JUNE

RUBY SECTOR

0510 hours

I am shaking and my breathing is shallow, sweat drips down my face and into my eyes blurring my vision but I don't wipe it away.

I cannot allow myself to be distracted, to think of anything but my form.

I can't let myself think.

For fifty-nine minutes and sixteen seconds I have managed to keep the thoughts and the nausea at bay. Running through my morning circuits, trying to lose myself in exercise the way I have for years but my body is rejecting the strain and I'm unable to achieve the oblivion I seek.

As if on cue, as soon as this thought crosses my mind my stomach rolls and I find my self clutching the bag hanging from the ceiling. I try to steady my breath.

Inhale, two seconds exhale, four seconds. It's not working. I sink to the ground and focus on my hands. This is so frustrating. I'm frustrated and angry with myself because if I'm honest, I am scared.

How did I let this happen?

It's only been six months.

Six months since Day…Daniel stepped back into my life. Six months that I'm not convinced haven't been a dream. 173 days of careful courting both of us wary, gentle, unwilling to risk confessing to the intensity of what we are feeling.

I lift my head and glance back into the darkness that engulfs the rest of the apartment, the sun has not yet begun to rise and I can only just make out the outline of his form in my bed. Despite the fear clawing at my chest and the waves of nausea rolling through me my heart skips a beat seeing him there.

It's a relatively new development, him, coming here, to me after two weeks working in Antarctica. Last night, he got in so late that I had already gone to bed assuming he would just go home to the apartment he shares with his brother. In the small hours of the morning I had felt hands in my hair and warm breath on my cheek and I pulled the knife out from under my pillow in a flash and nearly slit his throat.

"June, it's me" he had managed to gasp. Three seconds after that I was awake enough to let him go, how had I missed the door opening?

"Did you come in the window?" I hissed, my heart was still pounding. He'd smirked at me his eyes bright even in the darkness. "I can't believe you still do that" I had mumbled, tempted to turn over and ignore him. But I couldn't, his eyes trapped me and I couldn't resist reaching for his face and pulling him to me. He had murmured something I didn't hear against my lips and my thoughts had blurred and faded away.

I take another deep breath and climb carefully to my feet.

When Anden and I separated it was not because of Day. Not directly at least. At that time I had carefully shut away any hope of ever knowing him again. I loved Anden. When our relationship began I had been falling in love with him for months. It was never a reckless love, I didn't love him with abandon the way I had loved Day. But I had been so young then, young and raw with all the emotional trauma of those months. I told myself I would never love like that again. That I didn't want too.

Anden knew I loved him, but he also knew that I wouldn't give him everything. I would gladly give my life for him, but I refused to give him the one thing he most desired. Family.

I couldn't. I had lost so much. Whenever I imagined myself with children my heart turned ice cold. Growing up without my parents, saying goodbye to Metias…and Day. What if I lost a child…or our child lost their parents? Anden and I did not live a life void danger. Worse, if I had children with Anden would I willingly throw myself in front of him if they were also in danger? No, of course not. It would have become another's job to protect us all. I just couldn't imagine it. I didn't want to. I told him no. Eventually we both realized he deserved a chance to have a family. He deserved someone who could love him without any reservations. He deserved more.

Nothing has changed for me. Except that everything has changed. Everything.

I am still shaking as I walk into the dark kitchen to fix tea. I move soundlessly and don't turn on the light. I don't actually know I'm pregnant. Not officially. I haven't been to a Doctor. But I know.

Tess knows too. Tess works twice a week as a volunteer Doctor in the Lake Sector women's clinic. Three nights ago when we met for dinner the smells in the restaurant were just too overwhelming I had to excuse myself twice to be sick. She didn't say anything, not directly but she firmly turned down the bottle of wine the restaurant owner sent over and there was no mistaking the look in her eyes as she assessed me.

I know she's waiting for me to say something to her…or to Day.

Day. How do I tell him? What do I tell him?

When I began to suspect I was pregnant my first thought was to terminate it, followed instantly by such intense horror it physically rocked me. I knew immediately I would never ever be able to end this pregnancy.

Not Day's child.

I take my tea out to the balcony and survey the cool morning. A new sun has begun to creep over the horizon, a new day "Each day means everything's possible again… "

It's strange not to be carrying those memories alone anymore. For ten years I was the sole keeper of our story. I guarded it jealously and it's harder than I ever would have imagined letting go of that role.

Only six months, I'm afraid of tying us together like this when we are only just starting to discover who we are together. I'm afraid Day…Daniel won't want to be tied.

Six stories below me a street vendor begins cooking his morning fare. The scent wafts into my nostrils before I have time to steel myself. My stomach turns horribly and all my efforts from earlier are lost. I set my cup down too quickly on the rail and I know it will fall but I don't have time to catch it. I retreat into the apartment as quickly as possible and barely make it to the bathroom.

Afterwards I pull myself into the shower and focus on calming my stomach, my breathing and my mind. This isn't me! I am composed, logical. I have to stop hiding from this. Face the fear. I'm not ready to tell Day, not yet but it's long past time to pay a visit to Tess. I have clothed myself in resolve and a towel when I step out of the bathroom and run right into Day.

DAY

Something is wrong with June.

I had been dreaming. In the dream I was following a man my unit has been keeping tabs on. I moved silently over rooftops and balconies as he traveled below. The man looked around nervously before turning down one last ally. My heart rate picked up, this was it! After months of careful work we were about to get eyes on his contact. I turned to look at the agent with me it's June. She smiled at me but her attention was directed at the target. I turned back to the man as well; he was standing still, muscles tense, waiting. After a moment a door creaked open in in the ally and I could just make out the dark profile of the contact. Perfect.

But something was off, June. June shouldn't be there. This had nothing do with her, nothing to do with the Republic…Right?

Suddenly I wasn't sure that was right. Something about seeing June crouched next to me studying the two men in her calculated way and the dark slender shape of the contact triggered an uneasy feeling.

A memory? Damn my memory! I turned back to June looking for answers. But she was gone. Lost. Shadows closed in on the spot she had been moments before as though they had erased her. The scene quickly faded into a dream I knew all to well. She was lost and I was searching, always searching.

The crash out on the balcony wakes me and my arm reaches out instinctively for June. She isn't there. For a moment panic grips me before I remember her habit of waking up hours before dawn to train.

I push the heels of my hands into my eyes and laugh at myself, remembering June pulling her knife on me in the middle of the night. I'm almost as bad as she is. For two people who have been spent years in high stakes work that requires us to be calm under pressure we are awfully jumpy sleepers.

I'm about to turn over and go back to sleep when I hear June in the bathroom. She is sick. Before I realize what I'm doing, I'm up and moving through the living room in her direction. I pull myself up short just before I barge in on her. June is an adult; perfectly capable of taking care of herself she probably wouldn't appreciate the intrusion just now. Still, the dream lingers in my mind as I step back and lean on the doorframe. I listen as the shower turns on and wonder what's got me so paranoid. It's not just the dream.

After years of chasing shadows these past six months have been...a relief. The moment saw June on that street it was like the world suddenly made sense again. For the first few years after I woke up with a chunk of time carved out of my head I actively avoided the past.

I remembered enough. Enough to make me think it was best to leave the past in the past and try to move forward. Over time though my dreams became relentless, some were so clear I knew they must be memories.

Most were hazy though, images, sounds and always, always a girl with a dark glossy ponytail, her face just out of sight. She was everywhere, one night I would be staring down the barrel of a gun she held another I would be pressed against her naked skin my face buried in her dark hair.

Eventually I began looking for answers, I was too embarrassed to talk to Eden or Tess at first so I started online. Started with myself. I tentatively picked my way through blurry photos and garbage news articles. Initially I found a whole lot of nothing. I was beginning to think I was a pretty pathetic excuse for an intelligence agent when I finally got a lead. It was in the speech I gave supporting The Republic's new Elector. I come across the speech before but it was unsettling to see myself in a moment I knew people considered "historical" and feel like I was watching a stranger. The stories that boy told didn't feel like mine, but they were and they weren't something I was even sure I wanted to remember.

It was a full year after I started digging that I finally watched that clip all the way through. That's when I heard her name. June. It came right out of my own mouth and as I listened to myself tell the story of how the Republic had failed her suddenly it didn't seem alien anymore. It felt like a story I knew.

After that the pieces fell more quickly into place. When I searched for June I discovered a young republic solider who's history seemed to match the story I had told the people on that balcony I also learned she had gone missing and a reward had been offered for her return right after my supposed execution… John's execution.

That was something had adamantly avoided. I'd heard the story; I didn't need to see the visual aids.

Deep down I'd always felt like a coward for not honoring John with the courage to stand witness to his sacrifice. Faced with the connection between the dark haired girl and my brother's death, I steeled myself and watched the recording.

That night I'd had one of those nightmares I knew was rooted in a truth.

Soldiers surround my childhood home; they drag Eden and John away and force my mother to her knees at their feet. I scream and scream, and even though in the dream I'm standing right beside her I am too far away. I know what comes next but I'm as powerless to stop it in my dream as I had been that day. A man raises his gun to my mother's head, looks me dead in the eye and executes her. Suddenly the girl replaces the man. June. I stare at her feeling nothing but hate in every fiber of my being. But then the girl's dark eyes fill with tears and she lifts the gun that killed my mother to her own head

"I'm so sorry Day" she says and pulls the trigger. Gone. She is gone, again.

For nearly nine months after that I stopped searching, I no longer wanted to know. But my mind wouldn't quiet and my heart still ached for the piece it was missing. Slowly I began to realize that whatever it was it could only be found with her.

The bathroom door opens and June trips right into me. I clasp her by the shoulders and hold her up. Wet hair clings to her neck like seaweed. Her face looks waxy and drawn but comically startled. "Day…..Daniel! What are you doing!?" She still stumbles over my name the way she stumbled out the door. My eyes wander to the towel she is clutching to her chest for a split second I'm thinking about last night, right after she relinquished the knife... But one look at the dark circles under her eyes and my thoughts are back on track.

"Um, I heard a crash this morning and it woke me up...June, are you ok" She studies me. I can tell she knows I've been standing here for a while so she also knows I heard more than the cup breaking. "I'm fine Daniel" she says after a pause. "It was just a rough work out this morning" the corner of her mouth turns up in a wicked grin " Someone thought it would be a goddy clever idea to break into my apartment in the middle of the night, I hardly got any sleep" she's lying, trying to distract me, sometimes I think June only remembers me at 16 and forgets the years I've spent in international intelligence. Besides she's cracked if she thinks I believe a hard workout would make her sick like that.

I return the grin though and wink at her "Hm. I seem to remember things a little differently, I can't be held responsible if women lose sleep because of me sweetheart" she laughs, bats my hands away and smoothly sidesteps me. "You almost lost more than sleep! I'm sorry I woke you though do you have to report to the embassy today?" I follow her back towards the bedroom and watch as she dresses in her sleek Commander's uniform. Is she thinner than she was two weeks ago?

"I do, but only for a quick debriefing, I should be done early, do you want to meet for dinner Commander?" Her nose wrinkles at the mention of food. I knew she was lying. "I..I'm not sure when I'll be finished today. Can I call you?" I step towards her as she buttons up her shirt and take her face in my hands slowly leaning forward and brushing my lips against her forehead, her cheeks, working my way to her lips "Mmmmm you can call me, just don't torture me with waiting" It wasn't the best choice of words. June pulls away "I did, you know " she says quietly, suddenly serious "I did torture you once, pistol whipped you and everything " I rake my hands through my hair and lean my forehead against hers; I never know what to do when she says stuff like this. For one thing a lot of those memories are still blurry or lost forever but more importantly It's like she's testing me to see if she can find the one thing that will send me packing back to Antarctica forever. She won't. Nothing could be worse than what happened with my family and I forgave her for her role in that even before I understood what she really meant to me, what she sacrificed for me.

"Well then…I suppose you probably owe me, Yeah?" I flash her my most seductive smile "Maybe you should just stay home today and make it up to me" She smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes "Wish I could, sadly I'm overseeing inspection of the new cadets today, I don't know what would happen if I didn't make it. Imagine all those scuffed boots and wrinkled uniforms that might go unnoticed!" for a second something about this statement seems to make her sad but after a moment she shakes it off and lifts onto her toes to kiss me "Dinner sounds good, I'll call you the moment I'm done"

If only I had known then what was in store for us at dinner.