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Characters: Misaki

didorothy
Location: Italy! Misaki's little getaway. Or Little Italy, from Sam's perspective.
Time: Before the end of the experiment, after she talked to Sam about her heart.
Summary: And Misaki embarks on Life Talk Round Two with Sam.
Warnings: None that I can think of!

She brought him to the back entrance, next to the pool. She was a bit relieved that Giorgia was gone--had she been there, it would have been another round of 'mime-the-conversation' or Giorgia thinking she brought men home every other day.

"Haruki's upstairs. He probably won't attack, considering that he knows you."

A sideways smile. "Welcome to the villa."

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"I wish I had a villa," Sam noted, hands in his pocket. He had that vague sense of something being off in Manchester, as he tended to when he was with someone from another reality.

No, someone from another reality who he was close to. It didn't matter if the connection was there. He was under the impression that it was probably a merger.

"That makes two of us." She slipped in, trying to be quiet, just to see if Haruki was as alert as she wanted him to be.

A racket immediately went up from the loft. She grinned. "Haruki, down! Good boy." The dog poked its head through the railing to look down at his master and her guest, then vanished again, presumably to the bedroom.

"He's starting to get used to it here." There's a slight frown at that, then a shrug. "Do you want something to drink? There isn't much to eat--I've been trying not to get too much, since I don't know when we'll be leaving."

Or, you know, getting swept back unexpectedly to Tokyo.

Sam smiled in seeing Haruki, and then nodded to Misaki. "I'm parched, actually."

It was nice, Sam decided. A good place to relax, to vacation. Something Misaki deserved.

Of course, Misaki was like Sam and couldn't stand being idle for any period of time, but there was a difference between being idle and relaxing. Or so Sam liked to hope, or all the holiday hours he'd racked up would be useless to him.

"Limoncello? It's this sweet alcoholic lemon drink. I'm rather fond of it, actually. And I think there's some leftover cacciucco in the fridge." A pause and she frowns at nothing in particular. "Though come to think of it they probably wouldn't go together very well."

She fetches a pair of glasses down from one of the cupboards and sighs, twisting until her back gives a pleasant little crack.

"How've you been?"

"Sure," Sam said. If he had any inhibitions against getting hammered, it was countered by his unwillingness to believe anythingby the name of 'limoncello' could actually inebriate him.

Sam seated himself and watched her move, lifting an eyebrow as her back cracked. Still, he endured the bodily habits of CID. It could be stranger. "Not bad. You?"

She poured the drinks before answering, handing him his and leaning against the counter. "Well enough."

Misaki took a sip, frowning at a point somewhere over Sam's head. Business and then personal stuff, she decided. "I'm looking into something I've learned about the Master."

Sam suppressed the reflexive fear and anger at the name. The Doctor was right; he had to control his emotions if he was going to save himself from that Virus. He could not allow the infection to get to him. So he kept his hatred down and stayed calm.

"What have you learned?" he asked.

"At the moment, not a great deal. Just a name, really. Koschei. It's something he used to call himself. Back at the beginning, I guess."

Fortunately she was so lost in thought she didn't notice any change. "I'm going to try and learn more from... the other Doctor. I'll be careful."

Misaki tops her drink off and offers Sam some more.

He looked at her curiously. "Whenever he talks of his childhood - I spoke to him about it once. All I got was that he used to be the Doctor's friend, used to - not be like how he is. I asked him if he was happier, and I don't know that he was or wasn't."

"Theta Sigma and Koschsei. That's what they used to call each other." She closes her eyes and rests the cool glass against her forehead. "I can't even begin to imagine a relationship like that--over a thousand years. How can you know someone that long and not hate them? Or love them. Or whatever it is that they do."

How can you see that much of the universe and not go completely insane? If anything explains the Master and the Doctor in general, that's probably it.

Of course, she's only human. It's hard for her to imagine living a thousand years in the first place.

Speaking of which.

"...I did what you asked me to."

"Those are Greek letters. Why would a Time Lord have that name?"

Sam didn't respond. He already knew that there was something there, but it felt like one of those things you simply did not engage with - something you let other people take care of. Except that he tried - he did try - to let the Doctor that lived with the Master find someone to talk to. But he still just couldn't get it. If Gene--

--but Gene wouldn't. And they'd almost fallen apart at the illusion of it. There was no way of knowing.

It was a moment for Sam to figure out what she meant. He set down his drink, looked up, didn't waste a moment in asking, "And?"

And. And, now that she's actually standing in front of Sam prepared to tell him, she's having a much harder time getting herself to actually say the words than she thought she would. She even practiced, talking to herself in the mirror with the detachment of a cop reading someone their rights.

"I called Kanami. Got her to recommend a doctor in Rome."

Her stalling wasn't helping Sam's concern. He didn't actually say something - anything he could think to say would just give her more time to stall.

"Made a sort of day trip out of it. Never been to the city before."

Misaki examined her limoncello and set it down on the counter with a sigh. "...Yes. There's something abnormal."

Sam only asked, "What is it?" because there was nothing else to be said.

More drinking now. At least this time she knew what was coming. Sort of. "It's small. Miniscule, really, and slow. Looks like the beginnings of the same problem I had... I suppose 'before' isn't the right word."

There's a half-hearted smile to go with the half-hearted joke. "It's... The best way I can explain it is..." He wasn't going to like this. "It's similar to cancer in that the cells begin to divide beyond their normal capacity. But it's different in that... this tissue is healthy. It doesn't destroy the surrounding tissue, but... she said that there's a chance it could metastasize. My heart is reproducing itself." She shrugs. "She's never seen anything like it. She... wanted to do more tests, more extensive biopsies, but. She didn't have the right equipment."

Or Misaki didn't feel like being poked or marveled at any more. Either one.

Another pause, and then a bit hesitantly, "There is one thing she suggested."

Edited 2009-02-11 09:49 (UTC)

A replicated heart. Her heart. Was replicating. That was absolute madness. It was beyond a tumour, beyond a cancer. Her heart didn't need a second one - she was hardly a Time Lord - would that even work?

Instead of demanding that Misaki take the tests and do everything she could, Sam asked, "What other thing?"

Deep breath. "An operation is out of the question. They would have to remove every effected cell, and right now there's no way for them to tell the difference. What they did before... What they did before, when I got sick--" She remembers it--remembers it? with a shiver. "When I got sick before, it was at a point where they just removed what excess tissue they could and irradiated the rest. It stopped the process, for the most part, but that's what caused the persistent malformation."

And now comes the part that he really won't like. "PANDORA. There's a nonspecific tissue growth regulator they're working on. A cancer cure, more or less. She... said if they heard about my case there's a chance I can be part of their first human testing sample."

PANDORA.

The Syndicate and PANDORA. Sam couldn't tear them apart in his head, even if they were separate. They meant the same thing for Sam: bad news for his friends. PANDORA held Misaki before. But, in the future, it changed, didn't it? There was a hope for it.

"And how do you know we can trust PANDORA with your well-being?"

"I don't know. What I do know is that if I don't do something, either I'll end up in the same position I was before, or this thing will get worse, spread, and start regrowing organs I don't need where there should be no organs at all."

She finishes off her alcohol and examines the glass, turning it in one hand. "Sam. I'm trusting you with this because you're the one who asked me to get checked. Hei-- Don't tell Hei."

Sam's frown, perpetual as it was, deepened. It was up to Misaki who she told and what she did, of course, but he couldn't help but feel things generally went wrong when Hei and Misaki told him to keep secrets from each other. "Do you two enjoy making me hide things from the other?"

"Enjoy--no, of course not." That certainly took her by surprise. She didn't think she had Sam keep secrets very often... did she? More importantly, did Hei?

"Is there... something I should know about that he told you not to say?"

"He already told you it. If you remember our last date," Sam said, smiling at the word, "I told you he had something to say to you. He did tell you, didn't he?"

"Oh." Yes, she remembers that conversation. "Yes, yes he did."

She sighs and rubs her nose. "He worries enough, Sam. And I don't even know how I'd tell him."

"I hear words are popular these days," Sam offered.

He understood her dilemma. There were a lot of things about himself that he liked to keep close to his chest. That didn't stop him from giving advice he should probably follow.

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