"Different from the simulator, isn't it Vasquez?" Apone smirked, tucking an unlit cigar on his mouth.

Vasquez groaned and pulled herself into a sitting position in the small hypersleep chamber.

"Your friend doesn't seem to have the same kind of problem." Spunkmeyer chuckled.

She turned her head carefully to the chamber by her side.

Drake had fallen asleep and was now snoring, with a thin line of drool starting to make its way from a corner of his parted lips.

"Is it always this bad?" She grumbled, to no one in particular.

"Well babe, yah see, it's a total pain in the ass when we wake up from long trips, but this? We call this a fucking nap." Hudson grinned, coming a little too close for her liking.

"Careful Hudson. I'm not going to help you looking for your teeth again." Hicks warned as he walked by the two marines.

"Okay ladies, ten minutes in the playground then I want to see everyone's ass in the mess hall! No exception!" Apone yelled to the awaking marines. "Vasquez, wake up sleeping beauty, would you?"

She growled, but got up.

Her muscles felt like jelly, her vision was blurred; her mouth was filled with a raw taste and each sound seemed to leave a ringing echo on her ears. She also felt a lot like she would puke at any moment, but ignoring that, she forced her fist against the thick wall of muscles that composed Drake's abdomen.

He gave a deep pant and a groan, his face contorted in a grimace of annoyance, which at least contributed to raise her mood a little bit.

"Couldn't you have just shaken my arm a bit?" he hissed.

"Of course I could, but you see, I'm not a flight attendant." She joked, before heading to the lockers room.

She soon understood what Apone meant with 'playground'.

Spunkmeyer had just slapped Ferro's ass with a rolled shirt and she was now threatening to stick a hanger up his ass while Wierzbowski and Frost cheered, the rest of the team discussing who could kick the other's ass if a fight cracked.

Ten minutes in Gateway Station and Vasquez knew that most of the team were a bunch of clowns.

Apone, Hicks and Ferro weren't that bad, Wierzbowski, Crowe, Spunkmeyer, Frost and Dietrich were just a bit childish and then there were two very special cases.

Hudson could be called a player, although Vasquez doubted he could ever get laid. But he certainly tried, had even dared to slip an arm around her shoulders and thrown a really bad pickup line at her, while his hand started to slide down her back. Had to spend the next five minutes searching for his teeth with Hick's help.

Then there was the lieutenant. Apone didn't even had to tell her he was a synthetic, it was rather obvious. Also a bit strange, Weyland Yutani usually cared about making their synthetics as human as possible, but Flynn seemed to lack on that ability a lot. Both his speaking and movements were obviously robotics, plus his eyes were always gazing at anything, except the person he was talking to. It was like his programming prevented him from establishing eye contact.

Vasquez shocked her head and mobilized her shoulders, trying to get over the numbness that reigned over her body, before she noticed the not too high metal bar.

She had to tiptoe to grab it, but at least she reached it by herself.

She heard a few amused comments and another poll started, this one being about the number of pull-ups she could manage.

She turned around with a challenging look as she heard Frost commenting that she couldn't even reach ten.

"How much you wanna bet?" she defied. The other marines cheered again, placing bills on a metallic bench and throwing her a bunch of numbers.

Vasquez clapped her hands loudly to put a stop on the noise. "Sixty. No less. Fifty bucks from each one of you if I can do it. Agreed?" The marines shouted a loud 'yes', almost as in a chorus.

She took a deep breath and grabbed the bar, this time pulling herself up.

Her teammates whistled and kept daring her, most were pretty amazed with how easily she pulled herself up and down, how her breathing was deep, but controlled.

Around the twentieth pull-up, Drake showed up and immediately laughed as Crowe told him about the poll.

"What a waste of money." He commented, shaking his head and sitting alongside with Hudson and Hicks, on the front line.

Vasquez tank top was sticking to her skin from the sweat that ran down her neck and back, but she did not care about that.

Even though her muscles were aching and it felt like her tendons could break at any moment, she did more five pull-ups after she finished the sixty she'd set up. She dropped herself to the floor and turned around victoriously, grabbing the pile of bills and placing it on the bottom of her locket.

"Jeez Vas, couldn't you have called me earlier? I could have won some bucks too." Drake whispered as he ran his finger over her tensed biceps.

"Have you turned in a furcia without me knowing?" she inquired. Drake tilted his head as he tried to find a meaning to whatever she'd called him.

"Whatever you say. You wanna take a swim at the pool?" he asked, already turning to the changing rooms.

"Ni siquiera muerta me encontrarías en una maldita piscina!" she suddenly snapped.

"What? The hell you mean?" he stammered a bit from her sudden burst of Spanish.

"I'm not going into that damn pool." Her head was hanging lower than it usually did.

"Oh, so you don't know how to swim." Drake smirked. "Well Vas, you came to the right person. I´ll teach you…"

"I know how to swim idiota! I just don't like doing it." She threw a clean top over her shoulder and hurried out of the lockers room.

"Wait! Why do you say that? You look like a damn good swimmer." He stated as he ran after her.

"You can't possibly say a person is good swimmer just because…"

"Hey! I said that I wanted to see everyone in the mess hall, you two included!" Apone rebuked loudly.

"No, you said you wanted to see our asses in ten minutes." Drake dared to say.

"And we don't have any watches to know when those ten minutes would be." Vasquez stepped ahead, which made Apone take a step back and wave his hand on front of his nose.

"I'll give you five minutes to get a fucking shower. God, Vasquez you smell like a rugby team."

"That's what usually happens after you exercise." She replied with a shrug.

"Your five minutes just went to three." The sergeant smirked as he started trying to drag Drake to the mess hall.

"Damn it, I can walk by my fucking self!" Drake mumbled as he pulled his arm free. "We will still have to talk about those swimming classes Vas!"

"Leave your sister alone, Drake." Apone growled. Vasquez laughed, but hurried her pace as Apone raised two fingers.

Furcia- whore

Ni siquiera muerta me encontrarías en una maldita piscina- Not even dead would you find me in a damn pool

The Sulaco was made by Weyland Yutani and so I though that they would have built a pool for the marines to exercise, after all, swiming is a great way to keep in shape and having in count that the marines are risking their lives to protect the colonies so they obviously deserve one.