Angel of War

Chapter 12: Questions

Her whole body is tossed into white-hot consciousness, sweat covering every inch of her nerves. The echo of a scream rattles in her chest. Tears start flowing steadily at each new intake of stagnant air. 

A voice bleeds into her racing thoughts, incomplete and strange.

"- crying?... rust everything… factory-"

Something solid pierces through her fervor. There's pressure on her shoulder. A hand. A sturdy grip on her frame, bringing her back to some reality. Then something wiping at her face. 

When her tears part enough, she can see an outline of his face. Those imperceptible pale eyes. The scruff lining his chin. His gloved hand tethering her has blood on it, and so does his shirt. There's blood everywhere. 

She sobbed and pulled away from him, terrified that the nightmare wasn't over, she would cause more blood-

"Hey!" She was crying into herself now, but the grip on her wrists prevented her from escaping the terror.

"Would you stop crying and just tell me what's going on?" He was just as afraid as he was upset. She stopped fighting and his pull led her hands to his chest. "Please. Just say something. I can't stand this shit."

"The blood." She gasped for air between sniffles. He looked down at his shirt in surprise.

"Oh! Yeah, sorry! I was working on something." He fingered the dark spots in the fabric. "I would've changed… cleaned up… just, I heard you scream, so I didn't-"

"It's my fault." She whimpered. 

"What?" Another wipe at her cheek for the new tears. At his touch she sobs harder and pushes herself forward to him. 

God, women made no sense.

"First of all, this is grease. Well...  mostly grease." He tripped on his words before laying them out like concrete. "And you... You're fine. Everything is okay, you're just shaken up a bit. Just breathe…"

She slowly recognized she was sitting on what seemed like a bed. He stood from where he was kneeling as she started breathing steadier. She had woolen socks on her legs. The bed was metal and the tile floor was red. The room they were in wasn't that large, but more open than the one she'd seen before. The one she'd bled in and cried in. He must have been thinking about that too.

"We need to stop doing this." His back was turned. He seemed to be doing something at the table against the wall. "This whole waking up screaming and crying deal…" He picked up an apparently-already-lit cigar and pushed the words past it on his lips. "Running in to check on you. Or you looking for me…" She took the pause to look down at herself. She was still wearing the large trench coat he'd wrapped around her. How did they get back here? The orange sunlight from her dream intruded on her thoughts.

He turned back to her.

"You hear me?" He said it gently.

She just looked up at him, not sure which part he wanted her to respond to. She hesitated into a nod.

"Verdammt…" He dropped his head back.

He didn't seem to be satisfied with that.

"Uh… um." He looked back at her utterance. "What do you want me to… what can I do… for you? To help?" 

He put his thoughts into the cigar and gazed towards her hands. He smirked at one idea. She clenched at the coat and tried to think of something more to say. He turned away again, then just as quickly walked back to her side. 

"I-" 

He was holding a tool out to her. It was a wrench? Maybe? She recalled the broad distinctions of tools that she must have learned somewhere, but not quite sure she could give an exact use for it. Tightening things at least, right?