AN: Watched Chapter 20 of RvB Revelations. Burnie keeps getting rid of Church. This was my response to it. And Church needs a happy ever after. Even a tiny one.

Wash rechecked his weapon for what felt like the millionth time since they got into the compound. "The plan is, I'll take Church as a prisoner. If I take more than one of you it won't be believable."

Church nodded, understanding the use for being someone. Wash would not be able to pull out with the Alpha on his own.

Caboose stepped up, glancing briefly at Church before turning to Wash. "Agent Washington, I want you to take me instead."

"What're you talkin' about?" Church asked frowning.

But Caboose didn't seem to care or take notice of the other Blue's question. "I will be your prisoner. Let Church go. He doesn't have anything to do with this!"

Simple, simple Caboose thought Wash was going to lock Church up.

Now, looking back, Church missed having someone so devoted to him.

Church stared at Wash, kneeling down on the floor looking up at him, in disbelief. "You mean to tell me we've come all this way for this? Your fucking crazy A.I. Epsilon?"

Completely dead pan and more serious than a grapefruit sized tumor, "Yes. I thought it was gone. But Delta told you memory was the key. At first I thought he meant to remember our first encounter. And when I met Delta the first time what I told him was-"

- that everything was slowly starting to spiral out of control. Or maybe it was always coming undone but it took this long for him to notice.

Wash was explaining just how sick Project Freelancer was and Church was trying to not draw conclusions because deep down, Church knew what Wash was going to say. "Just like a human mind when it's broken; it fragments. It fractures itself to protect itself."

"They tortured it," Church continued the train that he knew with no doubt in his mind Wash was on.

"Like reverse engineering a multiple personality disorder," Wash told him, standing up to look into Church s eyes. Because he needed to understand. "They presented Alpha with scenario after scenario of stress and danger. When it started to fragment, they harvested those fragments."

But Church could not look at him so he looked down at the Epsilon unit. Crazy Epsilon, infamous Epsilon.

"Exhorted little fragments of purified compartmentalized emotion. None of them were a full personality. Some were good-" Wash was saying.

"Like Delta?" Church asked, desperate to see something good come out of this, come out of him.

"Delta was Alpha's logic. It needed to protect itself from analyzing what was happening to it. So it segregated that part of its mind. The part that would be able to understand the horror of what they were doing to it. And when the anger came and threatened to take over, it split that off too.That was Omega; its rage. Gamma was its deceit. Sigma was its creativity. And Epsilon..."

And Epsilon was crazy.

"Church, there's no such thing as ghosts. You're one of them. You're an A.I. You, are the Alpha."

Fucking Wash, he had no idea just how much Church hated him at that moment. And it wasn't because Church thought he was wrong; Church knew Wash was right. He just hated him for saying it out loud.

"When it goes off, I'll be fine. It only affects computers, remember? And I, am a mother fucking ghost." He knew it wasn't true but he needed it to be true. He had been fine until someone had told him otherwise. He had lived, died, and would go out as a fucking ghost.

Not even Wash could change that.

And then it got worse. Mostly because he had not gone out; no he got to stick around. The Blues gave up on him. Even Caboose, that puppy of a man who just could not let Church out of his sight and play well with others only after Church told him to. Even Caboose had moved on, in his own Caboose-like way, but he no longer cared about the real Church. He was working with Epsilon, crazy Epsilon, and was trying to get himself a new Church.

Even Caboose had replaced him.

It took a very long time but he found them. It took almost two months of jumping from one person to another and back to the body he claimed as his own (forced to replace parts of himself, everyone was replacing him) before he found real evidence of where his team had gone. It took learning how to be an AI to find his first real clue: a distress call from Tucker. But with that step, he found his first real taste of hope. He slowly gave parts of himself up, the parts of him he had found at Blood Gulch, and with each part of himself that he gave up (was this what it had been like when the real Church had torn him apart, piece by piece until only the ghost remained?) he found more clues and more hope.

He followed them to Valhalla only to find empty bases and a few dead bodies (the remains of his Blood Gulch life were going away and they were never going to come back). Somehow, he got to Sandbox and under all that sand and all that heat, he was able to find a way to follow the Meta (his once safe haven for that one moment before that EMP) and Wash (all he had done was tell Church the truth – why did Church still hate him so much?) as they moved again. More bodies were found in their wake. Church just hoped his team would not even be in their wake because if they were they would be dead.

And Church did not know how to replace them.

But they had replaced him. They had replaced him even before he had found them. Not only had they replaced him, Caboose even thought that this new Church, that is crazy Epsilon, was more important than Church had ever been.

Church didn't know what to do. The Meta had gone over the ledge with the Reds' jeep, Wash was barely alive because he had fought for his fucking crazy AI Epsilon. Wash had never even tried to fight for Church. But his replacement got it. Tucker had placed a hand on Caboose's shoulder as the other blue crashed to his knees next to the memory unit. Faintly he could hear Caboose calling Church's name. Asking him to come back.

It was all too much. Church had been killed off and replaced. No one wanted, needed, expected him to show up. Church had been made from another's mind to be tortured into fragments for the use and benefit of others. Later he would be placed in "some useless backwater canyon where no-one ever goes" (Wash's words and everything else was true, why not this?) where he would be blown up by the one person who would later mourn for him (not even his ex had mourned for him, it had only been Caboose). After he would work so closely with all these people and they would just… He had started to think of them as family. Long before the bases were deemed useless, Tucker and Caboose had become his family. Yes he bitched about them and they about him but it had been as close to the real thing as he could have ever gotten (just look at where his other memories had come from - residual Wash had called them) but wasn't that what a family was?

Then Wash would get involved and that ever downward spiral would tighten (the Meta, Tex, the whole fucking AI thing, finding crazy Epsilon, the EMP) until this moment (standing watching himself become nothing more than a very far away memory as the people he thought of as family mourned someone else when it should have been him).

Really what was there left for him if the Blues didn't want him?

Distraught, Church took the wrong step back and yelped as he fell. He dropped straight down for only a heartbeat (that was a residual memory, the memory of a heart beat – it was all false. All of it until Blood Gulch then it was all him and they were done with him.) before he started to tumble down the slope until he skidded to a stop at on some ice. There was a moment a very short moment (as an AI, Church was finding many moments in the span it used to take a moment) where Church thought he might have died. Again. Then the ache came and he realized he was still, painfully, regretfully (why couldn't that EMP have killed him?) alive.

And so was someone else.

That domed fishbowl helmet didn't move in Church's direction but he knew, the Meta was watching him. They both were alive when the world had written them out.

The sudden mutual feeling of abandonment did not make Church want to get any closer.

In fact, at the twitch of the Meta's hand, Church rolled away but was unable to leave the patch of ice that held him, the Meta and the wreckage of the Reds' jeep. Maybe the Meta was too far-gone to be able to do anything. Maybe all those enhancements and extra equipment was damaged and –

The cloaking the Meta had ripped from Tex flickered. Or maybe not.

Slowly standing Church watched the Meta very carefully, debating if he really should just jump into the icy waters and swim away. It was around then there was the tiniest hiss of static over his comm. He paused and listened again as the Meta shifted, still looking at him.

"… M—n … Wa—hu… lp."

It wasn't clear enough for Church to understand each word but there were words in that static. Maybe he was right; maybe the Meta was gone and all was left was everything that had been there before.

("No matter how bad they seem, they can't be any better, and they can't be any worse, because that's the way things fucking are, and you better get used to it Nancy. Quit yer bitching.")

So taking a (in his opinion) very brave step forward, Church reached out to the thing that had forced him to the place he was at now. The Meta took his hand and together, they got him standing again.

That fishbowl helmet looked at him and a static filled voice filtered through his comm. "Wash mentioned you."

The voice was tired. This was someone who had been created for the greater good only to be turned into someone who fought and sacrificed himself for the best of one. He had been sent out on a mission and no one had told him just what could happen during it even though they had to have known. Then after he had fulfilled that mission, they had not said anything, no thank yous or well dones. He was left, just as Church or the Alpha had, and ignored. Swept under the carpet to be stepped on until the tiny mound that had been Agent Maine was nothing more than a pile of dust and ashes. Once Project Freelancer was over with and done for, the Meta was sent out again like a sick twisted version of an errand boy to fetch back the Blues and crazy Epsilon, overseen by someone who could be even crazier than himself.

Maine, Church had learned, had been reported as KIA. That was right before the Meta showed up on anyone's radar. That was why Wash couldn't believe the Meta was Maine. Maine was dead. Just like Church.

But here they both were, over one hundred feet down from the surface on a barren dead surrounding. No one thought of them then. No one cared or expected to see them ever again. And no one mourned for either. They would be simply replaced.

Church was amazed at what he was seeing. Agent Maine, long thought dead and even longer not in control, was thinking of Church first.

"Not by name but he had to have been talking about you."

"What do you know of me?" Church asked, almost afraid of what the ex Freelancer would say.

Maine reached up and removed his helmet and shook out shaggy sandy blonde hair before looking at Church with olive green eyes. He smiled warmly despite the icy air and despite what he had just gone through. He smiled and Church found himself smiling along with him. "Doesn't matter now does it? It's a new start really. Come on. Make something up. Be whatever you want to be to me. How will I know if you aren't telling the truth?"

It took a moment (one of those long AI moments where Church had time to rethink everything) to realized just what Maine was giving him. It was a start over. Maine didn't want to be the Meta any more than Church wanted to be the Alpha AI. Neither really knew who the other was. What did Church know about Maine? He had been a member of Project Freelancer, could have had an AI before he was sent out to find the rest of them and bring them back. Reported KIA. Wash had known him. And that was it. There was nothing else Church knew about the man before him.

What did Maine know about Church?

Well, thought Church, let's lie and find out.

He held out a hand and said, "My name is Leonard Church. I was born and raised in Texas before being shipped out to a fucking box canyon in the middle of nowhere."

Maine took his hand (accepted the lie about being born, raised, about being human) and smiled. "See? Not that hard."