Title: A Future Imperfect

Summary: AU: There are no real happy endings in their world. Five reflects on the life that's now hers, years after the Raza is destroyed.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Dark Matter was created by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. I make no money off this work of fan fiction.

Notes: Anyone who knows my works knows I love playing around with broken characters. Dipping my toes into the Dark Matter 'verse in between original projects.

By now, she knows the present Three like she knows her present self.

She knows how he likes his coffee and each of his favorite dishes. Five even knows how to prepare those dishes when the ingredients are available. It's rare that they are. There's little variety to be had out here. Their diet is bland and boring, but filling. They aren't starving. He hunts and that gets them fresh meat on occasion. There are berries and edible greens in the woods that supplement what they can buy at the marketplace in the settlement to the west of them.

She knows his regrets and grief, and that he's broken to the point of despair. Like her. They are broken together, two fragmented halves struggling to be whole. Some days, she can almost see the ghosts of their past selves in the people they've been shaped into.

Almost.

The images are faint and very hazy and she wishes she could go back and preserve more of the both of them. It's impossible. There are no do-overs available. The blink drive, and all it was and stood for, is gone, destroyed by Two in an attempt to stop Four. No. Ryo. He was no longer Four by that point.

Five blinks back tears. She misses Two. The ache of loss still overwhelms her after these years, but she doesn't want Three to see her crying and misunderstand the reason. She wipes her face with her sleeve and continues to knead the bread she's making. The motion is almost soothing. It's familiar; a thing she does every few days. Next, she'll make a pie. The ingredients are ready. It's not elderberry and she knows thather crust isn't nearly as good as his mother's had been, but he'll like it.

Looking back, she realizes that their numbers had dwindled far too fast. One, Two, Four, Six. Nyx. All gone. All dead. It is only her and Three left, and the Android they can't power up.

She's broken, too. Completely and utterly.

They keep her stashed in the wreckage of the Raza in the deep forest a few miles to the north, in case they can somehow figure out how to fix her. The wilderness is claiming the ship, making it just another part of the landscape and covering up the life they'd once had. Sometimes Five makes the trek out to the location just to talk to her like she had when the Android was operational. Not recently, however. She's moving too slowly these days and Three doesn't want her to go far by herself.

He still calls her 'kid', but it's only out of habit now. She's hardly a kid anymore and their relationship hasn't been that almost lighthearted mischievous one in years. Five misses those days, before the shit storm that took everything from them. There'd been a sort of innocence between them that is long gone. They'd teased each other and laughed in those days.

These days, they're just another couple in a mining colony and there isn't much laughter. It isn't unusual for the men here to have young wives and they try to blend in. It's easier than she'd imagined. They aren't really married and it doesn't matter. People assume and they let them. It's a good cover and they've lived there long enough to be a part of the community. The people don't replace their friends, but they have people they like and occasionally socialize with. They're respected and she has to smile a little to herself at that. Three, a respected member of society. It almost boggles the mind.

Technically, they're still fugitives and outlaws, but this colony has proven to be fairly safe. They have an honest income from the bar they help run and the people here protect all they consider their own.

It is an echo of the Raza. Imperfect, yet there.

The crash of the Raza is a blur in her memories, never coalescing into something more than brief, incoherent scenes. It was rather like all of their memories in her head. A piece here and there surfacing every so often. She recalls the sickening lurch of the ship as it went down and the Android unable to right it because she was no longer operational. Five remembers Six on the floor, a gaping hole in his chest. She'd been where he'd stood just a moment earlier. It could've been her on the floor. Smoke, acrid and black, had stung Five's eyes and hurt her throat. She'd barely been able to talk for nearly a week after.

Three had done what he always did - when he'd been able. He'd carried her away from the wreckage, and when the soldiers had come to search for them, they'd found only the broken wreckage of the Raza.

Her hero. Too bad she can't tease him about it like she once had. Teasing only opens up wounds that never really began to heal.

The men had searched, but not for long, and soon, there were other fugitives to look for. Marcus Boone and Emily Kolburn ceased to be relevant. In a way, it is a blessing to be mostly forgotten as wars rage outside and corporations vie for top position. They can try to fade into anonymity and heal.

Trying, however, comes with its own set of complications.

She wishes he didn't feel guilty. But it's nothing she can stop. It's who he is, that guilt and pain. It's as much a part of him as the smartass quips that still fly from his lips.

Five doesn't hate him. He thinks she should, telling her that she has to hate him as much as he hates himself. When she asks why, he merely says, "you know why, kid," with a pointed glance at her belly. She can't get him to admit out loud just why he thinks she should hate him. It would be better if he did. Then maybe they could deal with that guilt he's determined to drown in.

He thinks, even now, that he seduced her, but that wasn't what had happened. She'd tell him if he'd listen. Grief overwhelms and people need to have a closeness to someone else in the worst of that darkness. There had been months of grief, deep dark moments where being held and cared for was the only affirmation that they still did live and weren't in some sort of hell. They'd had each other and she doesn't regret the present and the life they've made with each other post-Raza. She just wishes some of the pain of how they'd gotten here would lessen.

She puts the bread aside to rise a final time and begins the pie.

There's fear in Three's eyes; a fear that grows daily the closer her time comes, and she knows he's terrified of losing her and the baby. He's scared he's going to lose someone else he cares about. She thinks that if they die in the birth, he'll shoot himself minutes after burying their bodies. The people in town will find him dead on their graves, Marcus Boone finally gone from this world.

Five doesn't plan on dying.

But then, had any of them? One had been surprised by Jace Corso. Two had died in the explosion just as Ryo had. Her nannites hadn't been able to put a body in pieces back together. Six had gone out surprised as well, dying in the explosion that had taken out the Android and crippled the Raza permanently. Occasionally, she is surprised that she and Three managed to escape death.

Birth is a normal, natural process. The midwife in town is excellent and Five has been doing as much research as she is able about the process. She's attended births, helped with several just to understand what is going to happen. She plans on living. The baby she and Three made together will live, too, and the fear can finally leave Three's eyes.

It has to be that way. She won't accept anything less. This future they live isn't perfect, but it is the only one they have.