The Many Faces of Tully

We’re sitting in the lab. Everyone is up now and Jace doesn’t want anyone looking in on us. He still doesn’t want them to know what he’s capable of. Not until he can gain control of it, which I’m confident he will.

We’re sitting crisscross on the floor, facing each other. We are so close that our knees are touching. His hands are in his lap and he keeps intertwining his fingers together and then springing them apart. He keeps taking deep breaths in and breathing out slowly.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Tully.” Jace says to me. He looks scared. I’ve never seen him scared before. It’s weird and I don’t like it. He’s supposed to be sturdy. I guess I have to be the sturdy one this time.

I reach forward and grab his right hand with mine. I hold it between us like we’re about to arm wrestle. He squeezes my hand nervously. I place my other hand on the back of his so it’s between mine. I look him right in the eye.

“I know you can. I trust you. I have faith in you. You can do it, and you won’t kill me.” I try to say as convincingly as possible. His hand squeezes mine and I squeeze right back to reassure him.

“I don’t know how to do it. I only know how to heal.” His eyes are flickering between mine.

“Should I try to make you angry?” I ask him. He shakes his head.

“I won’t be able to stop then. I need to do it on purpose. How did you control your morphing?” His tone is slightly pleading. He almost makes me want to stop this, but we need to do it. We have to.

“I have to clear my mind of everything and then think about the animal I want to morph into, like really concentrate on it and then it happens. I don’t think that will work with you though. How do you heal? How does it work?” He’s never really explained to me how it worked.

“Well, when I’m healing someone else I have to touch their bare skin. Normally touching the area that needs healed directly is the quickest way to heal them.” I’m relieved to hear his voice return to normal. He doesn’t sound scared or nervous. He sounds like his scientist mode again.

He’s talking to our hands. “If it’s not apparent to what’s wrong with them, like a broken bone or a cut, then I touch their chest and I can feel all of their body. I sense what’s working properly and what’s not. Whatever isn’t working correctly feels cold to me. I can see their entire body in my mind and I can see what areas are cold. After that, I know what I need to heal. If you haven’t noticed, my hands get exceptionally hot when I’m healing someone. It’s like whatever part that needs healed is dead and my hands are bringing warmth and life back to them.”

“Huh. Does that give you any ideas? It gives me ideas to how you can do this.” I feel like a teacher now. I know exactly what he needs to do now.

He hangs his head and shakes it. I don’t know if he doesn’t know or if he just doesn’t want to know. He’s going to have to. He has to do this.

“Well, what I think you need to do is feel my body. Do you feel how healthy it is?”

His hand starts to glow green between mine. He nods his head.

“Does it feel warm to you?” He nods his head again, still looking at his lap. “Try to make it cold,” I tell him.

He peeks up at me. “I don’t want to,” he whispers. He looks terrified. I’m probably going to be looking at him the same way when I’m supposed to be using my power against him.

“It’ll be okay. Trust me,” I whisper back. He sighs and then places his other hand on mine. He leans his head forward so his forehead presses against our hands.

His hand stops glowing green and starts cooling down. Then they start to turn red. His hands feel like ice in mine, and then my entire body starts to feel cold, and weak. He doesn’t move his forehead from our hands.

It starts to get hard to breath. I start gasping for air but I don’t feel like I’m getting enough oxygen. Everything in my body feels like they’re weakening. My joints feel like they are freezing into place. My heart doesn’t seem to be pumping as fast. As a matter of fact, all of my organs seem to be slowing down and stopping. His hands are taking any warmth my body holds, and with warmth, it takes my energy. My thoughts are getting fuzzy and my muscles are getting weak. I can’t hold onto his hands anymore, but I can’t move them. They are frozen around his.

I collapse backwards, too weak to hold myself up and I try vainly to get air into my freezing lungs. It’s so hard to breathe. I can’t breathe. I’m not getting enough oxygen. I can’t get enough oxygen. My lungs seem to be half filled with ice, unable inhale or exhale. My heart is slowing down way too much, freezing too. It keeps pumping ice through my entire body, less frequently with every beat. I’m dying. I am freezing to death. I can’t find any warmth in my body to cling to.

“Tully!” Jace exclaims and drops my hands which stay curled around invisible hands. “Oh my God!” he yells. He crawls forward and puts his hand under my head and lifts it up. He scoots forward and places my head in his lap.

“Healing. Would be. Nice,” I gasp at him. I have no idea how I managed to talk. I figured my mouth would be frozen shut, like the rest of my body seems to be. I can’t feel my arms or legs any more, and the rest of my body is almost to that point.

“Oh, right. Here.” He thrust his hand down the neck of my shirt and places it right over my heart. I feel his hand get hot, burning my frozen skin, and its warmth spreads through my entire body, chasing out the ice. I feel my body get stronger, thawing out and I can finally take deeper breaths. My heart is starting to beat at a normal pace now. Warmth is life, literally.

He takes his hand from under my shirt and I sit up. “Wow. That was something.” I laugh slightly. Then all of a sudden Jace is crushing me to his chest.

“Jesus Christ, Tully. I thought you were going to die. I thought I was going to kill you. I’m so sorry. That was horrible. Don’t make me do it again.” His voice hitches slightly and he is breathing heavily. I notice he is shaking.

I can’t hug him back. He’s trapped my arms to my sides and he is pressing my face against his chest. I can hear his heart beating fast. I don’t want to make him do this again. I don’t like this side of him. It doesn’t feel right. It goes against everything he is. He’s not supposed to take life. He’s only supposed to heal.

“I won’t, Jace. I promise. Just once was all I needed.” I’m talking to his bicep, which is all I can really see right now. I bend my elbow and my hand finds his forearm. I start rubbing it reassuringly.

“Oh God that was terrible.” A tremor rocks through his body. I feel his cheek press on to the top of my head. “I can’t believe you convinced me to do that to you. I can’t believe I let myself do that.” His thumb is tracing my cheek.

“Jace, hey, listen to me. It’s all right. I’m all right. You’re okay.” I try to comfort him. He’s still shaking.

“I don’t think you understand, Tully!” He sounds desperate again. His muscles tighten and he squeezes me tighter. “I seriously almost just killed you! Do you know how that feels like?” His voice is shaking too.

“Yes. I do, Jace,” I say, sadness coated my voice. “But I don’t almost kill someone. I do kill them. I can’t stop and then heal them. I can’t take back my mistakes.” I’m frowning now.

“Oh God. You’re right. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking about that. I’m sorry. This morning is going horrible. First I almost kill you and then I be a jerk to you. I’m sorry.” He squeezes me tightly again.

“It’s okay. I don’t blame you. I don’t think straight after I kill someone so I wouldn’t expect you to think straight after almost killing someone. It’s kind of nerve-racking.” I feel bad for making him feel bad. He didn’t mean to say that.

“Yeah. It is. I’m so sorry.” His breath blows a couple strands of hair into my face. He’s stopped shaking finally.

“It’s okay. I wanted you to do it. Just don’t do it again.” I laugh. His laughter rumbles in my ear.

“Trust me, I won’t.” He finally lets me go. “I guess it’s your turn to almost kill me. This is a nice bonding experience for us,” he jokes.

I’m glad to see his good humor is back, but now I’m nervous. I don’t want to switch positions. I’d rather him take my health again. I don’t like his odds at survival right now. I really hope he can heal himself.

“Yeah, there’s nothing like almost killing someone to get closer to them. It’s probably the reason half of marriages fail, because they don’t almost kill their spouse. We should notify the experts. Maybe we can save thousands of marriages,” I joke back with him.

He stands up and offers me his hands. I take them and let him help me up. He starts to lead me out the door. I’m not sure if I’m ready for this.

“Good thing to know that if we ever got married that it wouldn’t fail.”

“Ah, but you might be dead soon. Then we would never know,” I say wistfully.

“We’ll see. I can’t wait to see the side of you that’s not terrified of hurting me.” He smiles at me.

“I’ll always be terrified of hurting you. No matter if you live or not, it’s still going to hurt. It will be extremely painful.” I think I’m trying to convince him to back out. That would be nice right about now. We’re walking down the wide hallway now and we’re getting closer to the practice room. It feels like I’m walking to my execution. Or Jace’s.

“Fine. Then I can’t wait to see the side of you that’s not terrified of killing me,” he amends.

“You may never see that side,” I warn him.

“Gosh. You’re such a downer. Can’t you be optimistic?” He’s looking into the room and then he opens the door.

“Optimism lost its appeal after I killed three people,” I say flatly. I see Calchas walking towards us.

“You kids ready for this?” he asks us when he gets to us. I wonder how he knew what we were doing. Then I remembered he is a seer. I wonder if he knows what the outcome of this was going to be.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I sigh. I’m too scared to ask him if he knows. I walk into the practice room and I feel Jace follow me in.