Copper Luck
Chapter Three: Here we go Again
It had been a year and two months since Penny and Ripley were set loose from the Company. Although they weren't officially charged with anything, they were still stripped of their ranking and their licenses; the Company took some pity on them and set them up in a box-holed apartment complex that overlooked the sea from their windows. On another mercy, the Company placed the two woman next to each other in the complex. Every morning Ripley could hear Penny screaming from the dreams, just like Penny could hear Ripley crying out before she woke.
Every morning became one of normalcy for Penny. She didn't have the fanciest job, but it kept her mind off of the nightmares most of the time. She worked as a loader in the dry-docks, usually helping un-load and re-load spacecrafts that had just come home from a long journey, or were setting off on one. She handled the smaller equipment, never needing to use a heavy-lifter. She enjoyed the physical pain after a long day's work, it kept her mind from wandering towards the memories of the Nostromo.
Today, was no different. Today she woke up at 0400 to her own screaming, the sweat pouring off her skin in sheets. She quickly pushed herself off of the sweat-pooled bed and shuffled into the cramped bathroom only a few feet away. Not even getting undressed, Penny just turned the shower onto cold and jumped into the water. The nausea from her stomach stopped almost completely as the water washed over her previously sweat-drenched form. She breathed in deeply before stripping off her pajamas which consisted of an old-teeshirt and a pair of underwear. She showered in the cool water before getting out and wrapping her bathrobe around her. A towel twisted up in her hair as she set it to dry, and she walked out into her small kitchenette.
She put on a pot of coffee and flipped on the stereo to an older radio station that played music from the twenty-first century. It was a slow song with a male singer, something along the lines of loving a girl until she was seventy - Penny wasn't actually listening, it was just background noise so her mind would stop racing so much. Although she knew the words and she was singing along quietly, it was mostly the beat that distracted her from thinking too much or too suddenly. Penny put a small pot of coffee on the stove and leaned against the counter, her knuckles turning a shade of white as she clutched it.
A soft meowing broke Penny from her revery and Penny briefly looked down to spot her brown and black spotted cat who was weaving between her legs, looking up at his owner with wide eyes, "yes, yes I'm going; I haven't forgotten about you either you know." Turning on her heel, Penny rummaged through the cabinets and pulled out a tin of cat food before opening it and setting it on the counter. Meowing again, the cat looked up at her before leaping up onto the counter. Kane, as she affectionately named the small cat, started eating quietly before the pot of coffee dinged.
"Kane, do you think work will go okay today? Martinez got his leg broken by a falling crate the other day. So much for seventy-nine days in the work place without any incidents." Kane softly meowed and continued to eat as Penny poured herself a cup of coffee, sipping on it as the bitter taste burnt the roof of her mouth and her tongue. The rotator blinds opened to reveal the shimmering ocean view and the pinks, oranges, and blues that filtered the sky; the water reflected the sky, making it seem like more of a painting than anything else.
Her psychologist told her it wasn't healthy to name her beloved cat after her dead fiancé, but Penny didn't understand in the first place. She loved the name, just as she loved him; it was her memorial for him, he would never leave her and she would never leave him. Kane meowed behind her, hissing slightly before the buzzing of the door could be heard. It was a familiar sound, one she heard every morning when Ripley made her way over. Her routine continued like normal.
But today it would be broken.
When she reached the door, she had already taken her hair towel out and opened the door wide enough for Ripley to slip inside, "hey Rip, I got a pot of coffee on - " Except it wasn't Ripley standing before her. Instinctively, her free arm wrapped around her waist and she held on to herself. Two men, one of them was Carter Burke and the other was a man she didn't know, stood in front of her door; Burke had his awkward smile painted on while the other man stood stoically without moving or smiling.
"Good morning Burke, and ... friend, what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Good morning Jarvis, this is my good friend Lieutenant Gorman of the Colonial Marines Corps, may we come in? We have something we want to speak to you about." Penny closed the door so the Lieutenant's prying eyes couldn't see past the door, "have you talked to Ripley?"
"We... tried."
"Did you get a door in your face?" Penny playfully joked, leaning against the doorframe to fill it up even more. Kane meowed loudly in the background, probably signaling that he was done with his breakfast; that made one of them at the very least. Burke just smiled and nodded, scratching the back of his head like he usually did when he was nervous; he was an open book when it came to his emotions. She opened the door and started walking in, "come in and make yourselves at home. I apologize for the mess, wasn't expecting visitors."
Burke, who was the last one in, closed the door behind him before sitting down on one of the chairs that Penny pulled out for the two men. The Lieutenant stood, his arms behind his back and looked around her shoe-boxed sized apartment. There wasn't much, all white and grey and it wasn't exactly clean either. Drying laundry hung up on a wire that connected from one side of the room to the other, piles of books and magazines slid down the book shelves in a disorganized mess, and the dishes piled up in the sink were sudsy and wet. "Coffee?" She offered quietly.
"Three sugars please." Gorman said loudly, scaring Kane from his sunning spot on the window sill.
"This isn't a coffee house, you get what you get and you can't throw a fit - two black coffees." She presented them two mugs that were mismatched and one of them was chipped; she gave that one to the Lieutenant. She hopped onto the counter and smiled behind her coffee mug as she sipped the cooling beverage, "now what's this all about?"
"We've lost contact with the colony on Acheron."
Penny choked on her coffee, quite literally. Her face flushed from the lack of air and embarrassment as she pounded her chest to dislodge the liquid, "what?" Her voice was hoarse.
"LV-426, Acheron, we've lost contact with them." Her face lost all color as she grasped the necklace around her neck, the tips of her fingers playing with the silver ring. She felt nauseated to say the very least, "is it - is it them?"
"We have no idea. The radio has been all but static, no one is replying."
"And what has this got to do with me or Ripley - no, no, no." Penny dropped down from the counter, coming to her full height of 5'4" as she stood in front of the two men, "I'm not going back. Never am I going back there, I can't - you don't understand. The screaming and the blood, that thing killed everyone on that ship - killed without a second thought. Absolutely not. Dios me protege." She kissed the ring and looked out the window.
"Look, Penny - those seventy families - they'll all die if we don't help... if you don't. We need your expertise on this, and Ripley's."
"She said no didn't she?"
Burke was quiet as was the Lieutenant before Burke finally gathered the courage to speak, "she did, but we need both of you."
"You want me to convince her don't you?"
"We want to convince you; that would also be a happy outcome, ma'am." Lieutenant Gorman said quietly. Penny turned around and stared at the two of them, "we'll kill them?"
"Of course, every single one of them."
"You won't take them back to - to study them will you?"
"Seek and destroy, rescue and seek answers are our only missions ma'am." Gorman replied, sipping his coffee before making a bitter face as the coffee slipped down his throat. Penny leaned against the counter once again, "and we'll leave right after? I don't have to stick around."
"No ma'am."
After a long silence, Penny relented, "I can't."
"The families Penny, the children - they'll die."
"They might already all be dead and we could be walking into a fucking trap!" Penny slammed her coffee mug down on the counter, the backsplash burning her hand, "I don't want to be there when another team dies because of those fucking aliens."
"With all due respect ma'am, me and my team are all highly trained in combat and otherwise." Penny calmed herself down before taking a deep breath, "can you kill something that is a living nightmare?"
"We can certainly try ma'am."
"This thing can't be killed by ordinary means Lieutenant, we had to stuff it out an airlock to kill it." The image was burned into her head, the last image she saw before entering her long slumber of fifty-seven years. She could still hear the thing's shrieking as all the air in the cabin was sucked out, watched as its black silhouette was launched into space; that was the last thing she saw, the last thing she heard, and she could still hear it in her nightmares. Penny placed a hand against her temple in an attempt to soothe her on-coming headache. It felt like little electrical wires were sounding off inside of her head, the feeling was nauseating at best, "we have the best armor, the best weapons, and the best people for the job ma'am. We're a team, we can kill it."
Penny sipped her coffee again, her hand burning from the hot liquid spilt on it earlier, "the crew - my crew - we were a goddamned team and it killed almost every single one of us. That was just one; one of those damned things took out a handful of us without so much as a scratch on it."
The Lieutenant seemed taken back by her statement, "I didn't mean to say that your crew wasn't a team, but you also didn't have the weapons we have now. I can promise you we can kill it."
"You keep saying it, but the fact of the matter is that the hatchery I saw had thousands of those things stowed away in fleshy egg-sacks. What's not to say that there aren't thousands of those assholes down on that colony just waiting for another ship to land to make more of them? What if - "
"We can't go off of hypotheticals ma'am, the possibilities would be endless then. What if there are no signs of alien life-forms? What if it's just a radio error? What if they're all dead already? If we lived off of hypotheticals ma'am, we'd get nothing done." Lieutenant Gorman straightened his back, sweat forming on his forehead and creating a sheen of gloss on his skin. Burke was sweating like a madman by now, dapping the liquid away with a hankie that he had pulled from his pocket just moments ago. Penny set down her coffee mug, the liquid inside of the cup already cool, but the stinging in her hand hadn't changed much.
"But what if Lieutenant, think about it; are you willing to risk your team's lives over it?"
"If we can save even one civilian? I'd stake my life on it ma'am."
Penny mulled over what he said, the statement ringing in her head like a bad replaying tape. The guilt coiled in her throat like a snake waiting to strike and the sadness oozed down her throat, pitting into her stomach like an illness. As her stomach churned and burned with the thought of at least one person being alive, saving that one person; could she stand by and let that one person die? What if Kane was stuck there? Could she let him die?
Bile threatened to raise into her throat, but she forced it back down with a hard swallow. The images of blood and acid were so new in her mind, the images of her friend's corpses - of Kane's lifeless body. She felt faint and tingled with a sense of renewed purpose all over the back of her skull, like spiders crawling from her neck.
Another quiet moment later, Penny felt Kane licking at her burnt hand softly, meowing as he did so; she knew what she had to do now. Even with the feeling of bile situating in the back of her throat, she answered his question.
"I'll go."
Burke stood from his chair, a big grin plastering his face, "you will?"
"Don't hug me," Penny stopped Burke a foot away with a simple hand to the chest, "I'll go, but no hugging." The intimate closeness of another was out of the question. Her fingers unconsciously tugged on the necklace around her throat, her fingers playing with the ring tied with care around the woven strand.
"That's great news! Can you convince - "
"I can try," Penny spit out, crossing her arms over her chest before turning her head away, "now get out before I throw you out." Somehow, she knew she hadn't meant that, but she didn't want them to be here anymore; she felt like she was going to be sick.
"Wait!" Burke dug something out of his pocket, his calling card it would seem, "we leave in a weeks time, Tuesday morning 0500 at loading dock B; convince Ripley by then, please."
Penny sighed, "just go." She could feel it bubbling inside of her abdomen.
And they did. Lieutenant Gorman saluted her, "it'll be a pleasure working with you ma'am." Burke called after Gorman and the Lieutenant walked calmly after him. Burke seemed almost giddy, like there was a skip in his step. Penny didn't watch for an extended period of time, just waited until they rounded the corner and hurried herself back inside. The closest thing she could make it to was her sink, and she felt the bile rise up from her throat and empty into the drain. Minutes of tears and dry-heaving later, Penny collapsed onto her knees as she shook from the tip of her head to the point of her toes. What has she said yes to? She could barely sleep a few hours without waking up screaming because she pictured that things face in front of hers. Deep in the back of her mind, she could hear the faint words fight it repeating over and over again. While Penny wouldn't openly admit it, sometimes she could hear Kane's voice in the depths of her mind, but today - the one saying those words was herself. Steadily, she stood up from her place on the floor and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She stared down into the sink before steading her resolve, she needed to do this. No - wanted to do this.
"I'll be back in a few moments Kane, be a good boy and don't drink my cold coffee; I'm sure I'll need it after this." Penny shut the door behind her as she went into the hallway before knocking on Ripley's door, breathing in deeply through her nose and out through her mouth. This was going to be one for the textbooks it would seem.
Ripley opened the door, only a crack, and smiled softly when she saw it was Penny, "come in, I thought you were someone else." Ripley opened the door wider and led Penny inside of it.
"Burke and his lovely friend Lieutenant Gorman?" Once inside, Penny saw that her apartment was even messier than her own. Jonesy was weaving his way around the mess as if he was born in it, and he settled on a nice mound of dry clothes.
"Did they talk to you too? What a bunch of baboons, monkey-ass no good piece of shits." Penny hardly heard Ripley swear, so when she did she let out a small gasp of shock. Ripley just rolled her eyes and smiled, "well they are; what did you say to them?" This was it. This was the moment of truth. Penny could feel the headache pounding in her head, or rather her heartbeat.
"I said yes." Penny shut her eyes for a moment, only for moment as if that would shield her from Ripley's gaze.
Ripley dropped her coffee mug into the sink, the sound was shattering dishes filled the small apartment, "you - what?" When Ripley turned around, Penny saw Ripley's wide eyed expression even before she heard her speak. Her cheeks were red and flushed, "why? Why did you say that?" Ripley slammed her hand down on the counter and stared at Penny with a hardened expression.
"You're going to die there!"
"If I can save one person - one damned person from the same fate that our friends suffered .. it will be worth it."
"You can't bring him back, as hard as you try you can't." Ripley said as she stared down Penny with heated eyes, "Kane is dead. You loved him, he died, and he's gone."
"Don't bring him into this!" Penny shouted, her eyes narrowing and her eyebrows furrowed, "don't you dare. He has nothing to do with this, I want to help people that might end up like Kane - we can't just leave them there to die!"
"Can and will." Ripley turned away from Penny. Penny put her hand on Ripley's shoulder, who just shrugged it off, "go, die then; fine."
"You don't mean that Rip, I know you don't. You're my friend." Ripley turned and looked at Penny with saddened eyes, "I am and you're mine. I can't go back, we can't go back."
"You might not be able to, but I have to. For anyone that might be alive. For Kane."
Penny turned to leave, her hand grasping the doorframe as she stopped for a moment to talk to Ripley again, "you should do it for Dallas."
Then Penny left.
Penny arrived home around 2234 after a quick stop at the local, grubby bar whose alcohol tasted more like cat piss and watered down sewage than actual beer. Penny was rather tipsy as she entered her apartment, taking her time to fit the key into the hole. Kane greeted her with an angry meow, an almost hiss.
"I know, I know - I missed feeding time, here let me get it." She waved Kane off of the counter and pushed herself up onto to retrieve one of the last cat tins she had, "here you overgrown fatty." She peeled back the metal lid and set it down on the counter, watching as Kane sniffed it cautiously before chowing down on it. She smiled and pet him lovingly, just behind his ears which happened to be his favorite spot, "you're a spoiled kitty-cat really. I don't know what I'm going to do with you when you get too fat to move around."
Kane just meowed loudly and pawed Penny's hand away from its head. Penny stopped herself from pouting, "pez gordo, what am I doing to do with you?" She pat the top of Kane's head and left him to eat as she changed into a large teeshirt and turned off the lights. When he was done eating, he'd come snuggle up to her in bed like he had always done before.
As Penny closed her eyes, the door buzzed loudly and three times in a row, "¿Quién diablos es eso?" Pushing herself up into the sitting position, she yelled from her bed: "who is it?"
It was quiet for too long and Penny assumed it had been a prank, but no sooner than she laid down was there a quiet response of: "It's Ripley." Her eyes burst open as her mind went reeling from the day's events and suddenly she found the sick feeling to be back at the pit of her stomach, "look I know you probably don't want to speak with me, but just listen if anything else."
So Penny did as she was told, she laid in bed with her eyes wide open as Ripley spoke, "what I said earlier today was wrong, so very wrong and I know that. I should understand that missing someone you love, it's hard, but you're strong probably even stronger than me," Ripley laughed dryly from the other side of the door, "what you said today, about saving people, about doing this for someone other than myself - it got me thinking. I want to do this. For me. For you. For Dallas, Parker, Brett, Lambert, and Kane. I want to do this for everyone on that damned colony, even if they're dead - I want revenge."
Penny stood up from her bed, shuffling as quietly as possible to the door and leaning against it. She waited for Ripley to continue, "We need to do this. You and me, we're a team remember? Always ganging up on Brett and Parker, me and you... we're a team and we need to stick this out to the bitter end." Penny nodded her head slowly, smiling wide as she opened the door, almost falling onto Ripley.
"So does this mean you're going?"
Ripley could only smile and hug Penny close, "if you're going, I'm going."
Penny vaguely heard Ripley talking to Burke as she poured a cup of coffee, a celebratory drink as Ripley said. As Ripley and Penny walked next door to Ripley's apartment, the older woman jokingly told the younger one that she could smell the beer wafting off of her in waves. So, instead of a bottle of wine that Ripley had ready, she told Penny no more and made a pot of coffee instead. Penny audibly groaned as she sipped the coffee, she missed the taste of that sewage beer now.
"He says he'll have it all planned out in the morning and send me the details, which he said he'd send to you too," Ripley snatched the cup of steaming coffee that Penny had poured for her friend, "he was checking you out, by the way." Penny made a face and Ripley laughed quietly before blowing on her coffee to cool it.
"He was not, and never say that again. Even if it's true, that's not something I want to hear." Penny groaned once again as she made a mental note to start wearing pants to bed. Her lean, tanned legs were peeking out from underneath the large teeshirt and she was sure that's what he was looking at. Ripley snorted as she sipped the coffee, "he's been checking you out every time you are in the room for the last year; you haven't noticed?"
Penny complimented Ripley's snort with her own, "tried not to more like it. Burke is not someone I want checking me out. Besides, he checks you out too." Ripley couldn't bite back her laughter, "whatever, I highly doubt that." Penny only shrugged as she leaned against the counter, nursing her cup of coffee, "he checks out anything with tits and legs; let's be honest." Ripley only smiled that time, but Penny could see the outlines of her shoulders shaking with repressed laughter.
They were quiet for a while, nothing but the soft snores of Jonesy and the sipping of their coffee. Although Penny didn't appreciate silence, she couldn't help but bask in the silence between the two of them. Ripley was the epitome of comfort, she was like home and Penny couldn't help but bask in the feeling; not a lot of things felt like home anymore.
"Did he give the specifics of what to pack exactly?" Penny questioned, her tongue gliding over her teeth to clean them. Ripley shrugged her shoulders, "mentioned something about one bag of personal belongings per person; we aren't going on a vacation you know." Penny yawned as she scratched the back of her head, "I know, I was just wondering if I could bring some of the pictures my sister gave me and all. One bag will do."
"What are we going to do with Jonesy and Kane?" Another moment of silence before Penny groaned, her hand now combing over her face, "No pensé en eso, mierda; is there someone we can hire to come over and feed them?"
"Might be cheaper if we ask the company to take care of it."
"Yeah, knowing them they'd kill them as soon as we leave for the colony." Penny chugged the rest of the coffee, slamming the cup down on the counter and smiling lazily.
"I'll contact someone tomorrow, you should get some sleep; I know you didn't get any last night with all the noise you were making."
"Could say the same to you, you know?" Penny slapped a hand on Ripley's shoulder before pulling her in for a small hug, "I'm glad you agreed to go, there's no one I'd rather be there with than you." Ripley pat Penny's back softly, "me too."
Both of the women weren't so good at the whole comforting thing, but they tried their best which was good enough for them. Penny pulled back first as she sensed Ripley's uneasiness, "I'll see you in the morning then?"
"Yeah. Good night."
"Night Rip, night Jonesy." Penny pat the cat's head before she exited the apartment.
The following Tuesday, at a quarter to four, both Penny and Ripley showed up to docking area B and were escorted to a large ship. It was very impressive, even Penny stopped to stare in fascination and admiration; humans surely had come a long way with mechanical and technological developments, it was almost like the old sci-fi movies that Penny used to watch as a little girl.
"Come on Jarvis before you get left behind!" Ripley called out behind her, her bag currently heaved over one shoulder as she beckoned the younger girl with her free hand, "wouldn't want that now would we?" Penny rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath, "si madre."
"I heard that!" Ripley called back in a sing-song fashion. Penny knew that Ripley was nervous, she could easily tell by the tone of her voice; Ripley never joked around in these situations until she got nervous. Penny just shook her head and ran after Ripley. When they boarded the ship, they were greeted to a new face and an old one. Carter Burke stood next to a brown haired man with some sort of scar, or at least what Penny thought was a scar, along his face. Burke clasped his hand to Ripley's and then to Penny's, shaking it vigorously before stopping to introduce them, "Eleanor Ripley and Penelope Jarvis, this is Bishop; he'll be part of our crew and helping us enter cryostasis, he's kind of a pro at this." Of course Burke cracked a joke as well as pointing back at Bishop.
The man behind Burke simply nodded his head and had the faintest trace of a smile on his face, "it's a pleasure to finally meet the two of you. If you follow me, we can get you prepped for your stasis." Ripley simply nodded while Penny smiled, "liderar el camino." She folded her hands behind her head as her bag sagged under the its own weight.
"Por aquí." Bishop responded, the faint smile still on display. Penny pushed back the excitement she felt at someone else speaking Spanish; it had been a long time since she heard someone speaking it so fluently and without a terrible accent. She had a feeling she'd be fast friends with this man. Burke made quiet conversation with Ripley, one that Penny had no desire to be involved in. It was something about the Nostromo, which Penny didn't want on her mind. So instead, she walked wordlessly beside Bishop. When he didn't talk, Bishop seemed stiff in his movements especially when Penny strolled up beside him. She could see his eyes peering at her from the corner of her eyes and she just smiled to herself, "something interesting, Bishop?"
He shook his head, "nothing in particular. Please note that all jewelry should be taken off before stasis, especially metal. There have been documented instances where the metal expands and explodes." Penny touched her necklace and nodded, smiling sadly to herself as she toyed with it, "of course, you're the expert here and everything."
After a series of long hallways after another, Bishop led the troop into a large locker-room. Behind the lockers were the pods, most of them already filled with people.
"Please put all your belongings into your specialized lockers and strip down to your underwear." Ripley and Penny knew what to do, even going as far as to begin stripping before Bishop had stopped talking. As soon as Penny's shirt went up and over her head, she saw Burke whip around and she could even see the tips of his ears turning red. She only smiled smugly before shimming off her cargo pants and untying her shoes, her socks coming off soon afterwards. Penny stood in front of her locker in nothing but a simple undershirt, cut off so you could clearly see her bellybutton, and a pair of boy shorts that fully covered her wide hips and round backside. Ripley stood next to her in similar wear, although her undershirt was a bit longer and her underwear was considered a 'bikini' cover.
Burke was still undressing as Bishop started talking again, "when you come out of stasis, please be aware that we have both steam showers and water showers, also towels. We will supply water and crackers for your empty stomachs, and of course supper will be served once everyone is dressed and ready." Ripley and Penny nodded, and the two women could vaguely hear Burke hum in agreement, "please expose your necks for your shots." Penny leaned again, exposing the side of her neck as Bishop pressed the needle into it; she counted to five and released the breath she had been holding, a trick she told many of her old clients to do when they were scared of the sharp object. Ripley did the same and when it was Burke's turn, the two could audibly hear him whimper in pain.
"Follow me to your pods." Bishop now turned on his heel and lead the way once again. Ripley's pod was at the forefront of the pods, so he helped her get inside first. Penny waved to Ripley and wished her a good sleep, which Penny got in return from her friend. Ripley breathed deeply and exhaled as the pod's door closed on top of her. With a few simple clicks of his fingers, Bishop had the stasis starting; a few minutes passed and no one spoke. They simply watched as Ripley entered a deep sleep.
"Next will be Jarvis, Penelope," Penny followed the man down five pods and Penny noted that she was stuck between two intimidating looking men, "in your medical history, it was stated that you are prone to seizures; have you ever experienced them after stasis?"
"Once, after my first time in it." Penny remembered when she awoke for the first time on the Nostromo, a fit ran through her and that was the first big scare on the damn ship.
"None after?"
"Not after stasis. I'm under the impression I suffered a few after waking for the first time in fifty-seven years, do you think it'll be an issue?" Bishop shook his head as his fingers expertly glided over the small pad on the pod, "I'll be adjusting the internal pressure to modified specifications for someone that suffers from seizures. You'll become light-headed for the first minute, but you'll feel better when you fall into sleep."
Penny smiled, "thank you Bishop, that's very thoughtful of you."
"Just doing what I'm suppose to do in this situation, Penelope."
"Call me Penny, please."
Bishop's fingers froze on the pad, "of course. Please step into the pod .. Penny." Penny smiled and calmly entered the pod even though her heart was pounding.
"See you later!" Burke snickered. Penny only sent him a forced smile and took a deep breath as the pod door closed. She breathed in deeply and let the breath out in a short burst. Bishop was right, the light headedness was coming on fast and the pressure caused her ears to pop. She continued to breath deeply and calmly as her muscles fell lax around her. Her eyes grew heavy even though they were already closed, and soon enough she felt her mind drawing to a blank. Darkness greeted her like an old friend, embraced her as she fell heavily into a dreamless slumber.