallway outside the operating room.

"Huh?" a groggy voice said beside her. "What's going on?"

First, Elsie felt Finn's weight against her shoulder disappear, and she glanced down to see him wiping his mouth with his sleeve as he looked around with half-closed eyes. Second, Elsie realized her leg was bouncing incessantly; she planted her foot firmly on the ground, forcing herself to still.

"Nothing, kid," Nakia said from Finn's other side. Their tone was relaxed but their expression was grim as they glanced at Elsie, then Finn. "Go back to sleep."

Instead, Finn looked at the closed operating room doors. "They're still in there?"

Nakia scoffed. "I'd be more concerned if they were done so quickly. It's brain surgery; it's not like they can just pull that thing out like a splinter and slap a bandage on it."

"But they got practice with AJ already, right?"

"How many times did you practice asking that sixth year out? Remember, we were all stuck in the same tent, so you can't pretend that didn't happen." When Finn could only respond with flushed cheeks, Nakia continued. "And how long after that did it take you to finally ask her out?"

"Alright, alright! You've made your point!" Finn pouted as he slouched in his seat, his gaze turning back to the closed doors. "I just want her to be, you know... back to her old self again."

With that, Nakia's eyes widened, and they wordlessly glanced at Elsie.

But Elsie couldn't provide any words of comfort, not when she wasn't sure if Camilla could ever fully heal after what she had gone through. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to watch Camilla struggle with demons that no one else could see, and Elsie was powerless to do anything except pick up the pieces of Camilla's fractured spirits.

Ever since Camilla's talk with AJ, she became more reserved and withdrawn than ever, occasionally going days without saying a single word. Even when someone spoke to her directly, it would usually take her several seconds to even realize she was being addressed, and she wouldn't have any words for them afterwards. The only time Elsie heard her speak was when they were alone in their bed, and even then Camilla would only mutter a quiet "sorry" or "thank you."

It took until the middle of July for Camilla to say more than a few words at a time, and that was only because she had been eager to finally remove whatever device Hester jammed into her head. Elsie had been more worried than excited, but she didn't want to damper Camilla's hope. Mack and Hitomi at least assured Elsie they would be standing by to heal her in case of an emergency.

But now they were all inside the operating room, leaving Elsie stuck outside with the kids and no information at all.

She knew she should be trying to comfort them; they were too young for such a horrifying experience, and Elsie was part of the reason they were there in the first place. But at the thought of Camilla having her head pried open a few feet away, Elsie couldn't bring herself to do anything besides worry.

For the next hour, they waited in relative silence, occasionally interspersed with a cough from Nakia and a sniff from Finn.

When the door slowly opened, Nakia and Finn jumped to their feet; Elsie stayed seated, too scared of the worst case scenario.

It was Mack. And while his complexion was gaunt and pale, his smile was strong.

"She's okay," he said, his voice hoarse.

Elsie stood up so fast that stars filled her vision, and she almost careened into Mack as she stumbled through the doorway.

"Easy, Elsie," Mack said, chuckling a little as he steadied her. "If you fall on the stone floor, they'll have to do brain surgery on you too."

Elsie was more concerned about blinking the bright lights out of her eyes as she blindly scanned the operating room, but none of the tall figures staring back at her were what she was looking for. "Camilla?"

At last, her vision cleared enough to see a small figure sitting on a table in the middle of the room.

"Elsie?" Camilla's whisper never sounded louder.

Elsie was rushing towards Camilla before she knew it, only partially noticing Hitomi and AJ standing next to her, along with a few other healers scattered around the room. Likewise, Camilla's eyes were only on Elsie, and while her smile was faint, it was there. She was alive.

"Careful now." AJ's voice sounded both distant and close at the same time. "She may be mostly healed, but remember what it was like when I was inside your head? We may not have needed anesthesia, but she'll still be a little disoriented."

When Camilla didn't immediately contradict AJ's words and instead blinked slowly at Elsie, Elsie knew AJ was probably right. As much as Elsie was tempted to scoop Camilla in the tightest hug she could muster, she instead settled on holding one of Camilla's hands and slowly rubbing circles on her back. In response, Camilla slowly leaned into her, resting her head on Elsie's chest with a deep sigh.

Elsie wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, nor did she count how many kisses she pressed into Camilla's hair. When her pulse began to steady at last, she glanced at Hitomi on the other side of the table, then at AJ at one of the ends.

"Thank you," Elsie whispered, her voice rough with tears she didn't know she was shedding. "Thank you both."

Then, she looked around the room where the Exodos healers were scattered, each busying themselves with the clean-up. "Thank you all so much. I'm... I'm not sure what we would've done without you."

The healers returned her gratitude with weary smiles.

"It's our pleasure," one of the healers said; Elsie recognized him as the man that stood up for them when Camilla returned from Farallon an inch from death. "We owe her our lives; it's the least we could do. And even if that wasn't the case..." He took a deep breath and nodded. "It was the right thing to do. The Org may destroy lives, but that doesn't mean we have to too."

"If only your friends thought like that," Hitomi muttered. She held Camilla's other shoulder and watched her cousin carefully before turning her gaze to Elsie. "With her healed... who knows how long they will let us stay now?"

"It's bullshit," AJ hissed, glaring at the table between them. "For a group that preaches about being against everything the Org does, you'd think they'd have a sense of responsibility to take in everyone wronged by them. Not just the people they like."

"It's not that they don't like you all," the man quickly said, and when everyone turned to him, he hesitated. "I mean, they don't like you all, but that's not the reason they want you gone."

"Seriously?" Mack's voice sounded from behind Elsie. "Are the supplies our friends are risking their lives to get not good enough?"

"It's not really that either," the man continued, slightly nervous. "It's... I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I think they were expecting... more."

"More? More what? Food? Medical supplies? Planes?"

The man looked to his feet. "Abilities."

Silence followed his words, and more than one pair of eyes turned to the ground. No one wanted to address the obvious.

No one, except for Camilla.

When she slowly pulled her hand from Elsie's, Elsie didn't resist, only watching Camilla raise her palm in front of her. Elsie felt all eyes on them as Camilla held her hand steady at chest-level; in turn, Camilla focused on her fingers.

When they twitched, the audience flinched—but nothing happened.

"It's okay," Elsie whispered as she pulled Camilla close again, and Camilla released a shaky breath against Elsie's chest. "You're going to be okay."

"Really?" Hitomi asked, her tone firm.

Elsie turned to her, shocked by her bluntness, but Hitomi's narrowed eyes didn't move from Camilla. And when Camilla didn't respond after a few seconds, instead keeping her face hidden against Elsie's body, Hitomi sighed roughly and stormed out of the room, ignoring Mack's confused questions about where she was going.

"If I may..." the healer spoke up, but he didn't continue until Elsie turned to him. "From what we can tell, her abilities should be fine. She may just need some time to get used to them again."

His words weren't exactly reassuring, but Elsie nodded anyway as she held onto Camilla even tighter. She couldn't let her worry show, not when Camilla needed her to be strong for the both of them.

---

Evidently, Elsie wasn't the only one of Camilla's acquaintances maintaining a strong front. Except Elsie's take was strong and supportive; Hitomi's was strong and confrontational.

That much was clear when Elsie walked in on the cousins having an argument in their shared bedroom. While Elsie couldn't understand a word of the Japanese verbal sparring, she didn't need a dictionary to know both of them were furious.

Just as Elsie was about to intervene, Camilla let out a bitter snarl before storming out, sidestepping Elsie without even looking at her.

"What the hell was that?" Elsie asked when Hitomi's finally evened out.

"My stupid cousin being... stupid," Hitomi snapped, her true opinion likely being caught in the language barrier.

As Hitomi continued grumbling for a few seconds in Japanese, Elsie waited awkwardly in the doorway.

"I ask her what is really wrong, and she says nothing." Hitomi scoffed before exclaiming something in Japanese that Elsie probably didn't want to know the meaning of. "Even when I say I know she is lying, that I do not even need my abilities to know she is hiding something, she is so... so... stubborn! So... annoying! Why is she so... that?"

Elsie frowned. "What?"

"She is keeping secrets!" Hitomi exclaimed. "From me! Why?"

Before Elsie could try to reason with her, AJ joined them.

"You!" Hitomi said before AJ could say a word. "What is Mitaka hiding?"

"Oh, hell no," AJ immediately said as she headed straight for her bed, thankfully catching on quicker than Elsie had. "I have enough family drama as it is. I'm not getting involved in someone else's."

As AJ continued to ignore Hitomi's pestering, Elsie looked on with worry. She understood Hitomi's frustrations, and while Elsie was just as concerned with Camilla's stagnant recovery, she was also worried Camilla was hiding her internal struggles so as to not burden anyone else. So when Hitomi finally left in a huff, Elsie quietly approached AJ.

"I am not getting involved in girlfriend drama either," AJ said as she lay in her bed, not even taking her eyes off the book she had been "reading" as she ignored Hitomi.

"And I don't want you to," Elsie said, then sighed. "I'm just... I'm worried Camilla needs someone to talk to, but Hitomi and I can't be that person. We don't... know what happened there—not really. And I get the feeling she's trying to protect us from the truth. But in doing so... she has to suffer alone."

Elsie hadn't realized her gaze drifted down to her fidgeting hands, and when she looked up, AJ was studying her with her unwavering gaze.

"Could you try to talk to her?" Elsie asked. "Please?"

Elsie knew she was asking for a lot, especially given how exhausted AJ looked. The woman could normally be found at her brother's bedside, trying to coax his soul back to life. AJ had no reason to help Camilla anymore than she already had.

Still, AJ eventually sighed, then shrugged. "I'll try."

Elsie nodded. "Thank you."

---

After that, things were calm for a few days, at least amongst Elsie's friends. While there was still bitterness between Camilla and Hitomi, there were no shouting matches either; Camilla even assured Elsie she would take AJ up on her offer to help, at least once she was ready.

As for Exodos, even the highest ranking members had temporarily quieted their attempts to expel Elsie and her friends, in favor of trying to quell the unrest among their own ranks. While some wanted to continue pursuing the Org, others wanted to be done with the fighting and simply live in hiding. Throughout it all, Elsie's group kept out of their politics and took the chance to take a much-needed breather.

But of course, the peace didn't last long.

Elsie and Camilla had been asleep one night, sharing Elsie's bed as usual. Hitomi and AJ had gotten the night rotations that week, leaving the rest of the room vacant. And as far as Elsie knew, everything was at peace.

Even though it was the end of July, there was still snow at the tops of the Alaskan mountains, including the one hiding Exodos's base. A constant chill lingered through the maze of caves of the hideout, and Elsie and Camilla had decided to huddle together for warmth. It would remind Elsie of the nights they spent together while filming when they would make Camilla's hotel room as cold as it could get, then they would bundle up under the covers and watch a movie.

In fact, Elsie had been dreaming about those times that night, so she didn't find it unusual when she felt the air around her steadily getting colder and colder. Instead, she only briefly woke up to fumble groggily for their thick blanket to pull it snugly over their shoulders, and Elsie didn't even bother to open her eyes for that. It wasn't until Elsie tried to pull Camilla closer and found nothing but empty sheets did she realize something was off.

Normally, they slept facing each other, with Camilla's back to the wall. But when Elsie cracked her eyes open in confusion, she saw Camilla flat on her back, far away and lying rigidly in place. Not only that, the air had gotten even colder, but Camilla was sweating so profusely that her shirt was damp and sticking to her skin.

At first, Elsie worried that she had a fever, and when she touched Camilla's shoulder she felt heat radiating through her sleeve from her skin. When her attempts to wake Camilla up proved unsuccessful, Elsie jumped to her feet and hurried outside.

But when she stepped into the hallway, she saw that she wasn't the only one there. Almost every room had their door open with curious heads groggily looking up and down the hallway. A second later, Elsie realized why, and the chilly air in the hallway made her feel like she was walking into a freezer. When people exhaled, a cloud of steam would form in front of their faces. A layer of ice had formed on the metal door knobs. Some of the kids began to squeal excitedly about an indoor snow day.

Elsie closed the door to their room quickly and quietly. While their own room was cold, it was relatively warm compared to everywhere else.

Suddenly, Elsie remembered what the others had said about their escape from Farallon, when Camilla lost control of her powers and began taking in energy from everything around her. They said that the air had gotten so cold, it felt like the middle of winter. Around them, the sparse bits of foliage had withered and died almost instantly. Even the ocean waves had stilled as if they had frozen in time.

Eventually, something clicked in Elsie's head, and her gaze snapped to her bed. Camilla was using her abilities to take in the energy from the air, and she didn't even realize it. Or maybe she couldn't control it. If that was the case, Elsie couldn't risk almost losing Camilla again. She had to do something, and she had to do it fast.

Elsie rushed back towards her bed, back towards Camilla. But when Elsie reached out a hand to wake her, she felt a strange sensation at her fingertips, and she jumped back instinctively. Upon closer inspection, her hand looked normal, but it felt significantly colder and weaker than it did a few seconds ago. While the rest of Elsie still felt perfectly fine, it was exhausting to even move her fingers on that hand specifically, as if its energy had been sucked out. As if Camilla had taken its energy.

But Elsie didn't know how else she could wake Camilla up, and Camilla didn't even stir when Elsie tried to jostle the mattress or bed frame beneath her. Ideally, Elsie would have liked to consult with Mack, who had been in a similar situation several months prior, but she didn't have time for that. What she did remember was how Jordan had managed to break Mack's concentration by forcefully separating him from Quentin, but for Elsie to do that, she would need to separate Camilla from the air entirely.

Frustrated, Elsie tried to reach out to Camilla again, and while her hand was zapped with a feeling of numbness this time, Elsie also noticed how Camilla flinched at the exact same time. The observation made Elsie wonder if Camilla could tell the difference between the energy from the air and another person, but she didn't have time to think about it for long. Instead, Elsie simply assumed that was the case, and that enough of her energy could be enough to wake Camilla.

So Elsie took a page out of Jordan's book and, with a running start, lunged for Camilla.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly hit her, but Elsie kept her consciousness enough to let out an unrefined grunt as she landed on the bed and partially on top of Camilla, then to notice Camilla scrambling away towards the wall a second later. By the time Elsie got her bearings and her breath back enough to push herself upright, Camilla had backed herself up against the wall, her eyes wide and her chest heaving.

"Milla," Elsie managed to say between her deep breaths for air.

The glazed look of horror in Camilla's eyes was a telltale sign that she had a nightmare again, so Elsie reached out a hand to offer comfort.

But instead of hesitating and eventually accepting Elsie's help like she normally did, Camilla immediately flinched and tried to put as much distance as she could between them. But since Camilla was already pressed against the wall, all she could do was scramble sideways and squeeze herself into the corner. As surprised as Elsie was, she pulled her hand back and instead tried her words.

"Milla," she repeated, her gaze focused on Camilla's eyes. They didn't change, so Elsie continued. "Can you hear me?"

After several long seconds, Camilla nodded once, but her eyes remained the same.

"Do you know where you are?" Elsie tried.

Again, Camilla nodded, but her eyes were still filled with horror, as if she was still seeing her nightmare. Then Elsie realized that maybe she was. Maybe her nightmare became a reality.

"Milla, I'm fine," Elsie insisted. While she was a little shaken up, she actually did feel normal again, and she even got back to her feet and did a few jumping jacks. She gave Camilla a small smile that she hoped was reassuring. "See? Nothing to worry about."

When Camilla didn't answer right away, Elsie made to sit back on the edge of her bed. But before she could do so, Camilla tensed, and held out a hand in a gesture to stop her. Elsie complied, but she still couldn't help but be confused.

"Milla, can you tell me what's wrong?" Elsie asked softly. When Camilla only continued to look at her with wide eyes and her hand held up in warning, Elsie continued. "What can I do?"

Immediately, Camilla's eyes darted between Elsie and the door. Outside, there was a slight commotion, as if people had gathered around the entrance to their room. Apparently, they figured out where the indoor winter had come from. But before Elsie could respond to either Camilla or the knocking at their door, Camilla spoke first.

"Go," she ground out, her voice soft and strained.

Elsie, who had been looking at the door, spun around to Camilla at the unexpected sound of her voice. "Huh?"

"Go!" Camilla exclaimed, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

So Elsie went. She turned and headed straight out of the room as fast as she could, almost colliding with some people as she stumbled out into the hallway. Before she could apologize, the door to their room slammed shut behind her, as if reminding Elsie of Camilla's words. So Elsie didn't say anything as she squeezed through the crowd and kept walking, going further and further just as Camilla wanted.

---

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