Summary: Convinced they are minutes away from death, Vila and Avon talk.
They had explored all the options, and it was no good. As soon as the oxygen ran out, they would die. Avon had calculated the chance of one of the crew coming back early from their designated rendezvous time, or someone passing by and happening to find their limited escape pod, and it was negligible. Exhausted from the mission and from fruitlessly trying to come up with ideas, they sat down, next to each other.
"Well done Blake." Avon said to the room. "Even when you're not here you managed to get us killed. At least we'll die in our sleep, and not at the hands of the Federation. Small comfort" Avon said with bitterness.
"If we're going to die anyway, I just want to ask you one thing." Vila said.
There was an awkward pause before he continued, his voice shaking slightly "If you really had killed me, on that shuttle...would you have felt bad about it afterwards? I suppose I mean... did you ever like me, at all, even a little bit?"
"Of course." Avon said softly.
"Really?" Vila said, with a note of hope.
"I didn't want to kill you Vila." Avon sighed in resignation and hesitated only a moment before admitting: "I was afraid."
"Afraid to die you mean?"
"No. Not that." Avon hesitated for so long that Vila had to prompt him.
"Well, what then?"
"I was afraid because I didn't want to kill you." Avon settled on. "I realised in that moment that I had started to consider you to be a friend. Somebody I trusted and relied on. And in that moment of madness...it terrified me."
Vila pondered the words for a moment, trying to understand a point of view so utterly at odds with his own view of things.
"Because of Anna?" he asked.
Avon was surprised at Vila's astuteness, he hadn't expected the thief to understand.
"Yes. Because of Anna. I wanted to kill you so you would never have a chance to betray me the way she did. The feeling of betrayal from someone I trusted was...overwhelming"
"I know the feeling." Vila said quietly, and Avon could have dealt with anger, but not the sadness that actually accompanied the words.
"I'm sorry." Avon said, knowing it was absurdly overdue. He realised for the first time that his fear of being betrayed had turned him into the betrayer, into Anna. He had done to someone else what he had found so traumatising himself. "It was an act of cowardice." he added.
"That I can understand too." Vila said lightly with a note of humour and forgiveness that Avon suspected he did not deserve.
"None of it makes much difference now." Avon said, considering their bleak position.
"It makes all the difference in the world to me Avon. You're the only friend I have. I don't want to die, you know that ... but if I have to then I'd rather not do it alone. I'm glad you're here."
Avon smiled slightly at Vila's usual brand of undiplomatic honesty. He acknowledged to himself that he was touched by the words - there was no point in his usual defences now, trying to distance himself. He didn't want to die alone any more than Vila...and they had been through a lot together.
"While we're being so honest, perhaps you could answer me something in return."
"Of course. Whatever you want to know." Vila said, somewhat surprised.
"Why didn't the conditioning sessions work on you?"
"Oh. I never thought any of you lot believed me about that." Vila said a little cautiously.
"In the early days on the Liberator, I took the liberty of thoroughly background checking all of my new crewmates. I seem to recall your record took longer to read through than anyone else's. Even Blake's."
"I didn't get caught that often!" Vila protested
"4 times in total." Avon stated.
"That's not too bad, considering..." Vila said, but didn't sound like he believed it.
Avon smiled sadly. "No. Not considering. Though I think it was more the successful escape attempts and your immunity to conditioning that fuelled the Federation's interest in you"
There was a pause. Avon remembered vividly the reports of conditioning sessions, which escalated in severity, in novelty, in breathtaking cruelty. Experimentally trying to find new ways to permanently break the thief or destroy his personality. He hadn't read the details, the summaries of the reports were enough for him. It had changed how he looked at Vila, made him pay more attention.
"You haven't answered my question."
"I know...sorry... I don't like thinking about those sessions to be honest. It was a combination of things I suppose. The drugs didn't work on me very well - they made me sick but they didn't make me believe what they told me. I didn't have any family or friends they could threaten. And when they tried to rewire my brain I just... locked myself away in a separate part of it for a while."
"Ah. Compartmentalisation." Avon said.
"You what?"
"When you allow two contradictory states of mind to co-exist, by not allowing them to interact with one another. It is called compartmentalisation."
"Oh. There's a name for it is there? That's all right then. There were times I thought I was going stark staring mad."
"How did you unlock that part of yourself and regain control of your mind?"
"Unlocking things is what I do." Vila said flippantly, but expanded when he saw Avon's expression of curiosity. "It might sound stupid but I've been stealing and unlocking things since I can remember. I think I was born doing it, it's instinctive. It makes me feel...safe. Conditioning made me feel many things but never safe." He paused. "Why are you so interested in me all of a sudden?"
"It helps to keep my mind off our situation. You never spoke about your childhood...your family or your home...is it such a closely guarded secret?"
"It's not something I like to dwell on much. I spent most of it in prison. Never knew my father. Had a good mum, but she was ill most of the time, and died when I was 8." Vila sighed. "I don't want to die depressed Avon, let's talk about something else."
"Like what?"
"Shame we don't have any cards, or a chess board or something like that."
"Where did you learn to play chess anyway?"
"There was an alpha on CF-1 that took a shine to me, taught me all sorts of things. Chess, maths, mechanics, that sort of thing."
"I started playing chess with you to test your intelligence."
"Here I thought you enjoyed my company."
"That came later, when I realised you were not as stupid as you pretended to be."
Vila smiled at him and a moment of mutual understanding passed between them.
"But there were times I could never understand... where you really did do something impossibly stupid. I could never reconcile the contradiction between your behaviour and your obvious intelligence."
Vila looked away distantly. "I'm just not very good under pressure."
"You might as well tell me the truth, we're going to die anyway."
Vila sighed. "All right. There were just moments when I'd get...confused. About where I was. Or when I was, I suppose."
"What do you mean?"
"One moment I'd be standing there, and someone would say something, or wave a weapon at me, or make me feel a certain way and it's like I was back in the Treatment Centre on Earth, or on CF-1 or the JD wards, just for a few seconds but long enough to throw me."
Avon pondered the words. "I see." he said.
"You can see why I didn't want any of you to know about it. If you thought I was unstable or still under the influence of conditioning you'd have chucked me out without thinking twice. It was easier to play up to it a bit."
"You were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress." He said. "I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise given some of the things you survived. I should have guessed." Avon ended softly.
"Post Traumatic Stress eh? Didn't know there was a name for it. Does that mean other people get the same thing?"
"Flashbacks are common in response to severe trauma. As are nightmares."
"I get those too. Especially sleeping alone."
Avon thought for a moment, then spoke as if to himself.
"...which is why you couldn't stay awake on shift, and preferred to sleep on the flight deck." Avon deduced.
"Not really one for military discipline..." Vila said and Avon laughed lightly at the understatement.
"But I was useful wasn't I?" Vila asked a little sadly. "I mean more often than... than I got in the way"
Avon figured that if he could accomplish just one good thing, one act of kindness in life before he died, it might as well be this. Besides, it was only a statement of truth.
"Vila. We couldn't have done it without you."
That's when they got the call.
"Avon, Vila, come in!" Tarrant's voice had never been so welcome to either of them.
"I'm going to teleport over to you now, hold on."
Vila gripped his arm suddenly, panic in his eyes.
"Avon, please don't tell them what I told you."
Avon looked vaguely alarmed too, but said:
"I wouldn't worry Vila. Oxygen Deprivation can make a person say all kinds of ridiculous things..."
Tarrant materialised in front of them, holding two teleport bracelets.
"What are you so happy about?" he asked Vila suspiciously.
"Nothing Tarrant, just your perfect timing."