Chapter Four: Unpretentious
The return to the shuttle is spent in silence, Call keeps her fingers firmly intertwined with Ripley's, but doesn't force her to talk, nor does she glance at her insistently.
The experience in the woods has been so overwhelming that she cannot expect it to be erased by mere words of comfort and in a blink of an eye.
Once in their little cabin, the android helps her sit on the edge of the bunk, helps her to take the jacket off the shoulders, to pull the dirty boots off, as well as her torn pants.
She throws everything in a corner, she will think about later.
She leads her in the narrow bathroom, opens the shower jet and leaves her there while she's looking for clean linen and a towel among Hillard's things.
In some part of her conscience, Ripley watches the young woman's gestures apathetically, her memory is still stuck at those images and deep emotions experienced in the woods, as if she wanted to hold them back for the terror that if she let them go she would lose even the last memories of Newt.
She doesn't know how long she stayed in front of the shower curtain, beyond which the water flows noisily. The steam has already invaded the small room.
Beyond the veil in her eyes, she senses Call approaching back, she feels her gaze on her for a few seconds, yet, she's still unable to react.
The Auton takes a deep breath, but there is no hint of irritation in it, she deposits what she's carrying, quickly takes off her boots and pants and spurs her silently and gently. Her delicate fingers brush lightly her lower back, while the girl enters with her under the hot water spray.
Encouraged by the dialogue they have had before Ripley's rush into the woods and motivated by the hybrid's abulia, Call wins the embarrassment that would otherwise have paralyzed her.
The shower is so tiny that no matter what movement she makes, the curtain keeps going to stick on her skin. She shoves away the annoying feeling, focusing on the still apathetic woman in front of her.
After soaping the soft sponge hanged on the hook, she lovingly cleanses her scratched face and neck, taking care that the soap doesn't end up in her eyes, already abundantly irritated. With the same care, taking her hands one at a time, she washes away from her long arms the dirt, the dried blood and the sweat accumulated for days.
Her wounds are already healing, she notices, there's no longer risk she will burn herself with her acid blood, but even if there was, she wouldn't care at all in this very moment.
She helps her to takes off her wet tank top, ignoring the sight of her naked body, she washes her back and hair. Then she makes her turn around and with a gentle look, she deposits the sponge in her hand.
"Do you wanna try on your own?", she proposes. She waits patiently until Ripley shows her an indecisive nod.
Moved by the cares of the young woman, slowly the clone awakens from her inertia, striving to cooperate when requested. Call looks at her with an encouraging smile, before turning around and stepping to a corner to give her as more room as possible to allowing her to move in that tiny space.
Ripley sees her to take off her tank top and briefs, in quick and practical gestures, and starting to wash efficiently.
The hybrid's movements are still a bit uncertain, but she manages to complete her own personal cleansing, including getting rid of the briefs she's still wearing.
She observes the young woman struggling in small space, trying to wash her hair, and she feels the need to help her, she feels her stiffing under her hands for a brief moment as soon as her long fingers sink into her hair, she stops.
"Leave it, let me do it", she tells her, not even recognizing her voice, so hoarse because of the outburst in the forest. She approaches to her and forces herself to put all the effort she is capable of to return, at least in part, the loving attentions she had received shortly before, in an unpretentious intimacy that makes her feel extraordinarily safe.
As soon as her body sinks into the mattress, a heavy sigh of relief escapes from her lungs. She doesn't care that her hair is still wet, she realizes that she couldn't lift an arm not even if she needed to, she can barely crawl sideways to make room for her friend's body, fortunately much smaller than hers.
She watches her lie down on her back and stretch the folds that the overly wide tank top forms behind her back. She, on the other hand, feels Hillard's shirt pulling all over.
After staring at the ceiling for a while, the android turns towards her and extends an arm to lower the intensity of the light to a minimum. Shyly, a single finger brushes the back of her hand.
"Better?", Ripley nods in return, intertwining their fingers.
"Tell me everything you know... about me... about Ellen Ripley...", It's not an order, and it doesn't even sound like such, it sounds like the plea of an orphan looking for her own roots.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?", the girl dubiously whispers.
"I need to know", the hybrid declares with firm voice.
After scrutinizing her for a long moment, looking for indecision in her mimic, Call decides to please her.
She opens her arms in a welcoming gesture, waiting for the woman to curl up into it, hiding her face in the hollow of her neck. She ties her arms around her shoulders.
"Here... now you can't run away anymore!", a warm feeling fills her chest when a slight giggle comes out of her friend's lips.
"Uhm... She was thirty-six when she left for the mission that ended up with the blast of that cargo ship. It had diverted from its course to investigate certain signals, the crew had come across into something during the recon, a member was infected and only one xenomorph had wiped them out one by one, in a few hours, she was the only survivor", she pauses, "She, and a cat", she specifies.
"She was recovered fifty-seven years later, they did not believe her, and her license was withdrawn. She had looked for her daughter, but discovered that she had died a few years earlier, at sixty-six", she stops once again, expecting some questions.
"I have no remembrance of this", the clone reflects perplexed.
"Well, maybe these memories are too far back in time...", Call hypothesizes.
"Was she married?"
"Divorced. It seems she was bonded to another member of that first fatal mission, a transgender woman named Joan Lambert"
"Oh...", Ripley exclaims, thinking back at the absurd questions that had surfaced in her mind hours earlier.
"The Weyland-Yutani smelled money, lots of money, and sent someone from the terraforming colony onto the planet to look for the relic. But it was beyond their control. When they lost contacts with those people, they called her back into service and reinstated her with the rank of lieutenant first class. I found evidences of a fake agreement in which she agreed to join only on the condition that the Weyland-Yutani would destroy those creatures on first contact, on the spot. By the time they got there, the colonists were all doomed, except for Newt, somehow that little one had managed to hide and carry on until Ripley came", Call grants the woman a moment, the palm of her hand covering hers and both resting on her stomach, gently squeezing, in an empathic gesture.
"Unfortunately she drowned due to a failure of her cryotube, during the return to Earth. Corporal Hicks, the other survivor of the mission, also died. Probably the queen laid a few eggs inside the shuttle, and one... infected Ripley. She realized it, after a while, on Fiorina 161. And she gave her life committing suicide in attempt to save humanity from this threat"
Ripley remains silent for a long moment, contemplating her friend's words, letting herself to be soothed by the warmth of her embrace and the kindness of her speech, and realizes that her initial concern of losing control of those memories has faded as the story went on.
"Do you think that you and I could do something around here?", she asks finally, forcing herself to focus on the present.
She looks at their joined hands, still resting on the girl's stomach, one over the other, she turns hers so their palms match, waiting.
"You know, when I was looking for you in the woods, I noticed the shape of an old shed... and I heard the water of a stream running not far away...", Call tells her, trying to give form to her idea, "I mean... it looked abandoned and a little derelict, but maybe if…"
"Will you take me there, tomorrow?", the clone suddenly interrupts her, intertwining their fingers together once again.
A smile paints on the girl's exhausted face.
"Sure... what about taking some rest now?", she suggests for the sake of them both.
Ripley's response is a gentle, unpretentious kiss on her neck, followed by a single word.
"Thanks"