House Call

[notlewis]

Luis was getting the feeling his tank of snails was becoming something of a joke around the Science Department, but he didn't care much. They were too fascinating to just give up his research on. They came in a rainbow of colors and glowed in the dark, and also had the ability to weave beautiful and intricate webs of brightly-colored spider-like silk. They were like... spidersnails. No way would he pass up on that opportunity.

He walked through the crew quarters on his way back from Hydroponics, a small holding tank of the creatures under his arm to start a second population. Walking by the doors, he quizzed himself on who lived in each one, partially just to test his memory and partially to see if he could remember which one was his.

As he passed Trudy's quarters, though, he remembered all the hubbub of the dogfights a week or so ago, and recalled hearing that she'd gotten a bit banged up. His mouth narrowed, and he was at her door a moment later.

"Knock knock," he said, adjusting his glasses. "There's a handsome doctor here to see you, General."

Comments

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy laughed - she could just imagine little ten-year-old Luis running around the house snapping pictures. "Yeah, I've been into it since before I enlisted in the Marines. I took tons of pictures on Pandora." All of which had been in her room on the FOB and had perished when Pandora was destroyed - all except the one picture of the Pandoran sunset that survived in her cockpit. That one was tacked up on the wall of her quarters.

"My camera didn't survive the missile strike, though. I found it in multiple melted pieces while I was stripping down the Samson for parts." Both of those things still pained her a little.

[notlewis]

He frowned at the sad fate of her camera. "I'm sure we can find something similar somewhere around the universe," he said. "And if not, we can commission those nerds down in Engineering to build you one."

He stepped a little further into the room, having a seat on the nearest chairlike thing he could spot. "I never thought of taking pictures around here... I suppose because everything around here is so unbelievable, the idea that we might need a picture to remember it is crazy."

[fieldpromoted]

"Oh - no, Kang picked up the camera for me. Shocked the hell out of me, I didn't think he knew I wanted one. But then again, that guy hears more things around this boat managing that bar. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew everybody's business."

Trudy didn't care how he'd figured it out. She had a camera and that made her happy. "You know, as much as this boat has some shitty stuff, I don't really mind it. The people make up for the crazy, most days."

[notlewis]

"Yes... Kang has that certain way of being far sharper than he seems," he said. Of course, Luis had told Kang far more about himself than he told most people, so it wasn't too much of a shock if he knew a lot of deep dark secrets about him.

"I don't mind it either," he said. "I mean, the shortage of cigarettes is frustrating, and let's not even get into the food... but considering what I would be doing otherwise, if we were back home, I like it here."

[fieldpromoted]

"It definitely beats the alternative," Trudy said dryly. She went quiet for a minute, thinking. Always dangerous to let Trudy think on this topic for very long.

"D'you think Stacy would let us stay, if we could get our worlds back?"

[notlewis]

He frowned thoughtfully.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I imagine she'll try to send us back to our original times and places, though... I guess I don't see why we couldn't go somewhere else."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, I can't imagine she'd expect us to agree to just... go back to. You know. Where we were exactly.."

[fieldpromoted]

"I mean," Trudy said slowly. "It's not like anyone in our world will know the difference... since. Well." Kind of a strange thought, that Jake and Ney'tiri probably held her funeral, if they had survived the battle. "To be honest I'd rather get marooned on the next shore leave planet than have to go back. Probably be better than here anyway."

She glanced up at the ceiling. Stacy could probably hear them. She didn't care much. If it weren't for the shitty slop and the warden personality, she'd be kosher with staying on Stacy forever.

[notlewis]

Luis nodded grimly. "Yeah. Nobody missed me, and nobody would notice if I came back... but I agree with you."

This was getting pretty awkward, pretty quick.

Finally, he exhaled. "If you don't mind me asking... how did you, er..."

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy managed to figure out what he was asking - there really was no tactful way to phrase that question. "I sucked at my job for one day," she said. "But you know, when your job is to fly fast, shoot things and not get shot, one day is all it takes. Seeker missiles are a bitch and a half. Took a direct hit, then woke up here."

She'd been in the military most of her life. Death wasn't something that surprised her, not even her death.

[notlewis]

"Ah." Well, that made sense. Trudy was a Marine, and it really did only take one mistake with a helicopter for that to be all she wrote.

"I, uh... I pissed off my old boss," he said finally. "He punched a hole in me the size of a football. The American kind, not the European kind. I bled out." He shifted a little awkwardly in his seat, then reached up and idly rubbed his fingers over his chest. A nervous habit. Sometimes he could still feel the pain there, though he had no idea why and really didn't want to know.

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy got up and crossed the room, putting her hand over that spot on his chest. "Here?" she asked. "You don't have a scar." She would know. Then again, she didn't have any scarring - or any injuries for that matter - from her own fatal incident.

A half-smile crossed her face without her realizing it. "Man, will we ever stop finding similar shit about each other? Quaritch was my CO before I told him to go to hell. He's the one who shot me down."

[notlewis]

"No, I don't," Luis replied, sounding just as puzzled about it as she did. "Though with how big it was, I really should have a big drain plug shoved in my chest."

He idly covered her hand with his own, cracking a strange little smirk of his own. "Jeez... it really is a small world. Now, Saddler... let's just say I just tried to quit without going through due process. Stupid old cabrón... I didn't like working for him anyway."

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy shook her head. "That shit in the medbay must be something else," she said. "To bring someone back from something like that. Scatter gun?" That's the only thing she can think of that could punch football-sized holes in someone. That or a cannonball, and Luis wasn't that far back from her time.

[notlewis]

Oh, she just had to ask, didn't she?

Luis suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Well... not really. Saddler was..." Special.

"It... was an extremely large insectoid appendage. Or possibly a tentacle, I'm not sure. It was kind of impaling me in the back at the time, I didn't get a good look."

[fieldpromoted]

She made a face. "Sorry I asked," she said, sounding like she meant it. "Pobrecito. That's an awful way to go. He didn't even have the decency to impale you in the front?"

Okay, so that was kind of a terrible joke and she probably shouldn't have said it. "Sorry."

[notlewis]

Fortunately for her, Luis had taken his death in stride and was fully aware of all the various joking implications.

"No, no, don't worry about it. That's the kind of guy he was. Snuck up on me and BAM. Next thing I know I'm a fountain of blood on the floor. I didn't feel much, at least." And if you asked him, he kind of had it coming.

"Next thing I know, I'm lying on the floor of the pod caverns, minus that career-ending chest injury."

[fieldpromoted]

"What an asshole. If I see him, remind me to shoot him." And she meant that. Anyone who attacked someone from behind, especially someone as hopelessly nerdy defenseless as Luis usually was, deserved to get shot full of holes.

She really had to convince him to start carrying a firearm. "At least with Quaritch I was shooting him first. Racist son of a bitch. I hope Jake killed his ass."

[notlewis]

"Hey, no need to worry about him. Leon exploded him into a burning pile of bloody chunks for me," Luis said, in the tone of voice some people use to talk about new ice cream stores opening down the street. "Though if by some cosmic joke he's ever alive again, I'm going to be the one to send him back to hell this time."

Because with Saddler came Las Plagas. And Luis was never going to let them get their little grasping tendrils on anything else. Not as long as he was still alive. Again.

It was nice that he'd gotten confirmation of his murderer's death. Poor Trudy would probably have to wait to find out. "I hope so too," he said. "Anybody who could kill someone as beautiful as you deserves to die."

[fieldpromoted]

"So I'll shoot him in an extremity, you can still kill him," Trudy said. "You have more than a right to." It was cute how giddy he got about someone being exploded into chunks. Then again, if Jake showed up on the ship and told her he'd blown Quaritch's shuttle up she'd probably throw him a party. A big one.

"Oh, he deserved to die for a few dozen other reasons, not the least of which was systematic genocide, but thanks." She grinned. "Besides, if he hadn't who says I would have turned up here? I never would have had the pleasure of being hit on by a handsome Spaniard in nerd glasses."

[notlewis]

He laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, bonita, you're far too nice to me. I'm sure there are dozens of other handsome Spaniards in nerd glasses who would love to hit on you, ones far better than little old me."

[fieldpromoted]

"Yes but nobody could be a handsome Spaniard in nerd glasses like you," Trudy said, poking his chest. "Who else knows this much shit about me? And hasn't run screaming."

There was something dangerously close to a warm fuzzy feeling beginning in her chest. This needed to turn into sex or goodbye soon or things could get dangerous.

[notlewis]

"Lady, I am the last person who should be running, screaming from anybody else's past," Luis teased her, reaching around to grab the back of her leg teasingly. "I'm a bona fide mad scientist. And I brought a tank of snails into your room. That's not a little bit weird to you?"

[fieldpromoted]

"Okay the snails are a little weird," she agreed. He couldn't pull her off balance with something as simple as that but she sat in his lap anyway because why not? It was her room and none of her pilots were here to see her. "But if I remember correctly you've saved the ship from two mutant death viruses so far, so that mad scientist thing is going pretty well for you as far as I'm concerned."

She shrugged. "Besides I figured you weren't coming back the third time I woke you up by smacking you in the nose, but I guess you're just a glutton for punishment." Nightmares. They sucked.

[notlewis]

Once she was seated, his arm curled around the curve of her waist. Only a little handsy.

"Hey, if you don't mind all the times I wake up screaming, it would be rude not to return the favor. And besides, it'll take a lot more than a few punches in the face to scare me off," he teased her. "Like talking about names for babies, for instance."

[fieldpromoted]

The word 'babies' provoked a shudder that went all the way down her spine and had nothing to do with the wandering hands. "No thank you. Some women are meant for children and I am just not one of those women. I'm not even good with kids of other species, much less kids of my own species." Kang's kids in the Sensoriums had taught her that much. "Every time someone hands me a baby I feel like I'm going to drop it. And they cry and smell. I only have one thing in this world I want to love that much and it's my X-wing."

Really. She talked to it while she worked on it too, sometimes in a baby voice when she was sure nobody else was around.