AMELIA DIDN'T know which was worse.
Sitting and waiting for the day of the launch, or it actually happening. Her anticipation to get it over with intensified with each passing hour - And there aren't many of those left, either, and, as Tina had so tactfully implied, the window of 'opportunity', so to speak, was closing.
"I'm not asking for much," Tina had pulled her aside more than twelve hours before as they had exited the building filled with the very machines that would transport them to a new life, "but I really think you should strike while the iron is hot - when else are you gonna get the opportunity?"
It had taken Amelia a moment to realize what she was talking about, and another moment for it to sink in that Tina's priorities were completely wacked. Then she'd realized she felt absolutely no surprise; merely acceptance that Tina's first thoughts would always rest on others' love lives.
So that was why she was standing in the doorway of the clinic, awkward as an awkward thing with her stomach in knots and her eyes on the cabinets in front of her. In her head, Amelia rehearsed her excuse as to why she was hanging around the clinic at nine PM at night, like one of the many hobos that lined the backdoors of the bars and pubs that thrived with activity each night in Grayling, begging for a shot as if some whisky would drown away their woes.
She shook the image out of her head, not wanting to get nostalgic in the last leg of the mission. Amelia had dealt surprisingly well with homesickness compared to the other Learners (though the marines seemed too hardened to feel anything), maybe because she didn't miss her home city as a whole - Amelia just missed some of the people.
Daryl. Professor Tatumm, whom she would never be able to thank for setting the whole thing up for her. Some old high school and university buddies. Searching for more excuses as to not step into the Clinic and not meet Dr Royson, Amelia let herself wonder whether or not she'd ever see some of those people again.
"Amelia?" A tender voice startled her from her reverie, so random it took a moment to realize who was speaking in the gloom, with the florescent lights off and merely a small lamp on the Clinic's front desk lighting the whole cubicle; she didn't feel the tension dissipate once she realized Zoey herself was speaking.
"What are you doing here?" The doctor stepped closer into the light, still wearing her white coat and her dark hair in a messy bun that spoke of her exhaustion, though her eyes seemed bright, even in the darkness. "Do you need something?"
"Uh ..." All of Amelia's excuses scattered right then and there, her tongue growing as dry as Lake Michigan. Great move, brainiac. "Sleeping pills," she blurted out, internally cringing. "I can't sleep."
Zoey gave her a perplexed look (something along the lines of I-don't-believe-you-but-okay) before heading over to the cabinet, unlocking it with a key from her coat pocket. "I get it. Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"
Amelia trailed after her, trying to relax - though it seemed impossible in the other woman's company. She could almost hear Tina in the back of her mind: 'Guess who's falling in L-O-V-E ...'
Oh yeah. That was an annoying little voice.
"Yeah. I mean, we've been training for it for the past - what, three months? - but it still feels unreal. But at the same time, I just wanna get it over with, y'know what I mean?"
The doctor took a small container filled with whitish pills, opening the lid and knocking back one of her own before giving Amelia a sheepish smile, perhaps seeing the somewhat surprised look on the curly-haired girl's face. "Sorry. I'm so bad, taking my own pills. But I need the reassurance as well."
She handed two pills to Amelia, and she cupped them in her palm gingerly, wondering if she should down them then and there, before thinking against it. Amelia reckoned having a coughing fit wouldn't exactly be regarded as 'hot'.
Hot? Mental note: stop hanging out with Tina.
"Thanks. And it's okay, really."
Zoey locked the cabinet again, then trailed her fingers down the surface, almost wistfully. "Can't believe we're leaving it all behind," she murmured. Before Amelia could overthink it, she put her hand on the doctor's shoulder, the action feeling like the most natural thing in the world.
"Hopefully this new life will be worth it," Amelia responded, Zoey's solemness downing her own jumpiness - so many ups and downs in emotions with the other girl, and her heartbeat crept up faster as the grey-eyed doctor turned to face her, intertwining their hands.
Amelia could only study the caramel-skinned woman before her as her fingers heated where they were touching. Electricity burnt between them, a heated frenzy, and it seemed like she couldn't breathe until their lips were touching, such a gradual move Amelia didn't even realize she'd made it.
But she had. And it was the sweetest, most tentative kiss Amelia had ever had. Not fueled by desire or stupidity, but just for the moment. Their moment, in the dark, with the pills melting in her hand and Zoey's head tilted down towards her own; and she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in that moment of utter silence.
It faded once Zoey broke away, turning her head, though it was too dark to see if she was blushing. Amelia knew she was, and her chest was filled with a lightness she hadn't felt in a while.
"Sorry, I just -" the other woman chuckled, pressing her fingers to her lips. Amelia wanted to kiss her again, and a small smile of satisfaction crested her face. Finally, she wasn't the one blundering for words. Zoey met her eyes, though she didn't know what to feel.
Disappointment that it was over too soon? Happiness that Zoey returned her feelings? With the butterflies fading, Amelia felt the moment slipping away.
"Before we got to the K-zone, I just wanted to feel what it was like." It was Amelia's turn to avoid Zoey's gaze, even though she had no idea who had kissed who in the first place. "To strike while the iron's hot, I guess."
"Thank you, Amelia." Her gaze flitted back to the doctor, and her concern faded when she saw the kind look in the other woman's eyes. "It was wonderful."
Amelia could only watch as Zoey walked around the desk with the lamp, exiting through a small white door she hadn't noticed before - presumably to Zoey's own quarters. She looked towards Amelia, giving another small, secret smile, before the door shut with a gentle 'click'.
It was all Amelia could do to not collapse to her knees right then and there; even so, she keeled over and had to lean against the glass wall for a while, thinking over the past five minutes of her life. Undeniable giddiness, like she was a kid on Christmas Eve, filled her from her toes to her head. Tina's gonna be so pumped when she finds out.
She rubbed her hands across her face, glancing down the hall that connected the main clinic to the beds. The sight of a familiar slumped form made her shoot up straight with surprise.
"Lale?" Amelia felt her ears heat. Had he seen anything? "What're you doing here?"
His back was to her, but he turned, blinking blearily. He looked terrible, shadows exposing the bags under his eyes more obviously than in sunlight. She walked down the corridor and stood beside the bed, where Bradley was sleeping. There was an awkward silence, though Amelia didn't dare let any of her own speculation show on her face.
"Couldn't sleep." Lale ran a hand over his chin, almost nervously. "Just wanted to keep him company, even for a bit." He gestured to his fellow marine.
Amelia tried to soften her accusing approach; he looked too exhausted to deal with it. She dropped beside him in another chair with a sigh. "How's he doing?"
"Good. Just an infected nick. Nothing too bad."
Amelia shot him a side-glance of disbelief. "'Nothing too bad'? I'd think an infection is pretty bad."
"It's not the worst." Lale's reply was curt, and shut down that conversation. Once again she was struck by the fact that the marines held indescribable memories of battle. If she had been so freaked by the attack, then what had the marines been through?
Amelia reached over and clasped his hand as silent support for a moment. The memory of she and Zoey's kiss lingering, she let go before it got too awkward, her fingers tingling with something cold. "What's that?" A beaded object was hanging from Lale's hand.
"Oh, this?" He didn't mention her brief moment of touchy-feely, to her relief. He opened his palm, revealing a small necklace connected to a metal cross.
"I didn't know you were Christian," Amelia murmured, shooting Lale another glance, before internally rebuking herself. Why would he tell you something like that, idiot? Her brain was still scrambled from the kiss, presumably.
Lale didn't seem too bothered, however, though his eyes seemed to harden slightly. "I'm not. This was my mom's."
"Oh." There was nothing else she could say, though she would've been surprised if he had said 'yes'. A distant observation among people of her age, which she had little time to dwell on while excavating the remnants of the prehistoric creatures of Lake Michigan, was that little to none of them were religious. Amelia would've been open to the idea of a higher power (one needed the assurance of it sometimes, at least) if she had been raised with that sort of mindset.
It didn't seem like her companions on the mission were very different in that aspect.
"Yeah. Just thought that we'd be needing all the help we can get." He wrapped his fingers around the cross again, and silence - though less awkward - encompassed them.
Amelia felt her sleeping pills beginning to crumble, and got some water from a fountain near Bradley's bed before returning and downing them. A small smile snuck of the side of Lale's face, and Amelia frowned, wondering what was so funny. "What?"
"You." He shook his head as she released a half-surprised bark of laughter, then punched his arm, which of course felt like she'd punched a solid wall. Amelia winced and flexed her knuckles, and Lale cupped her tanned hand in his own paler palms. She didn't pull away, already feeling a yawn building in her chest.
"You've got the power behind the punch, but try and do this instead." He maneuvered her thumb to rest beneath her curled-up index and middle fingers, then pressed her fist down until it was level with the rest of her arm. His movements were sure and gentle, and Amelia's eyes trailed from his hand to his face.
He looked happy. Or happier. And that made her feel good - great, even.
"Keep your arm straight, and, should the need ever arise, you aim for the neck." Lale pulled her wrist forward until her fist were resting on the vulnerable stretch of skin to the right of his Adam's apple. His pulse rattled against her hand, and Amelia felt a sudden nervousness. She was truly holding Lale's life in her hands, if she were to punch with the right amount of power.
Breaking eye contact with him, these nerves fluttering from her stomach to their point of contact, she slowly relaxed her arm and let it flop at her side again. "Thank you." A comforting session turned martial arts practice. Not like she was complaining, though their proximity worried her. What if Zoey was to walk out right then?
That thought had her climbing to her feet, though her smile was genuine. "Really. See you tomorrow."
"See you," Lale replied, watching her for a moment - almost with the gaze of a scientist - before he turned back to Bradley, who still lay soundly asleep.
Amelia didn't even have time to take in a last glance of her surroundings - her little world and her home for the past few months before she fell asleep in her bed, dreaming dreams of grey eyes and gentle hands that she would not remember in the morning.
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