Maria kisses her teeth in disgust and nods at Jasper in dismissal when he glances at her.
He nods back and crouches at Edward's side, who immediately flinches away.
"C'mon," Jasper says softly, at least to let the man know it was him, as Edward lets out a weak whimper. Edward's eyes are screwed shut against the blood dribbling from his nose, his cheek, his chin. It's obvious he can't see anything. Jasper has to sling Edward's arm over his shoulders and physically lift him up.
"What say you, lil' bot?" Maria calls upwards.
|ANY AND ALL SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOUR WILL BE IMMEDIATELY REPORTED MA'AM|
Bella's voice is still coolly distant, and Jasper wonders if they'd ever hear an emotion from her again.
Jasper's words to Maria are soft and quiet. "Let me take him to the doctor, and let them have a bit of light." Maria raises her eyebrows at him. "They just look for fungus. They never asked to meet me — please."
Let her see a few of his cards — he refused to let himself be ashamed of showing her that he found people he cared about.
"Well, you should have thought of that before you joined them, Walker," Maria says, spreading her hands as though there was nothing else she could do. "It's almost like you want them to get hurt."
Jasper says nothing as he drags Edward to Carlisle's door.
Edward slurs something that sounds incredulously like "Esme's blanket", with the pitch of his voice high with pain.
Jasper shakes his head, muttering, "Worry 'bout your damn self."
He stops outside Carlisle's door, sees that it's still locked. "Bella, if you don't want to beg, Edward's gonna have the ugliest nose after this," Jasper tells her heavily. "I'll have to share all my stetsons with him and all the lice they come with."
One, two, three, four. He counts the seconds until the door beeps green, and Jasper is relieved that on top of getting his face turned into soup, Edward didn't have to hear his dear Helva* plead for his life.
Carlisle is blinking and squinting in his lighted room, a hand cupped around his brow. The room must have just recently been illuminated.
"Oh my god!" Carlisle exclaims when Jasper brings Edward further inside. Jasper pushes the man to the bed and has him sit.
"Couple blows to the face and his chin and his leg," Jasper tells him.
Two pips, and Lucy's voice is in his ear. "Hu-ungry!" she declares, her voice suspiciously muffled.
"Don't eat that throw — I'm coming." Jasper replies, and he leaves without another word. Mostly because he didn't want to look at whatever expression is making Carlisle's breathing begin to hitch. He's relieved when the door closes and locks behind him.
He pauses in front of another crew's door. Jasper knocks once, and waits.
"What?" Rosalie's voice is hard, and he expected nothing less.
"How's Emmett?"
"He's concussed. He threw up and he's having a nap."
"You want me to apologise?" Jasper offers. Rosalie laughs mirthlessly, and doesn't reply for a while.
But Jasper's willing to wait. So he leans against the door, and he likes to think that Rosalie does too, on the other side.
Rosalie watched as Whitlock polished Happy's undercarriage from the doorway of the storage room. It held the two evacuation pods and the spacesuits for the five crew members — all V industry standard grey and red. Now, hung next to them were a black stealth number with so many patched holes it looked barely airtight and a pink suit that could have been mistaken for a child's suit if that child wasn't requisite to standard 'child-lock' safety laws.
And now — it held 'Happy', a two-person unit Rosalie knew was configured for comfort, having been given a tour of the cabin. But she was shaped like a deadly combat vessel. Having that pop up an inch from their nose in the middle of breakfast was not a very stress-free way to start the day.
The Happy tour had been given by Alice, the much more welcoming of the new pair. The other one was the reason Rosalie was watching Happy's primping from the door and not going inside to check their spacesuits like she was supposed to.
She knew she didn't make a sound, so she started in surprise when the calm drawl called out, "Am I in the way?"
Rosalie shook her head, "No — just here for the suits," she called back, prompted by her own words to walk in and begin maintenance. She plucked the first suit — C. Cullen — from its place, grunting as she half-dragged it over to the table to spread it out. They were heavy to carry and heavier to wear. But this Rose was no wilting flower, so she remained perfectly calm when Whitlock swaggered over to see what she was doing.
He watched from a few steps away as she secured the helmet and its visor, and began to oxygenate the suit for leak spots. The process was not fast and pretty boring. But Whitlock didn't seem at all disinterested.
"Haven't you seen a routine check before?" she asked him peevishly. She hated being watched by anyone that wasn't Emmett. Whitlock answered with a simple 'no' and as Rosalie glanced at his incredibly beat-up suit, she didn't doubt it.
"I could leave if it makes you more comfortable," he offered, thumbing back towards Happy.
But Rosalie wasn't comfortable that he was on the Midas, so unless he was offering to climb into Happy and go, it didn't really make a difference.
"I don't care what you do," she said instead, sure even Carlisle would consider her being very diplomatic — for her.
Whitlock blinked slowly twice. "… Right," he said softly, and his eyes dropped back to the inflating suit.
She glanced down as the suit beeped, fully inflated with no leaks — Rosalie checked it off the list. When she looked up again, Whitlock had begun to smile just a little.
"You don't find that the easiest way to walk in one of these is usually also your best attempt at the Moon Walk?" he asked her and then proceeded to drag his feet forward in a very bad attempt at the famous dance move.
Rosalie let out a startled laugh before she realized it and Whitlock gave an awkward little shrug.
But she shook her head. "I don't — I've never worn one during this mission," she admitted and her eyes dropped back to her list. She'd gotten the practise in back on Earth — but with the amount of interior work she had to do, anything on the outside was considered 'grunt work' and left to Emmett or Edward, to get screamed at over the comms by her.
"Such a thing as 'too integral' I guess," Whitlock nodded slowly.
Rosalie sighed through her nose, locking and unlocking the gloves and boots to check their seals, "You know something about that?" she guessed, keeping her tone mild to hide her raging curiosity.
But Whitlock let out a bark of a laugh that's more surprise than humour. "Absolutely not,' he retorted, "I've never been anything but expendable."
It's a depressing thing to hear and Rosalie doesn't like it.
"Well, guess your expendable days are over," she said quietly, but when he met her eyes she felt a clench of embarrassment in her stomach, "because this crew is too small, so — everyone needs to do their part and that means you too." She grabbed the fully checked suit quickly, hurriedly picking it up and getting ready to heave it back into place.
"Well then — let me do my part." Whitlock took the suit from her and locked it back onto the wall with considerably less effort.
Rosalie weighed her options — thank him and undermine her abilities as the Head Engineer on this ship. Don't thank him and snap something about how women can handle themselves, let him assume she was over-emotional and underestimate her abilities as the Head Engineer on this ship.
But Whitlock didn't say anything about her strength, or how heavy the suits were, his hands only hovered over the next suit in line. "Next one?" he asked, glancing back at her for confirmation.
Secretly relieved that he wasn't going to make a big deal about it, Rosalie nodded and Whitlock dragged the toes of the boots along the ground in much the same way Rosalie did as he set the suit down on the table for her. It belonged to E. McCarty and before Rosalie did anything else, she released the helmet and fished out his durag, before locking it back in place. She rolled her eyes — he left these everywhere.
Whitlock watched her rundown the checklist again, but he seemed to be standing straighter — not just watching, waiting. But they continue the check of Emmett's suit in silence.
"Wonderin' if I could ask a favour from you, ma'am," the man said as he quickly took the suit for Rosalie when she nodded the go-ahead. She was surprised to see him look so stiff — nervous, not uncomfortable. As though he was embarrassed when he asked, "Would it be too much to ask you to do a check on Alice's suit, too?"
Rosalie didn't hide her smile. "I was actually planning to check all the suits on board, Whitlock," she informed him and he nodded in a much easier manner. "That's part of my job, you see, to maintain safety standards for all the equipment," she let her tone fall into sarcasm and Whitlock began to smirk.
"Yes, ma'am."
Rosalie doesn't bother asking why, or waste time giving him the silent treatment. If Jasper had the patience for either of those options he would have stayed with Carlisle and Edward.
"Why'd you leave her?" Rosalie's voice is too soft for Jasper to pick out her tone, but he does hope she isn't wishing he never came here in the first place.
"I had two people," he fights the urge to rip his mic out again. This was a story all the women in his ear knew already. They knew and they thought he was weak for it. "Peter and Charlotte — they were the only real connection I had to anything outside of the constellation. They were killed, and it happens — skirmishes can end badly. But they were gone, and I wanted to go too. I deserted, well, I quit without notice."
He remembers how surprised he had been that it had been so easy to leave. How that voice in the back of his head had asked him why it took him so long.
"Is she going to kill us?"
Jasper couldn't hesitate on this answer. "I won't let her. All this was so that she wouldn't have to."
"She winked." The deep murmur of Emmett's voice makes Jasper physically start with shock. "Alice winked at us. We know you, Bosun."
"I have to go." Jasper knows his tone is rough, and he knows he's stressed, sleep-deprived, and a little scared. That's why his eyes start to water, only that.
As he passes his own room there's a bang on the door from a certain little fist and Jasper pauses. He's never good at saying no to her — and he doesn't bother wondering how Alice even knows that he's outside the door.
Jasper glances at the ceiling. "Bella — did Maria tell you to answer solely to her?"
"I don't think I have to, do I, lil' bot?" Maria's voice purrs in his ear. Bella herself doesn't answer, and Jasper fully expects her to attempt to spit him out of the airlock at the first available opportunity.
"Let my room open a moment," Jasper keeps his tone more of a suggestion because he knows Maria would enjoy just rejecting an outright question.
"I don't want to see wifey — she's odd," Maria's voice is disdainful and Jasper half wishes he could get away with pointing out her almost-hilarious hypocrisy.
"I'll have her stand behind me and you won't see her at all," Jasper offers, and there's that three-way bark before the door opens.
Alice skips out and wiggles her fingers at him. "Missed you," she chirps. Jasper only nods once in agreement as he continues back to command.
True to his word, he does have Alice stand fully behind him, her little hands spread out on his lower back, somehow knowing it's beginning to give him trouble again. Maria isn't delighted to find out about the rotational cooking schedule.
"A hot meal every night, Walker?" she says, shaking her head slightly. She looks over at where Nettie is trying to carefully fish out the bits of string Lucy has stuck between her teeth.
Jasper feels the same twist of shame and exposure in his chest as when she saw his handprint in the docking bay. "That's right. Maybe two, if there's leftover soup for lunch," he adds, stepping up and taking the blanket from Nettie when she finally pulls the ruined thing fully out of Lucy's mouth. Lucy must have gotten sick of crawling on the floor, and Maria must have refused to lower the gravity on the ship. Lucy had, at some point, got her old leg braces out, metal strapped all the way to her hips that kept her curled feet flat.
Alice raises her hand over Jasper's shoulder. "I'll do it! Don't worry, I got it," she says, and when she starts down the hall, she takes Esme's throw with her. Lucy totters after her, clanging metal as she goes. Jasper watches their departure, tossing up the likelihood of Lucy going for another of Alice's veins. Much better with a knife than his lady ever would be, regardless of the gravity.
Then there's two pips in his ear, and Lucy is chirping, "Release the knitter!"
Maria scowls, sending a suspicious glare to Jasper, who shrugs a shoulder. "What are you talking about?" Maria snaps into the comm.
"Cooking potatoes."
"Open the goddamn door," Maria says to the ceiling, shaking her head. Ultimately, Maria doesn't chalk Esme up as a threat — mostly because she isn't one. Jasper had been banking on that.
And unless they switch to Martian gravity — two-G — Lucy is perfectly able to crumple to the floor and take out a couple ankles with a knife. And when she had them on the ground with her, it wasn't hard for her to finish them off.
The ship is not large, and noise carries. He can hear Alice chatting in the kitchen, to both Lucy and Esme. Lucy is obviously invading some personal space, as her mic picks up everyone's voice clearly.
"Everything is either canned or prepackaged for our voyage," Esme is explaining, probably for Lucy's benefit. "So it's not difficult to cook — well, there's no cooking, there's nothing raw."
"Potatoes," Lucy replies — with the large amount of soil needed to grow potatoes, they were something of a rare commodity in her part of the galaxy.
Jasper heads down to the kitchen himself to make sure Lucy is at least properly entertained.
Lucy hangs off Esme's shoulders, struggling to stay upright as Esme moves around the little kitchen. She also has her thin little gun out and clenched in her fist, pressed against Esme's shoulder. Also around her shoulder's Esme had her largely unravelled throw.
The ousted Captain, for her part, looks very calm as she smiles up at Jasper.
There are a variety of plates laid out, all evenly portioned out. Alice is busy spooning out gravy and beans from their can.
Jasper nods at Lucy. "Well, pick one."
Lucy snatches the plate Alice is about to bean, and Jasper can see for a moment that Alice's hesitates, before she subsequently lets the spoonful drip onto the table.
"Oh!" she cries out, frowning heavily as Lucy beams. Lucy presents the plate to Jasper, who takes it from her, grabs a knife, and cuts the mashed potato mound in half, dumping one half onto the next plate closest to him.
"She can't eat that much," Jasper explains as he passes the plate back to Lucy, who sticks the knife into the potatoes, and balances it carefully in two hands as she clangs away, back to command. "Bad digestion."
Esme nods slowly, listening as she carefully centres the spread of plates and unlocks the wheels of the dining table. "You know them very well." Her tone is mild, with no judgement — but the guilt thuds in his chest with his heartbeat.
Jasper doesn't want to say anything to that, knows his disloyalty spoke for itself. Alice nods once. "They took him in — he got all his scars from them."
Jasper feels a little strange as Esme starts down the crew corridor with dinner. He looks at Alice like he's never seen her before. Always, always she understood him when he said nothing. She understood him sometimes better than he did himself. So now, of all times, to hear that Alice associated his scars with …. She'd never been so outrightly wrong, in his guesstimation. It was a first, and he didn't like it.
Esme reaches Rosalie and Emmett's room first, and there's an immediate scuffle inside the moment after the door opens.
Both of them must have heard the dinner table-turned-trolley as it clattered closer - sharper sounds carried through the doors. They had grabbed each other's hands, and at the exact same time Rosalie had tried to jump in front of Emmett, Emmett had attempted to yank her behind him. They crashed their hips together and the side of Rosalie's head bounced against Emmett's shoulder.
"Oh, please!" Esme huffs, and waves a hand at them impatiently as they glared at each other. "Come eat something."
Rosalie strides over to take the plates from Alice, who had given her the one with extra potato, and she meets Jasper's gaze. She opens her mouth as though to speak, but the exact second she does the doors slam shut again.
Esme sighs once, quietly, and pushes on.
Edward's door is next, and Jasper braces himself for Alice and Esme to see it either empty, or to reveal the full extent of Edward's injuries.
The room's only lit by the circular lamp above the bed, on low, and there's a lump under the covers that flinches but does not roll over.
"Edward?" Alice calls inside, exchanging a nervous look with Esme.
Jasper takes the plate from Alice and steps in front of her when she moves to go inside. He strides over and sets the plate on the floor next to the bed. Glancing down, he can see that it's Edward, hiding and perfectly awake.
He meets Jasper's gaze from the corner of his eye.
'Don't let them see me' he mouths, and Jasper nods once. But he has no time to ask how, or if Edward even knew who Jasper was with, if anyone.
"He's asleep, Esme," he says as he steps out of the room. Esme nods once and the doors slam shut.
Carlisle jumps up from sitting on his bed in some alarm, book in hand, and smiles with relief written all over his face as he sees them all.
"How's Edward?" he asks Jasper, walking over quickly to take his plate from Alice and lingering to give her hand a squeeze. "The shark-tooth woman took him back before I could give him something for the pain."
Jasper shrugs as Alice and Esme both look sharply at him.
"Resting in his room," he mutters. Carlisle nods gravely as the doors close on him.
"What happened?" Alice asks him, and he looks away from her stern face, but finds it no easier to look at Esme's concern.
|IT WAS ME — IT WAS MY FAULT!| Bella's voice comes out tinny solely from the panel up ahead.
Esme gasps, and Jasper clenches his teeth as two pips sound in his ear.
"Take your time, Walker." Maria's drawl is slow but her impatience is clear.
"Time to eat, Captain." Jasper takes one of the plates in one hand, one of Esme's elbows in the other, and steers her straight back to her room.
"Tell me what happened, Bosun!" Esme cries out sternly, the same authoritative tone she used when he was the Bosun, as she stumbles when he all but shoves her inside, jamming the plate into her hands when she steps towards him.
"I'm not your anything," he replies as the doors close.
Jasper almost doesn't want to turn to Alice, seeing her standing there next to the table with her mouth bunched up and eyes narrowed.
"You don't mind if we feed the girls, do you?" Jasper asks, grabbing the trolley and pulling it behind him.
"Didn't know devils ate," Alice tells him, and he chuckles at the three-way bark of laughter that pip-pips into his ear.
Jasper goes to command, taking two of the remaining plates and handing them off to Maria and Nettie. Lucy sits at the watch, dragging her fingers through the potato and dabbing it onto her tongue two cubic millimetres at a time.
Maria nods at him. "You can take to your room, Nettie's happy to put the table back," she tells him lightly.
But Jasper knows when an order is an order. Alice doesn't seem willing to push it either; already holding their plate and they fall into step straight to their room. He doesn't bother checking if the door locks behind them. He knows it has.
Alice hums thoughtfully as she sits cross-legged on the bed with their dinner in her lap. Jasper doesn't move from the moment he steps into the room. "She's taller than me," she says with a grin.
Jasper huffs once, smothering his own grin. "Stop it — I don't have a thing for short women, you make me sound like a creep," he mutters back. He watches as Alice shoves a spoonful of potato into her own mouth.
"Well, I have a thing for scratched up cowboys, c'mere," she crooks a finger at him, and he slumps down near her feet, huffing again at the pinch in his back. She holds out the next spoonful to him, and he stares at it. "Starving yourself won't make anyone forgive you."
"You don't know what Edward looks like right now," he mutters, rubbing his ear to remind her he is not her only listener.
Alice drops the spoon back onto the plate, and sets it down on their bedside table. "Alright then — we won't eat."
Jasper locks eyes with her and mirrors her emotionless expression. "You have to. You know I worry that you'll vanish into thin air if you miss another meal." He leans closer, sighing just once. "I'm worried enough as it is." He keeps his voice gentle, and leans so that he looks up at her.
Alice nods, raising her eyebrows. "Me too, I'm too worried too — it's ruined my appetite too," she insists. He clicks his tongue at her, but relents and reaches over to take up the plate.
Beaming at her win, Alice pushes the plate a little as soon as he has the spoon in his mouth. She crawls onto his lap, and wraps her arms around his shoulders. "I'm not worried anymore, I'm something else," she tells him, and starts to kiss down his throat, long and loud and a lot.
Jasper can still taste potatoes and he's not the least bit horny right now. He's stupefied that Alice could even have the energy, but she grabs his chin and yanks his face to the other side. He sees her eyebrows dart up for a moment, before she starts to kiss the other side of his neck, and runs her tongue up the comm wire. She plants two loud smooches right into his ear, and Jasper shoves another spoonful of potato in his mouth just to stop from laughing — his tiny evil genius.
He swallows, manages to make something of a convincing moan. "Oh baby," he purrs, and Alice beams at him.
Two pips, and Nettie's incredibly annoyed; "Oh, god, Walker."
Victorious, Jasper mutters, "Walker out." and yanks the comm out of his ear, switching it off and tossing it into the top bedside drawer.
Alice pumps a fist in the air. "Straight out of the Hale-McCarty playbook!" she declares, and Jasper feels the uncoiling relief of the first real laugh he's managed since he saw that goddamn cartoon roadkill.
He flops onto his back, and Alice sprawls out on top of him, propping her elbows on his chest to look down at his face. "What if I told you to grab the crew, shove them into an emergency pod and fuck off?" he asks her, settling his hands along her lower back and rubbing slightly.
Alice frowns, glancing to the side as her eyes lightly glazed over. "What if they worry we won't be able to get the ship back?"
"I meant you too, darlin'." Jasper rolls his eyes as Alice immediately and absently says 'no'. He could have guessed.
"They'd never consider abandoning any of the crew."
Jasper hummed a little laugh at the optimism. "I don't think any of them want shit to do with me now," he points out. "Go with them and I'll catch up." Jasper scowls when she says 'no' again.
"I meant Bella," Alice sings at him. "They have her hostage as much as you."
"I'm no hostage." If anything, he's the lure — but he's really just a pawn.
"Taken hostage by your memories."
He wants to argue — he doesn't know what to say to that, but he wants to argue it. But there's two bangs on the door, and Jasper grits his teeth in growing irritation. The constant interruptions of the cancer constellation ground down his ability to relax, to rest. Peaceful times on the Midas made him accustomed to down time.
Quickly, he wraps his hands around Alice's head and presses her lips against his mouth. It was nothing like a kiss as he only aims to smear more of her lippy around his chin.
Alice slides her fingers up through his hair, which causes a genuine shiver up his spine, as she yanks and pulls and musses it up.
He pulls her off, accepts a quick, genuine peck on the mouth, before he gets up and strips off his shirt, tosses it behind his shoulder as he opens the door.
Nettie is standing there, and looks unamused by his carefully curated appearance.
"I'm nothing but a minute-man to you, am I?" he simpers, wiping the corner of his mouth with a thumb that comes back pink and sticky.
"Shut your mouth and get here now."
Nettie strides back down the hall and Jasper feels something wrong in his gut at the quick, snappy tone. Nettie is no ray of sunshine — but she's rarely this tense.
*Helva - a reference to The Ship Who Sang