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Soft as the worn fabric is against Meg’s rigid spine, she can't sink far enough into the couch to block out the semi-hushed voices across the room. Herbert never started out making much effort to be quiet, and Dan's whispers have grown loud with repeated insistence. It wouldn't matter anyway; today she can pick out each separate word, along with the rustle of whatever is crawling in the walls, and the distant hum of each car passing outside. Or she could just repeat this conversation word for word, having heard it over and over since being discharged.
Leaving the hospital had been the first time she had had appreciated Herbert's steamrollering. It was his insistence that she was well, when anyone could see she wasn't, that had got her out. That, and the rest of the staff not wanting to challenge Dan's assertion that of course he had found a heartbeat, and he didn't know why everyone else was having so much trouble, and there must just be something wrong with every single thermometer. The wards were full of terrible memories, and all she had wanted was to run, go home and hide. Of course, with her father gone, so was home. The guidelines of her life have fallen away and left nothing but wide empty space before her.
But not completely. Dan was still there, familiar and solid - and cuddling up with him in his bed, drifting off in his arms to wake in another reality where her future was studying, family dinners, and wedding planning sounded like heaven.
Unfortunately, it turns out sleep is no longer an option. So, since then she's been sitting here on the couch, and watching, and listening.
Dan's hands are on Herbert's shoulders, and Herbert's rise to his wrists, the two of them holding onto each other as if in desperation to continue the argument they're caught in. Despite the frustration in their voices, the touch doesn't look aggressive, more a way to seek common ground. Dan's always been tactile like that, easy touches that demand nothing. It's one of the first things about him she fell in love with. She wouldn't have expected Herbert to appreciate it too, to echo Dan's touches the way he does.
She can still feel Dan's arms around her, the warmth of him next to her. It's what she wants right now. She's never felt so cold.
"And then? Whoever we go to, they'll want to take her. To test her," Dan insists.
"I won't let that happen." Herbert sounds so certain, it's almost enough to make her believe it. She's a bit surprised it hasn't worked on Dan. But there's a resistance in his crossed arms and steady gaze that keeps this conversation repeating. Herbert looks up at him. "Then what do we do? Ignore the greatest scientific breakthrough in history?" He lowers his voice and gestures towards her. "Dan, she's alive."
Maybe it's the gesture that reminds her she's included in this. "No, I'm not."
Herbert rushes over, pausing only to grab his notebook from the table, the same one he's used to record what feels like countless rounds of observations since she arrived here. He reaches for her, and she grabs his hand before he can begin. She likes that it startles him, even if it's only evident in the tiny movement of his eyes, even if she only feels it because she's touching him. She likes the warmth and pulse of his wrist, the jump and speed up of the press back of the skin. It's more movement than she's made for a while, but it's no effort.
Dan watches as she directs Herbert's pen light to her eyes, and stares right at the bright white bulb. Without missing a beat, Herbert goes through the routine step by step. "Well, what do I score?" she asks. "Two out of five? Have you ever had to confirm death to the patient before?"
"You were dead." Herbert puts emphasis on the were. "Now you're not. Dead people's hearts don't beat. Dead people don't move and speak." His voice softens. "Meg, you can imagine the implications of this. All the people this will help. Every patient who died too soon. You can save them all."
She doesn't think he's tried to convince her before. He has a point, even though his tone doesn't quite convince - West often seems to neglect the people part of helping people. The helping doesn't always seem the most important to him, either. But... here she is. The serum has given her a second chance. Could the new serum help her father too? Could it possibly make him worse than the original had? She shakes her head.
"Meg," Dan sits next to her, hand on her arm.
Herbert sighs. "Of course, now we know the re-agent works, all we need is a subject to prove it. There's no reason it has to be Meg. The morgue has several new-"
"No." It comes out more forceful than she expected. "No one else." She thinks of the morgue, the bodies that had risen that night and the ones who had fallen. Her father. That can't happen again. Maybe in a few days she'll be just like them. But she doesn't think so. She doesn't think she'll be like anything else again. "Not until we understand what this is." She cuts off Herbert's objections. "Because I'm not dead." And Dan's reassurances. "But I'm not alive either. This is something else."
Herbert stares at her, and she realises she's tightened her grip without him ever trying to pull away. He opens his mouth as if to disagree, but then doesn't. Considering how she's disagreeing with his conclusions to his life work, it's a surprise. Or maybe not. He's not looking at her like he used to. Not like an obstacle, and not like a failed experiment either. He looks he's seeing her for the first time, and it's not the first time he's looked at her that way since she came back. She supposes this is yet another thing that has forever changed. They are stuck together now. Dan's gaze shifts between the two of them.
Her life has ended and begun again and now she has to figure out how to put it together as a piece of something too huge to contemplate, whether for days or eternity. She takes a deep breath - she can still do that. Breathes in the comforting smell of Dan's sweater wrapped around her, and antiseptic, bringing back childhood memories of wounds that could be fixed.
She needs to burrow into bed to hide to touch and feel what she can, warm breath and bodies. She hasn't let go of Herbert yet and doesn't want to. Doesn't want to hand him back to Dan, to continue their argument, or anything else without her. She reaches out, pulls Dan close too.