Chapter Text
Bright, burning white light was the first thing Simon saw when his eyes cracked open for the first time in God knows how long. His lids fought to open, his lashes crusted together by the blood. His eyes stung, and as soon as he opened them he closed them again. Too bright, way too bright. How long had he been out? Where is he? Is this heaven?
His other senses returned one by one, and he could vaguely make out that he was laying on a flat, hard surface. Attempting to move an arm revealed the surface was something smooth, like metal. He could only hear muffled noises, but it sounded like someone talking. The dim light that peeked through his closed eyelids flickered, accompanied by a low, droning noise.
It was as if his head was full of lead, every sense was dulled and muffled. A high pitched ringing was the only clear thing. The light flickered again. Then the surface he was on shook slightly. Then it flickered again, almost like clockwork. Then the light went dim and stayed dim. Something was covering it.
Simon cracked his eyes open again, ignoring how much it hurt to keep them open. It was blurry, but it looked like someone was standing over him. They were saying something he couldn’t make out.
Something pinched the top of his hand, causing his arm to twitch. It felt cold, cold in comparison to the feverish heat of his body. He tried to move his hand, but whoever it was held it down to stop it from moving. They said something again, and he was pretty sure it was a woman’s voice. Was it Ava? He couldn’t make it out. How is he alive? Is he alive? Is this what death is? Is he being turned into soil as he laid there?
Simon managed to open his mouth slightly, the metallic taste overwhelming everything else. A low groan, a death rattle, escaped his raw esophagus. As his senses came back, so did the pain. His skin burned, sticky and miserable. His wounds stung like acid, the blood no doubt corroding his skin as he laid there. Whoever it was heard him, looking down at his face and leaving. They returned a moment later and placed something over his eyes, it felt like a cloth soaked in liquid. It was warm, and they kept it pressed over his eyes. Slowly, the stinging reduced, and when they took it off to check, his vision was clearer. Not back to normal, but he could make out Ava’s face standing over him.
She said something, he couldn’t hear her.
She leaned down, then went to retrieve something else. She leaned down to his side and placed a gentle, gloved hand on his forehead to steady him. She started tugging at his left ear, and he started to hear what sounded like fizzing. After a minute of the fizzing, he heard scratching, then his ear popped louder than he had ever felt before and all of a sudden he could hear. He hated how much he disliked it when she took her hand off of his forehead.
“Is that better?” Ava’s voice was clear as day, “Can you hear me?”
He groaned an affirmation, and she nodded. “Blood coagulated in your ears, same with your eyes. Fortunately nothing a bit of anti-coagulant can’t fix.”
She went to the other side of the table, pouring the anti-coagulant into his other ear. It fizzed even more violently, then similarly popped.
“You’re running a fever, you’re concussed, and your body is covered in hives,” She added, “But, you’re alive. I promised you.”
She reached down and adjusted the table so that Simon was propped up, he could see he was in the medbay. His eyes adjusted to the light, although his vision was still blurred. There were a few of the doctors scrambling around, and now he could hear the beeping of the heart monitor he was hooked up to. He could just barely catch the scent of antiseptic over the overwhelming stench of oxygenating blood. He also noted that the coldness in his hand was an IV drip.
One of the nurses handed Ava a small cup, and Ava held it to his cracked lips. “Small sips, you’re very dehydrated.”
He swallowed it as quickly as she allowed. It wasn’t the water he was expecting, but some slightly sweet, slightly salty solution. It tasted good, and by the time he finished the small cup his throat felt better.
“More.” He gasped out, leaning forward before she lightly pushed him back down,
“Give it a minute, it’s been days since you’ve had anything in your stomach, let it settle.”
He laid back against the table, feeling more lucid. He tried to remember what had happened. He remembered the sub flooding, he grabbed the life jacket and- what did he do with it? He used it to preserve something, what was it.. The black box.
“Black box!” He rasped, “Did it-”
Ava’s expression was of cautious relief, she sat down on the table next to him. “We recovered it, yes. Both you and the data made it out. You did perfectly.”
“What was it?” The tremble in his voice as he asked it made it perfectly clear what he was referring to.
Ava inhaled sharply, “We aren’t sure yet, but some kind of organic lifeform, that’s for sure. The photos need to be fully developed before we can study them. We pulled you up out of the blood less than 30 minutes ago.”
“The blood, it’s.. It’s alive.”
Ava nodded solemnly, “We know that now.”
“Get it off of me. I want.. A shower.”
“You aren’t stable enough right now for a shower, or to bathe on your own, we’ll have a bath run.”
“Fine.”
A nurse with a wheelchair came up, parking it next to the table. She took a large towel and draped it over the chair. Sluggishly, Simon swung his legs off one side of the table, then Ava took one of his arms around her shoulders, the nurse taking the other arm. Quickly and as non-painfully as possible, Ava and the nurse transferred Simon from the table to the chair, settling him down on the wheelchair and adjusting his legs to be supported by the footplates. Ava handed the IV drip to Simon, telling him to hold it in front of them as they went. His grip was shaky, but he did as requested.
Ava went behind the chair, taking the handles and pushing it out of the room they were in. This was a part of the ship Simon had never seen before, he took it all in as they moved down the maze-like halls of the ship, the ship Simon wasn’t actually sure the name of. Ava’s ship, he was going to call it Ava’s ship. Ava’s ship was large and confusing, but Ava navigated it effortlessly. She must have known the place like the back of her hand, the pit of overwhelming nervousness in his stomach slightly relented.
It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. You’re free, you’re in a hospital. If they wanted you dead they wouldn’t have saved you. His vision was still blurry.
Ava directed the wheelchair into a room, flicking the lights on and closing the door behind them. It was a bathroom, the centerpiece of the room being a large bathtub suited for caring for injured patients. This was nothing like the holding cells on the other side of the ship, it was clean and well-lit, almost serene. Simon felt out of place, he hadn’t seen a place this nice since Eden.
Ava turned on the faucet, adding an anti-bacterial soap to the tub as it filled. She checked the temperature, determining it safe for a feverish patient.
It didn’t feel real. Was this just another concussion dream? If it was, he didn’t want to think about why his dying dream was about being bathed by Ava. He had hallucinated her voice before, but this was far more involved than that. Just take what you can get. He white-knuckle gripped the IV drip, tears beading up on his blood-crusted lashes and blurring his still-hazy vision. Please, God, let this be real. Every second that passed he expected to wake up, still trapped in that God-forsaken submarine. He tapped his forehead against the IV drip, trying to keep his breathing steady.
The sound of the faucet was all he could hear, and it took every bit of strength he had to block it out. If this was a dream, then the sound of rushing liquid meant he was about to drown. But he was still breathing, so he wasn’t dying yet. He at least had a few more moments before he’d die.
The faucet turned off, and Simon took another breath. This was real. It was all real. He was alive, and he was going to stay that way. It’s okay. It’s okay.
“Can you undress or will you need help?” Ava asked, snapping him out of his head spiral.
Registering her question, he nodded. She gave him a plastic ‘BIOHAZARD’ bag.
“Oh, wait a moment. Let me take the tube out.” Ava said, taking his hand and disconnecting the IV tube from the connector. “Keep your hand out of the water,” she said, after a moment adding “Please.”
He couldn’t wait to get out of those blood-soaked clothes, and he all but ripped his shirt and harness off, the clothes would probably be burned anyway. His boots were the worst of it, only narrowly beating his socks. Despite his best efforts the clean white tile floor was splattered with blood by the time he was half-undressed.
“I don’t think you’re steady enough to stand, let me help you.” Ava said, putting his arm around her shoulder again and helping him heave himself up. He leaned against her slightly. She was warm despite the layers of PPE she was wearing. Hesitantly, awkwardly, he finished undressing and stepped into the bathtub without incident.
Sinking down into the water, the blood tinged the water, reddish-brown swirling in the clear water. The soap bit at his wounds, but it was nothing compared to the relief of the warm water on his body.
“I’m going to start with your hair, okay?” Ava said, and no matter how much his face flushed Simon couldn’t bring himself to tell her he’d do it himself. Distract yourself, you are too exposed right now.
“Is this your way of apologizing?” Simon said, then mentally slapped himself. He was mad, but the idea of being left alone right now made him want to cry.
“I won’t say it isn’t,” Ava replied, “Where does your head hurt?”
Simon put his hand on his head where it had collided with a metal pipe.
“I’ll do my best to avoid it, but if it needs to be washed I may have to put a little pressure on it.”
The flick of a cap opening, then Simon felt Ava touching his head. He tensed up at her touch, then relaxed as she started rinsing his hair out. He hated how safe he felt when she massaged the shampoo into his hair, treating his injuries with more care than anyone in Eden ever did, even if that bar was basically in Hell’s boiler room. Ava absolutely would have let him die if he didn’t get the black box information, but she did keep her promise. He was free now.
It took 3 rounds of shampooing before the bubbles stopped turning red, and Simon wished it would have taken longer. Ava has strong hands, and when they moved down to clean the blood off of his face he couldn’t help but lean into her touch.
“Close your eyes for me,” Ava directed him as she started to scrub the dried blood from his eyes, slowly revealing the aggravated, raw skin underneath the blood streaks. It almost looked like mild chemical burns. She was careful not to further irritate the injured areas, but he had literally been swimming in the stuff. She suspected the worst areas had been exposed to the blood for an extended period of time.
Her hands lingered on his face for a little longer than necessary, although he didn’t seem to mind it. She had anticipated him not to be so receptive to touch, but evidently he seemed to want it. Is this her way of apologizing? Best not to think about it right now. Neither of them really spoke when she was washing his (absolutely filthy) hair out, but it was hard not to notice how close he wanted to be. The least she could do was indulge him, although she wasn’t sure how she’d be able to handle both the ship and his clinginess. Whatever. She got the data. The Coalition of Iron could suck it.
Continuing down, Ava washed his chest as quickly as she could. With the exception of his lower legs most of his body wasn’t exposed to the blood for too long. The bathwater was thoroughly red by then, however.
“We’ll have to drain the tub and refill it,” Ava said,
“Okay. Do I get out?”
“No, you can stay in. Just wait a minute.”
‘Ava has seen this all before’ Simon assured himself, sitting completely naked and covered in soap as the tub emptied. He felt like a little kid getting a bath from their mommy. He pulled his knees up to his chest in an effort to save what little dignity he still had, scrubbing at the rehydrated blood on his legs while Ava fiddled with the faucet.
Fresh (recycled) water refilled the tub, and again Simon winced at the sound of it. This half was much quicker, the caked blood sloughing off of his skin easily. For the first time in forever, he felt clean.
“Once we’re done I’ll have to hook you back up to the IV, and you’ll get some actual food. Then I made the assistants get you an actual room since you aren’t a prisoner anymore.” Ava said, going to a cabinet in the corner of the room. She opened it and pulled out a set of the usual coalition-issue hospital clothes. She put them on the counter, then opened another cabinet and pulled out two towels. She tossed the towels at him, and he wrapped one of them around his waist and the other over his hair. She offered her hand in support as he clumsily climbed out of the tub. He looked almost unrecognizable not covered in blood, sweat, or whatever else.
Sitting on the edge of the tub Simon was steady enough to dry himself off and dress himself, reveling in the feeling of wearing clean clothes again. His head still ached, but he felt leagues better.
Ava insisted he still use the wheelchair since he was unsteady on his feet. If he were to fall or black out he risked hurting himself even more. And still, his vision was blurry.
Back down the hallway and up an elevator, Ava brought him to a nondescript room on the residential level. He could smell food, and the scent made his mouth water.
Ava unlocked the door, letting him stand up and walk in. “For the foreseeable future, this is home for you.”