It wasn't his fault.
They carried her body to the valley and buried it in the dry riverbed; shallowly, so that when the water came it would carry her away as per her clan's tradition. The funeral rites had to be performed by a female, so Marcus gave Susan her instructions and she set about following them. She removed Marenn's clothes and laid them out in the grave beneath her, and then folded her hands placidly between her breasts. She slipped a small flower into her fingers and tore a narrow piece of black cloth from her own uniform jacket to place over her open eyes. Then, smoothing the dusty sand overtop of her prepared form, she took three steps back and whispered the prayer she'd memorized.
When she'd finished she stood silently, staring at the mound of disturbed earth. A hand came up from behind her and set itself on her shoulder, returning the comfort she'd tried to offer him however many days ago. She winced slightly at the contact, wrapped her arms around herself, and shut the world away.
Dusk fell soon after, allowing them just enough time to transfer what few supplies they had left to the valley. They set up camp on the middle ground, not entirely out of the protection the valley offered from the wind and dust but not close enough to the riverbed so as to be washed away when the rain came. The new structure was arguably better than the last, its builders having had some practice with the materials and the act itself, and was large enough for them both to sleep without being uncomfortably close.
As the second moon climbed slowly above the horizon, Susan sat with her legs folded up to her chest, back resting against the short vertical edge of the valley. Resting her chin on arms wrapped around her knees, she watched the satellite's progress with vague disinterest. The ground sloped gently away from her feet, angling towards the flat riverbed several metres away, where Marenn's grave was just barely visible in the pale light.
A shiver ran over her bare arms and she wished for her jacket. It was lying in the shelter, she knew, balled up for use as a pillow. It wasn't really much good for anything else, torn and hole-filled as it was, but it would provide at least a little more warmth than just her tattered, once-white and once-sleeved blouse. Retrieving it, though, would mean moving, and moving would mean expending energy.
Footsteps crunched the soil behind her, and then Marcus hopped into the valley beside her, dropping down to sit. He held out a water canteen to her and she took it gratefully despite her mild annoyance at his interruption of her solitude. She sipped with painful control, being absolutely sure not to take more than her share.
"How much do we have left?" she asked, handing it back to him and running her tongue over her parched lips.
"We still have the other canteen," he told her, checking to make certain the cap was on tightly and setting it down in the sand next to him, "and some of the water we collected in the bent pieces of hull. A lot of that's evaporated, mind you." He sighed quietly. "And there's some cactus meat left."
"We should try to dig a well," Susan suggested.
"Yeah," he agreed, gazing down at the riverbed. Neither of them moved.
"Maybe in the morning."
"Yeah."
The silence stretched between them for long minutes. Susan shivered again despite herself and Marcus glanced over at her. "Do you want my cloak?" he offered.
"I'm fine," she replied. If he could sit there in only his trousers and not be cold, so could she, dammit.
He nodded acceptingly, and the silence returned. She stared down at Marenn's grave absently. "How're you doing?" he asked softly.
"Fine," she said shortly.
"Susan…" It was said kindly, but she could hear the warning in his voice. He knew better than to believe her when she got like this. "It's not easy to be there when someone dies—"
"I'm fine, alright?" she snapped. "Who asked you, anyway?"
Irritably, she pushed herself to her feet and headed down to the shelter. With more force than was necessary, she punched her makeshift pillow into a more comfortable shape and flopped down onto the ground, her back to the opening of the shelter. Closing her eyes, she fumed silently at Marcus' nosiness.
A while later, when she had calmed down somewhat and was trying to clear her mind for sleep, she heard Marcus approaching. He sat next to her and shifted around for half a minute, then lay down. His voice floated through the darkness to her in a whisper, "Susan?"
I'm asleep, I'm asleep, I'm asleep…
She heard him sigh softly. "Well, good night then."
He sounded sad, she realized. Deeply, soulfully sad, and something twinged inside her. Guilt, perhaps, at her rude treatment of him. She shut her eyes and tentatively opened her mind. Guilt, his this time, not hers, washed over her. It was overwhelming, even to her pitifully weak psi senses, and her breath caught in her throat. She was rolling over before she could stop herself. "Marcus?" her voice came out hoarse and she cleared her throat self-consciously.
He was lying on his back and looked over at her. "You're awake," he commented. She wondered if the strain in his voice was new, or if it'd always been there, unnoticed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
He blinked. "For what?"
"For being such an ass to you," she chuckled self-deprecatingly.
"You weren't being an ass," he told her, smiling gently. He shifted onto his side to get her more comfortably into his field of view. "It wasn't my place to go prodding into your personal space."
She shrugged. "I just thought I should apologize… you know, no hard feelings or anything." Catching herself in the crime of being slightly sentimental, she amended, "I mean, we're stuck here after all; we have to manage to not kill each other, and now that we're alone—" Her throat closed up on the word and before she was quite aware of what was happening she was blinking rapidly against tears.
She rolled over hastily, hoping in vain that he hadn't noticed. She struggled to speak steadily and sound vaguely coherent. "Anyhow, I'm dead tired." She squeezed her eyes shut and cursed her choice of words. She faked a stifled yawn. "Night." She prayed he'd leave it at that.
He didn't of course, and though the feel of his hesitant hand on her arm made her eyes sting viciously, she feigned sleep with stoic, though perhaps stupid, resolve.
The morning sun streaked through the gaps in the shelter's lean-to roof, drawing Susan gradually from a deep, peaceful sleep. She stirred groggily and pushed herself up, looking around through bleary eyes. Marcus was nowhere to be seen, but the light outside looked distinctly grey. Her stomach leaping with hope, she crawled forward and stuck her head outside.
It was cloudy. She nearly wept with relief. Cloudy meant rainy, and rainy meant water. Pure, fresh, water, for the first time in weeks. Her gaze lingered on the promising sky, feeling a slight shiver run over her, and not entirely due to the cool air. The sun was a blurry bright patch overhead, filtering down to bathe the landscape in an eerie grey that seemed to suck away the colours. She rubbed her bare arms and reached for her jacket.
She'd abandoned the jacket long ago, but removing the sleeves of her blouse had been a more recent decision. It had bared her space-pale skin to the sun and she'd been burned a deep pink for several long, uncomfortable days. Thankfully, the itchy blisters had eventually faded into a sturdy tan, one that now looked a sickly shade of grey in the odd light, as had Marcus's. His burns had been much worse—the man had been so pale she wouldn't have been surprised in the least if he hadn't stepped outside in less than that turtle-necked robe since he joined the Rangers. Suddenly plunging all that sensitive skin into exposure from not just a sun, but a hot, powerful, blue sun had to have been torture. For his sake, she was glad he'd healed.
For her sake, he was much nicer to look at without peeling flakes of dead skin all over him. It had been something of a shock to see him pull that cloak off the first time; she couldn't recall ever seeing him in anything else. Abruptly, she'd been presented with a skinny but muscled chest, and damned if she'd admit the rush of heat she'd felt at the realization that he really couldn't be called unattractive.
She shoved her thoughts away before they took her any further down a road she did not want to follow and got to her feet. She headed for the rain catchers, pulling her jacket on as she walked. She found them already in position, propped up carefully with dirt, and sighed. Marcus must've done it. He did everything, it seemed.
She struggled a bit to shake off the useless feeling as she returned to the shelter and removed the cover on their food burrow. The lone piece of cactus lay forlornly at the bottom, shrivelled slightly and not terribly appetizing. Despite the lack of appeal, Susan's stomach grumbled and she reached down to collect the chunk. Marcus had gathered it, too. In all fairness, she'd been busy tending Marenn, but still there it was, another thing Marcus had had to do because she couldn't. Resentment tempted her to eat the whole thing, but her sense of equity and justice outweighed it by far, while sinking guilt returned with grief to weaken her appetite.
She hadn't really known Marenn. She'd never spoken a word to her, not one that she'd understood, anyway. But still she'd cared for her, held her, whispered in her ear to calm her when the delirium brought nightmares, been in every way something of a friend to her. The cry of pain she'd barely heard herself make when she woke to find her lifeless, not just unconscious, was testament to that.
Blinking back the sting in her eyes, she broke the cactus meat in half and took the smaller piece.
When she felt the warm drop on her cheek, she wiped it quickly away, fearing it might be a tear. Marcus was approaching, she couldn't let him see her so weak—
Another drop hit her forehead and she looked up. Rain, not tears. She got shakily to her feet and as Marcus came up beside her with news that he'd been out scouting—the riverbed, as far as he could tell, went all the way to the mountains and they might consider moving since there was bound to be better shelter—she hardly heard him. It was raining, Marenn was dead, they were alone, and what the hell was the point of anything?
She caught him about the shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief moment and letting the human contact loosen the painful knot in her chest before she pulled away. "It's raining," she said as if that explained everything and smiled with trembling lips, holding a hand out to catch the drops.
Before long, there was a growing stream running down the riverbed. It flowed around Marenn, slowly eroding the soil piled over her. It poured over her body, wetting her robes and washing the dirt off her skin. She glowed in the bluish half-light, pale face serene, as the water lifted her gently and carried her haltingly away.
Susan watched and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, very much aware of Marcus next to her. He looked as though he was half-tempted to follow the young woman as she drifted away, making a false start and then turning away under the pretext of digging a rain catcher a little further into the ground.
Susan moved off without a word, walking slowly on the slippery bank and forcefully keeping her mind away from all things unhappy. She followed the river upstream until the valley grew too steep to keep her balance. She waded for a while, pants rolled up to her knees, and then paused, looking down in vague amusement. Why bother? She glanced over her shoulder to reassure herself of her privacy more out of habit than anything else and then stripped her pants off, draping them with her jacket over a nearby shrub to be picked up later. She continued on her way, now pushing her way through the deep part of the stream.
Out of breath, she stopped for a moment and just stood, digging her bare toes into the soft bottom. She splashed water over her face, rinsing away some of the grime, and then cupped her hands and drank. It was warm but refreshing as it washed down her throat. Smiling, she moved on.
She laughed as she stumbled again and again, sometimes just staggering and sometimes pitching over face-first. It was above her hips now, making walking nearly impossible. She pushed off and swam with as much force as she could muster, but found herself still being dragged backwards. She gave up easily and turned around, letting the current carry her at a half-decent pace.
As she was flung around a corner, her legs dragged along the bottom and she winced at the rough sand, kicking to center herself again. Marcus and the camp came into view, darker spots just above the edge of the water. She laughed again, thanking whatever power had stopped the rising tide before it swept away their home, a laugh that cut itself off abruptly as her foot hit something underwater with considerable force. She pulled her legs up as best she could and peered down into the murky depths. Seeing nothing, she had only just dismissed it as a rock or other piece of debris when something quite definitely not a rock attached itself to her calf.
Sudden pain shot up her leg, making her cry out, startled as much as hurt. She jerked away, swimming haphazardly towards shore. Whatever had latched on was not letting go – she could feel it pulling at her skin, tearing flesh and spreading a red cloud in the water around her. She cried out again, kicking fiercely, and at last felt her flailing hands meet solid ground. She struggled to heave herself up, out of the stream, but more pain bit into her wrist. She yelled, feeling the sandy ground slipping away as whatever had her pulled her back into the water. Her head went under briefly and she wrenched it back up, spitting and gasping for air.
Something else, hard and strong, grabbed her under the arms. She shrieked, thrashing, determined to get away. She was not going to be eaten. Especially not while it was raining. God, she thought dimly as the large thing hauled her backwards, out of the water, of all the days to get eaten, why this one? It's not fair…
The world was fading a bit at the edges and her head felt light, her thoughts a disjointed cloud. Marcus was above her, saying something with an urgent look on his face, but all she could think of was how odd it was that he'd tried to eat her. The pain had vanished and she smiled faintly, closing her eyes as rain pounded into them. She was awfully tired – when was the last time she'd gotten a good night's sleep? It must've been a while…
"Susan!"
The shout was near her ear and jolted her back to consciousness. Her eyes opened blearily and she blinked water out of them. "What?" she slurred, struggling to sit up. She was so heavy and so tired…
Pain lanced up her arm as she put weight on it and she grunted, bringing it around to see. A neat circle of bleeding red dots patterned her wrist: distinct teeth marks. The memory of what must've only just happened returned and she pulled herself upright with her good hand, gaping down at her leg. The same red dots had drenched half her lower leg in blood. Marcus was working quickly to tie a strip of cloth around her thigh. He yanked it tight and she made an irritated noise of complaint at the discomfort.
He glanced up at her. "Stay with me this time," he instructed tersely.
"How long was I out?" she asked, still feeling a bit sleepy. There must've been some sort of poison in the bites…
"Not long," he replied, tearing another strip of cloth from… were those her pants? She had half a mind to berate him for that, too, but talking required energy and that seemed to be in short supply. He scuttled around to her other side and grabbed her injured wrist, tying the make-shift tourniquet around her upper arm. She wrinkled her nose slightly. "Any pain?" he asked, peering at the wounds carefully, as if checking for any teeth that might've lodged in her skin. He probably was, she mused, the overprotective bastard.
"No," she replied, vaguely surprised by the truth of her statement. Well, her mind remarked sardonically, if you're going to be poisoned, it might as well be with an anaesthetic.
He seemed to be of the same opinion as her inner voice and said so. She laughed a bit and let her head fall back down. The sleepiness was returning, and she knew well enough to fight it. It seemed a useless battle to fight; every second she struggled to keep awake, the pain grew. It was awfully tempting…
Marcus pounded the ground next to her ear and she jerked. "I'm awake!" she snapped, sitting up. With her good hand, she wiped rain out of her eyes and screamed. Marcus wasn't Marcus. His eyes glowed the eerie blue of the sun and when he opened his mouth, needle-like teeth glinted at her. He reached out, crawling towards her, a rotting, twisted hand seizing her shoulder. She shoved him away, crying out briefly at the pain it sent along her arm, and scrambled backwards. Words, unintelligible, flew out of his monster mouth alongside a legion of beetles. They swarmed around her, black shells scuttling across the sand and oily wings hissing through the air, pincers poised to bite whatever they came across. And, if the intent gleam in their beady red eyes was any indication, that was going to be her.
She beat at them, trying desperately to get away, to get out of this sudden nightmare. The Marcus-monster caught her as she struggled to stand, bringing her back down. She sank a fist into his gut, meeting hard muscle and bending her already-hurt wrist back painfully. He held her tightly, strong arms wrapped around her in such a restricting grip that she could hardly breathe, let alone move. Her heart hammered in her chest, her lungs gasping for air. Cold terror washed over her again and again, but try as she might, she couldn't get free.
The pounding adrenaline began to fade, and her energy left her in a rush. She slumped, defeated, and waited to be eaten alive with a strange sort of commitment. Mama… I'll see you soon.
The arms around her relaxed slightly but, to her surprise, the fatal strike never came. Instead, a hand held her head gently to a warm, solid chest. She pulled away and felt her stomach drop out again. The terrible face was still there. The monster, the creature, was stroking her hair. She punched it as hard as she could.
It reeled back and swore, sounding distinctly British. Susan's vision swam, the beetles around her vanishing and the monster's features going fuzzy. She blinked hard and saw Marcus before her, nursing a split lip. He gave her a rather affronted look and made a sarcastic comment that she couldn't quite hear over the headache that was blooming behind her eyes. She raised a hand to her temple, groaned softly, and fell backwards, unconscious.
What a day.