She might go to one of the ones she goes to less this time. Just about all of New York's medical people know who she is now. They probably all have a patient selected for her, hoping she shows up. They know she doesn't like to chose herself.
Well, usually.
She's also starving, but somehow, there's always food in her fridge when she wakes up after a healing. Today, she finds homemade sandwiches there. Courtesy someone in the Nelson clan, no doubt. Sometimes it's amazed her they're still in touch with everyone.
Just as she's finished scarfing the second one down, there's a knock at the door. "I'll be there in a minute, Matt," she calls. Ever since Bess Mahoney got sick and died before Colleen could recharge enough to save her, he's taken to showing up regularly at everyone's door, having them stand on its other side and take deep breaths, and listening for even the slightest thing amiss in their lungs. He was by yesterday too, and he'll be by tomorrow. Colleen's someone he's especially worried about, for obvious reasons. Strange she didn't hear him land on the roof, though; he always travels by rooftop now.
But it's another voice that responds, "It's not Matt. It's me."
It's a little surprising she's up already, and that she's come in person, but maybe Colleen should've expected this visit in some form or other. She pulls on her mask, goes to the door, and backs up after unlocking it.
She might back up a little more quickly after it opens, and she sees the anger in Claire's eyes.
Claire waits until they're both seated on opposite sides of the dojo, just close enough to hear each other without shouting. "So," she starts, her tone hard. "You healed me. Christine says you insisted on it."
Colleen nods. "She told me you wouldn't want to survive at the expense of someone else. I told her I didn't give a shit and healed you anyway. I'm not sorry."
"And I'm supposed to just accept that, just like that? That what my wishes were meant nothing to you?"
"Your wishes were the only reason I didn't heal you as soon as you were intubated. I waited until Dr. Palmer had to admit you wouldn't live unless I did."
"Not good enough," Claire growls. "Isn't that your normal practice anyway?"
"You're not normal!" Claire's eyebrows raise, but Colleen barrels on. "We all of us lost enough of our friends to the dustcloud two years ago, and then we lost Bess and I couldn't save her. I wasn't losing you, too. I wasn't!"
"Everyone on this damn planet lost family and friends to that dustcloud-in fact, everyone in the whole damn universe did, apparently. If Danny hadn't gone up in it..."
"Oh, Danny would've saved you, too," Colleen says. "He might have hemmed and hawed about it, but in the end, he couldn't have brought himself to let you die. Believe me, Claire, I knew him."
"Maybe," says Claire. "But that still doesn't make it any less wrong. Colleen, I admit we're not currently in a position where I can refuse to forgive you. Even putting aside this whole thing Mr. Wong has insisted we need to prepare for, we all need all the friends we have left. But I don't know if I'll ever fully trust you again."
Here Colleen really has to shake her head, and say, "Don't be an idiot, Claire. Be angry at me, sure. Hate me if you must. Maybe I even deserve it. But you know, more than ever now, that everyone left in our current circle is going to have each other's backs-even when told not to have them, in certain cases."
Claire seems to consider that for a moment. Then she sighs, "I'm not going to hate you for this. But it's never going to be the same between us."
"I know." Colleen could say she knew she might have to sacrifice the heart of her friendship with Claire to save her life. But that'll probably just get her angrier. "But that doesn't change that I'd do it again."
And she does have one more point to make, which she gets out as Claire starts to stand up, "It's not even us that need you, Claire. You know that."
Claire's eyes narrow. "If you had any idea of how many medical people have died of this..."
"And how many of them have treated the kind of patients or provided the kind of aid you have? Claire, there's a reason Mr. Wong went to such pains to convince you to stay here in New York. Like I said, you're not normal, not any more than the rest of us, and I think you've given up your chance to be normal again at this point."
That actually makes Claire freeze for a moment-only a moment, short enough Colleen almost doesn't catch it. But then she says, "If I really was that vital, Mr. Wong probably would've told you to save me. And I assume he didn't, or you would've led with that up front."
"I don't follow any man blindly, Claire. Not anymore. Something like that, I can make my own call." And while she can't say Claire's importance was the main reason she saved her, she still believes in it, and she'll still tell her, every time, that she needs to live because of it.
But to that, Claire says, almost to herself, "If that's what you'll say to yourself about this," and then, a little more to Colleen, "I have to go home. Christine wants me to still be resting more before she lets me near any patients. I suppose if I must live, I should make the most of it." As she heads for the door, she throws back over her shoulder, "I'll probably be willing to talk to you again at some point, but don't call me until then." She doesn't slam the door behind her, exactly, but she closes it very loudly.
Colleen stands up and looks over at the fridge, but she doesn't feel that hungry anymore. Instead she finds herself wandering into her bedroom and collapsing onto her bed, her mask clutched absently in her hand. She wants to lie there until she recovers, except she knows that there's absolutely nothing, now, that's going to recover itself anytime soon.