Angela just sighed. There was a lot of weight to that one breath though.

"That'd be nice." was all she said.

---

Time passed, and while it wasn't a constant string of people falling victim to whatever was plaguing the unit, there were definitely enough.

Angela was constantly working off of borrowed time, in essence. So much so that she was sleeping in her office whenever she got a chance, and couldn't go home. Every time she tried, something came up, so she stopped trying. Instead she had a good long chat with Zeke about it, and he agreed to be the one to check in on Liv.

One day when he retrned home, he found the house quiet. Upon looking around, it looked as if Liv was asleep in her bed. That was odd, yet not alarming. She was a teen, it wasn't unheard of for her to have a nap after school.

---

Zeke was met with silence after the call. He listened, and didn't hear her fotosteps or movement above him either. Which was weird.

As he finished doing what he was doing, he started to make his way for the stairs, only to be stopped by one of the fae that lived on the property. They were stopping every attempt he made to stepp around them, even going so far as to use their mana to hold him in place with some roots.

"no!" The tiny little voice half screamed at him.

"Little Liv is ot doing well." Followed after it flew up close to his ear.

---

"That's the problem. I do not know." Was the answer Zeke recevied.

"None of us do." They added a few seconds later.

"It is something attacking the mana that she has, and not playing nicely."

---

The Fae was silent before nodding. It was obvious that if nothing else, they agreed. Liv needed help.

"Human half. Not safe." the added, basically telling Zeke that he wouldn't be guaranteed safe himself.

---

The fae paused.

"Weird Virus?" They asked before floating in front of his face.

"May I?" They asked as they pointed to his face, specifically toward his temples. In esence, it was asking if they could do a direct information transfer, one of the handy things that those fae could do.

It would be a massive headache though.

---

The fae nodded before he felt light shocks at his temples. Moments later, everything went numb, barring the almost electricity and almost 'roots' he could feel digging through his head, the source being at his temples. It wasn't pleasant, and he honestly found himself paralysed for the moment, but this wasn't the firs ttime. He'd acquired their information this way once before, and knew how terrifying it could be.

As he was there, so many thoughts and images flashed through his mind. It continued for nearly five minutes before it finished and the fae fluttered back, letting him regain himself so he could relay the information to whomever it was that needed it.

In essence, he had the exact biomana makeup of what was plaguing Liv.

And he knew it was what was going through the Unit as well.

---

He received silence before one of the other medics approached him.

"She's in her office. But... specified to not be disturbed or the next hour or so." they told him honestly.

"Anything I can help you with?" They then asked

---

They were silent for a moment before just motioning fo rhim to head off.

"Well, go tell her though." they said.

"Don't be surprised if she lights into you though." They added before he headed off. When he reached Angela's office and knocked, he received silence. Maybe she was ignoring the door? She had said she didn't want to be disturbed, after all.

He pounded on it, knowing that she needed to know what he was there to tell her, before the door was torn open. He saw Angela there, her blonde hair a mess, her eyes tired, and her skin rather pale due to lack of sunlight and lack of sleep.

"Zeke? Oh great." she muttered before stepping aside.

"Obviously it's something serious. Come in."

---

Angela had been halfway through closing the door when Zeke said what he did. As he told her that her daughter had fallen victim, she closed the door deliberately and slowly, before turning to face him, her expression cold, emotionless.

"Excuse me?' she asked.

"Tell me you didn't say what I swear you just said." Her voice was starting to quiver, the news her daughte rwas in danger was not something she could probably handle for the moment.

". . . How... how could she have..." She trailed off as she just stepped back a few paces, obviously weighed down by the news.

---

Angela was completely silent, she didn't meet Zeke's gaze even. It wasn't hard to tell that it was a rather large pill to swallow, especially since she'd seen the progression from the start... to the end.

When she did meet his gaze, he could clearly see that she was biting back tears.

"I... I'm going to go fill Hal in." She said, her voice still quivering slightly from the tears she was fighting to bite back.

". . . can you fill those here in, please?"

---