Once again borrowed some dialouge from Falling Skies. So again, all credit goes to the Falling Skies team. I own nothing except my own characters and ideas.
Chapter 9 Legitimate Fears
"Penny for your thoughts?" Dr. Glass asked, wrapping the bandages on my arm again after my physical exam. "You seem distracted."
"Oh, I'm fine." I said dismissively, "Well, except for all these cuts and bruises." Dr. Glass nodded and gave me a look, like she knew that wasn't the full story.
"You bored without Ben around?" Dr. Glass asked innocently, grabbing some tape to bind the bandages together.
"A little." I said, wincing as she put pressure down on my arm. I wasn't really in the mood for talking since I felt sick after last night. Dr. Glass seemed to get the message that I didn't want to talk finished wrapping up the bandages and looked me over.
"You know the instruction." She said, handing me a few pills for me to take later.
"Take the pills, don't do any heavy lifting, and don't get yourself hurt." I said in a bored tone. She smiled and looked at me, like she wanted say something. She didn't however and escorted me out of the hospital wing, saying goodbye and closing the doors behind her. I walked around absently mindedly, thinking to myself of my misfortune.
"Karmas a bitch."
I knew that it would catch up to me, that I would have to tell Ben that I had used him in the beginning. But I thought I would have more time and that Ben would find out a different way than having my aunt blab to him. I never imagined getting blackmailed by my own aunt.
I thought about how Ben would react to the news. The best case was that he didn't believe my aunt and I was able to assure him that she was lying. Later, much later, I could tell him the truth. But that thought was thrown out the window before it took full form as I remember Ben yelling the other day and how he mentioned that he heard 'rumors' of how I was using him. If my aunt told him then he could call me a manipulator and a liar.
I was a wreck internally, dreading what would happen if or when Ben found out. He would be pissed, but Hal would be even more pissed. I was tough but not tough enough to stand against Hal. I then thought about Mr. Mason and how the rest of the fighters would react when they found out. Aunt Cindy was right when she said this would destroy my reputation in the 2nd Mass.
Some fighters went running by, shouting something about seeing a bike coming towards the school. I snapped out of my private thoughts and rushed after them, thinking that a bike meant a Mr. Mason and news from the sanctuary. But I stopped short when I realized that I was rushing towards the head of the Mason family and if I saw any member of the Mason family I would probably puke.
I was surprised however when I saw fighters rushing back towards me, supporting a limping guy. I took me a second but I recognized the wavy dirty blonde hair.
"Ben!" I shouted, feeling a little queasy. I was hoping that he didn't hear me so I could run the other way, but I was loud and Ben looked up at me.
"Michael! Come help me!" He said, though it sounded kind of pleading. Still a little shaky I moved forward towards Ben, being supported by two men. Despite them helping him walk neither of them looked too happy, and one of them smiled when I actually took Ben from him. I staggered a bit under Ben's weight and was about to ask for help form the two guys, only to find that they had ditched us.
I felt something wet against my right leg and looked down to see Ben's leg pressed against mine, with a dark red color formed around the area.
"Holy crap!" I shouted, almost dropping Ben.
"Weaver wants me at the Hospital." Ben said a little out of breath.
"What happened? And why do you sound like you've been running for a long time?" I asked, moving us towards the hospital wing.
"Long story, but I was running." Ben said, groaning as I tried to carry him to the hospital.
"What?" I said shocked. Besides Ben's rapid breathing there were no other signs that suggested that he had been running. His face wasn't red from panting and he didn't smell like sweat all over. If it were anybody but Ben I would call them a liar.
We burst into the hospital ward, where Dr. Glass was writing something down.
"Oh my god! Ben!" She said shocked, jumping up from her seat and rushing towards us. She helped Ben to the nearest Ben and started barking orders at me. "Get me some pillows and some bandages. Some hot water too! We need to clean that out!"
I rushed over to where I saw Dr. Glass collect all that stuff previously for me and brought it back to her. She already had a pair of scissors out, cutting away at Ben's pant leg around the cut. She ripped it off at around Ben's knee cap and examined the cut.
"Oh god!" I said unintentionally, pulling away from the foul smell that the cut was making. Ben looked concerned and so did Dr. Glass.
"It's infected." She said, pulling a cloth out of the hot water and putting some alcohol on it.
"What does that mean?" Ben asked, but shot his head back and yelled in pain as Dr. Glass put the rubbing alcohol and hot water on the cut. He groaned deeply and looked the cut, which was bleeding again.
"It means I have to work fast to save the leg." Dr. Glass said, cleaning out Ben's wound more.
"Wha- what?" Ben asked, fear in his voice. Dr. Glass ignored it and began working on his leg with dedication. She finished cleaning the area and I got a good view of the cut.
The cut went up from Ben's ankle to about midway up to his kneecap. The cut itself was gruesome as it continued to bleed lightly and had some small objects coming out it. The area around the cut wasn't any better, with the entire area looking inflamed and even a little black around the edge of the actual cut.
"Michael, talk to Ben." Dr. Glass said to me, not looking up from her work. I looked at Ben who looked like he was about to have a full blown panic attack. I imagined that I looked something like that when the Mech was attacking us so I sympathized with Ben. I went to Ben's side and sat down next to the bed.
"How did this happen Ben?" I asked lightly. Ben closed his eyes and began panting heavily. His breathing slowed and opened his eyes.
"Clayton's sanctuary was a trap." Ben said.
"What?" Dr. Glass said, looking up from Ben's leg with shock on her face.
"The 7th Mass was whipped out, but a remnant of it managed to survive by trading kids to the skitters."
"Oh my god." Dr. Glass said, shock in her voice. I was stunned too, it makes sense that people would resort to low means in order to survive, but trading away children? There's nothing worse than that.
"We managed to get away and we made it several miles before he had to stop at some house. I offered to run ahead and warn the rest of the 2nd Mass about this betrayal." Ben continued, his breath becoming more rapid again.
"You offered to run the entire way back?" I said impressed. Dr. Glass snapped at me to hand her some towels that were right behind me. I did it quickly, eager for Ben to continue his story.
"Ya, and I was doing well until this happened!" Ben said, gesturing towards his cut leg. "I had to cut through some forest in order to escape Clayton's men and I stumbled down a ledge." Dr. Glass pulled out some tweezers, looking at Ben.
"Into a tree?" She asked, "You had particles of wood in this cut."
"Not into a tree, but I landed weird on one of the roots." Ben said, pulling up his sleeve to show off a dark bruise. "I rolled to the side and I was about to fall down another ledge when the roots snagged my knee cap."
I looked a Ben's left knee cap to see that it was bruised too. "Jesus." I muttered. "How'd you get out?"
"I had a knife luckily." Ben said, smiling at me.
"Where did you get that?" Dr. Glass said confused. "Those are dangerous if you don't know how to cut with them properly."
"Ya, I learned that." Ben said with a hint of sarcasm. "I cut the root, but I did it too fast and I cut myself loose, which made my legs fall towards me and left the knife stuck in the root. As I feel my leg cut up against the knife, thus the injury."
"So you don't have the knife on you?" I asked.
"No, I left it there as I began to crawl away." Ben explained, sad that he had lost it. I wasn't too upset because I figured Ben could use it to stab me if he found out the truth.
"Where were you crawling?" Dr. Glass asked.
"Anywhere I guess. Luckily I made it to the road and my dad and Dai pulled up on their bikes. I told them everything and my dad went after the kids while Dai rode me back to tell the others and get my leg fixed up."
"Well I've done the best I can." Dr. Glass said sadly. "Michael, I need to talk to Ben about something. Can you give us a moment?"
Dread crept through me and I looked at Ben. He seemed to have a bad feeling about it too, so he decided to send me away with a task.
"Go with Weaver please Michael? Just make sure my dad and brothers are alright." I raised an eyebrow, finding that to be an odd request. But I nodded my head and left the room before Dr. Glass could protest me leaving the school. Not that she seemed to care now since she was wrapped up with Ben.
Part of me wished I could stay, but another part wanted to get the hell away from Ben. I listened to the latter part of my brain and went to find Weaver.
Later
"Get your hands up and drop your weapons!" Weaver shouted, holding his gun to Clayton. One of Clayton's men tried to shot him but Weaver was quicker and shot him before he even had his gun cocked. "I said drop them!" Weaver shouted again and everybody from the 'sanctuary' proceeded to do so.
We had moved quickly onto the buses and trucks in order to get to the sanctuary in time. Weaver had said he wanted Ben to come to give directions but when he heard about his condition from me he changed his mind. Dai would have to lead and he did, lucky for us. I'd hate to be lost with Weaver.
Fighters came in from all directions, surrounding the enemy fighters and rounding up the stunned and joy filled faces of the children. I saw my cousins among the crowd, where Bethany was shaking with joy and Terry still looked really scared. I can't say I blame him though, being traded to the skitters is a scary prospect for anybody to face.
"What about me Dan?" Clayton asked, a small smile on his face with his hands behind his head. "You gonna shoot me too?"
"Only if I have to." Weaver said sternly, not letting Clayton out of his sights.
Clayton chuckled softly and then looked at Mr. Mason. "Tom?" he asked. "What's the next step of this plan of yours?" Before Mr. Mason could reply, Clayton moved faster than I thought possible and grabbed Hal and forced a gun into his side. "Cause I was thinking this!" He shouted, about to pull the trigger.
Before he could there was a loud crack and Clayton groaned, letting go of Hal and dropping his gun. He stumbled back a few more paces and coughed a little blood before falling to the ground, dead.
"Holy crap." I heard one of the fighters say behind, "That was some real Clint Eastwood stuff!"
There were some screams from the children and some of the new fighters looked horrified, obviously never seeing death before. I stared passively at Clayton, unmoved by his death. 'I told Ben that he was bad news.' I thought to myself, awkwardly holding my weapon at some enemy fighter.
"You ok?" Mr. Mason asked his son. Hal looked shook up, but otherwise unharmed.
"Yeah, I'm ok." He said dazed, before turning to all of us. "Did you know they were waiting for us?"
"I hoped." Mr. Mason said smiling. Weaver stepped forward, turning towards the crowd of sanctuary civilians.
"You people," Weaver said, "You can go or can stay, I don't really give a damn. But if I find that you've been dealing with the skitters again I'll kill every last one of you. Take their weapons; we'll give them to people who actually deserve to be called fighters."
The weapons were collected and the sanctuary civilians solemnly walked back into their log house. Mr. Mason and his two sons appeared behind me, grabbing my shoulder.
"Hey, how's Ben?" Mr. Mason asked while looking right at me with an intensity I'd never seen before. I swallowed nervously, not quite sure what to say. My delay seemed to tell the Mason family that something was wrong, as all of them developed a look of despair.
"It isn't good." I said.
The School
"Out of my way!" Mr. Mason shouted, moving through civilians and fighter alike. Hal and Matt were close behind him, followed by me. I had to tell them something and since telling lies wasn't working for me recently I told them the truth. I tried to dub down some of the worse details, but they understood that things were bad.
Mr. Mason burst into the hospital room looking like a crazed man. His eyes found Dr. Glass and he rushed towards her. "Where is he? Is he ok?"
"Dad!" I heard Ben shout. Mr. Mason turned to his son's voice and then his face morphed into shock. I heard some soft banging and then I saw Ben turn the corner, walking with a crutch under his arm, smiling.
"Ben…" Mr. Mason said shocked. He began to laugh and hugged his son. Matt run up and did the same thing while Hal approached the group, grabbing his brother's shoulder and smiling.
'What the…' I thought to myself. This is not what I expected when I got back, I thought we'd see Ben on some bed, missing a leg or under some severe medication. Instead here he was, up and about and looking a little tired but not bad otherwise.
I looked at Dr. Glass, but she wasn't making eye contact with me. She looked disturbed herself and approached the Mason family. "Tom, can I speak to you for a second?" She asked. Tom nodded, kissed his son's forehead and walked away with Dr. Glass to a back room.
I was considering staying with the Mason boys, but I thought it would be best to give them their space. So I followed Dr. Glass and Mr. Mason and eavesdropped on their conversation.
"What are you saying?" Mr. Mason whispered with a hint of anger in his voice. "That my son is some sort of freak? A razor back?"
"No!" Dr. Glass whispered harshly, "You aren't listening to me!"
"Because what you're saying doesn't making sense!" Mr. Mason protested.
"Listen to me Tom!" Dr. Glass whispered sternly, "That cut on his leg was infected, majorly infected. Even with modern medical tools before the invasion it would have been hard to make the leg turn out ok. The only answer was to cut it off!"
"My son's leg isn't cut off though! And he's walking fine!" Mr. Mason said.
"I can see that! Ben wanted to wait until you got back before he made a final decision so I gave him some sleeping drugs to relax him." Dr. Glass breathed in before continuing, "And then when he woke up an hour later he was fine."
"'Fine'?" Mr. Mason said.
"His cut had improved!" Dr. Glass said exasperated, "The infection and swelling were gone, along with the massive amount of bleeding he was doing! That doesn't just happen with an hour's rest Tom!"
"So your answer is it's because of the harness?" Mr. Mason said in a controlled voice.
"I don't know. All I know is that what happened is a miracle, and the only logical explanation would be that the harness somehow helps Ben regenerate tissue faster than humans."
"So he's not human?" Mr. Mason said, a clear and powerful tone of anger in his voice.
"That's not what I meant!" Dr. Glass said.
"Hey Michael, where are you?" I heard Ben call. I pulled away from the closed door and moved back to the main area where the Mason boys were. I was surprised when I saw Jimmy there, though I was even more surprised when I saw two fighters carrying some biker dude with a bleeding leg.
"Where the doctor?" one of the fighters asked.
"She's in the back with Mr. Mason." I said. The biker guy scoffed.
"Welcome to the 2nd Mass, where the chief medical officer and 2nd in command can get seven minutes in heaven any time they want!" Despite who he was talking about I had to laugh a little. Hal shot me a disapproving look and I shrugged innocently. I walked towards them and stopped in front of Ben's bed, where he was now sitting up with his leg elevated. I stared at the clean bandages on Ben's leg.
"Weaver wanted me to make sure that Pope got here alright." Jimmy said awkwardly.
"Pope?" I asked.
"The biker dude who just insulted my dad and Dr. Glass." Hal said unhappily.
"Yeah, well I better get going." Jimmy said. He stopped suddenly and turned to Ben. He started to say something, but stopped himself. He opened his mouth again and said to Ben, "Thanks for coming back for us." He looked Ben over with slanted eyes and walked out of the hospital.
"How sincere." Hal said dryly. I had to agree, it sounded like it had pained Jimmy just to praise Ben. I guess prejudice dies hard.
"I could kill every last skitter and people would still hate me." Ben muttered sadly.
"Ben," I said, staring at his leg the entire time. "If you could kill every skitter then people would have a legitimate reason to fear you."
I enjoy Falling Skies a lot, but everytime I watch the ending of Sanctuary Part II, I groan. Jimmy forgiving Ben just like that really ticks me off, it just isn't logical! He hated his guts and feared his existance and this one good act shouldn't change that! So Jimmy is still not liking Ben in this story, another A/U moment. There will be more to come.
Sorry for the late update. School started again and the life of a High School Junior is busy. I'll try to update once a week and I since this weekend is a long one I'll try to get some more chapters done so I have them ready to go.
There were only four reviews last chapter. Please REVIEW! Helps me a lot with your input for making this story better.
