When it Rains
Chapter 2: White noise
I do not own. This goes along (actually towards the end) with Chapter 13, after they get back to the ship but before Sara and Dani have their heart to heart.
Fortune's Favor. Ariel City.
They were bendans (idiots). Big gorram bendans, but they were still her sisters, and they were all alive, and Rain couldn't bring herself to care much about anything else. Not even Dani's lecture still ringing in her ears, or the utter relief everyone was exuding over them all being home could effectively steal her attention away from Sara and Cali. She actually had hovered so badly when Aunt Maribelle was checking them over that she was kicked out of the Infirmary and forced to stay out in the lounge.
It's not like I was in the way! I can't exactly help nervous energy. Rain pouted, though she'd deny the action to her death.
Rain's head turned, hearing stunted footsteps, to see a sight that had her muffling a grin. Cali was using Sara as a crutch, Aunt Maribelle having informed her that putting too much pressure on her leg could reopen the wound. Sara, being quite a bit smaller than the younger girl, was stumbling around almost as if she were drunk with every step that they tried to take.
"You look about as effective as a three-legged horse," Rain laughed, standing up to move to her youngest sister's other side.
"'Cause a five-legged horse is so much better," Sara snarked. "So, where we headed?"
"My room." At the odd looks, because everyone knew about Rain's privacy issues, she defended, "Your whole head is a knot, squit. 'Less you want to have someone choppin' it all off again, it needs brushin' out. And you can't pay me NEAR enough to go into that nightmare makin' room of yours, Cali."
Sara didn't even try to hide the snickering as Cali went into a full blown puppy-pout.
They hobbled to Rain's bunk, all the way up near the bridge. Rain dropped down last after she lowered Cali down to Sara.
The room wasn't much in furniture, just a black sheeted bed against a wall, a rather squishy and ragged looking blue chair, and a small desk all bolted to the floor. There was an old desk chair in front of the desk. The only truly remarkable things about the room were the walls. The wall behind the ladder held the personal head on one side of the door, and a bolted up woven multi-level bin that served as the young pilot's dresser. The other three walls were a mass of pigeon holed boards stuffed with papers and closed shelves filled with books. Every space had some sort of adornment, be it star charts, drawings, pictures, or wall hangings. Even the ceiling was painted a mix of night sky and colorful designs. The fold out compartment behind the bed served as a holder for knick-knacks that Rain had no where else to put.
Sara sat down on the armchair, pulling her legs up under her and immediately sinking into it. "I think your chair is tryin' to eat me." she deadpanned, shifting to get more comfortable.
"It's good for that," Rain muttered distractedly while fishing a brush out of the fold out compartment. "Pull that chair over, we'll sit on the bed and you try to keep your leg up on the chair."
Cali managed to hobble over to the bed to collapse at the edge, propping her leg on the chair. Rain sat down behind her, bracketing her sister in by gripping the young mechanic's hips with her knees. She looked at the mass of knotted brown hair, then down at the brush. Sara and Rain shared a single, wary glance before the elder raised the brush to begin.
Fortune's Favor. In preparation for lift off. Ariel.
As Rain took over her shift on the bridge, Dani spoke up. "Next time you decide to torture Cali, at least have the decency to do it in a soundproofed room so's the rest of us don't have to bleed from the ears. That girl can scream with the best of them."
Rain just looked at her, too dazed and still half deafened.
"Next time, just cut her hair, nu'er (daughter)." Dani laughed. She went to leave the bridge to head back to her bunk.
"But then she screams more!"