Lost and Found (OPEN)

[girlintheducts]

Sept 18, 2012  - 1:26 pm

Newt had spent the last weeks in the ducts.  Leaving only to go to the bathroom and eat when she got hungry enough.  She had avoided any contact with anyone so far.  Maybe they thought she was gone too.  Maybe it was better that way.

When Brisco disappeared she'd lay in the bed of his empty room and cried.  She was there for days.  Everything of him had been stripped away.  Including his scent.  If she didn't have stills on her communicator it would be as if he never was. 

Everybody left.

She'd retreated to the ducts and didn't come out.  It was safer there.  No one could sneak up on you.  No one to see you.  No one to care about.  If she cared they would be taken. 

She had visited her room only to collect Molly, her doll.  The white stuffed rabbit Nuada had given her was guarding her bed.  It was too bulky to take.  She didn't feel like trying to keep clean.  Maybe being grimy and smelly would keep people away.  She had taken to sleeping most of the time.  Dreams were better when they came, then reality.  The nightmares only woke her for a little while.  Then she'd sleep some more.

Most of the time she didn't feel like eating.  Her overalls and tee had become too big on her.  It didn't matter.  Only Kasumi came and went.  Occasionally trying to draw her out.

Then Kasumi stopped coming.

Her room was empty.  Her closet as well.

Newt stopped her lessons and didn't even send back the math problems Mr. Baltar sent.  He'd be next if she didn't stay away.

Unable to stand the hungry anymore Newt scouted the unoccupied kitchen.  She knew there was a replicator there.  And considering the few natural foodstuff's around it was unlikely anyone would visit.  Even if there were carrots and green onions in the fridge.

She stood before the replicator and asked for a cupcake.

Comments

[theycallmecap]

Now he remembered, and he nodded. Newt, that was her name.

"I think I'll take my chances," Steve assured her confidently, but did not step any closer, not when she looked close to bolting. He stopped where he was, crossed his arms over his chest. "Why do you say that?"

[girlintheducts]

Newt shook her head. Why wouldn't she think that?

"Everyone in my colony was killed but me. All but three of the rescue party were killed. I woke up here alone, without the people who saved me, because I got attached. Tayla was teaching me defense here, then disappeared. Briscoe let me stay with him sometimes, when the nightmares got bad, and he watched out for me, then he disappeared. Kasumi became my friend and then she disappeared. Only two people I like and who seem to care about me are left. Dr. Baltar and Nuada. I'm keeping away from them so they don't go away too."

Really, it was simple math. She hated math. Maybe because her life was all subtractions and divisions.

"I'm bad luck. People die. Everyone goes away eventually. So it's best to stay away. People will live longer."

[theycallmecap]

"That's just bad luck, Newt," Steve told her, still staying where he was for fear that she would bolt. "What's happening here isn't about any one of us, it's bigger than that. I'm sorry you lost so many people," he added, and meant it with all his heart if his tone was any indication. He knew what it felt like, after all. Being ripped out of your time did that to a guy.

[girlintheducts]

"Then bad luck is all I got," Newt's vision blurred, but she wouldn't let the tears fall. She'd cried enough and it didn't change anything. "Doesn't matter, liking people hurts when they leave. My fault or not. The not knowing is even worse than knowing they're dead."

If they were back where they belonged did they remember her? Did they miss her like she missed them? Was disappearing the same as dying, just without a body?

She hadn't been able to help any of them. She wondered if she would have if she could, or if she'd run away like she did as her brother screamed. Not knowing... it was empty.

"I lost everyone I ever knew. They either die really bad or just go away," she didn't know where the anger boiled up from.

Only moment's before coming to the kitchen she just felt hollow , blank. Dead inside. Now she felt violent, wanting to strike out at fate, or luck, or whatever was responsible. Maybe even sock God in the nose.

It may be something bigger than all of them, but in the end all SHE knew was that she was doomed to be alone.

[theycallmecap]

It was an anger Steve was familiar with, even if his had not stemmed from exactly the same source. It was more that he had been the one who had to go away, and leave everyone (Peggy) he loved behind. But he had lost many men before that, including Bucky, so even that side of things he knew.

"All I can tell you," he told her, speaking to her as if she were an adult, rather than a child, "is that cutting yourself off is not the answer." It had been his instinctive reaction, as well, after they had woken him up, and it was a recent revelation that it was not any kind of solution. "There is more to living than simply being alive."

[girlintheducts]

Newt shook her head, her tangles swaying. "What's the point if you're alone in the end anyway? Maybe nothing's worth it in the end."

That's what she'd been feeling like for weeks now. There was no point. Only the minimizing of hurt.

The lack of a point to her survival fueled the anger. Life was all one big joke on everyone. And the punchline sucked farts.

"It' easier to keep from being hurt." Actually it was easier to just sleep away everything. Sometimes dreams were happy. Happier than being awake. They even made the nightmare's worth it.

"I'm still pretty sure I'm a jinx. Co-inside-ence only works two or three times. More than that's it's a pattern."

Newt's head was starting to hurt. She really needed that cupcake.

[theycallmecap]

"You won't feel the pain of loss if you have nothing to lose," Steve agreed. There was nothing he could say to convince her that she was no jinx, but he certainly would not leave her. "But if you have nothing to lose, what do you get up for every morning?"

It really was that simple. Even after he had woken up in the 2010s, he had always had something to get up for, even if it had just been his ideals and principles. Those could get ripped out of a man as surely as anything else, but at any given point in his life, he would have fought with all he had to prevent it from happening.

[girlintheducts]

"Sometimes I don't," Newt admitted. Some times it was too much to pull herself from whatever hidy hole she was in and do anything. Not eating much cut down the need for the bathroom. She was certain she'd slept through a few days.

"I don't understand the point, sometimes. Maybe it would have been better if the monsters got me, too." It may have saved other lives.

"You're nice, Mr. Rogers," he hadn't repeatedly lost everything yet. She had no idea of his history. But he was too upbeat to have gotten kicked in the teeth often enough to learn to lay down. "So, you really should stay away."

[theycallmecap]

"Like I said, I'll take my chances," Steve repeated. "It's part of being nice. I can't stand the thought of someone having nothing to get up for in the morning."

Especially not a kid, but really he could not stand it in general. Even here, there were reasons to get up. It was easier for having most of the Avengers with him, but even after waking up in the 2010s he had forced himself, morning after morning, to find reasons.

"I thought there might be no point, too, at a time in my life," he explained, because she deserved to know that he wasn't just saying empty words. He knew what it was like. "I hung in there. I forced myself to get out of bed. Eventually, it got better. Things won't always be so dark, kid."

[girlintheducts]

"It's been over a year," Newt had settled,she felt less a compulsion to bolt.

Mr. Rogers still didn't understand. She hopped up to sit on a prep table. "My daddy was the first to die..." Newt went on to tell about finding the alien crash and the face huggers, the way the colony was decimated within days. Of running even as her brother screamed for help as he was dragged away. She told of months alone, only the air ducts and small spaces being refuge. Of the marines and Ripley. Of waking here and Brisco and the disappearing one by one.

What nine year old wouldn't think they were at fault? Over a year of fear and loss with only two months of something close to happiness here. She saw it as starting all over again.

"I can't see better. Better is a short trick to make you feel safe befor the dying starts again.

[theycallmecap]

Steve leaned against a counter opposite her, so he could give her his full attention, and listened as she told her tale, hands in his pockets so that she hopefully would not pick up on the telltale signs of tension, on how revolted he felt that she had had to live through all this, how unfair it was.

"Or maybe the dying is what you have to go through to get to the better again," Steve answered, after a few seconds of silence. "Death isn't something you can do without, though you shouldn't have had to go through so much of it. And we can't trust this place." These were the facts she already knew. "But if you give up, then death wins. This place wins."

[girlintheducts]

"Maybe that's what they're trying to do. See what it takes to break people. A lot of the people here are strong, famous, special. This whole thing just might be to see what it takes to break people like you. But I'm not like that. I'm just a girl. The only thing special about me is knowing how to hide.It's not hard to break glass." Newt drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.

"If I break people might not pay attention while they try to step around me or even try putting me together. Being distracted is bad." It didn't make it hurt less. It didn't make her want to face any more loss. But part of her just WANTED a grown up to take care of her. To lie to her and tell her it'd be okay. Brisco almost did that.

Most of all, Newt wanted the impossible. She wanted her mother. She wanted it all to be a bad dream. She wanted to wake up and be hugged and cuddled and told she was being silly.

"I'm tired. I'm trying to be grown up, but I'm not. I'm not sure I care who wins just that the game is over. I don't wanna play anymore."

[theycallmecap]

"You don't have to be a grown-up, Newt," Steve told her, sympathy evident on his face. She had not had anything like a childhood, and of all of them on this station, with all their tales of woe, she was the most unlucky.

"How long since you've had a proper meal?" he asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything else. She'd just eaten a cupcake, and she was a kid. "What's your favorite food? Burgers, pizza, hot dogs?" He was getting it out of the replicator in his room if it took him a hundred tries. "We can have dinner and a movie in my quarters."

He had no intention of leaving her alone, and he held his hand out invitingly. He wouldn't let her break, and he would never think of that, or her, as a distraction, either.

[girlintheducts]

Newt gave a half hearted smile. "The machine gave me salmon and rice instead of a candy bar. That was a couple of days ago, I think. And my favorite food is Chocolate and ice cream."

Yeah, she knew that wasn't want he meant. The burgers the colony got were really processed and expensive. Beef had to be shipped from Earth. Chicken was a staple, as it provided meat and eggs with less feed, and therefore was raised on planet. Hot dogs were cheap, even if they were shipped, so she got them occasionally.

"Pizza. Mom made it when we got good marks on studies." Frozen and dehydrated were what she grew up with. We got pop for birthdays. But the machine keeps giving me vegetable juice when I ask for it here. I tried asking for Veggie juice and got tea." She made a disgusted face.

Her weight loss was obvious. She had to have lost five pounds and on a nine year old that was a lot.

It was a bad idea to go with Steve. He could get hurt. But she'd seen him fight in the gym. Maybe he could fight whatever took people off. Maybe.

Newt tried to think of some old movies that might be from Steve's time not remakes. She reluctantly took his hand.

"You ever see the Princess Bride? It has sword fights, adventure, revenge. So boys can like it.?"

[theycallmecap]

"Sword fights, adventure and revenge? Sounds like the perfect complement to pizza," Steve warmly agreed, his hand steady around Newt's as he led the way out of the kitchen, towards his quarters. "I'm sold."

He would honestly have watched anything, as long as Newt agreed to come, but that actually sounded like a good adventure movie, even if the title was a little weird for an adventure movie. Maybe the princess bride in question was the hero, who knew.

"Hopefully we'll be more fortunate trying to get that movie from the Cortex than you seem to be getting pop out of the replicators." The Cortex wasn't quite as tricky as the replicators, but it still in no way seemed to cooperate with them.