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The medical room in their base is small, and poorly equipped. There is one bed, currently in use by the member that is the most seriously injured- Bradley, who is unconscious, and being watched over by Melissa and Amanda.
“He’ll be fine.” Amanda assures her, patting her shoulder. “He’ll just be out of commission for a while.”
“He lost an arm, Amanda.” Melissa retorts, head snapping up to glare at the girl next to her. She knows what Amanda means, and she doesn’t really want to fight with her- but she is worried and guilty and upset and Amanda is the nearest target.
“I know. I know, Melissa.” Amanda knows what she is doing, picking for a fight, and doesn’t let her do it. She keeps her tone even, even though she is also extremely worried. “But he will survive, and maybe we can get him a robot arm or something.”
Melissa sighs, leaning back in her chair. “No swinging.” Amanda says automatically. Melissa makes a hand gesture that earns her a mock gasp. “Anyway, I’m going to check on the others. Sara should be along soon.”
“Oh goody.” Sarcasm drips from every syllable.
She knows exactly what Sara is going to say. She knows because she is saying it to herself, over and over like a prayer that might fix everything. It’s her fault. If she hadn’t made another solo attempt to rescue Milo, Bradley and the others wouldn’t have had to come and rescue her. And if he hadn’t had to come and rescue her, Bradley wouldn’t have caught that laser straight on his arm.
Everyone blames her. Amanda does, even if she would never say so. Bradley will, if- when, when, it’s when, she can’t lose someone else- when he wakes up, he must. And Sara will blame her most of all, because Sara has told her every time she has tried to rescue Milo that someone is going to get seriously hurt because of her, and now it has happened.
She failed Bradley and Milo at the same time, an impressive amount of failure even for her. She snorts dryly at that, then reaches up to wipe her opposite of dry face. She failed. And now Bradley might die and has lost an arm, and Milo is still a prisoner, and Sara is going to kill her.
“Mel?”
A slurred voice, a pitiful groan, and she looks down to see Bradley squinting up at her. She scrambles to retrieve his glasses and rather roughly shoves them onto his face. He flinches, but gives her a pained half smile even so. “I feel like shit.”
“I can imagine.” She grins back, even as guilt weighs down the corners of her mouth.
“I expected that arm to be in agony, after the way it got hit, but honestly it’s the only thing that doesn’t hurt.” Bradley jokes weakly. “Can I have some water?”
“Sure.” Melissa immediately goes to hand him the glass, then hesitates. “Listen, Bradley. Your arm…”
“Yeah?”
“It’s gone.” She spits it out quickly.
“What?!” Bradley exclaims, and then snaps his head around to look. Of course, the stump is bandaged, but Bradley is understandably still horrified. “Wha…”
“I’m sorry.” Melissa murmurs. She sits in silence for a while, as Bradley tries to grapple with what happened. She knows that she can’t do something like this again. She will save Milo, she’ll find a way, but she can’t let what happened to Bradley happen to someone else. Or worse. If that laser had been a little further along, if it had hit his chest…
“I better get a robot arm out of this.” Bradley suddenly breaks the silence, with a frightened, pained effort at his usual dryness. She manages a smile back, and the awkwardness between them seems to break. She starts talking quietly, mostly to distract him.
Suddenly there is a sharp knock at the door. “It’s me!” Sara calls out. Melissa’s stomach sinks.
“Come in!” Bradley calls out, so the door opens and in comes Sara. There is a bandage around her head, her hair is flying in all directions, and she is burning with so many badly concealed emotions that Melissa is worried that she might explode right there and then. She doesn’t, though.
“Bradley, how are you?” She asks.
“Do you really need to ask?” He says dryly.
“Glad to see that you’re acting like normal.” Sara says. “Melissa, can I have a word?”
“Good luck.” Bradley says as Melissa shuffles after their leader. “You might end up worse off than I am after this.”
———
Melissa follows Sara down the corridor to her office in stony silence. She follows her in and shuts the door behind them, before standing in front of her desk. Sara stands at the other side. They stand in silence for a few moments.
“You’re an idiot.” Sara breaks the silence with a voice that is shaking from anger. “You are the biggest idiot I know.”
Indignation bristles through Melissa, chasing away some of the guilt that glued her mouth shut. "That’s not fair."
"Yes, it is! You put yourself in danger, and then you put everyone else in danger because we had to rescue you, and now look what’s happened!" Sara snaps, throwing an arm out to the side.
"Oh, are you saying it’s my fault that this happened to Bradley?" A small voice inside of her is telling her to stop, that she doesn’t want to fight with Sara. She wants reassurance, comfort. But the louder voice is pushing her to keep going, to raise her voice and rail and scream because anger is so, so much better than pain and fear and guilt.
"No, stop putting words in my mouth!" Sara says. "I’m saying that I kept telling you to think about the consequences, and you didn’t listen, and now Bradley is seriously hurt!"
"What else was I supposed to do?!" Melissa raises her voice, clenching her fists. "Milo is still a prisoner, and who knows what he’s going through?!"
"I can tell you very well what Bradley is going through, he’s lost an arm! If you weren’t so reckless-"
"Bradley getting hurt isn’t my fault! Really, you’re the leader, so-"
"It’s my fault, then?"
"If you would help me rescue Milo, maybe it would work and I wouldn’t need to be rescued!" She takes a step closer to the desk.
"Melissa, you know I-"
"You’re a coward." Melissa snaps, and that isn’t fair but she can’t seem to stop. All of her guilt and regret and pain is burning away, replaced by anger that burns in her veins like fire.
"And you are a reckless, arrogant child who needs to start thinking and listening!" Sara snaps right back.
"I am listening and thinking, you’re just wrong! You’re a cowardly, selfish-"
"I’m selfish? It’s my job to keep everyone alive and safe!"
"Aside from Milo, apparently!" Melissa declares, and she finds the anger is burning up her heart and straight to her throat, and now words that she shouldn’t say and doesn’t mean are spilling out. "Do you even really care about him? Because you don’t act like it."
Melissa has never heard such a loud silence before. Sara stares at her, just stares with such shock and hurt in her eyes. Melissa can hardly even believe that she said that. It was wrong, and cruel, and she knows that, she should rescind it…
"Of course I do." Sara says, anger lacing every word. "But I don’t need to justify that to you. I don’t need to explain anything about that to you, or involve you in how I handle Milo. You’re not in our family."
Melissa stares at Sara, hurt hitting her heart like a laser. She wants to stop this argument, ask for forgiveness, beg Sara to change her mind. But the burning fire in her heart chars the pain into anger. "Fine. So I won’t listen to you at all anymore."
"Then why are you still here?" Sara asks, anger dripping from every word.
"I’ll leave! If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave!" Melissa yells.
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
Melissa turns on her heel, storms out, and slams the door so roughly that it shakes on it’s hinges. She marches to the dorm, where Amanda, Mort and Lydia are sitting and talking. "Talk with the boss go badly?" Mort asks.
"I’m leaving." Melissa growls. She picks up Milo’s backpack, slams it onto her bed, and begins shoving her meagre possessions into it.
"What?" Amanda asks, confused.
"I’m leaving. Sara kicked me out." Melissa says, swinging her backpack onto her back. She tries to march to the exit, but is stopped by a hand on her arm. Amanda, looking at her with eyes filled with concern.
"I’m sure that’s not what happened, you must have misunderstood." She says. "Let her calm down a little, then talk to her again. She’s just worried about Bradley."
Melissa pulls away. "No, I’m leaving." She insists. "Sorry, Amanda, but I can’t stay." The fire in her veins propels her out of the door and away.
"Please reconsider! Take a walk, calm down, but please reconsider. We want you here. We need you here. Sara needs you too, even if she won’t admit it." Amanda says, before pulling her into a hug. Melissa hugs her back before turning and storming out.
———
An hour or so later, she stops. She is alone in the middle of an empty street. Alone. Completely and utterly alone. Because she… she…
She just left the resistance.
She should go back. Apologise. Beg for another chance, something other than going at it alone.
No. No, she isn’t begging Sara for anything. She’ll still be friends with her friends in the resistance, she’ll help them when she can, but if Sara hates her now? Then she’s gone.
———
Anger bubbles in Sara’s veins, thick and hot like freshly cooked soup. Or lava.
She glares at the door for a while, absolutely furious at Melissa. How dare she suggest that Sara doesn’t care about Milo? She does, obviously she does, can’t Melissa see the pressure and stress she is under? Can’t she even try to understand? How dare she say something so cruel and uncaring?
And then, like someone turned the bowl upside down to empty all of that piping hot soup out, the anger drains out of her. And the cold, awful truth is all that she can look at. She told Melissa that her opinion on saving Milo doesn’t matter because she isn’t their family. But Melissa is Milo’s best friend, and is the only person who can truly understand the pure pain and grief Sara is going through, because she is going through the exact same grief. And Sara’s parents raised Melissa, for a few years, and Sara just…
She should apologise. She should, she knows she should.
But then, Melissa left. She stormed out. And it sounded pretty permanent. She drove her closest friend away. She could go after her, apologise, beg for another chance to prove herself as a leader to the hotheaded girl…
But Melissa clearly hates her now.