Boone woke up and somehow he knew that she was gone. He didn't even have to move an inch. Like waking from a nightmare from which he was so frightened that he was paralyzed to move, he felt her absence acutely. No flowery scent. That was her hair, wasn't it? No warm body. No blissful sound of breathing. Just silence. Complete and utter silence.
In a standstill, thoughts came in choppily of the night before.
He'd patched her up, sloppy-like. He hadn't realized the adroitness of her fingers as she'd patched them up in the month and some that he'd been with her. Only when he tried, with earnestness that frightened him, to appease his Chinese friend, wrathful as she was, to patch up her wounds, slight as they may have been, did he truly begin to comprehend how skilled she was.
She'd kept him alive, he saw it now. Of course, he'd kept her alive too. She was sloppy with a gun, and reckless. Extraordinarily lucky, maybe a natural, but still - foolish. Unpracticed. He'd seen her kill only one person, a Legionnaire, who hardly counted, and that had been in the heat of battle. She'd had no choice. She was not a killer. She was a healer.
They balanced out one another because Boone was most certainly a killer. She, on the other hand, was smart. Smart like not many people were smart. Educated, somehow.
Ren made him salves from nothing, mixing plants to make creams or medicines seemingly from scratch or memory. She'd helped him more than he'd even been aware of, all while he just assumed, time after time, he was saving her ass over and over again.
Right before the two of them had gone to sleep the night before, while he was patching her up, a terse, uncomfortable silence cropped up between them. Boone had nearly been brought to tears at the realization of her place in their little...whatever it was that they had.
Partnership?
Friendship?
Boone didn't have friends. Not really. Best that way. He knew he'd burn her. Knew it. Didn't want it to happen. He liked her alright. More than alright. He sometimes even forgot that she was a woman now, and if she did undress before him, which she only did by accident, he didn't feel the same sickening squelch in his stomach with the thought. She wasn't just some woman. She was Juli. She was Ren. The Warden, an annoyance, a hindrance at times, but someone to respect.
And whatever that sensation was, in his small, malnourished, broken sense of self, he remembered feeling overwhelmed with the sense of grief and regret that he'd somehow allowed his rage to hurt her. Not that she was exceptionally special to him. If she died, that wouldn't have killed him. Nothing would because feelings were choppy.
But these feelings right then - in the now - a choked feeling, sadness, almost, a feeling very close to rage and pity, something not quite tangible, was definitely very real. He felt vulnerable in a way that made him resent her, and she wasn't even here to allow him to yell at her.
Because he'd already done that. Not only that, but caused her pain. He'd attacked her. It grated at him that he just couldn't remember doing that.
If she was going to die, he was most certainly not going to be the cause of it. He'd glue himself to her, sure. He'd managed to do that, and somehow that was comfortable. But he wasn't going to drag her down in doing so. That just wasn't him.
Or maybe it was.
Because she was gone.
All gone.
He'd made her go.
Still unmoving, Boone felt a sickening whoop in his stomach that required motion. A shot of adrenaline that first began in the back of his mouth made swallowing difficult. He thought he might gag. It slithered down his throat, constricting it as it went, to coil in his stomach like a rattlesnake. He felt the poison of this work its way through his system, eventually sending chills down his bare arms to the tips of his fingers.
This was too much feeling. He was used to being nothing, feeling sort of...gray. If he was a color, he'd be gray. Nothing special, nothing distinct.
Nothing like this. This was bad, and she brought it on. It made him feel so angry with her that he could spit, that he wanted to shout at her.
What kind of fucked up sensation was that? He didn't know. But he sure as hell didn't like it.
He stretched his tingling fingers. A nervous motion. They were resting on his sides, loose, a surprisingly vulnerable position for him to have assumed, even in sleep. It said a lot about what he felt about her, he realized, if he was not only willing, but able, in his subconscious mind, to fall asleep in a position as helpless as that.
Arms at his sides, neck and torso exposed, back to her sleeping figure…
He trusted her, he realized. He didn't want to. Boone should have expected a stab in the back. Part of him was prepared for it, sure.
But his aptness to trust her pushed the bounds of what was acceptable.
Maybe it didn't matter, he told himself. Maybe she was gone for good.
Again, the sick feeling.
More complicated this time.
Because she left him. She abandoned him. In the lurch. He'd made one bad mistake, one bad move, and she'd just left. Thrown all that they had away.
Not that they had anything, he told himself. It didn't matter.
But still...
The principle of it. The audacity of it. He saw in Ren's eyes that she got him. Maybe not all of it. Maybe not the details. But she understood pain. More than he wanted to even admit to himself, he saw that she understood pain. And, knowing that, she still wanted to bring him out here for a month on this stupid crusade to...what? Save him? He was so far beyond saving. The bitch had just been stringing him along. He knew it.
This was all a trick. A cruel joke. She'd left, and she was probably laughing wherever she was. Laughing at the hope that couldn't be, laughing that she'd managed to fool a broken man into believing he could be worth something to somebody.
No, he was worth nothing. Not even to her.
That was why she left. Why, at the first sign of trouble here, she'd abandoned him. Left him here to rot in his own little corner of Hell.
Maybe he should just end all of it. He wondered if she'd even noticed he was gone. If she just left and forgot about him, that was how impressionable he was. Or not impressionable, as the case may have been.
He rolled over onto his back, eyes closed, hoping his paranoia and despondency was unfounded.
She wasn't there. Figuring the risk was more important, if for nothing else than to curb his anxiety, he stretched his arm in the direction of her half of the bed, half-hoping that he'd accidentally bump into her shoulder or her face, even. Hit her hard enough to wake her up. The awkwardness would be worth it because she would be there, and he wouldn't have screwed it up so totally that he'd ruined everything.
Somehow, in the span of less than a moment, he realized that what Boone and Ren had seemed important enough to be considered an "it." It hadn't started that way, but complacency was a funny thing. He didn't like how all of this made him feel, and that was saying something. Because he didn't normally feel anything.
And here he was, feeling things. Feeling rage and...hurt?...and guilt that her half of the bed was cold, and it was all because of him. Because of how worthless he was, how sick he was, how terrible he was.
She hadn't been there for hours. He could tell by the fabric, by how unfettered it seemed. Without being able to help it, he groaned in his throat, a lament for her loss, a quiet, almost inaudible sound that ached in his chest. As angry as it made him, it was different, and it was keeping him alive. He was a sick man, and he wasn't sure what would happen to him now.
Finally opening his eyes, he noticed that her sheets had been made. How she'd managed to do that in the darkness without waking him was beyond Boone, but all at once, he didn't care. He sat up abruptly, finally, a cold sweat taking form on the back of his neck. Palpable dread soured his every muscle, tensing up at the mere thought of his aloneness. Her bag was gone.
What would he do?
Where would he go?
He would be able to do it, sure. Exist in Hell. It just seemed like a cruel sentence, especially when she was someone who'd showed him nothing but kindness, who'd lost her temper only once, and that was the night before when he deserved her anger. He wasn't lost, definitely. But he'd always just assumed she'd give him notice, make him aware. He thought she respected him enough to give him that courtesy.
Then, a new thought took him.
She didn't seem like the type to just leave. She followed a set of rules that didn't exist anymore. She was respectful to a fault, considerate to a fault. She took responsibility that wasn't hers because of her empathetic nature, and, more than once, in their travels it infuriated him. She was ridiculous, but she was kind and sweet.
She didn't know anything about the world. Not anything about leaving men.
But then again, what did he know?
He remembered her face when she'd accused him of not knowing her the night before. Her mouth was taut with anger, a sneer so uncharacteristic on her kind mouth, the lilt in her voice pitched high and loud aggressively towards him. He'd reacted badly, but why?
He didn't know her. He presumed to know her, but he didn't really.
And he'd shoved her. Not only shoved her, thrown her to the ground. He'd laid hands on her. A woman. His charge, his little ward. He was supposed to take care of her, and he'd made her bleed. He felt guilty for that. And frightened.
If Manny had kept pushing him, he probably wouldn't have been able to stop. He would have done something much worse. His anger had gotten the better of him.
He didn't even remember pushing Ren out of the way. He just remembered the pulsing in his ears, the pounding of his blood as his urge to kill or hurt or maim overwhelmed him like he was a feral ghoul.
The first time he even noticed that she was bleeding was back in this room. In fact, his eyes flitted to the stains on the carpet. In the dull light, he saw the brownish marks of blood long since dried. They trailed little dots all the way to the bathroom, and the door remained closed.
Maybe she was in trouble. Maybe she was scared. Maybe someone had taken her - and her things. It wouldn't be the first time someone had come to Novac with a mission like that.
The dread solidified in irrational panic.
Maybe they'd taken her, just like they'd taken Carla. Snuck in while he was sleeping, wrapped their arms around her and took her away. His eyes turned to the sunlight spilling in through the boarded up windows. Judging by their angle, it was later in the morning. She'd probably been gone for hours.
Damn this stupid bed, he cursed to himself, looking around with a cacophony of feelings exploding in his head. Damn Novac and damn her!
Then, a sharp cry from the bathroom, a woman's voice, made him fly into a standing position. He didn't want to hope that it was her. He didn't want his heart to pound with new regret that his rage and blame on her was hasty, that his nasty thoughts were spawned from fear simply because he didn't want to fear her going. He didn't want to assume it was just someone benevolent either.
He tiptoed over to the door, trying hard to listen. He heard sniffling, and a strange smell wafted up into his ears. It smelled vaguely of burning, and he thought he heard the whirring of machinery. Something distinct and strange.
Boone made his way back to his pillow, where a knife was resting beneath, and he went back to the door. But by the time he'd worked up his nerve to open the door, the thing burst open.
And it was her.
Ren. In the flesh. In all her glory. Her scent, her skin, her body, her hands, her hair. She was standing right there in front of him, and he nearly laughed at the warm pleasantness that caused. He was an idiot. The alarm at her leaving would have to come later, the alarm at his violent reaction to his feelings, something to be scheduled. But right now? Something good. Something that wanted him to smile at her, and Boone never wanted to smile. Something that made every tense muscle in his body relax, including in his shoulders, which had been knotted so tightly that the relief of that tension was nearly painful.
He had to hide that, had to kill that feeling.
So he opted for something easier, hoping if he masked it, the damn sensations would just go away. He opted for the fear, that rage, the distinct sensation of the panic at knowing he'd been abandoned or left behind.
He hated being left behind. So much that it hurt.
Sourly, he asked,
"What the hell, Warden?"'
He tried to glance over her shoulder, but she moved into his way. He grabbed her wrist more roughly than he meant, and he couldn't help but notice the wince. It had always been there, but he'd only just realized it after last night. Gently, also more gently than he intended, he took a step back, releasing her wrist, even going as far as extending his other hand, as if to steady her.
She didn't look at him. He didn't care. The sight of her made him feel even angrier.
"Gee, good morning to you too," she snapped with unusual bad temper. "Can you speak more quiet? My head is in pain."
"Don't do that with me," he pressed, speaking louder than was necessary. "Don't change the subject."
"From what, brother?"
She did that sometimes. A deflection mechanism. She killed his bad moods with kindness.
He absolutely fucking hated it.
"Don't do that! Why were you in there? What were you doing?"
"Why does it matter?" she asked him tiredly.
"It doesn't!" he shouted.
"Then why are you shouting?" she reasoned with a maddeningly level tone.
"I'm not!"
"Then I think my ears are broken because they can hear you more than they should."
She wasn't fighting him. He wanted her to. Even after last night, that scare he gave her, he wanted to fight with her. It was stupid. He knew it in the back of his mind. But his heart was still racing from waking up alone, and the fact that this bothered him so much sickened him into rage he couldn't control.
"What the fuck, Ren?"
The cursing bothered her. Her eyes flitted up to his angrily.
"What do you want?" she snapped now, using a tone he'd never heard her use before. "Leave me alone!"
In surprise, he looked at her more closely. Her eyes were downcast, and she looked distraught. Her eyes were red, puffy, and bloodshot. She'd been up for a while. Dark circles hung beneath her eyelids, and she looked exhausted. But more than that, her body language spoke volumes. Months of living in bitter solitude made a man observant. Her shoulders slouched unusually. She didn't smile, didn't even try, and she wouldn't make eye contact. She shifted uncomfortably on her feet, and it was clear that whatever had been inside of that bathroom, it wasn't a good thing.
"What do you want?" she repeated, faster this time.
"Good morning," he managed tersely, feeling out of his element.
"You want to curse to tell me good morning?" she snapped quickly.
"No, I wanted to -"
"I don't care," she interrupted waspishly. "Go away."
"I will not go away!" he rushed out, feeling like his ears were ringing.
"Why are you so angry?"
"Because you were gone!" he shouted.
He saw her glance up at him now, but this time it was his turn to avert his gaze. He realized that he was breathing heavily, and he felt as uncomfortable now as he'd ever been in front of her. What a fucking idiot he was. She must have thought he was a total dunce.
Not that it mattered what she thought, he told himself.
This was all too much. Exhausted already after having just woken up, he just clenched his fists and jaw, frustrated with himself and with her and the world. For the first time in all the time he'd been with her, he felt - truly - how sick he was. How feeble he was, emotionally. That he was broken and in need of repair.
Then, the moment passed, and his complacency got the better of him. Once more, he receded back from his peek into self-awareness, skulking back to the black hole from whence he'd come. Unable to process this glimpse or his own feelings, for that matter, he turned abruptly on his heel and walked a few paces away from her. His stand had been made, after all, and now all he wanted to do was...hide.
Like the admission were a wound, the anxiety flushed out of him rapidly, bleeding very inwardly. He wished he hadn't said that.
"You were worried for me?" he heard her ask behind him.
He didn't want to look at her, but his knees felt strangely weak. He sat at the foot of the bed, his face turned away.
"I was...I just didn't know where you were."
"You were angry for this?"
"Next time just tell me where you went, alright?" he ground out in that same harsh tone.
"Were you unhappy?" Ren whispered.
"No, just forget it," he dismissed.
She did. As always.
He loved that about her.
"What did you want?" she asked him.
He was able to look at her again. The hollow shell of himself reverberated in the tumult of the morning already, but he saw that her eyes were still averted.
"What were you doing?" he asked again, trying to glance over her shoulder into the bathroom.
She moved back to the bathroom and closed the door.
"Nothing that has to do with you," she replied with unusual sternness. "Now, was there anything else?"
After the multitude of feelings he'd just experienced, he felt wholeheartedly foolish. Now, all Boone wanted to do was get out of there.
Though, her behavior was highly suspicious. His eyes flitted down to her hands and elbows, searching for signs of vice. She didn't seem unsteady, but her eyes were most certainly bloodshot. She was snappier than usual.
A new burning question drowned out his embarrassment.
What was in that bathroom that she didn't want him to see?
"Why are you hiding it from me?" he pressed, standing again.
His eyes snapped to her, and he was glad that his tone was so even, that he was so able to mask the extreme ups and downs his personality somehow warranted when she was around.
"I am practicing discretion over things that do me discredit," she answered in her formal voice, one he knew she resorted to when he asked a question that was a little too personal.
But he didn't want to let it go.
"What kind of discredit?" he drawled, raising an eyebrow at her, his mouth a thin line.
His mind immediately went back to vice. Maybe she had pills. Maybe it wasn't an IV injection. Drugs were available and ready. Just because he hadn't seen the signs didn't mean she wasn't a junkie.
Even if he hoped that she wasn't one. It seemed so beneath her.
"I do not wish to tell you," she replied, more defensively this time.
"Well, I require to know or I'm going to have a problem. How do I know you're not a junkie?"
The thought lingered in the air, and by the arch in her back he could tell he'd royally pissed her off.
"Says the man who nearly injected himself when I first met him!" she snarled back. "You have no right to question me or anything I do!"
"Hey, I already told you! That was one time and a bad night!"
His stomach did a backflip again as he remembered the night. Probably one of the worst of his life. He'd never felt worse. Somehow, it caught up to him then. He'd had the morphine for a long time, but he'd never planned on using any.
She'd stopped him.
He owed her. Again.
Again in her debt.
Again.
Scowling, his anger pushed him to reject this conversation. This was probably more talking than he'd done in months, just in these last few days. It was fucking stupid, and he wasn't about to buy into it. If they were friends, they were friends "just so." It was a precarious thing, and she was pushing him - just as much as he was sure she was pushing him. He didn't want to start anything. He knew it was best to let things go and cut your losses when you'd lose.
But he didn't want to lose. She brought this night up - after putting him through all that - and he didn't feel like giving anything.
"Look, Warden, all I want to know was if you're fit to travel!" he half-lied, conflicted between yielding and fighting.
She stewed at him, clearly unwell.
"If you must know, I was experiencing discomfort in my pelvic region, which required attention."
She turned her back on him and went back to the bathroom. The door snapped shut, and Boone was left standing there, wondering how he'd turned into such a complete, bumbling idiot that he didn't think of that. She was a woman, after all. It was foolish of him to forget this, foolish of him not to consider that his needs were not her needs. Of course she'd have things to take care of, especially if she was a doctor.
His mild nausea, which had erupted as soon as he'd woken up, intensified at this new development.
She didn't even give him a chance to apologize. In short order, she was out again, storming from the apartment like she didn't want to talk. He didn't dare question her, but he lingered for a moment in the door, bag on shoulders, hesitating. After all, he'd been a total piece of shit in the last forty something hours.
It was only when she glanced back at him that he closed the door, jogging to catch up to her.
"When are we going to see Vargas?" he grumbled, trying - and failing - to keep the scowl off his face as his eyes perused the familiar and unpleasant surroundings.
"I did that before you wake up," she snapped, her accent and language barrier clearly affecting her in her anger.
"Before I woke up?" he repeated, a habit he'd developed to passively correct her mistakes.
She just groaned at this, huffing forward with her back that was still comically large.
"Where we going?" he snapped.
"I do not know," was Ren's reply. "But we are going."
That was good enough for him.
Ren woke up early that night. She'd had trouble sleeping, and she wasn't sure why. Her arm hurt, sure, but she was upset. Her partner in crime had committed a crime against her. Not on purpose, of course, but that didn't matter to her. Not in the darkest parts of the day. On top of that, she was sleeping beside a human - a man, no less - in closed quarters on a bed, both of them half naked to keep the heat at bay - she, her pants off, her long shirt billowing to her knees, and he, his shirt off, his muscular chest shining with a shimmery sweat that illuminated his body beautifully in the moonlight. As angry as she was, she couldn't help but want to look at him. She felt something about his body that she'd never felt before, a kind of hotness that made her feel frustrated when he got in too close. Now, she was beside him, and they'd never been further apart.
Didn't stop her from looking though.
It felt wrong to be doing that, and in the middle of the night, in one of those bizarre moments of clarity, Juli thought of her mother. If her mother saw her now, she would be ashamed of her daughter. A young woman, both too young and too old, sleeping beside a murderer, who was not her husband, on a bed in a room, alone. A confirmed murderer, one who'd attacked her in anger last night. Shocking, her mother would say. Scandalous.
Naive.
The thought brought a chill through her arms, a wrenching tightness in her gut. Ju was a lot of things, but naive was not one of them.
Was she acting that way, or was the harsh guidance of her mother's spirit just being critical, as she sometimes could be in real life?
With an aching that came suddenly, Juli missed her mother terribly. The thought that it had been only a few years since her mother had held Juli overwhelmed the young Chinese survivor. She could not sleep for these thoughts, so she arose, finding Manny early. The air was brisk, so she hustled, hoping to return to Boone when the deed was done.
Ju was snappy with Manny, and he, apologetic. As it should have been. The man was out of line. He had said unforgivable things to Boone, and Juli thought worse of the spotter for it. Boone was her teammate. Her partner in crime. Even if he was not always the best, he seemed loyal. He'd clearly been distressed when he realized he'd harmed her.
She gave him credit for that.
When she had returned home from her business on the dinosaur, she expected Boone to have awoken. He hadn't. Trying to rest beside him, she couldn't, opting instead for the prayers she usually reserved for her evenings right before bed. She clutched her wooden necklace, the carving that fit so perfectly into her hands, and prayed that her family grant her some rest from their talking inside of her head.
They did not.
After this effort had exhausted her, Juli went immediately to the bathroom. Undressing carefully, Juli surveyed her body for injuries. There were none, much to her own luck. She had marks on her body now, though, stretch marks, she thought despondently. A darkish purple that would eventually fade to a pale white, appearing as striped scars on her hips. She already had some on her belly from her time in incarceration when her weight had fluctuated so abruptly, and the sight of them served as constant reminders for her ugliness inside, of the horrors she had unfortunately endured. Even if her hair was longer, even if her scar in her temple was fading, even if her eyes were sometimes beautiful, she thought, her mouth sometimes alright, even if her cheeks revealed freckles that stood out among her white English-speaking counterparts, she was not that person within.
Within, her health indicated someone weak and pitiful, malnourished and dying, pathetic and sad. She hated her body, her skin, with a passion that riled her like nearly nothing could, and, standing before that mirror, she wished she'd never taken her clothes off at all. Her new stretch marks joined the bad ones that already existed, making her feel ugly both inside and out, reminders that she would never be able to get over what happened to her.
But this needed to be done because she had to get over it. Her father's determination dictated that this was so. These tests needed to be run. Even if her body was sick now, even if it made her sick to look at, that didn't mean it always would be, didn't mean that her wound would be forever. The healer insider of her, ever the optimist, (that, she got from her mother) refused to let her wretched condition be. She had to reverse the damage done to her, had to normalize her own body. Doing so would allow her soul to heal - or at least, that's what she made herself believe.
She'd been so thin in the Legion that her body had grown accustomed to the malnourishment. Now that she was eating healthy, her fat had grown, but not her skin. Anxiously, one last time, she eyed herself in the mirror, wishing somehow that the mirror would twist and turn to reveal somebody beautiful.
It did not.
This put her in a bad mood. She considered, perhaps, that it was due to a combination of factors. Firstly, Juli had gotten little sleep. She felt uneasy moving forward, like her problems had only masked themselves, not gone completely. It was obvious in these wee hours that the mask might be slipping. She felt upset about Boone, upset about his attitude, upset about Manny, upset about her body, her temper, these damn tests, and upset that this God-forsaken land never gave her a break. Because Benny was far, and she was here. She was here, being in it, ready for life, but tired of it, wading through the bullshit just hoping for the sun to rise.
Everything made her upset, and it was like Boone didn't even care.
That gave her pause.
Secondly, she was feeling hormonally charged. She recognized all the signs. Her body revving in all the wrong ways. Like misfiring of neurons, she felt cramps in her abdomen, a mounting migraine, exacerbated by the lack of sleep, an aching between her pelvic bones. Realizing this likely contributed to her lack of sleep - and her melancholy - she ran her tests thereafter, talking herself down, as she always did, with anthropological indifference.
Carefully, with well practiced hands, she took samples from herself, plucking hairs, pinching skin, scraping her tongue. All fine.
That was when it happened. She ran the final test, the one she'd been dreading.
The pelvic area.
She ran her tests, extracting her tissues with awkwardly twisted limbs, hoping against hope that her tests would reveal some progress. She knew she was hormonal, knew that any good woman would be ovulating right about now if they were in their right and God-given state of health.
She looked at those tissues under that microscope she'd brought in from out of town when she'd first been given the place to stay, stared at the cells long and hard, hoping for something, for normalcy. Hoping the medicine she'd tried, this time a new regimen, would have caused some movement. Would have brought about anything.
Tears formed in her eyes, long and hot, as she realized that there was no movement here. Not a one. No eggs, no babies, no movement, and certainly no healthy cells.
Damage.
That was what she was looking at. Even if it didn't hurt, even if she felt mostly fine, she was a walking wound. She was damage, raw and in its purest form.
And she hadn't bled in months.
Maybe she never would again.
Crying out in anguish, she threw the microscope as hard as she could into her bag. She pressed frustrated, hurt palms against her eyelids, resisting the urge to wail in her own disappointment.
No bleeding, no babies. No eggs, no babies. No medicine, no anything. No babies.
Ever again, her cruel subconscious whispered to her.
Despair took hold for just a moment.
She really thought this prescription had worked. Her cramps had gotten better, her stress far reduced with Boone around. Her headaches had gone down, and she was sleeping better in spite of his presence. There was no reason it shouldn't have worked. In fact, based on the research from Doc Mitchell's library, and his recommendation, she was exhibiting statistically anomalous results. Ju should have begun bleeding by now. She should at least have been ovulating. This wasn't right.
Her results were abnormal.
Typical, she thought bitterly to herself, struggling to siphon the hurt that exploded out of her back into its little jar somewhere inside of her chest.
If she let the lid out, the hurt would never go back in, and Ju would break. The hurt, the fear, the rage, the sadness, the loss...it couldn't spill out. It just couldn't.
A noise interrupted this cacophony, footsteps outside.
Boone!
Hurriedly, Ju redressed, wiping her eyes bitterly, determined to hide this from him and from everybody, just as she always had done. She was a healer, a doctor in qualifications if not in name. She knew about medicine, and she would get through this.
Clutching her necklace, she felt her father all around her, felt him nudging her on to keep trying.
She would, if for nothing else than to save face. Ren was embarrassed around Boone now, and it had been awkward between them after their argument. It didn't surprise Ju. He didn't care. Nobody cared about her anymore.
Or so she thought.
All until he shouted at her that she'd left without telling him. The hurt in his eyes was obvious, and so was the fear. The terror that she'd abandoned him here to his fate. He thought she'd gone. Her bag was there in the bathroom with her, and he'd woken to nothing.
Guilt permeated her being as they stormed off together, but it wasn't until they were deep into the desert, and he into a flask of whiskey, that she knew she'd have to account for her error.
They were on bags together, lying beneath the stars, their fire dwindling, when her voice interrupted the companionable silence.
"Craig," she muttered, a question.
"Mm," was his reply.
He was taking first watch tonight, and her head was feeling heavy. But it needed to be said, and she had to force through it because she'd been wrong. She wasn't alone, and he did care, even if he messed up when it came to feelings.
"About this morning..." she muttered, her mouth barely moving.
She felt him stiffen by the sounds of his breathing and tried to flutter her eyes open. Couldn't.
"I know how it looked," she managed. "I didn't think. I'm sorry."
He was silent.
"Didn't want to...upset you...sorry..."
Another long silence. In fact, she was nearly asleep when he finally did speak.
"Don't mention it again," he dismissed, but not in threat.
A forgiving statement, an acknowledgement of apology.
Falling asleep, Ju felt better, at least, than she had that morning, staring into that little telescope. She hoped, in time, her body would learn to forgive, just the way humans could.