Remnants of the Earth
EDANITH => The Frontier => Topic started by: Marjorie on October 17, 2019, 04:31:22 pm
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There was automatic fire all around. The sprayer was amazing - he was yelling for the others to get down, but it was unneeded they knew better than to get up. “Grendy!” he yelled, clinging to his friend, “You’re going to be fine,” he yelled at him, even though he was coughing up blood all over Raf’s face, “don’t you fucking die on me.” He was already gone though.
Raf woke with a start. He could hear his screams echoing off the empty cockpit. He was cold, his heart beating out of his chest, soaked in swat. For a moment he was terrified of wiping his borrow - afraid that it would come back slick with Grendy’s blood. He shook his head and then forced himself to wipe his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Nothing there. Just awkward. He could still smell the metallic tang of blood though taste the salt and dirt and metal in his mouth.
He looked at the clock. He’d k my dozed for fifteen minutes or so. He hadn’t had more than an hour of sleep at a time sense he decided to take this job.
Edanith.
Home.
He was going home.
Raf craves and longed for home nearly as much as he craved the bottle these days, but even just the thought of home made his nightmares worst. Every time he closed his eyes he could hear their screams, taste the smoke and the dirt, feel hot, sticky blood running threw his fingers.
His heart rate increased again and his breathing kicked up a notch. Oh gods and fucking space angels. The room was spinning. No. No. Breath. Relax. Breath. Hold your breath. Calm the fuck down Raf. It took him several minutes and he nearly had a full blown gods damned panic attack.
Just as the room stopped spinning the console in front of Raf chimed. Then an alert popped up on the screen to tell him the ship was on its final decent. Home. He was home. It was a bad place to visit, but a good place to die. He could feed the worms in the same dirt as the rest of his unit.
-
It had already been almost thirty-six hours.
The two marshals she'd spoken to within the first twenty-four had said once it hit the fourty-eight mark, her chances went from slim to none.
Ava took a breath, hands clenching where she gripped her own arms, so tight that her nails bit into the skin and she felt a trickle of blood begin to trace down her right forearm. She didn't care. Besides, it wasn't like there was anyone around to see--docking ports were rare out here in the "borderlands", as a few citizens of Reckless referred to the gaps between frontier towns, and this one was essentially abandoned.
Which was apparently why her contact had told her to meet the man she was hiring here.
Too late, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind, tightening her jaw so hard that her teeth creaked. It's too late, you'll never get her back now.
Ava swallowed a shouted curse and stamped the little voice out, firmly. She still had twelve hours. If they couldn't find Val by then...
No. It didn't matter. She would find her.
-
There were just a few people here... the ones who maintained the power and the one who walked up to his ship as soon as it had touched down. Had to be Ava... looked like the woman in the image he'd been sent along with the desperate plea of a mother. This kind of job... he'd do basically for free.
He just needed enough to refill his liquor cabinet, if he lived, anyway.
He'd sent credits to the dock master earlier... enough that there'd be no record of him being here and no inspection of his ship.
The hatch opened, and an aggravated voice rose up out of the ship traveling toward Ava. "Lis, set security protocols to maximum." A moment later he stepped out of the hatch, and a moment after that it was closing behind him. Raf was taller than Ava by about half a foot, and the stink of booze probably reached her before she could see him. He hadn't shaved in two days and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He had a side arm strapped to his leg and he was carrying a rifle slung over his back. His pants were outdated standard issue combat fatigues and he wore a stained white t-shirt under a beat up leather jacket.
"You Ava?" his voice was tired and irritable. "Tell me about who we're after, and what you remember from when she went missing." He walked right past her without stopping. There had to be a bar in this gods forsaken place, "I need a drink before we get... and don't worry about payment until we find her. If I wind up dead, there's no need to pay." If... gods he fucking hoped he ended up dead on this thing.
-
...This was it?
This was her last resort?
The desperate could hardly afford to be picky, but Ava still felt her stomach sink as the sickening stench of alcohol washed over her at her contact's approach. Her eyes narrowed and she gave him a quick, evaluating up-and-down sort of look.
"Yes, I'm Ava," she replied after a very quick mental weighing of the pros and cons--the cons being obvious, the pros being...well, he was really her only option.
So more a "cons and reality check" situation then.
"I'm not sure how much information you were given, the man I spoke to earlier said--where the hell are you going?" She tried to do as he said, beginning to explain what had happened--she'd had an unfortunate amount of practice in doing that succinctly over the last day and a half--but before she could get more than a sentence out he was blowing passed her, talking about a drink.
A drink?
Ava snapped.
"Over my gods-be-damned dead body," she snarled, whirling to grab the strange mercenary's arm as he tried to walk passed her. In any other situation, with anything else at stake, she probably could have kept her cool, could have convinced herself to play along until she could get what she needed from him.
But her daughter's life hung in the balance, and any logical argument she could have given herself just flew out the window.
Fingers digging into his arm, painfully tight, she glared up into his face and hissed, "I don't know who the fuck you think you're dealing with or what the hell Corbin told you, but my daughter is out there. You want a fucking drink?!" It took all her willpower to keep from screaming, and even still she noted vaguely that he voice had risen just a bit too much, risking attracting attention. But she couldn't stop herself.
"I don't give a shit if you die," she spat, not realizing until the words left her mouth that, in that moment, they were true, "but if something happens to Val because you can't shape the fuck up and act like the gods-damned professional Corbin told me you were, you're not getting paid then either--and Edani bandits will be the least of your problems."
Breathing heavily, she finally let go of his arm, taking a sharp step back and dropping her hand to her side, clenched in a fist. Her whole body was shaking with rage and panic, not to mention the lack of sleep finally seemed to be catching up with her.
-
Raf was listening, but you wouldn’t think it to look at him. At least until her hand connected with his arm. He reacted automatically to that like a threat. He grabbed her thumb and twisted her hand around painfully, to get her to release him, but lucky for her didn’t break the thumb. Before that movement was finished though his side arm was jabbing her in the chest. His hand shook a little and then he holstered the weapon. “Look sister you don’t know anything about me. If you’re smart you won’t touch me again though. I hate this fucking place,” it wasn’t exactly true, but he couldn’t stand it anymore, “it’s a gods damn grave yard. The only reason I came back is because this wild goose chase of yours is likely to end up getting me killed. Oh and, don’t forgot you asked me to come... I know you didn’t pick me, you were stuck with me, but why was that? Oh yeah, no one else was fucking stupid enough to volunteer to help, because they DON’T want to die.
“You ever seen a man detox? They have seizures and die. So, if you’d rather I not calm that shake in my hand... sure, but then I really won’t be any good to you at all. I know your fucking kids out there, an I’m real sorry about that... I like kids, but I’m not your fucking hero, I’m your gods damn last fucking resort.” He laughed, bitter and cold. “He told you I was a professional? Sweetheart that was a lifetime ago. I was a soldier and I am a mercenary. I can kill for you and I can track a man across these wastes, but don’t expect a whole not more than that from me.”
He took a deep breath. That hand shook a little again. He made a fist then stretched it out to get it to stop. “Now,” he said, “I need a drink and a shower and we’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes.”
-
Ava was shaking now, properly shaking, not just the little twitches and shivers that she'd been doing her best to control up until that point. Arms wrapped tight around her middle, she glared at him all the while he spoke, clutching at her own arms so tight that nails threatened to break skin.
Finally, she nodded once, sharply. "Fifteen minutes," she repeated in a low hiss, and turned on her heel to head to the exit of the docking station.
"...If my daughter dies because of you, I'll kill you myself."
Her voice was low, almost gentle, soft, but with a core of steel that rang cold and absolutely true. She wasn't threatening him; she was promising.
A harsh, almost startled laugh suddenly tore out of her and she glanced back over her shoulder, eyes hard and smile cruel--something she'd learned from an old friend. "So I guess this is really a win-win for you, huh?"
Without another word, she turned and walked away.
If he didn't meet her in fifteen minutes, she'd... She honestly didn't know what she'd do. But she had a feeling she didn't entirely want to find out.
-
“Go right ahead sister,” Raf said, “no harm in putting down a dying dog.”
It was ten minutes later that Raf headed for the exit of the docking station. He’d cleaned up, showered, shaved. He smelled better but his clothes were in the same state as before. He also had a bottle in his hand. Drunk was his baseline though, so he was still walking strait. He didn’t start shaking or swerving until he started to sober up.
“Alright,” he said, “what’s your girl’s name and where did you last see her? Also, you got transportation, because if you intend to walk across the wastelands you may as well just shoot me now.”
-
Ava had to bite back another string of shouting; at least in those ten minutes she'd managed to get a better hold of herself. Hopefully she could manage to keep a level head for...whatever time they had to work together.
"Val," she replied shortly. "Her name is Val." She hesitated just a moment, then reached into the front of her blouse and pulled out a small, white gold locket, oval in shape with a twining vine design around the outer edge. She flicked the catch with a practiced movement of her thumb and the lid popped, setting off the holographic system and projecting an image of a little girl into the air just above the locket.
The holopic was a bit out of date--Val was six here, and her seventh birthday had been almost eight months ago--but it was still better than nothing. The image showed a smiling little girl with hair as wild and curly as her mother's, though the shade was a pale blonde, and silvery gray eyes. She was sitting on a pony, a chubby, fuzzy little paint with a placid expression as the girl clung onto his neck. Freckles scattered over her nose and cheeks--not quite so thick as Ava's--and she had a tiny scar nicked into the skin on her jaw just below her right ear.
The pic flickered, then started to shift to the next image in Ava's rotating lineup, and she clicked the locket closed, tucking it back under the collar of her shirt. "They took her from Reckless about a day and a half ago--it's fifteen miles that way." She pointed due east from where they stood. "They were heading northwest, out passed the borderlands." Again, she pointed.
"They--" Her throat threatened to close up and she took a breath, swallowed, then continued, "They had two caravan trucks but most were on horseback. The marshal said their hideout is probably up in the hill country, where a surefooted horse is better than a vehicle, but he wouldn't risk sending any of his men out there without knowing where they were going, or how long. It's... Even with supplies, if you don't know where you're going, it's a death sentence out there."
Which brought them to transportation. Rather than answer his question verbally, she jerked her head to indicate he should follow and strode out around the outer edge of the docking station until she reached where she'd left the horses.
Corbin had said they were her best bet, considering so many of the bandits had been riding. The trucks were probably just for transporting stolen goods to fences--the horses would be how they navigated the rough, rocky hills.
Ava wasn't exactly an accomplished horsewoman, but living in Reckless she'd had to learn to ride, and she was competent enough. Though no one from the town had been willing to risk their lives for what they considered a lost cause, the sheriff had at least been willing to "lend" her two of the surest, swiftest mounts he could find: mares both, one a sprightly tobino paint that Ava had ridden here, the other a slightly cooler headed chestnut.
She gestured to the horses as she turned to face Raf. "You can ride, right?"
-
"Val" Raf said, and for a split second, his voice was softer, more considerate... kids, man. Fucking kids. He was a right bastard by anyone's scale, and a fucking asshole to boot, but he'd never hurt a kid, and he hated those who trafficked them as much as anyone else aught to. He took in the images of the happy little girl and something hard settled over him, that softness vanishing.
He nodded at the information she gave him.
"I grew up on this shit hole," Raf said, "I can ride. We'll get supplies in Reckless, I'm sure you don't want us dead before we even get out there. Just point me in the right direction once we leave. It's been... how long now, sense they took her? There might not be any tracks left to follow, but we can head out to the hills and have a look around."
-
Ava glanced down at her watch as she swung herself up into the saddle. The tobino tossed her head, shifting her weight between her back hooves while Ava settled herself.
"...Thirty-seven hours." Ava's voice was tight, quiet. It was a ticking clock, and she could feel every single tick like ice down her spine. "But we don't need to stop in Reckless. I brought supplies with me."
She gestured to the saddlebags slung across each mare just in front of the saddle. Nodding in the direction the bandit's had ridden off with her daughter, she added, "It's just about eight miles to hill country from here, it's almost fourteen from Reckless. I figured we should leave from here once I met you."
The sun was rising. She cast a glance in the direction of the reddish glow and narrowed her eyes. "If we get moving now, we can cover some ground before the sun tries to bake us alive. Come on."
She gave her mount a firm squeeze with her thighs and wheeled the mare around, taking off at a steady canter over the dusty earth.
-
Raf hum'ed in the back of his throat. He didn't know anyting about kidnapping stats, that the 48 hour basically marked out the point of no return, but he knew about tracking in this shitty place across this fucking desert, and he knew the tracks were probably gone by now.
He slung his duffel bag across the back of the horse and used the handles to secure it. "How much water did you pack?" he asked, as he pulled himself up into the saddle with what looked like practiced ease. He stowed his bottle into one of the saddle bags and then pulled a flask from the pocked on his left pant leg. He took a small sip and put it back... best watch how he spent that too.
"You know anything about who took her, or why? Were they..." he didn't say it, she could fill in the blanks, "traffickers, do you think?" The best way to make money off of stolen kids was usually to sell them to perverts who liked kids. At least if that was the case, she'd probably still be alive at least for a few days... though what state they'd find her in was anyone's guess... if they could even find her, that is.
As he was speaking, he took off his rifle and settled it into his lap. Then took off his leather jacket and stowed it. Underweight he had, over his stained t-shirt, what looked like a scarf. It was cream colored and sweat stained, but when he unfurled it, it was large enough to wrap around his head and shoulders and half across his face. It was great for keeping the sun off and cooling a person, and also for keeping the sand and dust out of your face.
He slid a clip in his sling and it came apart to form a harness which he pulled around his back and slipped his arms threw before clipping it in the front, where it held his rifle comfortable in his lap and easy to grab.
"You ever shoot anyone before sister?" He reached into his waste band and came back with a gun in a holster that had been clipped there. "Point this end toward the bad guys and pull the trigger, simple as that. The safety's off, so don't shoot yourself - or me.
"It shoots energy bolts, so no need to reload." He handed her a second battery with it. "Battery clips on here," he pointed out how to change it, "but the one on it should be good for a couple days unless we get into a heavy fire fight."
Raf kept his head on a swivel as they headed out. "Our first problem is going to be that we stick out like a sore fucking thumb... traveling across the desert, two mounted horses. No one goes out into the fucking desert alone." Which was, frankly, why they were alone... no one else wanted to go out there.
"We'll camp just before noon and then wait out the heat of the day, I don't want to head into the hills until it's dark. We'll be a lot harder to spot then... and I've got a few toys to give us the advantage at night, anyway."
"How's the weather been sense they took her?" He doubted there'd been rain, though freak storms could occur out here, "windy?" He was hoping the tracks wouldn't be all blown away.
-
Ava's blood ran cold, fear a tight, sickening knot in the pit of her stomach, but she pushed passed it.
"Val is special," was all she said in reply to her knowing anything about why her daughter had been taken. She knew very well why--she supposed she could only hope that the wings were the only thing that had interested the bandits.
Gods, she couldn't even think about it.
No one in Reckless had known. Ava had been sure that Val knew in no uncertain terms that her wings were a secret, something she could never tell anybody about, never show except to her mother. But in the chaos and the panic as the bandits tore through town, the bindings under her daughter's shift had come undone and Val had panicked, trying to fly above the crowd to spot her mother...
And making a target of herself in the process.
Ava jerked herself away from those memories and tried to answer Raf's questions in order, as succinctly as she could. "I've got enough hydration packets for maybe three days for the two of us," she said first, pulling out one of the small pouches of liquid to show him before stowing it back in the saddlebag. They were a useful design, newer, if she wasn't mistaken; meant to be dissolved in the mouth to offer up to twelve hours of low-grade hydration. Of course, they'd be in the desert, so she figured each pouch would probably only give them five to six hours. It was less room and weight than a waterskin though.
She'd packed two of those as well, but only half-full, in case they came across a natural source of water that was actually drinkable and could refill. Again, she gestured with a hand, not slowing her horse's pace.
When he handed her the gun, she gave him a very droll look, then took it, sighted down the line, and blew a scrubby cactus out of the earth with a single, well-placed shot as they trotted passed.
"I know how to fire a gun," she told him simply, holstering the thing. Dr. Faern had made sure she knew how to defend herself, if nothing else. She wasn't a sharpshooter by any means, but she was no slouch either.
She decided not to answer his question about if she'd ever actually shot someone before.
"We haven't had a real wind storm in nearly a week, but there's been a few gusts." She twisted slightly in the saddle to frown at him. "We can't wait until dark before we head into the hills. How in hell are we supposed to track anything if we can't see?"
...Okay, she knew nothing about tracking. That was why she'd needed help. But that at least seemed like a pretty solid guess to her!
-
"Special?" That sounded really fucking suspicious to him. "Look sister, I'm not here to hurt your kid... if I was I wouldn't even have met you here. If you know why they took her, it could be useful. It would change what they'd do with her, and if they'd keep her around or sell her off quick as they could get rid of her or hold onto her looking for a special buyer. Thieves don't usually keep kids, they make noise and cause a lot of questions, unless..." he guessed someone had to fucking say it, "unless they're perverts." In which case he'd haply blow the guys balls off, but they'd have to find them first.
He just nodded approving when she fired off her shot. "Just try not to hesitate on that trigger if there's someone shooting back at you." Being a good shot and having the grit to kill someone were different, and a long shot and fire fight were different too.
"We will wait until dark if you want me to go into that hell hole with you," he cut her off sharply, "you ever tried to sneak into an elevated, fortified position? Because if they're smart that's what they'll have.
"And like I said, I have some stuff to give us an advantage in the dark." He patted his bag. "We need to be smart. Sneaky. If they see us coming we'll be dead before we even figure out where they're keeping her." If they still had her, if she was still alive. It was more ifs than he liked, but that's why she was stuck with him and not some upstanding citizen.
-
Ava jerked her head around to glare at him. "You think I don't know that?" she hissed through clenched teeth, eyes suspiciously bright. "I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not an idiot. I know very well the kind of danger my daughter is in--and I trust you about as far as you could walk sober, so forgive me if I'm not willing to share more information than I must."
She'd done the math, and honestly she was comfortable with the minor risk that knowing why Val was taken would somehow help him track her down versus what was to her a much greater risk to her daughter's safety if she told the truth.
"I don't know you," She muttered, looking forward again. For all she knew, Mother could have gotten to him...hell, maybe the bandits were her work too. Maybe this was all some elaborate plan to get her test subject back.
"...Understood." she nodded once to acknowledge his reasoning for waiting until dark. She'd admit her ignorance in certain areas, she wasn't too proud for that; but so help her if this drunken spacer kept talking down to her she might very well just kill him herself.
-
"Look sister, you don't have to like me - I don't need you to, and you probably shouldn't trust me. But I know I'm a peace of shit, and I'm still here... so, I'm sure you'd rather have more savory types than you helping you out, but more savory types clearly don't give enough a shit about you or your kid to help.
"So, you don't want to tell me what's going on, fine. But knowing why is usually the first step to finding an abduction victim, this isn't my first time out in the bush, and it's not my first time dealing with kidnappers either.
"Besides, Corbin's definitely better people than me... he wouldn't steer your wrong though he does tend to overcharge."
-
"Ava," she snapped, giving her horse a light tap to urge her into a gentle lope. "My name is Ava, not sister."
That seemed to be all she was willing to say. She was fully aware that this man was her last option, and that was the only reason she was here--she didn't feel the need to say that out loud when they both knew it was true.
"...How'd it go last time? With kidnappers?"
-
He didn't use names because... people had to matter to have names. He couldn't risk loosing more people he cared about. She shouldn't want him to care about her anyway, everyone he cared about fucking died.
"Whatever you say, sister," he smirked... actually, she was starting to grow on him, despite himself.
"Kid's still alive, if that's what you mean," he said, "but I put his fucking parents in the ground. Turned out, they were in on it." He glance at her, "I don't like people who fuck with kids." He had grown up half way around hookers and Johns, and then half in and out of the system and on the streets. Most of the time, he'd have been safer on the streets. Everyone liked to take advantage of the weak. He'd learned that early. He knew what things people did to kids because he'd lived threw it.
-
Her eyes widened for a moment, then she looked away, another frown stealing over her face. "Sick bastards," she muttered.
How could someone do that to their own child?
"...Ava." She still wasn't looking at him, but by gods she was not going to give in on this one thing. If she could have just a little control, even just over this, maybe... Maybe she could convince herself that she could really get Val back. "It's three letters. Two syllables. It's not that hard."
-
Raf nodded in agreement. Easy. They were poor. Destitute. They thought they could get money out of the deal... sell the kid, make it look like a kidnapping, get the kid back. Only they didn't count on Raf caring about a kid when they hired him. They figured he was just a worthless peace of shit, which he was, but too bad for them he actually gave a fuck about kids.
"If that's all you think it is, then you have no idea what a name is," Raf said evasively, but still didn't acquiesce. He did continue along in silence for a while though.
"Woah..." Raf said gently, bringing his horse to a stop. He pulled the flask from his pants pocket again and took a sip before replacing it. Then he slipped from the saddle with ease and landed on the ground with a small puff of dusty sand.
Raf crouch down and pointed at some marks in the dusty sand. There was a layer of powder about two inches deep with hard packed clay underneath. It was a bitch to track threw. Everything left prints in the powder but it was easily blown away and tracks, and even roads, could be swallowed up by it.
"There was three..." he turned and nearly touched the sand in another spot, "maybe five or six?" He shook his head, "it's hard to tell... the winds blown some of the tracks away. There was maybe six, maybe more or less horses out here, headed that way," he pointed off in the distance. "Is that the right way?" He glanced at Ava. "They couldn't have come threw here more than yesterday... tracks would be gone if it was longer than that."
-
"This isn't Old Earth, and I'm not a faerie," Ava scoffed in response to that.
She brought her horse to a halt when he did and slipped down, standing by the animals while he knelt to examine the earth; she didn't want to risk disturbing whatever tracks he found.
She looked in the direction he pointed, raising a hand to partially shield her eyes while her gaze narrowed. "I'm not...I mean, yes, this is the direction they left from Reckless, but I don't know how long they continued on."
Again she glanced down at him, and her eyes suddenly widened. In a quick, sharp burst of movement, she hurried forward and knelt a few feet away from him, scrabbling in the dirt. She sat back with a sharp exhale, whatever she'd seen clutched in her hand: a large feather, which must have been trampled so thoroughly into the dirt by the horses' hooves that it had somehow managed to stick in place. Beneath the thick layer of red dust, it was cream and tan, a pattern rather like a barn owl's primary.
"Val." Ava closed her eyes and clutched the feather to her chest, forcing herself to breathe, not to break down in sobs. After a moment, her expression went hard and cold again, distant.
"This was it. This is them, definitely. Val left this." She held the feather out toward him, eyes steely. "She's a smart kid; she left it so someone could follow her."
-
"That's not what I meant," he said vaguely before letting that bit of the conversation go silent.
"Do you know how many were on horseback? Or how many horses they had?"
His gaze moved swiftly from where he was looking at the ground to where Ava was suddenly, frantically digging in the dusty sand.
A feather. See... this is why she needed to fucking tell him things. To him it was just a gods damned feather, he'd seen it when he dismounted, but ignored it, thinking it unimportant. What if the stupid woman hadn't noticed it?
He snatched the feather out of his fingers and examined it. This feather had been plucked, from a live body not long ago. He imagined the girl's kidnapper wasn't letting her keep pets. So... so she had fucking feathers. His gaze narrowed on Ava as he handed the thing back to her. "This is why you need to tell me shit," he said, getting back on his horse, "I didn't think it was important, and if you hadn't seen it we would never know we were going the right direction."
He nodded ahead. "Let's go."
-
Ava took the feather back in silence, quickly mounting up and setting off after him. She tucked the feather into her saddlebag as her horse trotted along, giving a quick toss of her head, almost playful.
Poor thing had no idea.
“There were at least eight on horseback, maybe more. It was—a lot was happening, I couldn’t get a really good count on them,” she finally murmured after a few moments.
A few moments longer, then she exhaled sharply. “I didn’t tell you because I don’t know if someone sent you,” she muttered eventually. “I didn’t realize—I should have, I should have known she’d think of something like this. But I didn’t tell you because...other people might be after her too. And for all I knew, you’re one of them.”
She was pretty sure that wasn’t true by now, but it had been a fear. He’d seemed genuinely surprised by the feather though, not to mention pissed with her for keeping Val’s secret.
-
"One person, alone, fucking me, of all people?" Raf laughed, but not really at her. "Look, I get it... I'm about as shady as they come, but whoever's after your girl, if they want to get threw the bandits to her - they'd send a hell of a lot more than just one of me."
He looked at her pointedly then. "Who exactly is after her. Seems they scare you more than these horse thieves. Should I be expecting more trouble than half a dozen or so bandits?"
-
“I—I don’t know.” Her expression had gone a little distant, eyes almost hazy. “I wish I did, honestly I do. As awful as it sounds, as awful as it feels to say...I hope the bandits are the worst we’ll be dealing with.”
If Molly—If Mother was really coming after Val...there was nothing she could do to stop her.
“And before you ask—“ because of the four people she’d spoken to about her worry for Val, all of them had— “No, it’s not Val’s father I’m worried about coming after her.”
-
At least that was an honest answer. "It doesn't sound awful," if you had to choose between two evils, anyone would choose the lesser of the two.
Now that caused Raf shake his head. "To be honest," he said, "I wouldn't have asked. It's my experience that if fathers abandon their kids, they don't come back looking later." If they even knew they fucking existed.
They moved on at a steady clip until the son was high up overhead. Raf took two of their water rations in that time, and only one sip out of his flask. They were only maybe two miles out from the hills, where the terrain was less powered sand and more rocky, more craggy. That was better. More cover. He found them a nice shaded spot behind an outcropping of large rocks to make camp. He tied up the horses and gave each of them a water ration. "Eat and hydrate," he said, "then get some rest. I won't be able to sleep anyway, so I'll keep watch. We're leaving everything behind when we move in. We'll leave about sunset."
Raf followed his own advice. He hydrated, he ate a little. He took a sip from his flask. He used just the tiniest bit of water to dampen around his neck and the top of his head under his head wrap. Then he found a good spot to keep watch from.
-
Ava nodded, that strange distance still behind her eyes, but she didn't say anything else as they continued to ride. By the time they finally stopped, the heat was beating down on them, brutal; she was sure she'd be absolutely toasted by the time the sun set, and if she'd had any spare space in her brain she might have been a bit worried about it.
As it was, she just double checked the horses' ties and gave Raf another nod when he told her to rest. She was exhausted--she wasn't built for this, wasn't trained to be out here in the heat and sun with rationed water and no real idea of where they were going.
But it was for Val, so she'd do it. She'd die doing it, if that's what it took.
Grabbing one of the saddlebags, she tossed it on the ground and lay down, resting her head on it as a makeshift pillow as she tried to just breathe, take stock of her body and their surroundings, tried to figure out what would happen next.
"...He didn't abandon her."
The words were out of her mouth before she'd made the conscious decision to speak. Well...shit.
But it was out there now, no taking it back.
With a quiet sigh, Ava turned onto her side and muttered, "He doesn't exist. Val has no father."
-
Raf raised an eyebrow at Ava, not sure what had prompted that confession. Test tube baby then. Not that he was one to judge. "I'm the last person's gonna be judging anyone," was all he said on the matter.
He sat out there scanning the distance while Ava dozed. Once sunset was starting to approach, he moved away from their camp, quietly, and scouted out the area further ahead. He was gone maybe thirty minutes before he headed back to their camp with a good idea where to go next.
-
Ava didn't really sleep. She couldn't. But she tried to rest as best she could, keeping in the shade and popping another hydration pouch when she needed it.
She knew when Raf left though, and sat up quickly, looking off in the direction he'd gone.
He's scouting. He'll come back.
She had to repeat it to herself over a dozen times in the intervening minutes, and by the time he returned she'd watered the horses again, untied them, and was repacking and situating the saddlebags. She glanced around when she heard footsteps and raised an eyebrow questioningly, but didn't say anything.
Honestly by this point her throat was so dry she wasn't sure she wanted to risk talking.
-
Raf popped another hydration ration when he got back, then stuffed two unopened packs into his pocket. "In case the kid needs them," he said, then he took another sip from his flask.
"There's lights up there," Raf said. He drew in the sand with his fingers. They were smart. They'er set up at the end of a box canyon, that would make a frontal assault suicide. But we're here for an extraction. I'm not concerned with assaulting the place. We're going to come up an over this ridge here to the west. Best I can tell, that's where their generator is. If we can cut out the generator we'll cause a nice distraction. Hopefully we can get in and out before they realize your girl is missing. We'll take the horses in on foot and leave then at the bottom of the canyon, here, so we can get to them quickly."[/b]
Raf moved over to the horse he'd been riding earlier then, and pulled off his duffel bag. He pulled out several things. "Put this on and adjust the straps so it fits right." It was a helmet, old, outdated by about two decades, military style, it had a pair of goggles that flipped down over the eyes. "It's night vision. Tech's older than dirt, but it works..." He flipped them down over her eyes and lifted a hand to the switch, and flicked it on, so she'd know how to do it. He pulled a second identical helmet out of the same bag. "I've got some charges too. Can you handle a rifle."
-
Oh gods. Okay, they were really doing this.
Okay.
Ava held perfectly still as he fitted the helmet on her head, soaking in his words as she committed the plan to memory. She would not allow any mistakes on her part to get her daughter hurt, or worse.
Flicking the goggles back up, she shook her head slowly. "No. I can use a handgun for self-defense, but I never learned how to shoot a rifle. I'm a medic, it's not exactly required teaching in med school."
-
"Alright," Raf said, "that's fine. Are you ready to go?"
They walked the horses over to where they were going to leave them, and tied them off to some rocks. Then Raf led Ava around and up the side of the ridge that would lead them to the bandit's camp. There were a couple smaller buildings, but the main building looked to be the only one with power.
"I'm going to climb up and over, and drop a rope down to help you up," Raf said in hushed tones, "once we're over stay quiet and stay close to me, and keep your head on a swivel."
Raf went up and over then. He took his time to keep himself quiet and once he was up at the top he dropped the rope down to her and pulled it around behind his waste to brace against her weight.
-
Ava nodded. What else could she do? She didn't know if she really was ready, but she had to be.
She watched Raf climb up and over the ridge, shifting her weight anxiously from foot to foot as she waited for him to drop the rope. Once he had she snatched it up quickly and set to climbing herself.
She wasn't nearly as quick or surefooted, but she made it. Eventually. Panting lightly, she managed to get one arm up over the top and had to pause for a moment, trying to catch her breath, before she could pull herself the rest of the way up, shakily.
-
Raf took her hand when she was ready and helped pull her over the lip of the ridge. “Stay here, catch your breath,” he whispered, “I’ll be right back.” He wanted to scout ahead a little. He moved off toward the sound of the generator, but kept out of sight. He set some charges on the thing. It was overkill, but he wanted the distraction. He was about to head back but a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He flattened himself to the ground behind the generator.
Just one guy, probably a guard, walked by. Raf waited until he had passed him the rushed him from behind, pulling his knife off his belt, he grabbed the guy from behind and cut his throat clean threw keeping a hand over his mouth until he went limp then dragged the body back to his previous hiding spot behind the generator. When he returned to Ava his left arm was soaked in blood and his right pant leg head a smear where he’d wiped his knife off. “Don’t worry it’s not mine,” he said, “Stay close, keep your head down, and stay quiet,” he said, then started moving toward the camp.
Raf held the detonator in one hand and looked over his shoulder at Ava and held up three fingers, two, one. Then there was an explosion and all the lights in the camp went dark. There were shouts and yelling and people running toward the generator. Raf flopped down his night vision and switched it on and tapped Ava on the shoulder before he stared moving quickly. He was headed toward the back of the main building. Smart money said they’d keep the girl there if she was important.
-
She took his hand gratefully and allowed him to pull her up and over, leaning heavily against the near wall and just giving him another quick, silent nod when he told her to catch her breath.
They'd found them. They'd actually found them.
Of course the hardest part of all this was still to come, but dear gods every law enforcement officer she'd spoken to since Val had been taken had told her that even this was a long shot. She had to cover her face with her hands and swallow back a few harsh, ragged sobs as she waited for Raf to return.
When he did her eyes shot wide open, and it was a good thing the first words out of his mouth were to assure her that it wasn't his blood, because she was already reaching for the emergency med kit strapped to her hip.
She bit her lip, nodding to show she understood, and instead changed the trajectory of her hand to grasp the pistol he'd given her, drawing it carefully, as he held up the detonator.
Once the lights were out she followed his lead, flipping down the goggles and hurrying after him as they curved around to the back of the building. From the sound of footsteps and shouting, she guessed at least a dozen of the bandits were heading for the generator--she didn't remember much more than that being involved in the raid, so surely most of their forces would be out of the building.
Her eyes scanned their surroundings, hyper-aware and alert for every detail. Suddenly she stopped, reaching out to grab Raf's arm, and pointed to the ground just in front of what looked like a small storage shed tucked away behind the main building.
Another feather lay on the ground, the pale cream color nearly shining in the darkness as she flipped her goggles up and started running for the shed.
-
Of course they'd fucking found them. Raf was a son-of-a-bitch, but he wasn't stupid. This was the kind of place, child abductions aside, that he might even be found, these days. Besides that, he liked picking fights and pissing off dangerous people. It was the spice of life.
Raf saw the feather. Same as the last one. Had to be the girl. That thought was confirmed by Ava recklessly rushing toward the shed near the feather. He kept a pace with her, and of course the door was locked. He kicked it in, hoping the sound of the fire burning around the generator and the yells of the bandits would drown out the sound.
Something felt wrong though. This had been really too easy.
-
If there was any doubt, any suspicion that this had been too easy in Ava's mind, it was drowned out with a blinding combination of desperation and relief.
"Val? Val, are you in here?" She had enough sense not to raise her voice louder than a harsh whisper, but it took a lot of effort, and she was practically shaking as she peered around the inside of what appeared to be some sort of storage shed.
Please, she has to be here. She has to be. Please, please...
"M-Mama?"
A harsh sob caught in Ava's throat and she whirled toward the tiny voice, searching the darkness.
Valkyrie was curled up in a far corner of the shed, thin knees drawn toward her chest, pale blonde curls ragged and lank, spilling around a dirt and tear stained face, but miraculously she appeared almost entirely unharmed.
Ava ran to her, dropping the gun she held as she collapsed to her knees beside her daughter and drew her into her arms, gulping harsh, heavy breaths in an effort not to burst into open weeping.
"Mama, don't--!"
She froze, Val's tiny hand pressing against the center of her chest, holding her back. She looked her over, confused, mind spinning. "Val, baby, it's okay, I'm gonna take you home..."
Her voice trailed off as Val let her legs fall slightly, revealing the device tied over her chest by some sort of makeshift vest. Ava's blood ran cold, all color draining from her face, eyes trained on the tiny, blinking red dot in the center.
She looked back at Raf over her shoulder. "She--she's strapped."
-
"Fuck," Raf said in a harsh whisper. He picked up the carelessly dropped weapon and thrust it back into Ava's hands. "This weapon is your life," he said, "and hers too. Guard the door and let me have a look at this." He'd had some very basic demolition training in the service, but he was no expert.
He knew it had been too easy.
Still, he supposed, some knowledge was better than none. He knew just enough to be a fucking danger to all of them. Maybe he really was going to die here, a sad disappointment to the lot of them. "Kill anyone who comes threw the door."
"Hey there Val," Raf said, his voice uncharacteristicall y soft and calm as he knelt down beside the girl. "I'm Raf," he pulled the flask from his pants pocket and took a couple gulps to calm his nerves, "Why don't we see if we can get this thing off of you, huh?
"Did they tell you anything about it?" As he spoke to her, he was reaching into a different pocket, and pulled out a multi tool.
"It's ok, if you don't know anything about it, but anything they might have said could be helpful." He started just by looking the thing over, moving a few external parts for a better look, without actually disturbing it too much.
-
Ava's hands were shaking as he shoved the gun back into her grip, but she managed to curl her fingers around it and give a brief, jerky nod, getting to her feet.
"I'm gonna be right by the door, okay, baby?" she murmured to Val, leaning in to carefully press a kiss to the top of her head. "This man is going to help you, alright? You can trust him."
She pulled away from her, exerting an enormous effort of will to do so, and shot Raf a quick look that was somewhere between desperate panic and fierce, blinding rage. "Help her."
She wasn't sure herself if the words were a plea or a command as she took a guard position just inside the door.
"Th-they said it'll go off if I take it off," Val answered Raf, staring up at him with wide silvery eyes. They were suspiciously bright with the threat of tears, but she pouted her bottom lip and clenched her jaw, clearly working to hold them back. "He said he'd know if I even tried and he'd d-do it anyway..."
-
"Ok, that's good," Raf said, "really helpful." He was looking for a raido transmitter and any other sensors. There was a radio transmitter. Which meant remote detonation was possible, and the wires were threaded threw the fasteners which meant taking off the vest wouldn't be possible... but looking at it, there were no kinds of sensors that would tell them if they were messing with it. So that was a plus.
"I can see," he said, "we can't just take it off, but there's no way for them to know if we're messing with it. Ok, so that's a good thing."
He looked at the wires and traced them back to the detonator. "Don't touch that one," he muttered to himself under his breath, identifying one that would instantly trigger detonation. He ruled out two others also, which left him with two option.
Fuck. He didn't say it because he didn't want the girl strapped to a bomb to panic while he had said bomb in his hands.
"Alright, Val," he said quietly, "take a deep breath and be real still. I'm going to cut this wire on three, then we're going to get this thing off of you, ok."
As she was taking her deep breath he held his own and cut the wire.
Nothing. The light went dark. He'd cut the power and not tripped anything. Thank whatever fucking forces were out there in the universe protecting them tonight.
"Ok, now the easy part. I'm going to cut these wires so we can get this off of you. Then we're home free. Ok. You're doing really well. He cut the next three wires quickly and then got the thing off of her, and set it gingerly in the corner.
His hand shook. He took another drink.
"Ok, can you walk? We'll have to move move quickly, so if you can't keep up let us know," he pulled a water ration out of his pocket. "Take this, it'll help your strength."
He glanced at Ava. "This is how we do this: Val stay between me and you're mom. Put your hand right here," he put her hand on the back of my shoulder, "that's how I'll know where you are. Don't take your hand off my shoulder, ok?
"When I move, you move. You stay close and you do what I tell you, and we'll be just fine." That was a bold faced lie. They still had a couple miles to hike to the horses... and then miles to Reckless. Even there, they probably wouldn't be safe - maybe leaving would be best. He looked at Ava. "Are we going to Reckless or the docks?" The docs were closer by miles, and he'd prefer a swift exit. "I'll get you both off this rock, if that's what you want."
-
Val whimpered quietly, but stubbornly refused to cry as he worked at the vest. Ava felt her heart in her throat, barely able to keep her eyes on the door as she listened to them behind her, waiting, waiting...
He cut the wire, and nothing happened.
Ava felt her knees threaten to buckle, but she managed to hold herself steady long enough for him to get the vest off Val before she ran to her daughter and scooped her up in her arms, holding her tight against her chest.
Val was crying softly into her mother's shoulder, but she took the water ration that Raf offered her and placed it on her tongue, hiccuping quietly. Meeting the merc's eyes over her daughter's head, her own eyes glistening as she swallowed down a sob, Ava mouthed, Thank you.
"I don't think she can walk," the medic whispered. "It's fine, I'll carry her. We have to get moving."
His question gave her pause, a hesitation she wasn't sure they could afford. But she didn't know the answer. "I..."
She looked down at Val, who was trembling like a leaf in a gale as she clung to her. Edanith's frontier was supposed to be safe, far away from the fancy gadgets and large cities that Molly so adored. But...but still this had happened.
She let out a sharp breath. "The docks."
It didn't have to be forever. But she needed a new plan.
-
"Right," he said, and nodded. "Make sure you keep up then."
With that, he got to his feet. "Ready?" He glanced back at Ava, making sure she was ready as he lifted his rifle into his hands. With her confirmation, Raf swung the door open, right into the face of one of the bandits. He opened fire an that one died instantly, problem was, everyone could hear the gunfire, and now shouts and foot falls were all headed toward them.
"Fuck. Move!"
Raf took off at a run slow enough for Ava to keep up, the other's hadn't gotten there yet, but they would soon. As they got feet away from the shed, the vest behind them exploded sending debris everywhere. Apparently, they weren't fucking around when they told the kid they'd blow her up if she tried to escape.
Raf was rocked, and had to pause to keep from toppling. The explosion wasn't too large, just enough to kill the kid and anyone within about five feet of her. His ears were ringing and he had a hell of a headache though.
"COME ON!" he yelled, and bairly could hear his own voice. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ava and Val were following, then continued on as quickly as the three of them could go.
"HERE!" On their way out, Raf was leading them toward the carrel. They could steal horses, and then change for their own horses which would be fresh, and hopefully scatter the others. Luckily he'd been able to see the carrel when he was scouting earlier.
He jumped the fence, and took Val from Ava, lifting her over it, and then once Ava was inside, helped Val and Ava onto a horse. He opened the gate then and pulled himself onto one of the horses. Then he shot off some rounds into the dirt to scatter the horses.
-
Ava hardly looked at what was happening around them, just clutched Val close to her chest and tore off after Raf toward the corral. The explosion behind them nearly sent her sprawling and she staggered in an effort to keep her footing, Val giving a sharp, high scream before Ava managed to muffle the sound against her shoulder.
She passed the girl over the fence to Raf and hopped it herself in record time, skidding slightly on the landing--that explosion had probably fucked up her inner ear, her balance was off.
But she didn't exactly have time to worry about it. Snatching Val back up in her arms, Ava practically vaulted onto the nearest animal and settled her daughter in front of her, taking up the reins with her arms to either side of Val's body.
Because of fucking course they'd be riding their escape on bareback. She supposed they were lucky a few of the horses even had bridles.
Raf's shots effectively spooked the herd, and their own mounts as well. Her horse threatened to rear, whites showing all the way around his eyes, and Val clung onto his mane with another terrified cry.
"Hold on, sweetheart." Ava whirled the horse around, wrestling him back under control, and shot off for the gate.
-
Well, the horse Raf picked had a lead on him, but no saddle, no big deal. Until he horse reared, and he had to grab fistfuls of his main and hold on for dear life to keep from being thrown off the horse. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, the rush of blood was loud but everything was oddly silent. No matter, the horse started moving, and he urged it on in the direction he wanted.
By the time they were leaving the camp, some of the bandits had organized and got one of the trucks moving. It didn't matter. The trucks were slow and couldn't navigate the rocky, craggy terrain like these horses.
-
Ava couldn't say for sure that she knew where they were going; she had to trust and follow Raf's horse, close on his heels, even as she heard the engine of the truck growling behind them.
Val was hunched forward over their horse's neck in front of her, too afraid and stunned to even continue crying. Ava's heart clenched painfully, but they had to keep moving. The best she could do was curve her body over her daughter's as much as possible, hoping to shield her from any gunfire if the bandits started shooting.
-
It was only a few moments before the gunfire started. It was wild and scattered, they were shooting from too far away for small arms fire. Raf still could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears. He didn't even realize they were under fire until he saw the blasts landing in the sandy dirt around him.
"Fuck."
They were getting further behind though. The trucks couldn't keep up. Especially as they made a sudden turn around an outcropping of rocks, only to have to turn around a narrow wall of rock that jutted out of the sand. The trucks couldn't fit threw the narrow space that they were riding along now.
They just had to make it to the bottom. That's where their horses were waiting.
-
Val screamed and Ava gritted her teeth, spurring her horse on faster. The animal’s hooves skittered on the stone, loose stones tumbling away from them as they raced along the narrow crevasse , down toward their waiting horses. She almost couldn’t hear the bullets raining around them over the thudding of her own heart in her ears.
She almost didn’t notice when they reached the bottom, not until she was already off her panting mount and racing for the horses she and Raf had left tied loosely. Val was in her arms, she was lifting the girl up into the saddle, but something was wrong, Val was crying, she was...what?
“Mama! Mama!”
Ava swayed on her feet, her eyes drifting down to where Val was staring at her side, vaguely registering the dark, wet stain that was spreading over her shirt.
“Oh...” It seemed she’d been shot. She hadn’t even noticed. Of course, once she saw the blood, the pain began to bloom. She swayed on her feet again, vision going fuzzy at the edges.
-
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. They were going to loose their slim lead over this. Raf was no medic, but all soldiers got a little battlefield medical training. "Stay in the saddle," Raf ordered Val. Then tore into Ava's med kit.
Biofoam, perfect for the lay person. It would stop the bleeding at least. He ripped open her shirt and pressed the nozzle inside the wound and pulled the trigger. Once the wound was filled he stuffed it back into her bag. Then he lifted Ava and put her on the horse. He wrapped the reigns around her hand.
"You hold on, don't you fucking die on me, I was the one supposed to die in this thing not you, gods damn it."
He got on the other horse then, and started them going. It was still several miles ride from here to his ship... the sun would be well overhead by then, but hopefully they wouldn't be able to catch up regardless. This time they couldn't take off at a breakneck pace, though he still kept the horses at a light trot, they had to be careful so Ava and Val didn't get thrown, and Raf was now riding his horse and leading the other.
The trucks would have had to go around the ravine. It would take then an hour out of the way. By the time they got back on them, they'd have to guess if they went to Reckless or the docs. Hopefully they would guess wrong.
-
Everything was sort of blurry. Ava was only vaguely aware of Raf digging through the led kit at her hip, then the sound of her short ripping—then searing pain from her side. She started to scream, but had just enough sense to clamp her mouth shut, jaw trembling with the tension.
Then she was up on the horse, panting lightly, clutching desperately at the reins as Val twisted on the saddle in front of her to see her face, eyes wide and lip trembling. “Mama, it’s okay.”
The girl looked to Raf as he mounted up, voice thin and high. “She’s gonna be okay, right? She’s gonna be okay?”
“Baby...” Ava gritted her teeth, grasping the horse as tightly as she could with her legs, her grip on the reins mostly just there in an effort to keep her balance. She looked to Raf. “You have to keep her safe.” Her voice sounded strange and distant to her own ears, but surprisingly strong. “Promise you’ll keep her safe, Raf.”
She didn’t realize it was the first time she’d called him by name.
-
Raf glanced away from that little girl's helpless expression. He wasn't a proper medic. Their medic was near unconscious. Possibly dying. "She's strong, she did all this for you. You just hold on and ride, ok."
Names. See, you didn't have to be an old earth fairy - that was the power of names. They made people real, they made people care. People who cared about him, people he cared about - they all dyed. "Don't you start that shit," Raf said, "she's safest with you."
You can't fucking put this on me. This is... I was supposed to fucking die on this half cocked job, not you.
The sky got light around then as the false dawn broke threw the darkness, he could see the docks in the distance. "Ava," he said sharply, "we're almost there."
He pulled a small device from his pocket and clicked the button. "Liss," he said, "I'm almost home, fire up the engines and get ready for take off.
-
Through the hazy fog that seemed to be clouding her brain, Ava somehow managed to keep her seat as they rode ever closer to the docks.
A soft, slightly pained laugh bubbled out of her and she lifted her head tiredly to smile crookedly at Raf's back. "You called me Ava..."
It was the first she'd spoken in nearly an hour, and Val jerked around on the saddle, staring up at her with a trembling lower lip. "Mama, just hold on okay?" It was clear she was trying to keep her voice crisp and even--emulating Ava's when she was with a patient, though in that high, childish falsetto. "Mister Raf says we're almost home."
The girl looked around, and seemed to realize that what she conceived of as "home" and where they were actually heading was not the same place. Her eyes widened a bit, but then she bit her lip and dropped her head again, tiny hands clenching tight in their horse's mane.
-
"You're starting to get on my nerves, sister," Raf snapped back irritably.
Out of the corner of his eye - Raf caught the girl's change of expression as she said they were nearly home. He frowned. "Sorry, Val... Liss's tit is my home, not yours. She's a ship... and I'm taking the both of you off of this rock. Then you'll be safe."
Well, so he thought. He didn't know some crazy bitch named 'mother' was after them.
They were almost there. Basically home free. There was no way the truck would be able to catch up in time. They're had to go around miles. When they did get to the docs, Raf lead them straight to the ship, and pushed a different button on his comm. The hatch opened, and they rode the horses right up to it. He pulled Val down first. "You get inside, I'll get your mom."
Once he set Val down on her feet, he lifted Ava gently from the saddle, he laid her down on the cargo-bay floor, then went and retrieved the saddle bags. He didn't have much in the way of food and such on the ship, so they'd need those. Once the gear was on board, Raf sealed the hatch and then picked Ava up and carried her further into the ship.
"Lis," he said to no one in particular, he was talking to the ship. "Take off, set a course for Cancer."
"Come on, with me Val," the sleeping quarters, of which there were two on this ship, were down short ladders on either side of the main hall leading from the cargo bay to the cockpit. Raf had a hell of a time getting her down, but once he did he got her settled on the bed. Then he shook Ava awake.
"Look sister," Raf said, "I'm no medic, only think I know how to do is stick a bandied on a bullet wound - so you walk me threw how to patch you up." Because if you die on me I'll never forgive you.
-
Val nodded, showing she understood, then suddenly giggled at the name of the ship, eyes going wide in her thin face. "That's not a very nice name," she noted, sounding utterly delighted.
If Ava had been a little more fully conscious, she might have given the mercenary a hard time for that--and for all the swearing he'd been doing around her daughter in general. As it was, she was just barely able to keep her eyes open when they finally reached the ship. Then Raf was moving her into the cargo bay and she winced, clenching her teeth so tight that her jaw creaked to hold back a cry of pain.
Small, cool fingers touched her cheek and she blinked her eyes open to see Val leaning over her, a worry line etched between her brows. Forcing a smile, she reached up to cover Val's hand with hers. "Hey, chickadee." Her words were sort of slurred, but at least she got them out. And her side wasn't hurting so much anymore, that was good.
Oh wait. No. She was going into shock. Maybe not so good.
Val smiled, though the expression was a little shaky. "Hi, Mama," she replied quietly.
Then Raf was back, picking Ava up and carrying her further into the ship with Val trailing after him like a duckling, alternating between watching the two adults worriedly and looking around the ship with open curiosity. The girl had lived her whole life on the frontier--this was utterly foreign to her.
Then Raf was leading her to a bed, still carrying her mother, and she reached up to tug on his sleeve. "You're gonna fix Mama, right?"
"Val, baby, c'mere." Ava held her hand out to her daughter weakly and Val grabbed for it, coming closer as her mother drew her in toward the edge of the bed. "Sweetie, do you think you can head back up and find Mama's saddlebags? There's some medicine in there."
"Yes, Mama!" Val leaned in to peck her cheek, then scurried for the ladder. As she turned her back, Ava vaugely noticed that her already ripped and dirtied clothes had been damaged further in their wild ride from the bandits' hideout, revealing flashes of feathers through the tears in the back of her shirt.
Once her daughter was out of earshot, she tried to sit herself up slightly on the bed, then gave a sharp hiss of pain and slumped back down. "That was...mostly to get her out of the room," she told Raf, breathing raggedly. She still felt sort of vague and distant, but she knew what needed to be done. She just had to focus enough to coach him through it. "This is--this is really gonna hurt, and I don't want her to see."
Gesturing toward the med kit at her hip, Ava struggled to keep her eyes open and muttered, "There's a topical anti-antiseptic and...numbing agent. Green tube. White cap. Apply that to the...the area around the wound first..."
-
Raf smirked at Val and winked at her when she started to giggle, and he broke out in soft laughter when she said it wasn't a very nice name. God he hadn't laughed properly in... years.
"Don't get up," Raf said, but she already couldn't and fell back. He put a pillow under her feet to raise them up and help keep her blood flow to her brain. He watched the exchange between Ava and her daughter but didn't interject.
Raf glanced up, as if he could see the girl threw the bulkhead as he grabbed her kit. "What's next?" he asked as he applied the numbing agent first and then the antiseptic."[/b]
-
Ava clenched her teeth. "Shit. Whoever said the worst part of getting shot is the shock is a fucking liar," she muttered as his fingers skated around the wound.
Breathing carefully, she shifted a bit and muttered, almost sounding dazed, "The biofoam--that was a good instinct, but the...the bullet's still in. There's a pair of surgical scissors, you'll have to--" She swallowed, not particularly relishing the thought of this, even with the numbing agent. It was still a field med kit, that stuff was only so strong. "You're gonna have to cut the wound wider and get out the foam, then the bullet. Then--then stitch the cut back up and reapply foam..."
Her lashes fluttered as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Okay, now that the searing pain had dulled to a throbbing ache, it was really difficult to cling to consciousness. She must have lost a lot of a blood in that ride, before she'd even realized she'd been hit.
-
“Alright.” Raf said. He pulled his flask out of his pocket and took a long pull off of it. The bomb had been easier to deal with. Then he offered it to her. “Take some,” he said, “it’ll probably help more than that numbing agent. It’s gut rot, but it’s strong.” It tasted like shit, but it was strong. “You got antibiotics in this kit? You’re gonna want some when we’re done.” He doused his hands with the antiseptic too and then pulled on some gloves. It wasn’t sterile by any stretch of the imagination though.
He pulled out the tools he needed and set them down. Then he yanked his belt off and folded the leather strip in half. “Bite down on this,” he said, “you don’t want your screams scaring Val.” He’d seen field surgery like this before. It was basically medieval.
Then he went to work. Raf was used to blood and screams. He was used to being their cause and to them being his own. It was different like this though - more intimate. There was some fucking little girl up there expecting him to save his mom.
He didn’t stop until he was done.
He was covered in blood, so was Ava, by the time he was done. So was the bed. Raf drenched the wound in antiseptic and then reapplied the biofoam.
-
Gingerly, Ava accepted the flask and, even more gingerly, downed a long draft. She coughed, wincing both at the burn of the alcohol and the twinge of faint pain that the jerking motion pulled from the bullet wound.
She winced again when he handed her the belt, but she nodded. She'd been on the other end of similar procedures; she knew she was going to need it.
Before she actually took the belt, she reached out to grasp Raf's forearm, eyes searching his, suddenly fierce. "You can do this," she told him as firmly as she could. "I trust you, okay? And..."
She hated this, hated considering it, hated putting it on him, but she had to say it. "And just in case, I--I know you'll look after Val."
It was crazy. They'd known each other barely a day. But she had literally no other options, and she needed to believe that her baby would be safe, no matter what happened to her.
The belt was thankfully enough to muffle the screams, though at one point Ava actually blacked out, which probably helped control the noise quite a bit.
When she blinked her way back to consciousness, she saw Raf leaning over her, felt the telltale stiffening of the biofoam against and beneath her skin--eeaugh, that was awful--and then her eyes flickered to the ladder and she caught a flash of wide gray eyes peering down.
"Chickadee..." She blinked, forcing herself to focus, to stay awake. "Everything's okay, sweetheart, you just wait up there..."
-
“She’ll be safe because you’ll keep her that way,” Raf responded, almost angrily, “don’t you fucking talk like that.” She wasn’t one of his soldiers, but she’d be another gods damned ghost to haunt his every moment if she died. Yes, he’d keep her brat safe, but he’d be pissed off at Ava for the rest of his life, and she be another corps he’d blame himself for.
When she blacked out, it was a blessing. She got quiet and still. As long as there was still a ride and fall to her chest and a heart beat, he was ok with that. For extra credit, Raf had even started an IV on Ava and hooked her up to a unit of fluids. They’d thought him that much in the army.
Raf didn’t even realize Val was spying on them until Ava said something. He glanced up and gave the girl a weary smile. “You just give me a minute to get this cleaned up and then you can come down here and stay with your ma,” he said, with that same warmer, gentler tone he’d used when he was defusing the bomb attached to her earlier. He stripped the bed quickly and wrapped the bloody sheets in the blanket and then moved to a corridor that connected the two cabins to a bathroom and washed most of the blood off his hands and arms before putting fresh blankets and sheets on the bed.
“Alright, Val, you can come down here Val and keep you mom company.” Then he turned back to Ava, “open up,” he said and stuck a water ration in her mouth for good measure.
When she was about half down the ladder Raf picked up Val and put her gently on the bed beside her mom. “Just don’t lean on her ok, and you stay on this side of her.”
He disappeared up the ladder then and returned a few moments later with some food and water rations from the saddle bags. “You eat and take another water ration ok.” He took his watch off and tapped a few things into it. “Here take my watch. I want you to help me look after your mom, ok?
“This will go off every hour. I want you to wake her up every time it beeps, and if you can’t wake her up or she won’t talk to you, you come get me alright. I have to go make sure Lis is flying us in the right direction ok.” And to make sure no one had followed them off world or that any number of other bad things that could happen out in space were happening.
He made his way back up the ladder then and toward the cockpit.
-
"Mmm." The pain had dulled to a sort of distant ache, and Ava was tired. She barely had the presence of mind to pop the water ration on her tongue and swallow the liquid.
Val climbed down the ladder slowly, then gave a little squeak when Raf picked her up and stared at him with wide eyes. She was clutching one of Ava's saddlebags close to her chest, though the other arm when around Raf's neck to steady herself, wings fluttering just slightly beneath her shirt.
She nodded quickly when he placed her on the bed, holding up the bag she held. "It has medicine in it. Mama said."
Ava manged to take the saddlebag and drop it to the floor beside them as gently as she could. "That's right, chickadee, it does. Thank you." She twisted her head to kiss Val's temple as the girl snuggled into her uninjured side. "I'll take some of that medicine when you wake me up in an hour, okay?" Gods knew she would need the antibiotics, but she didn't want to overload her system immediately.
"Okay..." Val's voice was very soft, and she glanced up at Raf again as he turned to head back up the ladder. She held the watch close to her chest. "Thank you, Mister Raf."
-
"It's just Raf, kid, I work for a living," he smirked lightly at her, then disappeared up the ladder to check on the ship.
He checked the course that Liss had plotted out and checked to make sure they had enough fuel and such. He had originally thought this mission would kill him... he was glad for Ava and the kid that they survived alright, but he really wished he would have died down there. Then he could be one of the corpses two, and he wouldn't have to live with these damn ghosts.
By the time he'd seen to the ship, Raf hadn't slept more than an hour at a time, and not more than maybe six or seven hours in the last three days. So, at some point he fell asleep. More like passed out. His sleep was restless though, and troubled. He moved in the seat in the cockpit and sometimes shook, sometimes swung at invisible enemies - he yelled, or cried.
Then he screamed - toppled out of his chair, and landed on the ground with a thud. His heart was beating out of his chest and he was drenched in a cold sweat. He was breathing heavily and he could hear his own blood rushing in his ears.
"Fuck."
He could still see the blood on his hands. He tried uselessly to wipe it off, then abandoned that all together and headed down the ladder to the room between the two cabins which was the head. He scrubbed his hands in the sink, even though he knew the blood wasn't really there, then stripped out of his filthy, sweat soaked clothes, and stepped into the sonic shower.
-
"...I can give you something for that."
Woken up every hour on the hour, Ava had eventually been left in a light doze, and the sound of Raf climbing down and heading for the bathroom had been enough to wake her up. Still sort of fuzzy and drowsy, she'd left Val tucked securely into the small bed and carefully made her way toward the noise.
She was leaning heavily against the outside wall beside the door, so she didn't see Raf or his reaction to her, but it hadn't been very hard to guess what had happened.
"Sleeping pills," she clarified, evidently talking to the wall across from her. "And...well. Some other things, if we stopped off at a half-civilized world and I had some time to make them. Might actually help take the edge off better than the alcohol."
PTSD was complex and often tricky, and she certainly wasn't a therapist. But she knew enough to diagnose it, and given the proper tools she could perhaps offer some sort of medication to help control the panic attacks.
She didn't say any of that aloud, not sure how even what she had said would be received.
-
Raf started, nearly hitting his head on the bulkhead when Ava spoke. He hadn't realized she was up. It wasn't time for Val to wake her again, yet. Her remark was answered by a string of curses that were not really aimed at her.
"I've tried sleeping pills," Raf said, at length, still inside the sonic shower, "they help me sleep, sometimes, but... they don't, they don't help with the nightmares. They make them worst." Sleep would be a gods send, but still... the nightmares were worst than the lack of sleep. The panic attacks were really the worst thing though, they were so crippling sometimes that he couldn't function at all.
"With the alcohol," he said, "I don't dream... at least not when I black out." Raf didn't rightly know why he was telling her any of this. He was so... embarrassed, ashamed, guilty. The guilt was more than anything else. He obviously didn't know how to deal with his issues, but he also didn't know how to ask for help, which he wasn't asking for now.
He turned off the shower, but didn't get out. He didn't think that he could face her, or anyone right now.
-
Ava sort of jumped when he started cursing, then realized what must have happened and couldn't help smiling just a bit, lifting a hand to cover the expression even though there was a door between them.
She listened to him quietly, nodding once or twice. She'd heard similar from patients on the frontier--and twice even during her undergrad back in Tynova.
"Well, I've never heard of a nightmare cure that wasn't at least a bit magical--and even those don't always work for long. But sometimes talking about it helps."
She heard the shower turn off and pushed herself away from the wall with a small sigh. She started to move back toward the bed with Val, then paused and added quietly, not even really sure if he could hear her through the door, "You saved my life today. More importantly, you saved my daughter's life out there. I know you weren't exactly planning on making it back from this, but...if I can do anything to pay you back, I'd be happy to."
She paused a moment longer, then slipped away into the bunk, wincing as she settled back onto the bed and lay on her good side, one arm looping around Val's curled form.
-
"I've tried magic too," he said softly, resting his forehead against the wall. "Like you said, doesn't last long." And it was exorbitantly expensive.
Alcohol was cheap and available everywhere.
"Just live," Raf said, "keep her safe."
"Hey," Raf said sticking his head out the door as Ava left. "Where do you want me to set this bird down? I set a course for the Cancer, but that was just because I had to pick somewhere... do you have a destination in mind, sister?"
-
Ava paused in the doorway, glancing back over her shoulder at him. "Just...anywhere. Edanith clearly isn't safe anymore--who knows how many people those bandits told about Val..."
The best option would honestly be to keep traveling. But that required a ship, and quite a bit of technological know-how--not to mention a piloting license--that she didn't possess.
And she didn't want to ask him. He'd done enough for them.
"Anywhere," Ava repeated on a sigh before climbing into the bed. Though full sleep seemed to elude her, she was dozing quickly enough, one arm curved around her daughter and the other tucked under her head.
-
"The Cancer is more like nowhere," Raf said, more to himself than Ava, "but it'll do for now, I suppose."
He took his reeking clothes and stepped out of the bathroom then and turned down the corridor to the other cabin, that one was his. He threw on a fresh pair of pants and didn't bother with anything else. Then he collapsed, face down into the bed. Passed out from exhaustion. He got about an hour of peaceful sleep before Liss announced that she was ready to engage the jump drive. It was the best sleep he'd had in... years. He felt refreshed.
It was... odd.
"Hey, sister," Raf said, coming into the room that Ava and Val were sleeping in, "we'll be at The Cancer in an hour." He'd forgotten he was just in pants... bare feet, and all. His body was littered with scars, a lot of them were from bullets or energy blasts. Evidence of cuts and burns and the like were all there carved into his skin. Even a couple of his toes looked to have been broken and reset - not unlike his nose - a couple of times.
-
Both Val and Ava groaned and grumbled as his voice brought them back to consciousness, then stretched their arms in a strange little mirror image of each other--at least until Ava pulled at her wound and winced, dropping her arms quickly.
"Okay, I'm up," she mumbled groggily, pushing herself up and looking toward him--and then she paused, blinking, and felt her cheeks flush a bit.
Oh. Oh fuck.
That was...so very inconvenient.
Shoving the flicker of a though from her mind, she shook her head and got carefully to her feet. "You wanna put a shirt on, Raf? You're gonna traumatize my kid."
On the bed, Val giggled, sitting with her legs crossed and her wings flared through the holes in her shirt, haloing her body with cream and brown feathers. She sort of rocked from side to side and her wings moved infinitesimally to keep her balanced. "Where's Cancer, Mama?"
Before Ava could answer, the girl looked to Raf and chirped, "Have you been there before? Are you coming with us?"
-
Raf looked down, only then realizing he'd just thrown on pants and then passed out until about fifteen minutes ago. Hell, she was lucky he hadn't walked in there naked as the day he was born... He often did walk around his ship naked. This was his home, and he rarely had guests, after all.
"Seems you're the only one bothered," he'd noticed the flush on her cheeks... it'd been, well a really fucking long time sense a woman had looked at him like that.
Raf glanced at Ava then. "Cancer is a space station, kiddo," he said, "I've been there lots of times... and yeah, I'll be there. I'm taking you there." He winked at her, "I'd better go get dressed though, we'll be there soon." Then he headed out of the room and down the hall to his own cabin to finish getting dressed.
-
"He has a lot of scars."
Ava winced. She turned back to her daughter and started rooting through their packs for fresh clothes. She knew she had at least one change for the girl. "Yeah, chickadee, he does," she murmured, hoping their voices were low enough that Raf hadn't heard. "But y'know...some people don't like to talk about stuff like that, right?"
"Oh. Okay." VAl frowned, evidently confused. "You always said not to be embarrassed about scars though."
She winced again. "Yep, I sure did. And I meant it. But it's...sometimes it's not embarrassment, kiddo, it's... Talking about scars sometimes makes them hurt. Okay, arms up."
Val considered that in silence as her mother helped her shrug into a new shirt, wings once more tucked close to her spine. "But...you can fix that, can't you?" The girl looked up into Ava's face, and she felt her chest tighten. "You always fix people who are hurting."
Ava was quiet for a long moment after that, lifting Val up into her arms and pressing a distracted kiss to her temple. "...Yeah," she murmured eventually. "But the thing is, chickadee, in order for me to help, someone has to want to be fixed."
-
Well, for his part, Raf wasn't embarrassed about his scars. He wouldn't relish the idea of talking about them, though... he'd hardly be upset about Val just mentioning them. He didn't typically advertise them, but he also didn't really hide them. It was just lucky for him, if he wore clothes, most of the physical scars were hidden.
Raf came back, fully dresses, a few minutes later. He tossed one of his t-shirts on the bed, it was clean, if a little ragged. "I didn't think you'd fit any of my pants, but that's clean if you want it you can have it. We're docking in thirty minutes."
-
"Oh. Um, thanks." Ava took the shirt and turned her back to him as she started to struggle out of her bloodstained, ripped blouse, wincing and hissing every so often as she pulled uncomfortably at her side.
Val watched her mother for a moment carefully, then abruptly hopped off the bed and scurried over to where Raf stood in the doorway. She reached up to take his hand, tugging gently to try to get him to lean down as she rocked up onto her toes and put one hand by her mouth to whisper, "You should go to Mama if you're hurting."
She glanced over her shoulder, saw that Ava was still struggling to get the shirt on without hurting herself, and continued, "She said I shouldn't talk about it because it might make you sad, but I think it's silly not to try to fix something that hurts. She says you have to want to though."
Turning around again, Ava saw her daughter hanging onto Raf's hand and trying to appear conspiratorial and she huffed, moving forward to pull her gently away. "Alright, chickadee, what's up, huh? We can't be bothering Raf right now, he's gotta fly the ship."
Val pouted slightly but took her mother's hand easily enough. Automatically, Ava bent to try to lift her daughter onto her hip, then gave a short, sharp cry as her injured side protested and she had to pause, teeth gritted and eyes clenched shut.
-
Raf turned to the side a little to give Ava some more privacy when she started to change out of her ripped shirt. He let the girl take her hand and knelt down when she tugged it. Letting her whisper in his ear.
He pulled back slightly when she poke though. He looked down at her a moment, and then looked away, unable to meet her gaze. "It's... it's not the kind of hurt that can be fixed with medicine and bandages," he said quietly. He let go of her hand then and quickly turned away from her and headed back up the ladder.
"Be careful you don't pull your stitches," he called down the ladder.
-
"Right, thanks. Wouldn't have thought of that," Ava muttered--more to be ornery than anything else--before looking down at her daughter again. She sort of tilted her head to one side, mimicking the way Val was looking up at her. "What was that about, sweetling?"
Val shrugged, biting at her lower lip, and glanced up the ladder after Raf for a moment. "I dunno," she said eventually with a small sigh, shoulders slightly slumped.
Ava thought about pressing, then decided against it. "Alright then. How 'bout you help me back up these bags again, okay?"
She had no idea how long they'd be on Cancer, so it probably wouldn't hurt to carry their things with them.
Roughly twenty minutes later, Val scurried up the ladder and made her way to the cockpit, navigating the ship with surprising ease considering how little time she'd spent on it. Ava followed more sedately, mindful of her stitches, with the saddlebags now converted to a short of satchel that she wore across one shoulder and on her hip.
"Can I see?" Val was chirping as she scrambled around looking for any sort of window. "I've never been in space before, I wanna see the stars before we land!"
-
"Come in here if you want to see space, kiddo," Raf called from the cockpit. "You can sit right there," he pointed to the co-pilot's seat, "just don't touch anything in here ok."
He pointed out the window, at the lights in the sky. "The stars are all over," he said, "but this here," he pointed out the space station, "is the Cancer. See those lights there? That's where we're going to dock." He flipped a few switches and turned a dial and moved a slide. The computer started counting off the distance to the docking port as they got closer.
Airlock sealed, docking complete. The computer informed him and then he hit a few other buttons and most of the lights on the control panel went dark.
"Alright kiddo," he said, "we're ready to go." He got up and lifted Val out of the chair and put her up on his shoulders. "Liss, set security protocols to maximum once we're off."
Once they got to the hatch, he set the girl down and opened the airlock. "You stay close ok, we don't want you to get lost... this place is a lot bigger than Restless."
-
Val gasped excitedly as she was given permission to clamber into the co-pilot's seat, sitting up on her knees and all but bouncing in place as she looked around, wide-eyed.
In the doorway to the cockpit Ava couldn't help smiling as she watched them, just a little. It was a miracle her daughter seemed as unphased by her ordeal as she did; granted, it was still very new, and a lot was happening, but still she was hopeful that Val could move passed it.
She did sort of start forward when Raf swung her daughter up onto his shoulders, but Val just squealed in delight and hung on, laughing.
Ava's heart lurched and her stomach did a funny little flip. She shook her head, trying to put it from her mind as she followed them out to the hatch. Val pouted to be put on the ground again but didn't complain, nodding quickly when Raf told her to stay close. She was practically wriggling in anticipation, and Ava couldn't help chuckling quietly.
"Okay!" She grabbed Ava's hand, smiled up at her, then reached up to take Raf's with the other. "Ready!" she chirped happily, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
-
Raf smiled. He remembered easily how excited he'd been the first time he was in a ship and in space. He'd grown up on the streets, poor, destitute, in an out of child services - such as they were on Edanith. Then he'd joined the military and suddenly so many new things were within reach. He was eighteen at the time, not six or seven, however old Val was... but he remember the wonder the first time he saw space, still.
Raf looked down at Val when she grabbed his hand. He messed her hair with his other hand and then stepped threw the air lock. The docs were busy, with a lot of people and ships coming and going. It was crowded and people pressed in on them as they walked. Raf's grip on Val's hand tightened just a little.
"Do you need anything, supplies, or?" he glanced over his shoulder at Ava and his gaze drifted down to where he wound was before he turned his head back to the front. "I know this place pretty well, if you have a sort of destination in mind or anything you need?"
-
"Ah, yes. Medical supplies would be good, and it wouldn't hurt to grab a few other essentials..."
Ava's voice trailed off as she glanced through her satchel, holding it open with her free hand while Val swung between the two of them, looking around with wide eyes. Wincing slightly, Ava glanced back at Raf over her daughter's head and sort of shook her head once, frowning.
"I...don't exactly have a lot of cash," she mumbled, hoping to keep her voice low enough that Val wouldn't hear. "I didn't expect to just leave Reckless so quickly, I didn't--"
She cut herself off. Shaking her head again, she muttered, "It's fine. We'll make do. Can you point us in the direction of some place to get some basic field med stuff?" Her stomach growled, loudly, and she flushed, then added, "And maybe some food?"
-
"It's alright," he said, "don't worry about it." Money wasn't an issue, he'd been paid well for a job just before he accepted Ava's. "Yeah, food first."
Raf lead the way toward a, oh no, not fir kids... he changed directions and lead them off to a little restaurant. It wasn't a super nice place, but it looked clean, at least. Raf picked a table at random, and about the time he sat in one of the chairs, one of the waitresses came by and walked her fingers across the top of his shoulders.
"I haven't seen you in a while Raf," she said and then placed a couple menus on the table. She arched an eyebrow at Val, and glanced sideways at Ava.
"I'm not here for long, Keltcy," Raf said, glancing up at the waitress. Then he turned his gaze down at Val. "What's your favorite thing to eat, kiddo?"
-
Ava opened her mouth to protest--but then logic outweighed pride and she gave a soft huff, nodding gratefully at Raf as he led them through the unfamiliar station toward a...
Oh thank gods. He'd changed direction.
Val was jabbering away, asking about anything and everything even as they walked into the restaurant and were led to a table. Ava was too busy attempting to get her daughter to hold still in her seat to notice the woman's initial approach, but she looked up when she heard her voice and caught the sideways look in her direction.
Not at all sure how to take that, she shifted slightly in her seat and glanced down at the menu, fumbling in her satchel for a moment before she drew her hand back with a small pill and quickly swallowed it. If they were going to be up and about for the foreseeable future, gods knew she was going to need some painkillers.
"I like starfruit!" Val replied to Raf's question immediately. She pouted a bit and added, "We couldn't get it a lot in Reckless though."
Ava chuckled. "How about something with protein before something sweet, kiddo?"
-
"I don't know if they have starfruit," Raf said as the waitress retreated, "but they have fruit here sometimes... depends on when the last shipment was."
"There's pasta, sandwiches, burgers, soups," Raf said.
"I like the caran nuggets, and cheesy beer bread," he had no idea what kind of meat they were made of, but they were seasoned well and tasted good.
-
Val's eyes widened. "I'm not allowed to have beer."
Evidently she'd harped in on that one word.
Ava snorted into her hand, unable to help herself. "Aw, chickadee, that's very sweet," she chuckled, reaching out to stroke the girl's hair. "But it's actually okay. See, the way they cook things means that what's bad for you in the alcohol isn't there anymore."
"Oh." Easily reassured, Val glanced up at Raf again and chirped, "Can I try that then?"
-
Raf cracked a smile. It was the first time he'd smiled in a real genuine way, in a long time. "Of course you can," Raf said.
He flagged down the waitress. "Keltcy, can we get two orders of caran nuggets and cheesy beer bread, and I'll take a beer, and some fresh fruit if you have any, and..." he gestured at Ava, to place her own order and order something to drink for Val.
-
“The tamales for me, please, and some water,” Ava replied quickly with a smile. She handed the menu over and added with a nod toward Val, “And a glass of pimont juice, I’d you have it?”
The fruit was one of the rare few native to Edanith, and though a little tart Val still loved it.
Though the little girl didn’t seem to be all the interested in listening to what her mother was saying. She was looking around the restaurant curiously, eyes bright and wide as she tried to take in so many new things at once.
“Mama. Mama.” She tugged on Ava’s sleeve, drawing her attention. Lowering her voice, the girl whispered, “Is that person a cyborg?”
“Mm?” Ava glanced up. “Looks like they are, babe.”
“Whoa...”
-
“Let me show you how to eat this,” Raf said, “you have to dunk the nuggets into the cheese sauce.” He demonstrated, making a lovely mess with the gooey, stringy cheese sauce. He didn’t care it was fixing delicious.
The waitress, noises they had the juice, and some boden fruit that had just arrived the other day. That fruit was native to the near by planet of Reglis. It had a taught skin that snapped when you fit into it and the inside was gushy and sweet. So sweet the smell of it almost made Raf’s teeth hurt.
When they were done eating, Raf paid the tab. “Medical supplies next?” He asked, and as they got up, he glanced at Ava, “not a lots regulated here so you can get about anything you want here. Also,” he added, looking away from her, “if you can fix me up something... not sleeping pills, but for the other thing. I’d ah, appreciate it.”
-
Ava chuckled watching her daughter try to mimic Raf's way of eating the snack and winding up with cheese sauce smeared over her face. She leaned in to wipe it off, ignoring the girl's protests and squirming.
It was...nice. And surprisingly relaxing, aside from the occasional twinge from her injured side.
And she'd never complain about free food. She managed to shoot Raf a grateful look when he picked up the tab, but she was a bit distracted trying to wrangle an excited and now thoroughly sugar-high Val.
"Oh." She paused, one hand holding Val's wrist as her daughter babbled away about want to see everything on Cancer, and glanced over to try to meet Raf's eyes. Voice a little lower, softer, she murmured, "I think I can manage that. We should, um...talk about some particulars later though? Just...how you should take it and such."
-
Raf wouldn’t look her in the eye, but nodded. “Yeah, later,” he said. “Alright kiddo, we’re going to the med store now,” he said, after the girl grasped his hand, placing herself between him and her mother again.
Raf led the way off to what was mostly a legitimate medical supply store. “You should be able to get just about anything,” Raf said ad they stepped inside. “Even... harder to find things.” By which he meant they carried some things that were either controlled without tracking them or were slightly illegal. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t or couldn’t legitimately be needed.
-
"Mm." Ava acknowledged that with a small nod. She didn't necessarily like the idea of black market goods, but she'd be willing to do what was necessary.
Besides, mood stabilizers were expensive off-world.
As her mother began striding down one of the relatively clinically clean aisles, Val hung back, tugging on Raf's hand as she glanced toward the door. "It's boring in here," she complained with a small pout. "This is all just Mama stuff. Can we go look outside again?"
Ava paused and glanced back over her shoulder, debated a moment, then sighed and relented, "If you don't go too far, and you promise to stick close to Raf, sure. But just for a few minutes, I won't take long."
The words were ostensibly for the girl, but she was looking at Raf as she said it, an odd combination of exasperated pleading and firm wariness behind her eyes.
-
“Don’t worry am,” Raf teased, “we’ll be good and we won’t go far.” He reached down and picked up Val then, and put her up on his shoulders again.
“What do you want to see, kiddo?” Raf asked as they headed out of the medical supply store. There were storms, bars, restaurants, and lots of different walkways and alleyways. Some led to residential areas and others to nightclubs and other forms of entertainment.
-
Val squealed delightedly, clinging to him, and Ava gave them a roll of her eyes and a last quick look before turning her attention to the task at hand.
"What's that way?" Val asked almost the moment they'd stepped outside again, pointing down a walkway that seemed to lead to some sort of entertainment district. It was difficult to make out much from their current position, but the girl's attention had clearly been caught by a variety of bright lights and the occasional burst of laughter that emanated from the area.
-
“Street performers,” Raf said. It wasn’t quiet a carnival, because of the space limitations, but it looked like a band of traveling Gypsies. There was someone breathing fire and another was balanced upside down on one hand. Near by three musicians were playing lively music. In time to the song, the acrobat lowered herself down on that one hand and the sprung up landing on one foot just to flip over in a back flip. On the other side of the walkway was a mystic reading palms and telling fortunes, next to him was a mage doing can trips as she told stories of myth and legend, not unlike one might preform a puppet show. There was also someone selling candies and other sweets that had come from, if the man advertising them was to be believed, all over the known universe. Raf did recognize treats from at least three different planets though.
-
"Oh, can we go? Please?" Val, apparently with some effort, resisted the urge to wriggle for fear of tumbling off his shoulders, looking around at the different performers and occasional vendors with wide eyes and a massive smile.
Street fairs were not exactly in abundance back in Reckless.
Attention caught by the scent of sugar, Val suddenly tried to scramble down Raf's back, snatching his hand up to tug him in the direction of the sweet seller. "Mama said I could have something sweet if I ate "real food" first," she pointed out with a far-too-innocent smile.
Ava had of course said no such thing, though it was entirely possible her words had been twisted to mean such in a seven-year-old's mind.
Just a bit behind the candy stall, sort of tucked away into a slightly dimmer side alley, a smaller, flickering neon sign read: A Strange and Wonderful Universe. Beneath the large printed words was a smaller advertisement for "a walk of oddities and attractions", with an arrow that pointed toward a small, temporary shop of sorts that seemed to have been set up between the two larger buildings at the end of the alley.
-
Raf, strikes a little. “Of course,” he said, already starting them in that direction. When Val attempted to climb down from his shoulder, he caught her by the hips and lifted her before settling her on her feel. He chuckled softly. “You pick one,” Raf said, “just one. Whatever you like.”
The street bender smiled amiably at the grim and showed her all the sweets giving exciting accounts of where they came from and what they tasted like. Raf bought whatever she chose plus a few extras he stuffed in his pocket for Ava and Val to take with them when they parted ways.
He gestured at the oddities shop and looked at the vendor selling the sweets. “You think that’s too scary for little girls?” he asked.
-
Munching happily on some sort of caramelled pastry, Val screwed her face up at him and tried to look fierce.
The powdered sugar on her lips and smeared over one cheek probably mitigate that effort somewhat.
"I'm not scared of nothing," she proclaimed proudly--and for all appearances she seemed to mean it, as though the ordeal of her kidnapping had never really happened. Either she was in some sort of deep denial, or she was a damned resilient kid.
Grabbing for Raf's hand again, she tugged him down the alley toward the oddity attraction. "C'mon! Unless you're scared."
Val's bravery seemed to falter a moment as they actually stepped into the small shop. The lighting was dim and flickering--either by design or because the proprietors of the street fair couldn't afford to hook the attraction up to the main Cancer electricity system. Her steps slowed and she looked around the space with an equal combination of curiosity and nervousness, pressing a little closer to Raf's side and clutching his hand tighter.
There were quite a variety of attractions set up under the flickering lights; most seemed to be odd bits and pieces of creatures from "far away worlds", as the plaques proudly declared, but there were quite a few gadgets and artifacts assembled as well--some claimed to be thousands of years old, or even possess lingering magical properties.
Val's attention, however, was drawn to a back corner of the space, a slightly crooked pole stretched across an open door frame just barely managing to keep a threadbare curtain in place. The sign just beside the door read, See a remnant of a bygone era, living before your eyes.
The girl bit her lip and took a cautious step forward, then another, almost as though she was drawn toward the doorway. Her hand slipped out of Raf's, and she took another step, then suddenly ran to dart behind the curtain.
-
Raf chuckled when the girl suggested he might be scared. Tough as nails that one was. Even for a little squirt like her. He'd seen her handle herself better than some trained soldiers in the face of a bomb, it was no surprise to him, she'd not be denied a 'scary' carnival attraction.
The flickering lights seemed, to Raf, to be part of the design. He gave Val's hand a little squeeze when she scooted closer to him, but let her lead the way past the various curiosities. Until her hand slipped from his and he darted off. "Hey!" He moved after her quickly. "Val!?" He slipped behind the curtain as well. Her mother was going to fucking murder him if he lost her.
-
The small side room Val had entered contained only a single, massive tank that took up nearly the entirety of one wall, nearly eight feet from end to end, and probably four or five feet deep and wide. For an aquarium it would have been ridiculously large.
For its current occupant, it was clear that it was barely enough room to turn around.
Val stared in dumbfounded silence at the creature floating in the slightly murky, greenish water, and the creature stared back, black eyes bright and intelligent in an almost-human face. She was used to people gawking at her by now, but it had been quite some time since she'd seen a child.
Still moving as though some external force possessed her to do so, Val took a few shuffling, hesitant steps toward the tank. The mer-creature flinched back toward the further corner of her tank, but the best she could manage was to press her back against the glass and attempt to curl her long, sinuous tail in toward her body. Those large black eyes flickered from the girl to over her shoulder, toward Raf, and back.
Val had reached the tank, biting her lower lip as she stood awkwardly before it. She sniffled, feeling hot tears prickle at the backs of her eyes, though she didn't entirely understand why. Slowly, carefully, she raised a hand and pressed it against the glass.
Something like recognition flickered in the mer-creature's eyes and she hesitantly uncurled herself from the corner, drifting forward until she was only a few inches from the glass herself, multicolored hair floating gently around her. Movements just as cautious as Val's, she lifted a webbed hand and placed it on the other side of the glass from the girl's.
Ava found herself a bit at a loss as she stepped from the medical supply store and didn't catch sight of Raf or her daughter. She turned in a slow circle, frowning--then caught sight of the lights and noise surrounding the street fair. Not to mention the distinctive scent of baking sugar that hit her nose.
"If she's on a sugar-high, I am going to throw him out his own airlock," she muttered as she set off down the street.
-
The thing - species Raf couldn’t name - looked distinctly intelligent. Raf wondered if hand if it was even legal to have such a creature in captivity. Not that he was dumb enough to ask around about that slavery was rampant all over the universe. He wasn’t the hero that was going to try and end it. Far from it.
It was the creature though, not Val, that held his attention, once he’d determined that Val wasn’t in any danger. He took up the girl’s free hand almost absently. He moved closer as the met-creature moved closer to Val. It was a sad existence. Not even a normal slave’s life - to be locked in a box like that. Raf knew what it was to be locked in a box like that. His had been endless darkness.
Fuck.
Raf’s heartbeat and breathing had kicked up a notch. The acrid tang of rust, stale air, and chemicals filled his nose and he coughed like someone was choking the life out of him.
No. No. It’s not real. He screamed at himself mentally, but the world was already spinning. Blackness. He was back in that box. There was nothing but the echo of his own screams. Then the sound of booted feet. He turned, frantic, which way was the door? How long had he been left in this blackness, confined so tightly he couldn’t sit or lay down, but so tired he could no longer stand. He just snagged against the cold metal confines of the box.
Back in the real world, a cold sweat broke out across Raf. His fingers went limp and Val’s hand slipped from his grasp. Some how he’d wound up in a corner of the tiny room, banging on the walls.
-
She heard the pounding noise before she heard the shouting, and Val's high, thin little voice. An instinct she didn't even entirely understand kicked in and Ava found herself whirling on the spot, racing down the narrow alley and into the curio shop like a hound on the scent.
The proprietor--if he could indeed be called that--of the establishment had appeared from some back room or another and was storming his way toward the room veiled with a thick curtain, where the noise was coming from.
Ava nearly beat him there, already calling, "Val!"
"Mama!"
Her daughter had grabbed ahold of the hem of Raf's shirt, was futilely trying to tug him away from the wall. Her eyes were wide and scared, tear tracks marking her cheeks. "Mama, help!"
Hardly even noticing her surroundings, Ava felt her training kick in. She moved forward with clipped, steady steps, until she was close enough to place herself between Raf and the wall. "Hey. Hey." She caught his wrist, hoping to draw his attention back to the present. "Raf? Raf, look at me. I'm here, okay, I'm real. This is real. Val is real. Can you hear me?"
-
Raf didn’t even hear Val’s calls and sobs. The moment that Ava touched him though, Raf lashed out. Wild and thrashing like a caged animal. It took a moment before he registered the sound of Val’s voice... he couldn’t make out the words, it was like being underwater. Her tone was soothing though and he recognized her voice. He stopped fighting her and he came back slowly.
Raf slid to the floor and wrapped his arms around himself. He was exhausted, sore from banging on the walls, and mortified. It wasn’t real. He reminded himself. Repeating it over and over in his mind. It isn’t real. That was years ago. He’d been rescued and he was never going back. He was free and he’d kill himself before he let himself be captured again.
-
Raf lashed out, his hand connected with her cheek and her head cracked back against the wall. Ava gasped, seeing stars for a moment, but she refused to release her grip on his wrist.
“It’s okay,” she repeated firmly, and meeting his eyes she though she saw him starting to come back to himself. “You’re alright, Raf. This is real, this right now. Val and I are real. It’s okay.”
She knelt slowly in front of him as he sank to the ground, finally letting go of his wrist. Val, who was crying in earnest now, though doing her best to swallow back the tears, ran to her mother and threw her arms around her neck, hiding her face against her shoulder.
“Shh, shhh,” Ava soothed, stroking her daughter’s hair with one hand while the other rested her fingertips gently on Raf’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” she told them both, and hoped they believed her.
...Fuck, her head hurt.
The owner of the oddity attraction was standing behind Raf in the doorway, ranting about them disturbing the shop, and Ava lifted her eyes to glare at him tiredly. Gods, where even were they?
-
Raf’s heart still felt like it was beating out of his chest, but the room had stopped spinning and his breathing had slowed. “I - I’m ok,” he said softly, barley able to look at Ava he was so ashamed of his outburst. “I didn’t...” he glanced at Val who was sobbing, “I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?” He knew what he’d thought had been happening a moment ago, but he didn’t rightly know what he had done at all in the real world.
He looked past Ava and Val to the shop keeper. “We’re leaving,” he said a touch irritability, to him, “we’re leaving. Don’t worry.” Raf struggled a moment but got to his feet. Fuck he felt like he hadn’t slept in days. Probably because he hadn’t except for a few hours earlier. Gods damn. He felt like he’d taken a beating too.
-
Before her mother could say anything, Val snapped shakily, still sniffling, “You hit Mama.” Ava winced as the girl clung tighter to her neck.
“It was an accident,” she murmured into Val’s hair, stroking her back a few times before she got to her feet with her daughter balanced on her good hip. “Come on,” she said tiredly, holding a hand down to Raf. “We should go...”
Her eyes flickered up to the shopkeeper, then passed him to the other side of the tiny room. She went very, very still as she saw the “curiosity” properly for the first time.
The mer-creature had watched the whole affair with one hand pressed against the side of her tank, dark eyes watching them with a combination of wariness and pity. Ava felt her throat go dry, and her grip on Val tightened until the girl squeaked and her own injured side protested vehemently.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head even as she took a step back toward the curtain. “I’m so sorry.”
Her hand grasping for Raf’s, she tugged him to his feet and whirled for the exit, clutching Val against her chest with her other hand. “We are leaving now.”
-
Raf flinched at the girl’s accusation. “I’m sorry,” he reached out and touched Val’s hair. “When I’m like that... I’m not safe. I don’t know where I am or who you are. I don’t ever want to hurt you squirt, so just don’t get close to me if I’m like that.”
Raf accepted her hand as he got to his feet. His first couple steps were staggering but he got his feet about himself quickly. The exchange between Ava and the creature behind the glass throughly confused his already shaken mind. He glanced from it to her and back and then they were outside the curtain and headed quickly for Lisa’s tit again.
“What’s going on?” Raf asked once they were free of the little shop. “Do I need to get Liss ready to go out hot?”
-
Val flinched back seemingly on instinct when he reached for her, clinging tighter to her mother. She didn't try to push his hand away though, just watched him with wide eyes as Ava rose and started pulling them from the little shop.
The proprietor was still yelling something about their "disturbance", but Ava wasn't paying any attention. Her hand on Raf's was practically a death grip, and even Val squeaked at the uncomfortable tightness of her mother's arm around her.
"Yes," Ava hissed to Raf out of the corner of her mouth. She really wished they could just hit some sort of cosmic pause button and take a moment to figure out what the hell had just happened, but unfortunately that wasn't an option. "But don't look like we're in a rush. Just keep walking."
Her eyes darted around warily as she spoke. Every alleyway, every shadow cast by the neon glow around them put her hackles up, tightened the tension in her body just a little further.
-
Raf flinched, like Val had punches him in the gut when she flinched away from him. Everything he ever touched got fucked. He should have know better.
Well... Ava had kind of ruined that effect, if it was what she was going for. She was looking and sounding more paranoid by the second. Either way, Raf pulled his com link to Liss out of his pocket. “Liss fire up the engines,” Raf said, “we’re leaving soon.”
‘Sure Raf,’ the ship’s computer answered her, ‘Also, I thought you’d like to know, your order has arrived and is waiting in the docking bay for you.’
Before he’d passed out, Raf had made an order with some of the local shops and the dock master - food, water, fuel, and a little booze to refill his stores. Now he was glad he’d done so. He didn’t know what was up with Ava, but it looked like she’d be hanging around at least a little longer.
“Thanks Liss. Let me know if you see anyone hanging around the shop.”
‘Will do.’
-
Ava was quiet--almost scarily quiet--as she followed her memory of the narrow, winding streets back to the ship. She didn't set Val down on her feet, even when the girl began to wriggle and protest that she could walk on her own--which certainly wasn't doing her healing gunshot wound any favors, but she tried not to show it.
"When we're in the air we can talk," she said out of the corner of her mouth to Raf. She didn't seem to realize that she still had a death grip on his hand.
Rather a lot had happened in the last fifteen minutes, but just then her brain could only focus on one thing: run.
-
Ava’s grip on her hand was steadying, after what had just happened. The harshness of it grounded him into the here and now and kept the memories at bay for a moment, as did the sudden threat of... something. His gun hand twitches, but he didn’t reach for the side arm stapled to his leg.
“There’s a couple crates waiting for me,” Raf said, “food, water, supplied. We’ll need to load up before we get going.” He hadn’t been planning to take them with him. He’d thought they would be parting way soon, but apparently not.
-
She nodded in response to him, but didn’t say anything more until they’d reached the docking port and the ship.
Only then did she put Val down, though she grabbed the girl’s hand in nearly as tight a grip as she was subjecting Raf to. “Liss would tell you if anything had happened to the ship while we were gone, right?” she murmured, voice low enough that it seemed she was in fear of being overheard.
-
“Yes,” Raf answered, “and she’s. Got custom security measures.”
“Liss,” he said, unit his com link, “anything happen while we were away?”
‘Nothing to report, just the crates were dropped off. No one attempted entry.’
“Good, prepaid for departure.”
‘Acknowledged.’
The hatch opened for them as they approached. “Val why don’t you go get comfy in your moms room. We’ll get this stuff loaded up. Then the ship came to life, the engines rumbling as the warmup sequence finished.
‘Shall I plot a course?’
“Not now.” He picked up one of the crates and carried it into the cargo bay. As soon as everything was loaded up he told Liss to launch as he was walking toward the cockpit.
“You have a destination in mind?” Raf gestured for Ava to follow him to the cockpit. “We cna talk in here. So, what’s going on?”
-
“I—“
“Head on down to the room, chickadee,” Ava cut her daughter off, kneeling in front of her and somehow managing to force a smile as she brushed pale blonde hair back behind her ears. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, okay?”
“...Yes, Mama.”
Clearly suspicious and still frightened, Val nevertheless obeyed. Ava felt her shoulders slump forward once the girl had disappeared around the corner of the ship’s narrow hallway, and it took more effort than she would have liked to force herself to her feet and follow Raf into the cockpit.
“Away,” she supplied as a destination, jaw set and tense. Her hands were trembling slightly, and she curled them into fists at her side in an effort to hide it.
Rather than answer Raf’s question, she turned one back on him: “What happened back there?”
-
“Alright,” Raf said and keyed in a destination. “We’re going to The mining colony on Trenz I have friends there.”
“You know what happened to me,” Raf said, “the thought of being locked in a box triggered me.” She wasn’t getting more than that out of him about it. “And it wasn’t any reason to flee the station.” He looked at her rather pointedly. “I recall having this conversation with you before. If you don’t tell me shit, I can really help you. I know what fear looks like, and I know what running feels like. I know how to hide. But I can’t help you run or hid effectively if I don’t know from who or what we are running and hiding.”
-
For several long moments, Ava didn’t say anything. She wrapped her arms loosely around her middle and stared out of the window of the cockpit, eyes a little glassy and expression blank.
Then, abruptly, she shook her head and slipped her bag off her shoulder, wincing a bit as her injured side protested, then started rummaging through it. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” she told him, almost in a mumble, “but I treated soldiers who came back from the front lines, back at—at the end of the war. The little skirmishes that took a while to die down. I know what these do, but I’m not medically trained to prescribe them.”
She shoved a small white bottle into his hand, flicking her eyes up to meet his. “I just wanted you to know that before I gave them to you. It’s...a band-aid, at best. But it’s something. One a day, or as close to every twenty-four hours as you can manage. At the very least it might help you sleep.”
She glanced to the viewing port again, eyes fixed distantly on the stars. “...I don’t know how much I can tell you,” she told him slowly. Honestly, which was a bit of a surprise. “Not because I don’t think you’re right, but because I don’t—I don’t know how she’s found us.”
Her voice trembled and she snapped her mouth shut, taking a breath in an effort to steady herself.
-
Raf took the pills and looked at the name on the bottle. Sleep. He didn’t like the idea of sleep, but... at this point, he’d try about anything. “I gave up on doctors a long time ago,” Raf said, “I don’t really care if you’re a prescriber or not.” He pocketed the pills, not quite feeling the courage to try it right now. “Are these going make me feel dumb?” He’d taken some meds before.. they made everything dull, slow, it was too dangerous.
“Start with who and why,” Raf said. “You don’t think about it treats tactically,” he pointed out, “who and why is as likely as anything to tell us how.”
-
Ava simply looked at him for a moment in silence, then gave a brief, tired shrug. "They shouldn't, but sometimes people react to medication with symptoms outside the norm," she told him, as though reciting something learned by rote--which she was, really.
Shaking her head again she turned away from him, arms folded close to her body in an almost protective stance, shoulders hunched slightly forward. "I don't...I'm not sure how much I can tell you because I don't know how much she'll hear," she said eventually, voice nearly a whisper, as though she really was afraid that the ship itself might hear the conversation.
Shit bit at her lower lip, hard enough that she tasted blood, though she didn't fully register it. "Can we just...get some distance from the station? I'll tell you more, I will, I just... Please."
-
Raf just nodded. He’d try them once they were well away from the immediate danger.
“Psychic?” Raf asked. He was a very weak psychic himself. He hadn’t even known until he was an adult, and even now he couldn’t really control it. It just... kind of gave him an edge. He was good at predicting people’s actions, at guessing their character, telling when they were lying. It wasn’t like he could purposely read anyone’s mind. He knew there were plenty out there that were scary powerful... especially on Aedlios.
-
"I don't--" Ava shook her head again. Her already fair skin had gone paler, and she didn't seem to be regaining any color even as they steadily began to put distance between them and Cancer. "I don't know," she said eventually. "Maybe. I wouldn't be surprised. But it's...more than that. She blends magic and tech in ways I've never seen, things that should be impossible become...easy."
She flinched and suddenly glanced around again, as though expecting something--or someone--to sudden jump out at her from Liss's smooth walls.
Then she shook her head and turned to step passed him, back out of the cockpit. "I should check on Val," she murmured. "I'll see if I can put her to bed. We can--we can talk once she's down."
-
Raf frowned softly in though. He didn't know that much about psychics, a little more about mages, but not much. His fucking luck he;d wind up with a crazy psychic magi-tech bitch chasing him across the galaxy.
My fucking luck.
"You look a little grey," Raf said as she turned away from him, "you should give yourself a once over and make sure you haven't popped any stitches or anything." He didn't know how to check for internal bleeding. Was it even possible without a scanner? Did she have one? He didn't. Couldn't really do surgery on yourself after all. "Or maybe eat something."
-
“I’m fine.” She hesitated a moment in the doorway. “...Thank you.”
They still needed to talk. Not just about Molly, but about what had happened back there. She knew he hadn’t done it on purpose, but he had hit her—and even if a large part of her wanted to help him, she had to prioritize her daughter’s safety.
She gave him a brief nod before heading down the hall again and climbing down into the room where she’d slept with Val, finding the girl curled up on the bed with her wings curved around her body like a feathery blanket, sniffling.
“Hey, chickadee.” Ava tried to smile, perching on the edge of the bed with a slight wince. Raf was right, she really should check her stitches. She was pretty sure she was bleeding again.
She’d do it later.
“...Did I do something bad?” Val asked in a tiny voice, not looking at her. “Is that why Raf got scared? Is that why we had to leave?”
“Oh, baby, no.” Ava stroked her back gently. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. We left because...because Mama didn’t feel safe there anymore.” She didn’t know what to say about Raf. Her poor girl had learned to recognize and deal with the symptoms of Ava’s own trauma, her own episodes, but they were very different, and it wasn’t as though Val really knew what PTSD itself was.
Val nodded miserably, but didn’t say anything. Ava watched her face worriedly, afraid she was going to keep blaming herself. The girl was troublingly empathetic, a trait which could be damaging as often as not in someone so young, with little experience in tempering the pain of the world.
“Get some sleep, chickadee.” Ava bent to kiss her cheek, stroking her fingertips over the sleek outer feathers of her wing. “I promise you’ll feel better once you get some sleep.”
-
Raf sagged in his seat a little when Ava left and headed down to her kid. He pulled the flask from his pocket and took a sip of the burning liquid. It calmed him some, but there was still a lot of disquiet in his mind. He was in a fragile state... more prone to another attack once one had happened. He needed... he shivered at the though. He needed sleep. He closed his eyes and ran his hand across his face. Ghosts painted themselves on the insides of his eye lids and he jerked his hand away, eyes snapping open.
When Ava finally came back to him they were far from Cancer and screaming toward the mining colony. It was on a huge asteroid in an asteroid belt, so they couldn't jump there, but he was pushing Liss as quickly as he could with conventional engines.
"It was like being burred alive," Raf said when he heard her foot steps behind him. "Being locked in that box... it was too narrow to sit or lay down, and I was too tired to stand. It was dark, cold, silent," expect for the sound of his own panicked breathing and useless screams - the intense beating of his own heart. "They'd pull me out and question me, and then throw me back into the box when I didn't give them the answers they wanted." He didn't even know the answers that they wanted. That kind of sensory deprivation, it broke minds, his was no exception - obviously. He would have told them, if he'd known - to his never ending shame - he would have told them anything to make it stop, but they didn't believe he didn't know.
"I can... sometimes, I can feel things - I just know things about people... I got a flash of something" Raf shivered involuntarily, "I don't know what off of that," poor unfortunate, "creature in the tank. It was too familiar."
Raf didn't look at her as he spoke - not even in her direction. He couldn't, even if she'd come around the chair and forced herself between him and console. He was too ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said defeated, "sorry I hit you. I haven't been safe to be around for a long time... I don't know if you'd both be better off without me." Everyone I care about dies.
-
Ava stood in the doorway, just listening silently, arms folded over her chest. Even when he’d stopped talking she just stood there, processing, turning the words over in her mind.
“...I know.” She paused, cleared her throat, took a cautious step forward. “I know you’re sorry. I know you weren’t seeing me, and you didn’t mean to.”
Another step brought her behind the chair. She reached out, hesitated, then let her fingertips come to brush against his shoulder. “But I need you to tell me what to do, if that happens again. Because I want to help, Raf, I do, but if I don’t have a safe way of doing so, I just can’t. I can’t risk Val like that.”
She wrapped her fingers over his shoulder and squeezed gently, then let go. “She—she helps me. When I get lost. But it’s different for me, I don’t lash out, I go...inside. She can pull me out. But I don’t want her to think she can do that with you and wind up getting hurt.”
A soft sigh left her and she stepped around the chair to lean against the console, looking out at the stars. “...You saved my daughter’s life, Raf. Your mistakes don’t make the good you’ve done less important.”
-
"I wanted to die out there," Raf said, "at home... more than I wanted to save her. At least, until I was there... and she was real." He really was fucking worthless. What the fuck was wrong with him?
He flinched when she touched his shoulder. Val holding his hand or sitting on his shoulders was different because she was an innocent - somehow still - kid, but being touched by someone who knew what lurked underneath, someone who'd seen the monster he battled, and knew what it meant... to be touched like that still. It had been a long time sense he'd been touched as an expression of understanding and support.
"No," he said abruptly, something terrified in his voice, "she can't try that with me. I'm dangerous when I'm like that." He was dangerous to fucking everyone - friend or foe. He'd never forgive himself if he hurt Val.
As for how she could help, what she should do... he didn't really know. He hadn't ever though of how someone could help him."You shouldn't have touched me," he said after a long silence. "It doesn't matter where I am or who I'm seeing when I'm like that, it's always someone trying to kill me. I always fight back... and I could easily," he'd done it before, not actually killed someone trying to calm him down, but really harmed a few, "really hurt you." He shook his head. "I don't know," he said. A decade, "I should know more than I do by now. I don't know what helps." Ava helped. Val helped. He'd never come out ofi t so quickly before. It scared him nearly as much that that was the case.
"No one's ever been able to pull me back before," obviously... it didn't go on forever but no one had ever been able to purposefully bring him back to reality before.
-
"I know that and you know that, but I'm not sure she does," Ava replied quietly, still not really looking at him. "She's a quick learner, though. I can make sure she knows not to approach you when you get like that, to come find me." She could manage no physical contact. She'd just have to...think of something else. Talking had seemed to work, at least a little.
It was sort of a patch job on a--seemingly literal--war wound, but it would have to do while they shared quarters on the ship. For however much longer that was.
Which she supposed was the other reason she needed to talk to him.
Damnit.
She paused a moment longer, then let out a breath and murmured, "82641." Her head turned back toward him slightly, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "The...girl. In the tank. She's Subject#82641. I never really worked with her, not until the end. I know Mo--I know the doctor wasn't happy with her. I'm not sure how she ended up on Cancer, but if she did, then...then the person who made her must have put her there."
-
Something dawned on Raf after he'd said he didn't know what worked. "I'm hardwired for military response when I'm there... we could try and IFF... identify friend or foe protocol. You'd have to initiate it.
"You said 'Identify, friend or foe.' I answer: delta whisky tango epsilon kilo. You answer 'alpha foxtrot charily hotel zulu, friendly.' It was the last verbal IFF I had on my last mission. You have to give me 'alpha foxtrot charily hotel zulu'... If you get it wrong..." He'd probably really try to kill her. "Alpha foxtrot charily hotel zulu." Actually that could be a way for Val to be safe around him too... though he'd rather be safe than sorry with her and have her just stay away and get Ava.
It was Raf's turn to be silent now. He listened. He didn't interrupt. She'd said something about Val being made before... the peaces fit. Ok. Ok, he could work with that. This made more sense that he'd expected. "She could be a spy, a scout... just someone, possibly one of many, placed in random places, to see what they might see... traveling with a circus means she moves around too. It's a good cover... though how she'd relay information back... or have it extracted..." Well he had no fucking idea about that. "Tell me more about the doctor."
-
Ava finally looked at him, meeting his eyes. “Alpha foxtrot charily hotel zulu,” she repeated, clearly and succinctly. Just for a moment, a hint of a small smile flickered at the edge of her lips. “I won’t forget.”
She turned her gaze back out to the stars with another sharp exhale when he spoke again, mouth and eyes right at the corners. “Maybe,” she conceded softly, “but I don’t think so. The doctor didn’t care about her like with the others, she was...a failure, I guess. I’m not sure why. She—she called her an it. She didn’t do that with the others...”
A soft shudder gripped her frame as memory resurfaced and she tried to force it back down into its little box, clutching her arms tighter around her body—and wincing when it pulled at her stitches. Fuck, she really needed to look at those.
“I don’t really know what I can tell you about her,” she murmured after a few more moments of silence. “I don’t know where she is. I don’t even really know who she is, only what she told me. I don’t know what she can do, and I don’t know what she wants.”
She shook her head, eyes strangely hollow. “I don’t know anything. I just know I can’t let her get Val.”
-
Now Raf shifted in his chair. Ok, maybe not as cut and dry as he'd thought. "Ok, well... it still teaches us something. If one was a failure, then she's after something specific. Even if we don't know what... there's a motive not just insanity. It means we can learn as we go." They'd just have to be really smart about it.
Not it was Raf's turn, he uncurled his fingers and then curled them up again, hesitating, then reaching out to touch her arm lightly, about the elbow. "Listen," he said, fiercely, "we won't let anything happen to her. As long as there's a breath in me, I'll kill anything that tries to hurt her." At least then this all - all the tragic failures in his life might have lead him to do something worthwhile.
-
She tensed, startled, and looked down at him with wide eyes when he touched her arm. She stared at his hand for several silent moments, as though it was a specimen of some strange creature that she had never before encountered.
Then she exhaled sharply and nodded, reaching up with her opposite hand to brush her fingers against his lightly in her best attempt at a gesture of gratitude. “Right...”
Her eyes flickered up to him and her mouth curved dryly at one corner. “...I don’t think you really got paid enough for all this.”
-
Raf gave her a weak, uncertain smile. Weren't the two of them just fucking lovely... all broken to pieces and unwilling to admit it. Maybe they deserved each other... Val deserved more though.
A peal of loud, genuine laughter broke loose from Raf cutting right threw the palpable tension in the room. "That's for fucking sure." He grinned back at her. Then some lights on the console flashed.
'Raf,' Liss addressed him, 'we're approaching Trenz mining colony. Taking evasive revenuers now, you might want to secure yourselves.'
-
Ava smiled back, and then—quite despite herself—laughed. It was sort of tight and hysterical, but it was a laugh.
It unfortunately didn’t last long, her head snapping up when she heard the ship’s AI and wincing at the phrase “evasive maneuvers.”
“I’ll go make sure Val is okay,” she muttered. Sort of absently, she gave Raf’s fingers a little squeeze before she removed his hand from her arm and headed back out of the cockpit.
-
"Liss'll give us a smooth landing... it's just this mining colony's on an asteroid."
Raf looked at her hand when she squeezed his fingers but made no move to stop her.
"We'll be there soon."
The evasive menuver's weren't that severe... a little dodging asteroids. In a comfy bed, Val and Ava would be quite safe and mostly comfortable too.
Twenty minutes later they'd docked. This colony lived under a dome, and the minors went out in vac suits and AEVs to work. It was shitty, dirty, poor as fuck kind of place... but it wasn't sleazy like some places on Cancer. It had a homey feel, like the whole colony was part of one extended family. There was comrade and even a pervasive contentment here.
"Liss try to raise Griffin on coms.," Griffin was the call sign of one of the few of his army buddies who were still alive.
'I'll let you know if I get threw.'
Raf headed down the ladder and into what he now though of as Val and Ava's room. "You two ready to go?" he asked, "I've got friends here... Griffin - Nevel, and his family. They're good people." They'd give them a place to stay, and hide, for a bit, if that's what they decided they needed, and barring that, they'd feed them until they exploded before wishing them well on their way.
He looked rather pointedly at Ava then. "There's a doctor here too, one I trust. Griffin's wife."
-
Val had woken up with the slight lurching of the ship, though it hadn't been enough to distress her unduly. Ava managed to convince her to stay in bed rather than race back up the ladder to watch their descent, so she was in the process of sorting through the supplies they had left in her pack when Raf came down again.
A very small, tight smile twitched at the corners of her lips and she nodded. "A doctor would be good. I'm fairly sure I've pulled some of these stitches out." She paused, then added almost absently, "You did a good job, though, actually. I'm honestly surprised they held as well as they did."
"Mama." Val frowned at her. "That wasn't very nice."
"Oh." Ava blinked, looked at her daughter, looked at Raf, and then chuckled. "You're right, chickadee, it wasn't. Sorry." The last was directed at Raf with an even smaller but slightly less pained smile.
"...Mister Raf?" Val had edged her way closer to him, sort of fidgeting her hands in front of her body. She paused, glanced back at her mother, then reached up to slip her tiny hand into his, eyes large as she blinked up at him. "Is it okay if I do this now?"
Ava's heart lurched, but she didn't try to pull the girl back. She'd managed to explain--as best to could to a seven-year-old--that if Raf got scared again Val shouldn't try to help him like she would with her mother, she should find Ava instead. Evidently the idea was still fresh in Val's mind.
-
Raf chuckled when Val scolded her mother. He smirked at Ava. "It's alright squirt, your ma's just teasing."
He took a knee to put himself close to eye level with her. "I told you kid," he winked at her conspiratorially, "it's just Raf. I'm no mister." He gave her little hand a gentle squeeze, and something inside of him broke. [[It was his heart and he still denies it's alive.]] "Yeah, it's ok now." He mussed her hair with his other hand.
"If you don't want," he looked over her head to Ava, "you don't have to tie up her wings here... it's a safe place for all kinds."
-
Val’s already wide eyes went wider, her mouth opening slightly as she stared at Raf. Then she whipped her head around to look at Ava, a fierce, desperate hope shining in her eyes that nearly knocked her mother’s legs out from under her.
“C-can I, Mama?”
“Oh...” Ava swallowed thickly. “Baby, I don’t...” She looked at Raf helplessly. “How—how safe? Recordings, video, magical means of observation, I can’t...we can’t risk that...”
Val’s shoulders slumped slightly and she looked down, her wings curving automatically closer to her spine. Ava felt her chest go tight and she had to swallow again passed a new lump in her throat.
-
"This place was built by refugees," Raf said - to either of them, both of them... it was the sort of place he would have happily fraught for and died for before he'd been shattered. "They'd rather die than..." he glanced at Ava,"than be oppressed."
He glanced down at Val then. "I know one place here though that's safe, even from cameras and magic." He brushed wild blonde strands out her face, and looked back at Ava again, and then looked back at Val, "It's a secret though. If I share it with you, you can't ever tell anyone. Do you know what a train is? There's no train, but it's an underground railroad... and it's really under ground." He winked at her. "It's jammed, no signals in or out," Raf said, now he was talking to Ava, "and the crystals in the rock block magical scrying."
-
Ava felt herself hesitating, torn, as she looked from her daughter to Raf and back. “I...”
Val’s eyes were giant silver moons in her tiny face. Ava gritted her teeth. “Okay, chickadee,” she said slowly, making sure to hold the girl’s eyes firmly. “But only when Raf says it’s safe, okay?”
Val squealed and threw her arms around Raf’s neck, then spun around to tackle her mother’s side in a tight hug.
Both froze as Ava hissed in pain, and Val backed away again quickly, stricken. “Oh no! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—!”
“It’s...it’s okay, baby,” she assured her with a tight smile, studiously ignoring the burning twinges of pain from her side. “Let’s just be gentle with the hugs for a few more days, okay?”
Val nodded, silent and guilty, but there was still a sparkle of excitement and anticipation behind her eyes that she couldn’t mother. Ava’s heart clenched; Val deserved so much more, especially after what she’d been through the last few days.
“Okay, Mama.” The girl turned back to Raf, shifting and ruffling her wings so they tucked back into her shirt, though more loosely than she usually did. “Are we going?”
-
Gods... the look on Val's face would have made Raf's heart ache if he still had one.
"We best get your ma to the doc first, then I can show you around the colony."
'Raf,' Liss said, 'incoming message from Griffin. Single burst, voice only.'
"Play it."
Raf, you old scoundrel... what are you up to? Has Liss been taking good care of you? Are you looking for work... I've got a group needs transport out, I just go their papers. Come over for dinner. Janees will make supper to feed an army when she finds out your in town, and the kids miss you, uncle Raf.
-
Val gasped in delight as the ship spoke--it seemed that was still a novelty to her--and Ava couldn't help smiling a bit as the message was relayed.
"Well," she noted quietly when it was over, "I supposed we'd better get moving. It seems there are people who are anxious to see you, Uncle Raf."
Her tone was light, teasing, but there was some genuine warmth in her eyes when she looked at him, and perhaps a bit of surprise as well.
-
Fucking Griffin. Raf scowled at Ava, but even though that was a harsh look, there didn't seem to be any bite to it. He grumbled something under his breath, but headed up the ladder, and toward the air lock.
Once they were threw the air lock and out on the docs, Raf lifted Val and put her up on his shoulders. "It's not far." The colony was small... just enough to be mostly self sustaining. They sold the ore they minded out of the rock for whatever the colony needed, but were small enough that the profits weren't so high anyone wanted to come in and buy them out.
It left them oddly free, if not also somewhat poor. As they walked the streets, Raf pointed out his favorite places to eat or hang out and good places to resupply on everything from weapons to food stuffs.
It was maybe fifteen minutes before they reached a tall apartment complex. Poor, but free meant stairs. The building was 7 stories... and there was no lift.
"He's on the fourth floor," Raf glanced at Ava, "you good?" He could just as easily carry her as Val, if it came down to it.
-
Ava chuckled quietly to herself, and despite everything, she found she was almost...hopeful as she followed Raf and Val off the ship.
In a lot of ways, the colony reminded her of Reckless; a good deal more industrial obviously, and bigger, but the--the feel of it, she supposed, was similar. She managed to take in their surroundings without coming across as entirely paranoid, or at least she hoped. She'd even managed to slap an emergency bandage over her side before they left, so she was able to follow at an only slightly sedate pace without reopening the wound.
The mention of four flights of stairs, however, was enough to make her pause. She tried not to let the hesitation show, though, replying fairly quickly, "I'm fine, really--"
"I can help!" Val tried to scramble down from Raf's shoulders. "I don't want you to hurt yourself, Mama. You always tell people they need to know they're limits when they're healing, you should listen."
Ava resisted the urge to gape at her daughter. She...really didn't have an argument for that.
-
Raf noticed that pause. She wasn't fooling anyone. "Val," he said with a smile, "I bet you'll still be full of energy after bouncing up all these stairs... can you carry your ma's bags? It'll be a big help." Her kit wasn't that heavy. Once the girl had her mom's things, Raf came around her good side and picked her up before she could protest and started huffing it up the stairs. That way, if she struggled, it not only would hurt like a mother, she probably make them both go rolling down the stairs.
"C'm on Val. I used to run with gear that weighed more than you and your ma on my back... I'll race you to the top."
-
"Wait, what are you--Raf!"
Before she could try to avoid him, Raf had scooped her up easily. Ava winced, her side twinging--though she knew ultimately it was a lot less pain than she would have put herself through making it up all those stares, a fact she studiously chose to ignore. She grabbed onto his shoulder in an effort to steady herself, gasping and glaring.
"You put me down this instant," she demanded, accidentally slipping into her Mom Voice.
Val, utterly delighted, snatched up her mother's pack and shrugged into the straps. "Threetwoonego!" she giggled in response to Raf's challenge, and took off up the stairs.
"Val, careful--! Really, Raf, I'm a grown woman, I can walk up some fucking stairs!" she hissed, and at the last moment managed to lower her voice just enough to avoid her daughter hearing her swear.
-
Val's delight was infectious. Raf didn't giggle, but he did laugh, really laugh. "Did I tell you know, I'm immune to mom voice," Raf said, "drill instructors are much scarier than you."
He let Val slip past him as they went around a corner. "Yeah, but this is more fun," He grinned at her, and kept huffing it up the stairs, not far behind Val. "You better watch out girly I'm catching up!"
-
Ava continued to glare at him, despite her inability to really do anything. "Then you learned to fear the wrong authority figure," she grumbled ineffectually, almost pouting.
Except of course she wasn't actually pouting, because she was a grown woman and a well-trained medic. Right.
Val squealed and ran faster, panting lightly as she hit the last flight of stairs. Her wings fluttered almost daintily under her shirt and she whirled on the landing to stick her tongue out at Raf and her mother, eyes dancing.
-
Raf set Ava down on the landing and lifted Val up, bags and all, onto one of his shoulders. "All hail the victorious Val," Raf said, and then they went away from the stairs and down the hall.
"These are good people," he said to Val a little breathlessly, "If anything ever happens, this is a safe place to come, safe people to go to." He glanced up at her, and caught her eye, to emphasize the importance of what he was saying. "If something happened and you were alone. This is a safe place to come Trenz mining colony, and ask for Griffin... Tell them I - Raf sent you, even if I didn't."
He bop'ed the girl's nose playfully with a finger. "Now you're out of Reckless you need to know what ports are good to go to... When you learn the ports, maybe I'll teach you how to fly Liss. What's the name of this place, again?"
-
Val laughed and wrapped an arm around Raf’s shoulders to steady herself, clutching the bags to her chest with her other hand. “Yeah, victorious!”
Ava, still flushed and scowling even when Raf put her down, felt a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth quite against her will. She shook her head and tried to force it away with a roll of her eyes—though she reluctantly had to admit that she would probably have been in a whole lot of pain if she’d attempted those stairs by herself.
Admit silently, of course. No way she was letting Raf win that one.
“Oh no.” She scowled at both of them. “No flying a ship until she can drive a car—and that’s not happening for another decade.”
“Mama...” Val complained, dragging the word into nearly five syllables. Huffing, she glanced down at Raf and recited dutifully, “Trenz mining colony, go to Griffin’s house.”
Silently, Ava ran through the name herself—then added on a quick repetition of: Alpha foxtrot charily hotel zulu.
-
"But! Flying Liss is a lot easier than a car," Raf protested, "as long as you leave her in auto pilot. You just tell her where to go." He winked at her conspiratorially. Then he flashed a grin at Ava.
"Here we are," Raf sad and knocked on the door, "four twelve. Griffin's house." He didn't need to know - but one day Val might.
Inside the squeals and shouts of children could be heard. A muffled "Uncle Raf is here!" and a chorus of "I'll get it!" followed. The door burst open a moment later and no less than seven children ranging in age from four to maybe seventeen all tried to fit out the good, giggling and shoving. Four of them looked to be actually related - the youngest and the oldest of the bunch... but the rest looked distinctly different from not only the four obvious siblings, but also the other kids.
Within moments the kids were tackling Raf and practically carried him inside the apartment. Inside, the apartment looked like somewhere seven kids lived. There were toys and books everywhere, and somewhere in the background a movie was blaring.
"Raf!" a woman's voice called from the kitchen, "You better be hungry."
"Mama" "Mama" "Mama" was called out seven times, almost in unison. "Raf brought guests!"
"Oh? What's that now?" the woman leaned out past the kitchen wall and nearly dropped her spoon. "Hun," she was moving quickly into the living room now, "you need a doctor... Lucky you, Raf brought you to best one on Trenz." Read that as only doctor on Trenz, but she was a good one.
"Scat!" and the kids took off in different directions around the apartment, one of the younger one's grabbing Val by the hand and carrying her off with them.
"What's your name?" the little boy asked her. "I'm Tomar."
Janeese turned her attention on Ava, looking at her side as if she could see the wound threw her shirt and dressings. "You popped those stitches," she said, "we need to get you patched up before you bleed out on my living room floor.
"Allya!" she called out sharply, "Get my surgical bag, fluids, and... I think I've got one unit of plasma left... I need you to scrub in on this one."
"Yes mama," one of the teenage girls called down from the upstairs railing.
"Raf there's a plastic table cloth in the closet." Raf went and fetched it and spread it out on the living room floor.
"You take your shirt off and lay down right here, dear... don't worry about the kids. It's nothing they haven't seen before," she glanced over head, "and Tomar's got your 'lil one in his room."
-
Both Ava and Val went stock still as the children came pouring out of the apartment, Val quickly scrambling down from Raf’s shoulder in an effort to avoid getting pulled along in the tide.
Ava could do little more than take her daughter’s hand and follow Raf and the crowd of children into the apartment, bemused. She smiled a bit when one of the children grabbed Val’s hand and she looked up at her with wide, nervous eyes. There weren’t really all that many kids Val’s age in Reckless, she wasn’t used to...playing, really.
“Go on,” Ava urged her with a hand on her back. “If Raf says we can trust them, we can.”
She snapped her head up when the woman—Janeese—approached her. “Oh, uh...” She looked from mother to daughter, feeling a smidge of helpless panic begin to rise up in her chest. She didn’t like feeing out of control of a situation, which was rapidly becoming the case.
“Really, it’s not so bad,” she instinctively tried to deflect. “If you can just give me a few supplies to use I can patch it up myself...”
-
"No," Janeese said, "you've got a nicked artery. That patch job slowed the bleeding, a lot... but it never stopped it." She looked at Raf and raised an eyebrow. "Did you let him sew you up?" She laughed. "You must have been desperate?"
"Come on now," she said softer, while Raf sat on one of the sofas, stood up, pulled a toy out from under his ass, and then sat down again. "I know you wouldn't risk anything that could take you away from your 'lil one, right? You need to let me fix this, now."
"Ava," Raf said moving closer when it looked like she was going to refuse Janeese's help. He had to sew her up the first time, what made her think she could do it the second time? He put a hand on her shoulder, just as Allya came down stairs loaded up with medical gear. She set the things down and pulled a blue light out of one of the bags and shined it on the tablecloth to sterilize it. "She's good people. Let her help you."
-
Well shit. She’d suspected that the shot might have hit an artery, but without the proper equipment she hadn’t t been able to tell for sure...
Magic. Normally she hated relying on it when it came to healing, but it seemed that Janeese’s gifts were for more than just her medical expertise.
“I—“ She froze when Raf came up behind her, tensing slightly, then relaxed again. Slowly, she nodded. “...Alright. Thank you.”
Her eyes started to flick back toward Raf as she approached the impromptu operating table, but she managed to stop herself. Well. Might as well get it over with.
Eyes fixed determinedly ahead, she carefully peeled her shirt off over her head so Janeese and Allya could get at her wound without obstruction. And it became suddenly and abundantly clear why exactly Ava might have needed to talk to her daughter about scars, even outside of her work.
Ava’s back was littered with thin, almost feathery scars, scars Raf wouldn’t have noticed in his frantic patch job of her gunshot wound—or at least she assumed he hadn’t. It wasn’t like she tried to actively hide them, it’s just...they were mostly on her back, and she didn’t feel the need to show them if she could help it. Each mark was clearly the careful, practiced work of a blade, thin and sharp. Maybe a scalpel. Whatever had happened to Ava that resulted in Val, she clearly hadn’t just been experimented on.
She’d been tortured.
Wincing, she boosted herself up into the table and tried to brace her the arm on her good side back behind her. She tried for a wry smile. “Don’t suppose you’ve got anything to numb me?”
-
Raf gave her an encouraging smile. He swallowed hard when he caught an eye full of Ava's back, but he didn't say anything... didn't give an outward response. He knew scars like that - he had some like that. Most of his weren't careful, but he'd been cut, stabbed, shot, blown up, and burned. He'd been tortured before too. He wasn't comparing or competing, just... understanding. Realizing they had a lot more in common than he'd thought. Even if they dealt with it differently.
"Actually I do," Janeese said, "I've got a local, and then a muscle relaxer I mix with some regular pain meds and a mild sedative. It won't knock you out, but it will keep you relaxed and help you stay still.
Allya washed her hands in the sink and dawned gloves before pealing off the old bandages. "Close your eyes," the teen said, "the light's bad for them." Then she shined that blue light over Ava's entire body. "Alright, you can open your eyes if you want."
By that time Janeese had washed and gloved and drawn up two syringes of medications. "Start an IV on her, so I can get these in, and then I give you the local. As soon as I push these, Allya you hang that bag of fluids, Raf you hold it. We'll wait on the plasma until she's done. I don't want to waste it. I've only got the one."
Raf nodded and moved to where he could be an impromptu IV pole.
"Small poke," the girl said, and by the time she'd said it, the IV was in. A moment later, Janeese was pushing meds, and then seconds later Ava would feel warm, sleepy, and relaxed. Allya was hanging the meds as Janneese held up the last syringe.
"You're going to feel this... it burns going in, but you'll go numb quickly." Janeese didn't give her any warning, just started administering it in a circle of stabs around the wound. She'd start going numb immediately, but she waited about three minutes for her to go totally numb before she started.
Janeese held her hand out over the wound then and the biofoam got warm, not too hot though, and melted. She flicked her fingers to the side and it floated out of the wound bed and landed in and out of the way spot on the table.
"Allya, steralize."
"Yes, mama." The girl held that blue light on over the wound for a minute.
"Good, and my hands now." Janeese moved her gloved hands around under the light to get them as sterile as she could. "Alright now, stitches out," she flicked her fingers over the wound and the stitches that hadn't been torn untied themselves, before all of them exited the wound and landed on the table.
"Sutures."
Allya handed an individual suture on a curved needle to her mother with forceps. Janeese took it and went to work on the nicked artery firs. Three sutures there. Another six for the inside of the wound, and ten to close up the outside. Allya sterilized the wound again. For good measure, she glued the thing with liquid stitches too, then placed a medicated dressing over it and taped it down good. Then she wrapped her entire abdomen with an ace wrap. "That binder will help you not pull those stitches again. "No showers for three days, and wear the binder for ten.
"Allya hang that plasma when the NS is done, and for you..." Janeese took off her gloves and rummaged threw her bag and came back with two pill bottles. "Antibiotics, twice a day for fourteen days. Who knows what you got int there the first time around. And pain meds... one ever six hours as you need it.
"You don't get up until all that plasma is in. You hear?"
-
Ava's eyes widened. "Wait, I didn't mean--"
Before she could form a proper protest someone was jabbing her with a needle, and she was pressed back to the bed with her eyes squeezed shut to avoid the sterilization UV. She opened her eyes as soon as she felt the light leave her body, hands curled into tight fists on the bed beside her.
The sedative was dragging at her body, holding her down. She gritted her teeth against the feeling, against the nausea rising in her stomach. In an odd way it was almost a blessing--she was too busy trying to breathe through the steadily encroaching panic to even really notice as Allya and Janeese bustled around her, prodding and stitching and sterilizing.
She'd asked for something to numb herself because she assumed a localized agent was all they'd have; she hadn't wanted the sedative.
But it wasn't as though she could exactly protest now.
By the time Janeese was finishing up the sutures, Ava had gone pale and clammy, eyes squeezed shut again as she focused on breathing--in through her nose, hold for three seconds, out through her mouth--and forced herself to hold still.
Gradually, though, she managed to wrestle herself back under control, and her eyes flickered open as Janeese pressed a bottle into her hand. "Right. Thanks." Her voice sounded a little rougher than she thought it should, but she was pleased to find that it didn't shake. She actually started to sit up, still a little addled, but then the rest of the other woman's orders filtered into her foggy mind.
"Oh. Right. Okay." She lay back down on the table, stiff and wary despite the drugs still pumping through her system. Gods, just let the damn thing run its course...
With really nothing else she could do, Ava allowed her head to roll gently from side to side, getting as good a look around the room as she could manage. Then she tipped it back, finding with some surprise that Raf was still standing by the IV.
"Oh. Hey." She tried for something like a sardonic smile. "Y'know, I don't think a man has seen me with my shirt off since before I had Val," she noted blithely in a rather strained attempt at a joke.
-
Raf, Janeese, and Allya all thought that the pail clamminess was because of the loss of blood - current and prior. Raf had noticed her looked a little paler over the last several hours anyway.
"Allya, take her blood pressure and let me know if it's too low... and clean up, would you. I gotta finish dinner up," Janeese said from the sink where she was scrubbing from the elbows down again.
Raf smiled down at her, switching out the fluids for plasma when the bag was empty. He knew how to do that much. He smiled down at her when she joked. "That's a rather long dry spell," he teased back, "Should we celibate?" He smirked.
-
Ava snorted and crinkled her nose up at him--an expression oddly reminiscent of Val, and it became clear that the girl had learned it from her mother, even if Ava didn't use it as often. "I think that depends on your definition of celebrate," she huffed wryly. With a nod in the direction she'd heard Janeese move, she added, "Doc says I'm supposed to be taking it easy, apparently."
It was...strange, to be the patient rather than the medic. Even aside from the effect the sedative had on her, she wasn't at all sure that she liked it.
Still sort of a little fuzzy around the edges of her mind, she let her head lull to the side and just sort of frowned as her eye-line lined up with the bottom of a sofa. "...Are you sure you just want me to lay in the middle of your living room, ma'am?"
-
Raf got a shit eating grin on his face then. "I mean... there's plenty of things that can be done gently."[/b] He snickered.
"Oh please," Jeaneese said, "call me Jeaneese. Raf you can take her to the couch if you want, but make sure she lays back down. If she pulls my fresh stitches I'm gonna be pissed."
"Yes, ma'am," Raf smirked, until a wooden spoon connected with his shoulder. He broke out into laughter and then reached down a hand to help Ava up.
-
Really quite despite herself, Ava felt a very subtle flush warm her cheeks. At least it helped chase away the cool clamminess to her skin, which honestly felt rather good.
"You're a cad," she informed Raf dryly, "and I shudder to think the influence your particular brand of humor will have on my daughter."
She managed to smile and nod gratefully at Jeaneese--then burst into laughter when the other woman whacked Raf with a wooden spoon, even as she reached out to take his offered hand. "See! Mothers. Fearsome things," she chuckled, swaying slightly as Raf pulled her to her feet before she tried to shuffle awkwardly toward the couch.
-
Raf shrugged. "I never did tell you I was raised by prostitute, did I," he chuckled, "her name was Liss. Soft to the touch, but tough as nails that woman was." Raf grinned at her. She was still a little high. "She seemed rather amused by the name of my ship."
"Ummm," Raf said, sliding his free arm around her and helping her to the couch, "I wouldn't know." His tried to sell him to a John before he skipped out on her forever.
-
"Well, that actually explains a lot," Ava mumbled. She frowned when she noticed that her words were almost slurred, then took care to enunciate each clearly as she continued, "I'm sure she's honored to be immortalized by your fine ship."
Nope. Still a little slurred. Well, that was rather irritating.
I fucking hate sedatives.
Her body still felt slow and heavy, and she almost wasn't entirely aware of raising her hand to pat Raf's cheek gently in thanks when he slid her onto the couch. "Well, I suppose all things considered you turned out alright," she muttered as she turned to lay on her good side.
-
His mother - the woman who gave birth to him - hadn't given two shits about Raf. Liss had taken care of him... until he was older and some of their clients started looking at him with interest too... then his mom thought she might be able to squeeze a buck out of him too. He was out the window before money even exchanged hands. He still missed Liss some days, but he rarely even thought of his mother these days.
"She'd be tickled by it," Raf said, "if she knew."
Anyway... enough of that.
He snatched up some child's abandoned blanket off the floor and draped it over Ava to cover her up a little until she could get her shirt back on. Then he sat on the arm of the sofa as he continued holding up the glass bottle of plasma that was now half empty. He brushed some hair out of her face, and his fingertips lingered on her shoulder for a moment before he took his hand back, resting it in his lap.
-
"Mm. Maybe you should tell her..."
Ava's eyelids fluttered. Gods, she hadn't realized how tired she was. Or--maybe she had, but she'd been too busy trying not to panic to really notice. Or maybe trying not to panic had made her tired.
Regardless, it was getting harder to keep her eyes open.
She shifted slightly on the couch when Raf's fingers brushed briefly against her skin and tilted her head toward the touch just slightly before it ended. "Is, um..." She licked her lips, frowned, tried to focus. "Val. Is she okay? She doesn't get the chance to play with kids her own age much."
-
He'd have to go home for that, and he didn't even know if she was alive anymore... or at the same brothel. Or at any brothel for that matter... she'd be nearly sixty now. "Maybe some day," it wasn't like he could call her or anything. He hadn't even considered figuring out how to contact her.
When she leaned into his touch, Raf's fingers lingered a little longer. "Val's fine," he said, "I don't hear anything but laughter coming from upstairs. "It's good for her to be a kid." Raf brushed his fingers threw her hair again. "Sleep," he said, "I'll wake you when dinner's ready."
-
Ava nodded in response to that; it was good for Val to be a kid. Even before everything had gone to hell, she hadn't had the chance as often as she should have. It made her chest tighten painfully to think about it.
"I should've done better by her," she murmured softly, not even fully aware that she was speaking aloud as her systems began to slow. She felt slow and warm and heavy.
"Just...keep an eye on her, okay? I'm just gonna close my eyes for a minute..." She tilted her head slightly into his touch, lashes fluttering against freckled cheeks as she finally lost the battle to keep her eyes open.
-
"You did fine," Raf said gently, "she's fierce and more importantly she's happy." He kept brushing his fingers threw her hair, trying to sooth her. He was out of practice with being gentle. It felt... awkward, even though it was nice when she leaned into his touch. "I will," he said, "she's safe here." When she finally fell asleep, Raf sat there, holding up the bottle of plasma until it was empty. Then he removed the IV before heading upstairs to play with the kids.
About an hour later Griffin arrived home from the mines. He dropped his filthy vac suit by the front door, and went into the kitchen and kissed Janeese by the stove. "It smells like heaven in here," he said, "who's your patient on the couch?"
"Raf's friend."
"Raf brought... a woman with him?" he arched an eyebrow.
"And her kid," she responded with a smirk, "maybe he's thinking about settling down."
Griffin laughed. "Impossible."
"Go call the kids down to dinner," Janeese said.
Griffin kissed her again before climbing the stairs and banging on bedroom doors. "Supper's ready! Let's go, who's hungry." In short order a noisy stampede of kids was rushing down stairs in search of food.
"Don't be animals!" Janeese shouted, "set the table, we have guests!"
"Hey Val," Raf said mussing her hair, "why don't you go wake up your mom, see if she's hungry." In the mean time, Raf went and grabbed a stack of plates, and one of the kids started setting them out around the table.
"Little kids in the living room!" Janeese shouted. The living room table had sense been cleared and sterilized, so the four youngest kids set up plates in the living room where they could sit around it on the floor.
There was fresh baked bread, pasta with some kind of vegetable sauce, meat cutlets... though Raf wasn't sure it's source, vegetable salad and a fruit salad. Raf hadn't seen so many fruits and vegetables in, well in years... they were hard to come by in space, and he hadn't had a home cooked meal in as long. Gods damn, he could just about eat a loaf of fresh baked break and a bowel of fruits and die happy right now.
-
Val had been quite contentedly playing with Tomar and a few of the other younger children, albeit with some general sense of shy awkwardness. That faded quickly enough though, and by the time Raf came to check on them she seemed quite happy, settled on the floor with the others who were teaching her how to play some sort of rhythmic clapping and rhyming game.
When the call for dinner went out though she hung back a bit from the stampede, automatically moving to grab Raf’s hand almost as a sort of safety blanket. She started a bit when he mussed her hair, then smiled and nodded quickly with a chirped, “Okay!”
Ava was sort of dozing by the time Griffin returned home, and in her half-asleep state she thought she heard an unfamiliar voice, but she couldn’t make out the words. Maybe I’m dreaming, she mused silently to herself, drifting sort of in between waking and sleeping.
Then a soft, familiar voice cut through the fog, tiny hands touching her shoulder lightly. “Mama?” Val whispered, leaning in close. “Do you wanna get up now? Raf’s friends made food...”
“Mm.” Ava forced her eyes open, blinked groggily, then managed a tired smile for her daughter. “Yeah, chickadee, okay.” She sat up carefully, and was pleased to find both that her side felt significantly better, and that the drugs seemed to have almost entirely worked their way out of her system. She glanced around, saw the table in the living room being set, and got to her feet.
“Did you have fun worth the other kids?” she asked quietly, stroking Val’s hair. The girl smiled and nodded, flushing happily.
-
Raf smiled down at Val when she hung back and grabbed his hand. UNlike the other younger kids, Val was let to sit at the kitchen table beside her mother. There was so much food, and wine for the adults. Raf only had two glasses over the course of the evening. There was laughter and conversation and questions of how Ava and Rf met - to which Raf vaguely said 'wok.' Several hours later when all the kids had been fed, bathed, and sent off to bed... the house finally quieted down.
Val was tucked into bed with one of the younger girls, and blankets and pillows were brought down for Ava and Raf... Raf had volunteered to sleep on the floor and let Ava take the couch. After even Janesse had headed off to bed, it was just Ava, Raf and Griffin left up down stairs.
"So, what really brings you to my door?" Griffin asked once the house had quieted down.
"We need a place to lay low for a bit," Raf said, "I don't think there's a better place than Trenz to do that." It was remote, quiet, privet.
Griffin looked from Raf to Ava and back to Raf again. "What sort of trouble are you hiding from?"
"The problem is, we're not really sure," Raf said, "someone's after Val, but we're not sure who or why. I helped Ava get Val back, but those were just the middle men and we were too busy hightailing it off the planet to gather proper intel."
Griffin frowned thoughtfully. "Well, you're always welcome here. I'll be honest, I was hoping you were looking for work... I've got a group of refugees I just got papers for and they're looking for a ride off this rock."
-
Ava found herself rather blindsided by the hospitality shown toward them by this family that she, at least, hardly knew. It wasn't so much that the friendliness itself was unbelievable to her--many people in Reckless were much the same way to weary travelers, at least when it came to non-mages--but she seemed a little rattled that such attention was directed toward her and her daughter.
She made sure to tuck Val into bed with one of Janeese's younger children, assuring the girl that she would be much more comfortable sleeping in a real bed than on the couch with her mother.
Back in the living room, she set herself against the far side of the sofa and did her best to keep her eyes open as exhaustion began to drag at her bones. She'd avoided the wine at dinner, and the sedative had by now mostly worked its way through his system, but she was still dead tired.
She listened to Griffin and Raf speak, going a little tense instinctively, but forcing herself not to deflect. Not yet, at least.
"Are they headed somewhere specific?" she asked Griffin softly when he mentioned refugees. "Or just...not here?"
-
"A couple of them have family on the lunar station around Ramos," Griffin said, "So that's where they're heading, for now at least. If they want to go further than that they'll have to figure it out for themselves. We do what we can to help, but we're on a budget."
The papers were the hardest and most important, and most expensive part.
Raf looked looked at Ava. "You wanna take another trip? Ramos is two jumps from here. It'd take us two days to get there and back." He looked at Griffin then. "How may do you have... If we put sleeping bags in the cargo bay, Liss can only house about five extra." And that would be cramped... only about three or four people could even sit in the kitchen to eat... He had enough food and water on the ship now for eight for a day, but he'd have to resupply again when he got back.
-
Ava looked at him and shrugged with a small, tired smile. "It's your ship," she replied blithely. "Technically you could have washed your hands on us back on Edanith, if you really wanted to. We're just here out of the goodness of your heart now, Raf."
Val still thought they were going back to Reckless, eventually. Ava had too, until they'd seen 82641 in that tank. Now... Now she didn't know what to do. Where to go. And, by all rights, Raf really didn't have to take them anywhere, if he didn't want to.
She glanced away, expression a little distance and unfocused. "Maybe Val and I can find something on Ramos..."
Quite without her permission, the thought made her heart clench for a moment. She realized, with some surprise, that the feeling was...almost a disappointment at the thought of leaving Liss, of being on their own again.
-
"You'd need new papers first," which was realistically more like new files... identity chips, or etc. depending on where they wanted to stay. "We won't be able to swing that before we leave, at any rate."
Also, Raf didn't want them to leave... not now, not yet, maybe...
"I'd suggest a whole identity wipe and reinstatement." Or just not going.
-
"...Right."
Right, of course. That made sense. So why did her stomach clench uncomfortably when she heard it? Why didn't she...want to leave?
She shrugged and shook her head, trying to chase the thoughts from her mind. Stupid, wishful thinking. "Well, if we can't manage that before we leave here, we'll just have to do it somewhere else, I suppose," she murmured after a moment, then shot him a small, tired smile. "So I suppose you're stuck with us for a little longer, at least."