No rest for the weary [DragonSong]

[Marjorie]

"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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Marjorie]

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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Marjorie]

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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Marjorie]

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. 

[DragonSong]

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.

[Marjorie]

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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Marjorie]

"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.

[DragonSong]

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..."

[Marjorie]

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]

[DragonSong]

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.

[Marjorie]

“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.

[DragonSong]

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..."

[Marjorie]

“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.

[DragonSong]

"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."

[Marjorie]

"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.

[DragonSong]

"...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.