Chapter Text
Alex’s fingers hovered over the auto-doc. But even as critical information spooled over its display, his eyes couldn’t tear away from Bobbie. Her arms and shoulders were covered in angry red splotches, her chest heaving from how hard she was panting. She didn’t notice he was staring, glazed and unfocused as her eyes were, which was more than a little unsettling. He could only imagine how much pain she was in, but somehow... somehow, he had the feeling it didn’t hold a candle to the pain that lurked more than skin-deep.
“Guess you didn’t stick to the plan after all, eh Gunny?” he asked conversationally.
Bobbie didn't answer immediately. Her gaze remained fixed on some arbitrary point across the medbay, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she was concussed. Eventually she seemed to realize Alex had spoken and blinked, her dark eyes flicking over to his face.
“Plans change,” she said shortly. Her gaze fell away from him again, though he noticed how the hand free of the cuff clenched over the end of the armrest hard enough that her knuckles blanched.
Alex hummed, the sound neither approving nor condemning. He’d figured she’d wind up sticking it to the plan and doing her own thing after their short conversation in the cargo bay yesterday -- had it really only been yesterday? -- but he couldn’t say he liked it. He’d had the feeling there was something more going on with Bobbie for a while now, but he hadn’t put two-and-two together until Avasarala’s comment a couple of hours ago.
“This won’t bring back your dead marines,” she’d told Bobbie in a stern voice that had been laced with more concern than authority, even as Bobbie had willingly led the hybrid after her, away from the others.
Such a simple, almost innocuous sentence, but one that had made all the pieces finally snap into place in Alex’s mind. He wrestled with himself, wondering how to put his thoughts into words. Wondering whether he had any right to even say anything.
It was several moments later, after he’d inputted a couple of commands into the auto-doc, that he finally straightened and stared down at her again, folding his arms over his chest. “Survivor’s guilt is a heavy cross to bear,” he said, voice soft.
Bobbie’s jaw hardened, her shoulders tensed, she sat up a little straighter in the chair. Her eyes rose back to Alex’s and she opened her mouth like she might say something angry or defensive. But whatever words she had seemed to die just as they reached her lips and she let out a breath instead, her whole body deflating as she sagged back in the chair.
“Yeah.” That single word weighed heavy with weariness. “My whole team was taken out by one of those things,” she said after a beat of silence, her eyes falling to the cuff and the stats displayed there. “I thought facing it would make it all go away.”
Alex wet his lips, then sighed. He glanced down at the stats, not really seeing them. Instead, he saw faces. McDowell, Byers, Nygaard, Trask… Shed. God, he hadn’t thought about them in ages. Hadn’t let himself think about them, more like. He’d never been all that close to any of them, but after the Canterbury, the Donnager, Eros... you wound up with some survivor’s guilt whether you damn well wanted to or not.
But losing a team? He knew marines. Losing a team was like losing a family. Alex’s throat went tight at the thought of anything happening to Amos, to Naomi, to Holden.
“I don’t reckon shit like that ever really goes away, not even if you stare it in the eyes and blow its brains out.” Which was exactly what Bobbie had done, according to her suit’s cameras. (Shame she’d had to ditch it, what with it being way too contaminated with protomolecule. But it was better to be safe than sorry.) His gaze returned to her face, expression apologetic. “Guess only time can take care of wounds like that.”
Bobbie’s only answer was a short grunt, her eyes still on the cuff but not really seeing it. Silence stretched between them, each of their minds seemingly lost among the ghosts of fallen comrades. Or maybe what they could have done to make things turn out differently. What they should have done.
Eventually Bobbie cleared her throat and her eyes flicked back up to Alex’s face. “I’ll be fine if ya want to check in with your crew,” she said, shifting her weight awkwardly. It was hard to tell if the awkwardness came from the pain she was surely feeling or something else. There was a brief look of uncertainty on her face, as if she’d wanted to say something else, but Alex wasn’t sure what. It was a positive reaction, though. More open, more... he didn’t want to say vulnerable, but it certainly lacked the aggressiveness of her first days aboard.
“Oh, I bet they’ll manage fine without me for a while,” he smiled, eyes crinkling. “Good Martian company’s hard to come by these days.” Bobbie just looked at him for a couple of beats, then her lips twitched into a smirk. It was faint, but it was there.
“You got that right.”