Chapter Two: Ambiguities
Crossing the threshold of the room that Call has claimed, Ripley sees the girl standing still, in front of the sink in the small bathroom, her dark jacket lies at her feet, the edge of the sweater raised almost to the shoulder blades, the head bent. She's examining the open hole in her abdomen, still unaware of her presence.
"Oh boy, it's tiny!", she exclaims, announcing herself.
The young woman jumps in surprise, and in an instinctive gesture, her fingers tighten on the edge of the t-shirt, pulling it down. The clone looks at her tenderly, silently closes the door and with a fluid gesture gets rid of her leather jacket, soaked in sweat, stained with blood and slippery by the slime of xenomorphs.
She looks at the android, stuck in the same position in which she had find her, except for her head, slightly turned sideways, as if she wanted to control her movements with the corner of her eye.
She deposits the two kits on a small shelf nearby, finds a hook for her garment, then slowly approaches, she sees her stiffening, but decides not to let her notice, giving her a few more moments, she plucks one arm towards the ground, picks up the other jacket and hooks it as well.
With a kit in her hand, she gets close to her once again, this time determined to engage her.
"Come on...", she says kindly, the tips of her fingers touching lightly on Call's, and then slipping to find a firmer, still gentle grip.
The young woman lets her drag herself with surrender, Ripley makes her sit on the small cot and softly palms her torso to make her lay down. A surprising look paints the android's face for a split second, and she decides to lighten the atmosphere with a calm laugh.
"Really?", she jokes, rolling her eyes.
She places the box close by, to clarify her wills.
"Where did you find it?", Call asks.
"Vriess gave it to me", she answers, unsure whether to add something or not. Her fingers reach the edge of the shirt, she stops.
"May I?", she questions.
"Such care doesn't suit you at all", the young woman comments, to dispel embarrassment, she lifts her tank top by herself, uncovering the damage. She watches the corners of her mouth curl up in a half smile in return of her statement, and then her gaze focused on the hole, her long fingers touch the skin around it, the contact makes her abdomen flickering, involuntary.
The woman opens the kit, spreads the contents on the mattress, and starts consulting the manual. Call watches her in silence, thinking about how able she is in changing her attitude in seconds, from threatening alien creature to loving and caring human being.
Not to mention her ambiguity! The first time she met her, she was shamelessly flirting with Johner, then she started targeting her. Thankfully she spared her the beating he got, so far, at least.
The previous allusive joke in the bridge had embarrassed her terribly, and she's not sure whether it is because of the joke itself, or the fact that it was made in the presence of others, as if she had claimed her as her own. She's not sure if she wants to be claimed as someone's property. Not even as hers.
"Sorry about earlier", Ripley breaks the silence suddenly, off-guarding her for guessing her thoughts.
"It's all right", she replies in a hurry.
"No, it's not right...", the woman teases her with no accusation.
"Come on, spit it out, I deserve it...", she admits in a cooperative way, scanning the room looking for a flashlight.
Call guesses what she needs and produces a small one out of her pocket.
"Good kid! Get some light", the woman exclaims smiling.
And while Call stretches her neck to make sure she directs the beam right where it's needed, Ripley, with delicate gestures, carefully examines the damage, messing her fingers with the milky fluid that runs through the young woman's body.
"The flashlight engages your fingers, not your tongue", she insists calmly, looking for a honest dialogue.
"It's that... you're always so ambiguous...", the girl says with some reticence.
She scrutinizes the clone, looking for a negative reaction, but the woman keeps working with skillful hands, identifying what needs to be replaced and what needs to be repaired.
"We don't have a pair of clamps, do we?", Call shakes her head in sign of denial.
"I need to find the bullet", she informs her calmly, "Can you... feel it?"
The Auton points out the spot where the slug is located.
"I'll try to do it as gently and quickly as possible", she reassures softening her voice and waiting for a nod before proceeding.
A long moment of silence falls between the two during the delicate extraction. Finally the woman shows triumphantly the huge bullet with the deformed ogive, and then immediately returns focusing on her task.
"I wish I could explain you why I behave the way I do, but, honestly, I don't know. I don't know how much of my acting is in my human genetic heritage and how much depends on... them", she speaks slowly, trying to choose carefully the most suitable words to express herself.
Call's attention focuses on her sharp features, showing the first, slight wrinkles of mature age, that are exactly what gives character to her very appearance. The beam of the flashlight loses its effectiveness, Ripley is forced to stop, gently guiding the young woman's hands till the light allows her to resume work.
"My behavior was ambiguous in that gym with Johner, I knew what he was like as soon as he opened his mouth and I wanted to teach him a lesson", she points.
The light source loses its aim once again. She touches her patiently, this time holding their hands together and looking intensely into her eyes.
"But ambiguous is not the term I would use, thinking of some of my behaviors around you. Cheeky, definitely cheeky. Too much. Most of the time, as earlier. Damn, I looked just like Johner, didn't I?!", she exclaims ironically, waiting for some reaction. She watches the girl smiling and blushing at the same time. - How adorable! -, she thinks, feeling her heart skipping a beat.
Part of that audacity, probably as more alien than human genetic baggage, gives her the certainty that the interest she feels towards the young woman is not one-way. She had tested her reactions to every provocation she had launched her. She thinks there is no better time to bring out what she is experiencing.
She averts her gaze from her delicate features and deliberately devotes her attention to connect the last piece inside her, while she resumes to speak.
"I like you, Call. In a nutshell. What you look like inside doesn't matter to me. You are sensitive, thoughtful, curious, and an asshole!", she ends with a wide smile, joking on the last title, which she had used to name her in the Auriga's chapel, and had made her smile with that look that she right now desperately wants to see once again on her face.
She glances at her, happy to see what she sees.
"And may I be damned in the Hell of the Clones if you are not interested in me too", challenging her by moving her upper body towards her. Not close enough to invade her personal space, but close enough for the concept to gain lots of value.
She doesn't expect an answer, she knows her enough by now to sense she needs some time to process things, especially things like this.
She needs to evaluate this information in a more concrete way than she herself does.
She needs to get over the fact that she can still be liked even being not human.
She devotes back herself to her job, now close to be accomplished. She heads to the bathroom, moistens a towel and comes back to her.
She starts cleaning up the area around the hole, now completely drained of the bleeding caused by the gunshot, notices the white fluid flowing in the artificial veins she has just replaced, making sure there are no more leaks. The sponge passes over the skin and wipes away the dirt accumulated in the last, frantic hours.
Almost immediately a lump in her throat cuts off her breath. She forces herself to keep working, trying to ignore the growing distress, closes her eyes for a second, hoping to regain control.
"Ripley, what's wrong?", Call notices her mimic suddenly changing, the movements of her hand in the act of cleansing her abdomen become uncertain, the woman closes her eyes once, the opens them, blinks frantically and then shuts them once again.
In her mind, the clone clearly sees the round face of a little girl. Her blond hair is all scarlet, her gaze lost in emptiness, a hand that she identifies as her own is holding a towel, cleaning that undernourished, frightened, bewildered, and blackened by dirt face.
A pain and an anger she has never experienced before takes hold in her chest, she squeezes the wet towel so hard that it drips loudly on the android's abdomen.
Call takes her hand in both her own and awakens her just enough to tear herself away from that contact.
"Stay away from me!", she pants, gets up with a snap, backs up until banging against the wall behind her, dreading she's going to hurt her friend.
"Ripley?!", Call rises in a sitting pose, the towel pressed against the yet open hole, worried and confused.
"Stay. Away", the hybrid admonishes her, trying to maintain the last root of lucidly, despite the storm of fury and pain that are quickly growing inside her. Her eyes barred, her breath short.
"Can you take it from here?", she asks with the last flash of clarity in her thoughts, "I need to go", she says in a whisper grabbing the door's handle and struggling angrily in the intent to open it.
"What? Where?", the android asks stupidly, getting caught unprepared for the very last minute's events.
"I need to leave!", Ripley reiterates, finally managing to gain the exit.
"For fuck's sake!", the girl swears in frustration for being not able to run after her instantly, worried about her.
She drags herself onto the bunk until she can rest her back against the wall, grabs the roll of artificial skin and quickly patches herself up, quite crude.
"Unbelievable! First she declares herself shamelessly and then runs away like a rookie!", she mutters to herself trying to joke on it.
"Fuck you, Ripley!", she swears once again in the vain attempt to drive away the growing concern.