Chapter Text
Beep…Beep…Beep
The sound of the alarm clock wakes Raelle from her sleep. She opens her eyes and blinks a couple times to realize that she’s in her room. She thinks back to the events that took place the day before. Her encounter with Scylla, the tears that they shared, the harsh and cruel words that she now regrets and the sorrowful cries that she heard as she left the cell. Those memories had haunted her in her sleep and had her tossing and turning all night. She knew her friends were worried for her but she didn’t know if she could tell them how she was feeling, they despised Scylla enough as it is.
She gets up from her bed and sees that her roommates are missing, probably having gone to eat breakfast already. She grabs her uniform and enters the bathroom. Half an hour later, she gets out of the bathroom feeling a little bit better and with her head clearer. She grabs her scourge and medal and goes to find her unit.
When she gets to her usual breakfast table, she sees that Tally and Abigail are sitting there and talking about their new training techniques.
“Hey guys, why didn’t you wake me this morning?” asked Raelle.
“We thought that you should get some more sleep, since you were up so late.” answered Tally looking at Raelle sympathetically.
“Right, well, thank you.” said Raelle while she scratched the back of her neck and looked at the ground shyly.
“C’mon sit down and have some breakfast, we have training in 20 minutes.” said Abigail after a while.
Raelle sat down next to Tally and started eating the food that the girls had grabbed for her. After finishing their food, they made their way to the training room, where Sergeant Quartermaine was already waiting for them. They took their positions and waited for her to begin the class.
“Good morning ladies, today we are going to learn how to put someone to sleep. For this you must have full control of your thoughts and emotions. This isn’t an easy task so stay focused. Now choose a partner and follow my instructions.” after Anacostia said this, the girls chose someone from other units.
Tally chose Glory, Abigail had to pair with Libba and Raelle was put together with Beth Treefine. Raelle didn’t know the girl much, but the last time they were paired for training, one of them ended up passed out and she didn’t feel like repeating that again.
“Alright, now take a deep breath and focus on your breathing. Don’t think about anything else. The seeds you must use are 27 and 52, these are below the range of human hearing so make sure you know them before using them.” warned Quartermaine before they started their training.
“Okay, well, do you want me to go first?” asked Raelle after seeing that her partner was just staring at her.
“Sure, that way Seargeant Quartermaine will be able to see what a failure you are.” answered the girl with a sickly-sweet smile on her face just as Anacostia came to a stand beside them.
“Whenever you want, ladies.” said the sergeant when she saw that neither of them was doing anything.
Raelle grabbed her partner’s hands and started humming the seeds. When she was halfway through with the exercise, memories of her and Scylla started to pass through her head; their first kiss, the first time they said “I love you”, Scylla’s disappearance and the pain Raelle felt when she found out the truth about Scylla’s intentions, and finally their last encounter. All these emotions made Raelle lose control and she ended up forming a big storm in the middle of the training room. The blonde could hear her unit and Anacostia were calling her name but it was like a distant echo, she was too focused on what she was feeling. Sergeant Quartermaine had to use her sleeping seed on Raelle before the blonde destroyed the whole room.
“Take her to your room and tell her to come meet me when she wakes up.” ordered Anacostia to Tally and Abigail. They picked a sleeping Raelle up and did as told.
Raelle woke up an hour later and saw that she was in her bed, again. She tried to get up but felt a little dizzy, so she laid back down. When she looked to her side, she saw that Tally and Abigail were sat in the brunette’s bed and were staring intently at her.
“Hello sunshine, how was your nap?” said Abigail sarcastically.
“What happened?” asked Raelle huskily.
“You passed out during training, we were doing the sleeping seeds and you lost control. Raelle, what’s going on? You never lost control like that before; we were really worried.” said Tally while looking worriedly at the blonde.
“Nothing, I just didn’t get much sleep last night, you know that.” said Raelle defensively while getting up from the bed.
“Yeah, we do. What we don’t know is what had you so worked up last night and today.” replied Abigail while raising her eyebrow and looking inquisitively at the blonde.
“Look, it’s nothing, okay? I’ve just had some things on my mind lately.” answered Raelle defensively while putting her uniform on.
“And does that nothing happen to be named Scylla?”, asked Abigail as she crossed her arms.
Raelle stopped what she was doing and looked at her unit that were staring at her worriedly.
“We know that whatever happened when you visited her last time was difficult for you. We’re not asking you to tell us what happened but we want to help you, and we can’t do that if you don’t trust us.” said Tally concerned for her sister’s state.
Raelle sat back down on the bed and looked at the ground defeated.
“I just…I said some things to her…really bad things that I knew were going to hurt her but I wanted her to feel the pain I did, I wanted her to feel as broken as I did. But now… I’m not sure if I made the right choice.” finally said Raelle to her sisters.
“Well, we can’t tell you if what you did was right or not. You just have to know if you’ll be able to live with the consequences of your acts.” said the brunette wisely to her sister.
After thinking for a while about what her sisters said she got up and hugged them “Thanks guys, you always know what to say to make me feel better.”
“You’re welcome, Rae. Oh, Anacostia said that you had to go to her office when you woke up” replied Tally.
“Well, that’s just great” said Raelle sarcastically.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure she just wants you to explain what happened in the training room.” Abigail tried to ease the blonde.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.” replied Raelle with a little nervousness in her voice.
Raelle made her way to Anacostia’s office soon after talking to her unit. Their speech did nothing to calm her nerves as she got closer to her destiny. It’s not that she was scared of her sergeant, she just didn’t want to tell her how she was feeling about Scylla, she didn’t want Anacostia to lecture her and tell her that she shouldn’t be feeling any remorse towards whatever she said to Scylla, that she deserved it. She agreed with Anacostia, kind of, but that didn’t mean that she could stop feeling this way, it was too difficult to remember the heart-broken girl’s face and not feel guilty about it. However, there was something she wasn’t ready to admit and that was her love for Scylla. That would hurt too much.
Sooner than she would’ve liked to, she was standing in front of Sergeant Quartermaine’s office.
“Well, here goes nothing.” she said as she knocked on the door.