AN: Sooooo sorry about the long delay in getting chapters up…again. I had a wild, crazy summer, then I got sidetracked by prettyshinysparkly Supernatural plot bunnies (yes, they sparkle, just like those vampires from Twilight), and then school started. Real life—what a hassle. So anyway, here's the next installment of "Why Did Ben Turn Into a Crazy Chicken" aka "The Wound of Sorrow."
Thanks so much to FirstBorn for putting up with my silly "Does the period go here or here? Or should that be a semicolon? Or a comma? What's another word for 'body'? Help me! *flails*" questions.
The Wound of Sorrow
Chapter 10
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Alabama, December 2009
December this year is cold, even though they're in the southern United States where it is supposed to be warmer, or so Ben had been taught back at Manticore. It's certainly not cold enough to snow here, but it's cold enough.
Ben doesn't feel the drop in temperature as much as Maria does, but even then, his grubby two layers—a ratty t-shirt with an adult-sized flannel shirt over it—do little to shield him from the biting wind. He'd shrugged his jacket off and covered Maria's thin shoulders with it back in October when she'd begun to shiver from the lack of the sun's life-giving warmth after dark.
She finds a ragged scrap of what was once a blue blanket one day and offers it to Ben. He shakes his head; he's warm enough, and besides, Maria needs it more. She's not built to withstand cold temperatures like he is, and he's noticed her voice has developed a scratchy, hoarse quality in recent days. Swallowing seems painful (sometimes to the point that it keeps her from eating, much to Ben's concern), and every now and then, she clears her throat and winces. Her body temperature has risen too. Her skin feels warmer than Ben's, but she shivers all the same. She doesn't move as fast as she used to, either. It seems to hurt her, as if she's sore all over.
Maria never complains, but Ben knows what's wrong: she's sick. 'Sick' had no meaning for him at Manticore, but since he has gotten out, he's seen what having a weaker immune system than his results in. Ever since the end of summer, people all around them have been shivering and coughing and hacking up gobs of rust-colored phlegm. He's seen the paleness, the hectic color in the emaciated cheeks, the fever-bright eyes. He's seen the dead as well—people die from falling ill in a world where food and medicine are scarce.
Maria can't die. Therefore, he refuses the tattered cloth again. Maria raises a brow, "You sure?" and wraps the dirty blue material around her head, tying the ends securely under her chin. Ben is once again strongly reminded of Blue Lady by the statues he sees in the churches Maria takes them to sometimes. He goes in with her and sits beside her as she sits down in the pews and mutters, "Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia…" over and over again with her eyes closed and cold fingers grasping the golden pendant she still wears around her neck.
Ben recognizes them as the same words as those she'd chanted that night he'd found Mark Richardson terrorizing her, the night he'd killed without a thought apart from being a good soldier and protecting Maria, the night she ran away with him.
He asks once, and she tells him she's praying. He tries to ask further what exactly prayer is, but she shushes him. It's quiet in the church; maybe that's why. It's like in the barracks, when you're not supposed to talk after lights out, but you can whisper if you're careful.
He surmises that praying is like wishing. Maria says it's different, but she won't, or can't, explain what the difference is. She doesn't pray much now, not out loud, anyway. She doesn't say much at all. It hurts too much to talk.
She leads him to a church one day when it's raining. Each drop of water feels like ice, and they can see their breaths making clouds of fog in front of them. This chapel has stained glass windows and long wooden benches, much like other churches, but today, there are many more people inside than usual.
"It's Christmas," Maria whispers to him in her broken-glass voice.
"What's that?" Ben whispers back.
She puts a finger over her lips and points to an elderly man dressed all in black except for a white collar, who has just stepped onto the raised platform in front of the statue of the man nailed to the giant wooden cross in the front of the room. The Blue Lady stands directly under him. She is as warm and kind as ever, in all her regal glory.
"Listen."
The priest (Ben is reminded of Father John from Minnesota, back in March a lifetime ago) talks about a woman named Mary ("La Virgen Maria," Maria says under her breath, nodding along) and the birth of a child. It's an interesting story, but Ben's already read a version of it before, at a library in Mississippi. He hadn't understood the allure of it then, but looking at the rapt faces around him, he thinks that there may be something to it after all.
Maria believes it. She hasn't led him astray yet. He trusts her, as much as if she'd been in his unit. Ben feels a pang in his chest as he thinks of his brothers and sisters. He wonders where they are today, what they're doing, if they're alone or if they've found someone to keep the loneliness at bay like he has. He misses them.
Everyone in the church is kneeling now, their knees resting on the wooden bar at the foot of the benches and their hands clasped together. Many of them have their eyes closed and their faces are upturned. Maria's doing the same, and she's praying in Spanish, her cracked lips moving soundlessly (except for the perpetual labored wheezing from her lungs) around the fluid syllables. Ben thinks that maybe he ought to do the same, to blend in.
He gets on his knees, and the hard surface bites into his bony joints. He can see the Blue Lady from where he is, so he…prays to her, to keep his family safe and to make Maria well, to make her strong.
Beside him, Maria moans once and slumps down. Ben catches her in his arms and holds her tight. Heat radiates from her twitching body, and her head falls back limply against Ben's shoulder. The blue cloth around her head slips off, letting loose a halo of unwashed hair, dark against her face, which is wan under the accumulated grime of the past seven months.
Ben turns to the Blue Lady.
"Help me."
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A little past the Washington-Oregon state line, May 8, 2034
Mila shifts in her seat for the fifth time in as many minutes. Sixty-seven times altogether since they'd left the diner.
Alec glances over at her. Tiny droplets of sweat bead her hairline and her dark curls hang limply, hiding her face. She's leaning against the window, the side of her forehead against the cool glass. "You okay, kid? Too warm in here?" he asks, reaching for the AC control.
Mila opens her mouth to answer, but clamps it back shut and shakes her head instead.
"Uh." Alec doesn't know what's wrong with the kid. She can't be hungry already; they just ate what, two hours ago? It was crappy food, but it was food, and she ate the whole thing, same as him. Even he isn't hungry yet, despite his fast metabolism. So it's not that.
Bathroom break, maybe. Girls have to pee a lot, don't they? "Do you have to you know, go?" he asks as delicately as possible.
He gets another baffling head-shake in response. Al-righty.
"So, uh, what's wrong?" Maybe he hurt her feelings somehow. Odd, they'd only talked about the normal sort of thing you talk about with a newfound test-tube relative. Like, you know, ordinary conversation stuff.
This time, she turns her head and meets his eyes. Goddamn, the kid looks miserable. Pale, clammy skin, pinched around the mouth (still tightly clamped shut), dull eyes. With her arms wrapped around her middle and her shoulders hunched over like that she looks…oh.
"Are you sick?" Only logical choice left.
Stupid question. Mila obviously wants to roll her eyes, if it wouldn't make her even more nauseous. This realization should stop a normal person. But of course, being related to Alec, she goes ahead and indulges in a spectacular eye-roll…and promptly gags.
With a shout of, "Whoa!" Alec quickly maneuvers the SUV onto the mercifully empty shoulder as Mila scrabbles at the passenger door and practically falls out of the moving vehicle in her haste to empty her stomach anyplace that isn't in her lap.
The retching sounds coming through the open door from outside make Alec wince in sympathy. He gets out and walks over to where Mila is heaving up her breakfast and then some. He squats down next to her and pats her back awkwardly.
Huh, so is that what partially-digested pancake looks like? Nasty. Interesting, but still gross.
She finally stops vomiting, and just stays there, on her hands and knees, arms shaking like Alec's do after a few thousand push-ups in one go. There are strings of saliva hanging from her hair and mouth. She dry-heaves a few more times and pants.
"Um, are you okay?" Alec tries tentatively, tapping her back again.
Mila sniffs and lets the breath out through her mouth. "Do I look okay?"
Rhetorical question. At least she's still sarcastic. Lovely. "Are you done ralphing? Can you, um, get up and get in the car? We shouldn't stay here." That might sound a little cruel, but taking into account that 'here' happens to be the middle of nowhere, he thinks she might want to be sick somewhere more comfortable. There are trees on both sides of the road, and nothing else for miles.
"Momento," Mila gasps and sits back on her heels. She pulls her sweaty hair back and wipes her mouth on her sleeve. She groans, "Okay."
"Okay?" Yeah, she doesn't look okay to Alec. Her face is still gray and her hands are shaking.
"No, not okay," the sick teen snarks back weakly as she folds her arms over her roiling stomach. "I hate you." She dives forward and proceeds to vomit once more.
Something tells Alec they're going to be parked there for a while. He holds back her hair while she pukes. After all, it's gentlemanly to make oneself useful around young women who are hacking up their breakfasts.
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Translations:
Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia… = Hail Mary, full of grace… (The first line of the Catholic Hail Mary prayer)
La Virgen Maria = The Virgin Mary
Momento = moment
Pop Culture References:
The Blue Lady is, obviously, the Virgin Mary.
"Ralphing": Alec calls an X6 girl "Ralph" in "Bag 'Em" because she threw up after seeing one of her unit-mates wounded.
That's basically it for pop culture references in this chapter.