Five Things That Never Happened to Stark
by AstroGirl
ONE
The Chair wants to know about Scarrans. So he tells it. But it's seen inside him now, and it doesn't want to stop. It wants to know his secrets, secrets of time and death and the place he knows that lies beyond both. So many memories inside him, and the machine is greedy for them all. "Stop resisting," says the voice, reasonable and soft, and he decides, at last, to obey.
He gives it everything. Everything. Ten thousand souls, ten thousand lives' worth of memories. Sights and thoughts and states of being incomprehensible to mere corporeal brains. Or to machines.
He laughs as it shakes and sparks and, as everything must, dies.
TWO
This human creature is strong, and he lasts longer than the others, but in the end the Chair leaves him drained and broken and dying in his cellmate's arms. His final thoughts are of a homeworld, of family, of friends, of someone he loves enough to die for.
Stark envies him.
THREE
He looks down at her tiny face, Delvian blue with the light of Banik energy shining behind her eyes, and marvels. He can hardly believe she is real, this child of love and Unity and sunlight on spores. His child.
Such an unfamiliar thought: he has brought life into the world.
FOUR
He wakes up with his mask off, and he instantly feels what is happening, the horrifying transfer of life force from the living to the dead. With a wordless scream he leaps to his feet, grabs her roughly and pulls her from the body, breaking Unity. Saving her life.
After that, she never looks at him again without pain and betrayal in her eyes.
FIVE
His joy at returning to Moya ends abruptly with the knowledge that he is here as well, that murdering, torturing, Peacekeeper monster. He tries desperately to warn the others, to fight, to run, but the Traskan blows something into his face, and he wakes up in a locked cell with Crichton telling him they won't let him out until he promises to be good. He can't understand, can't comprehend why Crichton is protecting the bastard, and when he asks, Crichton says he doesn't know, either.
It's all suddenly very clear, then. This is Scorpius, this is what he does. He manipulates people, controls people, gets into their heads and takes whatever he wants. Only he, Stark, Stykera, is immune. Only he can save them. And so, of course, he promises. And though he isn't good at patience, he bides his time until they no longer feel the need to keep watching him.
He knows Scorpius is too clever for him to kill by himself, so he dredges up transmission codes from memory, whether his own or someone else's he isn't really sure. His message is short and simple. "We have the half-breed you've been hunting. Come and get him. Our coordinates are..."
It's a risk, of course. But better to die at the hands of Scarrans than to live in the hands of Scorpy. He only hopes the others understand why he's doing it. He has to. He promised Zhaan he'd look after them.