A Shot in the Dark (Part I)
For the past several weeks, Barrett Solomon had been flying without the assurance of a proper ship, a proper crew, or a proper captain. He was alone — well, more alone than usual, since usually he and his companions hopped from one crew to the next. Now, though, ‘alone’ simply meant that Barrett was alone with Alexa Sinclair and Mickey Webb.
‘Alone’ had been working for the three of them, at least for the last couple months. Though they did not have a large ship, the small ship they had acquired worked well enough. The tin can only had one sleeper room, but since Mickey usually crashed in the engine room and Alexa didn’t sleep, Barrett had called the bedroom. Besides, Mickey kept it running just fine; the kid was usually drunk and always loose with his morals and self-preservation instinct, but he was also a damn good mechanic. The lack of captain also hadn’t been a problem, as Barrett himself took care of navigating while Alexa tracked down jobs and did most of the negotiating.
It worked for the time being.
Currently, the three of them were milling about, waiting for the other shoe to drop on their newest job. It had been a simply smuggling job, lugging a crate of highly illegal material from Point A to Point B, both points at opposite ends of the universe. It had taken them a damn long time, and now all that was left to do was get paid by the person who had originally given Alexa the job.
The planet was a gleaming one full of high-class businesses and exotic alien races, but the alley where they stood was dingy, lit by a few lights planted up tall on the surrounding walls, walls of gleaming skyscrapers, the buildings inanimately oblivious to the seedy underbelly deal happening between them. Barrett was leaning against one of these silver walls, waiting with a soldier’s patience, while Alexa stood more near the middle of the alley. Her arms were crossed, her posture relaxed, though vague exasperation flickered through her eyes whenever she glanced at the final member of their trio.
Mickey had insisted that he come along for the conclusion of the deal. With Alexa and Barrett refusing to let him tag along in any other part of the job, he was starting to feel like their unwanted little brother. So finally, after pestering Alexa long enough, it had been decided that there was little harm in allowing Mickey to come with them for the payment portion of the deal. What could possibly go wrong?
And Alexa was already regretting the decision. Mickey was a good guy, but he had very little sense of subtlety. Even now as they stood waiting, the mechanic had found a discarded piece of machinery and was nudging it with his foot, creating a steady cl-clank as he examined it with childlike curiosity. “Y’reckon it still works?” he asked cheerfully. Not that he knew what the rusty thing was, just that it looked cool.
“That thing wouldn’t even fit on the ship,” Barrett noted flatly. Hell, the three of them barely fit on the ship.
That was true, and the only thing Alexa thought to add was, “I know it works for making noise.” It was said in her cool, even tone, but the look she threw Mickey was a dry warning.
He responded to the look with a grin, as he always responded to those looks from her. Alexa scared most people, and while she was nowhere near warm to Mickey, he still wasn’t intimidated by her. She was his best friend, and he knew she would never actually hurt him. “Sorry, Lex,” he chuckled and obediently stepped away from the machinery, though he kept his attention trained on it.
What finally pulled his attention away was the sound of footsteps. By the time Mickey looked up, he knew Alexa and Barrett had already tuned into the sound, by the way their body languages had changed. Alexa was facing deeper into the alley, her pose casual but alert, while Barrett had stood up away from the wall, his posture tensed and ready, a soldier at attention, complete with his hand on the gun at his hip. Mickey stepped up to stand beside the big man.
From deeper in the darkness of the alley, from around a corner, there came the client. She was a woman of about thirty, pretty in a harsh sort of way, with dark hair and light eyes. Her clothes were dark and laden with chains and spikes, the telltale marks of a woman who did not ******** around. Behind her, flanking her, there walked two men and another woman who had the same style of clothing. It made Alexa, Barrett, and Mickey look almost underdressed, considering their nondescript clothes.
Even as the woman leading the charge kept striding forward, her three cohorts hung back, and similarly, while Barrett and Mickey held their position, Alexa walked forward to meet the other woman.
“Just got word that the cargo is safe and sound,” was how the woman greeted Alexa. Her voice was a bit gravelly, which somehow added to her sexual appeal rather than subtracting from it.
What was more, Alexa appreciated getting right to business, and actually, she simply nodded in reply to the not-greeting. There was nothing to say; they had done the job, and now it was time for them to get paid.
The client didn’t see a problem in closing things up quickly and tidily, so Alexa’s lack of response didn’t offend her. In fact, she simply nodded in return and reached into her coat, where she had stashed the card containing the credits for the job, credits that the three thugs could transfer into her accounts. However, before her fingers could find the card, her gaze found something over Alexa’s shoulder. “Mickey Webb?” came from her mouth, scratchy voice suddenly a growl.
When Alexa turned, it was in time to see a look of puzzlement on Mickey’s face, which was quickly replaced by a jolt of recognition. “Ruby?” he asked, but it was a laugh. “Why darlin', I haven't seen you in ages. How ya been?”
Ruby did not seem pleased by this question. Her face was twisted in a mask of fury. “How have I been?” she repeated, her tone hot as burning coals. “You mean how have I been since you slept with me, ran off before morning, and then slept with my sister?”
Mickey seemed more shocked about this than both Barrett and Alexa seemed. “Sister?” he asked, but he was still laughing. He either completely did not realize the extent of Ruby's fury, or he was noticing and thinking he could talk his way out of it.
“Amethyst?” Ruby reminded, grinding the name out through gritted teeth.
Again, it took Mickey a moment before he let out a small noise of recollection. “You mean Amy!” he realized, his accompanying laugh entirely out of place in the tense air of the alley. “Christ almighty, Ruby, I didn't know that was your sister! I didn't even know that was her full name! 'Sides, doll, it was like a week later, I would'a—”
The blast of a gunshot drowned out whatever he was going to say next.
Alexa had realized what was happening just a split second before the gunshot, which was just a split second too late. The gun was upheld next to her, and Ruby’s twisted expression of fury looked almost alien in the close proximity. It took Alexa just two movements: one movement to disarm Ruby by breaking her wrist, one movement to punch Ruby so hard that the woman dropped to the ground.
Usually, Alexa did not carry a gun. Knives were more her style, quick and quiet and personal. However, lately, Barrett had been insisting that she carry a gun tucked in her jacket when they went on jobs, just to be prepared for anything.
She wasn’t prepared for this. She might never have been prepared for this. Even as she swiftly drew the gun and let out a series of methodical shots, she was not prepared for what had happened. The shots took down Ruby’s three thugs as they scrambled for their weapons; the headshots were not as pretty as Alexa would have liked, but they got the job done. If the three of them weren’t dead, they would be soon.
Ruby would not have such an easy reprieve. The gun was replaced in Alexa’s coat, and when her hand was pulled out again, a knife was clutched in her fist. She knelt and worked. Like a blanket had fallen over her consciousness, she operated on instinct and emotionlessness, cutting in just the right places to assure that Ruby would bleed out, but not quickly. The woman would die in this alley, alone and forgotten, and she would have plenty of time to think while her life drained out of her.
It took Alexa all of two minutes to finish everything.
When she was done, when she was flying to her feet and stumbling backwards, covered in dark blood, it was like the veil was pulled away. All at once, as soon as her senses returned, as soon as she snapped out of that automatic killing mode in which she had been so well trained, then the reality came crushing down on her. Spinning on her heel, she was exclaiming a quick, “Mickey!” as she rushed back toward her friend.
For his part, when the shot had happened, Barrett had cursed loudly and caught the mechanic when he sagged. While Alexa was taking care of the client and her cohorts, Barrett had lowered Mickey to the ground and immediately went to apply pressure to the wound.
“What…” was all Mickey could manage to gasp out, only aware in the vaguest sense of his body being lowered to the ground below. The pain had been explosive, overwhelming, but brief. Now it was like a haze had settled over him, cooling him like he was being dunked in a vat of ice water, a cold tingling that began in his extremities and faded into numbness. He was murmuring, but the words were unclear.
The bullet had gotten him in the abdomen, a few inches under the rib cage. Barrett had seen shots like this in the army, and they were never good. Applying pressure to the wound made Mickey give a sharp cry of pain, but Barrett did not let up. “Sorry, kid,” he was saying, oblivious to the sounds behind him, the quick pop-pops of gunshots and the whisper of a knife working. His focus was entirely on the mechanic, on the way the blond’s eyelids fluttered as if he were about to pass out. “Mickey?” Barrett prompted, voice firm. “Mickey, come on, stay with us.”
Mickey tried, really tried to tune into what Barrett was saying, but it felt like waves were washing over his brain, drowning conscious thoughts. He was about to slip into the darkness that was beckoning so sweetly — when another voice broke through. “Mickey!” A familiar voice, its usual cool tone replaced by an odd sharpness that pierced his mind, grabbed hold of him, held him to consciousness.
Weights were attached to Mickey’s eyelids, but he dragged them open, swallowing thickly, searching with an unfocused gaze for the source of his name being called. “Lex?” he asked, voice a gasp. His breaths were shallow and too quick.
There she was. Kneeling in the blood that had already drained from him, Alexa bent over her friend, her hands finding his hand and clutching it in a vice grip. “Mickey,” she said again, voice low this time but raw, so different than her usual emotionlessness. Her face seemed drawn and darkened, but her eyes were bright with panic as she looked at him. When she saw that his eyes were closed, she released his hand to instead reach up, taking his face between her hands and moving his head toward her. “Open your eyes,” she said, and it was undoubtedly an order.
Her voice was a glass of ice water thrown directly onto his brain, and it was enough to pull him into the waking world for a few more moments, eyes dragging open. “Lex,” he choked out, fighting against the haze, fighting against the pain, the searing, biting pain, oh god the pain. “Lex, I love ya,” was all he could really think to say, emotion strangling the words.
No. He was trying to say goodbye. “Stop it,” Alexa said, fighting against the sudden tightness in her throat. “You’re going to be fine.”
Mickey swallowed, but it was a difficult thing to do. “I gotta,” he was gasping breathily, “I gotta check the engine, bullet might’a hit the engine…”
“********,” hissed Barrett. Throwing a glance at Alexa, he said, “He’s in shock.”
Alexa seemed calmer than she had before. Inside her chest, she couldn’t feel her own heartbeat. That either meant it was beating too fast, or not at all. It was only when Barrett said her name, sharply, that she blinked and looked up at him. “We need to get him to the ship,” she responded, voice quicker than normal, tighter than normal, but just barely holding in her panic.
A quick shake of the head from Barrett. “We can’t fix this,” he assured. He had performed triage on fellow soldiers, even patched up Alexa and Mickey once or twice after fights; his medical knowledge was by no means extensive, but he was level-headed and steady-handed. But this wasn’t stitches. This was keeping Mickey alive. And Barrett didn’t think he was up to the task. “Listen, there’s a fed hospital a hundred feet from here. Saw it on the way in. It’s our best bet.”
This time, when Alexa looked at him, there was a different sort of alarm in her eyes, a cornered sort of alarm, and she hesitated a moment. For the briefest of moments, she considered rejecting this idea, overriding it and commanding that they take Mickey to the ship. But then her eyes fell, her gaze catching on the dark stain under Barrett’s hands, and in her head a voice said, Feds. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Mickey. “Fine,” she croaked through a throat suddenly dry. “Let’s go.”
The worst part was the way Mickey whimpered as they lifted him off the ground.
Practically as soon as they spilled through the doors of the huge, gleaming hospital building, nurses converged on them, a gurney suddenly appearing from nowhere so the nurses could transfer Mickey to it and begin rolling him away.
When they pulled him far enough away, his hand slipped from Alexa’s grip, and she automatically dodged after him, only to be restrained by another nurse. It was all Alexa could do to stop herself from throwing the nurse to the ground. They would not keep her from Mickey. The only reason Alexa did not continue the pursuit was that she felt Barrett’s hand on her shoulder, and he explained that they were taking him into surgery, where Alexa could not go anyway.
It killed her to watch Mickey disappear through a set of doors. The tightness in her chest was a physical pain, and she grit her teeth so hard it felt like they might crumble into powder. Pain radiated from her jaw, and that was good. It kept her grounded.
Still gazing at the now-closed doors that led off the hall, Alexa stepped over to where Barrett was talking to a man behind a large counter. “Barrett Solomon. I was in the Federation army, Ground Division 471, Heavy Squad,” Barrett was saying, voice low and level despite the blood drying on his hands and shirt. A soldier’s calm.
His credentials seemed to please the man behind the counter. “Welcome back, soldier,” he said with a nod as he tapped something into the small computer before him.
Barrett didn’t reply to that. He held no ill will to the army, but it was not his home, and this was not a homecoming. He continued smoothly, “The guy is Mickey Webb. Actual first name is Michael. His birthday is the first of April. I’m not sure what his middle name—”
“Edward,” said Alexa, making Barrett throw her a quick glance, as if he hadn’t heard her approach and was a bit startled. Alexa hardly noticed; her eyes stayed locked on some point on the counter.
The man behind the counter could not hide the look of alarm that passed over his face, albeit briefly before he regained his composure. While Barrett had blood on him, the woman beside him had much more blood on her, though she seemed oblivious to it. Blood on her hands, on her pants, on her shirt. “Name, miss?” the attendant asked after a moment’s hesitation.
Finally, her eyes snapped to lock on him, and the blank void of the gaze, the dead quality about the eyes, it made the attendant frown tightly. Even Barrett noticed; he was used to Alexa’s face being blank, but seeing her eyes match was unfamiliar, unnerving. Because of it, he moved as if to speak for her: “She’s—”
“Maggie Webb,” Alexa’s voice cut him off, and she easily ignored the sharp look he gave her. Instead, her eyes stayed locked on the attendant as she said, voice low and toneless, “Is the data entry really necessary. Mickey’s name is the important one. I’d just like to see my brother.”
The attendant understood then, understood the eerie blankness in her face and in her manner: she was in shock, the type of shock not atypical for a family member to be experiencing in this situation. Clearing his throat, he nodded and shut the computer before him, a motion clearly intended to set the distraught, dead-eyed girl at ease. “Just protocol, Miss Webb,” he assured, voice soothing in a practiced way, a tone he had used many times on many family members. “You can’t see your brother until he is out of surgery, but there is a waiting room just down the hall, on the left as you—”
She was already walking away.
Again, the attendant interpreted this as an action borne of shock, something she did because her mind was numb, and though she hadn’t walked away for that reason, the reason wasn’t fully incorrect. It was Barrett who glanced at the man and said a quick, gruff, “Thanks,” before turning and striding quickly after Alexa.
By the time he rounded into the waiting room, Alexa had already taken a seat in one of the chairs, her head bent low, her hands hanging between her knees, the fingers linked so tightly that her knuckles were white. She didn’t look up when Barrett took a seat next to her, his seat creaking lightly under the bulk of muscle.
It took him a second to consider how he might approach this, before he just decided to dive right in: “So what the ******** was that?” The words were low despite them being the only two people in the room, but the tight way his words passed his teeth made it clear that his voice was kept low so he could keep his cool. Barrett had barely any to speak of, but seriously, what the ********]?
“Nothing,” was Alexa’s answer, her calm cadence nearly unnatural given the situation.
Now Barrett seemed angry. He stayed leaned back in his chair, but his eyes were two hot coals in his dark face as he looked over at her. “Bullshit,” he all but hissed. “Who gives a fake name when they’re just here for someone else? There’s something you’re not telling me, and—”
When he eyes snapped to him, the intensity of her gaze was enough to shut him up for a brief hesitation, and she took the opportunity to say, voice low and warning, “This is not a conversation, Solomon.”
Fury burned in Barrett’s chest, but the main heat of it passed after a few moments, leaving but a burning ember of confusion and annoyance. He hadn’t been with Alexa and Mickey long, but he had been around long enough that getting information — especially information about herself — out of Alexa was more difficult than getting prey out of the locked jaws of an alligator. This was a battle he wouldn’t win. Leaning his head back against the wall behind him, he stared up at the ceiling, his jaw tight. Silence for a while. Then, quietly, he said, “They’re going to ask what happened soon. It’s protocol.”
“I’ll handle it,” said Alexa, face and voice once more aimed at the floor.
Barrett sighed. “Right,” he grumbled. “I’m sure you will.”
——————————————
It was late the next day when Mickey was finally able to claw his way back to consciousness. Waking was an uphill battle, but he was finally able to pry his eyelids open despite the weights that had seemingly been glued to them. Swallowing was difficult as well; he could have sworn that his mouth and throat were full of actual, literal sand.
Blinking slowly against a bright light, Mickey allowed his fuzzy mind to adjust itself so he could figure out where he was. The room was so shiny he might have assumed everything was made of chrome, except for the soft bed on which he was propped up in a mostly-sitting position. His limbs felt too heavy to lift, but a tickling at least made him look down at his arm, which he saw was attached to some wires and tubes, which attached to a set of complicated-looking machines and monitors next to the bed.
Hospital. He was in a hospital. He had been… shot? Had he been shot? Holy s**t, he had been shot. After remembering this, he was surprised at the lack of pain. He felt a dull ache in his midsection, like a strange tugging or pulsing, but other than that, he felt surprisingly… light. Whatever pain medications they had him on were apparently amazing.
He looked around the small room. Sure enough, there was Barrett, sprawled on his back on a small couch against the opposite wall. Since his legs were too long to allow him to fit comfortable, he had draped them over the armrest, where they hung almost low enough for his toes to brush the gleaming tile floor. His arm hung over the side of the cushions so his hand rested on the tile. The little, irregular snores he gave informed Mickey that the guy was dead asleep.
By then, Mickey’s mind was awake enough to allow him full sensation, so only then did he feel a weight on his thigh, a pressure in his hand. Looking down, he was both relieved and amused to see a head resting on his leg, surrounded by a halo of tousled chestnut waves. The pressure in his hand was from the way her hand gripped his own. The grin that spread over Mickey’s face was automatic but drowsy, and he croaked out, “Hey, Lex.”
The speed at which Alexa sat bolt upright in her chair practically made Mickey dizzy just watching her. The alertness in her gaze told him she had not been asleep. Hell, he had known her long enough to almost be able to tell how long it had been since she slept simply by studying the faint circles under her intense eyes. Now, her eyes betrayed something they usually did not betray: relief. Seeing Mickey awake was enough to break even the ice queen’s facade a bit, and she allowed herself a quick, tight smile, like the motion was so unfamiliar to her facial muscles that she didn’t really know how to do it well. “Mickey,” she said, the word low but relieved.
Mickey lifted their joined hands to press a kiss to the back of her palm, the only motion he could really make his limbs perform to show her how glad he was to see her. “You’re okay,” he observed keenly, words still hoarse, speaking through the desert in his throat. “I’m real glad, babe. Could’a turned into a gunfight after… s**t.” He didn’t remember fully what had happened; bits and pieces, flashes of images and sounds and feelings, those were all he had to try and piece together how he had gotten a new hole in his body. Thinking about it too hard made his head ache, and he realized this was worse than any hangover he had ever experienced. “How long I been out?” he finally croaked.
“Twenty-eight hours after you got out of surgery,” Alexa answered, coolly but immediately. She had been counting.
It made him give a dry (very dry) chuckle, which made him give a slight cough, which made him give a groan and place his free hand (well, the hand with the wires and tubes) over his midsection. The action of coughing overrode the painkillers, making pain bloom in his stomach. “s**t,” he repeated again, because that was really the best word to describe the entire situation. Actually, though, he didn’t sound upset or pained even despite the pain he was in; mostly, he sounded tired, yet there were traces of his usual lightness in his words. Even laying in a bed, recovering from a gunshot wound, Mickey was looking on the bright side. It hurt, but at least he was alive.
Mostly because she didn’t like watching Mickey display pain, Alexa reached her free hand over to the bedside table, picking up a cup of water with a straw sticking out of it. The ice had long since melted, but water was water. “Drink,” she ordered, holding the cup near his lips.
He had no problem following the order. A few long gulps later, he was finally sitting back against his fluffy pillows, releasing a shallow but contented sigh. “I’d prefer vodka,” he joked, “but I guess water’ll do for now.” He sounded a bit hoarse still but noticeably less scratchy and dry.
Alexa rolled her eyes briefly, but as she placed the cup back on the table, she felt something in her chest loosen a bit, some tension in her back release just slightly. Mickey was joking. Acting normal. He was okay. Alexa had to take a moment and come to terms with understanding what true relief felt like. She didn’t know the last time she had felt it so potently.
In this moment, an important detail finally came to Mickey. “Ruby,” he said musingly, but he caught the sharp glance Alexa threw him in response to the name of the person who had shot him. With a frown at his friend, Mickey asked, “Is she—”
“I took care of it.”
The words were cold and sharp like being stabbed by an icicle, and Mickey started a bit, blinking at Alexa. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what she meant when she said it, and the realization made him lift his eyebrows, made air escape him in a heavy exhale. “Hells bells, Lex,” he said, sounding more concerned than angry, “what did you do?”
Where there had just been relief in her eyes, now there was an odd, detached coldness, though it was clearly not aimed at Mickey. Her jaw was tight as she kept a careful hold on her composure. “They hurt you,” was all she said to Mickey, and as far as she was concerned, that explained everything, excused what she had done. Though she had changed clothes since Mickey had been shot, though she had scrubbed the blood off her skin, there was still the metaphorical blood on her hands, as there always would be.
Again Mickey was a bit startled, though for a different reason now. Though her words and expression were controlled, he knew her well enough to know the emotion she wasn’t letting herself show. Anyone else would have seen an icy woman, and Mickey saw a woman torn raw, and it made his stomach flip in a way completely unrelated to a bullet wound. The rush of affection he felt for Alexa in that moment was as sudden as it was intense; it was so easy for Mickey to care about people, and he knew how difficult the same thing was for Alexa, but here she was, caring about him in her own strange, stilted way. “s**t,” was all he could say again, and he shook his head, any concern and upset gone, replaced by something like apology in his gaze. “Okay. Okay, I get it,” he was saying, voice low and soothing. “Hey, c’mere.”
Having been flying with Mickey for almost two years by now, Alexa had become somewhat accustomed to hugs. They were just a thing people did to show affection, and while Alexa herself did not initiate them, she no longer protested when Mickey wrapped his arms around her and squeezed like he was trying to suffocate her. She knew it was just his way. But now, she knew that he could not be the one to initiate the hug, so at his request to ‘c’mere’, she did something she would not have done otherwise: she got up from her chair so she could move up the bed, enough to wrap her arms around his neck and hug him, rewarded for the action by his arms going around her in turn, his embrace solid despite his drowsy, weakened state.
They sat like that for a few long moments before Alexa found the words that had been trying to fight their way out of her chest: “I thought you were going to die.”
Seven words, said so quietly that Mickey wouldn’t have heard them if they hadn’t been hugging, but because he heard them, he responded by hugging her a bit tighter for a moment. It was easy for him to read her, easy for him to hear the muted, blank sort of fear in her voice, something he had never before heard from her. Again, there was that rush of warmth in Mickey’s chest, the warmth of a friendship felt deeply and truly. “Well,” he finally said, voice much more somber than usual, “could’a been that I was gonna. But I didn’t. I’m all right, and so are you. We’re okay.”
And they were okay.
Slowly, Alexa extracted herself from the hug, moving back to once more sit in the chair she had pulled up right next to the bed. Her hand found his again in a motion that seemed unconscious, somehow instinctual.
When Mickey spoke next, it was with his usual cheer and vigor, his face holding a more subdued, drowsier version of his usual grin. “So, when can I get outta this joint? It’s a little too clean in here, ain’t it? Makes a’body nervous.”
Alexa let some air escape her nose in what might have been the Alexa version of a chuckle. “They said you won’t have to stay as long as they thought. A day or so before we can take you home.”
By then, Mickey was beginning to fade; the drugs really were quite powerful, and his body was begging for his mind to shut down for a while again, to let himself heal. His eyes slipped closed, but he was nodding like he was still in the conversation. “Home,” he repeated, the word a contented sigh.
Minutes later, he was asleep.
And Alexa would stay by his bed like a sentinel, alert and awake. Alert, awake, and thinking.
Home.
