Mixed Signals

~*~~*~~Chapter Nine~~*~~*~~*~

It was several days before anyone saw Celica. She sequestered herself in her bedroom, only coming out to have dinner with her family - during which she was unusually reserved. The rest of the day, she didn't eat, and hardly slept. Mostly, she just screamed, cried, and stared at the wall. Sometimes all at once.

Finally, she woke up one morning and loathed everything she'd been doing for the past few days with such venom that she decided to go out. Thus, she did her morning exercises, then showered and dressed. There was still no possible way she could show her face at the office, but there had to be something else to do in the city. As she was out walking aimlessly, she got a call - it was Sylvia. She answered.

"Yello?"

"Are you okay?" Sylvia asked nervously. "I mean, geez, you don't even bother to show up to work for two days."

"Yeah, I'll be alright. Sorry if you guys had to pick up the slack."

A sigh. "That's not important. Accela told us what happened."

"She WHAT?!"

"Uh... she said you two had a fight, and that at the end of it you looked like you were having some kind of attack. She, um, guessed that might be why you couldn't come in to work."

"Oh." Celica found a nearby lamppost and leaned heavily against it. "That's the story, alright."

"Don't worry, she didn't give us any details. But, I mean, if you wanted t-"

"Forget it, you busybody," she half-laughed. "It's pretty damn personal."

"Whatever. But, um... I think Integra is going to want you to see a doctor."

"Oh, for the love of-"

"Don't shoot the messenger. Come on, Yayoi, if you're having attacks it might be your Proceed going haywire, or it could be any number of-"

"I'm fit as a fiddle," she protested. "And my next physical is in a month, anyway. I'm sure if I can manage to survive until then, they'll find out what's wrong with me - which will be NOTHING, I'm sure. So mind your own business."

There was a long pause as her friend and coworker tried to accept that she would in no way be able to force Celica to do anything about it against her will. Finally, she sighed and said, "Well, if you're going to be so bullheaded... when can we expect to see you down here again?"

"Maybe tomorrow. No, scratch that - I'll be in tomorrow morning, nine sharp. Count on it."

"Okay," she laughed. "That sounds more like the Celica we all know and love. See ya then."

"Later."

As Celica hung up, she wondered at that last part. "The Celica we all know and love". Did Accela still count among the "we", or had she withdrawn her membership? Maybe so. Despite all their bitter words, she covered for her, provided an excuse for her absence so she wouldn't lose her job just because she was wallowing in her own misery. The part she'd been agonizing over the most was that even while they were trying to tear each other's heads off with sound waves, the very instant a panic attack had started overtaking her, Accela rushed to her aid, trying to determine if there was anything she could do. And now, a part of her regretted sorely that she hadn't let her - hadn't accepted her care with open arms and buried the animosity of the moment before. But no. Too late for that alternate chain of events, now.

Still, getting the call from Sylvia proved that she wasn't scorned and despised outright. Better than nothing.

The day drifted by as Celica kicked around the shopping district. She did a few things she'd never bothered to before: listened to a street performer clumsily abuse the guitar, played on a jungle gym for the first time in eleven years, bummed a cigarette off a stranger and made casual conversation while they smoked. She took in a movie - a comedy she would typically have scorned for being yet another dumb flick and passed it over for something with a little more action. But it made her laugh, over and over she laughed. It felt good.

None of these could erase the ache in her heart, which stayed with her even as she returned home and ate dinner. Still, it did ease the ache, made it less overshadowing. She took a single sleeping pill late in the evening, and did not wake until her alarm went off. She felt refreshed, rejuvenated - like a brand new Celica Yayoi. One who didn't need alcohol, or vengeance... and maybe didn't even need Accela. However, that would remain to be seen.

~*~

"Morning, all."

"Welcome back, prodigal dork," Sylvia announced, not looking up from her terminal. "You back in functioning form?"

"Yeah," she sighed wearily. "I dunno, I was in a funk or whatever. But I feel great now - don't even know what was bothering me."

"Really?" Accela asked, also not looking up. But Celica didn't respond. She wasn't ready to get into all that yet.

"Eh." She pulled a few papers toward her and immediately launched herself into a few reports, started trawling databases. Normally, she'd have already been seeking ways to slack off, but she figured she'd been slacking for two days straight. It was time to make up for it.

For one day, at least.

Eventually, a call came in that four ne'er-do-wells with Resemble parts were terrorizing city hall, spouting off about unregistered citizens and taxpayer dollars and whatnot. No matter how much Special Security sympathized with their plight, they simply could not be allowed to put the lives of innocent people in danger to further their agendas. So it was time to go to work.

"Celica, I want you up on that roof to pick off escapees," Integra commanded, motioning with a ramrod-straight arm. "Non-lethal rounds unless the situation progresses. Sylvia, Accela and I will infiltrate."

"I should stay by Celica," Accela volunteered. "It might be wise to have an on-ground safety net."

"Noted. Keep your eyes peeled."

As the other two began moving toward the building's entrances, Accela and Celica made a beeline for the low building where Celica could set up her rifle and keep an eye on their target.

"So, you ready to level with me?"

"About what?" Celica asked. "And is your hailing frequency set to one-on-one communication?"

"Is yours?"

Celica let out a blast of laughter as she took a leap, using her rockets to alight upon the roof. "Point taken, computer expert. Level with you about what?"

"You know. What happened to you before I left the party. That was... scary."

"Oh, that," she said mildly as she zoomed the scope on the doorway. "Hey, make sure you keep both eyes on the wide-angle, since I'm narrowing my focus."

"Roger." A second passed in silence. "Does this mean you don't feel like talking about it?"

"What? It was no biggie."

"You looked like you were having a heart attack, Celica. That qualifies as a biggie in my book."

"Oh, stop pretending you're really worried about me and that you don't just want to be kept in the loop. Curiosity killed the cat, y'know."

Suddenly, Accela was kneeling beside her, one hand resting on her arm. "I was worried. I have been."

"We are on the job, officer," Celica barked, trying for authoritative and ending up with crabby. "This can wait."

"Tell me. Right now, tell me, because I want to know if I should be reporting it."

"Stop that!" she snapped. "Stop threatening to report me about everything! Is your first instinct always going to be tattling to teacher?!"

"Celica," she hissed, voice breaking a bit, "I can't even sleep knowing you might have some kind of... some condition that could turn you into a vegetable at any moment. Can't you appreciate that? What if we could have done something, but we're too late because you refuse to be forthcoming about it?"

"Then I'll die. Now let me concentrate or I could miss the shot."

"No! No, no, I don't want you to die!"

It was all Celica could do to bite back the remark in her mind: 'Maybe if I did, you and Miss Galaga can make kissy-kissy noises all you want without fretting about how I'm going to take it.' But bite it back she did. "I'm not gonna die. I'm fine, it was just... too much was going on. I took a few days to get my head straight. That's it, that's the whole sad story."

A minute stretched by as they heard a few ominous bangs sounding within city hall, crouching and waiting for their assistance to be necessary. Then Accela said, "Okay. But I have another question."

"Oh, for the- seriously? You seriously will not leave me alone about the stupid party?"

"Those things you said to me at the end. When you were- I mean, before I left. Did you mean them?"

Celica rolled her eyes - not that Accela could see that through her visor. "Like I even remember what I said. I was upset."

"You said that I make you sick," she sobbed, all too crystal clear over the audio feed in her helmet. "That you want me out of your life before... before I wind up killing you. Please tell me that's not how you feel."

"Accela-"

"Because if you do, I'll back off completely. I mean it, I don't want to b-be the one who- if you up and-"

"Forget it," Celica soothed, despite how little she felt like pampering her teammate. "I was freaked out, I snapped, and I started saying whatever I thought would get you to leave me alone. Because whatever I said or meant, that was what I needed. Alone time." She let a few heartbeats pass before adding, "And I'm sorry I got so nasty. You didn't deserve it."

"Apology accepted." There were a few loud sniffing noises, and then the audio link was severed. When Celica swiveled her helmet to cast a glance at Accela, all she saw was a soldier in a Proceed suit, gazing evenly at the target below. The picture of duty. Any outside observer would never know Celica was brooding and Accela was weeping.

There was another blast, and Celica turned to gaze through her scope. A man with a briefcase and a gun leapt through the door, Resemble legs gleaming in the sunlight. With barely a nanosecond's time to sight him, she squeezed the trigger and brought him down.

"Nice shot," Accela whispered.

"That's what they pay me the big bucks for. Um, thanks."

"Now I feel like I'm not earning my keep," she went on, half-laughing. "But... um."

"You do know I get that the only reason we're up here together is because you wanted a private word, right? I'm not a total airhead."

Another laugh; wow, she was feeling a lot better after their semi-productive chat. "I know. And... and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Garabine right away, I'm sorry I've been all over the place, and-"

"Enough."

"And I'm sorry I kicked you and yelled at you." A few steadying breaths carried over the radio waves. "That was kind of... childish."

"No more childish than what I did in the hot tub. I... can't explain that away, not to make it sound rational or anything. I'm kind of a pig."

"You told me already. Remember? You s-said you were in pain. Because of me, because I changed the game on you all of a sudden."

Celica forced herself to chuckle. "Is that what I said? Man, what a whiny toddler I can be sometimes."

"Hey, don't do that to yourself. You have every right to be mad, to have feelings. But obviously I can't help you with them if you don't open up." The note of sadness lessened as she went on, "Of course, I'm not going to say you have the right to punish me for them. And I'd never say you can use sex as a punishment, that is out of bounds."

"I already apologized," she sighed. "And if you want to keep bringing it up all the time, then we're going to have a problem, because I already feel like a bucket of diarrhea for that. Stop rubbing it in."

"Last time, I promise," Accela told her softly. "As long as we both agree that it can't happen again. Not something like that."

A lump formed in Celica's throat as she tried not to think too hard about what she'd done. In the end, she decided the conversation had been grave for long enough. "Not unless you want it to."

"Oh my God, Celica, no way!"

"Come on," she said with a hint of humor in her tone. "Okay, I realize I should have asked in the first place, but you can't deny there was something... kinky about it. Getting off right in front of those two? Reminded me of when we kissed while working on the response unit; I mean, the danger of being caught made it so..."

"Gross," Accela finished for her, but she wasn't truly upset. It seemed the stalemate had reached an end for the two comrades. "For the record, I'm hoping you weren't somehow doing it to yourself at the same time!"

"Would you have liked that? Next time, you can reach your own little toes across and-"

"CELICA!"

"No, it was just you," she cackled, grateful that nobody else could hack their two-way communication. "Though toward the end, I started thinking about joining in... I mean, you looked so unbelievably appetizing; those red apple-cheeks, your body wriggling around like a worm on a hook..."

"I swear to God, Celica-"

"Ever think about doing it in our Proceed suits?"

The sharp reprimand that followed wasn't as effective when the embarrassment in Accela's voice made her stutter.

~*~

A pattern began to emerge in the following days. Celica could not bring herself to set foot in the apartment; she was up front about it, letting her friend know that she felt a reprieve from each other (outside work, at least) would be in their best interests. After all, it was these high-running emotions and instances of heartbreak warfare that had put so much strain on them in the first place. Maybe they could pick up where they left off eventually, but for now it was prudent that they get back to being friends before attempting anything else.

At the same time, however, Celica started what could only be called harassing Accela while they were on the job. Any spare moment that there were no ears around, she was whispering sweet nothings - or savory nothings. It was a wonder Accela's face was ever its normal hue instead of several shades ruddier. And while she playfully asked her to stop, and gasped in all the right places, she never again threatened to report her over it; this was merely the seedy underbelly of workplace banter. Until Celica tried to push her buttons at an inopportune time, it was an acceptable alternative to fighting... or making up before they were ready. Thus, the dirty talk continued.

Most frustrating for Accela was the fact that Celica used this as a device to divert the topic of conversation away from weightier concerns, like her health, or their fractured egos. Accela would bring it up, hoping to make some true headway, and would find her ear being blown on, or a decadent notion raised. It wasn't so much that Celica wanted to avoid discussing these things - though she did, desperately - but moreover, she knew that the minute she settled in to really examine what had transpired, to pick it apart and scrutinize, she might have another panic attack, or worse yet start screaming at Accela until one or both of them wound up sobbing in the corner. Was keeping the peace so bad? She didn't think so.

Eventually, Accela stopped trying. It was difficult for her, but she was forced to accept that Celica needed time to heal before she was ready to confront the dark places they had both gone to. But until such a point, what else was she to do?

~*~ To Be Continued