AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, once again thanks for the reviews. I appreciate it. I'll probably be going back to redo some things with the end of chapter 1, so you may want to look out for that. Also, this chapter is where I start to deviate (a little more) from the script, so enjoy. Anywho, on to the good stuff…

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Chapter 3: The Interrogation

The two tattered and torn looking females were soon helped by the marines into the Manager's Office of Operations. They didn't even have much of a chance to breathe, though, before they were being nearly frisked by Dietrich. She whipped out two bio-monitoring cuffs and began her routine readings on the two.

"So, what are your names?" Dietrich said softly as she looked at the readouts on the small machines. She had short, choppy brown hair and brown eyes to match.

"M-my name is Charlotte Hodges. Her name is Rebecca Jorden." Charlotte said as she wrapped her right arm comfortingly around the small, dazed girl. It felt like it had been so long since she actually communicated with another human being and she wasn't sure she still knew how.

"Well," the med-tech began with a smile, "my name is Cynthia Dietrich. We're here to help." Dietrich looked at the woman carefully. She looked so frightened and battered. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a messy, frazzled ponytail and her long bangs covered most of her dark blue eyes. Dirt and grime covered her small face and her clothes looked like they had seen better days. Her gray pants were faded and ripped and Dietrich noted ominously that there were blood stains in several places. Not to mention the left sleeve of her black shirt was torn completely off. By what, Dietrich didn't know. That's when she noticed Charlotte's left hand and the white gauze wrapped around it. The woman had been trying to hide it.

Dietrich reached out for Charlotte's hand but Charlotte retracted it quickly and pulled it closely to her chest. "It's fine. Don't touch it. It's been dressed properly and I change the gauze frequently." She said before Dietrich could make a comment. Dietrich cocked her head to the side quizzically, as if this woman shouldn't know anything about dressing wounds. Charlotte smiled a little. "I'm a nurse."

Dietrich nodded and Charlotte thought for a moment that maybe the med-tech would just leave her alone. "I'd still like to see that wound." Charlotte frowned but never got the opportunity to respond because a young man had suddenly entered the small office.

"What're their names?" he said to Dietrich as he watched her take the cuffs off Charlotte and Rebecca and pack up her equipment.

Charlotte sighed. "Ya know, I'm right here. You can ask me." she said. The man, who happened to be Lieutenant Gorman, looked at her but said nothing. "I'm Charlotte. The girl is Rebecca."

"Anything wrong with them?" Gorman turned to Dietrich just before she left the room.

She turned around for a moment to look at him. "Physically they're both okay, except for that wound on her left hand." She motioned her hand towards Charlotte. "Speaking of which, I'm still going to look at that. It could be a laceration or—"

"It's an acid burn." Charlotte said softly as she looked at the gauze that she had wrapped so deftly around the center of her left had.

Ripley, who by now had been standing nearby for quite some time, almost dropped the two cups of hot chocolate she had in her hands. She felt a knot tightening in her stomach. It was fear. She wondered how Charlotte could've come in contact with what she assumed to be the acidic blood.

Gorman and Dietrich continued to look at each other blandly. "Well, whatever it is, I'll be taking a look at it in a bit. As I was saying before, they're both on the verge of malnutrition, but I don't think there will be any permanent damage." And with that, Dietrich left.

Gorman stood before Charlotte and Newt with one hand on his hip and the other holding onto a metal cabinet. "I'm Lieutenant Gorman. And I wanna let you know we're here to help."

'Suddenly everybody's a damn helpful hand. Where were you people weeks ago?' Charlotte thought to herself, remembering Dietrich's similar words.

"Why don't you both tell me what happened here?" Once again Gorman spoke with that learned authority.

Before she said anything she glanced over at Rebecca, who was staring out at a point in space. "Well, I can tell you right now you won't get a lot out of Newt, here. She doesn't talk much. Not even to me. Natalie and I found her about a week ago."

"Who's Natalie?" Gorman asked.

A look of extreme sadness swept over Charlotte's face. "She was a fellow nurse that I worked with. At first she and I thought we were the only survivors. I had been with her and several others, including my father, since I had to leave my apartment three weeks ago." She paused for a moment and all she got in return was silence from the lieutenant. "My daughter died, my father died, and I'm pretty sure my brother's gone too. I had a whole goddamn family here." Charlotte clenched her jaw tightly together and closed her eyes, hoping to prevent herself from crying, but all she saw in the darkness behind her eyelids was her daughter, her baby, Michelle.

Ripley stepped around the table Charlotte and Newt were sitting on and took a place standing behind Gorman. When Charlotte opened her eyes she saw Ripley standing there, an intense expression of sympathy plastered on her face. Ripley knew what it was like to loose someone.

"What happened to Natalie and everyone else?" Gorman inquired. "Where are they?"

"Natalie is dead. So are all the others." Charlotte said plainly. "Natalie was taken just yesterday. Pulled through a hole in the ceiling right out of my arms." Charlotte flinched at how unavoidably similar that was to the situation she encountered with her daughter.

The look on Gorman's face was grim… The look on Ripley's face was terrified…

Gorman didn't know whether to trust this or not. "If everyone is dead, where are all the bodies?" he asked, but he posed the question in such a way that made Charlotte feel almost like a suspect in a murder case.

Charlotte immediately went on the defensive and squinted at him angrily from behind her bangs. "I don't know."

Meanwhile, Newt had turned her head to stare dully at the aggravated woman. The girl remained silent.

Gorman stared at her, a little unbelieving. "You don't know where the bodies of one hundred and fifty-six colonists are? They can't just… disappear."

Charlotte stared at him, her blue eyes sparkling with frustration and anger. "When they're being dragged kicking and screaming into the darkness, I don't go running after them. I've learned my lesson. I'm not curious about where those giant fucking things live and, frankly, I don't wanna know, either. All I know is that when my family and friends and co-workers disappeared, they never came back."

Gorman looked to the dangerous-looking woman in front of him and then to Newt. He was silent for a moment. "How did you two survive?"

"We hid… It's the only thing we could do. Now, are you done with this interrogation? Because somewhere along the line you think I'm lying or delusional or something and if that's the case then there's no point in me even talking anymore." Charlotte said, her irritability clearly shining through.

"Rebecca," Gorman said as he focused his attention now on the little girl, seeing as he probably wouldn't get much more out of the aggravated woman, "where are your mommy and daddy?"

Newt said nothing, but instead Charlotte responded. "They're gone! Alright, Lieutenant Gorman? Just like everyone else! Now leave the girl alone! She's not going to talk to you!"

Gorman opened his mouth to say something but Ripley knew that he would do nothing but anger this scared woman even more, so she had to speak first. "Gorman, give it a rest, why don't you?"

Gorman looked over his shoulder at her. He must've agreed with Ripley because he sighed, ran his hand over his head, and quietly left.

There was silence in the office for a moment as Ripley handed Charlotte a steaming cup of hot chocolate and grabbed a chair and sat down in front of Newt.

"I'm sorry about him." Ripley said, referring to Gorman.

"It's alright, I suppose." Charlotte said quietly as she sipped delicately from the mug. "I know he means no harm. I know the marines mean no harm. It's just… hard to talk about, that's all."

Ripley nodded in complete understanding. There were things that Ripley found difficult to talk about as well. She then turned her attention to the little girl in front of her. Ripley brushed the girl's unkempt hair out of her eyes softly. The child seemed detached and distant.

"Try this… Newt." Ripley said, trying out the girl's nickname that she heard from Charlotte earlier. "It's a little hot chocolate." Ripley wrapped Newt's hands around the small mug and lifted it to her mouth. She tilted the cup gently and found that the only thing she was doing was spilling chocolate down the girl's chin. She grabbed a small towel that had been sitting on the table and dabbed lightly at the Newt's chin. "Uh oh. I've made a clean spot here. Now I've done it. Guess I'll just have to do the whole thing." Ripley began to wipe all the filth away from Newt's face. "Hard to believe there's a little girl under all this. And a pretty one too."

Newt flashed a ghost of a smile.

Charlotte watched with a look of approval on her face at how maternally she treated Newt and how the girl was reacting to her. She felt that Ripley must've had a child to understand how to deal with Newt. The only way that Charlotte knew how to react to Newt was because of her dealings with her own daughter. "Did, um, you ever have a daughter, Ms., uh…?"

Ripley paused for a moment without looking in Charlotte's direction. "Ripley. Ellen Ripley. And yes, I did have a daughter, but she's gone now."

Charlotte sighed quietly as she stared into her mug. "I'm sorry. I know what it feels like."

Charlotte and Ellen turned their heads to look at each other at the exact same moment. Ripley knew that her loss was a little different from this woman's. But either way, neither mother would ever get to see their child grow up, graduate from high school, or have children of their own.

And because of that painful loss they shared, Charlotte and Ripley formed a bonding friendship.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Instead of the Ripley/Newt Mother/Daughter relationship, I've decided to create and focus a little more on the Ripley/Charlotte Sister/Sister relationship. And don't worry, I won't forget about Hicks. He's comin'. There is just so much I want to do with this story...