AN: Imagine a cake. A regular one. A bit dry, no appeal whatsoever. Now imagine someone icing the cake, stuffing it, adding chocolate chips and sugar decorations (like roses for example). Putting candles on it, and then thinking about the whole room, so far dim lit with white walls, to turn it into a real party room, with decorations everywhere, colorful banners, streamers and other party supplies, added to a wonderful background music.
I made the cake, and I thought it was alright, without being wonderful. My US friend, she did everything else: the icing, the room etc. It's totally amazing. From my original work, maybe two dozen words are left. I can't thank her enough for that. So the story is mine, but the phrases are hers.
She also went through the first chapter which makes more sense now, in my opinion.
Thanks for reading!
When you think of underground tunnels these days, you're likely to think sewers, foul water dripping eerily from the ceiling, things growing quietly in the flickering phosphorescent lights, leaving you shivering in the middle of a horror flick. This door, though, opened on a smooth stone corridor, which radiated that odd dry warmth of deep underground place. The walls were covered in ornate carving, full of medieval looking knots. Along the way were torch holders, but there didn't seem to be any actual torches around, though Becker couldn't see far enough to tell that for sure past the first pair. Once, he supposed, this had been somebody's pride and joy, important. Now, it was just somewhere that time forgot, hundreds of years ago.
Jess started off into the gloom, reverting into her feline mode, sure footed as if the place was as bright as day. Becker resisted the urge to swear and followed along. He turned down the intensity of his electric torch, determined to adjust to the gloom, but also hoping to keep from being left entirely in the dark when his batteries died. Scanning ahead of him with the dim light, he only took a moment to locate Jess, who hadn't so much as paused when he'd stopped, just gone on sneaking forward. Still, he was much taller, so it only took a few strides to catch up. Only then did he finally understand how she had been able to sneak up on him a few moments ago.
"She never wears sneakers!" was all he could think, faced with these alien items. "For once, it would have been bloody useful to wear those noisy, stupid heels that make her look like she should fall over! But noooo, today of all days, she had decides to wear sneakers! Sneakers!"
A noise in the silence forced his eyes up from her feet and he was startled to see the young woman trailing her nails on the waist-high wooden skirting board.
"What are you doing?" He hissed quietly.
"I have to let him know I'm here," she explained in a whisper, glancing back at him. His expression didn't change, so she tried again. "It's the vibrations. If he can feel them, he'll know it's me. It's my best shot at getting him to come out from wherever he is."
"Him and all the other creatures who'd sooner eat you then look at you," the soldier pointed out, tone sharp.
"Matt hasn't reported any incursion, has he?"
"No, bu-"
"Then trust me. I need to find Kael, then I'll let you tell me to run away."
He tried not to feel like she'd just slapped him. He also tried not the think about why he'd feel that way. He needed to change the topic. It took a minute for him to find a safe question, though.
"Who is he?"
"I told you," Jess reminded him, too distracted peering down the pitch black hall to really think about that pause. "He's one of my charges,"
"And?" Becker prodded quickly, prying at the most obvious hole in her explanation. "He means more than that, doesn't he? He only trusts you, and you're here, putting your life on the line just to find him. He's important to you."
Jess didn't answer, so he dug harder.
"If he didn't mean anything to you, you would have told me what he looked like, how to find him, and you would have gone somewhere you know you could help from instead of haring off like this. Instead, you're giving me nothing. You didn't even tell me why he'd run away, just that he's afraid of soldiers."
"I never said that," she countered a bit too quickly.
"You were pretty clear when you said we would scare him. He's been around other people today, without being frightened by them, so far as I can tell. It's not unheard of people to not like soldiers, Jess, but they usually have a reason."
"It's not like that, exactly," Jess said, oh-so-helpfully.
This game was making him uncomfortable and suspicious. Fast. These half answers weren't right, not coming from someone who forced you to think of her with words like "bubbly" and "colorful". Words he still didn't think belonged in his vocabulary in the first place.
"It's like you're protecting him. I'm not the bad guy, Jess. What are you not telling me?"
The girl stopped and Becker nearly tripped over her, only just able to salvage his dignity as he stumbled to a stop. He watched her back, her shoulders tight, her face hidden.
"It's…complicated," she said finally.
"Then explain in simple words," he prompted her gently, trying to help.
The silence stretched as the FC still refused to face the captain. He could do patient, though, and he knew she'd break first. He was right.
"He-" she started to say.
The sound of scrapping wood was the proverbial pin falling in the quiet, giving Jess the out she'd been so obviously desperate for. Immediately, the brunette woman sprang into action, rushing straight for the noise. Becker watched with interest as she stopped in front of an unremarkable stone panel and delicately pushed it aside, revealing a blue-eyed little boy straining to catch sight of her, pressed as far back in the shadows as he could. It was obvious he recognized her though, because even Becker could see the smile that cracked the child's face as he rushed forward and let the woman crush him to her chest, once she gestured gesturing wildly in the air for a few seconds. It was also obvious when the boy saw him, as the smile vanished, hands grabbed for Jess, and the child's face vanished into her smooth brown hair. Becker stayed very, very still.
The standoff lasted only a minute, but it certainly felt longer in the dark for Becker. Slowly, though, Jess pried the boy from her shoulder.
When his face was uncovered, Becker could only watch in confusion as his FC started to move her hands in flowing gestures, quick at first, then slowing. From time to time, the boy would gesture himself, often bringing his fist to his chest in a circular motion.*
Becker wondered if this was what it was like to be deaf.
Well, actually, not exactly like what it was to be deaf, of course, since he could at least still here the young woman breathing, and knew that there wasn't anything sneaking up on him because he couldn't hear it. Rather, it was more the feeling of being the odd one out in a conversation, one where everyone else knows exactly what's going on, while he was left without so much as an instruction manual. Becker didn't scare easily, but if this was anything to go on, it seemed to him that being deaf had to be terrifying.
Still, he had to admit he was a little mesmerized by the precise but fluid movements Jess seemed to find as natural as breathing. That made it easier to watch this conversation he had no idea how to understand, but it also helped that he was a man used to reading other forms of communication as well. Right now, he had the facial expressions both of the "talkers" cycled though, and more than an inkling of what somebody searching desperately for someone would feel upon finding that person. With all of that, it wasn't hard to at least make the general theme clear: the woman had been very worried when the boy had disappeared and the boy was sorry, but she was relieved now to see him safe and sound and so was he.
The soldier didn't know how long he stood there, staring at them, watching the silent talk unfold. Eventually, though, the boy must have said something to Jess about him, as she turned her head sharply towards him, looking surprised, as if she was really only just seeing him today. Rising slowly, Jess helped the boy up and out before she approached Becker, keeping the child's hand in hers, his side against hers.
"Kael, this is Captain Becker" she said and signed, carefully spelling each letter of the new name with her fingers.
Becker knelt down to be on the kid's level and held out his hand to shake the much smaller one.
"Very nice to meet you" he slowly said, trying not to watch Jess's hand move in time to his words. The boy tolerated the shake, but was quick to retreat when released, hiding behind her legs like a child behind his mother's, peering out shyly.
"He scares easily" she explained, hands on autopilot by now. "No offense. He just doesn't trust easily."
"I guessed" the soldier said wryly, rising to his full height slowly. He couldn't help being big, but he could try not to be frightening. "You don't trust anyone around him either."
She didn't answer, but it hadn't ever really been a question. He sighed. He didn't want to be the bad guy here.
"Look, we have to get back before it actually gets dangerous around here," Becker sounded almost apologetic.
Instinctively grasping what that expression had to mean here, the boy straightened up, set his expression, and tugged Jess's hand to get them started. Becker almost laughed to see someone else pushing the young woman around for a change. Almost.
They stayed silent on their way back. Jess and Kael signed from time to time, but Becker was alright with being left outside their world for now. He needed to focus.
A sudden crackle echoed in his ear and the soldier froze, only his hand lashing out to grab hold of the brunet's arm. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Matt? I can't hear you very well. We're still underground."
"Get… said…if you… or… Becker!" Was all he could make out through the static.
"Damn wireless," Becker growled. "Matt, say that again, I really couldn't hear a word you said. Matt? Matt! What's going on?"
He didn't get Matt.
But he did get an answer.
A low growl hummed through the very stone of the corridor, rising through the thick soles of his steel toed boots.
Eyes met, and Becker could read the fear in hers, even as her hand explained something steadily to the now panicking child tugging at her clothing. The Captain braced himself, letting grim determination overwhelm his adrenaline. He knew what was coming. Jess did too, but she didn't have an EMD.
"We have to get back to the cellar," Jess's voice didn't tremble. If he hadn't been in the middle of this shit, he would have been proud.
"Jess, we don't know where the creature is," the soldier pointed out firmly, reaching for his EMD.
"No!" she gripped his arm tightly, preventing him unholstering the weapon. "I don't even know if there's a way out on the other side!"
Jess and Becker arguing was doing nothing to help the boy get over the feeling of the growl. Kael pulled desperately on his protector's hand.
"Jess, we don't have a choice right now."
Mouth open to argue, the brash young woman choked off her objection.
In front of her, blocking the path to the cellar, was the biggest creature she had ever faced. Next to this, the Dracorex might as well have been a kitten standing next to a lion. This monster wasn't even standing at its full height because of the corridor, even despite the abnormal height of the grand ceiling. And while Jess did appreciate that this thing was smaller than a T-Rex, those eyes… she was dinner, soft, chewy, delicious, and this thing knew it. She had seen enough of these beasts to know hunger.
"Jess, take Kael and run in the opposite direction when I say," Becker breathed. "I'll distract it."
"Now's not the time to play superhero!" she whispered back, not moving. She wondered if it mattered if she moved. Connor had told her once, in the middle of one of those "Look at how amazing I am" stories that actual Tyrannosaurus Rex's couldn't see you if you moved. Why was she thinking of that now? "I'm not leaving you here to die. Besides, exactly how do you think I'm supposed to defend us once it finishes its tea-time snack of Becker à la sanguinaire**? You're the one who insisted that I can't go into the field without all that stupid training!"
"Jess, that's an order!"
"And you're not my boss!" she snarled right back, startling him. She could not bring herself to care that she might just have overstepped all her bounds. She had work to do.
Slowly, she stepped backwards, Kael behind her, her sweating hand holding his smaller one too tight, the other one gripping Becker's vest so hard her knuckles were white and bringing him backwards too. Slowly, she did it again, and again, the soldier not daring to resist, fearing it would attract the killer's attention.
It was working. She could hardly believe it was working. Her head hurt there was so much adrenaline rushing though her veins. She managed to move ten meters away, hardly daring to breathe, before the creature snapped, letting out a growl. Muscles coiled, and the monster sprang at them, teeth and claws and— Becker turned around sharply, snatching Jess's hand from his vest and crushing it in his, scooping the boy up with his other arm, and he ran like hell.
It was a good thing he was very good at being a soldier, as he heard Kael's voice for the first time, shouting the one word he realized he'd been dreading hearing.
"Momma!"
AN: * Becker's right. This is the sign for "sorry".
**I wanted to invent a new dish, French style, with all those meals that are "something à la something". Somehow, I doubt Becker would make a good dish. Way too many nerves…