Diamond in the Rough

Moving, Rolling, and Freezing

A Diamond Tiara in the Vogonverse

The cold air nipped at Diamond’s nose as she sat in the trailer. Frederick was working on another project, and she could see him stopping every few minutes to blow onto his hands. She got up and walked toward him, taking the blanket, sitting behind him, and wrapping it around herself and him. He stopped for a moment and scooted against her. She felt the intense cold rolling off of his back.

“Sorry,” he replied.

“Don’t be,” she replied as she shivered.

Near there was a homemade heater. She’d seen Frederick take a roll of toilet paper, remove the cardboard cylinder inside of it, and then fill the can with rubbing alcohol. They had it before and it heated the trailer for a couple of hours. Finally, she felt him moving.

“I know you’re freezing,” he said as he grabbed a lighter, “and I can barely do anything to finish up the programming on that digital assistant. We need some heat.”

A moment later she saw as a tall flame flickered out of the can and he sat it down near them. She could feel the heat coming off of it, and she looked toward the closet where the electric furnace was.

“How long do you think it will take until the solar panels are able to collect enough electricity?” she asked.

He looked ahead and slumped his shoulders forward.

“I don’t know. This is turning out to be a pretty bad winter. I’d use the pedal generator, but it won’t produce enough electricity to really charge up the batteries,” he replied.

When they went through half of what they used in the fall in little over two weeks, both of them agreed to turn the electric furnace off. It was the only way of keeping enough electricity to run everything else. Since that time, Diamond had learned the joys of sleeping in a set of jogging pants and a sweatshirt. She looked over his shoulder at the date and time. It’d been three months since she’d seen the boogie pony. She wasn’t sure if he was still around here. She hadn’t really liked the idea of leaving the trailer without Frederick, or she didn’t until she found something she liked to do.

During the week, she walked eight blocks down the road leading out of The Stacks until she came to a large, and old, building. It was there that she got to help out Father Andrews, and Mother Superior Ede. She didn’t realize that she would actually enjoy helping to feed and shelter those who couldn’t do it themselves. In return, Saint Thomas’ gave her about a hundred credits a week. Frederick helped her set up an account for herself. Despite him saying no, she added him to her account like he added her to his. It seemed fair, and she didn’t mind. She had planned on using her money for groceries, but instead he told her to hold on to it.

In that time she had managed to save up about a thousand credits. She stopped thinking about it as the room warmed up. She felt Frederick's back get warmer and she loosened the blanket out from around him. Her stomach began to growl and she looked toward the cabinets. Slowly she got up, opened them up and found a can of spaghettios, and two packages of shrimp flavored instant ramen noodles. She looked at the food and then at Frederick.

“I thought that you said we had enough food,” she said.

“We do… For you. I’m going to finish up this, send it to the buyer, and then we’ll take a couple hundred credits from that sale and buy some more groceries,” he replied.

Looking at him she shook her head and grabbed a pot. She pulled both packages of the Ramen out and began filled a pot with some distilled water. She brought it to a boil, feeling thankful for the single electric burner they had, and dumped the Ramen into it.

“I’m making enough for both of us,” she said.

“Di…” he started until he saw her narrowing her eyes.

“Okay, okay… Sure, that’s fine,” he said before he went back to work.

The smell of the discount Ramen begin to fill the little trailer. Not eating for the last couple of days was finally getting to Frederick. He felt his stomach growling, and he caught himself looking toward the pot every few seconds. Behind him he heard Diamond snicker lightly. He didn’t want to admit that he was hungry. It was a matter of pride more than anything else. Regardless, his stomach betrayed him and he knew it growled loud enough for her to hear.

“It’s almost done,” she said.

He looked toward her. She wasn’t the same as she had been. She was still confident, and he liked that, but she didn’t have a problem doing things for herself. When she first arrived, she did go shopping with him, and did a few things for her, but it was almost as if she was afraid of being thrown out if she didn’t. Once she figured out that he wasn’t going to toss her out she became a bit more opinionated. Well, perhaps she became more than just a bit, but she stuck by him. She had saved his life when she went to get the antibiotics he needed, and for a while she had brought back the food they needed to eat.

She had proven herself to be resilient and strong after having witnessed what she did. He had absolutely no doubt that she had seen the Commodore. He’d never seen him, and he didn’t want to, but he’d heard stories. Anyone that lived in The Stacks had heard of the Commodore. Everyone had heard of the vicious things he’d done, the disappearances, and the fact that he was smart enough to stay to the stacks.

Still she had witnessed one of the worst examples of humanity, and instead of locking herself away she was still willing to go out. That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t more careful. She was. He noticed that she tried to be completely safe about things. It was refreshing to see the change. It was because he could see her really coming into her own. He could also see her filling out, and instantly he stopped going down that road. He liked Diamond, quite a bit, but she had been treating him like a brother more than anything. She needed a friend, and while he knew he wasn’t the first guy to ever get friendzoned he was going to do something different.

He was going to be the best damned friend she ever had and not expect a damned thing back for it. The internet was full of stories about guys who had been friendzoned and hoped against hope that the girl that friendzoned them would eventually see them as worth dating. Did he like Diamond? Sure, he liked her, more than he’d really feel comfortable admitting, but regardless he didn’t want to be one of those guys.

“Here you go,” she said.

He had been so caught up in what he was thinking that he didn’t notice the bowl of hot ramen in front of him. He nodded, took it, and began eating. Between the coffee can heater, the food, and having the blanket around him that Diamond had over both of them it he was warming up. He watched her dip out a bowl for herself and she took a seat next to him. Inwardly he wished he’d had more experience in talking to girls. To be honest, most of his interaction with people had been Mrs Jefferson, the old lady in the third stack at the top.

When he needed a little extra food that was fairly hard to come by he would go up to her trailer, fix her consoles, her goggles, and her gloves for her. In return she’d give him a small collection of dried fruits, sometimes she would have some cookies fixed and would give him a dozen. Still, she was well into her sixties, if not her seventies. All of the talk with her had been what he assumed talking to a grandmother would have been like. He took another bite, and then looked at Diamond. She was looking at a piece of shrimp she had. That package had actually had a few freeze-dried pieces in it. He saw a few pieces in his own and offered them to her.

“Wait, you need…” she started before he shook his head. She took his bowl, and he heard the sound of a fork scraping the three or four pieces of shrimp out.

“Thanks,” she said.

Diamond looked at him. He had barely ate, and she knew that he could have used the shrimp in the noodles, but he wanted her to have it. He was a sweet colt, he really was; maybe if he’d come from a proper family, she’d even consider courting him. He was kind, understanding, and even tempered. In several ways, he reminded her of her own father. When he finished eating he leaned over and gave her a hug. She didn’t refuse the hug… Doing so would be… rude. Instead, she returned it.

Once that was done he was back to work, and then after another hour he was practically jumping up and down in excitement.

“He bought it!” he shouted.

“Was there any doubt that he would?” she asked.

“Well, a little. What he wanted was a specialty digital assistant. It’s one that you have to win through a tournament, and they only hold those once a year. I’m damned lucky that someone put it up on Black Diamond L33t,” he said with a smile, “I was able to get it since it’s such a speciality item that it takes a specific computer to use it.”

“So… What did you have to do?” she asked.

“I had to make its program capable of working with a generic console. It sucked, but it’s done, and it netted us enough cash to get some groceries…” he stopped when they heard a sound from outside.

It wasn’t the wind blowing. Both of them had gotten used to the sound of the wind howling through the mound of old carriages above them. What there was now was the sound of something banging away at some steel on the wrong side of the trailer.

“GLaDOS, can you access the external cameras?” he asked.

“Success! It appears that some test subjects are attempting to gain entrance into the control room,” she said.

“Crap… Is there anything being picked up in the main entrance hall?” he asked.

The fact he had spent a few hundred credits getting a basic motion sensor rigged up into the old van was now proving to be credits well spent.

“No, there is no activity in the main hall,” she said.

“GLaDOS, I’m going to take my laptop, my goggles, and my gloves. Diamond and I are going to leave. When we do, I want you to activate test zero-zero-one,” he said.

GLaDOS’ face appeared on a screen and her eye was a dark red.

“Ah, finally, I get to make some science. Test zero-zero-one will commence when the director and co-director leave the control room,” she said.

He grabbed Diamond’s wrist, and she looked at him, unknowing what was going on. They got out the front door, through the van, and outside.

“What, huf, huf, are we doing?” Diamond said as she tried to catch her breath in the extreme cold.

He kept pulling her, never looking back.

After a few moments the door to the trailer opened violently. Three men stepped inside.

“Rickman, where the fuck is that pony thing?! You said we were going to make it in good with the Commodore, and get that thing broke for him!” one of the men shouted.

The door closed, and they heard it lock. A flat screen came on and GLaDOS appeared.

“Welcome to Aperture Science. We do what we must, because we can. Today we are testing your puzzle solving abilities. This trailer has been filled with propane, and there is an ignitor inside of it. You have three seconds to find the ignitor and disable it,” she said.

“OH FUCK!!!!” one of them screamed as he beat on the door.

_____________________________________________________

The sound of a massive explosion rocked the mound in the courtyard of the stacks. Sharpnel spewed out from it, and Diamond found herself huddling down. She looked at Frederick and saw that he had a few cuts and bruises. She walked toward him and felt something pinching her leg.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“I’m… Oh Damn… Diamond, you’re going to be okay,” he said.

She started to ask him what he meant, but suddenly she found herself holding the laptop, goggles, and gloves, and he was carrying her away from where they were. She realized where they were after a few minutes. It was the automated apothecary she had came to before. She felt a little tired, but it was warm in here.

“Welcome to…” the automated voice began.

“Save it! I need a first aid kit, with sutures, rubbing alcohol, and antibiotic ointment. Something to numb the pain would be good too!” Frederick shouted.

“Very well, would you also like the kit to include the most updated version of Dr. House-Call?” the digital voice asked.

Frederick closed his eyes and cursed lightly.

“Yeah, do it,” he said.

“That will be one thousand two hundred forty-three credits. Please press the payment button,” the voice said.

He did and a moment later loud thump was heard and then the drawer kicked open.

“Thank you for shopping with Denton’s Family Apothecary,” the voice said once more before it shut off. She felt herself getting sat on the floor and then she saw Frederick opening the new first aid kit.

“Welcome to Dr. House-Call 4.1. As a new feature I am capable of examining wounds via my removable camera. Simply take it off of the mount, show the area of the wound, and hold it still for two seconds,” the virtual doctor said.

Diamond felt her pants being loosened and she looked up at Frederick.

“What… what are you doing? We can’t… We’re not even dating,” she said tiredly.

He pulled them down a ways and then held the camera over the area.

After two seconds there was a ding, “It appears that the subject has been hit with a piece of shrapnel. Judging from the size and shape it more of a superficial wound than anything. However, in order to keep the wound from getting infected, and possibly losing the limb you must remove the the shrapnel. Take the forceps from the kit,” the virtual doctor said before showing a picture of a pair of plyers.

Frederick did and the virtual doctor appeared again, “Now, grab the shrapnel with the forceps, and pull. Once it is out you will need to get the following items. One emergency syringe, one vial of penicillin, one package of suture catgut thread, one suture needle, two alcohol wipes, and maintain a steady hand.”

Frederick did as he was told and then followed the directions of the virtual doctor. He quickly cleaned the area, checked to see if there any horrible out of control bleeding, and then applied something else the doctor suggested. It was a small topical numbing lotion, and he grabbed a plastic enclosed roll of gauze. He looked at Diamond and hated himself for what he was getting ready to do.

“Diamond, I need you to bite down on this. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay…” she whispered.

He’d seen dozens of old movies, and if Hollywood could be believed then she was trying to go into shock. He felt her bite down on the gauze and he rubbed the lotion onto the spot and began sewing. He felt her practically go ramrod straight, and she screamed into the gauze. He worked hard, fast, and knew that while this was working it wasn’t professional grade. When he finished he looked into her now hurt eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered.

She looked at him and lightly hit him. It hurt, and he knew that even though he saved her life he deserved it. He was the reason she got hurt in the first place. He held her and felt her finally relax. She fell asleep and he held her through the night. Tomorrow they were going outside of this neighborhood. He’d been looking at some of the low rent apartments. Lego Bricks most folks called them, and he was going to put a down payment on one. They’d still need to get some things. A bed or two, a table, a new flatscreen, but it would be a home outside of the stacks, and it would be closer to the church Diamond worked at. He felt sleep trying to take him. He pulled her closer to him, and turned so that his back was facing the door. Nothing else was going to hurt her tonight. It would have to get through him, and for tonight, they could sleep here inside the store. They could sleep in the warmth, and tomorrow would bring a brand new day.

“Good night Diamond,” he whispered before he leaned forward, and despite his decision earlier… He kissed her.

Author's Note

(Sorry for the long hiatus. So, here’s the latest chapter. I hope that everyone enjoys it. Thanks for reading. RJP)