I sat in front of Simmons, out of armor and granola bar in hand as I kept munching on it. Although my watch job was for the man of maroon, I kept an eye on Wash. Every once in a while, he'd end up wobbling; nearly passing out. Suddenly, he collapsed to the ground, hunched over as he man a few, sudden, wrenching noises.
"I am not cleaning that up for you." I laughed.
"No need to be a bitch." He looked over his shoulder, venom in his words as he swayed, subtly.
"Maine?" I glanced over at the brute as I stood up, picking up the water bottle next to me. The man gave me a nod in understanding and took my place as I walked up to Wash. I knelt down in front of the collapsed man, "I don't appreciate the way you treat me." I spoke in a stern, hopefully demeaning tone.
"Well then, perhaps you should start doing as you're told." He spoke with sarcasm dripping from his voice. I leaned forward slightly, moving my hands up in order to unfasten his helmet, "The hell are you doing." He tone was more punctual than questioning.
"Helping you out." I sighed, pulling off his helmet and holding it on my lap and examining the man's features.
"Well, stop it. I'm fine."
"No, you're not." I gave a false laugh, "You're not sweating. You've been almost passing out for the past while. You're eyes are too far back. You're vomiting." I reached up to his face, "You've got a fever. I wouldn't doubt if you have a headache. All symptoms of dehydration."
"I'm fine." He pushed my hand away, "Besides, if we survived that reconnaissance mission, a few days is nothing."
"You know what we had on that reconnaissance mission? Snow." I growled under my breath, reaching for my water bottle, "Here." I sighed, handing him the plastic container.
"I said I'm fine." His voice became more demanding, but went progressively softer as the water sloshed around the bottle. Reluctantly, yet thankfully, he took the bottle and started drinking it.
"Hey, hey, hey." I said, rushed as I took the bottle away from him, "Small sips. There is such thing as too much water."
"What the fuck?!" He raised his voice to me, "You just said I could have that!"
"And you can." I handed it back to him, "Just drink it slowly. You're safe that way."
"And why is that?" He spoke in a questioning tone, following my orders.
"Well, you'll throw up as fast as you brought it down." I shrugged, "And although what's in that bottle isn't enough to do so, you could also die from water intoxication."
"Water intoxication?" He laughed at me, "Intoxication's only with alcohol."
"Sounds like you're willing to preform an experiment," I raised an eyebrow to him, "and I would gladly partake in the control group. Water intoxication's a real thing. How do you like the idea of a hell of a lot of cells in your body absorbing too much water, causing them to burst?" I watched as he gave off a faint look of shock, "Yeah. Really scary shit happens to idiots."
"And now that you've told me that, I may have developed a fear for water." He spoke with sarcasm, indicating he was no where near serious.
"Nah." I waved at him dismissively, "Recommended amount is two liters a day, and more if you're exercising. I think you've really got to be trying in order to end up with water intoxication."
"Well then, thanks for that." He took his helmet from me as I stood back up.
"Yeah, yeah." I began to walk back to my post, "Please show some more sympathy when you go starving."
"That's not even remotely funny." He growled at me.
"Well then," I looked over my shoulder, "Maybe you'll be smarter to eat more often, because, in case you don't remember, we walked through a fucking desert before finally getting here."
"It was the only way!"
"Would've gone better if we had a vehicle."
"I don't have a license!" He shouted at me, anger apparent through his voice, "And we all know you don't!"
"I had a license." I laughed, looking over my shoulder.
"For what? A bike?!"
"How do you know what a bike is? Those things are fuckin' ancient, here." I sighed, "Driving's gotten more complex within the years." I sat back down in front of the prisoner, "Just... ignore my little quirks."
I stepped outside of the base, with a couple sandwiches in my arms, to see the prisoner of maroon to be accompanied by one of purple.
"You guys 've been busy." I laughed, handing the boys (including Simmons, mind you. I'm not heartless enough to let the man starve, despite his inability to talk well around women) their lunches, "Why didn't you let me join in on the fun?"
"You'd protest, telling us to stop hurting your friends." Washington spoke in a flat tone, watching the unconscious state of Frank Dufresne.
"No." I shrugged as I sat down and began to peel the paper away from my meal, "Now, if you were killing them, that'd be a different story."
"What about the pink one?" He questioned as he looked over the disheveled body of Donut, which I had personally propped up against a wall.
"Meh." I sighed. Perhaps now's not a good time to tell him I've been keeping the man barely alive since he got that frickin' bullet in his lung, "I mean... he was a good guy, and it wasn't quite his time, but I am a member of blue team, and our sworn duty is to kill the reds." I let a bit of laughter escape me, "At least, that's what Sarge would say, so long as you swap the roles."
"Yeah. Everyone just calls that guy 'Sarge.' What the hell is his real name?"
"Hell if I know." I took a bite of my food, "Not my monkeys; not my circus."
Maine let out a guttural grunt.
"Yeah?" I looked over my shoulder, "You can't use your armor abilities without AI. How about you quit complaining."
Wash watched me for a moment, "You're good with machines, right?"
"More or less." I sighed, looking down at my bare feet, "Best I've done is repairing vehicles no one would let me drive and armor add ons."
"Are you still holding a grudge about not driving here?"
"Yup." I laughed, taking another bite of food, "I know how to drive, now. I drove around a bit back when we hunted down O'Malley."
"I remember that!" Omega cheered from the back of my head, "You were such a wimp, then."
"O'Malley?" Wash questioned me as he stood up, Maine following him as the brute of a man gave off a grunt, "Well, Omega must have been a big fan of Allison if he was willing to merge their names."
"Is that how that name came to be?" I looked up at the men with a bit of shock.
"My apologies." Omega spoke up once again, sarcasm lacing his tone, "O'Chele didn't turn out as well."
"I'm not jealous, if that's what you think." I spoke in a hushed tone as the men of Freelancer walked away.
"Never said you were." He laughed, "Just wanted you to know I took you into consideration."
"Thanks?"
"Anytime."
I looked down at the now empty paper in my hands, then glanced up at Simmons and Doc, "Hey!" I looked over my shoulder in order to face the men behind me, "I'm going to go throw away my garbage. Can you guys watch over these two?" I got a wave of dismissal as my only response.
"This isn't your base. You can litter."
"Meh." I shrugged as I struggled to stand up. I actually don't remember movement being so hard, "Littering's considered a misdemeanor. I don't think I want to risk anymore tallies on me."
"The only reason you went to prison is because you helped out Washington." I could feel the wry grin go across his face, "It's all his fault, you know. You chose the perfect method of hiding, and he had to ruin it for you."
"You're not turning me against him." I muttered as I supported my body weight against the wall of the base.
"Not yet," He laughed, "but I know your plans, just like you do. You'll turn."
"Not 'kill 'em ASAP' kinda turn. Just... injure them until they can't hurt anyone... Maybe even save Tex." I sighed, entering the base as I felt my legs shake under my weight, "What the hell's wrong with me?"
"Well," He took a long pause, "I can't say that I know... The symptoms aren't to any known disease or sickness."
"You're very helpful." I spoke with sarcasm as I sat down on the ground, back against the wall, "You know that, right?"
"Wow." He spoke with slight shock, "I'll show you. You're not learning your diagnosis." I could feel him cross his arms and turn his head.
"Wait a minute..." I looked at the wall, "Organs can't decide whether or not to shut down? Fever? Muscle degrading?"
"How did you-"
I stood back up, forcing myself to be strong as I walked over to my armor, "West Virginia... She died shortly after I gave you up to Texas. That would explain why you wouldn't know about it."
"Care to explain this in depth?"
"We didn't find it as a problem, until she started passing out on the battlefield." I started buckling my armor up, "We didn't notice for the longest time. It's treatable, since we're in early stages.. but we can't waste any time."
"Yeah, I got it." He sighed, "You need me to look through some things?"
I raise my eyebrow for a moment as Omega projected himself off my armor, "Can you access things in the molecular compressor?"
"You mean like go in that and read a book for you?"
"Well, it also functions as a computer." I laughed, weakly, "I need you to look through a couple of Freelancer's stolen records, and trust me, they're all there. If you could, though, Lazerus may have documented something about this in a book titled, 'Note Mediche.' Yes, it's in Italian, so I hope you know how to translate so that you understand."
"You treat me like a child." He muttered as he disappeared.
"Glad to have a buddy like you." I laughed, slowly progressing into a weak cough, "Let's hope this lasts about as long as it did for poor W.V." And with that, I stood up and walked over to my Freelancer "buddies" and the prisoners, behaving as if nothing ever happened. They don't need to know, as long as we can fix it.
