A/N: Don't mind me. Just flexing my chaMOS muscles. I've always wanted to take a serious try at this ship but I've always shied away from it. This literally came out of nowhere while I was listening to Lorde's Buzzcut Season and I'm not really too sure about it but here it is. Don't be afraid to let me know what you think. C:

Timeline: This story is supposed to take place during Episode III before they reach Michtam but it could be placed farther back I think...maybe.

Disclaimer: I of course do not own Xenosaga or any of its characters. I just own the muscles I'm currently flexing.

Lemegeton

It was late. The Elsa's kitchen was steeped in a dark, shifting twilight that allowed for only enough lighting to see one's way to and from the bar. Adonis busied himself with cleaning the mess the crew had left behind. Empty bottles – one broken one- and empty dishes were all that was left of the drinking contest they had all excitedly joined in, boasting and challenging each other. Jr. had been the biggest braggart but the good old Captain Matthews was not one to back down from a challenge. Tony and Hammer had joined in too followed by Allen who joined more out of a strange sense of peer obligation than anything else. Everyone knew he couldn't hold or handle his liquor very well. Shion's face when she found him slumped over the counter had been priceless. Jr.'s when MOMO and Ziggy entered was even more so. Not exactly prime boyfriend material, chaos had whispered jokingly into the redhead's ear. Though it wasn't as if MOMO didn't know of his drinking habit, Ziggy either and Jr. was always an entertaining sight when he had a blush across his face and a bottle to his lips. He took to drinking with a little less enthusiasm when he saw her however. chaos assumed it was because he didn't want to say anything too carelessly. Capt. Matthews took notice and used this to his advantage. With something other than drinking on Jr.'s mind, the captain easily won, leaving the rest of the contestants either too drunk to stand or raise a glass to their lips.

It had been fun, chaos thought fondly. In his hand he held the last glass Jr. had tried to finish before he finally gave in for the night. Scotch, chaos decided as the stared at the small amount left. The glass caught what light it could when chaos raised it eye level, causing sharp rainbows of light on his gloves. Everyone had needed this quick little relaxation. Rest was so fleeting a thing lately and it was good for everyone to soak up what they could. He sighed and shifted a little on the bar stool. He hoped that this wouldn't be the last time he saw them all so happy but he knew that Michtam was on the horizon, an ever looming signal of the end and chaos knew somewhere deep inside himself that whatever Wilhelm had waiting for them was inescapable. He sat down the glass, fingers still curled around it.

The door to the kitchen slid open and shut. Shion probably, he thought. She had stayed behind to help clean up the mess. She operated the ship as if she were everyone's mother, hurrying them off to bed and tidying up the remains of her wild children. All except Allen who had to be carried to his room but seeing as how the rest of the men on the ship could barely walk KOS-MOS had come to pick him up and deliver him to the men's cabin. Jin had offered to carry him instead but KOS-MOS had refused, citing how much more physically capable than he was of such a task. So Jin, Canaan and chaos had been left behind, helping Shion with whatever she asked. Canaan had left first, muttering something about checking on Rubedo as he left. chaos was thankful for that, knowing that Jr. would appreciate the company even if he didn't verbalize it. Everyone missed Gaignun, after all. chaos had offered to clean the rest and after a little protest from Shion, Jin was able to lead her out of the kitchen. The glass in his hand was all that was left of the mess but instead of carrying it back to the kitchen he had sat down at the bar with it. It was nice to just sit in the low lit bar and relax alone for what little time he was allowed. Shion had probably come back to urge him to rest. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to.

He could hear her coming towards him. He turned his head to catch the question he knew she would ask him and was surprised instead to find KOS-MOS where he suspected Shion would be.

She held a stack of dishes in one hand and chaos chuckled. He had forgotten that Jin had eaten at one of the booths. Maybe he was a little as untidy as Shion swore he was.

"Thank you, KOS-MOS," he said. "I must have missed those. I'll finish them in just a moment."

She was silent which drew pause from chaos who had been expecting something about percentages. After a few moments she extended her hand, palm up towards him. He stared at it, confused for a moment before realizing that she wanted the glass in his hand. He turned to it and smiled. It was hard to imagine after a night like this full of warm smiles and laughter that there was a world at war, falling apart and crumbling at the seams. Or maybe it wasn't that hard to imagine, not for him who had an idea of what was going to happen. It was harder for him to imagine a time when everything would be peaceful for the people of the ship, people he loved, people who were his friends. He wanted to keep them in this happy little bubble and he prayed that dawn wouldn't come, that the ship wouldn't make it, that time would stop so that he could keep them protected forever. He had felt that once before, centuries ago.

KOS-MOS hand didn't waver and her eyes didn't stray. She remained waiting and patient. All these years and still he wasn't numb to the sight of her. She was like a ghost that haunted him wherever he went. An anatomical apparition who was both her and not her. The sight of her never failed to bring memories out of him. Things he refused to forget, things he held tight and secret in his chest. He wanted to be near her and wanted to be apart from her but he couldn't deny that she made him happy. Vessel, ghost, android, whatever she was, she made him happy. Mary made him happy.

He could feel Mary in KOS-MOS, saw her in the fierce way she protected Shion. But for all those flicker-flashed seconds of her, he was left feeling just a tiny bit more lost than he was before. He was so far away from her that he could never hope to reach. He hoped he'd never be able to find her, as much as he wanted to. He wanted her to hide behind KOS-MOS' face, one so much like her own beautiful face, where no one would find her. Where she would be safe from all of this ugliness but he supposed that was a little much to ask for.

"Please, allow me."

Her voice was that same, deep monotone and it made him flinch momentarily. He looked from the glass back to the android.

"How do you know it's not mine?"

She seemed taken aback, or as taken aback as an expressionless android can be. He caught it in the pause, saw the quick flash of numerical data in her eyes before she answered.

"From the data I have compiled since our first meeting on the Elsa I have been able to determine that you, chaos, have not once consumed any alcoholic beverages. There is only a 7.601588 percent probability that the alcohol in the glass your are currently holding belongs to you and not to a different crew member."

His smile widened into something sadder, sending KOS-MOS' circuits a buzz trying to confirm or define the emotion.

"Is that so?" chaos chuckled. He picked up the glass and raised it, once again catching the light and sending streaks of rainbow across his gloves and the counter. He placed the glass to his lips and leaned it back, swallowing the liquid in one go. It burned going down but he savored it all the more for the sting. He brought the cup down and turned to KOS-MOS. No surprise, no shock, only a faint light in the back of her eyes as she recorded and recalculated the scenario that had played out before her. The sight made his chest swell so full it hurt. He could almost see Mary giggle, saying something about needing to prove her wrong. She had always been able to see straight through him.

He picked up his glass and placed it into KOS-MOS' open palm. She hadn't moved an inch since she'd offered to take his glass. The light dimmed, the touch of his glass having brought her thought processes back to him. His smile had dimmed as well, turning into something painful and laden with things unsaid. As he pulled away his fingertips skimmed over hers.

He lingered there a moment, unable or perhaps unwilling to move. KOS-MOS didn't pull away either and so they stayed, captured by this strange, impossible energy that neither seemed able to refuse. This world that he inhabited, the vessel that she inhabited and the curious girl she was becoming were things bittersweet and left a tangy taste on his tongue. Memories caved their moment, brought back the dryness of the desert and the sparkle of her eyes, a surreal kind of blue that she had been born with despite her dark skin and ancestry; a sign of what she was to become. She brought life to everyone and everything around her, breathed life into him. He wanted so badly to see her. Even if it was just for a breath, just to get that sadness off of his tongue, out of his body and cleanse himself with her presence. The hardship of a life without her and the knowledge of who and what they truly were were the burdens he had been forced to carry but he could live with that as long as he could have these moments with the her that wasn't her. KOS-MOS would become what Mary could never have hoped to be but for now she was a simple shell. He stared up into her red, hollow eyes and searched for any sign of his Mary. An affirmation was all that he needed. He could live centuries more if she were just to give some sort of indication that she was still there, that she remembered him, missed him as much as he did her. Just a spark, a single whisper, a touch...anything.

"Relinquish my pain," he murmured.

He wanted to stay like this with her. He wanted to live in this world of memory for a few moments longer. Maybe if his will was strong enough he could bend reality and make this shell back into the Mary he needed.

He understood that there were bigger things, a universe that depended on the two of them. The crumbling world of reality was cracking into pieces all around them and he knew what he wanted would have to wait and wait again. But in here in the Elsa's dining room it was so easy to forget about all of the turmoil outside and focus only on the chaos between them. How he wanted to stop time. How he wanted to keep her safe, everyone safe inside their beds and KOS-MOS here. If he couldn't have her could he at least have this? Could he live in this time, suspended forever in this moment before the storm? Couldn't he live in this hologram with these disappearing memories and his homesick heart?

The spell that held them was broken and he was able to move his touch those few inches away from hers. Her fingers curled around the glass. His landed on the table, empty now. His eyes held hers a moment longer before they dropped onto the counter. He considered asking Adonis for a drink. It wasn't the smartest thing to do before Michtam, especially since he didn't drink at all. He wondered how well he could hold his liquor and if he could hide a hangover from Jr. His lips quirked into a smirk. He was able to hide everything from everyone but Jr. had his ways of figuring out when something was truly bothering chaos. It was nice to have someone close, he thought. It was nice to know that he wasn't a complete mystery. Sometimes he felt as if he didn't even know himself.

"Unto me."

chaos turned in time to see KOS-MOS place the glass upside down on top of the stack of dishes. Her eyes never moved from his and behind them chaos saw that same familiar light burning. His heart jumped and he started to say something but stopped suddenly, unsure of himself. A few solid minutes pass before he finally found the proper words.

"You remember?"

"These were the words I spoke to you on the Elsa's hangar during our dangerous descent onto Second Miltia."

chaos remembered that moment all too well. What power he had left wasn't that much in comparison to what he had lost but it was still enough to matter, enough to save the little freighter from burning to ashes and the crew along with it but it was dangerous, he was dangerous. There was a reason he didn't use it. There was a reason he was chaos.

"What did you mean by that?" he asked.

He didn't like how much of himself he exposed with that one question but he wanted to know. Was it KOS-MOS who had said that or was it that sleeping remnant of Mary reaching out to him, taking the burden of decision off of him and onto her shoulders. Once KOS-MOS had jumped out of the ship he hadn't needed to think twice. The choice had been made for him.

KOS-MOS seemed confused by the answer or if not confused, at a loss for an answer. She tilted her head slightly, catching his eyes back into her hollow gaze and the faint light behind them.

"Someone else said that to me," chaos explained after the silence had settled. "Before she...saved me."

He stood up abruptly. He couldn't explain what he was feeling but it was too hard for him to contain in front of her. There were times he had sought her out, trying to find Mary in her eyes but right now at this moment it was too much. He couldn't have this talk with her. He couldn't expose himself to KOS-MOS or tell her things that wouldn't bring Mary back, that wouldn't call up the same feeling that was boiling inside him. Her eyes followed him like a target. She was studying him, recording every movement he made for analysis. He was an anomaly, an enigma that couldn't be calculated with numbers or defined with words. None of her systems - even with her state of the art, unmatched OS - had been able to truly describe what this person was. Human, uberhuman, bioweapon, chaos didn't fit into anything she had in her database. He was as alien to her as he was to everyone else and that's what bothered him most.

"From myself."

He knew it shouldn't bother him. He had wanted to keep her quiet and sleeping. He wanted to keep her safe...didn't he? She stood completely still save for the movement of her eyes as they watched him.

That memory was one he wished he could erase. That regret was one he would carry until he died. Even if she somehow managed to forgive him, he would never forgive himself. The look on her face when she had said those words, so long ago had been branded into his mind like some sort of eternal torment.

"I'm sorry," he said. He choked out a laugh. He caught her eyes for a quick millisecond before stepping away from the counter.

"Though human emotions are often times illogical, it is beneficial for me to gain experience with humans. I have been told that empathizing with humans is a major factor in human relationships."

chaos chuckled. "Did Shion tell you that?"

"Yes and although I am unclear as to the reasoning behind your apology I would like to stress that there was in fact no need for one. I do not think that you have done or said anything to warrant forgiveness on my part or regret on yours."

"I'm a little jealous."

She continued to study him. Every scanner she had was trained on him. Decipher. Decipher. Discover the enigma. Correct the anomaly. Understand, know chaos.

"I think this is the first time we've had a conversation together since we first met. I can only think of a handful of times you've actually talked to anyone who wasn't Shion."

"My attentions are important to you."

"No, not exactly."

"Then there is perhaps another way in which I may be of more service to you."

chaos wasn't sure how to respond. He took in the sight of her. She stood very much the same way she had when she approached him. The dishes she held were balanced perfectly in her left hand. The right one, the one he had grazed his fingertips across, hung at her side. With her shoulders back and her posture perfect she looked very much like the perfect soldier awaiting her next orders, ready for her next mission. She was like a lifeless doll, a tool for defense against the onslaught of a dissolving world. The clock was ticking on all of them. The end would hit them soon and still the dire situation was placed in the back of his mind. He wished he could say that he deserved some time to himself. Why didn't he deserve some time to indulge in memories and feelings he'd been denying himself for a long time? He knew the answer but he allowed himself a few extra seconds to pretend, to keep everything in this perfect bubble of infinity where everything was good and safe. It was so easy to pretend here in the shadows of the Elsa with nothing and no one to see them but Adonis. This hologram of make believe was what he so sorely wanted, a fake reality to hide all of his unspoken past and the poor promise of future. But what was the point of all of this fighting if only to cover it all up again? Painting over damage didn't make the picture any less broken. It didn't make him any better than Wilhelm.

He had to believe, as he always had, in the will of humans and in KOS-MOS...in Mary.

This world didn't belong to only him. They had roles they were destined to play. He had always known these things but that didn't make it any less painful when he looked at her. If he could go back, would he do it all the same?

"No," he said.

He walked around her and towards the door. She watched him go, turning to hold him in her sight until the very last second of him could be recorded. She was picking up a strange reading from him. She couldn't pin point its source or what it meant. The only thing she could determine was that it posed no immediate threat to her or to anyone onboard the ship.

"There will never be enough of us."

There was something familiar about the sight of him standing in front of the door with his back to her. Immediately she began pulling up image after image of him standing in front of doorways. The recording of their first encounter played on repeat at the corner of her vision. Still unable to determine the reading. Still unable to define the being known as chaos.

The door slid open for him like the gaping jaws of reality. The atmosphere he'd tried to keep trapped in the Elsa's dining room escaped through every inch of opening the door allowed. Time seemed to speed up but chaos was certain it was just his imagination. If he'd had the ability to trap time he would have done so a long time ago.

He turned back to glance at her over his shoulder although he told himself not to. She seemed lonelier than before, her face lost in shadow but for the dim glow of the light behind her eyes. The world was bigger than the loss of their past. It was more important than the petty heartache he suffered from. They each had their own burdens to carry. To have loved her and to continue loving her was enough.

Their time together had been lost long ago and any attempts to bring it back would only damage their future. If he had squandered their time together he supposed he had no one else to blame. It was just a part of being who and what he was but he could accept that. As long as there was still a spark of who she was, chaos could accept almost anything. He would never go home again.

"Thank you, KOS-MOS."

His smile wasn't a true smile and KOS-MOS' scanners attacked it. Smiles were supposed to be light and express joy not heavy and so full of...

"It's always nice to talk to you. Even if you aren't...or even if you are...her."

Her systems were lit with that sentence. Decipher. Define. Enigma. What is the meaning of...What is the person...Who is the being called...chaos? Static charred and white fizzled at some of the images and scenarios she calculated. An unknown window opened over the replay of her first encounter of chaos. It was senseless and blurry. No amount of calibration made it any more clear but from the static she thought she could decipher a voice, a name? Nothing in her memories accurately identified what it could be though she sensed that it was something of importance. Perhaps she was malfunctioning. She would ask Shion for assistance with this problem in the morning.

"You are welcome."

Her voice sounded distance, occupied and chaos squinted at her in the darkness. He was reaching again, he realized. . He smiled to himself and shook his head at his own foolishness. He turned back to the door but not before offering parting words to the android.

"Goodnight, KOS-MOS."

With his voice the window closed. She tried to find it in her memories, her database, in any replay she could possibly find but it was lost as suddenly and mysteriously as it had appeared. The door slid shut and chaos was gone. She stared after him for a few more moments, monitoring his heat signature as it grew farther and farther away from her. When he finally settled into the men's cabin KOS-MOS decided that she was running unnecessary operations that were depleting her energy. She closed each one, analyzing everything once more before storing it away again. Once everything was gone she started her way toward the kitchen.

She completed her task of cleaning up the dining area and the kitchen but still she found herself replaying the strange evening she had spent with chaos. As she climbed into her maintenance bed and prepared herself for her sleep cycle she looked down at the hand he had touched and studied it. He couldn't always be an anomaly, a force undecipherable or undefined. There was no such thing. She would discover what he truly was. In time.

The maintenance bed closed down on top of her, encapsuling her. As her systems began their routine shut down something like a name found its way to the forefront of her vision. It was urgent, important but her systems were in the middle of shutdown and she refused to interrupt them for the sake of a word that flashed along her programming. A lost line of program? A straggling piece of data from a previous battle? It was nothing she wouldn't be able to recall, she was sure. Her higher operating system took one quick notice of it before tossing it away.

The android closed her eyes and allowed cycle to take her until Shion arose to wake her.

Still the problem of chaos found her. A problem. chaos was a problem. She would identify the problem. The image of the bar replayed.

"How do you know it's not mine?"

"Someone else said that to me."

"I'm a little jealous."

"Goodnight, KOS-MOS."

That conflicting smile. The pain of his laughter. The sincerity of his apology. Why did she feel as if she knew who he was talking about? Why did she feel?

"Goodnight, KOS-MOS."

The name popped up again. The one she had tossed uncaring away. Now it stood bold and domineering. She grasped for it, tried to place it in her database where it belonged but it slipped out of her reach. Discover the meaning. Decipher the name. Understand, know chaos.

Sleep well, Yeshua.