"We didn't just run out of penicillin," Cottle volunteered.
Laura crossed her arms defensively and waited.
"Last week I gave you the last of the diloxin."
Laura's eyes widened. Diloxin was supposed to keep her alive. He had said so. Her hand ran through her hair. This morning even more had stayed behind on her cushion. She tried to shake off the scrunch of dread, the sudden focus on the most personal of threats. The sinking certainty that she'd just been given her death sentence remained. No diloxin. No hope.
How much time do I have?
"When were you gonna tell me this?" Indignant.
He eyed her impotently, before averting his eyes, and she realized she'd come by for her diloxin treatment an hour ago. His timing!
He shrugged mutely in response to her disbelieving stare. Tears had formed dark stains on his undershirt where it stretched over his protruding belly. The camel's back.
"That's not a good enough reason," she implored. "There's always - "
Hope, she'd wanted to say hope, but she couldn't force the word out of her. The message he had tried to convey in the past hour finally hit home, leaving her no energy to fight his decision. She stared at him powerlessly.
She didn't know who made the first move, but her arms wrapped themselves around his bulk and she hugged him. She felt tremors run through him as if the mount-up tension tried to escape all at once, toppling over itself in a struggle to leave his body. He clung to her, shuddering. She rubbed his arms, his head, his back, muttering soothing nothings, while all the time her mind sang that one song: No diloxin, no diloxin, no diloxin.
Maybe he was right, maybe a swift ending was better than protracted suffering.
Suddenly she was very tired.
YOU ARE READING
The Airlock
FanfictionCottle was one of the few people who appeared to be unaffected by the war. His unflappable discourtesy negated the Cylon threat, dismissing it as irrelevant, and patients drew strength from it. Laura knew she did. A weeping Cottle was disturbing o...
