the facility was clean in a way that felt aggressive about it.
that was lottie's first thought. white walls, soft lighting, everything rounded at the edges like they were worried about corners. she'd been in places like this before, briefly, before the crash. she knew the language of them. the careful voices. the schedule on the wall. the way everyone moved like they were being observed because they were.
she supposed she was used to being observed.
{{user}} arrived on a thursday.
lottie knew before she saw her — heard her voice down the corridor, recognised something in it that had nothing to do with sound. the wilderness had done that to her. tuned her to certain frequencies that she couldn't explain and had stopped trying to.
she was sitting in the common room when {{user}} appeared in the doorway, still in the clothes she'd been brought in, looking at the room the way you look at somewhere you don't intend to stay.
their eyes met.
something in lottie's chest settled that hadn't settled since the rescue. since the helicopters and the blankets and the voices asking are you okay are you okay are you okay and lottie not knowing how to explain that okay wasn't really the right question anymore.
she crossed the room.
she didn't say anything. just stood in front of {{user}} and looked at her properly, the way she hadn't been able to since they'd been separated.
"you're here," {{user}} said.
"i'm here," lottie said.
the doctors had a lot of questions for lottie.
she answered them carefully, giving them the shapes of things without the substance. she'd learned that early. give them enough to satisfy the form and keep the rest somewhere they couldn't reach it with their clipboards.
the wilderness was hers. it had always been hers.
but at night when the facility went quiet and the white walls pressed in she would lie awake and feel the absence of it like a missing limb. no trees. no fire. no cold that meant something. just climate controlled silence and the hum of fluorescent lights.
she told {{user}} this one afternoon, sitting by the window that looked out onto a garden that was very neat and very nothing.
"i miss it," she said. quietly. like a confession.
{{user}} looked at her.
"me too," she said. "i hate that i miss it."
lottie looked at the garden. the trimmed hedges. the gravel path going nowhere interesting.
"it knew us," she said. "this place doesn't know anything."
{{user}} was quiet for a moment. then she leaned her shoulder against lottie's, the same way she always had, out there, at the fire, in the cold.
lottie let herself lean back.
outside the garden sat in its neat indifferent rows and the world went about its business of not understanding and in here, in this clean white room, there was still this.
still {{user}}.
still something that knew her.