If it werenât for the unpredictability of the work, Cosima would never be able to separate one day from the next. Even still, after a few days work it was hard to differentiate one series of patients from another. The work was harder than science was. Even with her clever mind and human heart it didnât come as naturally. She worried frequently about how to interact with the patientsâwondering if they could ever truly trust her after everything the colony had been through since Shiloh Blake. If they hated her there, they at least had the decency to let their own medical problems overshadow rumor and old wounds.
The post shift ritual was to discuss with whoever her preceptor was that day how things went. This conversation could go any manner of ways depending on the individual. With Harper, whom sheâd had the last few shifts, it generally ended with âwhat felt good about today; what needs improvement.â Usually the answer she gave felt awkward and ingenuine, but she was getting the hang of this reflection thing. âI think I really helped that kid feel better about the stitches.â She recalled of the eleven year old who was terrified of the prospect of the small finger lac being sewn up. âButââ Cosima began remembering how slow and clumsy sheâd felt doing them. Her first set of sutures werenât perfect, but theyâd do. ââI felt like I was wearing oven mitts the whole time and I wanted to puke.â Harper had laughed. âIt comes with time.â Sheâd told her. âYouâre doing better than you think. Remember when you felt this way about injections a few months ago?â
The perspective helped and, for the first time in short of a year, Cosima held her head high when she walked home that day. It wasnât her dreamâno, it wasnât part of the plan sheâd had for herself. Nothing about her new life was as sheâd imagined it since that day. Not a single goddamn thing. But being a medical intern ⊠maybe it wasnât such a bad second choice either. If she could make a difference, maybe she could lighten the weight of the sins of her loved ones. Could she clean their slates, give them a TABULA RASA and bring them back from the jungle fresh and clean? So far, it didnât seem like the mountains of bituminous coal could be chipped away to the weight of a feather. But Cosima had to try.
The Spot was packed by the time she left the infirmary. The rush of people left her breathless and weary. Too many faces and voices melting into one horrible humâA SWARM OF HORNETS watching her every move. One misstep and they would sting. Twirling a golden curl around her finger nervously, she waited patiently with her backpack between her feet ( so as not to take up too much space ) and her gaze cast downward. The melody of a familiar song buzzed at the tip of her tongue, a gentle low hum comforting her went undetected beneath the din of busy, socializing colonists. When it was finally her turn she paid for her cookies and tea without a word before slipping out the front door with the pastry bag and mug in hand, eager to get home out of the summer sunâs accusatory glare as it setâred and purple with angerâbehind the walls.
The night was largely uneventful to Cosimaâs delight. Her parents had an event to attend that she politely ignored the context of while spreading out her books on the living room floor and dumping out the contents of her pack to practice stitching pig skin together, applying splints to her own legs, and several stacks of flashcards with anatomical or medical terms. They were good company and the soft colors of her textbook illustrations were almost lovely in the dwindling lightâa comfort that lulled her to sleep sometime long before her parents returned and ate, setting her supper out on the counter before waking her and making their way to bed for the evening. They werenât good for many things, Cosima thought, ashamed at their shallow dispositions, but despite themselves they really do try some days. And perhaps they did.
Turning on a soft desk lamp, Cosima made her way to the kitchen, heating up the leftover meal and pushing it around on the plate before placing it back in the fridgeâmostly undisturbedâand choosing to eat the remaining pieces of cookie from her pastry bag in the living room. The door curtain seemed to move through some unseen forceâlikely the unpredictable breeze of a summer nightâand she did her best to ignore it in favor of her studies.
It was the FRIGHT that got her first, long before the words themselves translated into her head. The scream she let out was a shriek that wouldâve woken sober parents, but they had long since been lulled into the darkness behind their lids with red wine and whatever else the upper crust did in alia terra to forget the mundane boredom that set in and took root to vacant minds. âWhoâWhat doââ The stammering of two competing questions merged into a meaningless gasp. Blonde hair fell from her shoulders as she instinctively pushed herself away from the door in a display that would later bring her shame. There was a familiarity in the voice, the nickname, and when sheâd found her breath it was curiosity that snuffed out the initial fear. She hardly noticed the volume of regurgitated blood on her motherâs pristine beige carpets as her eyes wandered over him, conjuring his name from a gravestone she had never visited.
Tentatively, she rose, a golden halo sticking to her forehead and neck, which were thick with sweat despite the chill running down her spine. The face of the man was almost unrecognizable. Long scars carved canyons into FERTILE FLESHÂ that she had once planted with soft kisses. Adam Becher had not deigned to come back to her a whole man in near a year and here he stood beneath layers of his own blood as if no time had passed at all. She wanted to smack him across the face until her hand STUNGÂ like her eyes did. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and fall apart with the weight of an eternity of grief. She did neither. Either option took more strength than she had left in her and he weak voice still caught in her throat, whining like cricket wings as it searched for words ( she did not have the quick wit of a man with nothing left to lose ).
âAdam,â She began finally. Her voice unsoothed by the chamomile sheâd been sipping for the better part of an evening. âOh, my god, Adam.â The tears came easily now, invoked into being by speaking HIS NAME, which she had not been able to speak aloud since heâd left ( without so much as a goodbyeâcouldnât he have snuck back in then and taken her and Tamsin with him? ). âWhat happened to you?â With the words came the ability to control her body once more and she was on her knees next to him in an instant, pulling him farther into the house and to the adjacent kitchen where she could get a better look at himâwhere there was running water and towels andâADAM BECHER, who was now in her house and her life once more. âWhere the hell have you been?â Anger crept in at the edges and she quickly swallowed it. There would be time for that laterâif there was a later. âHow did you get here?â
   So much for casual, Adam thought as her shriek filled the quiet of the living room. If he hadnât known her parents to often lull themselves to sleep with wine, Adam would have feared their coming downstairs and alerting the guard to his presence ; the Ramsays never liked him, merely tolerated him because of his father, but the good graces of his parentage DIED along with Shiloh Blake. He wasnât completely safe, however, the houses of Farm Hills may have been far apart but the colony was quiet at night and surely the upper clearances would hear the terrified sounds of a PRECIOUS colony daughter if their bellies werenât full of wine too. Every second inside the walls was another second where his life could end, truly end this time without a REBIRTH into the scarred monster he became at the last one, an end that ended with a bag over his head and a firing squad only a few feet awayâhe didnât know if sneaking into the place he HATED to see the woman he once loved was a terrible death or a romantic one, probably romantic if he didnât sneak in to see her only to spill thick blood all over the floor.
   It quickly became clear from her stammering that Cosima didnât recognize him at first and through the copious amount of pain he was experiencing, Adam felt a bit OFFENDED ; heâd recognize her anywhere, any time, from any side. Adam didnât realize then just how... nonhuman he looked, like a DEMON that had crawled their way out of Hell from the Earthâs surface. He was aware that blood was covering his body, probably dirt mixed in there too, just unaware of how everywhere it was, how it covered his face and body in dried and damp forms. Maybe if he saw how he looked in the mirror, he wouldnât have recognized himself either, even more so than he didnât recognize himself when he looked in the barracks bathroom mirror and his eyes could only see the three long scars that etched themselves into the left size of his face, permanently reminding him he was no longer that young man training to be a guard or the fresh faced boy stealing oranges off of the stalls in the market square.
   A rough cough crawled up his throat shortly after the first fountain of blood, sputtering little specks out of his mouth onto the floor, adding to the small puddle that collected underneath him. In the haze, he briefly wondered how exactly you were supposed to get this much blood out of carpet ( the Outpost 7 floor was entirely made of tile, easy to clean up ) and his mind recalling something about LADY MACBETH and spots that he didnât pay attention to in his seventh year English class yet still somehow collected in his mind while he was too busy mouthing off with Gaius Spencer. Attention brought back from a simple haunt of a memory, he looked up to see Cosima gather TEARS in her eyes as she finally knew who he was. Finally, his hazed filled brain thought, still teetering on offended and wanting to fall face first into the pool of blood he emptied out.
   Hearing his REAL NAME spoken by her, spoken by anyone at all but especially her, clenched the heart beating fast against aching ribs. Ever since he chose that name for himself, Becks, he didnât want to hear his true name come out of anyoneâs mouth besides Cosima Ramsayâs. The name, while a fine one by anyoneâs standards, didnât belong to him, it belonged to his FATHERâthe man chose it because Becks was supposed to be the first male born on this new planet and the Yates family had a tradition of using biblical names, hence his fatherâs name and his middle name of Abraham. BECKS, though? While the name came from his mother, the woman who owned the maiden name of Becher, he chose the shortened form as his first rebirth. Not as a Yates, not as the commander's son, not as an ORPHAN, but as his own person. The name quickly became the name of the town bully, however, and he didnât mind sharing the ownership of it with rolling eyes and fearful gasps.
   That name, ADAM, though. He didnât want to share it without anyone but Cosima, anyone that wasnât her that called him by the name would receive a glare and an instance to call him Becksâsave for Cressida, who simply didnât dare let anyone tell her what to do, his instances falling on defiant ears so he allowed itâoccasionally. Cosima repeating his name was a siren song, he wanted to FALL into it, if only she hadnât sounded so scared. He sometimes dreamed of her speaking his name, either dreams where she was moaning it into his ear like she had so many times before or dreams where she was SCREAMING it in the distance, cloaked by the thick of the trees and far too gone for him to save her. Hearing her voice again, saying anything after a year without it ( he sometimes confused Tamsinâs voice for hers at the Outpost and his heart would briefly think it was Cosima, though Tamsin didnât speak very much these days ) was calming and torturous all the same, for he knew this was truly the last time heâd ever hear it ; he couldnât risk sneaking into Alia Terra again, this wouldnât work a second time and it seemed like it only worked because luck owed him a favor after allowing him to get attacked by a Carno.
   Adam couldnât answer her question even if he wanted to, chest heaving now from the fear that more blood would come up his throat ( he hated puking, detested it from the simple feeling and from his motherâs death puking up her guts ) but it seemed he got everything out the first time. His eyes, one halfway shut from swelling, were focused on the floor he ruined and he hadnât realized Cosima moved until she was right next to him, pulling him up. His teeth gritted again, a small gasp of mixed pain and surprise as his right ankle stung from the sudden pressure of being lifted up. He stumbled along as best as he could into the kitchen, feeling more like a RAGDOLL now than when he was knocked over by the Carnoâs tail as his back collided with the edge of the counter, thankful the landing didnât irritate his left arm.
   Face to face with her now, or at least standing up and not kneeling on the ground like he had been worshiping his own bile, Adam was almost shocked at what he saw : she looked pretty much the sameâstill the most beautiful girl ( or rather woman, now, he supposed since he considered himself a man ) he had ever seen in his entire life, maybe a slight hint of being a year older, but something was different. Cosima always had a COOL AIR around her, both Ramsay sisters did, but this cool air now felt draining instead of refreshing. It wasnât just the tears in her eyes now, it was as if tears had been scars down her cheeks like the scars that ran crimson along his cheekbone. She seemed SAD, not exactly the picture of what he feared when he thought of her with a new boyfriend or what he hoped when he thought of her as the most brilliant scientist Alia Terra had ever seen. Well, if his mind ALLOWED him to hold on to a thought for more than a few seconds, he would have instantly known why she seemed so sadâher ex-boyfriend was a MURDERER and her sister left her behind, of course she would be sad.
   His impaired vision tore from her face quickly, head turning towards the sink behind him before he spat a small glob of leftover blood into the basin. Outsiders donât have manners, his father once told him when he didnât say thank you in the fashion Abraham wanted him to, and he figured injured Outsiders cared less about decorum and appropriate behavior to do in front of your girlâwhatever. Normally he would have wiped his mouth after spitting but with his left arm hanging limply at his side and the general bloodiness of his face, Adam only spat again to get rid of every bit of red-tinted saliva out of his mouth. A shallow breath, he tried to CALM himself long enough to give an actual answer,  â  He still hasnât fixed those loose panels behind the energy center.  â  If the Commander hadnât fixed them by now, Adam was convinced his father KNEW about them and didnât repair the panels simply to turn a blind eye to kids going OTG to partyâit was really only a matter of time before someone used them the other way around, dear father.
   Grunting softly, Adam tried to re-position himself against the sink. His left arm bumped the counter lightly and his soft grunt turned into a harsh hiss, eyelids squeezing tight.  â  Fuck,  â  He whispered harshly, eyes opening and quickly landing on Cosimaâs face.  â  I heard you went Med,  â  Adam began, head tilting backward, a silent question as to WHY she didnât join the research and science team like she had dreamt of for years,  â  and I didnât know where else to go.  â  Had he wanted to see her? Of course, every single second of every single fucking day he wanted to see her ; he thought about coming in and stealing her away to Outpost 7 where, yeah, life was harder but they would be TOGETHER at leastâTamsin, too. Well, if not busting in guns blazing, he wondered about a getting a message to her, maybe telling that one nurse that dropped off supplies sometimes to tell Cosima something, anything to let her know he was still ALIVE, or maybe writing a note of where to meet him so she could sneak away with him forever â his fear of her hatred of him, of her DISGUST over his killing stopped him every time.
