Indestructible

I awoke on a metal gurney, delirious and confused. It was as if my head was packed full to bursting with tissue paper, making it hard to think. A hefty respirator covered my face like a muzzle, hooked to a tube that went to some machine. I tried to lift my arms to touch it, move it maybe, but my left arm was wrapped up tight against my torso. My right arm wasn't responding and was slathered in an opaque liquid bandage that had long since dried into a hard resin.

The room was empty except for me and the machine. It was letting off a small sound that droned in the background. Somewhere I was sure there was a door, but my eyes couldn't fully focus in the total darkness.

Wolf. Where was Wolf?

Though I opened my mouth, I couldn't speak: my throat was dry and thick from underuse. My eyes were barely working, too, though the room was so dark it barely mattered. Shadow, blurred shapes . . . Hardly any difference at all.

My legs didn't work. I wanted to sit up, to get down from the exam table where I'd been left, but my muscles didn't react to my will. Panic started to set in.

The door opened up at that time, though, and someone entered. They came right over to the bed. I flinched and curled away, letting out the best version of a warning growl I could, something I heard the yautja do often to warn others when they weren't in the mood for any bullshit.

I probably looked like an angry, injured kitten but it was the best I could do.

However, they spoke to me in pretty good English. "|Hush, little one! You are safe.|" A rough and warm hand gently weighed my shoulder down.

Mhalu. Oh, sweet Mhalu. I relaxed considerably; I was on the clanship. I was among friends.

Though I was no longer afraid, I was still alarmed by the fact that I couldn't move much. I tried again to speak but only managed a single, raspy syllable. "Wolf . . . ?"

I could make out the shape of her head hovering over me. "|Do not worry about him. You need to be still and focus on your own recovery. You are so delicate right now.|"

Again, I managed to eke out a word. "|How?|" I also convinced my head to swivel a bit to get a better look at Mhalu.

"|Ra-ilt called us. Sha'ktil-ar was in stable condition but you . . .|"

"|Bad?|" The word came out as an unsteady breath. I needed water, but I didn't think I could manage that extra syllable just yet. Besides, I needed to know what had happened.

I thought she nodded but it could have been a trick of the light as my eyes attempted to focus. "|Yes. You died three times. They would have let you if I had not insisted. I knew we could save you, and we did.|"

For a brief, awful moment, I thought that maybe it would have been better if she had let me go. I wasn't in any pain, but I could tell that I had a lot of it in my future.

What did I do to myself, indeed?

"|Your left arm should retain its mobility with some physical therapy, and your right arm will be fine. You will have to keep it covered for a long time, though, until scar tissue can form.|"

My head was just starting to clear and it was all a lot to take in at first. It was good that I would still have full use of my limbs, though it was going to take some work. Titan had shredded my arm, so knowing that it was mostly cosmetic was refreshing.

"|You had a few fractures on your ribs, and being exposed to that planet's air for too long has done some damage to your respiratory system . . . You will need assistance with breathing for the foreseeable future,|" Mhalu finished. "|I fear we may have made it worse while trying to figure out the right oxygen levels, but I did the best I could to calculate.|"

That was . . . unfortunate. I somehow managed to lift my hand to touch the respirator muzzling me and sighed. It wasn't a big deal for the time being, but I hoped that I'd at least be able to remove it for small bursts here and there.

"|Why?|" I asked. Why would she go through all that trouble to risk her tenuous position in the clan to advocate for a single, insignificant human?

"|Because you are my friend.|" She said it so easily. Without a second thought.

It sounded strange coming from a yautja, with them looking the way they did and the kind of values they held. Though, I supposed Wolf and Brutus thought of each other as friends. Mhalu was just so human that it was somewhat baffling.

I leaned back on the metal bed. What I wouldn't do for a fucking pillow.

"|Thanks,|" I rasped.

Mhalu clacked her tusks together to acknowledge my gratitude. She switched back to Yaut'ja. "Sha'ktil-ar would have insisted as well, I am sure, had he not been in recovery himself."

"Wolf," I said. I struggled to control my limbs, too push myself up and swing my legs over the edge. Where was he? I needed to see him. Helplessly, I looked to Mhalu, pleading for her to understand. I don't know why . . . it wasn't like she could read my facial expressions.

"Be still . . . You are still not in good condition. I have you on severe pain management so you won't have full control of your body for a while," she insisted, holding me down as gently as she could.

I wouldn't have it. I wiggled and whined, insisting that I see him. "Please," I choked out.

She looked around, then relented. "Alright. I will take you to him, then see about moving you two to a larger room. He has been asking about you, as well. How does that sound?" she offered.

Satisfied, I nodded and stopped whining. Mhalu rattled off an approving noise, then went to the machine and turned it off. Before I could start to suffocate, she swapped out the respirator I was wearing with a portable one. "You will feel some discomfort, but you should breathe fine otherwise," she warned me.

That was fine with me. I was apparently going to have to get used to it anyway.

Mhalu held out her arms, seeking my permission. When I gave it, she carefully scooped me up in one fluid motion as if I weighed nothing at all.

To her, I probably didn't.

She hauled me out of the room and down a nondescript hallway. All the while, she chatted at me in English, purring the entire time to comfort me. No one else seemed to be around.

"|I don't know why they wouldn't put you two in the same room in the first place. They probably thought it was uncouth,|" she said with a scoff. I had assumed that was the case, as well, or that maybe there wasn't enough space.

Or they just didn't like me. That was a distinct and real possibility. I was tolerated, not liked.

Brutus met us in the hallway. He faced us as we neared, not wearing his mask. I didn't think I'd ever seen him without his mask on and I actually startled a bit: he looked quite a bit different from the yautja.

His brow wasn't so pronounced, as his eyes weren't as sunken as the others'. He still had the wide mandibles and teeth-lined mouth, but he looked more feral, more animalistic than the yautja. His skin was much darker, too, and more smooth, but it was too dark for me to make out any patterns like the others had. He didn't have near as many spikes and ridges.

"She finally woke up," he remarked with a low grunt. "Let me guess, the first thing she did was mewl about seeing him."

Mhalu hissed at him; a new sound I hadn't heard them make before. It brought back memories of watching Steve Irwin wrastle alligators. Brutus seemed a little off-put by it, as well, because he squared his shoulders for a confrontation.

"Leave her be. Humans experience very strong emotional attachments to their mates and companions," Mhalu berated him. She was just going to call me out like that, huh? My face was already heating up in embarrassment.

Brutus actually shuddered. "Do not use that word again."

She shouldered him away and sneered, "Mates. Now, step aside. He has been equally as concerned about her, as well."

I once again found myself wishing that I'd died instead of being subjected to my relationship with Wolf being laid bare like that. It wasn't that I was ashamed, just . . . Damn, some fucking privacy and discretion would have been nice.

His eyes narrowed, but he snorted and moved out of the way.

Mhalu shifted my weight to cradle me in one arm, which she did so with much more grace than I felt I could have if I were in her position. She opened a door I hadn't even noticed with her now-free hand and then went back to carrying me as she stepped inside.

"Someone is awake and wanted to see you," she announced as she entered. "She is stable and not in any pain right now, but she will require physical comfort."

Wolf, who was lounging in his own metal bed with one arm propped up in his knee, sat up properly and let out a surprised rattle. He had been doing something on his wrist computer, but he had stopped just as we entered. I couldn't help but notice that he had some comfy-looking furs to sleep with.

"Ast'ni," he said, lifting an arm toward me.

All the emotions I had kept bottled up flooded over me and I choked out a painful sob that made my ribs ache. Mhalu handed me over and he pulled me into his embrace. He was already purring, his chest vibrating against me.

"It is alright now," he rumbled.

Brutus harrumphed somewhere near the door and Mhalu growled at him. The next thing I heard was the door sliding shut, then it was just me and him.

"|Sorry,|" I gasped between sobs. It was probably barely coherent.

Wolf held me as tight as he dared. "Ra-ilt showed me what was recorded by your gear. You need not apologize. You dealt with the situation the best you could."

"|My.|" I gasped and choked. The crying was making it difficult to breathe and whatever drugs Mhalu had me on wasn't keeping up with the pain in my chest from it. Finally, though, I wheezed out the second word. "|Fault.|"

He sighed and pet my head. "Challenging the da'iv was a poor decision, but everything that happened afterward was not your fault. The bad bloods are to blame, not you."

I coughed out another sob and he shifted to gently tilt my chin back so I was looking up at him.

"I do not, have not, and will never blame you for what happened. You should not, either. You did not attack us. You did not cripple our ship. You did not carve this wound in my chest," he said. His purr deepened and intensified.

Flinching, I tried to look down at his chest. Surely it had to be uncomfortable holding me the way he was when was badly wounded. However, he held me fast and was showing no signs of pain.

"I will tell you what you did. You successfully called Ra-ilt for aid. You killed an impressive amount of yautja that no one will miss. No, it does not matter how you did it," he said indulgently, reading my mind. "They were criminals and they did not deserve respect."

Somehow, I managed to nod. A small hiccup escaped me, but I was no longer beside myself.

"You tracked me down. You survived in the wilderness alone for days. Then, you managed to apprehend and disable a hish all on your own while grievously wounded. You, Ast'ni, have nothing to be ashamed of."

Calmer now, the aches I'd worked up started to lessen. He finally let go of my chin and I nestled against him. "|I died.|"

"A few times, I hear," Wolf sighed. "But you are not dead now. And we are both safe. You do not have to be scared anymore. I promise you will not face fear like that again."

Communicating was still difficult for me, so I didn't try. I had faced a lot of fear in my relatively short life. It was nothing new. I wasn't naive enough to believe I wouldn't ever be scared again, but I knew what he meant. He was going to make sure that if I was scared, it would never be because I was alone.

"We both need more rest," he said after a moment. He pulled his furs over us despite the heat of the ship. It had always been a creature comfort of mine to bundle up in blankets.

Crying had taken the last of my energy. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of his strong heartbeat, the dull vibrations of his chest.

Quiet as a sigh, I murmured, "|I love you.|"

He nuzzled the side of his head against mine and chittered meaninglessly in response. I didn't expect him to say it back, wasn't sure he would understand the concept even if he knew what the words meant. I was fine with it because I knew without him saying that he did. In his own way.

And, like that, we fell asleep.