Ivory Hill had spent the majority of her adult life running. Throughout her twenties and the first part of her thirties it was from bombs and bullets. Now, at thirty six years old Ivory was running from something that she could never truly escape fr...
For the third time that week Ivory woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. Her stomach flipped over and before she could think about anything else she bolted out of her room and into the closest bathroom, barely stopping to shut the door behind herself. The woman crouched down by the toilet. She was sick. Horribly, revoltingly, disgustingly sick, again and again and again.
"What does it take to have a goddamn shower in this place?" Someone snapped, pulling the door open. "Hill? I didn't realise anyone was in here, you should have locked the door." Grace stopped short. "Are you alright?"
"Get out!" Ivory struggled up off of the floor and flushed the toilet, trying to ignore the room spinning around her. Her watch beeped, signalling that it had just turned three am.
Grace didn't leave. Instead she stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. "It was you that Max heard throwing up, wasn't it?"
"No," the woman struggled to ignore the burning sensation in her throat.
"Come on Hill, do you really think I'm that stupid?" The redhead raised an eyebrow.
"Grace just leave me alone, I'm fine."
"Don't give me that shit. Come on, do you want some water or something?"
Ivory pushed past Grace and yanked the bathroom door open, walking away, barely noticing the woman calling after her.
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Grace was paying irritatingly close attention to Ivory at breakfast later that morning. The dark haired woman's jaw was set. She'd wished that Grace would pay more attention to what was going on around her and think about something other than her work for once but now she was actually doing it Ivory fervently hoped that Grace would return to her normal self.
"What? Do you want my oatmeal or something?" Ivory asked eventually after Grace had been staring at her bowl for almost ten minutes straight.
"No." Grace picked up her coffee.
Ivory pushed her plate away untouched.
"Are you not going to eat that? We've got a long day ahead Hill, if you go out on an empty stomach you're going to regret it. The Marine, Norm and I are going to be driving our Avatars so it'll take twice as much effort for you to keep up and I don't want any more delays."
"I don't want it." Ivory shrugged.
"I don't know if we're going to have time for lunch so you really should eat that."
"And I told you I don't want to eat it." The woman pinched the bridge of her nose, her head was starting to pound. The oatmeal sat in front of her looking like nothing she could ever imagine eating. Her stomach still felt as though it had been tied into knots after the events of earlier that morning.
"Go on." Jake piped up from the end of the table. "It's actually good for once, I think there's sugar in it."
Granulated sugar was a rare treat on Pandora, the sugar rations were limited and the higher ranking people like Quaritch and his thugs often raided the supply shuttle before it was unloaded, hiding whatever they wanted in their office or bedroom. Ivory lifted her spoon then dropped it, sending a small puddle of oatmeal splattering onto the table beside her. She felt too sick to eat. "I'm not hungry."
"Hill you were throwing up not long ago, you've got nothing in your stomach of course you're hungry." Grace persisted.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to be getting in the way of your samples Grace." Ivory said standoffishly.
