The word that the ship was getting underway came out of nowhere, and the whirlwind of activity that followed left Alwen far too busy to even try and track Alice down once she was back on board. Hundreds of crewmen were returning from wherever they had spent their down time, and that meant she had a lot of work to catch up on. Some crewmen who had previously lost a limb or received extensive burns from the Aunviry ambush had sought professional treatment from advanced facilities on Mars. Which meant Alwen and Bachir needed to perform basic checkups on all of them to update their medical charts and assess what needed to be done going forward.
And since the Astaroth had been away from any Terran world for over a year that meant that everyone was coming down with the latest strain of the flu and common cold at once. Being on a sealed ship, only interacting with one another, had allowed them to go a while without any major, minor disease from spreading. But that year spent away from common Terran illnesses had also weakened their immune response to such things. And of course there was always the new batch of STD’s that entered the ship every time they made port, and Alwen was beginning to see a pattern of who did and didn’t get them.
Adela, the ship’s cook, always seemed to come back with a more obscure one each time, like she was going down a list of some sort. This time she had contracted something Balikstro in origin.
Alice had popped in to get some blood drawn, as was standard procedure when anyone visited Earth for an extended amount of time. But Alwen had been so busy with all her duties that she didn’t really have the time to chat with Alice, she did however get a noncommittal grunt out of her when Alwen said they needed to talk.
Three days of nonstop tests, exams, and a short phone call with a Balikstro physician about possible symptoms for Adela’s condition, and Alwen and Bachir had earned themselves a short reprieve.
“We can’t keep doing this” she groaned as she leaned back in her favorite chair.
“Its our job Doctor Djani.” Bachir grumbled, he had laid his large furry head on one of the counter tops, and seemed content to remain there.
“That’s not what I meant, what I mean is that we can’t keep doing this all alone. We’re busy enough on a normal day, but when something big happens we get completely overwhelmed. There’s only two of us, and whole ship of sailors who need our help.” She explained.
“Can’t be helped, it’s hard to find qualified physicians willing to serve on a pirate ship. We hire on a few adventurous young doctors for a few months and then they leave to be the chief corpsmen on the newest Hellworlder ship. The fleet needs to keep expanding, and we can’t hire fast enough to outpace that growth. We’ve had to lower our standards too, why else would we hire an alien doctor with no experience in treating Terrans?”
“I thought it was because my brother pulled strings”
He chuckled “No, Modius mentioned you to us and talked up your skill and passion. But if I hadn’t seen you credentials myself and decided that you would be worth the hassle of training then you would have never been hired.”
Alwen frowned “My credentials weren’t that good” she muttered.
Bachir lifted his head off the counter and turned to look her in the eyes “Alwen, you graduated the head of your class from a highly prestigious and selective University, and at the same time you learned Galactic common. Not only that, but you graduated with both medical and surgical degrees, along with training in medical research. In Terran terms you’d be regarded as a medical prodigy, and eve among your own people you should have been regarded as a once in a lifetime genius.”
Alwen laughed derisively “That’s nothing, my older sisters have already done those things as well, I was just doing what was expected of me.”
“Bah, quit comparing your self to those fools. Since joining this ship you’ve become a master in several different alien physiologies, Doctors on Earth often spend years specializing in just Felinoid physiology. And you not only mastered Felinoid biology, but also Lycanoid, Ursiloid, and Human. None of that was expected of you.” He said pointedly. “And lets not forget the research you and I have done up until this point. You need to stop putting yourself down and accept that you are a very talented doctor.”
Alwen blinked in surprise at his fervor, she had always gotten the impression that Bachir simply accepted her presence. He didn’t dislike her, but he also didn’t go out of his way to compliment her. He would say things like ‘good work’ and that was it. she never knew that he thought this highly of her. “Well, that was a boost to my ego.” She said, trying to use humor to discharge a lot of the fuzzy emotions roiling through her. She felt both on the verge of tears, and jumping for joy. Was this what parental approval felt like?
He snorted “Well, about damn time.” He then let out a long yawn, “That’s it, I’m too old for these all nighters. We’re closing down, we can address the rest of our work tomorrow.”
They cleaned the lab and exam room in silence before both of them left for their cabins to catch a few hour of rest before the next day began.
Alwen had just laid her head down and closed her eyes when a loud knock woke her up. “Who is it?” she asked groggily as she reached around in the dark for her shirt.
“Its Alice, you said you wanted to talk?”
“Hang on, let me dress.” Alwen called back. She quickly found her shirt and slid it on as she crossed the room to let Alice in. “Come in”
Alice plodded in uncertainly and gave her room a cursory glance “You’ve been here a year and this room looks like you’ve barely lived here. It even smells unoccupied.” She said after sniffing around.
“Its called cleanliness, and I spend most of my time in the lab.”
“Still, no decorations or personal belongings besides medical textbooks?” She dropped to all fours and crouched down to look under Alwen’s bed “Not even a sock?” she said in bemused wonder.
“Of course not, there aren’t any windows on this ship, any clothes I leave lying about would just stink up the whole room. Why are you so curious anyway, what does your room look like?” Alwen asked defensively.
“Like a bomb went off she said as she casually sat on Alwen’s bed like she owned the whole place. “But that’s not the point I’m getting at. This space just feels a little too sterile.”
“Well, yeah. When I moved in, I did so knowing that after a year and half I would need to leave. I didn’t want to get too attached.” Alwen said sheepishly as she sat down next to Alice.
She tilted her head inquisitively “that sounds like a lot of past tense there, have you changed your mind?”
This was a topic that her friends didn’t broach, ever. Even the captain had only asked about it once and never again afterwards. Alwen always felt like there was some sort of tension whenever the subject of her taking the Hellworlder’s mark came up. “I, I don’t know. I guess a little, but not in the way you want me to say.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if you had asked me a year ago I would have said ‘hell no’, but now I’m not so sure.”
“What’s there to be unsure of, you don’t really have much waiting for you back on Torwen.”
“That’s part of the problem, as far as my people know I just dropped off the face of Torwen. And the longer I’m out here the harder it will be to go back; I’ll have a year and a half long blank spot in my resume that I can’t explain. A whole lifetime’s worth of adventures I can never share, any guy I meet on Torwen will have to be unaware of my time spent with you guys. And if I take the mark its going to be close to impossible to ever go back home and be a normal girl. So if I decide to join on, I want to be one hundred percent certain that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, because there’s no going back. And a lifetime of adventures is great, until it all suddenly catches up to me, and I’m left standing on a thin ledge with nothing to go back to.” She sighed “but then again the idea of a life without all you dumbasses just doesn’t seem appealing.”
Alice leaned into Alwen’s shoulder “Yeah, I can see where your coming from. If I get hurt so bad that I need to retire I still have a home to go back to that will understand what I’ve been through and know how to help me. But we could help you too, if your one of us we’ll make sure that you have a place to call home, you know that right?”
“Yeah, but that still means I will have to leave my whole world behind, and that’s not something I can decide overnight.”
They were both quiet for a long time. Both entangled with their own complex web of emotions.
Alice broke the silence “I assume that’s not what you wanted to talk about.”
Alwen dug herself out of her worries and remembered why she had wanted to talk to Alice. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I’m sorry for getting between you and Gato and causing you two to fight, I should have backed off the moment you told me you two used to date.”
“I told you that was all in the past-”
“I know what you said, but that’s obviously not true, I care about our friendship more than I care about some dumb guy who doesn’t even want to date me. I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore.” Alwen confessed.
Alice scowled “I was never mad at you.”
“You’ve been avoiding me for months! You spent our whole time in port avoiding me on a whole other planet. ”.
“Well, yeah, but not because of that. I’ve been pissed with myself, I went to back home to sulk and try and get my head on straight. Which didn’t work just so you know”
Alwen was confused “Why are you mad at yourself?”
Alice went quiet slumped over sidewise to lay her big head on Alwen’s lap, Alwen gently scratched at Alice’s fur in the way she liked it. They remained like that for a long time before Alice finally said something, “Have you ever done something so awful that you wished you could just relive that moment and make everything right.”
“No, but I have an idea of what you mean.” Alwen said softly.
“Its one thing to kill people in battle, or steal from them, its another thing to say something that makes someone want to die.” Alwen heard Alice sniff, and realized that the brave and strong marine that she had always looked up to was silently holding back tears.
“Its alright” she said consolingly “it’s only me, you can let it out.”
“I don’t want to ruin your pants” Alice muttered.
“I’m getting new ones made”
“Good, these have holes” she joked and Alwen laughed. She just sat there and gently scratched Alice’s head fur, and felt a spot on her legs grow damp from Alice’s tears. “the worst part is I meant it.” she confessed “when I heard he was alive I was so happy, we had fought, and I had been so worried for him during the attack. And when I heard he was safe I was so happy, I was going to apologize for everything, but then I saw Wendy. And something in me snapped.”
“You had just lost your sister, its understandable.”
“No, everyone else was acting like they were supposed to, Wraith had been consoling Gato, telling him there was nothing he could have done differently. And the Captain was promising us that we would avenge her and every one else. I should have been there for him, but no, stupid hormonal me just had to start a fight with the man who had rushed my sister to safety. Telling him that I wished he had died, throwing his past in his face, even though I knew it kept him up at night.”
Alwen said nothing and just continued scratched her friends ears, they didn’t really do ‘pets’ on Torwen. Some people kept aquariums, but nothing like the Terrans did. And until now Alwen hadn’t really gotten the appeal of having a small fuzzy creature, but now she was starting to see the appeal.
“You hat me now, don’t you” Alice muttered.
Alwen scowled “No, but I am considering starting mandatory therapy for all of you.”
Alice laughed “Good luck with that.”
Alwen smiled and shifted her legs to prompt Alice into sitting up. Alwen looked her right in the eyes, “You said some awful things, I’m not going to shield you from that.” Alices ears went flat in shame, “But regret and misery will accomplish nothing, what you need to do is figure out how to make things right. Have you tried apologizing?”
“Yes, when I had that fight with him I tried to apologize and fix things, but he wouldn’t hear it.”
Alwen frowned “try to fix your relationship?”
Alice shook her head “no, that ship has sailed. I wanted to make him realize I was wrong when I said he should have been the one to die.”
Alwen nodded “Okay, that seems like a good first step, why didn’t it work?”
“Because he’s stupid!” she shouted out of frustration, throwing her hands in the air. At Alwen’s quirked eye she continued “he thinks that his life has no value beyond cannon fodder.”
Alwen was alarmed by that “So he’s suicidal?” she had somewhat guessed at that before, but hearing directly changed a lot of things.
“No, its not like that. He doesn’t believe his life has any value because he has no one who cares for him. And he pushes away anyone who might care for him because he thinks he’ll ‘taint’ them.”
“That sounds pretty suicidal to me.” Alwen said frankly. “You said it yourself; you said something that made him want to die.”
Alice shrunk in on herself “yeah, I guess your right, but you can’t pull him off combat duty. There’s no telling what will happen if you do that.” She pleaded.
Alwen crossed her arms “That only makes me want to do it even more.”
“Please, don’t. If you do that he might never see any action again, and if there’s one thing that I know about him is that he loves fighting. It’s the only time he really comes alive.”
“You’re not doing a good job of changing my mind. If I can’t take him off active duty then what can I do, because we can’t have him going into combat if he’s suicidal?”
She frowned and her tail curled around her waist before she lit up “What if you dated him?”
Alwen snorted at the absurdity “where the hell did you get that idea?”
“When we fought, he said that he hesitated about jumping in front of the bullet for Wendy because he was worried about how I would feel if he died. If you two were dating then that would solve everything.”
Alwen raised her hand to her head and placed them against the bone ridges on her cheek bones and rubbed them in frustration “First off even if he and I were dating that wouldn’t instantly solve whatever trauma he’s dealing with. Secondly I already tried confessing my feelings for him, he wasn’t interested and I have to live with that.”
Alice laughed “Oh he’s interested, I can’t count all the times I’ve seen him stare at your ass.”
Alwen’s face flushed “Okay, but that doesn’t mean anything more than physical attraction, which does not equal romantic intentions. Just last month the Captain confessed to having an attraction to me.”
“Okay, we’re going to have to circle back to that last part. But that’s not the only thing I’ve seen, he got you that gun belt, and he bought that Torweni talisman from one of your brothers crew because he wanted to offer you some sort of reassurance.”
“He said he found them at a shop and got them out of ideal curiosity.” Alwen said defensively.
“That’s because he was lying, guys do it all the time to hide their real feelings, like they’re afraid of people knowing they have a heart. But there was also that time on Domnall’s roof, I could smell his attraction on the stairs. It’s, uh, part of the reason I broke in so abruptly.” She turned to the side out of shame.
“That could have just been me” Alwen said trying to brush off her growing suspicions that Alice might be right. She had been trying to get over her hurt feelings, and was only now coming to terms with things, and she didn’t want to undo all that work.
“It wasn’t, trust me I know what it smells like when your horny. But if that’s not enough think back to your date, how was he acting before he turned you down.”
Alwen fidgeted as this was getting really personal “I don’t know, he looked happy. We were talking about nothing in particular and enjoying our ice cream.”
“Was he scowling or glaring at people on the street?”
“No, he was just smiling and talking with me.”
“Well there you go, that’s all the proof you need.” She said triumphantly.
“I don’t follow”
“He hates public spaces and crowds, if he was smiling and chatting that means he was just happy to be around you. The fact that he went out with you in the first place is already a pretty big give away as is.”
Alwen wanted to refute her, but something about what she said sort of felt right. She didn’t want to listen to Alice just in case it was false hope, but there was a certain logic to her words. “If that’s the case then why did he reject me when I told him how I felt?” Alwen asked quietly, the raw pain of that moment still very much alive no matter how hard she tried to repress it.
“It’s a part of his stupid plan to sacrifice his life to save others. If someone cares about him then he can’t recklessly throw himself at the enemy without hesitation. And that’s why you need to confront him again, show him that no matter what he says you’ll always care for him.”
Alwen felt hope bubble up in her chest as she thought about getting how she felt through Gato’s thick skull, but she pushed it down and tried to think about things rationally. “Thanks for telling me this, but I still think that this isn’t the way to go about things. I’m going to have a chat with Captain Astarte about temporarily pulling him off combat duty so that we treat this in a professional manner, not some convoluted scheme of playing with his feelings. I’m a doctor, and I need to address this like a doctor would.”
Alice looked crestfallen before she perked up again “Okay, fine, now what were saying about you and the Captain?”
Alwen blushed, “its late and I have a lot of work to do in the morning, can we talk about that later, or better yet, never?”
Alice whined “Your no fun, fine we can just go to bed”
Alwen smiled “Good, now if you don’t mind-”
“-Oh by the way” Alice interrupted, “I’ve decided that this is now my bed, and I intend to sleep here tonight.”
Alwen was stunned “I, what?”
“You can sleep here if you want, but I warn you I’m a snorer.” She said flippantly before curling up and laying her head down on her tail in the middle of Alwen’s bed.
“Where will I sleep!” Alwen gasped in mock outrage.
Alice pretended not to hear Alwen and loudly began to snore. Alwen, refusing to be kicked out of her own room, slid back under the covers, and wiggled her legs under Alice’s warm body before turning off the lights. They both laid there uncomfortably for several minutes before Alice shifted around and laid her big head on Alwens stomach before actually drifting off to sleep. Alwen remained awake a while longer pondering on whether this was a weird Felinoid thing, or just a weird Alice thing. Before eventually drifting off to sleep to the sound of Alices deep rhythmic snores.