#beto will be like 'hey come hang out with me while i eat' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

trbl-will-find-me · 7 years

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We have not touched the stars; nor are we forgiven (2/3)

Everyone has a job to do.

You should eat.

It is the fourth time the creature has said as much.

Not until we hear from the Skirmishers.

She has yet to change out of her bloodied clothing. She’s not sure why Asaru thinks eating is even on her radar.

Her hands ache from gripping the shovel, and her back is locking. She feels hollow, somehow both separate from her body and trapped in it.

Hey, she asks. You don’t know where Central is, do you?

I am as isolated as you are.

She turns her attention back to digging. They’ve settled on two to a grave.

Regardless, it is too great a number.

She is still digging, caked in blood and sweat and dirt, when word comes from the ship that there is a secure communication from Skirmisher HQ. She hauls herself up and out of the hole, and makes her way towards the bridge.

“Captain, we have located your Central Officer and have allies in place who are ready to help with the extraction, but we must move quickly.”

“Is he alright?”

“They have not … tampered with him.”

She nods. “Understood. What do you need from us to make it happen?”

“A familiar face. We are allies, but my kind is not known to him.”

“I’ll go. I’m not sure how I’ll get to you, but I’ll go.”

Is this wise? Asaru asks.

“Transmit your coordinates. We will arrange for a solution.”

This is not a discussion we’re having.

“Transmitting now. Should we be expecting a surprise? The crew’s still pretty badly shaken.”

Should you not remain here?

“We will send word before our arrival.”

No, I should not remain here. Not while he’s out there.

“Understood. ETA?”

“Two hours at most.”

“You and your people have our thanks.”

“We, too, have known loss, Captain. Betos out.”

The viewscreen fades to black.

You should take off those clothes.

Excuse me? She asks the creature.

They are covered in blood. You will alarm the tall one.

Gingerly, she lifts the soiled cloth, exposing a thin, white line where the slug had torn through her. She traces a finger over it, not quite believing in her own existence.

I am sorry it was not cleaner. You did not have much time.

She lets the cloth drop, and instead threads a hand through the neck hole of her shirt, her fingers tracing over the skin once torn through by shrapnel. She’d gripped the picnic table til her knuckles had gone white while Central had removed the shards, cleaned, and patched the wound.

She scrubs at her eyes, chasing away a renewed wave of tears.

You must get ready. We do not have much time.

Maman raised her on a steady diet of stories, real, imaginary and somewhere in between. There are histories she could scribe for future generations, tall tales she could recite in her sleep, fairy tales she knows by heart.

So, yes, she believes in the magic of objects, of stacking the deck, of refusing to allow the wheel of fate to turn against you because you couldn’t be damned to find some wood to knock against.

She will apologize to him for breaking into his footlocker later.

She finds what she’s looking for quickly enough, two small aluminum tags embossed with lettering. Bradford, John A. 511-48-4360. O negative. Agnostic.

She relocks the container, sets the tags on her bunk, and grabs a change of clothes for the shower.

On any other day, she would take her time, let the water run over aching muscles while she took a few moments to get her head together. Instead, she scrubs down quickly, doing her best to expunge reminders of the day’s events from her skin and hair.

She dresses, and slips the tags from her bunk into her pocket, brushing her thumb back and forth over the embossing.

You do not think we will find him.

She pauses. Shhh, you’re not supposed to say it. Say what?

That.

Why not? Saying it does not make it come to pass.

It’s … it’s a human thing.

Ah, the concept of jinxing it.

She lets out a short bark of pathetic laughter before she can stop herself. Yeah. That’s it. Don’t jinx it.

She bundles into her armor, and spends the remaining time before the Skirmishers’ arrival setting the bridge to rights as best she can.

She lingers at the door to the Commander’s Quarters, knowing that the kind thing to do would be to begin packing its contents away. She knows it is something Central will never do on his own, and is not a task anyone else will be likely to undertake. If it is to be done, it falls to her.

She begins with the best of intentions, gathering glasses and plates to return to the mess. She folds clean laundry dumped on the sofa, separating the Commander’s clothes from his.

She takes one look at the piles folded, sorted, and separated and is on the ground sobbing before she can understand what’s come over her. She doesn’t remember the last time she cried like this, isn’t sure she ever has.

She knows so many people who are lost to her now. Her family. The Commander. Jane. Lily. Virtually every friend she’s ever made. Nearly the entire complement of the Avenger.

The loss is staggering.

It overtakes her, tearing sob after sob from her throat, til she can’t breathe, let alone think. She grips hard at the couch cushion, unable to muster any additional strength. She cannot feel the creature in her head, and she wonders, briefly, if it has left her.

I am here. I did not want to intrude.

She pushes herself up onto the couch, curling into one of the cushions. She draws in a few shuddering breaths, frantically scrubbing at her cheeks with gloved hands.

She remembers, then, when she’d last cried like this. She was little, then, just barely eleven. Maman had been gone a few weeks. They were staying in a haven somewhere inland from the Virginia coast, a frantic bet on a gentler early spring, and ADVENT had come to pay them a visit, descending from the sky in dropships that had always, perhaps erroneously, reminded her of coffins. The air had reeked of blood and death, with corpses littering the ground. She had hidden, pressed flat to the ground under the remains of a rotting front porch, cowering in the darkness until she’d heard him calling her name. She had wriggled out, brushing herself off, and wandered towards the sound, through the remains of the encampment.

When she’d finally found him, the sound that escaped from her was barely human. He’d held her while she’d howled into his coat, howled the way she couldn’t when Maman had been found dead, when Papa disappeared, when the ships shaped like coffins dropped death itself onto innocents, time and time again.

The realization that she may never see him again, that even their best attempts may be too late, that she may have to file him away on the list of those ADVENT has ripped from her life, is too much.

Her hand flies out, grabbing a pillow and bringing it to her face to muffle the scream she can no longer suppress.

She stays hunched in on herself for a few moments, trying to regain some semblance of her composure.

I did not think you wanted to alert the ship, Asaru explains.

Good call.

She cuts through the brush, away from the Avenger, refusing to look back.

“I’m coming back with him, or I’m not coming back,” she said to Tygan.

Two teams of Skirmishers are inbound, one to lead the rescue, and one to prop up XCOM’s battered remnants.

She offers a silent thanks to the Commander for the effort she’d put into cultivating the alliance between the two factions. She cannot imagine such a response from the Reapers or Templars, cannot imagine aid given so freely.

The first team disembarks, and she points them back towards what remains of her home.

A helmetless Stun Lancer extends a hand. She accepts, and is pulled onto the craft.

Inside, she finds another Lancer and a Captain, similarly free of their headgear.

They have suffered, Asaru says. They have known cruelty.

That’s why they’re helping us.

No, he insists. They are helping us because they believe it is the right thing to do.

“Captain Royston,” the Lancer who helped her aboard begins. “I am Emra Alatall. This,” she says gesturing to the other Lancer, “is Amon Vemo. And this,” she says, gesturing towards the Captain. “is Cadna Eim.”

“You have my thanks, and XCOM’s,” she says. “I know this is a huge risk to take.”

“Your people have suffered an immeasurable loss,” Eim offers. “The Skirmishers will carry her memory forward. ”

“I just hope we get a shot,” she says.

“XCOM will not fight alone,” Alatall reassures her. “Have you been briefed on the plan?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet.”

“We are planning a stealthy approach,” Vemo begins. “We have many allies stationed at the facility holding your comrade. They have made arrangements for a transfer of custody. We going in as the transport vehicle.”

She nods. “How can I help?”

“In our experience,” Eim says. “Those rescued from the imprisonment of the Elders are often disoriented. A known face facilitates a smoother extraction.”

“Keep him calm?”

“Precisely.”

“How am I getting in?” She asks after a moment’s contemplation. “I can’t just walk through the door.”

“But you can,” Alatall says. “Though it will not be glamorous.”

She eyes the manacles hanging from the Lancer’s belt. “Prisoner?”

“Prisoner. It is the simplest and the safest way to maneuver you into the cell block where he is being held.”

She nods. “Understood.”

She can hear the Speaker’s voice before they even land.

“The degenerate XCOM has once again mercilessly struck down another innocent life.”

She can feel the hives threatening to bloom across her stomach and along her arms.

“A friend of the Elders, a tireless supporter of the ADVENT administration, and a true believer in the promise of the new world.”

Bile rises in her gut.

“Yes, fellow citizens, today we mourn the loss of Elizabeth Regan.”

No screaming. Asaru says. You cannot scream now. There is nothing to muffle it. We are close to the tall one.

You’re positive? She asks.

Yes. We are close.

Alatall snaps the manacles around her wrists and Vemo helps her to the ground. Eim exits from the other side, leading their small procession through the gate and into the facility.

They walk some distance through dark, silent halls, eerie red light casting menacing shadows as they pass.

They stop in front of a door, and Eim places her palm against it.

She is wholly unprepared for the barrage of sound that assaults her ears as the door slides open. It Is the Speaker’s voice, entreating, demanding, berating, an endless loop of speeches, one no longer discernible from the next. She can’t remember the specifics of what constitutes torture, but she’s fairly certain this at least a close approximation.

Alatall removes the manacles from her wrists, and gestures for her to enter. “Our time grows short.”

He is curled on the floor, hands still cuffed.

She lowers herself to the ground next to him. “Central,” she says, gently shaking his arm. “Central, come on. Wake up.”

He stirs, and rises slowly. “Magpie? How did you …”

“I brought help. I’ll explain everything, but we’ve gotta go.”

He furrows his brow at her. “How do I know you’re---“

She draws a shaky breath. “I have seven perfectly white scars on my right shoulder from a friendly frag grenade that went off during an ADVENT retaliation somewhere in the middle of the place you said used to be Colorado. I was sixteen. I was too afraid to scream and I couldn’t down the liquor and you couldn’t decide if you were allowed to be relieved about that or not, so I gripped at the picnic table till my knuckles went white. And when you were done, you had to dig the splinters out of my hand by flashlight because they’d gone so deep.”

He reaches out a hand to cup her cheek. “You seem real enough.”

“I promise, I am, but we have to go.”

He nods, still dazed, and she works to help him to his feet, guiding him out from the cell into the quiet of the hall. Alatell replaces the manacles on her wrists, and their small procession, now larger by one reverses its course.

Thank you, Asaru says. She would be pleased.

She’s sprawled across Central’s chest in the infirmary, taking comfort in its steady rise and fall. Sleep tugs at the edges of her vision, but she resists, fearing what dreams may come.

What is this? Asaru asks.

You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.

This.

Exhaustion?

No, I understand exhaustion. There is something else here.

Grief?

No, I understand that all too well. This is like what she felt for him, but it is different.

Love?

Yes, maybe it is that. But it does not feel the same.

It’s … think of it as an umbrella term. There’s a lot of different kinds. They all feel different.

What is this one?

She sighs. This is not one of her brighter ideas. It’s … it’s easier if you go look yourself. Try not … try not to hit anything too painful.

She closes her eyes and grounds herself in the steady thump of his heart in her ear. The creature picks through carefully, doing its best to avoid the worst of her memories.

Oh, Asaru says. So, that is what it is.

Yeah, that’s what it is.

#fic #xcom #bad end au

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