Inception

Chapter 17: A Day to Stay in Bed

Lena didn't think she'd ever felt so ashamed in her life.

It didn't strike until after she'd woken up curled up on her brother's bed, which really hadn't been made for two adults. She'd looked at her brother's sleeping face and the bandages peeking up from his gown. He looked like he'd always had when she'd come in to wake him up for school. He really was alright.

And that's when the shame had hit her, hard and overwhelming.

She'd scuttled away from her brother's room like a cockroach from the light. She'd stuffed her mouth with a protein bar to stop the shaking and light-headedness, dressed, showered, peeled off the awful gauze from her face, then headed to the lab even though Cromwell hadn't sent the labs follow up tasks for the mission.

The lab was in a higher quarantine mode to stop the mixing of outside contaminates into the tests. This always happened when they got raw kaiju material not properly treated and sealed, like the cells they'd been observing the past few days. It meant this kaiju had something odd that couldn't wait, and a helpful part of her brain brought up a faint memory of the yoju having fully loaded reproductive organs. That was probably what they were looking into today. Thus, Lena had to scrub herself down in the room before, dress in extra protection, and get sprayed down by nozzles usually kept tucked away into the walls.

Cromwell looked surprised to see her through his goggles, but in his usual quiet way didn't comment on it. He did, however, go to the fridge to take out a bottle of whole milk to stuff into her hands, which she only then noticed were still shaking. Damn body. She'd eaten a protein bar, hadn't she? This meant she'd have to go back to the prep room and get all unarmored to drink it.

"Lena? We thought you'd be with your brother," said Yoji, whose head appeared from above a bulbous, organic mass on the table. His voice sounded muffled by the face mask.

"Is that the fungi yoju's reproductive organ?"

"Um, one of them...shouldn't you go drink that?"

Lena gave an exasperated sigh.

"I don't want to."

Cromwell gave her shoulder a nudge.

"Fine. Fine fine diddly fine." The goggles hurt the wounds on her face anyway.

Which was how Okinogi found Lena, sitting on a chair in her lab suit like a banana in it's pulled back peel with a bottle of milk.

Just looking at Okonogi's big glasses made Lena's shame increase to the intensity of lava. She remembered her screaming at her yesterday.

Okonogi opened her mouth, but Lena beat her to it.

"I'm sorry."

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Low on cash. Guess I should go back to ghostwriting.