FIC: Believe (Aliens)
yuletide ficathon: @dhaunea requested fix-it fic, where not everyone dies and/or AU where things unfold in Aliens a bit differently (and maybe more people survive).
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: Five deaths that never happened.
RATING: R
CLASSIFICATIONS: Ripley
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
NOTES: Unbeta'd.
WORDS: 1,792
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; October 2015.
Believe by anr
so open up my eyes
tell me I'm alive
Timmy
It takes some hot chocolate, a warm wet cloth, and some non-threatening conversation, but eventually Ripley gets the girl -- Rebecca, Newt -- to start talking.
"What about your brother? What's his name?"
"Timmy."
"Is Timmy around here too? Maybe... hiding like you were?"
Newt says nothing but something in the way her eyes dart to the side...
Ripley pushes a little harder. "Newt, look at me," she says, lifting the girl's chin until she meets her gaze. "Where is he?"
-
Like his sister, Timmy is found hiding, mute distrust radiating from him in waves and his flight reflex in full gear.
Unlike his sister, he attempts to stab Gorman with a knife when the Lieutenant orders him to answer his questions, bites Dietrich on the arm when she tries to check him out, and refuses to respond to Ripley's overtures of friendship.
Ripley doesn't take any offence. She gets it.
Hot chocolate has never made her feel any safer, either.
-
The kids handle the loss of the marines, and the dropship and APC crash, better than some of the others. While she holds a metal plate steady for Hicks to weld, Ripley watches Newt help Burke carry supplies to Medical, watches Timmy follow Vasquez. Somewhere between the crash site and now, he's fixated on the Private, his stance mimicking hers so closely he's almost her shadow.
(He's even managed to find a strip of fabric somewhere, tying it around his forehead like a bandana. She'd probably smile at the sight if she had the energy for it.)
"For what it's worth," says Hicks, flicking off the welder's flame.
Nodding, Ripley moves to check the printout of the floor plan Hudson gave her only to start as Timmy appears suddenly in front of them. (The kids move so damn quietly sometimes.)
"Vents," he says.
Hicks blinks. Ripley stares. Did he just...
Timmy nods upwards. "One above the ceiling here." He turns and points down the corridor. "Another one below the floor outside Control." He pokes the paper in her hands with the tip of a knife. "Not on the plans."
Vasquez exits the control room and heads down the corridor. Without another word, Timmy turns and falls into step behind her.
Hicks and Ripley watch him go, stunned. It's been hours since they found him, hiding in the kitchen with a handful of ration packs stuffed under his shirt and a kitchen knife in hand, and not once has he said a single word to any of them. Not one.
Hicks breaks their silence. "Who the fuck gave him another knife?!"
-
Thirty minutes to cover the new vents; a few hours of waiting for Bishop to bring down the Sulacco's other dropship.
Their defences hold.
Spunkmeyer & Ferro
The dropship has only just come into view when it suddenly goes vertical, thrusters firing as it rapidly heads straight up and away from the planet.
Shouting, Hudson drops his end of Gorman's stretcher and starts waving his pulse rifle above his head like he can signal them back down again. Beside her, a little more composed and rational, Hicks thumbs his radio.
"Ferro, copy?"
Static blasts back for a second before the pilot's voice sounds over the comms, strained and breathless. "-- cking stowaway onboard; standby!"
The dropship vanishes through the clouds.
-
Spunkmeyer swears it's gone, that it dropped like a fucking stone, tumbling straight down the ramp the moment 'ship went skyward after he sounded the alarm, but Ripley's lived this nightmare before.
[the alien unfurling from its nest of tangled wiring and cabling on the Nostromo's lifeboat]
"Ripley, c'mon!"
Swallowing the bile surging up her throat with difficulty, she lets Newt pull her forward, one hesitant step onto the ramp. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, almost drowning out the roar of the engines. What if...
Hicks appears in front of her, his expression a grim, strained smile that's probably meant to reassure her. It doesn't.
"It's okay," he promises though. "We're clear. We checked."
Behind him she can see Hudson and Burke securing Gorman's stretcher; Vasquez and Spunkmeyer tying down the gear they've salvaged from the APC. Spunkmeyer can't stop talking about the alien and how big it was, how he knew something was up the moment he went to close the ramp, how he managed to tangle himself in some cargo webbing when Ferro took the 'ship vertical...
None of them are actively watching their trackers.
"Ripley..." says Newt again, tugging on her arm.
Ripley meets Hicks' stare.
"Okay," she says softly, slowly. She clears her throat and straightens. "Let's go home."
She follows him and Newt up the ramp.
-
One brief, breath-holding pause while they collect Bishop and then they're accelerating into orbit, full throttle as blue fades to black.
From the corner of her eye, she sees one of the cargo straps securing the rear ammunition crates float free as they break clear of the planet's atmosphere, black nylon coiling in the zero g like an alien tail.
Ripley closes her eyes.
Hudson
Hudson falls back with a constant stream of profanity, his pulse rifle spraying bullets with every shit, fuck and bitch. Ripley finds it comforting, almost.
While Vasquez welds the door they've just come through, and Ripley pounds on the door opposite for Burke, Hudson paces nervously on the spot, his pulse rifle swinging between the two doors and his mouth running a mile a minute.
"Faster, faster, c'mon. Oh, man, they fucking had me, you know? Totally had me. Under the fucking floor, can you believe it? Felt it start to bounce and I just jumped -- fucking high jump fucking star of a -- and then one, two, fucking thank you ma'am, 30mm grenades right down where I'd been standing and --"
"Ripley!" says Newt, tugging on her arm and pulling her towards a nearby grille, "this way!"
-
She tries to keep track of where everyone is as they scramble through the ducts but Newt's in her element, running faster and easier than the rest of them can manage.
"Newt! Wait!"
She hears a snatch of Hicks' conversation with Bishop, hears a string of curses from Hudson, and tries to pause at the next intersection for them to catch up.
"Hicks! Hudson!" Down the shaft, Newt is disappearing around another corner. "Newt!"
Adjusting the pulse rifle slung over her shoulder, she chases after Newt.
-
Hicks and Hudson catch up to them, and she and Newt have just started to climb the ladder up to the roof when an explosion rocks the airway. As the blast wave hits, Newt loses her grip and falls, screaming.
"Newt!" Ripley shouts, reaching fruitlessly after her. "Hudson! Get her!"
Quicker than she would have thought, he's got a fistful of Newt's clothing and is yanking her up and clear of the fan. "Fuck, kid. Watch out!"
Throwing her over his shoulder, he steps across the vent and gives Ripley a shove to get her moving again.
-
At the landing field, Hicks and Hudson watch their six while Bishop brings down the dropship.
Holding Newt's hand tightly, Ripley watches the 'ship's landing lights pierce the night sky and feels, for the first time in a very long time, a small glimmer of hope.
"Fucking A," says Hudson, relief coating his voice, as the sound of the approaching engines peaks briefly above the storm.
Ripley knows just how he feels.
Amy
Amy looks like her grandmother did, like Ripley herself might in another twenty or thirty years, and while those familiarities help, Ripley still finds it almost impossible to reconcile her daughter's face with the little girl she once knew.
Fifty-seven goddamn years.
If she could, she'd destroy Ash all over again, circuit by fucking circuit.
-
The company approves her papers to Earth willingly enough, even organising a unit for her to live in close to Amy's. Ripley knows they're just glad to be rid of her, and quietly at that, after her outbursts at the inquest, but that's okay. They can sweep her testimony under as many rugs as they want for now -- she has more important things to concern herself with.
Things like getting to know her daughter again after a lifetime apart. Enjoying the feel of sunshine on her face. Breathing in raw, non-canned Earth-air. Learning how to drive the forklifts and loaders at the local cargo docks (the only work she could get), how to not flinch every time she hears Jones hiss at the TV, and how to sleep without nightmares.
(Those last two are still works in progress.)
-
Her ICC psychiatric tech suggests that the best way to treat her nightmares is to face her fears, acknowledgment leading to acceptance, etcetera etcetera. Ripley listens to this nugget of wisdom and wants to reply with a very succinct 'fuck off' but instead simply points out that Wisconsin is a little far from Gateway to be making any spacewalks anytime soon.
Amy suggests she get her prescription for sleep med's filled. And take them.
She sees the Administration's commercials late at night sometimes, Building Better Worlds, and tries not to hear Van Leuwen's parting words: Sixty, maybe seventy families. Do you mind?
It's a good question. She tries not to.
-
Amy's nose still scrunches up right before she tells a lie.
And she still has the teddy bear she had as a baby -- Mr Fur.
And her favourite joke is still the one about the talking cornbread.
Of all the things Ripley's learning about her daughter's life, she treasures these the most.
-
She takes her sleep meds.
They help.
-
Three weeks after her life has slowly started to find some semblance of normality, she's getting ready to head out and meet Amy for lunch when her phone buzzes, Burke and some soldier appearing on the viewscreen.
"Hiya Ripley," Burke says. "This is Lieutenant Gorman with the Colonial Marine Corps --"
If she learnt nothing else during those final hours on the Nostromo, it was to trust her instincts.
Hitting disconnect before Burke can say another word, she grabs her jacket and heads for the door.
(Weyland-Yutani is not her problem, not anymore. They made sure of that when they fed her to the wolves in that goddamn farce of a hearing so, whatever it is they wanted? Well, they'll just have to manage without her.)
Pulling the door shut behind her, she walks out into the sunshine.
-
Inside, her phone buzzes again.
The End
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: Five deaths that never happened.
RATING: R
CLASSIFICATIONS: Ripley
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
NOTES: Unbeta'd.
WORDS: 1,792
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; October 2015.
Believe by anr
so open up my eyes
tell me I'm alive
Timmy
It takes some hot chocolate, a warm wet cloth, and some non-threatening conversation, but eventually Ripley gets the girl -- Rebecca, Newt -- to start talking.
"What about your brother? What's his name?"
"Timmy."
"Is Timmy around here too? Maybe... hiding like you were?"
Newt says nothing but something in the way her eyes dart to the side...
Ripley pushes a little harder. "Newt, look at me," she says, lifting the girl's chin until she meets her gaze. "Where is he?"
-
Like his sister, Timmy is found hiding, mute distrust radiating from him in waves and his flight reflex in full gear.
Unlike his sister, he attempts to stab Gorman with a knife when the Lieutenant orders him to answer his questions, bites Dietrich on the arm when she tries to check him out, and refuses to respond to Ripley's overtures of friendship.
Ripley doesn't take any offence. She gets it.
Hot chocolate has never made her feel any safer, either.
-
The kids handle the loss of the marines, and the dropship and APC crash, better than some of the others. While she holds a metal plate steady for Hicks to weld, Ripley watches Newt help Burke carry supplies to Medical, watches Timmy follow Vasquez. Somewhere between the crash site and now, he's fixated on the Private, his stance mimicking hers so closely he's almost her shadow.
(He's even managed to find a strip of fabric somewhere, tying it around his forehead like a bandana. She'd probably smile at the sight if she had the energy for it.)
"For what it's worth," says Hicks, flicking off the welder's flame.
Nodding, Ripley moves to check the printout of the floor plan Hudson gave her only to start as Timmy appears suddenly in front of them. (The kids move so damn quietly sometimes.)
"Vents," he says.
Hicks blinks. Ripley stares. Did he just...
Timmy nods upwards. "One above the ceiling here." He turns and points down the corridor. "Another one below the floor outside Control." He pokes the paper in her hands with the tip of a knife. "Not on the plans."
Vasquez exits the control room and heads down the corridor. Without another word, Timmy turns and falls into step behind her.
Hicks and Ripley watch him go, stunned. It's been hours since they found him, hiding in the kitchen with a handful of ration packs stuffed under his shirt and a kitchen knife in hand, and not once has he said a single word to any of them. Not one.
Hicks breaks their silence. "Who the fuck gave him another knife?!"
-
Thirty minutes to cover the new vents; a few hours of waiting for Bishop to bring down the Sulacco's other dropship.
Their defences hold.
Spunkmeyer & Ferro
The dropship has only just come into view when it suddenly goes vertical, thrusters firing as it rapidly heads straight up and away from the planet.
Shouting, Hudson drops his end of Gorman's stretcher and starts waving his pulse rifle above his head like he can signal them back down again. Beside her, a little more composed and rational, Hicks thumbs his radio.
"Ferro, copy?"
Static blasts back for a second before the pilot's voice sounds over the comms, strained and breathless. "-- cking stowaway onboard; standby!"
The dropship vanishes through the clouds.
-
Spunkmeyer swears it's gone, that it dropped like a fucking stone, tumbling straight down the ramp the moment 'ship went skyward after he sounded the alarm, but Ripley's lived this nightmare before.
[the alien unfurling from its nest of tangled wiring and cabling on the Nostromo's lifeboat]
"Ripley, c'mon!"
Swallowing the bile surging up her throat with difficulty, she lets Newt pull her forward, one hesitant step onto the ramp. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, almost drowning out the roar of the engines. What if...
Hicks appears in front of her, his expression a grim, strained smile that's probably meant to reassure her. It doesn't.
"It's okay," he promises though. "We're clear. We checked."
Behind him she can see Hudson and Burke securing Gorman's stretcher; Vasquez and Spunkmeyer tying down the gear they've salvaged from the APC. Spunkmeyer can't stop talking about the alien and how big it was, how he knew something was up the moment he went to close the ramp, how he managed to tangle himself in some cargo webbing when Ferro took the 'ship vertical...
None of them are actively watching their trackers.
"Ripley..." says Newt again, tugging on her arm.
Ripley meets Hicks' stare.
"Okay," she says softly, slowly. She clears her throat and straightens. "Let's go home."
She follows him and Newt up the ramp.
-
One brief, breath-holding pause while they collect Bishop and then they're accelerating into orbit, full throttle as blue fades to black.
From the corner of her eye, she sees one of the cargo straps securing the rear ammunition crates float free as they break clear of the planet's atmosphere, black nylon coiling in the zero g like an alien tail.
Ripley closes her eyes.
Hudson
Hudson falls back with a constant stream of profanity, his pulse rifle spraying bullets with every shit, fuck and bitch. Ripley finds it comforting, almost.
While Vasquez welds the door they've just come through, and Ripley pounds on the door opposite for Burke, Hudson paces nervously on the spot, his pulse rifle swinging between the two doors and his mouth running a mile a minute.
"Faster, faster, c'mon. Oh, man, they fucking had me, you know? Totally had me. Under the fucking floor, can you believe it? Felt it start to bounce and I just jumped -- fucking high jump fucking star of a -- and then one, two, fucking thank you ma'am, 30mm grenades right down where I'd been standing and --"
"Ripley!" says Newt, tugging on her arm and pulling her towards a nearby grille, "this way!"
-
She tries to keep track of where everyone is as they scramble through the ducts but Newt's in her element, running faster and easier than the rest of them can manage.
"Newt! Wait!"
She hears a snatch of Hicks' conversation with Bishop, hears a string of curses from Hudson, and tries to pause at the next intersection for them to catch up.
"Hicks! Hudson!" Down the shaft, Newt is disappearing around another corner. "Newt!"
Adjusting the pulse rifle slung over her shoulder, she chases after Newt.
-
Hicks and Hudson catch up to them, and she and Newt have just started to climb the ladder up to the roof when an explosion rocks the airway. As the blast wave hits, Newt loses her grip and falls, screaming.
"Newt!" Ripley shouts, reaching fruitlessly after her. "Hudson! Get her!"
Quicker than she would have thought, he's got a fistful of Newt's clothing and is yanking her up and clear of the fan. "Fuck, kid. Watch out!"
Throwing her over his shoulder, he steps across the vent and gives Ripley a shove to get her moving again.
-
At the landing field, Hicks and Hudson watch their six while Bishop brings down the dropship.
Holding Newt's hand tightly, Ripley watches the 'ship's landing lights pierce the night sky and feels, for the first time in a very long time, a small glimmer of hope.
"Fucking A," says Hudson, relief coating his voice, as the sound of the approaching engines peaks briefly above the storm.
Ripley knows just how he feels.
Amy
Amy looks like her grandmother did, like Ripley herself might in another twenty or thirty years, and while those familiarities help, Ripley still finds it almost impossible to reconcile her daughter's face with the little girl she once knew.
Fifty-seven goddamn years.
If she could, she'd destroy Ash all over again, circuit by fucking circuit.
-
The company approves her papers to Earth willingly enough, even organising a unit for her to live in close to Amy's. Ripley knows they're just glad to be rid of her, and quietly at that, after her outbursts at the inquest, but that's okay. They can sweep her testimony under as many rugs as they want for now -- she has more important things to concern herself with.
Things like getting to know her daughter again after a lifetime apart. Enjoying the feel of sunshine on her face. Breathing in raw, non-canned Earth-air. Learning how to drive the forklifts and loaders at the local cargo docks (the only work she could get), how to not flinch every time she hears Jones hiss at the TV, and how to sleep without nightmares.
(Those last two are still works in progress.)
-
Her ICC psychiatric tech suggests that the best way to treat her nightmares is to face her fears, acknowledgment leading to acceptance, etcetera etcetera. Ripley listens to this nugget of wisdom and wants to reply with a very succinct 'fuck off' but instead simply points out that Wisconsin is a little far from Gateway to be making any spacewalks anytime soon.
Amy suggests she get her prescription for sleep med's filled. And take them.
She sees the Administration's commercials late at night sometimes, Building Better Worlds, and tries not to hear Van Leuwen's parting words: Sixty, maybe seventy families. Do you mind?
It's a good question. She tries not to.
-
Amy's nose still scrunches up right before she tells a lie.
And she still has the teddy bear she had as a baby -- Mr Fur.
And her favourite joke is still the one about the talking cornbread.
Of all the things Ripley's learning about her daughter's life, she treasures these the most.
-
She takes her sleep meds.
They help.
-
Three weeks after her life has slowly started to find some semblance of normality, she's getting ready to head out and meet Amy for lunch when her phone buzzes, Burke and some soldier appearing on the viewscreen.
"Hiya Ripley," Burke says. "This is Lieutenant Gorman with the Colonial Marine Corps --"
If she learnt nothing else during those final hours on the Nostromo, it was to trust her instincts.
Hitting disconnect before Burke can say another word, she grabs her jacket and heads for the door.
(Weyland-Yutani is not her problem, not anymore. They made sure of that when they fed her to the wolves in that goddamn farce of a hearing so, whatever it is they wanted? Well, they'll just have to manage without her.)
Pulling the door shut behind her, she walks out into the sunshine.
-
Inside, her phone buzzes again.
The End
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*