The Atlantis Expedition

Chapter Ten: Never Let Me Down Again

It had been several days since they set off from the island. It was late enough that even Benny had gone to bed, though Metalbeard presumably was still awake and up on the deck. Bad Cop woke suddenly in a cold sweat, a scream stuck in his throat. He shakily reached for the bedside lamp and clicked it on, pushing himself to sit on the edge of the mattress, and dropped his head into his hands. That one had been particularly bad; it was getting to a point where it was no longer just memories, but his brain going "what if?" and making it even more horrific. He sighed and rubbed at his face. It was going to be a long while before his mind settled back down enough to allow him to sleep.

A sound from the bunk above him caught his attention. Benny was tossing and turning in his bed, mumbling and whimpering. Bad Cop frowned to himself and stood to check on his friend and cabin mate, when Benny suddenly screamed and started thrashing, startling the officer into jumping back to avoid a swinging arm. Seemed he wasn't the only one to have nightmares. "Ben!" he barked, reaching to shake the spaceman's shoulder. Benny jolted awake, and terrified brown eyes locked onto blue. He calmed as recognition sank in, and he realized the lamp was on. And there were bags under Bad Cop's eyes. Benny blinked as he realized that Bad Cop looked almost as shook up as he was, though a little closer to calming down now that he had something else to focus on. "You alright?" Bad Cop asked.

"I should ask you the same thing," Benny mumbled, untangling himself from his sheets. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

The corners of Bad Cop's mouth quirked upward ever so slightly. "Something like that. Good Cop's residual memories have been bleeding into my own for some time now, but now my imagination has decided to get involved as well. What about you?"

"Something along the same lines." Benny sighed and sat up. "I'm mostly over it, but sometimes it still sneaks up on me..." He gave Bad Cop a pleading look. "Can we go sit on the deck? I just... I need to see the stars, and get out of this cabin. I feel a little claustrophobic."

"Sure, Ben. I could do with some fresh air myself." He stepped back to let the astronaut make his own shaky way down, and together they made their way up to the deck. Benny waved to Metalbeard as he went straight for his spaceship. Bad Cop only shook his head, somehow not surprised, as the astronaut climbed in. "What happened to feeling claustrophobic?"

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm in no condition to fly right now," Benny chuckled mirthlessly. "Just more comfortable, is all." He tilted his head toward the passenger seat. "Care to join me? I mean I know it's not warm milk and a comfy sofa, but it's the next best thing I can think of." Bad Cop shrugged and hopped in next to him. The canopy remained open, letting the warm breeze pass through.

"So what's your story?" he asked after several minutes of silence.

Benny swallowed hard. "I had an accident in space," he answered. "It was... a long time ago, really, you were maybe just a kid when it happened. Feels like it was only five years ago to me, though."

Bad Cop remembered what Benny had said, about being in stasis for around twenty years, and nodded. Out of curiosity, he did the math, and his eyes went wide. "I actually remember hearing about that, everyone at school was talking about it. That was your ship?"

"Yup." Benny's gaze was trained resolutely on the sky. "My pod floated around the ocean for a while then washed up on the shore of some uncharted island, just a little place that would have been hardly more than a speck on a map anyway. Metalbeard found me and revived me, and they took me to Cape Space, figured their hospitals would be the best for me. They declared me mentally unfit to return to space, when I recovered," Benny finished with a shrug. "But by then it didn't matter anyway cause we'd discovered I was a Master Builder so I had to go underground, so to speak."