Editing Sometimes A Girl's Gotta Vent

<span style="color:#800000"> '''''It took a couple of tries to kick this one off right but once we got it, it came together fairly quickly.  Thanks, Terri!--Maer.''''' </span> <br> <br>




'''Saturday, 08 Nov 2521'''<br>
'''Johannsen/Earhart Ranch, Boros'''<br>
'''Georgia (Huang Long) system'''<br>
'''1630hrs, local time'''<br><br>

The ranch is covered with a dusting of snow -- the first week of November is cold in this part of Boros, but not so harshly cold that people can't be out and about yet. The hands are industrious about their business, and they're bringing all the livestock in closer to the homestead so as to better care for them as the temperatures continue to drop into winter levels.<br><br>

Wearing a pair of leather gloves, Nala has just finished haying the horses in the barn when she steps out into the crisp air to spot Rina tinkering with the barn's compressor. It'd been on the fritz, so she was glad the engineer had the time to look it over. It wasn't until her boots crunched on some of the snow nearby that she realized Rina's attention wasn't on the compressor -- it was on the woman standing on the far side of the paddock, nearest the house, looking unseeingly toward the meager sunshine leaking through the overcast sky with her hands jammed into her pockets.<br><br>

The look of regret in Rina's face gave away her emotions, and Nala said quietly but firmly, "Whatever you're standing here thinking you could have done differently, you better get that look off your face or I'll kick you, Marina. The what-ifs'll kill you if you let 'em."<br><br>

"You better kick me then, Nala," I said, drawn out of my thoughts. I wasn't surprised she'd known what I was thinking. Not that I'm particularly good at hiding my thoughts at the best of times, I wasn't exactly trying to hide them now. There wasn't any point in it when the object of my thoughts couldn't see me. And therein lay the problem. I looked over my shoulder at my Captain's twin. "Take your best shot. I won't stop you."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Wow, you got it bad," Nala retorted, peeling her gloves off to shove them in the pocket of her coat for now. "You don't have room for both of you to be having a pity party, lady. If I thought you needed your behind booted, I'da already done it." Much like her twin, Nala doesn't have much patience for beating around the bush. Her eyes, a deeper cobalt than Nika's ice-blue, turn toward her twin. "The scary parts are starting to get to her. Your crew needs you and that guy you're sharing a bunk with to stay strong." She paused. "And she's going to hear it in your voice if you keep it up. So.... spill it. Here and now -- lay it on me how it's all your fault somehow, and then I'll smack you and we'll get back to the real work; recovering."<br><br>

---<br><br>

I closed up the compressor, my repairs done, and started stowing my tools. I bent over my tool bag—not mine, my heart whispered. Potemkin's.—and tried not to wince as my healing injuries made their displeasure known. It made me wonder if Nika's ruined eyes pained her and my conscience stabbed anew. By now, I had serious doubts if there was a scant inch of my heart not already pincushioned by it, but knew that there was always a way to find it. Such was the nature of self-recrimination.<br><br>

I zipped the bag up with a bit of a snap and straightened.<br><br>

"Moving cargo is more my job than hers. Always has been." I sighed and threw my arms across the top of the compressor. The thing was as large as a tractor and as tall, and leaning athwart it was easy. I'd dressed for the bitter weather but I'd worked up a sweat with repairs and the cold metal felt good against my overheated self. "If I'd been doing my job, that barrel would never have had the chance to slip."<br><br>

Self-recrimination has a fair amount of self-deception in it, but that didn't change the way I felt. After all, logic had very little to do with it.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nala rolled her eyes expressively, looking every bit like her sister in her disgust of Rina's wallowing. "Right. Because Potemkin would have let you set those barrels just so and properly so that they didn't spill or otherwise make a mess if someone had to move them. He would have cared so much that you didn't get radiation sickness before you burned up on reentry into atmo." Anyone hear the sarcasm there? Thought so.<br><br>

---<br><br>

The compressor chassis was cold and it stung my forehead when they met with a thunk.<br><br>

"I know that," I growled to the metal, my breath frosting. "But the heart feels what it feels, Nala, and right now mine's feeling pretty shitty."<br><br>

I pushed off the compressor and faced Nika's twin.<br><br>

"You're right about one thing. I can't wallow and give Nika what she needs. So ... " I bent over to grab the tools and suffered another stab. "Let's go inside. I'm getting kinda cold."<br><br>

A lie, but a useful one. I didn't think Nala would mind.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Instead of taking the hint, Nala put her hand out to stop the smaller woman from walking off. "You need to feel what you feel, Rina. Shoving it down won't help either. So if you want to talk.... I have two ears. I'm not going to let you take responsibility for the fact that Potemkin set you all up to die. And I'm not going to let you forget that you beat him, and praise to whatever deities might exist, the only real casualty of the situation was my sister's sight." She pauses and says kindly to Rina, "Some things just happen the way they happen, Rina. Maybe she's meant to learn something from it. And maybe you are too." Though what lesson that might be... well, that's up to the individual to interpret, after all.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Talk?" Truth to tell, talking wasn't what I needed. I needed release. I needed to get rid of the crap that had building inside me since the barrel took out Nika's eyes and being around the crew required I hang on to it. Being at the hospital likewise required I suck it up lest I get a one-way ticket to the psych ward. "I'm past the point where talking is going to do any good, Nala. I need to scream. I need to pound the living shit out of something. That's not generally taken well by witnesses. It tends to make them think you're crazy. Since everyone needs me sane ... " I broke off and stared at the icy landscape and let her complete the statement.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nala's expression lightens up. "Well, now.... that, my dear, I may be able to help with. Come with me," she said with a smile. Turning on a heel, Nala headed for the mule parked behind the barn. "Galen, keep a half an eye on the east paddock, will you?" she called as she passed one of the hands. "Nika's out there." The entire group by now knows that the boss's twin is blind. And to not attempt to coddle the woman. Nika's bitten off a couple of people's heads already.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Not entirely sure what Nala had in mind, I followed in her footsteps, heard the order given, and wondered.<br><br>

"We going somewhere?"<br><br>

Habit already cemented in just a few short days, I was reluctant to go beyond hollering distance from Nika. Get real. She's surrounded by two-three dozen ranch hands and Larry and the crew. She won't even notice you're gone.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"We are," Nala replied staunchly. Climbing into the mule and starting it up as soon as Rina climbed aboard, the blonde manuevered out of the yard carefully and onto a well-trodden path toward the watering hole. "The backup pump has been down for a couple of weeks. And it's isolated enough that you can sit out there and cuss at it -- and scream -- to your heart's content without anyone at the house being the wiser," Nala said as she drove. "When I'm peeved with Larry, I usually take an axe down here and chop some firewood, but you're not in any shape for that yet. So... banging on a water pump'll have to do."<br><br>

---<br><br>

The mule was an open-cab model, the better to free up cargo space, and it was a cold ride to the water hole. I was numb from the wind streaming over me by the time we pulled up to the pump. My gut gave me a nasty twinge as I pulled out of the mule, reminding me that my injuries weren't done with me yet and I envied Nala's ease of movement.<br><br>

I got over to the pump and got the cover off, the better to see the workings, and flipped the switch on it. It gave a few half-hearted strokes and wheezed to a stop.<br><br>

"Huh. How long has it been doing that?"<br><br>

I knelt, suffered another twinge, and started digging my wrench from the bag.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Larry mentioned it was sounding off a couple weeks ago. It died the day y'all landed and I just haven't had time to get out here to take a look at it," Nala replied mildly. "If it's enough work that you're going to pop a stitch or something, you leave it til tomorrow or the next day -- it's a backup, not the main pump. And I don't need Arden climbing down my back over letting you do too much now."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"It's worked in the cold without any problem til then?" I ignored her admonition about overwork. It wasn't anything I hadn't heard before and I wasn't going to put myself through a repeat of Miranda. I put my tools to the pump and started in on it. "Or has it been quirky, off and on?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nala perched her butt on the back end of the mule and watched. "Off and on," she replied. "Larry has it on the list to be replaced, but I think he was hoping to wait til spring." She shrugged slightly. "We're working on building the herds up again so the ranches stay in good shape."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Mm," I said, listening with half an ear as I tried a hack around on the pump. Two strokes and it crapped out again. "Damn."<br><br>

And so it went. I sweated over the pump for half an hour and got nowhere fast. The weather got nastier as the sun went lower and I got colder as my temper got hotter. And despite what I'd admitted to Nala back at the barn, I was reluctant to let myself go. Not where she could see. On the Gift, it wouldn't have been a problem. The crew gym was below decks behind a pressure door. Any screaming and pounding wouldn't get past the bulkhead seals. Out here? In the open? Where the sound could travel for miles?<br><br>

No. And so I kept installing one fix after another on the pump until I nearly dismantled the damned thing and reassembled it and it still wouldn't work. It was nearly dusk when I finally called it quits and started screwing the cover back on.<br><br>

"I'm sorry, Nala," I called over my shoulder to the mule. The woman had the good sense to sit in the cab where the mule would afford her some protection from the wind. "Unless you got a lathe stashed in your barn I don't know about, it's going to take a whole new—dierma!"<br><br>

My screwdriver slipped and slashed a furrow across the back of my hand. Nothing big or in need of stitches but as with the nature of small wounds on freezing extremities, the cold magnified the pain out of proportion to the injury. I sucked the blood off me and kicked the damned pump. My toes were as cold as my hands and the kick only made them hurt more.<br><br>

That put the match to my internal gas tank and the explosion was spectacular. I kicked and screamed and whaled the crap out of that damned pump as Russian and Chinese and a few ripe phrases in English turned the air blue. I forgot about Nala and the mule, I forgot about decorum. I forgot about everything but the overwhelming need to beat that pump into a useless pile of junk.<br><br>

It resisted my efforts and that only made me madder, hotter, and spurred me on until I fell to my knees, thoroughly spent, my anger finally exorcised. I clutched a wrench, unable to remember swapping it for the screwdriver, and blinked at my knuckles; torn and bleeding. A glance at the pump showed smears of red and I didn't think too hard on how it had acquired them. I flexed my fingers and found they worked and put up with the pain. It gave me something to hang on to, to hold myself together. Distantly I wondered if maybe I needed to find another anchor, but dismissed it. I pulled myself up, got an internal stab for my trouble, and gathered my tools.<br><br>

"As I was saying," I said, my throat raw, "unless we've got a lathe I can machine a water pump on, you're going to have to buy a new one." It occurred to me that I might have damaged more than I fixed but reckoned it was too late to do anything about it now.  I stowed my tools in the back and joined Nala at the hood.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nala leaned back against the mule, her arms crossed and her eyes on the water hole itself while Rina lost it. Although she couldn't just vanish to give the engineer a little privacy, she could politely avert her eyes and let Rina explode. She wasn't surprised that it was what the smaller woman needed. When it was over, Nala's gaze returned to the dark-haired Russian. "Larry told me three days ago we'd need a new one," she admits mildly. "Personally I just figured you needed a place to vent." She's a lot like Nika in many mannerisms -- the dry amusement at certain things is definitely one of them.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Then I guess I just loosened it for him and made it easier to remove. Glad I could help." I heard the sullen note in my tone and wilted. "Sorry, Nala, that came out ruder than I wanted. I'm quite frankly unfit company for decent people. At the risk of whining, I just want to say it's hard keeping up a solid front for everyone when all you want to do is crawl off somewhere and cry. The crew's used to my being tough as a tank and to see me caving would only make them worry. So, thanks for letting me vent out here. It's what I needed, if not what the doctor ordered," I added as my gut gave me a sharp stab. I put a hand on my side and gave it a press. Ow. Arden's gonna hate you, girl. I pulled my hand away and examined it. No blood. Lucky you. Less explaining to do.<br><br>

"If Larry needs a hand installing the new one, please tell me. It's the least I can do after what I did today on the old one."<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nala's laughter was easy. "If you think that's bad, you should see the back pasture. Larry and his brothers have a shootin' range and a boxing ring out there where they go to blow off steam. They beat the crap out of one another when they need to." She shrugs, clearly accepting of that method of dealing with things. "I just take out my mad-on with bread dough." It's why her bread's so light.<br><br>

Her tone goes a bit more serious, though, and she observes quietly, "I think the whole lot of you are on the lost side right now. My sister with you. All of you are so busy being strong for one another, you're not being friends to one another. You've been hit with a lot of things lately, and getting past it's not easy. But if y'all keep on the way you are, you're not going to have a crew left."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Then what should we do? What should I do?" I added. "They're all I have, Nala. I've lost too many people already. I don't have many pieces left in me to give. I can't stand to lose more. I'm not ...." ''Not indestructible'', my gut whispered, giving me another hard stab for my workout with the water pump. ''Dumbass''. I shifted to find a more comfortable position, found none, and consoled myself it wasn't that long a ride to the house. ''I'll grab a lie-down then. Take it easy til morning''. It was an empty bargain and my gut knew it and stabbed me again for lying. Aware I'd left my statement hanging, I turned my attention outward again. "Not as resilient as I used to be. Comes of loving and losing. My ship, my people ... Like I said. Lost too much already."<br><br>

That's enough. Nala didn't take you out to hear you whine. Apparently I had some self-pity left around the edges that needed scraping off. ''Just shut the hell up and cry later. The shower'd be a good place to do it''.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Or perhaps she took Rina out there exactly for that. Nala moved to wrap an arm around Rina's shoulders and tug her into a hug. "My daddy used to say just when you think you ain't got nothin' left to give, the Verse'll ask for more. And you'll trip and fall only to be caught by the hands of everyone you ever gave a piece of yourself to. For every piece you've given out, you've gotten one back to take its place, made it part of your heart. You just have to learn to trust in it." She rests her head atop Rina's and says quietly, "You're one of ours, Marina, whether you like it or not. And you're not losing anything."<br><br>

---<br><br>

Her hug surprised and warmed me, an unexpected beneficence from a hostile universe. It also hurt as Nala's hug pulled me into an awkward position. I stiffened and then my head swam as my vision greyed. Keep it together, idiot. I managed to put an arm around her and give her a squeeze and straightened up.<br><br>

"'You can hug the stuffing out'a me when we get back, okay? Arden can sew me back together when you're done." I essayed a laugh that came out more like a cough, but at least nothing alarming hacked up. The way I was hurting I was expecting blood. Don’t jinx it, girl. I hugged her again, carefully, and whispered into her shoulder, “''Spasiba''. Thank you.”<br><br>

---<br><br>

Releasing the smaller woman, Nala grins. "You're more than welcome," she murmurs. "If you need to break some more stuff, lemme know. We can always put you to killin' a pile of firewood." She winks one deep blue eye. And then she bundles Rina back into the mule. "In the meantime.... just talk to one another, okay? Nika's holin' up in that bedroom up there or the music room. Get her to come out with you, to do something with you. You'll both feel better for it."<br><br>

She climbs into the mule and starts the machine back toward the house.<br><br>

---<br><br>

“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I settled I my seat.  Sitting down helped take the edge off the pain that was rapidly taking over.  Her assertion that we were family, however, would give me much to think about on the ride back. “Let’s go home.”<br><br><br>



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