Making The Man
by Suz suzvoy@tesco.net

Disclaimer – MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.

Episode addition for ‘Abyss’. Very short.

*

She shouldn’t be there. She knows she shouldn’t be there. She won’t get into trouble – she *is* the second in command of the flagship unit after all, and she knows this particular nurse has a fondness for her – but she shouldn’t be there.

That doesn’t stop her from moving forward, towards the nurse, and calling his name. That doesn’t stop her from smiling as he turns towards her, from holding his gaze, from telling him that he’s needed elsewhere.

That doesn’t stop her from brushing his arm, just slightly, as he leaves the room.

He knows he’s not needed.

He goes anyway.

She finds the clothes quickly – they *are* the latest acquisition – and spreads them across a desk.

The pants first. Brown.

Nothing unusual. Muddy around the legs. That could have happened at the Alpha Site.

That was how he came home. Managing to dial the Alpha Site, shocking the personnel based there who rapidly dialled Earth and activated their GDO. Dragged through the gate by people who knew him: showing no signs of injury, but already beginning to sweat because of the withdrawal.

By the time she heard, he’d been wheeled into the infirmary with strict instructions that no one was to follow, the clothes having been stripped from his body.

It was decided an analysis was required to fully understand what happened to him. A nurse was sent, the nurse she’d flirted away; she could it as well as he could.

She had to. She has to know.

The shoes. Black. A little muddy too, but otherwise in good condition.

And the last piece of clothing: the top. Also brown.

She examines the back first, shaking it out and placing it carefully on the desk, smoothing it down where it folds upon itself.

Holes. Huge gaps in the material. Given the disintegration around the edges, they had to have been done by staff weapon blasts. Considering the placement, she can’t see how he could have stayed alive for very long.

Her hand starts shaking. Angry, she forces it to close up into a fist.

Actually thankful that’s all there is, she unfolds the fist to turn the clothing over.

Slits. Countless. Endless. Each of them surrounded by blood. One that, when the top was worn, would have been over his heart.

Her breath is ragged, and for once she stops trying to control it, or her burning eyes.

And something else. Something so small that it could have been deemed insignificant.

A tiny, almost perfectly formed hole in the middle of his chest. Scientifically she doesn’t know, not until the tests are finished, but in her mind she sees it; crying out as it burrows, eats, *burns*...

Rubbing her finger across the hole, the tears come. Not many, and not loudly, but they fall onto the very clothes she’s examining. The very clothes she wants to burn.

No one deserves that. No one. And especially not him.

A voice sounds from behind her, asking if she’s all right.

Pretending that she hasn’t been crying despite the wet trails beginning to dry on her cheeks, she turns away from the clothes and assures him everything is fine.

He’s home, he tells her with that mindless enthusiasm she misses so much. With their help, he made it home in time.

She can’t agree, her hand balling up into a fist again.

He made it home much, much too late.

~FINIS

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