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Curly won't stop making noise after the crash. At first it had been horrible sobs and screams of pain as he first returned to consciousness. He had been mostly subdued by painkillers and careful treatment- Jimmy had balked at her using so much supplies so quickly, but this early into recovery it was especially important he was receiving proper care.
She still set aside used bandages to hopefully be washed and reused, but she wasn't about to not use the handful of IV bags that had survived the crash. She wasn't sure if Curly could even take painkillers orally at this point- his throat had been severely damaged by smoke inhalation.
That didn't stop him from trying to talk to her. He had stopped screaming, at least. She tried to tell him to stop, but he would just stare at her. She couldn't blame him for being upset- she couldn't imagine how much he wanted to say and couldn't.
He had caused the crash. That's what Jimmy had said, and given that they found Curly trapped in the cockpit, it was the only logical thing to conclude. It was strange to wrap her head around- that someone she had begun to consider a friend had done this.
Had it been because of what she had told him? Could he not handle the realization of his friend being a horrible person? Or was it selfish, not wanting to face the consequences of a smear on his reputation?
She didn't think it was…malicious. Maybe that was strange to say about an attempted murder-suicide, but Curly had been struggling a lot. He never told her about it directly, but he was always up whenever she woke up early in the morning- a chronic insomniac. It wasn't just that, though.
There's a moment that sticks out in her memory. She had walked down to the cockpit with some forms- she needed Curly to verify that the physical well checks had been performed. The door was unlocked, which wasn't that surprising- Curly tended to leave it unlocked during his shifts in the cockpit because he knew the crew would need him for verification bullshit like this. She was surprised, however, that he wasn't seated at the helm.
He had been standing, staring into the captain's locker. He had the code scanner at his side- the hand holding it was gripping it tightly, but he didn't move to scan anything. She peered over his shoulder to see what he was looking at, and her stomach dropped: He was staring at the gun safety case.
But as quickly as it happened, Curly finally startled and turned to face her. An easygoing smile quickly covered his tired expression, as he casually closed the door to the locker and asked her what she needed.
She almost thought she imagined it- maybe he had just been looking for something else. So she let it go.
She wishes she hadn't.
Curly had always been kind to a fault. He had been kind to her- and it wasn't like he had done nothing, when she had finally gotten through his thick skull what had happened. She couldn't entirely blame him for missing the subtext of her words- he was exhausted and stretched thin, and Jimmy had always been a glaring blindspot of his.
He'd made attempts- he'd shifted schedules so Jimmy and Anya were less likely to cross paths and told her to start sleeping in Medbay. He had even let the issue of the hidden gun go when he realized she didn't want to hurt herself.
(“What would you have done?”
“Anything, Anya. Anything.”)
She wasn’t sure what she had even wanted him to do, when she realized she was pregnant. They were on a fucking spaceship for 8 months without contraceptives. That was hardly Curly's fault. She just…she just wanted him to do more. She wanted him to stop staring at her with that frozen, deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes.
So she told Jimmy. Curly had rushed to Jimmy when she told him, and that stung like betrayal. It made sense- Jimmy was actually Curly's friend. He was also just doing his job, making sure Jimmy was calm, making sure they could all keep working together smoothly.
It hurt, though.
And then, a day later, Curly crashed the ship.
Curly had been suicidal- looking back, that's easy to see. Staring at the gun case like that. Not even just that- she remembers how he'd reacted when Jimmy started yelling at the birthday party.
("I just want my life to be something I don't have to escape from.")
She should have seen that. She was the nurse. She gave him his psych exam.
He had missed the warning signs. But so had she.
He keeps trying to talk to her. She keeps trying to get him to stop- he's almost choked on his own blood a couple of times- but he's insistent. What does he have to say to her?
Had he done this because of her?
He's doing it again- gargled, strained noises she can't sort into words. He sounds like he's crying, sometimes, but it's hard to tell.
“Please, stop,” she says, her voice cracking with emotion in spite of herself. She's trying so, so hard to keep it together, to be a nurse, to calmly and methodically take care of her patient.
But her patient had sort of been her friend- maybe not yet crossing the boundary from coworkers to genuine connection, but close to it.
She misses him.
He goes quiet. She feels guilty for snapping- he's in pain. He's in horrific condition, it's insane that he's even still alive.
(The moral, medical thing to do in these circumstances would have been to kill him. But Jimmy had voted in favor of keeping Curly alive and Anya had been terrified of voting against him. And Daisuke, sweet Daisuke, couldn't imagine killing their captain. He was insistent that they would be found soon. So it was decided to keep Curly alive.
She was sort of relieved. She knew killing Curly might have been the right thing to do, but she couldn't imagine doing it. And keeping Curly alive meant she had something to do- it let her hide away from Jimmy, and made her important to Jimmy enough for him not to try to hurt her more. She was the only one with the medical experience to keep Curly alive- and the only thing Jimmy ever cared about was Curly.)
Curly is still staring at her. He slowly raises his arm and smacks it slightly against the table. He does it again and again until she is standing up and rushing to his side, gently holding his arm down to make him stop. Only as she does, does she clock the rhythm of his taps. Morse Code.
“J.”
Curly stares at her, trying to make her understand something. She doesn't.
“...Morse code is a good idea,” she finally says. “But not right now. Your injuries are still too severe. How about….look up for ‘yes’ and down for ‘no’? We can work on other systems as you heal and are able to do more. Is that okay?”
He stares at her. Finally, he looks up. Yes.
“I'm sorry. I wish I could do more to help. I wish I understood what you were saying. But right now, what's most important is making sure you heal, okay?”
He looks down at that. No. But he relents and stops, sighing and turning to stare at the ceiling. He's calmed down and he seems to understand now that trying to talk is counterproductive, but he's frustrated. She can't blame him for that.
She can't blame him for a lot of things that she should.
It's been months. They've long since run out of IV bags- she's had Jimmy start giving Curly the painkillers. She can't bear to do it, the noises he makes, the feeling of looming over him while he chokes helplessly-
She can't.
She hates herself for it. She's heard the noises Curly makes when Jimmy goes in- especially when Jimmy is in a mood. She tries to pretend like she doesn't hear the beatings, doesn't see the fresh blood seeping into his bandages. She'd never thought Jimmy would hurt Curly- she thought Curly was the one person who was safe from Jimmy's wrath.
She can’t ask Swansea for help- he's too drunk, too unreliable, and he's pulling Daisuke down with him. She doesn't blame either of them for it, though.
She sees it now. She remembers how tense Curly had gotten as Jimmy had screamed at him, the way he had barely fought back the accusations. She remembers Jimmy's double-edged comments, remembers how bitter he was, sometimes, about Curly's role as Captain.
She remembers the resignation in Curly's eyes when she'd confessed the reason she'd hidden the gun- not surprise. Resignation.
God. Maybe she should be angry at Curly- maybe she should be furious he hadn't known the precautions to take, hadn't seen the way Jimmy pushed and pushed and pushed. Locked doors - what the hell did he think she was saying?
But really, all she sees is how much she missed. How incapable she is of standing up to Jimmy, of making sure he doesn't hurt Curly, of doing something meaningful on this god-forsaken hunk of metal floating in space.
She wonders if this is how Curly felt.
The company would have punished him if he had done anything to try to prevent it. HR complaints about poor team synergy may result in collective punishment, Polle cheerfully reminds her. What could he have done, really? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!
Maybe this is why Curly had tried to crash the ship. Maybe he had been trying to save them both.
He's healed a bit, now, though his wounds are still pretty raw. He tries to speak sometimes, a whispery, strained thing, but he mostly keeps quiet. Though…he is able to move a little bit, these days. Still not much, but…
“Do you want to try some Morse Code?” she asks. “It can only be a little bit, but…”
He grunts, looking up again and again. Yes. Yes.
She smiles. He hasn't been this excited in a while, not since Daisuke came in and played games on his handheld, narrating the whole time while Curly watched.
Daisuke hasn't visited for some time. She's not sure the last time she's seen him without a bottle of mouthwash in his hands- though he still jokes about their rescue these days, she doesn't think he really believes it, anymore.
“Just a little. And you'll stop as soon as I tell you, okay?” She reminds him as she readies a pencil and paper to copy down the code.
He rolls his eye before looking up again. Yes.
She snorts. He's still finding a way to give her sass, even like this.
When it's clear she's ready, he starts tapping out a rhythm. He goes slowly.
“A”, he taps, before lifting his arm and pointing towards her.
“A for Anya?”
He looks up. Yes.
“C.” He gestures towards himself.
“C for Curly.”
Yes.
“J,” he taps before pausing, staring at her.
Her stomach sours. “...Jimmy,” she says.
Yes.
He goes faster, a string of letters that she has to copy down and take a moment to translate.
“J-S-H-I-P.”
Jimmy-ship.
Her breath catches in her throat. Is Curly saying what she thinks he's saying?
“Curly…” she whispers. “Did you crash the ship?”
No. Curly's gaze has never felt so intense.
Anya closes her eyes. “He crashed it because of me,” she realizes in horror. “I told him I was pregnant. You tried to stop me from telling him. You tried to calm him down.”
Curly makes a noise and she forces herself to open her eyes and look at him. He looks down, over and over.
No. No. No.
He taps his arm.
“C.”
Curly.
“It wasn't your fault, “ she retorts as she wipes tears from her eyes. “Curly. Even knowing what he did to me, I never thought…how could anyone see this coming?”
He stares at her. She gets the sense he wants to argue with her. But finally, he taps out another letter.
“J.”
Jimmy.
“Yeah,” she agrees, letting out a watery giggle. “Yeah, why are we arguing about whose fault it is? You're right.”
He wheezes a laugh, before suddenly tapping out something else.
“P.”
“...What?” she asks. If the single letter is a name then, “Polle?”
He looks up. Yes. But he's still laughing.
She laughs. It's absurd. It's so fucking stupid that they're on a ship full of mouthwash, to blame a cartoon horse for their predicament. Curly's kind of right, is the thing- there were things they both could have done differently, but it was on the company to have laid the safety groundwork in the first place, and they hadn't.
It kind of is Polle’s fault and that's fucking hysterical.
She laughs, gasping for air, until she's not sure if she's laughing or crying. Curly does the same.
God, this sucks. This whole situation fucking sucks.
As she catches her breath, she folds her arm onto the metal table and lays her head down next to Curly's, just looking at him for a moment.
He tilts his head to look back at her and for a moment all she sees is her friend.
Something settles within her. It's not peace- not quite.
But it's close enough.