Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Carlisle

 Notes: Aaah, we're moving into the final showdown! So exciting! Also, warnings for gross body stuff here.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Carlisle

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Interlude: Carlisle

 

Photo by the National Cancer Institute 

 

Her knees hurt.

They weren’t the only thing that hurt, but they were the worst. It had been a very long time since Carlisle had been able to use Regen for non-essentials, and knees were decidedly non-essential for someone in General Hadrian’s army. You toughed up and gutted it out and if you were bleeding to death, you got Regen. Otherwise, you shut your fucking mouth.

Carlisle knew when to shut her mouth. She’d made an art of it growing up, perfect actions accompanied by perfect silence. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Don’t be the one to reach out. Never, ever say something soft around the General, because he’ll take it as a weakness. She’d only ever let herself break that rule twice—once with the man who’d gotten her pregnant, and again with their child. Carlisle had hoped that she’d never need to be soft again when she got Kieron off the colony.

Then he came back.

He came back and was so frustratingly difficult for her to look away from. It wasn’t his competence that drew her in, as much as it was nice to see that his early lessons had stuck despite the time and distance. Her son was a competent man, and that was a testament to the teaching he’d gotten here. He could fight, he could shoot, he could lie, he could steal. He could brawl and fly and give as good as he got, and he was a survivor.

Thank the stars he was a survivor. That was what she’d been counting on to save him when she told him to go the last time. When it became clear that she was only going to slow him down with her own weakness. She hated, hated that the General was her weakness, but she didn’t deny it. Denial was as good as death, and Carlisle was determined that at least Kieron was going to live to see another day. She would make a target of herself to save him, and live out her last moments with the man she loved and hated more than anything in the universe. It was a fair way to go.

But it hadn’t worked out that way.

“Five minutes left,” Jakes murmured. “You think they’re gonna go for it?”

“Oh yeah,” Trapper replied with a bravado Carlisle was sure he didn’t fully feel. “With Mama here in hand? They’ll go for it.” He slapped the back of Carlisle’s head, making her sway. “Look at you,” he taunted. “Not so tough when you’re all fucked up, huh?”

At least she wasn’t literally fucked. That had been a pleasant surprise. Beatings were one thing; forced time in the comfort rooms was another. Carlisle had had enough of that as a young women to know it was never the way the General had promised. There was no comfort at all in those rooms, just selfish need.

She was tempted to speak, but held her tongue. She knew better. She knew the safety that lay in silence.

That didn’t keep Trapper from running his fucking mouth, though.

“Yeah, not so tough now. Should have known the second we saw him that he was yours. He’s got your look.” Trapper sneered at her. “Too pretty by half. Not a real man, that one—you know who he’s with?”

Someone who loves him.

“Another man, that’s who! He’s one of them.”

In a universe that had largely given up demonizing people for who they preferred to sleep with, Hadrian’s Colony was a detestable throwback to a more hateful era. Same-sex relationships were adamantly not allowed, not between women or men. In the beginning that was because creating children had been the priority, but as time went on the General let his own hatefulness seep deeper into the fabric of the colony. Anyone different was dangerous, any challenge to what he deemed the norm, was to be eradicated.

“Useless little fuck, just like his mother.”

Says the man nursing five broken ribs because my son ran you over. Idiot. Her cheek started to itch. She was tempted to bend her neck and try to scratch it against her shoulder, but that would only make Trapper more interested in her. Better to ignore it.

“I wonder if his man will object if we end up having a little fun with him.”

“Um, boss…we’re making a deal, aren’t we?”

“What kind of deal can we make with outsiders?” Trapper demanded. Now that the General was well and truly gone, he was doing his best to take up all the air in the room. “They don’t have any sense of honor. We can’t trust them to hold to an oath. No. As soon as we have confirmation that they’ve pulled back their ship, we fire on ‘em.”

“But—”

“If they had the kind of firepower they say they do, we’d already be dead,” Trapper said like he was speaking to a child. “The storms are as big a problem for them as they are for us. I’m not gonna wait around with them on planet until they leave and take their tales with them, making more trouble for us. No, we…”

He had more to say, but Carlisle stopped listening. She had to; she was suddenly aware of a rising nausea in her stomach and a dizziness in her head so intense that, entirely against her better judgement, she suddenly pitched forward. There was just enough time for Trapper to start shouting at her before she turned to the side and vomited up the minimal, bile-covered contents of her stomach.

“Fuck!” Trapper yelled, letting go of her and dancing back out of firing range. “What the fuck?”

“She looks sick, boss.”

“No shit she looks sick, she just puked all over my boots!” Carlisle looked up at him through bleary, wet eyes, not really caring if he was going to hit her because her stomach was cramping so hard she wanted to pass out. She threw up again, and it was awful, pain traveling through her like a wave and leaving every muscle jumping with agony.

“Shit, we can’t let them see her like this, they’ll never get in range. Take her to the old man’s office.”

“Me?”

“I’m not doing it, shithead!”

A second later, tentative hands grabbed Carlisle under the armpits and began to drag her away. She was too weak to protest or put up any kind of fight, not that she would have anyhow. She let him pull her, twitching and trying not to choke on her own mess, until they got to the General’s office. He dropped her there, not even inside but at the threshold of it, half in and half out of the door. “Gross,” Jakes muttered, then stomped away. Carlisle was left alone, clutching her stomach with her bound arms and wishing it would just end, please, end it please, I can’t take any more…

And then it ended. When she was able to open her eyes, she found herself looking at a floating head with a very determined expression on his face.

“Damn it.”