Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Carlisle Pt. 1

 Notes: Welp. Here we go, into the emotional resolution. Buckle up, buttercups.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Carlisle Pt. 1

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Interlude: Carlisle: Pt. 1

 

 

Photo by Nazmi Zaim

There was surprisingly little franticness to their rescue. Given that it was being handled by a bunch of civilians, that wasn’t what Carlisle had expected. She’d thought to see tears, breathless exhalations, fear in the eyes of whoever was coming for them.

“Whoever” turned out to be a tall, slender Ganian with overgrown facial hair who walked with a limp and talked at a hundred kilometers a second. He stepped out of the little ship that she remembered from their ill-fated foray…it felt like weeks ago now…and through the pouring rain like he didn’t even feel it. He didn’t say anything to her, just made eye contact, and Carlisle immediately moved off of Kieron.

Elanus Desfontaines picked him up and carried him over to the ship without looking back, and Carlisle thought for a moment that that was it. Maybe things had finally gone too far for her son’s companions to tolerate. Maybe they were finally ready to let her face her fate and get the dying over and done with already.

Then she looked at the flames rising from the compound and knew that, for Kieron’s sake, there was probably nothing they wouldn’t do to keep her alive right now.

Sure enough, Desfontaines came back a minute later. He didn’t pick her up, just got her to her feet and clasped her arm supportively. “Let’s go,” he said, and Carlisle did her best to go. It was hard—the dregs of whatever she’d been drugged with were still in her system, throwing her balance off and leaving her with the urge to retch—but she didn’t have any structural damage that couldn’t wait. She staggered into the ship—the ship with the brain, Kieron had talked a bit about it, like a kid to him, ha. Then she was unceremoniously sat down against a wall and ignored as a bunch of conversations happened all around her.

“Get us away from this shithole, baby, I don’t want to risk any secondary explosions giving you fits,” Desfontaines said as he crouched down beside Kieron on the cot on the floor. The little bot she remembered from last time was with him, sitting by his midsection and purring like some sort of catterpet. With four of them in there, spacing was very tight even though the bot didn’t move, and Carlisle had to shift her legs several times to avoid being stepped on.

“Daddeee, I’m low on Regen,” a voice said over the ship’s speaker. It was a female voice, young, with a strange lilting accent. Carlisle had never quite heard anything like it, and she closed her eyes and sharpened her ears to get a better sense of what was going on.

That’s right. Lull them into a false sense of security. That way you’ll learn what you need to know about them without—

No. Stop. These weren’t enemies, and Carlisle couldn’t think about them that way.

The problem was, she didn’t know how else to think about them. Kieron was their only connection, her poor, fucked up son, and he was currently unconscious. No one else had any reason to like her, especially not after the lengths they’d had to go to to get her out.

“Use what you’ve got on Kieron.”

“But Daddeee…initial scans indicate that…ummmm…” The walls of the ship somehow turned a pale, peachy pink color.

“Don’t worry about it, Catie,” Desfontaines soothed. “Carlisle is very accustomed to dealing with little inconveniences, and we’ll get a fresh infusion for you to produce with from Lizzie in the next twelve hours or so. Kieron first.”

“Kierrron first,” Catie agreed, and that…was that.

It wasn’t that Carlisle disagreed. On the contrary; if she’d been asked for her opinion, she would of course have said that Kieron ought to be given whatever he needed to stabilize him. Carlisle wasn’t sure where his wounds were, but the man hadn’t collapsed for no reason. So she sat there and took it, took the chills that shook her and the pain in what felt like every overworked muscle in her body and the broken bones in her foot and nose and the swelling and inflammation, until the ship was set down once more and said, “He’s beeeetter, Daddy.”

Desfontaines smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Damage report, baby.”

“Deep hematooomas, some superficial cuts that arrre healed now, mild hypooothermia, and severe nerve channel dysregulation in the braaain.”

Dysregulation?

“Shit, I thought we fixed that.”

“I think prolonged stress makes it worse, Daddeeee.”

Desfontaines nodded. “So the only fix is R and R, then.”

“Prolooonged R and R, Daddee.”

“Well. I think we can make that happen, baby.” He smiled at nothing—certainly not at Carlisle. “Make the rest of the Regen available topically, tell everyone upstairs that we’re going to sleep for a while, then get some rest too, okay? You as well, Bobby.”

“Yes, Daddeee.” The lights began to power down, the humming little bot went quiet, and soon it was just Carlisle and Desfontaines looking at each other in a strange, liminal twilight space.

“Undress as far as you’re comfortable,” Desfontaines said before getting up and going to Regen unit.

Carlisle shifted. “I don’t need help with treatment.”

“Did I ask?”

“I’m telling you what I’m comfortable with.”

“Fine.” Desfontaines threw a small, one-shot bottle of Regen cream to her. “Then handle it yourself. Good luck getting the spots on your back.”

Smug son of a bitch. Carlisle stripped down, unafraid of being nude for the first time in…oh, she couldn’t even remember. But if there was one thing she was confident of, it was that her son wouldn’t be in a relationship with a rapist. She was filthy, and debated asking for a towel before Desfontaines threw her one anyway. It was imbued with a cleanser, and did a decent job cleaning and disinfecting before she put the cream on.

Carlisle sighed as the pain finally began to ebb. It wouldn’t do much for her broken bones, but the surface stuff was the more irritating of it all anyway. She squeezed the last few drops out of the tube and used them on the scratches on her face, then startled as Desfontaines said, “Huh. I see it.”

She looked sharply at him, but he appeared as mild as milk, regarding her like she was some sort of science experiment. “See what?”

“The similarity in your features. I was starting to think there was nothing of you in him except your freakish pain tolerance.”