trans_9 | Awkward Turtle [closed]

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Awkward Turtle [closed]

Just as he suspected. There really wasn't much to do, even on a giant crazy spaceship like this one. There was a media library, but you could only watch movies for so long before you remembered that you were on a giant crazy spaceship and it was stupid to be watching movies.

That's what made Steve go check out the sensoriums, if only so he could work off a little steam on some kind of training course. That seemed like a popular option. Thinking on it too much had made him ask if it could create the images of people, too, and since then he'd been trying to decide how creepy it would be to go see virtual versions of his parents. Whether it would be more therapeutic than necessitating therapy afterwards was still up in the air.

He wandered the halls glumly, trying to get his mind off of it and forlornly thinking how nice it would be if somebody he knew was somehow aboard too.

He did not expect to get his wish thirty seconds later, when somebody walked by and he immediately recognized her.

"Wait... Claire?"

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He seemed to appreciate the sentiment, nodding at her with another very awkward smile. "I'm uh. I'm glad you're here too."

Then he immediately decided to pretend like he hadn't, glancing away and continuing behind her silently.

Claire let that go, and let the silence continue until they reached the precinct. She led Steve inside and to one of the private conference rooms, shutting the door behind them to allow some privacy.

"So before I give you the grand tour, I should probably tell you what you want to know about.. what happened."

Steve had sunk down into one of the chairs at the conference table, crossing his arms over his chest and looking intently at the top of the table.

"Yeah," he said in response. "I... don't remember a whole lot. The last thing I remember clearly was being in the snow CAT with you. Then after that everything's kind of fuzzy. Like it was a dream or something. But..."

He finally looked up at her. "I died, didn't I?"

She exhaled slowly, sinking down into a chair across from him, nodding her head as she leaned her arms on the table.

"Alexia injected you with the T-Veronica virus. When I found you... you mutated, and attacked me. I was able to escape, but.." She frowned, recalling what had happened with perfect clarity despite the fact that it had been years since. Everything that happened to her involving Umbrella had frightening clarity in her mind.

"I was caught by Alexia's root things... which are what knocked the CAT over. You somehow fought the effects of the virus and saved me but... you died after that." She wasn't looking up at him as she finished, staring down at her hands folded loosely on the table. It wasn't exactly her favorite memory.

Somehow he thought so. It was too vivid to be a dream, and it still only existed in his memory in bits and pieces, but somehow Steve knew it was all true. The injection mark in his arm that wasn't there anymore, the pain, what he said at the end... Oh god.

His face turned slowly a deep shade of red. But there would be time to worry about that later. Steve reached over and rubbed his arm where he remembered the needle stinging. "But... but then why am I here?" he asked. "How can I be... alive?"

A terrible thought crossed his mind, but he chose not to say anything about it quite yet. "I don't feel dead, Claire."

Claire shook her head slowly, still not looking up at him.

"I don't know, Steve." She closed her eyes and swallowed briefly. "Maybe when you died, Stacy was able to beam you up and revive you. But..." she hesitated, opening her eyes again and looking up, although she looked past Steve instead of at him. "When Chris and I were making our way out, we ran into Wesker. He's... he was the reason Chris and his team got tied up in that whole mess, basically. His people supposedly collected your body for the T-Veronica sample, and he made a vague threat about... resurrecting you."

"They took me for a sample?" he repeated. "Even after I..." Steve seemed to have trouble processing that all the way through. His eyes widened and he took in an uneasy breath, obviously very close to losing that composure he'd managed so far.

"Why?" he asked, even though he knew Claire wouldn't have the answers. "Why would they care if I was already dead? What if-- what if I'm still infected?" His hand fastened tightly around his arm. "What if that virus is still inside me? What's gonna happen to me?"

"I wouldn't have brought you back here if I didn't think it was safe, Steve." Not completely true, there was a part of her that had her doubts, but he'd been able to control it once before, after all. "We've got some doctors onboard, I'll talk with Leon and we'll see if they can run some tests."

That wasn't exactly a conversation she was looking forward to. She knew Leon would be pissed she'd brought someone she suspected might be infected with a strain of the T-Virus anywhere in their vicinity. But he'd been walking around the ship for a few days now, and hadn't transformed. Surely if something would have happened, it would have by now.

Claire's reassurances were not exactly working. "So- so I might hurt someone? I could just... I could turn into a monster again and hurt people and then die all over again?"

He took in another shaky breath, reaching up and clutching at his forehead. "I don't want to be a science experiment! I don't want everybody to think I'm some virus freak like that stupid crazy woman!"

"Steve calm down," Claire urged, looking directly at him and stretching a hand slightly towards him on the table. "Despite what we don't know about the T-Veronica, the T-Virus would have mutated you by now." She couldn't imagine how difficult this was for him. She'd never had to deal with trying to calm down someone who was infected, with no clear hope of a cure.

"You just need to try to stay positive, all right? Back home, there's a cure for the T-Virus, now. If you are infected, it's entirely possible we'll be able to reverse it."

"Maybe that's why I didn't die. Maybe I'm already not normal, but I'm something... something else. I could make people sick... What if curing me will make me die again?" Steve's confidence was altogether gone by now, replaced with obvious distress. He took a few deep breaths and looked up at Claire from underneath his hand, on the verge-- but not quite yet-- crying.

"Why me?" he said. "Why did all of this have to happen to me?"

Claire's brow furrowed, and she retracted her hand, rubbing the back of her neck and looking down at the table top. She didn't know how to answer that.

"I don't know," she finally replied, quietly. "I wish I had answers for you, Steve, but I don't. So much of what Umbrella did doesn't make any sense."

Steve felt unbearably childish, like this was the kind of reaction a baby would have. He just didn't know what other kind of reaction he was supposed to have or how to make himself feel like it. He crossed his arms on the table top and buried his face in them, too embarrassed to let Claire see his face. He was sure she thought he was childish too.

"I don't want to be here." It would be better if I really was dead. "I want to go home. But it's not like I even have one anymore."

Steve probably wouldn't notice, but Claire pulled back from the table when he buried his face in his arms, slowly standing and circling around to sit down next to him. She hesitantly reached out to slide a hand over his shoulder, squeezing gently in a comforting manner.

"I wish I could tell you it'll be okay. But as long as we're here, I'll do whatever I can to help you, all right?"

Steve froze up a little bit when she touched him, but then seemed to relax after a moment. He stayed with his head down on the table though, still refusing to look up at Claire.

After a few moments he finally said something, albeit quietly and in a very hopeless and thick tone of voice. "Okay."

Claire started rubbing gentle circles over Steve's back, trying to be as comforting as possible.

"You'll get through this," she said quietly.

He trembled a bit, then shifted and reached up to frantically rub his eyes with one hand.

"I don't want to hurt anybody," he said. "I don't want anybody to get infected because of me. I should just go somewhere else, or- or go get back in the pod or something."

"We don't even know if you're infected yet, Steve," she gently replied, tilting her head down a little while continuing her motions on his back. "And I'm not sure if you would've been released if Stacy thought you would've been a real threat to the rest of the crew." Surely the ship had some kind of detection for biohazards.

"But what if I am?" he asked. "Wh-what would they do to me?" Steve rested his face in his hand took a few shallow breaths, trying to get himself under control again. Claire had a point. This was all just... possibility right now. A horrifying possibility that he wanted to deny no matter what, but he couldn't shake it now that it was out in the open.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I'm just... scared."

"I know," she said quietly, moving her other hand to his shoulder. "But I promise I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, or let you hurt anyone, all right?" That was a promise she could keep.

Steve finally looked up from the table, glancing over at Claire and looking ashamed. He took another deep breath and rubbed his eyes with his palm.

"Okay," he said again. "Okay. I know I can trust you, Claire." When she made a promise, she always followed through with it, no matter what. That was the way she was.

Claire smiled a little, gently squeezing his shoulder. "Yeah, you can." Patting his back gently she tilted her head so she could keep eye contact with him.

"Is it all right for me to go get Leon now, or do you want to talk some more?"

Steve looked at her uneasily in response to that question, seeming to shrink a little in his seat.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know what else there is to say..." Might as well get it over with, meeting this... Leon guy. If Claire liked him then he couldn't be all bad, though, Steve had to keep reminding himself.

"Might as well introduce us. Wait- Are you gonna tell him? A-about me, I mean?"

Slowly standing from her chair, Claire squeezed Steve's shoulder one last time. "I have to. But it'll be all right. Leon's a very level-headed guy. He'll listen to what I've got to say, all right?" She smiled, making her way towards the door.

"You sit tight, and I'll be back in a bit, okay?"

"Okay," he said again, nodding at her. He straightened up and leaned back in his seat, arms still crossed over his chest, but now determined to be as stoic as possible. Or at least to act like he was.

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letmelive - 2009-08-12 22:08 (UTC) - Expand

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