ALYSSA
I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I really have to wake up. Ziva needs me.
She’s been vomiting all night. Her hair’s started to fall out in clumps and her mood has been manic. It doesn’t help that Mom’s still in denial about her diagnosis and Dad keeps insisting on forcing her to see new specialists again and again and again.
I’m the only one who understands what she needs: she needs to be treated like a person. Not a patient. A person.
Alyssa, where are you?
I’m here! I try to call out to her, but I can’t seem to find my voice. I can’t seem to open my eyes, either.
What even is this? What’s happening?
It’s my worst nightmare, is what it is. Catatonic when my loved ones need me most. I don’t have many of those left, “loved ones.” My whole world has narrowed down to two. Ziva and Elle.
Elle got early acceptance at Wellesley, so she’s going to be leaving soon. And Ziva… she’s sick.
Not the kind of sick that you can walk off. Not the kind of sick that you can sleep off. The kind of sick that’s with you when you walk and talk and breathe. The kind of sick that picks up steam the longer it sits in your body. It spreads roots and you can’t rip it out no matter how hard you try.
I’m here, Ziva. I’m never gonna leave you. And I’m not going to let you die.
I’ve made that promise to her countless times already. The last time I said it, she told me to stop making promises I couldn’t keep.
This isn’t up to you, Lys. It’s not up to anyone.
But she doesn’t get it. It is up to the people around you to hold you upright when you don’t have the strength anymore. Isn’t that the whole point of family? And without Ziva, I don’t have a family at all.
Come on, I will myself. Get up. Get the fuck up. Ziva needs you!
There’s a strange beeping in my left ear. It’s sending a prickly feeling up my left arm. Is someone touching me? Is Ziva here and I just haven’t been able to open my eyes long enough to notice?
Ziva?
No. It can’t be Ziva. She’s not usually so rough. And it doesn’t hurt so much when she’s around me. Why does it hurt? There are sharp stings racing down my spine. And my stomach. And now my arm.
What is that?
“Her vitals are stable,” a deep voice reports without emotion. “The babies’ heart rates have normalized too. We can leave them in there.”
Another voice snakes through my subconscious. Eerily familiar and yet alien enough to make my skin crawl. “Why would we want to? Doesn’t serve my purpose. Call me when you’re ready to induce.”
Then I hear footsteps receding.
“Vitals”？ “Babies”？ “Induce”？
Something is very wrong. If I can just open my eyes, maybe things will become clearer. I try to reach for Ziva but the moment I manage to get my eyes open, her likeness disintegrates. Instead, I’m staring at a man in a doctor’s coat. Gray stubble, patchy across the back of his head.
I know him.
“D-Dr. Grigory?”
He turns from the monitor that I’m hooked up to. There’s a dullness in his eyes, like he’s so tired he can barely keep his eyelids from fluttering closed. “Hello, Alyssa.”
I draw in a breath that hurts my chest. I should have stayed under, in that half-dream world. The reality is hitting hard now and it’s leaving me panicked. Scared. Helpless.
“W-where am I?”
It looks like a hospital room at first blush, but the closer I peer around, the more I see that it’s more like a cheap facade. The paint on the walls is peeling, the tiles on the floor are cracking. A beady red light belonging to a security camera in the far corner stares at me unblinking.
“What’s going on?” I croak when he doesn’t answer my first question.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers with resignation. “I had to comply.”
“I… I don’t know what that means.”
I try to remember how I went from the hospital to this grimy fake replica. Then it hits me.
The fight with Uri. My anxiety kicking into high gear, the pain racing through me as Elle had run for the doctors. The nurses came pouring in with Dr. Grigory at the forefront. His eyes—quicksand eyes. The black hair of the false nurse. Her wink.
Oh, God.
“Dr. Grigory, talk to me!”
“Shh,” he snaps. “Lower your voice or he’ll come back in here!”
I wince. “Who? Who will come back in here?” The other voice I heard earlier? The eerie but familiar voice. No. No. No. It can’t be. “Please, you have to help me. You have to get me out of here!”