Futuristic Uknown Crisis: Intermission

As it turns out, getting blown to shit by a Jiian shock trooper is not the worst fate possible.

It’s intergalactic customs.

He gets held an extra half hour longer than everyone else on his flight, courtesy of his Paradiso ID listing his dead name and gender and his NASA ID listing his actual name and gender, and additionally gets flagged for carrying a weapon he’s licensed to carry under four different permits, including by NASA, who owns the fucking station, that is under his actual name. He’s just about ready to get double-arrested for assaulting an officer because, no, his NASA ID isn’t forged, his home system’s government is just transphobic, and yes, he is authorized to carry this weapon, when he is saved by the metaphorical bell; the customs officer’s dumbass, high tech, walkie-talkie bullshit earpiece buzzes a little tune, and he excuses himself to answer it.

Elias pulls petulantly at the cuffs holding his hands to the table, tempted to do some impressive contortion moves to get his boot in reach of his bound hands to get the lockpick kit he’s got stashed there, but knows Eppie will end up with no bodyguard and a dead brother if he even dares. Also, Angelica Cross would probably astral project to the afterlife to kick his ass, a concept as horrifying as it is plausible when one knows the magic his mother is capable of. He kind of wishes he could transfer a message to her, because if there is anyone capable of sorting out this mess, it’s Angelica Goddamned Cross.

The cop returns, a rather sour expression on his face of a grown man that just got the chewing out of his life, before he unlocks the handcuffs, “We ran an additional background and it checks out. You’re free to go. Your luggage is outside.”

Elias stands, but not even military training is enough to hold his tongue, and he hisses under his breath as he passes by the godforsaken officer, “C’est qu’est-ce je t’ai dit, intutile putain de merde, va t’faire encouler,” He throws the door to the interrogation room with perhaps a little too much force than what is necessary, but it feels satisfying to hear it slam against the wall.

He limps to the front foyer, the excessive amount of sitting in a cramped shuttle triggering the pain that linger in his right knee since his injury. Spotting his luggage at the front desk, his cane leaning against edge, he heads over, grabbing his large duffle bag and swinging it over his shoulder, taking the cane. The cane was almost obsolete to him, as his mother even cleared him for active duty prior to shipping him off, but it took pressure off his leg when he endured the worst of his pain, and it doubled as a weapon if the situation called for it. Plus, it looked pretty kickass.

Eli heads out the doors to the customs office and into the Arrivals lobby, scanning the crowd for Eppie. She is remarkably easy to spot, despite being shorter than everyone in the area - the sole exception being an actual, literal child - with her pale pink hair, holding a bristol board that says Congrats on completing rehab, Elias! in her arms. She looks up from a holo as he approaches, and he can’t help the smile that cracks his glower as she lights up like a Christmas tree.

“Looks who is back from the dead!” She crows, holding the sign aloft like a trophy of victory before she unceremoniously throws it on the ground to hug him. He picks her right off her feet in the embrace, hugging her tightly despite the way it pains both his chest and leg to do so. When he puts her back down on her feet, she puts one of her hands on his shoulder, “Did customs hold you up again?”

“Yes,” He growls, running a hand through his hair, but shakes off his frustration best he can, “I’m going to pretend it was my stellar personality that got me out rather than you ripping the cop a new asshole for detaining me.”

Eppie bats her eyelashes innocently, “Why, Eli, I would never do a thing like that.”

“You’re Angie’s daughter - of course you would.”

“Touché! Hey, let me take your bag,” She notices the cane as she reaches for the bag, a flicker of concern in her eyes as they look back to him, though it is just as quickly swept away by a mask of nonchalance, “You know, for you to have this job, you do need to be cleared for combat.”

“And I am - my leg just bugs me if I don’t stretch every once in a while it, and it’s easier to walk on it with the cane if I can’t,” Knowing it is beyond pointless to argue with Euphie, Eli hands over the bag to her waiting hands, watching her shoulder the heavy weight with a surprising amount of ease. When Eppie gives him her ‘you’re full of shit’ look, he sighs, “Mom was the doctor who cleared me for combat, Epps. Do you really think she would even consider it if she didn’t think I would be okay?”

Eppie purses her lips, then shrugs,“True. I still you should’ve gotten the whole thing lobbed off and joined the Cross Cyborg Squad. Dad would’ve shown you all the tricks with the new leg.”

“Next time I run into a Jiian shock trooper, I’ll be sure to request they just fucking rip my entire leg off instead of just crippling me.”

“Well, I mean Goody would probably be more than happy to help you with that if you ask him real nice.”

Elias snorts, then retorts, “You said yourself he is a softie. For fuck’s sake; Euphie; you didn’t even know he was a Jiian rescue until a couple of days ago.”

Eppie throws her hands up in surrender, “Listen, you’ll understand why when you meet him. He is a big, wholesome boy who has done nothing wrong in his entire life. The boy sometimes has fucking stickers on his face, Elias. Stickers,” She shakes her head, putting a hand on his shoulder to guide him to start walking, picking up her sign as she passes by it , “But real talk, if your knee starts really bothering you, we can fix it up on the ship. I mean, we just got a geneticist on the team, and she grew whole new limbs on Miranda. I’m sure she could hook you up and make you good as new.”

“That’s Miranda’s sister, right? Altis?”

“So you do listen to me when I talk.”

“I either listen to you gushing about the cute girls you’re into-” Elias grins as he notices Eppe’s cheeks burst into colour, “-or I get to listen to mom and dad debating their topic of the day.”

“Speaking of dad, your voice is tripping me out. If you had a bit of a Russian accent, you’d sound just like him.”

Eli drops his voice an octave to replicate the distinctive, accented, deep tenor of Samuel Cross, “Euphemia, was you that drank last of my vodka?”

Eppie pales, then smacks Eli in the arm as he cackles, “That is so not funny! Dad almost kicked my ass for stealing that!”

“Man, I’m so glad you pointed this out - the possibilities are endless.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself. Terrifying impressions aside-” She snaps with a roll of her eyes, then shifts to hold something out to him. Raising an eyebrow, he takes the small item and unfolds it to discover it’s a t-shirt. He holds it out to read ‘Team Nine Doesn’t Suck’ and looks at Eppie, eyebrow raising even further. She unzips her sweater and proudly displays a matching t-shirt, looking at him with an expectant grin.

Elias deadpans, “The whole team has matching shirts, don’t they?” Her grin just grows wider, which just makes him sigh as he hands her his cane to pull it over his head. He strikes a lackluster pose to satisfy Eppie, “Happy?”

“Estatic,” She chirps as she hands him back his cane, continuing through the docking bay and through the crowds of people towards their ship. Eppie chats away, as she often does, and Elias listens quietly, as he often does, sometimes adding commentary but usually just listening to her chatter about the crew or a past mission or anything that pops into her pink head. He watches her expression carefully, her body language, a question he’s had gnawing at his head since Eppie’s open invitation to NASA at the forefront of my mind.

“Eppie,” Elias asks, when she is between two stories, “Why am I here?”

Eppie’s expression tightens to a very slight extent - anyone who didn’t grow up with her would miss it, but Elias doesn’t - before she feigns confusion to his meaning, “What do you mean? You’re here to be my bodyguard on missions. I mean, sometimes the security team can’t be with me on a mission and I’m useless with a gun-“

“Euphemia,” Eli interrupts gently as he takes her by the arm and forces her to stop walking, though his very rare use of her full name is enough to make her rambling grind to a halt and staggering her stride as she looks at him with wide eyes, “We both know that this is not what that is about.”

He says nothing else, doesn’t elaborate at all; he simply looks down at his older sister as he waits for her answer. Nervously running a hand through her hair, Eppie shifts uncomfortably foot to foot, looking everywhere but his face. It takes almost a full minute of squirming and fidgeting for her to answer, “I had a really bad panic attack in front of the crew. Like… Everyone. The whole team, except for the newbies who weren’t there yet.”

Eli nods, but prompts her further, “You’ve had attacks before, Euphie. Why was this different?”

“I just… I don’t know. I’m just really not doing any better? I’ve been taking my meds every night now, I still do my video calls with Dr. Beatriz every other galatic tuesday, but on Ferav? I had a complete meltdown after the mines. It took me three hours to be mentally stable enough for Donny to clear me to rest in my room. And no one blames me or is holding it against me as being unfit but-” She waves her hands uselessly as she speaks, her extreme as openly pained as Eppie would ever allow herself to show, “For fuck’s sake, Eli - I live on a goddamned space ship. The idea of getting into a shuttle makes me want to crawl out of my skin and I have to get in one every single fucking mission.

“But listen to me talk to you about this,” She says with the most pained laugh he’s ever heard, “You’ve gone through worse than a little anxiety - fuck, you got blown up, and I’m complaining about going on a little spacewalk.”

Elias shakes his head, taking her by the shoulders, “I wasn’t clinically dead for over five minutes, Euphie,” She doesn’t say anything to that, focused intently on the ground, so Elias just continues, “It is a literal miracle that you even survived. You should be fucking brain dead. I think the only person who fails to see the severity of what happened to you is you. We all have our scars - if you think I don’t shit my pants whenever I hear fireworks or loud bangs, you’d be wrong - but scars heal over. One day, it will stop being so raw. I do think that you are likely always going to carry this with you, but do I think it will hold you back? No, I don’t. Because you still went into the mine, you still get into the shuttle, you still live on a spaceship. Maybe you need a little more support right now, but you won’t always. You will get better - this shit just takes a while to stop hurting.”

When she doesn’t look up from her feet, Elias pokes her forehead to tilt her head back until she looks at him, “You will get better. You will be okay. But like I’ve been telling you since forever, being vulnerable and admitting you’re not doing well is okay. Shit happens. You seem tight with basically everyone in the crew, and I’m positive they’re all more than happy to try and help you get through this. Okay?”

Eppie looks a little misty-eyed, but she nods regardless, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. He releases her, and she steps back, speaking with a bravado and nonchalance that is both typical of her when she is trying to get over a vulnerable moment, and occasionally infuriating, because she uses it to avoid the vulnerability in the first place, “Well, anyway, I’m excited for you to meet everyone. I didn’t actually tell any of them - besides Commander Hekkiah - that you were coming on board, so I had to do all of the paper work for you that Donny usually takes care of to get you on board.”

As they pass by some guards, Eppie just waves to them, smiling in the sort of way that tends to disarm people. Elias almost tears out his eyes at the way they just fucking let them through, no IDs requested or questions asked, but he supposes there are perks to having a massive social media following - everyone and their cat recognizes you as Eppie Cross, xenoanthropologist extraordinaire and the alt girl from that NASA UCC team. They walk together to the airlock, Eppie enters in the code to get inside and the doors open with a swish and hiss of hydraulics.