TITLE: Safe at Anchor, Riding the Storm
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: close to R-ish
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belongs to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
FEEDBACK: Loved
SUMMARY: He should have died of that gunshot wound in Ragnarok. He should have bled to death. But Adam Svenson didn't. He survived against all odds, recovering at a speed that is… inhuman. But Adam is human; through and through. He's not a Mysteron.
Something happened and it's connected to his best friend and partner in the field. Paul Metcalfe. Captain Scarlet. The virtually indestructible Spectrum agent.
It might destroy them both. It might be the beginning of something new.
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I have no explanation for this except: my brain's a crazy place to be.
I stumbled over my New Captain Scarlet eppies while cleaning up, popped them in and spent the day rewatching everything. Then Storm at the End of the World happened.
Wham!
Two nights of thinking about nothing but the hurt/comfort had me sit down and write this.
The whole thing got away from me quickly. I'm incapable of writing short fics, drabbles or ficlets. As proven once again.
No apologies for writing this. I know NCS is a tiny, tiny fandom and close to non-existent. I took some liberties with some stuff. Hope the few of you who read this still have fun J
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Night had fallen two hours ago. The lights on Skybase had been dimmed according to their twenty-four hour schedule and the night shift had taken over. The jets were in their hangars, the pilots asleep but ready to scramble in case of an alarm.
Everything was quiet, only a murmur of maintenance personnel and the hum of electronics. Captain Ochre was on the treadmill in the rec center. Lieutenant Silver had just finished a late meal and was heading for her bed.
On the observation deck, Paul Metcalfe sat and looked out the huge windows, seeing only Skybase's running lights reflecting off the dark clouds. Tonight, not even the stars were out.
A faint pain pulled at his stomach and he unconsciously rested a hand on it, feeling his muscles quiver.
He was perfectly fine.
He hadn't been shot, stabbed, poisoned or pushed off a high building, out of a plane or into oncoming traffic.
He hadn't died.
And still his body was going through the recovery.
Paul closed his eyes, evening out his breathing, letting the pain ebb away. It was far from the tearing sensation it would have been had he been injured himself. He might have called it a stomach flu with the fun cramps that could accompany such a flu, but he didn't get sick anymore. Didn't die, couldn't get sick… And still…
He whispered a soft curse.
This wasn't what he had wanted, what had been his future plans.
Not that he really had all too many.
Defeat the Mysterons. Pay back the bastards who had taken his life, that of Conrad Lefkon, that of so many. He had his own back, but it wasn't his to live anymore. Paul wasn't even sure he was himself anymore.
Adam had argued that he was human. Even if the body was a construct of the Mysterons, even if he had died on Mars and what had come back wasn't Captain Scarlet, wasn't Paul Metcalfe, was nothing anyone had ever known. His memories were his own. His spirit was there, his soul free of the control Black was still under.
Everything else… alien. He knew it.
He knew because sometimes things… knowledge, memories, flashbacks, he didn't know what to call it… filtered through. Mostly when he was coming back from the dead. It was as if he momentarily wasn't himself, had access to something that might be all alien, his true nature and heritage, and it gave him glimpses into the alien mind that had controlled him for those fateful days.
Scarlet had rarely ever talked to anyone about it. Colonel White knew a few things, as did Doctor Gold. Destiny… didn't.
Adam… Captain Blue…
"Just hold on."
The stabbing pain in his stomach was momentarily back and he curled in on himself for a second, riding it out.
Fuck, he thought.
But he let it happen. He knew what it was. He knew what it meant. It was all in his memories, those not his own. It was overwhelming him with the sure knowledge of what had happened.
"Maybe this indestructibility thing is rubbing off."
"I wish it could. I would give anything."
Paul groaned softly.
He had been so terrified to lose Adam. He had been so furious that it hadn't been him, that it had hit his partner. That he had been forced to leave him behind, in the cold, alone, bleeding…
His fury had fueled him, had taken over, and he had never felt such pleasure as he had killed the Mysteron replicants and had destroyed the town before.
Only to find Adam lying in the debris, weak, dying, suffering from blood loss, onset hypothermia, and shock.
Paul hadn't even thought about it.
He had… taken. The thing he was, the Mysteron, had stepped up and taken something without asking. The very real possibility of loss, of losing his best and probably only real friend had blinded him to the consequences.
He knew he had just cursed someone's life to be like his: alien, that of a freak, standing out amongst those who had been colleagues and friends, and who now regarded him like he wasn't the man they had known anymore.
And he wasn't. He could die over and over again and again, save the world, but he would always be… different. Inhuman.
Now he had forced this existence on someone else, his best friend, the only person who had stuck by him, with him, and whose loyalty humbled Paul like nothing else.
"You're not going to die."
"Not enough time…"
But there had been time.
All the time in the world. Adam hadn't died, but Paul had known… in that moment he had known that he had done something terrible to his best friend. He had forced his hand, in a way.
He had forced the last step.
"Don't let them win."
He hadn't. And then again, they had. He was a Mysteron and he had won. He had surrendered and he had conquered in one.
Because he couldn't lose Blue. He couldn't lose Adam. He needed him and the need had become something more.
I'm so sorry, Adam, he thought desperately. I didn't want this. I never would have let it happen. It had gone far enough already. I'm sorry.
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Doctor Gold looked up from his report when he heard the doors open and he smiled a little as he discovered Captain Scarlet enter the med bay area.
"You are in quite early. Captain Blue is still sleeping."
"I know."
Scarlet glanced over to the door leading to the room where Blue was currently in.
"Something on your mind, Captain?"
The younger man seemed hesitant for a moment, then leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He appeared more pale than usual, his face almost haggard.
Like he hadn't slept in days.
Gold knew that Paul Metcalfe needed a lot less sleep than a human being would. His metabolism was completely different, far from human, and far from what he as a doctor was used to. Actually, he didn't really have a lot to do when it came to Scarlet. The man did everything himself. Gold simply had to make sure he had the time to recover from whatever had killed him.
"Paul?" he asked, leaning back into his chair.
The pale blue eyes looked haunted, almost in pain, and suddenly Gold knew this was far more than Captain Blue's injuries and nearly dying in Scarlet's arms.
"He survived," Paul broke the silence. "He pulled through a gut shot."
Gold remained silent, but he nodded.
"Against all odds, right?"
"Captain Blue is a young, strong man. As well as stubborn."
"He lost so much blood, he was in the cold…"
"Which helped him survive, Paul. It slowed down the bleeding, as well as his metabolism, and as I said before, he is in perfect shape."
The blue eyes looked haunted. So very human and so very painfully vulnerable. In the two years Gold had known the replicant before him, they had become closer than mere patient and doctor. Especially since Scarlet had been forced to undergo all kinds of medical examinations after he had so miraculously revived. In time, he had volunteered a few things here or there, until he had given Gold an insight into what his very human psyche was going through in an alien body.
It had been the beginning of a friendship, of a trust that Dr. Mason Frost valued. He knew a lot more about this incredible young man than anyone else. With the exception of Colonel White, maybe.
"He's pulling from me, Mason."
Gold slowly straightened. "Are you sure?"
"I can feel it." Scarlet rested a hand on his stomach. "He's healing himself and pulling from me. Not just a little. Massively."
"Captain…"
"I'm fine," he said, voice soft, a little breathy. "I can take it. It's… it tells me he's going to pull through."
Gold studied him, mind racing. "Paul, sit down."
The dark-haired man shook his head, hand still resting on his stomach. He looked almost shell-shocked. His hand suddenly clenched into his sweater and he screwed his eyes shut.
Gold got up and walked over to him. "Sit," he insisted.
He might not have the best bedside manner, especially with a man who didn't really need his medical skills, but right now something else was required. Gold pulled a chair close and sat his most frequent patient down. That it had hit Blue this time had been a bit of surprise. Normally Captain Scarlet was right in the line of fire, no regard for his own life.
"Paul? Talk to me."
"Something triggered, Mason. Big time," he finally said, rubbing over his stomach. "When I held him. When he lost consciousness. It was so much stronger than before. I felt myself losing him. I couldn't. I held him and I held on to him." He shuddered.
"And?" Gold prodded.
"And I held on tightly. I surrendered to the inevitable that moment. It was like… I was the Mysteron then. That alien thing that can't go on alone." He sounded disgusted, nails biting into his palms. "I couldn't stop it. I had to keep him with me. I knew he would die if I didn't surrender to that instinct. If those… memories, the flashes, are correct… he will be whole again in no time."
"You had them again?"
Doctor Gold had long since become an expert on Captain Scarlet's condition, as well as an open ear to whatever was happening inside the younger man. A human soul trapped inside an alien body, remembering and knowing things that weren't his own thoughts and memories. Feeling alien emotions sometimes. An aberration, a being created by aliens, used and abused and discarded when the human mind had reclaimed control.
But he was a Mysteron. He had their abilities.
When Paul had told him about the first whispers, about the rising knowledge, the fragments, he hadn't been surprised.
Just like the closeness to Captain Blue hadn't been surprising. Or the developing connection that was both ways.
"Captain?" he prodded.
Scarlet sighed explosively and scrubbed a hand over his tired looking face. "Not like I do when I… recover. It was more like… remembering what I've known before. I couldn't… let him die," he managed. "It felt like a band about to snap in two. It was worse than all the other times before. Bloody hell… I forced this on him! I let it happen!"
He let his head fall back, thunking against the wall.
Gold's thoughts were chasing each other and he got up to check on the readings from the other room. Blue was sleeping and he was looking good. Blood pressure, pulse, heart, breathing, all good. He was a fighter, yes, but he had truly come out of this adventure a lot better than a man with a gut shot bleeding out in the freezing cold should have been. Hypothermia had been almost non-existent, the hours after the surgery without incident.
"This is it, Mason. Everything else was… something I could live with. There was still hope… Now that is gone. He didn't get a say in it. He didn't get to choose. I forced it like the aberration I am."
Gold looked at the other man. "You don't believe this yourself." Straight-forward, honest, no lies. "There was no way back, Captain. None at all."
The pain was almost palpable now. "Because I'm some monster. Because I'm not human."
Gold met the blue eyes. "Maybe. All you have are hand-down memories. You know nothing about how you were recreated on Mars. Maybe it's a glitch."
Paul laughed humorlessly. "No glitch." He tapped a finger against his head. "That much is in here. The Mysteron I am needs an anchor. Adam was the poor soul it had chosen."
"You have chosen, Captain Scarlet," Gold said firmly. "You are yourself. They have no control over you. And you finally have to tell him."
Scarlet looked almost ashen. "I can't… Not without losing the only friend I still have."
Gold didn't need a translator to understand the meaning. Adam Svenson was the only trusted friend, the only one Paul trusted to have his back in all situations. This… this was something that might change everything.
Hell, it did change everything.
"You owe him the truth," he only said.
Scarlet bit his lower lip. "I owe him his life. He doesn't have that anymore."
"Tell him, don't tell him, the result is still the same. He will find out one day. I would think you want to handle it now, get it out of the way."
Scarlet bumped his head softly, repeatedly against the wall.
"Paul. Get some sleep. Let this settle. Captain Blue won't push you away."
The younger man didn't respond verbally. He simply got up, moving slowly, almost like he was in pain. He cast a last look at the closed door, then left.
Gold sighed.
He truly believed that the moment Scarlet told Blue the truth, nothing would change at all. They were best friends and Scarlet trusted the other man implicitly. All Scarlet had to do was accept himself and his abilities now; completely.
He wasn't human. He wasn't a Mysteron. He was a hybrid and he had abilities that terrified his human mind.
"That's what he's for, Captain," Gold sighed to himself.
Hopefully, Scarlet would understand that one day, too.
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He should have known he would find his friend here. Alone, on top of the world, looking down and through the glass that showed nothing but clouds underneath Skybase.
It wasn't an official part of the base and aside from the maintenance guys and Paul Metcalfe, no one ever made their way up rungs and ladders to look at the sky below. It had a spectacular view, though.
"Hey," Adam greeted the silent man.
Paul wasn't in uniform. He was in Spectrum-issue sweats. Adam himself had chosen the same because he was still off duty and he had just finished his last physical. Gold was very pleased with his recovery. It was a recovery that had Adam wonder what was going on because no one, except the man before him, should get over a gunshot to the stomach as easily as he had done. Well, not really easily. The pain had been bad and he had had to get surgery. But still, even with medical advancements and his physical fitness, there should be more than a red mark. He only had a bandage taped over it because Gold was careful.
No, he shouldn't be doing this well.
Hence, seeking out his best friend.
Mainly because Gold had given him this strange look when Adam had commented on his fast recovery.
"Deep thoughts?" he asked.
The dark head came up and those intensely blue eyes in the too pale face caught his own.
Well, fuck, something was truly wrong here. The last time Paul had looked this haunted had been after seeing what a Mysteron retrometabolization looked like on tape. It had been gruesome to watch and had sickened Adam himself. He knew his friend had died on Mars, that the man before him was an alien shell that had Paul's memories, his personality, and most importantly, his soul. Blue wasn't a very religious man, but he knew that the human being Paul Metcalfe was gone. The person, the spirit, was this man before him.
His best friend.
And he had his loyalties, just like before. He had proven himself so often…
"Paul?"
"How are you?"
Adam blinked. Oh-kay… "Fine," he answered slowly. "But you know that. You've been haunting med bay ever since they brought me back. Doctor Gold commented on it."
Paul shrugged.
"You also never stuck around long enough for a chat."
No answer.
"Not that I really had to stay long."
Still nothing.
"So?"
"So?" Scarlet echoed.
"Don't play games, Paul! What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Well, sue me for not believing a single word! It's been a week since I was shot and nearly bled to death in Russia! I shouldn't be up and about, feeling like new! I shouldn't be looking at healed skin with a scar to show for my troubles! I shouldn't be acing a physical!"
Paul had closed his eyes, his face even paler now, almost ashen. His hands clenched around the railing so tightly, his knuckles stood out white. The tension in his body was almost too much to take.
"I should have died! Nothing Gold can say about me being young and strong and in good condition can explain my survival, my recovery! And I know the Mysterons don't give a flying shit about me. I didn't die and come back, right? I'm still human."
His friend flinched and Adam briefly groaned silently at his choice of words. This was a very sore topic for Paul. Very.
"What happened to me, Paul?"
"I did," was the whisper-soft reply.
"What?!"
The blue eyes were filled with pain and despair and something that came close to hatred. It shocked Adam to see his friend like this.
"I happened, Adam! I did this to you!" Paul spat. "Because I'm not human! Because I'm a monster! Because I'm really nothing but a Mysteron shell inhabited by what Paul Metcalfe once was!"
Svenson stared at the shaking man, shaking his head, wondering where he had lost the conversation.
"Run that by me again?" he finally managed. "And I'm not talking about your identity crisis. We had that discussion before and you know what my opinion is. What are you talking about?"
Paul pushed away from the railing, pacing a little, then he abruptly stopped. He leaned against the metal wall behind him, only to slide down to sit on the floor. He looked miserable, hunched in on himself, hands covering his face. His fingers dug into his scalp and he shook his head.
"Every bloody time I come back from the dead, I get flashes," he finally said. "Memories. Knowledge. Something that's not me. Well, it is me. My Mysteron side, Gold calls it." He laughed derisively. "There is no side. I am a Mysteron, whatever you say. I died on Mars and this body isn't human, was never born… and my DNA proves it."
Adam settled down beside him, feeling a little shaky all of a sudden.
"I know," he murmured. "Doesn't make you any less human, though. Doesn't change that you are my best friend. Doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't start making sense soon."
Paul gave an almost desperate laugh. To his dismay, Adam noticed that the other man was trembling.
"Mysterons are… we, they…" Scarlet groaned. "They are far more advanced than we are. They are not human. Nothing can describe what I know they are. There are no words in any language. They create matter, but they aren't… like us. And they are connected amongst themselves. They have this sense of each other. Like I can sense that Black's out there, this Mysteron shell thing, this creature he and I are. He can feel me, I can feel him. It's how my senses work when I get close to one of them."
Captain Blue frowned a little. "Hive mind?" he filtered the most important out of the flood.
"No. Not like you might interpret. They are aware of each other, connected, but not in each other's mind. They aren't human and terribly difficult for us to understand."
Adam hid a smile at the 'us'. Maybe it was slip-up, but he far more believed in the human soul fighting the knowledge that this was an alien body Paul inhabited.
"Black… he's part of that. When he gets disconnected, when he manages to break their control, he's alone. Like me. It's… weird. I know he knows what he has done then. I remember everything from every moment I was their puppet." He shook his head. "Not what we're talking about," he breathed.
"Paul…"
Another shake of the dark head. "No. We're not talking about that."
Now, Adam thought. Because they had had talks like that in the past. He was too good a friend to Paul not to talk about the bad stuff sometimes. He was his best friend. He trusted him, always had, still did. If not for a few events in their lives, there might have been another layer to their relationship. Sometime she thought it was there, underneath the shields, the masks, a longing and a closeness neither man pursued.
Okay, also not the topic, he reminded himself.
"Connections. Memories," Blue probed.
"Yeah, memories. Because I'm a Mysteron construct, I… feel like one sometimes. I get these intense sensations." He closed his eyes. "That I'm alone. That I shouldn't be alone, can't be alone. That it's unnatural for a Mysteron."
"You aren't…"
"Don't, Adam!" he snarled.
"You're not alone. That's what I was going to say, you idiot!" he snapped back.
Paul laughed, but it sounded faint, almost like a sob. "I'm not human. I am alone. Whatever I am, I'm of their origin. Their matter created me and their abilities are mine. And because of that… I followed… a need… looked for an anchor."
"Anchor?"
Another laugh. Paul bowed his head, resting it on his hands. The balls of his palms dug into his eyes.
"Apparently it's survival instinct against the loneliness. They might be sophisticated and more advanced than we are, but they need this shared… consciousness. They need at least one other mind. The anchor. I've been completely disconnected from this Mysteron…consciousness for two years. It… grates on me. It… it's uncomfortable. I tried not to give in, Adam. I didn't want this. I never wanted this."
Adam stared at the other man. Anchor, he thought, mind racing. He needs an anchor. Someone to trust. Someone… Holy shit!
"Me," he managed, surprised how steady he sounded.
Blue wasn't stupid. He could connect the dots. He understood that there was something between them and had been for the past two years.
Paul's eyes were burning, almost inhuman in their intensity, and it constricted something inside the blond, had him swallow. It was an almost possessive need that was quickly swallowed by loathing… self-loathing… and disgust.
"I didn't want this, Adam. Never… I never wanted to involve you any more than you already are. You are my partner, but you didn't have to be my anchor. You never had a choice! I gave you no choice! I just took!"
"Who else?" Adam heard himself ask, still shocked by the revelation, though he didn't really understand all the implications yet. "Destiny?"
The other man winced. "No. We… we found something together over Conrad's death, but she wasn't the one. She's… not. Couldn't be. She likes me, yes, but she wouldn't be able to give up everything."
"And I would…?"
Paul swallowed. "You already did. You trust me. You keep sticking around. You don't leave. You're there. Always. You… you're a constant. You don't back down. You fight back. You don't fear me."
He opened his mouth to say something, but the expression in Paul's eyes stopped him.
"This instinct… it's… hard to explain. I just know that you would accept me. The alien shell. The monster."
"Paul…" he tried again.
"I'm a Mysteron! Okay? Deep down you know it. Everyone does. But you trust me. You're the only one assigned to me, Adam! The only one!"
"I know. Colonel White asked me if I would be your permanently assigned partner in the field, Paul. I said yes. Didn't have to think about it."
For so many reason.
The other captain smiled a little. "And I know that."
Adam reached over and curled his fingers around one pale wrist. He squeezed it gently. The contact wasn't electric, but it was more than just a simple touch. He felt it, but he couldn't put it into words.
"You are my friend. And now I'm your anchor? That much I understand. Care to explain what that means?"
"That you're a monster like me?" Scarlet whispered faintly.
"In more words and less derogatory? 'Cause I will kick your ass."
The contact was still there and Adam didn't break it. An anchor, he thought, keeping Paul focused, keeping him there.
"You keep me sane. I keep you alive."
"Not a lot more words, but better," Adam replied. "How can my simple presence keep you sane? How can you keep me alive?"
Paul looked at the fingers holding his wrist and Adam took a gamble, listening to his own instincts. He opened his hand and slid his fingers to interlock with Paul's.
"How?" he repeated his question.
"You pull from me." The blue eyes were fixed on their hands, confusion and wonder warring for dominance. "You recovered because this anchor… connects us. My life to yours. Like I said, Mysterons are connected. They are immortal. They rebuild what is destroyed. It's in their energy. I'm not one of them, but I was created by them and I need to be connected to someone. Someone who will be with me. Not interchangeable. The Mysteron chose you. My life connected to yours. Like an open flow between us." Paul fell silent, eyes closed, radiating misery.
Adam knew he was staring. His mouth hung open and he was staring like a lunatic. They were… their lives were… connected? Their lives?!
Only when Paul tried to let go did Adam react and he tightened the grip, drawing a wide-eyed look from his friend.
"I survived because of you? Like a blood donation?"
"Life energy, yes. Mysteron energy," was the whisper-soft addition.
"I don't fucking care what it is, Paul! You saved me!"
Metcalfe flinched a little.
Adam reached over with his free hand and grabbed the unshaven chin, forcing those intensely blue eyes to look at him. Paul looked so incredibly ashen, so terrified, so unlike his usual, confident self. His control had broken and there was just the frightened human, not the confident Spectrum agent now.
"I heal faster because of you?"
A small nod.
"And it wasn't the first time?" he hazarded a guess.
Another nod.
"So, the R.A.T.? Elysium? The trap with me as bait? Or that crazy computer virus? Falling out of the Cheetah and barely having a scratch on me? You already knew then?"
Paul shook his head. "I didn't think it was so deep back then."
"But you thought it was there? 'Cause I remember that the deep bruises on my arm from the R.A.T. had faded almost by the time I was back home on Earth. The Doc never commented on it. He knew already?"
"Gold… we talked. He knew about the memory flashes."
"He suspected. As did you. Just not that it would go this deep?"
The terror was now plain to see.
Gawd, Paul, no, Adam thought.
He wanted to tell him it was alright, that he was fine with it. His last words before he had given in to the blood loss and shock had been the wish to have Scarlet's recuperative powers.
"That explains why I never felt too sore after getting thrown around on missions. Or why my bumps and bruises were rather faint." He grinned little.
"I guess."
"Here I thought I was in shape."
"You are."
"Gotta keep up with you, Scarlet."
Paul didn't really meet his eyes. There were lines around his eyes that Adam didn't like.
"Does it hurt you?"
Paul stared at him, a little confused. "What?"
"Does it hurt you?" Adam repeated patiently.
"I don't feel it when you injure yourself."
"But you feel the recovery?"
"Faintly. I know when the pull starts."
"This time was the biggest one, right?"
Another small nod. Of course. Captain Blue had never been shot before. Beaten up, hit over the head, almost run over, crashed with various vehicles, but never more.
"Sorry."
Paul laughed softly. "You nearly died, Adam."
"And you caught me, brought me back. I should thank you for that. If me keeping you sane means I can survive severe blood loss, okay. I'm all for it. I'm your partner, right?"
A shadow crossed he pale face.
"What?" Adam demanded.
"I'm virtually indestructible."
"Ye-eah?"
"I can't die, Adam," Paul said slowly.
"I wasn't brain-damaged, Paul."
His friend was silent. The blond waited, then something slowly dawned on him.
They were connected. Paul's life flowing into him. His indestructible, immortal life.
"Oh."
Paul suddenly let go of his hand and stood, movements almost jerky. Svenson was a little too slow, still shell-shocked as his brain registered what this meant, trying to digest it. His brain couldn't really grasp it, couldn't make sense of it just now.
This has to be how he felt when he found out, he thought giddily. That he was immortal. That he couldn't be killed by anything.
"Sorry, Adam. I… I didn't want this," his partner said, jerking him out of his thoughts. "And maybe it resolves itself when the Mysterons are gone. Every single one of them and their agents. It might take a while, but one day we'll be free of their terror. And you will be free, too."
Adam shot to his feet and quickly caught Scarlet's arm. "Wait a fucking minute!"
"Adam… let me go."
"Make me! If this is what I think it is, and you haven't even confirmed it, I won't even have a bruise by tonight!" he snarled.
The guilt was tenfold now. Well fuck!
"You think too much and don't ask a lot of questions yourself, Paul!"
"What?"
"You think this is a burden for me?"
"I…"
"You are my friend, you moron!"
"This means forever, Adam!" Paul exploded. "I can't bloody well die! Maybe if someone tries hard enough! Throws me in a vat of acid! Buries me in a volcano! But maybe even that isn't enough! I can't die! I'll be here forever!"
"And I'll be there with you!"
Paul tore away and stumbled back. "That's not what I wanted," he whispered, sounding so desperate and broken.
"It's what you got. You said it was instinct to choose me. Trust your instinct."
"You can't be serious! You have no idea what it means!"
"Do you?" Adam challenged.
Scarlet stared at him, mouth opening, then closing again.
"You don't. All you think about is what a burden this might be for me. You never asked, Paul! Maybe I don't mind being your anchor."
"You will hate me one day. You'll watch everyone die."
"You'll be there."
"What about Serena?!" he yelled, sounding almost desperate.
"What about Simone?" Adam shot back.
"She was never meant to be more than a good friend."
"Ditto."
"But…"
"Paul… just listen, okay? Let it settle. Something you call a monster chose me as your anchor and cemented that fact. We can't change it, right?"
"No," was the soft answer.
"What else does your Mysteron side remember?"
"There is no Mysteron side," was the sharp reply. "There is only the Mysteron!"
"Humor me. As your anchor, I can see you as I want to see you. Now, what do you know?"
Paul swallowed. "That I choose who I trust. That it's only this one person. That it's permanent. Till death."
"Mine or yours?"
"Mine. You are… mine." The dark-haired man looked away. "You… you'll always pull from me."
"Even from death?"
Paul swallowed hard, looking sick. "Yes," he whispered.
"And?" Adam dug, storing the 'you are mine' for later.
"Once chosen, no one can replace you."
"Why me?"
"Absolute trust. Compatibility. But mostly this sense that I can rely on you, that you won't… run."
"And?"
Paul shook his head. "It's enough. My trust in you to never betray me. To protect."
"To be there as a friend and what?"
The burning blue eyes said it all. Adam cocked his head and smiled.
"Think about what your instinct tells you, Paul. You protect the anchor, the anchor protects you, right? Think about it."
Silence fell between them. Adam waited. This man had all the memories and emotions of the man who had died on Mars. This was Paul Metcalfe. His friend of four years and counting. The man he would always follow, would trust blindly in any situation.
His fellow Captains had once asked why he even tried to keep up with Scarlet, why he tried to stop him from killing himself in the line of duty. Blue had been almost livid in that moment. Scarlet wasn't suicidal. He did what was necessary. Even if he knew he would be able to recover, the pain was real. He felt the bullets that took his life. He felt the agony of suffocation, of poison, of radiation.
And still he did it.
Every single time.
"I…" Paul broke the silence. "It's… not fair."
Adam laughed softly. "Life never is." He stepped closer. "We make the best of what's handed to us. I'm not going to ask White for a reassignment over the news. Old news, when I think about it"
"You're okay with this?"
It sounded almost like wonder. Like reverence. Like hope.
"Yes."
"Why? How can you cope with this, Adam?" Paul demanded. "You'll be a freak like me!"
"You keep bringing it up, but it's not a topic for me." He closed the distance, pushing the slightly taller man against the wall. "Maybe you're a Mysteron. Maybe you're something else. Maybe you're a hybrid. Maybe you're just Paul. Ever thought about that? You're not a tool to be used. You're a soldier, a Spectrum agent, but you're not a weapon. No one can use you. No one! You're my friend and whatever you can and can't do, you'll always be my friend."
The hope was bright and almost painful now. Painful for Adam to see. Scarlet's walls were coming down and he was fighting it every step of the way.
Please don't, Paul, he thought. You're only hurting yourself and there is no reason to.
"We've known each other for four years," he said out loud. "I've always been there. I even forgave you for trying to kill me. You kept me from killing you a few times, too." He quirked a smile. "We hit it off when we came here and maybe this chemistry is what had your Mysteron side imprint or anchor or whatever."
Paul swallowed at the last words, evading his eyes.
"We both know there was something there. If not for Mars, it might have had time to grow. I learned to trust you again," Adam went on. "On the job and off it. This is both. If you ever quit Spectrum, I'll be there. You're stuck with me. Get used to it."
"But you didn't trust me after I was clear of the Mysteron control."
"You tried to kill us. Takes a while to work through that."
"Well, yeah, there's that."
"Took you a while to let your guard down, too."
Those first few weeks had been hard on them. Adam still remembered the reluctance, the walk on egg-shells, until both men had found that despite everything, their friendship was still there. Paul's memories and emotions were all there. In time, the rest might come back, too.
But Captain Scarlet had become Spectrum's number one weapon against Mysteron plots. It seemed he had cancelled his private life. There was only the soldier, the field agent, but never Paul anymore. He was always the first to leap into action and Captain Blue had been at his side. Always. They had spent more and more time together. Still, there had been one last step that they hadn't taken, even though they had been dancing around each other before the mission to Mars.
"Adam…"
"I'm your choice. And I'm okay with it. We both know there was something before Mars."
"This happened because of Mars," Scarlet growled.
"'This' is just that. We just chose not to act on it for various reasons. Like careers. Now… You really think it matters now?"
The blue eyes widened a little, Paul clearly fighting against himself.
"We have forever, Paul. Or as long as it takes for someone to find a way to kill you off for good," Adam said pragmatically. "I'll be there every step of the way. I'll always be there."
And then he pushed away, taking two steps back to give the other man breathing room.
Paul stared at him, clearly overrun, but part of that expression was also mixed in with something else. Adam smiled a little.
He turned and walked away.
Skybase was big, but small enough for Paul to find him and they both needed time. He might have to talk to Gold, maybe even the colonel, but for now he wanted to give his best friend time to think.
tbc...