Take a piece of the sky

Two weeks had gone by since the briefing and the group temporarily living at Xan’s house had developed a routine to live by without killing one another. Mornings consisted of sparring, along with strength and endurance training. Xan couldn’t remember a session that had gone by without a small, blonde spectator watching them, trying to do the same moves they did. Xan told herself that the only reason she was allowing Sam to take part in the sessions, even if it was from afar, was because it would help her regain her strength.

Once noon hit, the teenagers were allowed to leave the workout room and do as they wished, so long as they didn’t break anything. After the grueling workouts from their mentors, though, they usually took it easy or napped. Henry and Ilarius spent most of their free time updating the newly installed computer system meant to help quicken Sam’s learning. Xan had been infuriated at first by the new machine being brought into her house without permission but a few days after they had bought it, she realized how much it was helping the little blonde learn. Already Sam was beginning speak basic English and developing a knowledge of Earth’s history. Xan was actually amazed at how fast the little thing could learn.

“Probably that computer chip brain of hers, or whatever it is she’s got up there.” she had told the teenagers one afternoon when they asked if she was a genius.

“Xan, for the last time, she’s not an android.” Henry had chided her, narrowing his eyes dangerously, which was something she wasn’t used to seeing from her good-natured friend. Sam, who hadn’t understood a thing that they were saying, simply smiled, crinkling up her nose in the process. It had subconsciously become one of Xan’s favorite sights to see each day.

The dark haired Guardian herself spent most of her afternoons trying to avoid the green-eyed Savior, but the little blonde insisted on sticking to her like glue. It seemed Sam thought that if someone pushed her away, they really wanted her closer. Xan recalled the time Henry and Ilarius had caught her hiding in the storage space of the workout room, trying to stay away from Sam. Their discovering her had tipped the strawberry-blonde off, though, and Sam ended up finding her once again.

“She’s like one of those creatures you Earthlings call cats.” Henry had said as he watched Sam take a seat next to Xan. The blue eyed warrior half growled before scooting away from her pest, only to have the short blonde follow suit.

“And how, may I ask, is she like a cat?” Xan asked with a raised eyebrow before swatting a slender hand away from her face and shooting a glare at Sam. The Solarian had grown used to Xan’s intimidation techniques, though, and simply made a lame attempt to raise one eyebrow like Xan had done. This, of course, had Henry and Ilarius chuckling to themselves on the inside for days. “Excuse me, but I believe I asked a question.” Henry had a blank look on his face as he tried to remember what the question had been.

“Oh, well… the more you push her away, the more she insists on being near you.” he told her, the look he was receiving from the dark warrior jogging his memory.

“Yeah, and she’s all cuddly too!” the smaller man chimed in helpfully. The brown haired Guardian looked down at his friend with an amused look on his face. “What?”

“I never thought I’d hear a grown man use the word ’cuddly’.” he explained, fighting hard to contain his laughter. The embarrassed look on his friend’s face broke the dam, though, and he was soon bending over at the hip, trying to regain his breath from laughing too hard. When he looked over, he saw Xan with a small smirk on her face and wondered how much it had to do with his and Ilarius’ antics and how much of it had to do with Earth’s savior, who had been curled up in a ball on the hard floor, sleeping with her head near Xan’s lap but never actually touching the tall woman.

During the first week, the blonde had always filled her afternoon with small naps, usually when she was around Xan. They all had noticed that the many naps that the little blonde had been taking since she got there had become fewer and shorter, hopefully a sign that she was regaining the strength she had lost.

The teenagers spent their evenings after dinner studying quietly, strengthening their minds to match their bodies. The Guardians were actually impressed with how much progress they were making all in all. Always with them was the eager to learn little Savior. As they studied, they also helped Sam learn about Earth and its language. Alicia was the one that helped her the most, however, and was genuinely interested in Sam’s ability to learn so fast. Xan didn’t know why, but the interest the blue haired girl took in Sam made her feel a little uneasy.

Nights were the worst for the group. It seemed that Sam’s nightmares had gotten worse, increasing the number of times everyone, besides Xan, was awakened by her screams. It had eventually become so bad that everyone began turning the sound system on in their rooms right before they went to bed, that way they couldn’t be woken up in the middle of the night. They’d rather wake up well rested and face a guilty conscience than face a morning of Xan while they were half way asleep.

Xan’s own nightmares had stopped since the others had moved in, and instead she had begun dreaming about a strange place and a life that wasn’t her own. It was like watching a movie playing in front of her every night, only with blurry actors that were impossible to make out. She had actually started to look forward to sleeping again, now that she knew she wouldn’t have to face the demons of her past. She had gotten so used to the absence of her nightmares that she was surprised one night when she found herself in a familiar surrounding that she had grown to hate over the years.

She knew this place. She had stopped coming there for awhile but she should have known that the respite from her torture wouldn’t last. Once again she was surrounded by darkness without the ability to move or speak. She knew that soon her younger brother would walk out of her inky black surroundings covered in his own blood, marring his innocence. So she waited.

When Xan’s pale eyes fluttered open, she thought she was still in her nightmare. Darkness was around her, but she soon realized it was because the sun hadn’t yet risen into the sky. Looking at her clock, she groaned when it read 3:27. Turning on her side, she tried to go back to sleep. Her bladder made itself known, however, and fifteen minutes later she found herself leaving the room and going upstairs to relieve herself.

As she was making her way back from the bathroom, a pathetic whimpering noise drew her attention. She knew exactly which room it was coming from, but the part of her that hated Sam told her to pass it by. Another, stronger force tugged at her heart though, and eventually won out, leading Xan to Sam’s side.

The whimpering lessened as the dark woman lowered herself to the edge of the bed and studied the sleeping girl. Her reddish hair was plastered in sweat and her eyes darted around beneath her eyelids, never actually opening. Incoherent mumblings escaped her lips as she tossed and turned in the blankets. Xan wondered if this is what she herself was like when she had her nightmares.

“What does a thing like you have nightmares about?” she asked quietly with a scowl. Things like Sam were part of the reason Xan went through a personal Hell every night.

‘Yeah, because things like Sam really made you kill all those people.’ her voice nagged her. Xan mentally growled and the voice backed off for the moment. Xan sat at the bedside of what was an abomination in her eyes for what seemed like forever, just studying her. The little blonde was drowning in Xan’s clothing, seeing as what the good scientist had given her, only a stripper at one of the clubs would wear. Xan could remember the look on Ilarius’ face when Sam had walked into the living room wearing the tight leather pants and the matching leather top that left nothing to the imagination the third day she had lived there. They all had agreed that the attire was too distracting for the small woman to wear and had decided to let her wear Xan’s clothing, seeing as she was the only one the small woman was becoming attached to.

“What the…” Xan was pulled out of her memory as a small, clammy hand found hers. She didn’t have much time to register what had happened before a flash of light blinded her momentarily.

The next thing she knew, scenes of someone else’s life were flashing before her eyes in a fast forward type of motion. In the beginning of the vision, she could feel a certain emptiness as she watched a little red headed girl playing. It was painfully obvious who the small girl was by the familiar blue crescent mark on the neck. Before Xan could fully take in this scene though, the image shifted and a new scene played before her.

A large shadow passing over the land and the smell of fear filling the air. Xan looked around until her eyes came to rest on a familiar red head, although she was much older than she had been in the vision before this one. She was trying to pull a girl younger than herself away from the ruins of what Xan guessed was the child’s home. All around her, the devastation was the same. Ruins of homes and dead bodies littered the ground and the inhabitants of the planet Solarius ran for their lives, dragging whomever they could with them to what they hoped was safety.

A humming noise brought Xan’s attention to the skies and it became obvious who was causing the chaos around her.

“Kryaks…” she muttered under her breath as she took in the dark shadow of the Kryakian fleet. No sooner had the words left her lips, a red beam shot out from one of the vessels, heading straight for where Sam and the little girl were. “Sam!” she called out, but to no avail. She should have known no one could hear her here. By some miracle, though, the young woman looked up just in time and pulled herself and the little girl out of the way of direct path of the beam.

Unfortunately, they could not escape the uprooted ground that toppled over them like a wave. Xan felt her heart stop momentarily and before it could start again, the scene shifted to another.

The first thing she saw was Sam, once again older than she had been in the last image. She actually appeared to be the same age as she was when they had re-created her. There was a fierceness to the girl that Xan didn’t recognize though, as she took in the war apparel made of some kind of bone the red-head was wearing. Before she could get used to this strange difference in the young woman she had come to know, the images shifted once again.

The smell of blood and decay assaulted Xan’s senses and she knew where she was before she even allowed her eyes to adjust. Battlefields had become familiar to the dark woman from an early age. Her wars may have been fought in the cement streets of a city on Earth while this one was fought in a field on a long dead planet, but it didn’t matter; all battlefields were the same.

Pale blue eyes scanned the large, open field, trying to locate the one being that she had become familiar with. As she looked, she had to make an attempt to hold down her stomach, the piles of dead bodies and rivers of blood that stained the ground getting to be too much for even her. Luckily, she found who she was looking for.

There Sam was, in the deadly hands of a Kryak, being forced to take in the carnage around her. The large figure that held her brought its almost reptilian face close to her ear and hissed something. The girl visibly stiffened before turning to face the menacing threat so close to her. Without warning, the small woman spit in the Kryak’s face.

‘Way to go Sam.’ Xan found herself thinking as she watched the scene, a small sense of pride bubbling up inside her. She may have disliked the girl, but she had to admit the red head was full of surprises.

The reptilian creature smiled, the carnivorous teeth make it appear even more threatening, before shoving a hand through Sam’s chest, revealing long, dagger like claws on the end of the creature’s arm. It was almost enough to make Xan throw up. She could do nothing as she watched Sam’s body be pushed off the limb and land on the ground with an audible thud before the monster turned and walked away, going to board the last ship left on the now extinct planet.

Without hesitation, Xan ran to Sam’s side and knelt down, trying to examine the young woman’s wound even though she knew it was fatal. It would make her feel better if she at least tried to do something. Unfortunately, every time she tried to touch the girl, her hand passed right through the body, making her unable to change anything. A tear fell without her permission as she watched the blood seep from the wound in the young woman’s chest. A feeling of loss was beginning to overwhelm her until she heard something come from the body she was now kneeling next to, bringing her attention to the red-head’s face.

Green eyes stared back at pale blue ones, unable to see the figure next to her, but still able to take in the surroundings around her. Xan could see the dim light glowing in the emeralds, signaling that the girl was still alive. The light was beginning to fade, however, letting Xan know that Sam wouldn’t be alive for much longer. The dark haired woman swallowed the bile that rose into her throat and shook her head, fighting the urge to leave. The girl was all alone, probably the last of her race, and Xan refused to abandon her, even if the red-head couldn’t truly see her. The least she could do was stay until the light faded or the scene ended; whichever came first…

Xan blinked when she realized she was back in Sam’s room. Glancing at the clock, she realized that only a few minutes had gone by, when it had felt like many long years had passed. The dark haired woman let out a sigh before looking down at the young woman that now held onto her hand, no longer making the pathetic whimpering sounds from earlier. Xan began to absent-mindedly rub her thumb on the back of Sam’s hand as she stared at the girl.

“What else is there that I don’t know?” she asked in a whisper. After seeing what she had, Xan wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to find out more about the strawberry blonde. The last time she got attached to something man-made, she was betrayed.

‘But Sam isn’t man-made.’ her voice of rationality nagged her. She shook her dark head and looked again at the young thing in the bed. ‘Deep down you know that, don’t you?’ the voice asked.

‘It’s just so hard… I saw how she was brought back. I may know it somewhere deep down in my non-existent heart, but believing it is an entirely different matter.’ she answered herself as she got up to leave, freeing herself of Sam’s grasp as she did so. Just as she was about to leave the room, however, a small whimper from the bed grabbed her attention. Xan stood in the doorway for a moment, unsure of what to do, before walking back to the bed, the door sliding shut behind her.

She silently crawled under the blankets on the other side of the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl.

“Don’t you get used to this. I’m not coming in here every time you have a nightmare…” she murmured to the slumbering form. The answer she got in response was a sigh and thin but strong arms wrapping around her, clinging to her like an anchor. Xan’s body tensed at the contact but she was soon able to relax into the hold the smaller woman had on her. ‘Great…’ Xan thought with a scowl before closing her eyes and allowing herself to fall into a restful sleep, the dreams of her abomination tucked into the back of her mind.