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Work on restoring the Borealis continues apace. If all goes well, they'll be ready to teleport out within the week.

Of course, not everything goes according to plan. Alyx hadn't anticipated Shephard's pet houndeye going into heat, for instance. But Alyx refuses to make that her problem. Shephard can deal--no, Shephard will deal with it. Alyx is going to take a break.

Thus, we find a pregnant Resistance leader stretched out across the couch, munching on a bag of Doritos and reading a book on childrearing.

[Open until it scrolls.]

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Shephard blinks twice. Then he says, "Thank you, ma'am. Permission to gear up'n take a defensive position somewheres safe for the next six hours or so? That went too easy'n I got way too damn lucky for somethin' fuckin' nasty not to be in the works."

Alyx smirks a little. "What, did you want me to argue with you?"

"No ma'am," says Shephard, "but so far I've told you, the Evans boy, Ms. Ako, 'n Tsu'tey about the situation. Ain't been one single person yet who's so much as suggested maybe I ought to return her to the wild. Not even Tsu'tey, and I'd kind of reckoned he of all people'd want me to let her go under the circumstances. It ain't normal not to have people give me a hard time about critters, that's all."

Alyx sets the book aside, sits up, and turns to face the Marine directly.

"Shephard, I admit I was hesitant when you first brought Mrs. Wilson to me. But you've been nothing but diligent in caring for her and training her to behave. I trust you to continue that, even now."

"Believe it or not, ma'am, this one time, it ain't you I was worried about," Shephard says. "There's a shitload of books I read as a kid, not to mention movies, where some kid raises a wild baby animal and pretty much as soon as it gits to puberty everything goes right to hell, so he's got to turn it loose in the wild. Half the time it don't adapt to bein' free again so he's got to kill it himself, 'cause a man's got to shoot his own dog, kind of thing. Between those books'n the way my momma always got when I tried bringin' somethin' up at home, I really and truly wasn't expecting you to say 'turn her loose' because you were you, I was expecting it because that's how this shit goes most of the time."

He glances over at the door to out back.

"Which is to say I'm glad as fucking ass you trust me to do this. And I want to say I got no clue how many pups these things have at a time, but I plan on keepin' em, not inflicting 'em on anybody else, ma'am. They ain't their responsibility."

Alyx nods. "Good man," she says again.

Shephard nods. "Gon' git interesting quick," he says a little gloomily. "Jimbo said he's seen mommas with seven or eight real small pups. Ain't seen a whole lot of older ones, though, I figure wild things eat 'em- I ain't gon' count my eggs before they hatch but shit, that's gon' be one hell of a birthing box."

That warrants a grimace. "And you're still willing to deal with all of them by yourself?"

"My dog, my puppies," says Shephard with a shrug. "Ain't like I exactly got a whole lot of volunteers comin' forward to join the fun. Mason don't count. Man's good with a gun but when it comes to living things I wouldn't trust him with a tank of sea monkeys."

Alyx snorts. "Better Floyd Mason than Isaac Kleiner."

"Ma'am, the way that man treats his headcrab, I wouldn't trust him with an empty tank of water."

"What would he--? Nevermind. I don't wanna know the answer to that."

"He don't look after that crab right," says Shephard. "He got it debeaked, sure, that's a good start. Make sure it ain't dangerous. 'Course he didn't do a fuckin' thing to make sure it ain't obnoxious as shit. You got to train an animal if you're gon' keep it around humans-"

Someone should probably stop him before he blows a gasket or something.

Edited 2011-07-31 02:05 (UTC)

Alyx holds up a hand. "Shephard. Stop. You're preaching to the choir here."

"Sorry, ma'am." Shephard's expression instantly goes contrite. "Man might be a genius or somethin', I dunno, but... when it comes to living things he's dumber'n a sack of hammers. That's all."

"Tell me about it. Did you know he was trying to get Mari to teach him how to catch black headcrabs?"

"Christ Almighty. He knows Mari got the right to work the black fuckers by doin' the bullet ant rite twenty-five times, right?"

"Probably not, but that's because I went to the tribesmen and told them that under no circumstances were they to teach Dr. Kleiner anything."

"Thank you," says Shephard fervently. "Shit. That'd be all we'd need."

"...let's change the subject, shall we?" says Alyx. "We're heading off to Europe in a week, if all goes well..."

"Fine by me," says Shephard. "We got any clear intel on the site yet? I only got me a little bit of time with the shit we took out of that desal plant."

"Some," says Alyx. "Right now the plan is to land in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Poland. We might have to fight off antlions on the beach, but there's no Combine presence in the immediate area."

"Antlions... shit. You know, I ain't never fought those," Shephard says. "Run like fuck from, sure, fought, no. Fill me in on 'em before I go git the details out of somebody else back home, ma'am?"

Alyx nods, looking thoughtful. "The ones we're most likely to run into are soldiers and spitters," she begins. "It's past spawning season, so the bulls won't be active unless someone actually digs down into the warrens... I'm guessing the ones you've seen before are soldiers? Four-legged katydids the size of a Shetland pony?"

"Yep, those're them," says Shephard. "Me'n Chell got surrounded by 'em right before we found Tim Hutchence's crew. Fuckers're fast."