This is it. Hope you enjoyed the ride, and if you didn't, thanks for coming anyway! If you have suggestions for a rewrite, let me know and I will gladly redo this story!
That said, it took two weeks for Hyde to recover, the morning she opened her eyes and did not hurt was one she was grateful for. For a moment, Hyde lay in bed, feeling the cool sheets, the sunlight coming through the curtains. . .and how weak she was. Her arms and legs wanted to stay put and they drug her back into unconsciousness. Sleep was heavy and black, long and empty. It was a restful rest, for a change.
Kat came into the room as Hyde was just waking up a second time, as the sun set behind her. "Feeling better? That was quite a bug you caught."
"Yeah, I'm alright. A little weak, but then. . .", Hyde didn't finish, just pulled on some clothes. Kat waited for her by the door, and the woman Spartan's greater height made Hyde appear like a child. They walked down the hall, Hyde following unthinkingly behind, keeping her chaperon in view, but not really seeing her. Hyde startled when Kat spoke, "You and I are going out to eat. Seeing as how you haven't eaten in a week, we'll go to a buffet. Like Chinese? "
"Uh, yeah! I live for Asian food!", Hyde exclaimed. Kat smirked.
"Aren't you full of energy?"
"How many plates have you eaten?!", Hyde almost yelled as Kat got up to fill her sixth plate to the spilling point. Hyde herself had eaten three plates, and felt immediately ill afterwards. Just watching the super-soldier eat so much was both fascinating and repulsive to the sick girl. She had never thought that along with the augmentations of their muscles, their appetites had grown as well.
It had felt good to eat. At first. Then it was a 'why did I eat that?' feeling, and a strong sense to go to sleep—again-was about her. Kat decided she was getting weird looks from the manager, not that she was imagining it, so she stood up and said, "Let's go, Hyde." They exited the restaurant and cool night air, refreshing and awakening, whooshed over them.
"Where's the rest of. . .your team.", Hyde asked, unsure of how to refer to the Spartan squad. Their official name was Noble Team, it seemed hard to call them by that name, for some reason. Like it would be harder to see them as human if she called them that. So many people thought Spartans were stoic, immortal statues that haunted the dreams of Insurrectionists and aliens, but meeting them, and spending time with them, she noticed how easily some of them bickered—like siblings.
"They took a day. Our last mission was. . .rough.", Kat replied, somewhat coldly, her jaw set. Hyde felt that the Lieutenant Commander was angry at her. Fair enough, Hyde had been sick and needed nursing.
"Um. . .did anyone get hurt?", Hyde asked shyly, worried that Kat would snap at her.
"No more than usual. It was just stressful. But Spartans are made to handle stress. Don't worry about it."
Silence snuck up on them, and the city sounds became the first and foremost. Hyde loved those sounds. Of people loving. Hating. Dreaming, wishing, fighting. Even life in the city held a certain charm for the country girl. Only certain parts set her teeth on edge. But she loved the feeling of impending danger, unpredictability as she passed by bars, groups of men and women smoking, jeering.
There was a taboo sexuality about the city that came from the people, that the buildings and atmosphere soaked up. People in the city were prideful, of the way they looked, acted, thought. And why not be? Why sit, waiting for the wheat to grow, so you can work and harvest it? Why not have fun? Don't be like those country dopes, enjoy yourself. Why do country people, so affectionately dubbed, act as they do? Because they have to.
Kat was unnerved by the city. Her heightened senses picked up so many dirty sounds and sights that Hyde could not. How could men and women be so dirty? It wasn't not that Kat was so innocent as to think men were gods, she was just astounded, as anyone would be, at the vulgarity of the city. Underneath the flashy lights and sounds, drugs, people, were being sold and bought. The city represented the force Kat was fighting, Insurrectionists surely inhabited the place and bought their drugs here. So she felt pinned, between the upper layers of redundant city days and the darker, more sinister layer that has to be taken with water, like a bad tasting pill that doesn't cure anything.
If that was why the city was so obviously appealing to Hyde, Kat didn't understand. How did that little girl view these things? Did her eyes see things in an innocent way, or did she see what was behind the walls?
Hyde briefly wondered on the complexities of the city's grid, how all the streets and buildings fit together perfectly, how uniform they appeared from above. Even the chaotic humans that filled the city formed patterns and flows that were invisible to you on the ground.
"So what's gonna happen to me?", Hyde asked suddenly.
Kat turned to her, surprised at first, then answered, "Probably a mental institution.
Taken aback, betrayed, angry. What else was she expected to feel?, Kat thought. It's not like she blamed Hyde, as she disappeared into the crowd, her head and squared shoulders escaping to where they needed to be. Kat didn't want to stop her, there was no real need. Hyde had no information for them, and she would have been better off in that basement.
Hyde's anger was washed away by the rain that cleared the gutters. The Spartans that saved her freed her were a constant on her busy mind. Well, it was another rainy day, wasn't it? It was so nice to see the sky again.