Milliways infirmary, with Dejah

[2goodarms]

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.

Comments

[2goodarms]

"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?"

[dejah_thoris]

"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.

[2goodarms]

"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."

[dejah_thoris]

"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.

[2goodarms]

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."

[dejah_thoris]

"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.

[2goodarms]

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."

[dejah_thoris]

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."

[2goodarms]

"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."

[dejah_thoris]

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."

[2goodarms]

I know, he wants to say. Curtis can't quite shape the words.



"Wilford said I was the only person to walk the full length of the train," is what he says instead. "The very last car all the way to the engine."

[dejah_thoris]

"Forgive me. Wilford? He was the captain of this train?"

She shakes out the clean flannel shirt, and holds it up for him to slip into.

[2goodarms]

He eases the stump of his left arm into the shirt first: best to get the trickier movements out of the way. The right arm follows.

"Yeah," he says. "Designed it, built it, ran the whole thing. Including the engine."

[dejah_thoris]

"And yet, you were the only person -- to have walked the entire length of it." She sounded incredulous. What kind of engineer created such a thing and did not inspect his own creation?

"If you were -- undesirable -- how did you make it to front?"

[2goodarms]

"Wouldn't do to get his shoes dirty," mutters Curtis, darkly.

For a beat, he busies himself with the buttons on the front of the shirt. Doing it one-handed requires enough concentration, and effort, to give him a little more time to think.

"We rebelled. We figured out a way to get out of the tail and kept pushing forward. By the end it -- " The words catch. "It was just me and two other people. Nobody ever made it that far before."

[dejah_thoris]

She clasps her hands before her, lacing her fingers together to keep her from helping again without an explicit request for assistance.

"And this is how -- you were wounded." How you died.

She swallows, hard. Bites her lip.

[2goodarms]

"Some of it," he says, without looking up.

Curtis can feel his eyes starting to burn again. He blinks, hard, to drive the tears back.

[dejah_thoris]

This time when she steps in to assist him, it's as much to lay her hand over his as it is to do up the buttons on his shirt.

"Enough for tonight."

She lays his hand on the back of hers so he can feel the motions of her fingers as they do up the buttons. Being this close, she can smell the smoke and sweat on his skin. It makes the details of his story all the more real.

"You can tell me more later. In the morning. Or next week, I don't care."

[2goodarms]

He nods, silent, and puts all his attention on the movement of Dejah's hands.

When the last button hooks into place: "Guess I've got all the time in the world if I'm dead," he mumbles.

[dejah_thoris]

She exhales, trying to still her own mind so she can help instead of overwhelm him. With his chin down, she rests her cheek against his temple, letting him feel her steady breathing, her warmth. He's not alone. It's important he knows that.

"Focus on getting through the next few hours. I'd like you to eat something. Drink something. Maybe take a shower, if you're up for it. And then, get some rest."

She's less mother hen, and more mother goose: fiercely protective of him right now. And trying not to let that get away from her.

[2goodarms]

He wishes it didn't feel like such a relief, to have another person so close to him. Eighteen years with no personal space; shouldn't he be craving the open fields out back, or the possibility of a real bed all to himself?

Maybe he would, if he'd died before he reached the front.

Curtis sighs out a breath, and nods. "What kind of food is there?" he asks.

[dejah_thoris]

She takes his hand between hers, not stepping away just yet. Maybe it's because he's letting her, or maybe it's because she can feel that her presence is calming him.

"If I told you that you could order any kind of food you wanted, you might think me exaggerating, but I am not. This place has an extremely advanced kitchen, and the means to reproduce any meal you so desire. And don't worry about how to pay for it. I will take care of all of that."

[2goodarms]

"Where does the food come from?"

Try as he might, Curtis' voice carries shades of his earlier question: what's the catch? He's not quite expecting protein bars, or worse. He doesn't know what to expect; that's part of the problem.

[dejah_thoris]

"Near as I can tell, all over the galaxy." Universe. Whatever. "Some is grown here. And some -- manifests -- from sources I have yet identify. But they seem to be commercial shipments."

She leans back to catch his face between her palms. "Regardless of the source, you need to eat. Now come on."

[2goodarms]

Explaining that he's gone for much longer without food wouldn't do Curtis any good. For multiple reasons.

(For one, it might lead to explaining why it's so important that he knows the source of his food.)

He's lost so much of the fight that carried him to the front of the train, though -- enough that acquiescing to Dejah's request seems preferable to resisting. His shoulders sag, minutely.

"Okay."