Episode Three, Part 4:
Fragile

All I do is get over you,
and I'm still so bad at it. 

Elara stirred, slowly returning to consciousness in a groggy, exhausted state. She tried to figure out where she was, even before her eyes opened; she could feel that she was laying down and that her shoulder was stiff and achy from where the drug had gone into her and, most noticeable of all, someone was dabbing a cold, damp material on the inside of her elbow.

She forced her eyes open, desperate to know what was happening to her and immediately panicking when she saw a guard standing over her with a needle. It brought back traumatic memories of the numerous times she woke up in Blood Riders' labs to find Rhea or her father hovering beside her, ready to inject her with another round of the serum.

"Get away from me!" She snapped, trying to push herself off the bed, but her wrists were bound down. She knew she had no chance of escaping, but it didn't stop her from squirming nonetheless, hoping to show her reluctance and lack of cooperation to the guard.

"You're okay," Ammon assured her, pulling the cotton ball that was drenched in alcohol away from her arm, but not flinching at her outburst. He was calm and seemed prepared for her yelling, not taking anything to heart.

"What were you doing to me? Where is everyone?"

"This is an IV," Ammon told her, bringing up the needle he had had in his hands so she could see it clearly. "I had to give you a sedation in the mess hall and now I need to give you this so you don't become dehydrated," he said.

"I don't want it," Elara looked away. She would have folded her arms if she could.

Ammon chuckled underneath his helmet. "I don't want to force it into you, but I really think you should let me do it. It'll make you feel better faster and I'm sure your brother would want you to have it-"

"Don't talk about my brothers," Elara said. "Don't try and manipulate me into this by using them."

"I'm not," Ammon assured her, raising his hands up. "Here," he said, suddenly struck by an idea. He set the needle down on the tray beside the half-propped up bed Elara was laying on, reaching up to pull down the bag of fluids that was connected to the needle.

"For use for dehydration or IV therapy. Contains saline, vitamins and electrolytes-"

"Fine," Elara sighed, reading where Ammon was pointing to, reluctantly accepting that what he was saying was the truth. She knew that he was right, as well: the headache and fatigue she was feeling were clear signs of dehydration, and even if this was some kind of a setup, she didn't feel like she had much left to lose, anyway.

"...I'm going to inject it now. Is that okay?" Ammon asked.

Elara looked over at him, confused at why he had asked for consent when he and the other guards hadn't when it came to locking her up in an isolated cell for days, physically restraining her, or forcing a sedative into her...

But she nodded anyway, chewing on her bottom lip as Ammon pushed the needle into her arm, surprisingly careful with her.

After the drip was in, Ammon tape the needle to her skin, making sure it was secure and wouldn't come loose. Once he was confident in his work, he reached into his pocket for a set of keys and moved them up to her wrists, casually freeing her as if she wasn't one of his prisoners.

"...Why did you do that?" Elara asked, hugging herself with her good arm.

"I only had them on so you didn't hurt yourself when you woke up," Ammon told her. "I didn't want to be halfway through an injection if you were to wake up and suddenly move your arm."

"What are you, some kind of a doctor?" Elara asked sarcastically. "Or a guard?"

"A guard," Ammon answered, "but I'm trained in medical. All of us here, are."

"A guard..." Elara mumbled to herself, refocusing her mind on what had previously kept her on edge before she woke up here. "I need you to tell me where my-"

"Before I tell you anything, I need some answers from you first," Ammon interrupted her.

Elara frowned, scrunching up her nose and trying to resist the urge to comply with what he was saying. She didn't know why she felt so easily inclined to listen to him, but she did anyway.

She sighed, looking up at him expectantly, trying to figure out where his eyes were behind the dark, concealing mask.

"You tried to hurt yourself," Ammon said, pulling up a stool and sitting at her bedside.

"No, I didn't," Elara shook her head, consumed by a wave of terror. She didn't want to admit how afraid she was all the time; how hopeless and miserable and defeated she had been for the past six months. 

"Yes you did," Ammon said calmly. "I was in the mess hall when you pulled the blade out-"

"Your people can't punish me for having the blade," Elara said. "If you didn't want me to have it, your guards should have been more careful with it."

Ammon laughed again. "I'm not angry at you for having possession of a blade," he said. "You're right; that comes down to one of our guards for not being responsible with their weapons. But what I'm trying to discuss is you holding it to yourself."

Elara looked anywhere but his mask, feeling like she couldn't escape the confrontation she was caught in.

"It's one thing to be able to pull up a blade against someone opposing you," Ammon said. "It's another thing to turn that weapon against yourself."

"What does it matter?" Elara shrugged. "This isn't your problem. Just take me back to my cell and I promise I won't try anything stupid again the next time one of you allows me to rations, if you ever do again."

"This is a serious thing, Ell," Ammon said.

"...You know my name?" Elara searched.

"Yeah," Ammon nodded. "Your friends in the mess hall were calling you that..."

"Oh," Elara murmured, recalling the few seconds of consciousness she could remember from when she collapsed in Quill's arms.

"Well?" Ammon refused to let her change the topic. "Why did you feel like you wanted to do that?" He asked. "What's going on?"

"Besides being ripped from my home, locked up for 23 hours a day, and having the people I love continuously going missing around here?" Elara raised an eyebrow.

Ammon waited, not knowing what to say, but he was listening intently. "You have to be strong if you want to survive this place," he said. "And you can't be strong if you bottle everything inside of you. You have to talk about what's on your mind and since I get the feeling you haven't told your friends - as you wouldn't be here if you had, maybe you can try now."

Elara turned her face, not sure if she could trust him; not sure if she could say aloud the things that were tearing her apart.

"...Who's Izzy?" Ammon asked.

A smile immediately tugged at Elara's lips but it was quickly washed away by the uncertainty of not knowing what had happened to her.

"If you tell me who she is, I can check on her for you," Ammon continued, determined to get an answer out of Elara. "I can make sure she's okay."

"You... You'd honestly do that?" Elara looked up at him. "You're not messing with me?"

"No," Ammon said sincerely. "I'm not lying. I'll do it if it'll help you feel a little stronger."

Elara nodded, wondering if this feeling of trust she was starting to feel for Ammon would come back to spite her.

"She's a girl that lived in the Bunker with me," Elara said. "The smallest bunker of the two. She was with us when your people took us onto the ship but I haven't seen her since I woke up in my cell."

"A girl?" Ammon searched.

"Yeah," Elara confirmed. "She's nine. I took care of her after her father died the day we went into the Bunker. She's my family, my responsibility, and I have no clue where she is."

"All the children we rescue are kept on a separate part of the ship," Ammon explained. "They have classes for them - a school, you could say. Were there any other children, or just her?"

"There are five others: Harlow, Joshua, Dex, Mable and Katherine," she said. "And my brother Wynn - and Chessca who are both older than me, but they're missing, too."

Ammon felt overwhelmed in guilt knowing that a part of the reason behind her desperate behaviour in the mess hall had been because her brother didn't show up to rations, and he was the reason why.

"I'll try and get some answers for you," Ammon assured her. "I can't say where they are, but I know they'll be safe somewhere on the ship. Neptunum aren't terrible people. We just have different...intentions than you guys."

"That's for sure," Elara muttered, gazing over at the needle in her arm and wondering when or if she would ever feel any better... Somehow, Ammon seemed to notice.

"What else is making you upset?" He asked. "I can see something's still bothering you."

"A lifetime of things," she shook her head.

"Is that what your friends were talking about earlier?" He wondered. "When you were in the mess hall and they were trying to get you to listen to them? They seemed really worried about you."

Elara nodded, feeling her eyes sting with the warm glow of tears. "Because of Ares and Kodiak," she said.

"Who..." Ammon drew in a deep breath. "Who are Ares and Kodiak?"

"Ares is my brother," she admitted, completely forgetting that she was confiding in a stranger. "He died a few years ago trying to protect me."

"I'm sorry," Ammon said. "I'm sorry that it still hurts."

Elara nodded. "I've learned to accept it," she insisted. "Him being gone... Just not Kodiak."

"...What do you mean?"

"He died six months ago the day we moved back into the Bunker," she said. "The flood came and he wasn't inside one of the shelters and I know what that means. I lost him and Bas that day - someone else from my family, and it's just..." She let out a heavy breath, visibly shrinking. "It's something I never I would have to go through after losing my brother, that's all. And now that Wynn is nowhere to be seen, I just feel a little... Fragile."

"Like a bomb..." Ammon mumbled under his helmet. 

"What was that?" Elara asked, unable to figure out what he had said.

"She was not fragile like a flower, she was fragile like a bomb," Ammon told her, smiling softly under his mask. Somehow, Elara could hear it in his voice and she knew that she was safe to continue.

"Kodiak had always been there and now he's not," she sighed, rubbing her thumb over his debt on her skin as if in a way to still feel him there. "I still had two other brothers when we lost Ares, but there's not a soul in the world that could replace Kodiak. I guess I'm still adjusting, even though I thought I would be better at it by now; even though thought I'd learnt my lesson on losing people... But I guess not."

"Elara, I'm..." Ammon was at a loss for words, struggling to know what to say to make her feel any better. "I'm sorry," he repeated again, sounding terribly defeated, even through the mask's distortion of his voice. "You've been through a lot-"

"No kidding," Elara laughed at herself.

"It's no wonder why you're so strong."

"Strong?" Elara asked, frowning at him, somewhat in amusement. "No. I'm not strong. You said it yourself what happened in the-"

"You didn't do it," Ammon cut her off.

"I might have," she whispered. "And if Quill was missing, too; if River and Dreea weren't there to talk to me; if you didn't knock me out, I might have."

"When I used the MediPen on you to sedate you," Ammon said, "you had already lowered the blade. You weren't going to hurt yourself; you might have wanted to for a moment, but you didn't. And not doing it took strength."

"Strength, or not enough guts to cave in..."

"Well," Ammon said, feeling a powerful instinct to reach out to her, but he held off. "Not doing it was the right choice." 

Three // Part Four
She was not fragile like a flower, she was fragile like a bomb.

- Frida Kahlo.

All I can say is... The next chapter has one of my most favourite moments EVER in the ENTIRE series. You. Are. Not. Ready.

09/11/20.