victormakesart | (no subject)

(no subject)

Vic's been spending time on the spa planet, not to do spa things, but to spend time barefoot with the birds people, to meditate, and try to be less miserable.

But everytime she sees one of the little feathered kids, with their round healthy bellies, she can't help thinking about a few nights ago, the rescue mission, what was on the floor.

She's been spending a lot of time helping them garden the greens and harvest the rocks that give them the calcium that they need. But she needs another perspective, needs to get out of her head.

So she invited a military man over, someone who might know what she's going through. She doesn't want to burden Cole, Clark's been through enough, and she's sure James wouldn't even know what to say to her.

Most of the swelling has gone out of her face, now there's just a purplish bluish blotch on her right cheek. She waits.

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"A long, long ride. What did it feel like comin' out of cryo?"

He laughs a little. He once answered that same question for the videologs, and gives the same answer to start. "Like a fifth of tequila and an asskicking. Thirsty, hungry, a bit wobbly because of the zero-G, but I did way better than a lot of others."

"That's kinda how I felt, coming out of stasis, though I wasn't sure if that was a been-dead thing or a stasis thing."

"How long were you in for?"

"A week. Well. Technically I was dead for a few minutes. Put back to bein' barely alive for a week."

"Ouch. That sucks."

"It was terrifying. A slow death, with my babies there with me, and my boyfriends. And everyone I work with."

"Good thing that's over with."

"Majorly good. And that the girls were so young they won't even remember."

"At least it was only a week, right? I was in for five years."

"Shoot, yeah, five years has gotta be crazy rough. I, personally, don't mind bein' out of commission for a week, I just minded, y' know, the dying part. And thinkin' that I'd be dead forever."

"You were, uh, aware of it?"

"I knew I was dying, yeah. It was an excruciating process... all my organ systems shut down, one by one. And after my last breath, I was gone. I didn't know about the coma and stasis thing 'til later, after they brought me back. It was all... nothing."

"A week of nothing is nothin' to sneeze at." He's had to spend at least some time in solitary/sensory deprivation, and it's horrific.

"It was like... wakin' up after surgery. It felt like an instant."

He looks a little stricken by that memory himself. "Yeah, I guess it does. Least you got the good news when you woke up instead of being as bad off as you thought."

"Totally. But it was hard to get back to normal. Especially since, get this, my 'hey guys, I'm dead' message had already sent out to all my friends."

"That sucks majorly."

"Maaaajor suckage."

"Most of 'em heard you weren't dead pretty quick, I hope."

"Yeah, I got on the computer real quick to let everyone know."

"That's good." He's glad that her friends didn't have to go through that awful time for very long, where you believe someone you care about is dead. He's never been so lucky as to have that reversed.

"Yeah." She looks older, somehow; her death is something she thinks about often, worries about, the afterlife (or lack thereof), the fact that one day she will die, permanently.

"So enough about the depressing stuff," he says, trying to get her off that topic that makes her look as old as she feels. "How're the munchkins?"

"They're darling, oh gosh. Two and a half now, so they're unstoppable. How do kids grow up on Pandora?"