Aldean's Crew ~ Chapter 2

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Chapter 1 can be found here.

~2~

“Is she going to be okay?” Dace whispered as she cast a glance at Kira where she slept on an old couch.

A man was standing with her, drying his hands with a blood-stained towel. “Too many more surgeries and her eyes will be nothing more than a lens and scar tissue. I got the implants out, though, which is the important thing. I can’t make my work pretty with this meat-ball surgery.” He stopped to look back at Kira also. “What happened to my little girl?”

There were a million things to say to the question, but Dace just shrugged. “She wanted to take it out on her own. I can’t explain what the kid was thinking.”

“That’s not what I meant.” The older man ran a hand through his graying hair and sighed.

She knew what he was talking about. Dace knew from the first time she’d met Aldean that he took care of his own. She felt a pang of jealousy as she gazed at Kira, looking at the bandages around her head. At least Kira had someone to take care of her; a father who would move the world to save her. Guilt came next; she did know what happened. Kira was a good hand as a mechanic and she could spot some useful stuff on a salvage. Dace just couldn’t see her as an equal though.

They lapsed into silence and Dace looked around their home. It was an old bookstore once upon a time, and the name had stuck with it even now. Malaprops was a good space to have control of in the city. It still had running water, and the café portion had a working, if limited, kitchen. One whole side of the former sales floor had been sectioned off with large plastic curtains and tarps making a small operating theater.

The rest of the shop was just a big shapeless room with shelves on the walls. Smaller shelving units had been laid on the floor, the open spaces in them packed with foam and fabric or anything soft. They made good make-shift cots and didn’t take up too much room. It wasn’t much, but Dace wouldn’t change a thing about this place. It was the only home she’d ever loved.

“She was just a little kid. When did she grow up?” Aldean knelt beside Kira for a moment and rested a hand on her forehead.

“Aldean?”

He looked up at Dace, blinking wearily. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop it from happening,” she said, her voice weak. She felt so young when he looked at her that way. His eyes taking in her face, her dirty hair, her scrapes and bruises. Her stomach quivered as she remembered the way Kira had tumbled like a limp doll along the pavement.

He stood and put a calloused hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. “I’m her father and I couldn’t stop her from doing what she does. It isn’t your fault. These things happen.”

He was warm. Dace melted against him and blinked trying to keep any tears from falling. Eighteen years old and she still had no control over anything. “But-”

“No ‘but’. It is not your fault.” Aldean tilted her face up to look at him. “Go and get some rest. There isn’t anything else we can do for her now until she wakes up.”

~*~

It was dark. Her head seemed to be filled with nothing but the quiet around her and the scent of disinfectant and musty fabric. Kira hated waking up after being under a general anesthetic; the world was fuzzy and vague. That, and she was always ungodly thirsty. Sensations in her body slowly began to register. Disjointed pinpricks of pain; her shoulder throbbed in time with her pulse, the backs of her hands were hot and numbly tingling, her neck was stiff, her legs were asleep, her ankle a quiet block of pain.

“Dad,” she said softly.

Faintly the near inaudible sound of a screen coming to life sounded. Prerecorded sounds of birds and wind and trees permeated the air. Her pulse was picking up now, but the throbbing in her limbs remained muted. She reached out her good arm into the void of air beside her. Nothing. Empty Air. Since Kira was born her father had been her doctor. There was one thing that had never changed in the past fifteen years; when Kira woke up after any procedure her father was right next to her.

“Dad?” She sat up stiffly, sliding her feet off of the couch to touch the floor gently. She could feel the worn fabric of a blanket there, soft under her toes. “Dad, I’m thirsty.”

“Kira,” A soft voice said. She recognized it, an old friend, Milo. “Kira, I was told to tell you that you shouldn’t get up.”

The voice was the same as always, slightly accented with British vowels. Milo was twelve; and he wasn’t. He was part of a near ancient gaming system from seventy years ago. An AI generated for a more interactive type of gaming called Project Natal.

Kira tilted her head to where she knew the screen was. “Milo, have you seen my dad?”

Milo was quiet as she reached out with both hands, waving them back and forth. Her fingertips brushed the worn corduroy of the couch but nothing else. The throbbing in her shoulder began to intensify as she moved but she ignored it, doubling over to feel the bedding at her feet. A pillow and blanket were there, but they sat cold and unoccupied.

“Milo! Have you seen my dad?” her voice was raspier than usual. She felt groggy and stupid, having very little patience for the child AI.

“You really should lay back down, Ms. Kira. Dace told me to keep you from moving too much.”

“He can’t be gone.”

“Kira,” Milo seemed to stretch her name into three syllables. He sounded upset.

Carefully, she planted her feet and leaned one hand against the arm of the couch as she stood up. Her ankle screamed as she settled her weight on it. Someone had taken her safety boots off and replaced the compression bandage. Pushing the pain aside she tried to keep her breath steady, it was starting to come in shallow bursts. Aldean was gone.

“Daddy?” Her voice was barely a whisper now. Panic seeped into her words.

Kira had had surgery on her eyes three times before, but the sudden need to work without her eye was still disorienting and terrifying; her dad was always the one that had gotten her through. The room, she knew, was a maze of bookshelf-cots and dirty laundry. It was hopeless to try and cross it. She still felt slow and heavy from the medication, and she wasn’t sure if she could even begin to move anymore. He was usually holding her hand within moments of her waking up.

“Daddy, where are you?”

“You need to lay down. Dace said—“

“Dace can go shove something where the sun don’t shine. My dad is missing and I’m not going to have some student and a two-bit, outdated, monster relic of used up tech tell me what to do.” The room was tilting as Kira spoke, spinning in a slow rotation around her head. Her stomach twisted and she reached back to try and find the couch safely. There was nothing but open air.

“Daddy…”

Her knees began to buckle as she heard footsteps pounding across the floor and strong, small hands grabbed her by the shoulders before she could fall.

“Milo! I told you to tell her to stay put!”

“But Dace I—“

“Power off.” The sound of Milo’s hideaway cut off abruptly. “Kira, you are going to kill yourself.”

The person guided her gently back onto the couch, and squeezed her shoulder. Smooth, cool fingers touched her forehead and then took her wrist a little more forcefully. They smelled like a mix of old soap, sweat and cigarette smoke.

“Dace?” Kira sighed, “Where’s my dad?”

Dace’s fingers slid down from Kira’s wrist to her hand and swiftly began pulling off the bandages there. “He’s out.”

Kira pulled her hand back, letting out a pained noise as Dace’s fingers slid across the scrapes there. Her voice was even and cold, “Dad wouldn’t leave me alone after a major surgery.”

“You weren’t supposed to wake up for a few hours yet and we’re running low on supplies.” Dace grabbed her wrist again and jerked it forward, her fingers encircling it like a shackle. “If we need to keep you bandaged and clean, we need more stuff.”

Kira set her jaw as she felt Dace’s strong fingers begin rubbing something thick and oily into her scrapes. When Dace had replaced the bandage she jerked her hand back. “And is there a reason his mighty top wielder of band-aids could not go shopping?”

Silence. There was nothing but the bite of Dace’s fingernails in Kira’s other wrist. Kira could hear her breathing a little heavily.

“He doesn’t leave me alone.”

Dace dropped Kira’s hand, leaving it unbandaged and half-covered in the oily goop. “Fine.”

Kira could hear her footsteps getting farther and farther away slowly. Resting her head on the back of the couch she let out a long breath through her nose. “Be that way.”

"Sweetie, wake up." Kira gasped and tried to sit up but gentle hands pressed her back against her pillow. Her body was screaming in a million different places a chorus of aches, pains, tweaks and twinges.

One of the hands, warm and smelling like aftershave, rested against her cheek. "Open your mouth." His voice was like music to her ears.

"Daddy..." She couldn't say more as a stick was pressed under her tongue.

Instinctively she held it in place with her lips as she felt her father's hand check her pulse and lift her bandages. His fingers paused on her hand that Dace had left unbandaged. "Dace said you were a little cranky when you woke up. Do you want to tell me about it?"

Kira shook her head and spit the stick out of her mouth as she heard it give a small beep. "I wasn't cranky."

"One hundred point two. Your fever is going down." He paused. “What happened with Dace?”

The weight of his glare was still there even though she couldn’t see him. Aldean was a good dad, but he didn’t put up with a lot. Since he’d taken Dace in and began teaching her medicine Kira had to treat her like part of the family. She bit her lip. No. Not part of her family. “Why did you leave me alone?”

“Kira,” Somehow he was able to stretch her name. It seemed to take up an entire breath. “Tell me what happened.”

She turned her face away from him. “I was freaking out because you weren’t there. Then she came and I might’ve said something.”

Silence. There was nothing her father was better at then wringing a complete story out of her. Turning on to her side to take some pressure off of her shoulder she heaved a sigh. “You weren’t there, and you’re never not there, and she comes up and acts like nothing is wrong and I just--“

The bells over the doors at the front of the store chimed several times and Kira could hear a jumble of footsteps. The room seemed instantly suffused with the smells of smoke and food. Energy seemed to thrum around her with the barrage of noise and scent.

“She’s awake.” A voice shouted, strangely muffled. “Kir, you’re awake!”

Aldean chuckled as he finished wrapping Kira’s hand. “Yes, Bijan, I do believe that we have established that she is indeed awake.”

A hand smelling faintly of food rested on her good shoulder, massaging the side of her neck gently. “How are you?”

“I’m awake,” Kira said, trying to suppress a giggle.

Kira felt someone kiss the top of your head and winced slightly. Like the rest of her body her head was still sore from the impact with the ground. But she leaned back slightly tilts her head toward the person kissing her, and she was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek.

"You're a smartass you know that?" Bijan whispered against her skin. "I brought food."

"If you'll brought me up that soy --" Kira started.

"No, no, no. This is real food. Well, as real as can be expected." Bijan laughed, as he pressed something soft and wrapped in paper into Kira’s hands. “Twelve inch sandwich; turkey on sourdough with lettuce and tomatoes, bacon flavor spray but no bacon, mayo, mustard, oil and vinegar. Did I get it right?”

Kira’s face burned a little. Bijan wasn’t usually the sort of person to dote on anyone, girlfriend or not. She nodded and felt the package in her lap, carefully trying to peel off the paper without making too much of a mess. “Only if you brought me something to drink, I swear I could drain Lake Lure.”

A straw pressed against her lips immediately, she snorted and took an experimental sip. Sweet nectar of life, it was TEA. Real sweet tea. Nothing from a powder, an actual brew. Kira moaned in pleasure, rolling the liquid around her mouth to savor it for a moment. Then she grabbed the cup away from whoever was holding it for her.

“Marry me,” she said between gulps. “I mean it, just marry me.”

“I don’t think Bijan would like that too much.” A timid voice said somewhere beside her. Kira felt her face burn again; she’d expected Bijan to be the one taking care of her. But this….was Rolland.

She didn’t need to see to know that he was blushing. She and Rolland were like siblings, he was a year younger than her but he’d been in the crew since they were both little. She could almost picture him hovering over her, gangly and awkward.

“He isn’t exactly your type.” Bijan chimed in. “And I’m the one who got the food and the tea. Paid for with my cut of the take on what Dace and I salvaged.”

Kira nodded. Her stomach felt wobbly. Drinking too much to fast was probably not the best idea. “Then you marry me,” She said with a half-hearted attempt at cheeriness.

“Alright, enough excitement,” Aldean said from somewhere in the background. “I think my little girl has made herself sick.”