It All Started With Magnets

.35.

Hudson

"Fucking shot!" The Commander was seething as he paced back and forth. "That was an unauthorized trip-"

"I needed some of my things. They cleared the house and I was wearing my vest and shields." Roxie cut him off almost casually, adjusting the ice pack on her shoulder. Luke winced as he looked at it. The bruise was nasty, it was turning purple and was swelling slightly. No broken bones, just a lot of soft tissue damage and she was in a sling with the words, don't use it for at least a week. "No one could have prepared for Nathan's son hanging out in his crazy father's attic with a rifle that he decided to shoot at us with."

"You got hit!" Hollister hissed it out, pointing at her and she shrugged her good shoulder.

"And I'm bruised to all hell but still standing. Look we did everything right but you can't account for crazy." She said it so calmly that Luke wanted to at least have her show some sort of reaction to it. The woman took a 30-aught-6 round to the shoulder full force and was sitting there as if it were just some minor incident and not a potentially fatal one.

"It was not an authorized trip!" Hollister practically shouted it and Roxie let the ice pack drop, showing off that growing bruise. Hollister grimaced at it as she carefully set the ice pack on her lap and rewrapped it in the linen cloth.

"And even if we would have asked, you would have said yes, and it still would have happened." She brought the ice pack back up, pressing it to the mottled art piece the bastard had made of her shoulder. "Who knew that brand of crazy was fucking genetic?" She muttered it out before looking at Hollister. "Can we all just agree that my shields are fucking awesome and that it was a close call but we all came out of it alright? Arguing about unauthorized trips and what could have happened doesn't really help us right now."

Hollister stared at her, his eyes narrowing as he pressed his hands to his desk and leaned forward. "This is important, Captain Matthews."

"I understand that." It came out of her clipped. "I'm the one who got fucking shot, Commander. I understand just how fucking close I came to dying out there. I still have ringing in my ears from all the gunfire and I have to live with the fact that in order to protect me, one of those soldiers had to kill someone." Her voice pitched upwards with something that sounded a bit like hysteria and she scowled darkly at the Commander. "I don't like that. At all. I understand why but I still don't like it. I understand how important this is, I understand that very intimately. Someone tried to fucking kill me simply because I went out into space and met intelligent life." She shook her head, her scowl seeming to entrench into her face much like the pain lines around her mouth and eyes.

"So don't stand there and tell me that it's important. I know full fucking well it is but I don't want to sit here and rehash it out because I want to fucking bawl my eyes out over the fact my fucking neighbour goddamn shot me because I made some intergalactic friends and he got upset his sky daddy book might be wrong." She hissed it out, turning her head to look at the wall. "I know every single fucking person on that block and in that neighbourhood. I've known them for years. Do you know how much that fucking hurts? That someone I knew could do that to me?" She gave a shuddering exhale. "Because it fucking does. I might hate Nathan because he's a nosy fucking prick but not once have I ever done anything to him or his son to merit being fucking shot at like I was a goddamned animal!" The words were vicious and she gave several shaky inhales and exhales.

"So I'm done talking about it. I'm done. I don't want to hear anything else or be yelled at because nothing we did out there meant I deserved to be shot like that." She spat it out and Luke resisted the urge to reach over and pat her shoulder. Getting shot fucking sucked, he had experienced it once or twice while out on missions but those were always from some faceless enemy. He could only imagine how hard it was to realize the person who shot you was someone you knew.