Challenge #5: Apollo

This was written for a contest set by our campire leader KC is a teacher now!
This is a little background piece on my character Chance in

ID: 1285537   (Rated: 18+) Einstein's Outrageous Legacy  In which a search is proposed and pursued and succeeds (probably). by KC is a teacher now!

I wait for everything to stop and fall still. Everytime I want to get up I wait a little longer, just in case. It feels like I've been waiting for quarter of an hour but it's probably only been a minute. Either way I push the bed off of me and climb out carefully. It's dark of course, I can't see much, but I can feel the rubble and debris around me.

Bombing a hospital, how low can you get? It's worse than waging war on your own colonies. It's like reversing your car over someone you just hit. I mean, this place was as much like a hospital as a soup kitchen is to a restaurant but that doesn't change anything.

Ugh, there's no time to be angry. I'd rather be angry than scared but I still have to get out from under this barrow. I feel around for a while, trying to find way forward in any direction. It's uncomfortable crawling around in here, having to test everything carefully to keep from cutting myself on brick, metal, or glass.

Just a few hours ago I was reporting to the chief here. The building was some kind of cleaned out warehouse or something, with nothing under the ceiling except powerful lights and nothing on the floor but cold, clean concrete. Row after row of cots with charts on clipboards by each bed. There was hardly a man or woman on those beds that wasn't shot or cut somewhere. Not that any of them could have survived unless they got out. I'm probably the only one left in here, but I try not to think about it too much.

After who knows how long I come to the conclusion that I can't manage this without any light. I have no idea how far I am from anything and I would never know if I was going in circles. The hard part would be finding a solution to the problem. There are torches in all of the emergency bags, but I would have to be able to find one first. Okay, let's sit back and think about this for a minute.

There's a small sound of stone scraping across stone from not far away from me. The first thing I think of is to move away from it. I don't really feel like getting crushed after surviving the first half. Nothing collapses but I can hear some of the debris rolling around, then light spills in. I feel like I can't breath, I've forgotten how. Then instead of a uniform I see white, the white coat of medical staff and I can exhale. I just wish the air weren't so full of dust.

I move over to him quickly, helping to ease him through the hole. He drops the torch and I can feel every muscle in his body tighten up defensively, but I drag him through. He's practically sitting on me.

"Ow?" he sits back a little, holding his arm to his shoulder. I pick up the torch and use it to get a good look at him, although I have to point it off to one side to keep from blinding either of us. I draw a complete blank for a second before everyting falls into place again. I know this man. I've known him for a long time, I just didn't know he was here. We're both lucky, but then he's always been lucky. Blessed as my mother used to say, and it's only fair. He needs the luck to balance everything else out.

He doesn't recognise me, although I'm not sure he's really looking. It's hard to forget him though. He's ridiculously well put together. If I didn't know better I would suspect someone had been playing with a chemistry set to make him. He's blond, with that hair cut that always seems to get in the way but could never be any other style. He has those disgustingly blue eyes, the kind you get on a child and sometimes he gives you that same clueless stare. He's also 'healthy'. He has one of those constitutions that meant he didn't really have to work on his figure any. It just kind of came out good enough. Better than good enough, not that anyone would tell him. He would probably just get confused.

"Dr McCallum." Now why did I call him that? I've never called him that, he hates it. He'll tolerate 'doctor' from his patients but he pulls faces when you use his proper name. I don't know why. I mean he's an academy man, he's been training to be a doctor since he was about ten or something, but he won't have any of it. The number of times he's refused to turn when you call him McCallum - then again he's not exactly the universe's most observant people.

Just as I thought. He makes that face at me for calling him that and I can see the gears turning behind his eyes as he tries to figure out who I am. I also see that he looks a mess and he's lost some colour.

"Are you alright?" It's the most idiotic question in the world, but it comes out before I think about it. I mean why would he be alright? He's just had a hospital dropped on him.

"Hmn? Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Listen, would you do me a favour?" It's definitely him. I can feel myself smiling inside. I can't describe what it feels like to find him again. It's miraculous in this place at this time, especially under here.

"Could you maybe put my shoulder back in? It's kinda tricky to do by myself." I want to laugh at him. I shouldn't and don't, it's just the way he says it, like he's asking me to glue something while he's on the phone.

"Why not?" I take the limp arm gently, noticing now the way he was trying to sit without putting any weight on the shoulder and without moving the arm. It must have been agony trying to get through the rubble like that, and awkward trying to do it with a torch out and a bag in tow. Very carefully I hold his arm near the elbow and on the upper arm, pushing him away a little with my foot as I pull his wrist toward me. The idea is to pull the shoulder into line so that it falls back into the socket. You only need a doctor to confirm the complaint is that simple.

But he makes this choking sound and I feel my heart trying to fold in on itself. Finally I feel the joint slip back into alignment and I let go. He makes this small little sound of pain and massages his shoulder, but looks up at me again. He's still trying to figure out who I am, but he won't ask, so I give him a hand.

"Dominic Lucia." I say, smirking a little when realisation hits him. He looks abashed for a second and smiles back.

"You're more of an idiot than I am. What are you doing out here? You should have a nice cushy civilian place with an apartment and rugs and everything." He lights up instantly though and despite where and when we are, despite the bruises, grazes, and coating of dust on him he looks like his own perfect self again.

"Rugs?" I raise an eyebrow, but then Chance never did make complete sense every time. It was pot-luck as to whether or not he would even make it to the end of a sentance sometimes. Apparently he hadn't changed any.

"It's good to see you." he put on that silly smile that seemed to use every spare inch of his body. Back at the academy it had been six or seven of us, all held together by our profession and fate putting us in the same places the first few times. We'd all kind of looked after him. He's not any less capable or anything, he just needed a nudge every now and again. Hell, he probably looked after the rest of us more than he needed us to keep an eye on him, but it was hard not to. Chance had his head so high in the clouds sometimes that he didn't always come back down with all the pieces.

"You're a mess," I tell him defiantly, flicking the torch up to look into the tunnel behind him. It's not going to be easy getting out.

"No more than you. You lost your bag too." he produces his and grins at me, "I need to borrow you hands again. I want to keep this arm nice and tidy and out of the way for a while. It needs bed rest." One-handed he pulls a roll of bandage out of the bag and a pair of scissors. I oblige him and tie a simple sling on it, unfastening his coat and half-clipping it again.

"Try to stay out of trouble for a minute, okay?" Further inspection turns up nothing in here except rubble, a mangled bed and worryingly enough the smell of blood developing in the air.

"Me? I'm an angel." he sits back and I just smirk, taking another look inside his tunnel.

"Angel huh?" My mother used to be a professor in ancient cultures. She adored the ancient Greeks and I guess she handed that on to me. Considering how far behind they were they had so many things so close to right. It was their philosophy. They liked to think, to mind their own business and study. So many things in modern science and medicine started with the Greeks. But that's not where I was going. My mother used to tell me the mythos of the Greeks, their pantheon and everything. When I was little I used to think it was all real. That Zeus and Hera really did live out in space somewhere in a place called Olympus, and that my mother and I were the only ones that knew. It was our little secret.

I had stopped thinking about the ancient gods for the most part by the time I joined the academy's later years to train as a nurse, but it was unavoidable. He even looked like my favourite patron of medicine. I used to joke with my mother that my Apollo was in hiding from the furies, but it was a joke only she would understand.

"Alright," I pull him to his feet and he lifts up the bag again, "How far have you come in this direction?" I really shouldn't have asked that. I didn't even finish the sentance before I was overcome with a wave of common sense. I don't need the Look he gives me to let me know how ridiculous it is for me to ask something like that of him, "Let's try that again. Which way do you want to go?" He looks around for a minute and picks a part of the 'wall' that looks least difficult to get through. We both start pulling away rock.

"How long have you been out here?" he asks, but it's not the same question it seems. With anyone else anywhere else its perfectly innocuous. But 'out here' means something completely different on this war ravaged colony. No, it's not a war. It's a 'pro-active repression of hostility'. They make it sound like it's our fault. The truth is they failed us and we wanted out to look after ourselves. So they forced us to stay. This is the second time round since I was born. I was too young to even really know about it the first time. It was over by the time I was enrolled at the academy. Of course the government put a martial rule over the rebellious colonies and made it difficult for them to recover. Before they had just ignored us, this time they were suffocating us. It was no wonder it started all over again.

No, what am I saying. I don't mean 'us'. I sympathise with the rebellion and the colonies but really I'm here because I'm a nurse. I had to be on one side or the other and this one needed me more, not to mention deserved me more.

"A while. I just arrived here today, but I guess I'll need re-assigning now." I smile, deciding to change the subject, "Do you remember what day it is?"

"Erm , Wednesday?"

"You say that everytime I ask. Seriously. It's always four o'clock too."

"My watch broke," he smirks, "You were gonna say something though." he slides another piece of masonry away carefully, flashing the torch over the wall to check nothing's about to fall.

"I'm probably out a couple of days but it's around about time for the festival near St. Christopher's." It was the hospital we worked at together right out of the academy. He was only there two years, but it was close to the academy and every year there was a big culture festival, or history festival. I forget which they called it. We really had to keep an eye on him around then because he spent more on the stalls at that festival every year than my ex spent on shoes her entire life. It was down right dangerous to leave him on his own. He almost missed lectures plenty of times. He doesn't keep much stuff with him but his suitcases are full of music disks.

Chance groans and smacks his head off the wall, "I hate you." I just laugh and prod him into helping again, "No, I mean it Lucia. It's been a long time, and out here it feels like forever."

"I know," I answer, "I missed you too." More than he knew. I would have done anything for him back then. He was my Apollo after all. Knowing that only made it worse. I felt like it was a secret that maybe even he didn't know. We all went our seperate ways after the academy but I still watched over him. I loved him. Not any of that romantic 'hold me' crap. I loved him 'like a brother'. No-one really loves their brother as much as that when they use that phrase. What am I trying to say? He made me feel whole, you know? I don't know. I think I'm just waffling. Anyway, sitting here with him now I feel it all again. I suddenly realise how much I've missed him this whole time. Maybe it's just the fact we were both almost crushed by a make-shift hospital.

"How's your mother?"

"Gone. Your Dad?"

"Still around I think. Probably praying and cursing me every minute of the day." All the joy has been sapped from the conversation already. That's what happens here. Of course recent events aren't helping much. Somehow our reunion is as much a blessing as a curse. It was such a relief at first but now all I can think about is how naive we were back then. How everything was so simple and clean and safe. He's probably thinking the same thing and understandably it's putting a dampner on things.

Oh Gods, his father. I mean, I haven't really any family left. My old man ran out on us when I was young and my mother passed on a while ago but Chance was completely different. It's not so much his sake that I feel my stomach churning right now. On the contrary it's Kyle McCallum back on the far side of the fence. There he is sitting in a perfectly civilised town somewhere wondering if his son is alive or not, not knowing when he died or if he still might. It's almost impossible to get messages back past the uniforms and barricades. It might not be so bad for anyone else but those two have only ever had each other. Chance always tells everyone his name is because he caught his mother by surprise. It might be true, I'm not sure. What I do know is that she didn't have long to give him the name. It's almost inconcievable for someone to die from childbirth in this day in age, but that's what happened. Chance and Charity, non-identical twins, were too much for her. My guess is it was some kind of post-natal infection or something, or possibly pre. Whatever it was it killed her and it took Charity with her. That man was left with nothing but a single sickly infant and the knowledge that he had to try and live out another fifty years.

And at this moment he was stuck in a beautiful, peaceful urban purgatory waiting to know if the rest of his heart was going to break or not.

I realise Chance is giving me a funny look and asking me something. I look at him blankly and he smirks. He says we have enough of a task to get through with just one air-head. I need to keep my act together otherwise we'll just end up digging in circles or to China. Which would be an achievment as we're several trillion miles from Earth. I see the tangent starting to elope with him and cut the thought short by telling him to concentrate. It works for now but we need to keep digging.

It takes a while but we get further from where we started, so presumably closer to the outside. We keep talking about nonsense things like who from St. Christopher's was doing what last time I knew. We talk about how bad my taste in girlfriends is and what a completely mystery it is that he doesn't have one. It's not such a mystery though, he used to treat them like an alien species, and when he realised that they weren't all that different they went back on the list of things less insteresting than trying to cure a pandemic. He wants to know what I had for lunch before I came out here, and we start to get carried away. He sounds like a can of Heinz beans would be fought over Out Here, and the conversation rapidly degrrades into food porn. You remember those ads on tv? 'It's not roast potatoe, it's...' and so on? It gets like that and my stomach decides to remind me that it at least feels like a long while since I've eaten.

He laughs at me, "Hungy Lucia?" he sits down, settling back against the 'wall' and pulls his bag onto his lap. Seeing what he brings out makes me hate my petty mortal requirement for sustenance; ration bars. The most foul tasting things you could possibly eat without it causing food poisoning or looking like it had crawled out of a sewer. In fact they looked mockingly like snack bars, but there were two reasons you wouldn't eat a whole one; the first simply being how bad they tasted, the second the fact they expanded and diluted when they hit your stomach. They lasted a good long while though and were light. He was probably carrying about a month's worth right there.

"I can't eat that."

"Why not?" he takes a bite and shrugs, offering it to me. I take as little as I can get away with and he tucks it back into the bag, bringing out a flask of water. It's hardly a coffee break, and we're up again after about a minute, working on the stone.

"I think this is what it's supposed to be like," he says, completely losing me again. He does that a lot though, starting a topic he's already been running through his head long before he starts talking. It confuses a lot of people, and scares his patients when he starts mumbling to himself whilst looking at their charts. There is nothing scarier than just hearing '-ism', '-niatic' and similar suffixes when you're in a paper gown watching a man in white make his way slowly through your medical record and latest test sheets.

"Having a brother. I think it must be kinda like this," he explained, falling quiet again. Oh. It was one of those moments. Buried under tonnes of rubble in the middle of a warzone was just one of those things that made you start thinking about life, the universe, and everything. Somehow those moments always made me feel worse when I'm in company than when I'm on my own. Particularly worse with him. I can see what this place has done to Chance now; how tired he looks, the weight of trying to save so many lives with so little to work with. Even trying to think of everything else he's starting to struggle to come up with meaningless chatter. He was never one to lead a conversation any way. He would just sort of phase in, look confused, say his piece, and go back to wherever his mind was before.

"I think so too. Do you think it would have been like this with Charity? They say twins are supposed to be closer." It was an old question and one he was asked every single time someone new found out. What did it feel like? Can you feel her now even though she's gone? Do you miss her? The answers were 'no' of course. She'd barely lived a day, it was like asking if he missed his great great grandmother.

"I guess. I always reckoned it was identical twins though, from when the embryo splits into two completely seperate people."

"I know what you mean," I smile a little and he smiles back at me with that same grin again. It looks perfect, no different than it ever did, "What?" he just smirks and shakes his head, "What?"

"Nothing."

"You're such a brat, you know that right?" I laugh and poke him in the ribs. He just laughs again and hits me. We carry on a little further and I get the feeling that we're almost out. Yes, I can something outside.

Wait.

I hold out my arm and motion for him to be quiet. He watches me while I watch the tiny strip of light peeking through the stone. What I can hear is suddenly less encouraging. It's gunfire.

Carefully I take the next stone away, peering out without getting too close to the space. He can hear it too now, except that he looks more irritated than worried. There's a pair of trucks across the street that are Ours, and somewhere off to the side there must be some uniforms incoming because the men by our trucks are falling back slowly and firing.

I take the disk from my breast pocket, slipping it into his bag while he's distracted. There's nothing on it, just a few passwords for my journals back home, but something makes me hide it there just as something made me record them in the first place.

"If we don't go now they'll be driven off." he moves another stone, slipping his arm from the sling. I hate to admit it but he's right. We're going to have to make a run for it. It doesn't take long to make a hole big enough, but it's still too much time. He gives me that grin again one last time, then we make a dash for the trucks. I don't know why but some bastard of a uniform starts shooting at us rather than the armed men. They do that sometimes, I was told, some of them feel like the more of us they can kill the better. They get him though, because he stops firing. Just not quite quickly enough.

If I weren't already dying the look on his face when he sees me get hit would have killed me.






Doctor Abramowitz was sitting in his chair as usual, and Chance was sitting in his playing solitaire again. It was sort of soothing, the mindless simplicty of moving cards onto the correct column.

"You said something while you were doing that the other day. Something about the king of hearts." Doc says. Why 'Doc'? He'd never really understood that. There were a million and one 'doc's in the universe, and it had always annoyed him. Chance ahd a name and he liked people to use it. He was a doctor sure, but that was just a title that described who he was. You could call a girl 'missy' but only a couple of them liked it.

"Did I?" he was coming very close to the border of their rules. After Doc had come to understand just how hopelessly stubborn Chance could be he'd accepted the rules, that were very simple really. He wasn't allowed to ask anything directly about Chance and he wasn't allowed to ask anything about the colony war. When Doc had mentioned it the first Chance had just laughed at him and told him he was being too simple-minded.

"Yes, a name I think. Something about it being Lucia's favourite."

Chance placed the red ten very carefully on the jack of spades. That one was his favourite, in as much as you could have a favourite card. Had he really said that aloud? Damnit. The last thing he needed was another doctor inside his head.

"Who's Lucia?"

Oh, right. He hadn't said anything and now Doc thought Lucia was important. He cursed himself for not paying enough attention.

"A nurse I went to the academy with." he replied dismissively, turning over the next card.

"Chance, who is Lucia."

"..."