Epilogue: Nameless

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Part 1 - The Day After

The Girl was standing in front of a panel, carefully setting the program schedule for each one of the 13 cryo chambers.

Tears streamed down her face. Her cheeks' skin felt prickly due to the salt. Because she had cried so fucking much.

It started in the minute she set foot in the vessel. The ugly bawling lasted for hours.

She looked down, to the black, fat, tripod that was headbutting her calf.

"I can't believe they woke you".

Meowing ensued.

***

Her teammates had left her alone for exactly one hour, before disassembling the door of her chamber, because she had barricaded herself and jammed the circuits.

If crying had not exhausted the Girl, she would probably jump to brawling those fuckers out of presence.

The guy codenamed Dad (the team leader, how original) whisked her up after the break in, and marched with her to the shower room.

She fought for her right to use her legs, but no. Permission to stand: denied.

Once Dad realized she was not going to take the suggested fucking shower (since, you know, she was a stink mess, blood and dirt plastered everywhere. Hell, she didn't even take her harness off), he got Breacher to babysit that mess of a person because his arm was broken, and he needed to get it fixed.

So Breacher and the Girl agreed to sit under the shower for another hour, once she realized they would not leave her be.

(She was taking the shower, wasn't she?)

Under the shower she stayed until passing out, as in fell asleep under the streaming water. Still clad in her armored vest, back anchored against the wall.

***

Woke up three hours later, heart hammering, her mind screaming: you are not supposed to be here. You have someone to take care of.

Now I understand why you wouldn't talk.

Because she simply couldn't.

***

13 hours later and she had managed to regain some domain over her mind.

But not her body. The fucker was hurting like crazy, and it was mostly emotional pain crushing down her flesh.

Robotically, she went about tending to her colleagues. The Girl was not actively crying (as in red face, hiccups, the works) anymore, but the tears persisted.

Streaming down her cheeks, they had a mind of their own. Just kept coming.

She stopped minding them. A mostly non-verbal Girl was back to performing her tasks with extreme care. So Dad ordered the rest to leave her the fuck alone, and allow her to do her fucking job.

Which was hard since, you know, she was one of the combat-medic-and-field-surgeon on the team. The other guy had some mild injuries.

So her colleagues would try not to stare at her crying, biting down questions.

Some tried to talk. She wouldn't.

The only words she uttered were meant to perform her tasks.

She wouldn't survive letting any of them down.

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