acatalepsy
I'm not very good with emotions or reactions either. – xenon/beta.
It's all Beta's fault. If she had moved away from the attack just a bit faster, then Alpha wouldn't have had to leap in to push her out of harm's way and get hit instead.
It's her fault that Alpha's leg is broken. Because of that he is in pain and is incapable of fighting.
Alpha calls her stupid, a first in a very long time. He tells her not to be dumb and stop blaming herself. "You were blinded by dust," he says, pausing and gritting his teeth when the doctor's aid touches a painful part of his broken leg. Beta has to bite her lip to stop herself from snapping at the clumsy girl. "You couldn't see anything," he continues after the doctor's aid leaves it alone.
It's still her fault. And to make it worse, Alpha cannot fight or move around for three days because the wound is from a mutant monster that disturbs healing magic. They say it is the Black Mage's kingdom, they say it is the Mirror World (she feels what Alpha guesses to be guilt within her heart), they say it is the end of the world approaching, but whatever the cause of it is it doesn't change the fact that the mutants are appearing again and again around Maple World and only the strongest can fight them.
Alpha is one of the strongest. He cannot fight them.
It's all her fault.
"Look, if you're so sorry, you can go fight my share for me," Alpha says.
Fight without Alpha? She cannot imagine the experience. But since that is what Alpha seems to want her to do, she goes and talks to the Alliance members, asking if they could help her find a temporary partner who is quick and fights like a warrior. Fights like Alpha.
They make a call and tell her to be in Edelstein by eight o'clock, morning of the next day.
On the morning of the second day of Alpha's slow healing she goes to Edelstein just like her quest says and meets a boy named Xenon who seems to like the colour black a lot. She worries about having to engage in talk and diagnosing social signals without Alpha aiding and coaching her on the right and wrong things to say, but her temporary tag-team partner seems just as awkward with the concept as she is. Perhaps even more so.
He explains with a blank face that he is a generoid. He has lost his memories, and after breaking the control of the Black Mage's minion over him he is trying to function as a normal human.
He is like a mixed version of her and Alpha, only with black hair and mechanics replacing certain parts of his body.
"I'm not very good with emotions or reactions, though," he says as they prepare to engage in battle with a spotted mutant. "I need Roo-D's help with a lot of things."
She tightens the grip on her broadsword and blinks. Another thing they have in common, someone they are dependent upon for what should be the very basic of all conscious beings. "I'm not very good with emotions or reactions either."
He gives her a slight smile that Alpha would call awkward and unsure – he's told her that about a smile she tried in their earlier days together so she knows – and she returns it because that's what you're supposed to do when people smile at you.
Then, they go fight. It is not the connection she and Alpha shares and Xenon cannot control time, but he's a good fighter. He does fight like Alpha.
It feels right, somehow, in the end.
Because I ship Beta a lot, and I ship Xenon a lot in the UPP. So why not. Beside, they've both got expression problems. The awkward pairing! *shot*
For the Unusual Pairings Project, see profile for more details.