Milliways infirmary, with Dejah

He counts the doors they pass through en route to the infirmary: only three, all of them unlocked. The first one leads to a room more like the party at the front of the train than the crowding at the tail -- but even that's not the right comparison, he thinks. It's crowded, yes, and noisy, but all Curtis can think is there's so much room.

People can stretch out their arms. When he and Dejah cross the floor, they can move without bumping into anyone.

The second door leads to an empty hallway, quiet but for the hum of the overhead lights. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, and with each step, thinks of anything but Wilford's voice in his ear. Take as much time as you need.

The third leads to a place so clean and white as to look alien, like the view from the Snowpiercer's windows. By then, he's leaning far more of his weight on Dejah than when they started.

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"Well, technically," Dejah cocks an eyebrow at him, taking his hand back on her knee, "we should wait and have an infirmary attendant help us, but I've had medical training, so I don't think they'll frown too hard."

She works the regenerator over the wound on the back of his hand in steady even lines. The pain washes away instantaneously, leaving behind a tingling sensation.

"But yes, anyone can come in here and receive medical treatment, free of charge. I have seen people repay the debt by volunteering to help in other ways."

All of the pain erased, just like that. As if it were nothing.

Dejah's voice seems to recede, swallowed by a ringing in Curtis' ears. He doesn't respond to what she's saying, but, subtly, his breath starts to speed up.

She hears it, but so long as he doesn't pull away, she keeps going. After a moment, all that's left of the gash is a patch of thin red skin. It's still got some normal healing to do.

"Ready to start on your shoulder?"

He swallows, trying to push down the emotion threatening to rise like a tsunami, crashing over him, drowning him again.

"Yeah," he croaks, and shuts his eyes.

"How is this possible?"

She rests her hand gently on the back of his, a simple touch, meant to only to comfort and connect him to the here and now.

"I'm afraid I don't understand the question," she says, her tone gentle.

"What's the catch?"

Wilford smiling, Yona scrabbling at the floor, Mason bearing her overlarge false teeth, Gilliam, fuck, Gilliam --

"How -- " and his voice breaks as he draws his hand away, pressing it to his face: even now, trying to contain the grief.

She doesn't resist, letting him pull away, but she doesn't retreat.

"It's all right." She knows it isn't, won't be, not for awhile. But sometimes hearing the words help. "Curtis..."

She doesn't have the right to ask. All she can do is be here for him.

Curtis shakes his head, struggling not to let his quick, uneven breaths turn into something worse.

There's no possible way this can be different from the train. The resources have to come from somewhere; there have to be people who can't access them; just by being here, with a woman who's caring for his injuries with devices he can't comprehend -- and with a gentleness nobody from the front would ever show somebody from the tail --

He turns his hand over to wipe it across his eyes. In spite of his best efforts, he sniffles.

It's all wrong.

That does it. Dejah shifts to sit beside him, putting her arms around him and guiding his head to her shoulder. She doesn't speak, doesn't offer him false promises, doesn't crow on about happy things like that he's alive and he's here and he's safe, despite that these things are all true.

She knows this sorrow and this grief. She recognizes herself in him, and in her darkest moments, all she ever wanted was someone to lean on. Just for a few minutes, just until she got her feet under her again.

So she pulls him close, crooning under her breath, meaningless sounds meant only to comfort. She caresses his head, presses her cheek against his stubbled hair, and grips him tight. Some healing takes time, and she has all the time in the world here.

It would be easier to pull away. To reject all of this, including Dejah's embrace, and get the fuck out of here somehow. But the exhaustion, and the pain, and the memory of that near-silent engine open up a chasm inside him. It frightens Curtis, how needy and selfish it is.

(TRAIN, said that tiny slip of red paper.)

He sags into the touch, staying as quiet as he can, eyes stinging like all hell as the tears flow faster.

She holds him, her grip fierce for all she's not very strong, and she doesn't let go. After awhile, she speaks to him in a low, matter-of-fact voice.

"There is no shame in tears, Curtis. It is a good thing, to be able to shed them. It shows us that we still have our hearts, battered and bloodied as they are. It means we are not as broken as we might fear. Every wound must bleed, even the ones we cannot see. So please, do not be ashamed. Your loss is great, and deserves to be honored thus."

He has no idea how much of what she says is true. The part that does stick: he can still grieve; can still be horrified.

He got off the train -- and took everybody else with it -- before he could lose that much.

Curtis drags his hand across his eyes again. This time, no fresh tears replace what's been wiped away, and he breathes out shakily before managing a nod.

She feels the nod and sits back, not very far. She keeps a hand on his good arm, firm and solid.

"Let me clean this shoulder up. It'll take just a few minutes. And then you need to decide if you'd rather have a hot shower and a bit of sleep, or if you'd rather have a hot meal. We can have the meal upstairs in a room if you'd prefer, or we can sit in the bar."

She puts a hand on his cheek and pulls his gaze up to meet hers. "I'm not going anywhere, all right?"

"Yeah," he whispers.

He can only hold her gaze for so long. Soon, Curtis has to lower his eyes.

"Thank you."

Her hand clasps his good shoulder in quiet acknowledgement.

And then she begins washing his shoulder with the same gentle, efficient motions she treated his hand with. She completes the job without anymore small talk. When she's done, she wraps the stump with gauze and a self-adhesive bandage.

"I'd like to find you some clean clothes. Do you want to keep these?"

"I do," he says, almost immediately.

How can he not? They're all he has. It doesn't seem to matter that, with Dejah's offer, his ragged clothes won't be all Curtis has any longer.

But his attention drifts to the bowl of water, then up to the faucet not far away; his mind drifts back to the lake. Water isn't rationed here. Hell, there's enough in the lake alone that the whole tail could've drank their fill and bathed on a daily basis for decades.

Still, he wets his lips first and ventures with caution. "Could I wash them somewhere?"

"Yes, I believe there's a laundry. Somewhere." Dejah has never asked, but she's seen rats shifting people's clean clothes about, so she assumes.

She folds up his shirt, and puts it into a plastic bag. There's a locker here, and she suspects it might be like the wardrobe in her own room. One of those that has whatever is needed immediately to hand. She opens the door and pulls out a flannel shirt much like the one he'd stripped off. There's also an under shirt as well. She brings them both to him.

"Where did you come from?" She speaks quietly, as if she knows she has no right to ask.

"The tail," he says, before he catches himself and remembers: right. She's from Mars; she wouldn't know.

"I'm from Earth. It's been frozen almost twenty years; there's -- " Past tense? Present? God, he hopes the explosion rendered it past tense. "There was a train keeping us alive. I lived all the way in the back."

"A train," she echoed, perplexed. She stood by, only offering assistance if he needed it. "Do you mean -- the entire planet was frozen?"

The details about the train would follow, she hoped.

Curtis nods, turning his attention to the clean clothes. Gently, he settles a palm against the undershirt, as if he could absorb the texture of the cloth.

Amazing how soft something can feel without years of grime sticking to it.

"Eighteen years ago," he says, as he picks up the shirt and begins to wrestle it on, "they tried this experiment to bring down global temperatures. Put some kind of chemical into the air. It worked way too well."

"Sweet mother Issus."

Her knuckles go white but she keeps her hands to herself. Later, she will ask I'd he would let her design him a prosthesis. Later.

"And this train. You were in the tail section. Where they kept the undesirables." Not too hard to deduce from the state of him. Malnourished and filthy, he was clearly not someone's priority. As a ruler of millions of souls, the idea made her stomach churn.

His smile's quick, and bitter, more a grimace than any expression of humor. "Exactly," he says. "The freeloaders."

Curtis finally succeeds in getting the undershirt into place.

"That was one of the nicer names they called us."

She couldn't help herself, she had to help him pull it down to his waist. "What is it with Earth and the devaluation of those less fortunate?" Her tone is bitter, and clearly, the question is rhetorical. "I will never understand that about your culture."

"Thanks," he murmurs again. Curtis smooths the fabric down, leaves his hand there for an extra second.

This time, it isn't just to feel the softness of the shirt: it's to give himself a moment as his throat works.

"They always told us," he says at last, "that it was our preordained position. We had to keep our place."

Her tone was adamant, almost savage. "I'm sure you don't need me to say it, but they lied."

Her hand rests over his, only for a moment. "They lied."

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