Chapter Seven: Deserving
Unknown
Chapter Seven: Deserving
"I'm—I'm sorry."
The words caught me off guard. I looked down at Catherine, who was once again in my arms after our progress became stifled due to her frigidity. "Sorry for what?"
When Catherine turned to face me, I saw tears rolling down her pale cheeks. Through chattering teeth, she said, "For... for everything. My behaviour, especially. They told us that you aren't p-people, that you're nothing more than kill—" she swallowed, "—killing machines, and that you... deserve what's been d-done to you. But you don't. You don't."
I almost stopped to say something. Almost. Catherine obviously didn't know the truth about Juggernauts—the truth about me—if she said we weren't deserving. If anything, we deserved far worse. I kept my mouth shut and continued mechanically plodding forward. We were almost at the Cockpit; I wasn't about to stop now.
Unabated, Catherine continued. "I'm sorry for t-treating you like you're less than human, S-Six." Her nose winkled in disgust. "Six," she muttered. "They don't even let you have n-names. Real names, not numbers."
"I don't need a name—"
"Don't you dare say that," Catherine interrupted, knocking on my torso with the back of her hand. "You saved my life. If it wasn't for you, I'd b-be dead. If that doesn't make you worthy of having a name—having humanity—then I don't know what does. You're a good man: let nobody, not even yourself, tell you any different."
I ducked underneath part of a fallen doorframe and stepped into the ruined mess of the Cockpit. "If you want to believe that, I won't stop you," I sighed. I paused for a moment before continuing. "'There are three things necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.'" I paused again. "I believe in my reality, in the situation I am in. I know what I need to survive. For now, I know what I have to do. Having a name is unnecessary."
Catherine was silent as I placed her on her feet. "Where did you hear that from?" she finally asked. "The quote, I mean."
I shrugged. "Sometime before I became a Juggernaut. It's stuck with me ever since." I padded down my numerous pockets until I found a flashlight, as my helmet was sitting on the floor back in the Cryogenic Chamber Room.
I motioned towards the steps that descended into the hull. "Can you lead the way? I had trouble last time."
"Y-Yeah. Sure," she replied as I handed her the flashlight.
We walked along the mazelike corridors, the flashlight illuminating the airborne dust the we stirred. I still had difficulty moving along due to my bulk, but at least Catherine had it easy going. Thanks to her, we found the living quarters in less than half the time it took me to find it originally.
Catherine stopped suddenly, almost as if there was an invisible threshold blocking the room. I nearly walked into her. "Oh God," she breathed, and slowly sank to her knees. She started coughing, which quickly turned into dry-heaving. After her minor episode, Catherine covered her mouth with the fabric and mumbled, "You found me here?!"
"Yes."
Catherine stared at the mangled bodies. She started shivering. "How?" she finally asked after a silence. "How am I s-still alive?"
I shrugged. "Luck? Coincidence? Divine intervention?" After she failed to respond, I asked, "Do the how's and why's of your survival mean that much to you? You're alive: that's all that matters."
"I—I guess not." Catherine shuddered and forcibly looked away. "Let's just get what we need and leave. If I never see this place again, it'll be t-too soon."
Catherine squeezed past me and retreated a short distance up the hallway. I stepped into the room and stretched my neck, as the ceiling was a few centimetres higher. A summary glance over the area told me that Catherine's footlocker could feasibly be anywhere. With a sigh, I bent down and dragged the closest one towards me.
This was going to take a while.
\\\\\
After nearly an hour of searching, I finally found a locker with Catherine Belova engraved in small print right above the buckle. I carefully extricated the metal box out from underneath a less fortunate person's torso. There were dents and dried blood along the exterior of the footlocker, but it was in otherwise functional condition. I popped the clasp and, with a little pressure, forced it open.
Inside were several articles of clothing and some personal memorabilia that I skimmed over until a particular picture caught my eye. I picked it up and looked at it. It showed a younger Catherine standing with a tall, skinny man on a grassy hill with the sun high in the sky behind them. A young girl with pigtails stood between them. They were all smiling.
I placed the picture back into the container and closed it. There was a time and place for everything, and now didn't seem like the time nor the place to bring up her past. I brought the footlocker into the hallway where Catherine was sitting with her back against the wall and her arm around her knees, eyes staring at nothing.
"I found your lockbox," I stated, my voice breaking the thick silence and causing her head to jerk up in surprise. "The contents are a bit shuffled, but intact."
Catherine shifted her sitting position to one where she was on her knees. Slowly, she reached out and traced the engraving of her name with pale fingertips, lingering on her surname. She looked up at me, eyes red-rimmed from crying. "You wouldn't happen to have a knife, would you? I need to do something." Her tone was bleak.
I mechanically reached down and felt for the short, sharp blade that was attached to my right thigh. While not practical in a typical fight, it was certainly useful in cutting rope, small cables, and necks if the situation presented itself. After a small amount of hesitation, I offered the knife to Catherine, handle-first. She grabbed it carefully, her fingers barely wrapping fully around the grip.
A part of me wondered if she meant to take her own life—and I had just provided her the method. Although Catherine hadn't shown any self-harming or fatalistic tendencies, and I doubted that either had manifested in the time it had taken me to find her locker, there was always a chance...
My muscles twinged when Catherine pointed the knife down, but relaxed slightly when she began to gouge out the surname portion of her machine-engraved name. The swipes grew more and more vicious. When a particularly vicious stab pierced the footlocker fully, I decided that enough was enough and interfered. Catherine, who was now breathing heavily from her exertions, didn't say a word as I carefully uncurled her fingers from the handle and put the blade back where it belonged.
After nearly a full minute of staring, unblinking, at the scrawled and shredded remains of her name, Catherine blinked as a bead of sweat fell into her eyes. This simple act seemed to shatter the spell she had fallen under. Immediately, wracking sobs engulfed her in waves and she seemed to shrink into herself.
I crouched down and did my best to comfort her—that is, I repeatedly told her that everything was fine while gently rubbing her back. I'm not sure whether that had any effect or not, but Catherine's breathing soon regulated enough for her to speak.
"I'm sorry... I don't know what came over me," she mumbled. "It had to happened eventually, but... I'm sorry... It was too much..." A fit of hiccups soon made her murmuring unintelligible. Beside the quickly-drying tears and sweat droplets, I noticed that her lips had turned a pale shade of blue.
"Save your apologies for when they actually matter," I ordered as I opened the container and procured a thermal jacket, thermal pants, and a pair of boots. "Right now, we need to get you into some warmer clothes before you freeze. Sit up."
Dressing Catherine in her dual states of borderline hypothermia and shock was, as far as I knew, akin to dressing a toddler. Despite her best intentions of trying to help, more often than not she would interfere with the process rather than accelerate it. When I finally managed to get Catherine's uncooperative feet into her boots, I picked her up with one arm and the footlocker with the other, then began the long march back to the Cryogenic Chamber Room, the flashlight held between my teeth.
All was quiet on the ship except for the omnipresent hum of the lights overhead and my own clanking footsteps. By the time we returned to the Cryogenic Chamber, Catherine's lips were pale red once more. She must have fallen asleep sometime during the trip, so I unfolded the fabric as a makeshift bedspread once more and placed her on it, then used some extra articles of clothing as a headrest.
Temporary goal complete, I sat down and allowed myself a few minutes of respite to gather my thoughts.
I had an inkling as to what caused Catherine's minor breakdown, but I decided it was irrelevant to the situation at hand. I was sure that she'd bring it up herself at a later time—Catherine didn't seem to be the type to run away from a confrontation.
I glanced at her peaceful, sleeping form. A few more hours of sleep certainly wouldn't hinder her recovery. I briefly debated attempting to sleep as well, but the feeling of exhaustion hadn't set in quite yet, so I didn't bother. That left me with time to kill, as remaining idle was out of the question. I scanned the room and noticed two things in quick succession: my helmet on the floor and the Rubik's cube jutting from a chest pocket.
A small smile spread on my lips as a new goal began to formulate in my mind.
I hoped the alien ponies wouldn't mind a visitor.
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A wild update appears!
It's nice to see that you're writing this story again, I'm looking forward to more.
Awwwww shit, potential prolonged interaction time. I've been waiting for this.
Sweet, I thought this was cancelled!
Awesome!
.
Your writing is great Divide and remember: "You're a good man: let nobody, not even yourself, tell you any different."
I would say you DO deserve the title of storyteller, even if the updates are sporadic at best... heck there's one story that had a one year gap between updates, and that didn't stop anyone from liking it
YES! Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes! Yes! It's back! Oh, man yes!
Its alive?? ITS ALIVE ITS ALIVE!
I was hoping this would come back (again[X2]).
Keep on writing. I'd quite like to see how this ends.
Also, if you keep cancling your stories, I think people might start giving you death threats. I'm too lazy to, but the others...
Hazza! Our glorious writer has yet to abandon us in our time of need!
Hoorah!
yes!!!!
My reaction when I saw this chapter:
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ2ObGZ6IU0]
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
It has returned... FUCK YEAH!!!
media.giphy.com/media/1SRaXI2J1o7vO/giphy.gif
You updated!
encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQurfFIdyoVutmgWRhL3sTdeus_yyl2yQUJcOL2YOxZO1cFjTWAug
Does this mean there's a chance for The Visiter?
3800595 it was.
Oh cool, an update.
wasn't this posted once already?
3802563
totally posted before, but only a part, the last part was different from before, the part when she cancelled her name, and started to cry and the hypotermia, wasn't mentioned in the last charapter.. maybe he just messed up and popped out as an update.
iambrony.dget.cc/mlp/gif/131327147782.gif
I'm not surprised, you cancelled it before after all.
IT LIVES!!!!!
Please don't give me another heart attack by telling us you canceled the story again. This story is too good to not finish.
I need this story to live.
I feel like I've read the first half of this already. Did you post an unfinished version of this before?
Aw, man. How much I missed this. It almost brings a tear to this Unknown's eye...
Heyheyheyheyhey. Hey. C'mon, Catherine. Six is a perfectly viable name! It works for everything! Just look at Noble, Courier, and Delta. If anything, it just made them more relatable and badass.
Well, damn. Those family matters of hers must be real freakin' bad if they make her go full maniac on the footlocker.
...
That's it! Catherine could be a Maniac! An... amputee Maniac. Well, that's fine. As long as she forgoes that horrid Ghosts knifing animation. 
Heh, now Lyra's gonna have a blast with that Rubik's Cube. I had lots of fun solving that thing the first time.
excellent use of Thomas Aquinas for the quote there
glad to see that your still kicking and best of luck with your future writings
So glad this story is back!
And this chapter is great to get back into the swing of things
Welcome back!
It feels like next chapter is going to be an extremly fun one.
Im gay for this story
Mission accomplished... updating file for new mission!
please wait... wirteltor-gymnasium.de/rundgang/ladebalken.gif
New Mission acquried:
how will he find the "aliens" though