Lucía couldn't figure out why, but even after being out in the field most of the day, she still felt the itch to burn something. It was satisfying to burn her enemies, but she didn't always have the chance to relish it. Sitting at a table in the workshop, she sat working on her flamethrower again. The weapon sprawled across the table, part of it dismantled, the gas tank separated from the rest of it and empty of all contents. But Lucía wasn't even looking at it. She had her mask laying on the table before her and sat leaning her head into her arms, holding her lighter in her hands and flicking the switch on and off.
She was exhausted. Both physically and mentally. At at this point, she really didn't feel like doing anything.
And so she sat there, eyes closed in contemplation. The Pyro had half a mind to head out and find something to burn when she heard the door opening behind her. Her heart stopped and she panicked. She grabbed a tarp off the floor by the workbench and ripped it up over the device.
"Hey," a man said in a surprised tone. "I didn't expect to see you down here. Is this where you work?"
Lucía recognized the voice as the blonde man's and turned around to see him walking over to her. This was bad. Really bad. She probably looked a bit different to him, especially wearing her boyish clothes, but he didn't seem to care about it. He was, however, holding a plate covered with tin foil. "I, uh, don't really work down here," she said nervously.
"Looks like you're doing some kind of work, then," he said. "What is it?"
"Oh, nothing much, really," she replied. Her hands fought to play with her lighter again. "What- What's in your hands, anyways?"
"Oh! This!" The man suddenly remembered. "They're cookies!" He pulled back the foil to reveal, as he said, cookies. "I usually have a friend who's down here and I like to visit him from time to time."
"That wouldn't be...?"
The man considered her suggestive tone. "Who? The Engineer?"
Lucía nodded.
The man laughed. "No way! Like anyone could be friends with the mercenaries!"
The Pyro furrowed her brows.
He noticed her confusion. "Er, I mean. The Administrator. We're all separated so it just goes without saying..."
"Oh, that makes sense." She looked down, thinking about it.
"You can have one, you know."
When she looked back up, she realized the tin foil was still pulled back, and he was extending the plate out towards her now. She hesitated before reaching over and plucking it off the plate.
The man started backing away towards the door while saying, "I'll let you work on... Whatever that thing is. Oh!" He stopped. "What should I call you? If that's okay, of course."
"What should you...?" The only things she could think of were Pyro and Lucía. She started wracking her brain for a name. Any name. "Amelia." Amelia? she immediately thought.
"That's a beautiful name. Surely fit for you." He tried to flirt again, but she remained straight-faced. He cleared his throat and said, "You can call me Blake."
She nodded.
When the man continued to the door, he looked back as he placed a hand on the door handle and mentioned, "You might want to get a different mask if you're going to be welding something." And then he left.
Lucía's hand loosened its grip on her cookie and she nearly dropped it like her heart dropped into her stomach. She didn't want to look back, but when she checked the work bench, she saw her mask lying out, plain as day.
"O-oh dios..." she said and just wanted to kill herself. She might as well. Why did things have to be so hard for her?
She couldn't bring herself to eat the cookie. Instead, she simply threw it away. She pulled her mask on to continue working, but she just couldn't bring herself to do anything. So she gathered her things together, piecing the weapon back together again with shaking hands and opted to drag it back over into the base. She had her mask on, but it felt like everyone was staring at her, like everyone knew who she was. Her mind just wouldn't let it go. And the more she worried, the more she needed to burn something.
The darkness of the night was falling around her, but she didn't care. Not even when the sun was so low in the sky. Instead, the Pyro had amassed a good pile of papers, cardboard boxes, and a number of other things she could carry up here. She really missed having a fireplace, though. But perhaps a miniature bonfire was better than nothing. And so she pulled out her lighter and picked up a piece of paper. There were a number of things written on it, but the words didn't interest her. The Pyro lit the paper in her hand and watched it burn. It felt warm against her skin, and she was so used to burning things that the heat barely bothered her anymore.
As the flames got close to her hand, she dropped the page on the concrete and plucked up another one. And as she burned that, she pulled aside some more papers and laid the burning one down to disintegrate into the the pile. They slowly caught and started filling the air with their warmth, flames wavering between the paper.
Her body slowly began to relax as she sat there watching the flames. She felt relieved.
It took a short time for the pile to whither away in the flames, and as they were close to dying, Lucía took the papers the set aside and started burning them individually in her hands again.
The door opened behind her and she jumped. One of the papers fell loose from her hand and slid between her fingers, the flames snapping against her hand as it passed beneath it.
"OW!" she yelped and started waving her hand. When she looked back, she saw the Spy standing there surprised.
He quickly walked to her side while saying, "Forgive me. Did I surprise you?"
Lucía nodded. "Yeah, but I'm okay."
"Come, chérie, burns are never okay," he said, while holding out a hand to help her up.
"I'm fine," she insisted with a small smile. "I mean it."
"I don't believe you for a second," the Spy replied. Then he swept the woman up into his arms and started carrying her to the door.
"Whoa!" She was surprised at first, then nervous. "W-wait! What if someone sees us?"
"We should probably hurry to zhe Clinic, zhen, no?" he said, and when they passed through the door at the bottom of the stairs, he hastily walked through the halls, careful as to what corners he passed on the way. He probably could have cloaked them both, but he found this much more fun.
When they arrived at the Clinic, he was happy to find that it was void of anyone else. So he laid her down on the closest bed and said, "Wait here for a moment."
And so she did. Like she would be able to get away anyways. But he was back in a moment with a green plant stem in his hand. "Aloe?"
He nodded and pulled the two sides of it apart, revealing the green goop within.
"You have one here?" she asked.
"Have one, found one..." he juggled his answer. The Spy took her hand in his and laid the opened plant leaf down against the burned area and spread it around.
"You probably would," she said quietly.
"Definitely comes in handy in my line of work."
Lucía started wondering what it might've been like on the other end of the flamethrower, without the suit to protect her. As she looked up at him, focused on helping her at the moment, she felt bad for him.
"Now, does zhis return zhe favor of you bringing me here the ozher night?" he looked up at her with a smile.
"So that's why you did that..." Lucía smiled back at him.
"I originally went up zhere to find out where you were. Wayne had called everyone togezher for a meeting," he said and stood up to lay the aloe leaf on Reiner's desk.
"Oh..." That was probably a bad thing to miss. "What was it about?"
"Discussed some plans of attack he'd been thinking of, showed some plans he'd been looking into with modifying some of our weapons, too," he explained.
She moaned disappointedly. That was definitely a bad thing to miss.
"You can probably just find Wayne and figure out what you missed," the Spy suggested.
"Yeah," she nodded. "But, you know, I kinda need my mask."
"I can fetch zhat for you easy. But you're all right now, yes?"
Lucía chuckled. "Yes, thank you."
When he left the room to get her mask, the Pyro lifted her hand to examine the aloe on it. She often remembered having an aloe plant at home for whenever things like this happened. It always helped. And by now, the pain was completely gone. Lucía stood up and walked into the bathroom to wash her hand off. When she looked in the mirror, she saw how messy her hair looked. What was once a sloppy bun was made worse by the friction of her mask over her head. After she washed her hand, she let it down and combed her fingers through the tangled black strands until it fell generally neatly over her shoulders again. Lucía stared at it for a moment before pulling it back up again into the same bun and stepping outside.
The Spy was waiting for her, the mask flopping over his gloved hands. "Thank you," she said as she took it.
"Don't mention it," he replied. After the Pyro fit her mask over her head again, she opened the door and walked out into the hall, turning in the direction of where she assumed the Engineer would be. The Spy turned in the opposite direction, lighting a cigarette in his mouth, and they parted ways for the night.