Chapter Eight

Neurotic

Wash and I remained still just trying to take in what just transpired between us. My day couldn't get easier could it? First I received some kind of classified bullshit from Connie, and now I got what I wanted with Wash. Not that I am complaining, but this means that now we have to be more than extra careful about we were doing.

"Wash..." I swallowed hard.

"You can call me David..." He whispered.

"I don't want to get into a habit that could get us found out." I replied never breaking his gaze. His hazel eyes were unwavering.

"You act like we just committed murder or something." He chuckled leaning his forehead to mine. I lightly hit his armor.

"It's not murder per se, but it might as well be murder to our professionalism here in Freelancer..." my hand dropped onto his. "What do you want to do?" I asked, tired of making decisions. It was someone else's turn. He was silent for a moment.

"I want to go get out of this armor and come revisit this." He answered.

"Later as in..."

"Later tonight." I was afraid of that answer. He saw my expression go ghost and leaned in and kissed me again. I didn't want him to stop, but this had to end eventually.

"Fine. Come revisit this. But give me some time to process this fucking paperwork." I hissed. Ugh. He laughed heartily at me.

"Alright, I can do that." He said exiting. I heaved a sigh and landed back on bed.

Present day...

I couldn't sleep again. Our trip to Chorus was taking so long and I was beginning to feel neurotic checking on the controls and navigation so often. It was getting ridiculous. I know I was getting on J.L. and Aiden's nerves for sure, because they have attempted to keep me busy and were running out of activities to occupy me.

I turned over and tried to close my eyes to close the rift between us and Chorus in my dreams.

All I could conjure were my memories of Freelancer, The Mother of Invention, and C.T's damn files. All of those damned files. I started to fall asleep and Price's voice haunted my dream.
*

"Colorado," Price's voice echoed in the classroom. I realized too little too late I was dozing off. C.T besides me chuckled a little bit.

"Yes sir." I cleared my throat.

"Mind telling me what part of my lecture was worth taking a nap through?" He asked annoyed.

"None of it, sir." I responded.

"Good answer, you will probably need to get notes from another agent, and some more sleep perhaps?" Price quipped.

"Of course sir." I groaned.

"Good, with that being said class is over for today." He dismissed us, and I had never been more relieved. I needed to get out of there and get on training hours I was still catching up on from my injury. I gathered up my notes and found Wash waiting outside the door to walk with me.

"Heading to the training room?" He asked. I nodded. "You ok?"

"I'm tired, David." I whispered while we were out of ear shot from the others as they walked and chatted amongst themselves. "I'm unnaturally stressed about higher ups finding out about us, and amongst other things I've been trying to take care of and manage..." I.e Connie's conspiracy fixation.

"I understand." He said somewhat dejectedly. "Did you want company in the training arena today?" He asked sounding in much better spirits.

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

Little did I know it was not nice. Alaska and Louisiana were also using the room today and challenged us to two vs two matches. I wanted to take it easy, and that wasn't happening.

Between kicking Louisiana with my bad foot and hitting it wrong, I couldn't seem to keep up and get us any points.

We got to the sticky guns and I was nearly useless. Wash was landing all of the shots and I kept having near misses with Alaska. I pretended my foot wasn't a bother, but it was sincerely hindering my focus. Finally I took coverage from fire behind the pillars, I ran around and I had gotten Louisiana while he was turning the corner. I gave a small victorious fist pump and then suddenly I heard my name shouted as I was shoved out of the line of fire for a sticky shot and landed on. Both Wash and I were heaped on the ground groaning, his leg caught by the ammo, and the Alaska coming up and shooting me in the torso.

"Wash..." I groaned. "I'm tapping out today."

"Yep..."

After we called the competition a huge loss on Wash's parts we headed out of the training room. The halls were empty and our footsteps echoed off the walls. We made it close to my quarters before Washington broke our silence.

"Were you alright back there? You didn't do as well as you usually do." He asked. I rolled my eyes.

"I was doing fine until you tackled me heroically." I denied.

"Seriously is there something I did to you today?" Wash asked frustrated. I sighed.

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"You have been stand offish to me today, you seem reluctant to be around me, what did I do wrong?" He asked as we stopped in the hall. I paused in thought before I just decided to head to my room. "Cheyenne..." He whispered.

"That's the thing David, you haven't done anything wrong. In fact you're doing it all right and I don't know how to process it." I shut tried to shut the door to my room behind me but he had slipped in. I cursed as he yanked his helmet off too.

"What the hell does that even mean?" he asked.

"Back there in the training room, I was trying my best to swallow the pain in my foot. If I show any signs of pain or inability I am getting released from this program, no degree, no nothing..." I finally admitted. "I talked to the director one day when I went for a follow up for it, and he specified he can't have any weak links in this chain." I choked. "Not only that, Price has had me up to my eyeballs in work, Connie has been swamping me with her concerns, and in there you went in to take a damn sticky shot for me..." I felt a tear fall. "Wash I don't want to be on the field and you feel the need to save me and hurt yourself, or worse get yourself killed like my brother did..." He kissed me hard and shushed my emerging fears. He went to pull his armor off and adjusted mine to do the same.

"We're going to get through this, you are going to get through this. We'll work on your training more." He kissed me between each promise. "I swear, I won't go anywhere."