milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The wedding's less than a week away. Alyx, just like everyone else, still has a lot to do.

Or she did, until the false-alarm labor last night. It only lasted five minutes, ten at most, but it was enough to spook the medics at Greenbrier. So she's been ordered to relax and stay off her feet as much as possible until the twins are born. So now Alyx has very little to do other than lie down and fidget.

Sure, she could just keep doing what she's been doing--the medics would be powerless to stop her--but after what she, and they, went through to keep Sergeant-Major Shephard in bed when he was ill, she can't really turn around and refuse doctor's orders, can she?

So we find a heavily pregnant woman stretched out on the couch, doing deep breathing exercises and trying to relax. (Good luck with that.)

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She has company.

Not the talking kind, but the kind that leans on the back of the couch and watches the fire as he figures out exactly how he's going to phrase this.

Eventually he does.

"Hey, uh..."

Alyx looks up. "Hm?"

"I, uh...I just wanted to say thanks."

"For the water. And the pills."

"So, uh...thanks."

"You're welcome," says Alyx. "I've been there myself, I didn't want you to feel any shittier than you already did."

Voodoo nods in comprehension - he's not going to ask her when unless she offers, because hey, he wouldn't appreciate some random guy poking around in his traumatic memories just to get a sense of camaraderie.

"Wel, uh...I feel better."

( Goddammit, Preacher, what the fuck's wrong with you )

"Still hungover. But better."

He should really stop staring at the fire. It's not healthy, fixing your eyes on something like that for that long.

Edited 2012-05-08 17:41 (UTC)

After a long moment, Alyx speaks up, softly.

"Is something else bothering you?"

( Rabbit wouldn't stop bleeding )

"Nah. Nah, I'm fine."

( he wouldn't. Stop. Bleeding. )

"I'm good."

( I need help )

"Thanks for asking, though."

"You're sure?" she asks. "If you wanted to talk, I'm not going anywhere..."

Voodoo crosses his arms, rests his chin on the back of the couch.

"I have trouble sleeping."

"At night."

"Bad memories?"

Voodoo gives a small half-shrug.

"Yeah."

"Something like that."

"I could recommend some sleep aids for you," says Alyx. "But I'm guessing that's not going to fix the underlying problem."

"Probably not," Voodoo agrees.

He scratches his stubble.

"I dunno if I should be talking to you about this."

He taps out a rhythm on the couch.

"I mean, shit, you got enough problems of your own."

"Voodoo," says Alyx gently, "keeping it to yourself won't make things better. At best you'll just be stuck where you are. You need to deal with what happened, and that means talking to someone."

He stares into the fireplace.

"I have dreams."

"Two recurring ones. A few odds and ends on top of those, some one-offs. But two that keep coming back."

Alyx pushes herself up to a sitting position so she can reach out to touch his arm.

Voodoo doesn't notice. Even if he did, he wouldn't mind.

"I'm back on Takur Ghar in the first. Rabbit won't stop bleeding, and I'm yelling and yelling for Preacher, but he's not there and Rabbit's just...bleeding all over the place. Like a stuck pig."

"I try everything - bandaging, direct pressure, even these coagulant packets we keep in our blowout kits call QuikClot - but he just keeps on bleeding."

"And then all of a sudden Preacher's behind Rabbit, but he's not doing anything. All he's doing is staring at me. I look around, and everyone's just standing and looking at me, even the dead and wounded guys."

"At this point I'm pissed."

He smirks. "Figures, right?"

"So I lunge for Preacher, ask what the fuck's wrong with him. But he disappears." He snaps his fingers. "Just like that. I look around, and everyone else is gone, too. Me and Rabbit are the only ones on the peak."

"And then...it's, uh...it's weird. He gives me this, this look - and then he's gone too."

"And the other one?"

"I start out running from something."

"I don't know who, or what, or why, but the temp's in the triple digits, my pack's heavy as shit, and my legs are starting to burn."

"Then there's this jolt of pain up one leg and I collapse in the dirt and black out."

"I wake up when they pull the burlap sack off my head."

"I'm in some kind of cave, but they've turned it into a studio. There're all these bright lights on me, I'm cuffed to a chair, and there's a camera on me. There're two silhouettes that I can see, both armed with AKs. Then this guy starts talking."

"I can't see him, but he knows my name. He says I've come into his country illegally, killed a lot of their friends, destroyed their homes, this, that, and the other. Then they say that so long as there are foreign soldiers in their country, their fate will be the same as mine."

"Then they skin me alive and shoot me in the head."

.

.

.

"Jesus Christ, Voodoo!"

He shrugs.

"That's one way of putting it."

Edited 2012-05-08 22:48 (UTC)

"What--? I mean how does--? I have been in a war zone my entire life and my subconscious isn't that fucked up."

"Alyx, it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, you're asking the wrong fucking guy the wrong fucking questions?"

"I don't know why my subconscious is the way it is. Frankly, I think I'd sleep a lot better not knowing. It just is what it is."

Alyx runs her hands over her face, visibly trying to collect herself.

"Look. There's a psychiatric counselor who works out of Milliways--or there was, we haven't spoken in a while. He helped me deal with my father's death and gave me some tools for anger management so I wouldn't completely flip my shit at people I cared about. I think you would benefit from talking to him."

He shrugs.

"If you say so."

"I'll write him a note and we'll see if we can work out a time for you two to meet, okay?"

This is Voodoo trying his damnedest not to roll his eyes, because, well, it's Alyx, and even if it's a shrink and he's a big fat quack and it all falls through within the first five minutes, her intentions are good.

"Sure. Whatever you want to do."

Alyx notices. "Just give him a chance, okay? I'd never have gotten my head together enough to go home if not for Dr. Crowe."

"...okay."

He's still not entirely convinced, but he'll give this guy a chance. A five-minute chance, but a chance.

"Are you okay?" Annabelle asks, peering over the couch. She had been looking for Alyx to loan her her grandmother's brooch, but that line of thought has been temporarily derailed.

"'M fine," says Alyx glumly. "Had a false start last night, the medics want me off my feet until the kids are born."

"That could make the wedding a bit tricky," Annabelle teases, easing onto the arm of a nearby chair.

"I was looking for you to give you my grandmother's brooch, so you'd have it for the wedding."

"Oh, I'll stand up for that, definitely," says Alyx with a wry smile. "And thank you."

"You're welcome," Annabelle says with a smile, handing Alyx the brooch.

It's not, as jewelry goes, all that impressive. The gold plating over the brass wire is worn through in some spots and the blue agate stones that make up the forget-me-not flower petals have many chips along the edges.

"Did I ever tell you the story of how my grandfather got hold of it?"

"If you did, I don't remember it?"

Annabelle nods. "This is all second and third hand, mind. My maternal grandparents died shortly before I was born and I heard the story from my father."

"My grandfather wanted to marry my grandmother, but there was no way he could afford a ring. Living hand to mouth was not uncommon among traveling performers. Hell, my father and I lived that way until I was 10 and good enough at trick shooting that I could wrangle better deals for our circus."

Annabelle snorts. "Not that a jeweler would have served him if he COULD have come up with the money, probably would have accused him of stealing it, you see."

Alyx turns the brooch over in her hands. "So, what, did he pick it up at a flea market or something?"

"Not exactly," Annabelle says with a chuckle. "The way I heard it, my grandfather ran into a fellow running a con down South."

"The fellow in question was spinning a story about needing to get up north to see a dying relative and having to sell off family heirlooms for travel money. Offered to sell them for a lot less than they were worth, on account of the urgency. Thing is, there was no relative and the "heirlooms" were brass and glass made to LOOK like the real thing."

Annabelle shakes her head. "He'd been running that racket for years across the country, getting a lot more than what brass and glass were worth and leaving his marks thinking they'd got one over on him."

"That brooch was the one "heirloom" in the lot that wasn't just brass and glass, so my grandfather made a deal with the con man. If he sold the brooch to my grandfather for what money my grandfather could raise, my grandfather wouldn't give the local law the tip off on the scam."

"Huh. There are worse ways to get a family heirloom, I guess."

Annabelle chuckles. "There sure are."

She smiles softly. "Anyway, wanted you to have it for the wedding. It...just seemed to me that you ought to have it."

She flushes a little. "You and Gordon are as close as I'm likely to get to family of my own..."

There's a tinge of sadness to Alyx's smile. "Thank you," she says again, very softly. "For everything."

Annabelle's smile is a little wistful. "You're more than welcome," she replies, giving Alyx as much of a hug as she can with her friend sprawled on the couch.

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