Work Text:
The woman was sitting next to a large cube, hugging one leg close to her chest and stretching out the other one, when Samus found her.
She hadn’t quite known what to expect, really. From afar, that blue orb had just been an unidentified planet amongst many others, which meant the life that had formed there, if any, had yet to reach out to the Galactic Foundation; yet somehow, something on there had managed to send a distress signal. That would have been enough to pique anybody’s interest, let alone Samus’s.
She’d been between bounties at the time, and all too glad to go check out an anomaly that didn’t seem related to space pirates, or the Chozo, or yet another iteration of Mother Brain; in the blink of an eye, her ship had changed course, setting towards the source of that mysterious signal.
As it turned out, it was just a shack. An archaic arrangement of sheet metal, topped by an antenna, that stood out like a dirty white stain in the middle of an ocean of golden leaves. Wheat, her scanner had quickly shown her.
And sitting in front of that shack was a woman.
She raised her head at Samus’s approach. Samus knew that face all too well. Not the details, of course, but the broad strokes. Stretchy, fleshy skin, eyes sunken while the nose and lips protruded outwards, hair abundant on top of her head – tied up in the same rough way hers was – and sparse on the rest of her body. Garments made out of fabric. Bipedal. Opposable thumbs.
Human.
Samus didn’t dare compare herself to her, not when she was… whatever she was. Still, amongst the many faces she had seen throughout her travels across the universe, this was perhaps the one that most looked like hers.
She raised her hand in a casual, if clumsy, greeting. A sign that she came in peace.
Slowly, the woman in front of her raised that same hand in return.
The knot in Samus’s chest came undone, just the tiniest bit. She hadn’t even noticed it was there in the first place.
“Are you…” she tried to speak, but the voice that came out of her speakers sounded foreign to her ears. She didn’t usually have many opportunities to talk before shooting, after all. Still, she carried on. “Are you the one who sent that distress signal?”
The woman frowned. It was hard to tell if that was a “no” or simply a matter of not understanding her; no, looking at her longer, it was definitely the second option. Whatever the language she spoke was, it was not Samus’s mother tongue. She knew how to get by in some of the most common languages around the universe, and her helmet’s translation feature would cover the rest, but she had to know what language to set it to first. Thankfully, the stranger seemed to have come to that same conclusion, and so she braced one arm against her cube and stood up.
Then her hands started flying around.
Sign language, Samus quickly realised. Whether by choice or because she was unable to speak out loud. ADAM immediately zeroed in on the forms and motions she was making, analysing them frame by frame until its algorithm picked out its flow and its subtleties.
A match. This variety of sign language, or one similar to it, had been registered somewhere across the galaxy, into a database she could access, alongside a spoken language she could make use of.
She heaved a sigh of relief.
That made communication easier, at least. Though the technology was far from perfect, it worked fast, and soon the moves began translating into a sentence she could understand.
Who are you? she said. Why are you here?
“My name is Samus,” she said, and this time, the voice that escaped her speakers was different, yet somehow more familiar. It was ADAM’s voice. “I received a distress signal and came to help. Were you the one that sent it?”
Oddly enough, the woman frowned again. This wasn’t a comprehension issue this time: slowly, she began shaking her head before coming to a stop.
After a second, she nodded. It was me, she finally signed, eons too late to be fully convincing.
Samus almost missed the quick glance she sent backwards, at that sheet metal shack.
It was her turn to frown, but she didn’t inquire. Whatever that stranger was hiding, it didn’t seem like it was a threat to her, and she didn’t want to question her this soon into the conversation.
When she looked back at her, however, she noticed that her eyes were a little less red than they had been before.
“... What’s your name?” she finally asked when she saw that the other didn’t have anything to add to the conversation.
After a second of latency, the woman in front of her spelled out a name. C-H-E-L-L. Chell.
“Chell?” she repeated out loud.
The woman – Chell –’s eyes lit up as ADAM’s robotic voice spoke up, a little too bright. As though she hadn’t heard her own name in a long time.
Samus couldn’t help but smile in return, though she doubted Chell could see it behind her visor.
Still, she also couldn’t help but notice that Chell was… very calm for someone who had supposedly sent out a distress signal to anything that it could reach. Not to mention her earlier hesitation when she’d breached the subject. Something was amiss here, and if Chell wasn’t willing to address it, then Samus herself was going to have to sooner or later.
Not now. She could still play nice for now.
She looked a little closer at Chell. Now that she’d gotten the similarities between the two of them out of the way, she could see there were plenty of differences, too. The shape of their faces, of their noses, of their chins. Chell’s eyes were the same shade as hers, but her hair was much darker, and her ponytail wasn’t tied as high. Her arms, more than exposed on either sides of her tank top that had been dirtied with sweat, were odd – thin, not in an unfit way, but rather as though they had muscled up, atrophied, and just begun to regain their muscles.
She flexed her arm on instinct. Chell’s eyes followed her movement, before zeroing in on the cannon attached to its end.
She reached out to it before Samus could react. Had she been a more nervous person, she might have shot it there and then, assuming the worst of Chell’s intentions; but she didn’t. She held her breath and waited to see what she would do with it.
Not much, it turned out. She simply held it between her hands, looking at it from all angles, before scrunching up her face in reflection. Is that a… she began, her hands slowing down, as though looking for a word. She made a series of movements, looking more akin to mimes than signs, before sighing and spelling something out. P-O-R-T-A-L G-U-N.
“A portal gun?” Samus repeated out loud. Chell nodded enthusiastically; but it quickly fell when the answer came. “I… don’t know what that is. I’m afraid this is just a regular old power beam.”
Visibly dejected, Chell turned towards that shack again, towards that door that had remained closed throughout their conversation. Was she looking for a way in? Hard to tell; her hand hovered a few feet away from the door, as though she knew it would not open for her. Samus doubted blasting it away would make her much happier.
Finally, she decided to stop beating around the bush.
“Look, did you or did you not send that distress signal? And if so, what for?”
Straight to the point, no room left for ambiguity. Her words made Chell twitch. She looked around her, first at the door, then at the cube, as though it might speak up for her. But it remained stoic, and she could only sigh before turning back to Samus.
I did not call for help, she signed, her movements hesitant, but I believe someone may have done it for me. She paused, then added, slowly, I think… you were meant to pick me up. Take me away from here.
Samus had figured that might be the case. That was what most distress signals turned out to be after all: rescue missions, extraction missions. Voices calling out, “I am stranded and alone. Please come pick me up.”
Chell’s situation was an odd one, for sure, but though there were no ships or space pirates in sight, she wasn’t any less stranded. Standing alone in the middle of a golden ocean, no civilisation in sight but the shack she was kept out of. One might wonder how she had made it here, to the middle of this field that remained untrampled, unperturbed. If she had not come from outside, she had to have come from within; if she was left alone outside, how long would she survive? Days? Weeks? Likely not months. The climate, Samus’s analysis told her, would not be so merciful at night. Would that door open to her then? Would she find a place of reprieve?
It did not take a genius to read into Chell’s expression, to decipher the despair settling onto her face.
She was fated to die out here.
“... Do you know where you might go?” Samus asked after a moment of silence.
Chell shook her head.
My cage opened just moments ago, she signed with a self-deprecating smile. I just found out how far the horizon could reach. How could I know about the skies?
As she spoke, she knelt down next to her cube, as though to pick it up; but her hold was closer to a hug. Only then did Samus notice the pink heart drawn at the center of each of its faces, hidden underneath the soot and grime.
She did not say anything, but Chell explained herself nonetheless. A friend. She paused, then corrected, A gift from a friend. Another pause. She looked unsure of herself, but she did not issue a third correction. She looked tired, Samus thought. Perhaps she’d looked tired all along.
Was that friend the one who had sent out that distress signal? Samus didn’t dare pry. “I can take you to the Galactic Federation,” she said instead. “It wouldn’t be their first time handling a space rescue. Once we’re there, they’ll take care of you, maybe find you a job or rehabilitate you on another planet in their solar system.” Standard procedure would have her acting as her own planet’s ambassador, but if, as Samus suspected, she’d just come out of that shack, then she was hardly qualified to represent the rest of the planet. No matter what, it would be the safest place for her to be – perhaps the only one, too.
Chell seemed to struggle to register half of the words she said, but she slowly nodded. That would be… thank you. Her expression was hard to place, especially as she nuzzled her head closer to the cube, staining her cheeks with soot.
Samus’s lips pursed. Leaving the shack had likely been a great sacrifice for Chell to make; now, she was about to fly her out, into a whole new galaxy. How much of it was she processing? How much more would she have to endure? How much more would she be able to?
I will come along, Chell finally signed, her eyes unfocused even as her hands moved around. But first, I would like a little more time alone. Would that be alright with you?
Samus nodded. That was the least she could do. “Sure. I’ll be doing some maintenance on the ship; you can come to me once you’re ready.”
Chell’s dirtied face giving her a nod back was the last thing she saw before turning around. Though her ship was hardly in need of repairs, she kept her word and busied herself with its hull, searching intently for the tiniest notch, the smallest anomaly she could find.
She did not look back at the shack.
But she could hardly ignore the banging. Could hardly tune out the sound of fists smashing against metal, of feet kicking an unmoving enemy. Of a weight, pulled off the ground, smashing against a door yet landing back without making so much as a scratch.
Traitorous, the wind carried muffled sobs with it.
It carried a song, too. One Samus knew wasn’t meant for her ears.
Finally, after a long, long time, enough for Samus to circle her entire ship multiple times and wield the same result every single one, she heard footsteps making their way to her through the field.
Despite the streaks of clear skin visible amidst the grime, Chell was smiling. Painfully, wretchedly smiling.
I’m ready to go, she signed, visibly encumbered by the shape she was carrying underneath her arm.
Samus smiled back. “Let’s go, then.”