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[The six hour cart ride from shore left Hellboy with a crick in his neck and a bad taste in his mouth. Not much surprises him anymore, and after spending who the hell knows how long being hunted by the Baba Yaga, he was glad to be out of her reach, even if he knew he was nowhere near familiar ground.

The guys who fished him out of the ocean had no problem telling him where he was or how he got there, but after a few moments of conversation, Hellboy realized that he just didn't give a crap. Wherever this "In Between" was, he knew it couldn't be good. It was only a matter of time before the real reason he was here reared its ugly head.

Until then...]

Anyone know where a guy can get a drink around here?

[He looks like utter crap, every inch of him cut and bruised, his hair falling out of its knot at the base of his neck, and his jacket blood-soaked and tattered to pieces, but looking presentable is obviously the last thing on his mind.]

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Yeah? You got something to say to me, go ahead and say it.

[Tell him what a mistake he made leaving the Bureau.]

Roger's dead. [May as well start with the hardest one.]

Crap.

[That's all he has to say about that. Just goddamn crap.]

Abe?

He's still around. So is Kate.

Ben and Johann are there, but they came around after you left. So I guess you wouldn't know them.

...It's good to see you, Liz.

[He's finally believes you're real.]

You look like crap. [But he says it with the slightest twist of the mouth, well aware of the irony.]

Yeah, I know. [...]

Where are you? I can come find you. [She knows the area better than he does, after all.]

Earth Sector. Sign on the door says EA-1B. Hope you know where that is, because I sure as hell don't.

[... So he's close enough to be a neighbour. Good to know.]

I'll be there in a few minutes. [And true to her word, she knocks on Hellboy's door a few minutes later.]

Hellboy?

[He opens the door, still leaning slightly on the doorframe as he takes in the sight of her. His coat is off, and most of his upper torso is covered in white bandages that have been bled through in patches. A cigarette hangs limply from his mouth.]

Hey.

Edited 2012-09-14 00:36 (UTC)

Hey. [The sight of him injured is worrisome, but at least he's had that tended to.

... Though he'll probably need to change those bandages sooner rather than later.]

It's good to see you. [To really see him, and not just see him on some screen.]

[Aw, hell with it. He reaches for her with his normal arm and pulls her into a half-hug, paying no attention to his wounds.]

You too, kid. You too.

[Then he releases her, but stays close. He's still half afraid he'll wake up from the dream soon and she'll be gone.]

You wouldn't believe the crap I've been through.

[The hug is appreciated. It's another reminder that, yes, he's really here.]

With everything that happened back home, I probably could.

[His expression turns grave again.]

I've been living in the middle of the ocean for the last two years. I haven't got a damn clue what's going on.

[Part of him doesn't even want to know.]

Edited 2012-09-14 01:55 (UTC)

Trouble getting to Africa? [Poor attempt at humour. But... yeah.]

A lot has happened since you left.

I guess swimming there wasn't my best idea. [So much deadpan humor. So much.]

[He searches her face, that familiar stab of guilt expanding in his chest.]

You should come in.

[He moves out of the doorway to let her through.]

A plane might've been a better idea.

[She steps inside and... doesn't really know what to do next. So she'll just start from the beginning.]

You remember I went to Agartha before you quit, right?

Edited (because i suck at remembering to change the subject line) 2012-09-14 02:24 (UTC)

[He sits himself down on one of the stone window seats with a grunt. Definitely gonna be sore in the morning.]

The place with the monks? Yeah.

Edited 2012-09-14 02:40 (UTC)

I was there for two years. Learned how to stay calm and keep control over my powers. [She sighs.]

We were invaded. As it turns out, Earth's hollow. There was an earthquake, and then some little guys came in and took me... my spirit. They took my spirit and used my fire to power some kind of war machine.

I was calling out to Abe, and somehow it managed to get to him. Roger and Johann - used to be a physical medium, but his body was destroyed, and now he's living in a containment suit. Anyway, Roger and Johann came along with Abe to find me.

Edited (GOD DAMN IT SELF USE THE RIGHT DAMN SUBJECT) 2012-09-14 02:43 (UTC)

[Hellboy just listens silently, afraid where this story might go. If the guys who fished him out of the ocean where right, there's a chance she didn't make it out of there alive.]

We got out okay, and I joined back up with the B.P.R.D. Things were okay for a little while - or as okay as things can be, in our line of work.

... You remember Cavendish Hall, right? With the frogs? [She knows he does, but she just... wants to make sure.]

Not something I'm gonna forget, Liz. That was a bad one.

[Only a few of the jobs he's done over the years have reached the level of horrible enough to be called "bad ones", and in his mind, Cavandish Hall will always be one of the worst. One of those frog monsters killed his father. He'll never forget that.]

They came back. The frogs and Sadu-Hem.

Investigators found some kind of fungus growing in the ruins of Cavendish Hall. They brought it back and let it grow, and then some guy came in, shot the person monitoring it, and took it with him.

He let the damn thing take over the body of the guy he shot - Sadu-Hem came back as a goddamn mushroom, and then invaded a dead man's body. And then it turned an entire city into those frog monsters. Every single person there was turned into one of those things!

Holy crap. I should've known none of those goddamn tentacle monsters ever stay dead.

[He takes one long, last drag out of his cigarette, then pitches it out the window.]

A whole city of frog monsters. A whole damn city.

Yeah, except it didn't stop at a city.

We tracked them down, and I burned Sadu-Hem again. So far, it hasn't come back.

Somebody killed Abe, although he came back shortly after. Everything would have been okay, except the frogs didn't need Sadu-Hem. They kept on spreading without it.

The Bureau brought on Ben Daimio - he was an army guy, was killed in duty, but came back to life. He was made the new field commander while Kate and Abe were gone checking something out. We ended up being relocated to an old base in Colorado.

Except some old German guy was living in a sub-basement that nobody knew about. He tried to summon a seraphim, but Johann managed to close the portal and Daimio killed the guy that started it.

We then spent the next couple of years fighting the frogs as the spread across the states. [There's more, but it's still a lot to take in. If Hellboy wants her to continue, she will. If not, she'll save it for later.]

[It is a lot to take in. Normally he could handle this. Normally he'd be okay. But with all the crap happening to him lately, his mind just blanks. All that time spent at Harry's he never cared to find a television or pick up a newspaper. He didn't want to know.

He didn't want to know what he'd left his friends behind to.]

I shouldn't have left.

[Now he really needs that drink again.]

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... WAIT NO THIS HAS BEEN [ACTION] FOR A WHILE NOW

PFF IT TOTALLY HAS

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