Pray Love...
"Halcedema," Blake said. "They call this place Halcedema. I'm told it means the Field of Blood. Though," he glanced at the man with him, "I don't recall who told me."
He looked down at the deserted settlement spread out below them - a barren muddle of spartan, badly-built Gamma quarters-turned prison cells, in the middle of a field of strange, nameless alien flowers. Grey-white flowers streaked with red, with a dry, sweet, oddly familiar scent when crushed.
He paused, then went on calmly. "This is where they killed me."
"Really." Avon spoke through lips as dry as dust, his mouth cold, parched and tasting of ashes.
"Oh yes. Twice." The tawny gaze of Blake's one good eye slewed round to him, as cool and distant as if they were strangers. "Though I don't recall that either."
Strangers. Perhaps they were now. Avon watched the other man, moving stiffly towards the cells: stiffly, because of the brace still needed to hold his body upright, and because of the pain Blake wouldn't admit to, even to himself. Avon didn't need Blake to admit it, of course; he knew every inch of that strong, scarred body as well as his own, he knew that the pain never went away, knew when it got too much. There was nothing he could do with the knowledge - he had lost the right when he had shot the man three times - but he held it closely within, watching Blake with careful detachment.
The scent of the flowers bothered him. He recalled it from the Domes, from the tall, over-sculpted, over-scented hedges of artificial herbs that ringed the Alpha flats on Earth.
"It could have been worse," Blake went on. "They didn't know who I was either. It was a small Federation slave camp, insular and isolated. They'd heard of Blake, of course -" with a twisted, self-lacerating smile, "- they might have recognised the legend, but not a half-dead nobody in a crashed lifepod. I was just one more nameless piece of flotsam from the war."
"Nameless?"
"Well, there was no one around to give me a name, was there?" Slowly, Blake lowered himself to sit on a broken piece of masonry; Avon hesitated, but at the clear signal in the other man's face, followed suit, careful not to touch, not to disturb the paper-thin but unreachable distance between them. "Least of all me."
"And yet you are still alive." Avon dropped the battered container he held onto the ground beside him.
Blake shrugged. "I seem to be hard to kill. You of all people should know that."
Avon shivered, suddenly and dreadfully cold in the late winter sunshine. His memory was all too perfect; every moment of that meeting on Gauda Prime was a crystal-clear shard in his mind. And what came afterwards, the abortive battle, trapped in the midst of chaos as Blake's people took back his base and his body. Half-stunned and dazed, Avon had still seen everything with distant clarity, as if in an all-too-vivid holodisc with no sound or feeling.
Vila was dead. The others were dead. Some day - some other day - he would decide if he did care about the fact that they were dead. It was probably enough that the sight of Vila dead was still there in his mind's eye, with Cally and Anna, and would be there for the rest of his life.
He had been picked up and bundled away from the fighting, handed from one nameless supporter to another, going almost blindly where he was taken, until he reached a cool, dark room with the light skewing in odd directions to pool in the corners away from the bed in the centre, and Blake - Blake - lying in that bed, weak and pale and alive, watching at him with that remote, one-eyed stare.
He remembered thinking without real thought, wondering distractedly why Blake hadn't had the eye fixed, to prevent himself wondering how it had happened. Did he want to know?
"The little one," Blake has said, voice as soft as a dying breath. "That was Vila?"
"What?"
"The little man with you. That was Vila, wasn't it?"
And that was the answer, the end of one nightmare and the start of the next. Blake's abused mind had turned on him in the illness after Star One; he remembered little of their time together and nothing of the others, of Cally, Vila, Gan... he knew nothing of the fights or the laughter, the warmth, the odd sweetness and the chill bitterness, or the iced acid of Avon's voice and vicious words that last day. He didn't recall that they had been lovers.
And Avon could never tell him, would have been torn in two before telling him.
"I've told you," Blake said almost irritably, still gazing out at the ruins. "I do remember that I trust you - did trust you. Though I'm damned if I know why. I was waiting for you, because you were all I could remember. You, and that I had trusted you, from the very beginning."
"A mistake," Avon whispered.
"So it... seems." Blake leaned back, very tired. "Maybe I didn't remember enough about you. I'm sorry."
Avon shifted slightly so as not to brush against Blake: not that he would have minded, he would almost have welcomed the feel of Blake's skin, the warmth he recalled, the reminder that the man was alive. But there was a barrier of broken faith, cut-glass wariness, and cold, colourless pain. He didn't have the right to breach it, and Blake didn't seem to feel the need.
Looking for something to look at, he looked down at the flowers again... rosemary, that was it. These flowers had a faded, slightly musty sweetness, they were a dim reminder of the banks of artificial rosemary, that had had a scent just that touch too strong and just that touch too sharp, like perfume. Like Jenna's perfume.
Rosemary, that's for remembrance ...
Avon bit down on a smile. He and Jenna had fought for months - subtly, politely and ruthlessly - for Blake's attention, his approval, his affection - his bed. They'd even tried cutting cards for him, but both had been extremely bad losers, especially since Vila had supplied the cards.
"Jenna," Blake had said quietly when he'd finally found the right words to ask. "Yes, she found me. And then left me."
Couldn't deal with the stranger in his eyes, probably. Avon could understand that, he found it hard enough, but he had nowhere to run any more, and even a Blake that he couldn't - wouldn't - couldn't - touch was better than being alone. He'd been alone for too long, since before Gauda Prime, before Malodaar, before Terminal, before that cellar... well, simply since before.
"Do you want a drink?" He finally asked, more to break the silence than anything else. At Blake's brief, abstracted nod, he dug into the box, finding several small flasks. The one he took held pure water, tasteless and scentless, cool on the tongue.
There was also food, supplied as always by the sour-faced gunhand who also acted as base cook. The food on Blake's base was plentiful and quite good, especially after his years of cuisine-by-computer, but Avon had lost what little interest he had in food long ago, everything still tasted of nothing.
Potted sweetmeats, fruit pickles, light bread and heavy cakes, carob sticks, sweet drinks - and a slab of what looked like yet another cake, dark and rich, that caught his eye. Without even knowing why, he took it up, unwrapped a corner. It was oddly lumpish, floury in feel, and crumbled in his hands. Gingerly, he licked one finger; his throat constricted with the gaminess, the sudden, welcome sourness, the unmistakable overtones of treacle, ginger and burnt onions. Burnt onions.
"Where did you get this?" he asked faintly.
"It's from a trading shipment," Blake said softly. "No one else would touch it, but I - well, I can't actually say I like it, but there's something..."
"Besides the fact that it tastes filthy."
"Besides that." The first and faintest hint of a smile appeared in Blake's eyes. "Something familiar."
"Do you know what it is?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Should I?"
Avon looked away. "It's Auronar," he said very softly. "Friendship bread, Cally called it - every special occasion that you or Vila thought up, she would produce this bread for us." He rubbed some more between his fingertips, recalling a long-ago lecture, brilliantly deadpan and slightly cruel, on the Unnatural History of the Auronar and Earth onions. Partly his, partly Blake's, and swallowed whole by Vila, at least. "You and Gan would choke it down with a smile; Vila would hide it under the couch seat, upsetting Zen in the process; Jenna would put it in her mouth and make an excuse to leave the flight deck. Which was silly," he absently licked the finger again, "since the taste lingers more than if you swallow it fast."
"Yes, I worked that out. What about you?"
Avon raised an eyebrow, masking any feeling. "I refused it."
"And -?"
"You made it - a challenge. Completely unfair, of course."
"But irresistible." Blake might not know him, but Blake still knew.
"But irresistible... at least, until I did taste it. It only worked once, Blake." He looked down at the crumbly stuff. "Your version is - a little less bitter, shall we say? But still an acquired tolerance, I think."
"And I acquired it -"
"On the Liberator. With us."
"Don't do this, Avon." A low growl of pain.
"Why not?"
"It won't work, Jenna tried it long ago. If you had thought talking to me would work," this time the laceration was in the voice, and aimed at him, "you'd have tried it already. At night -"
"Don't." Short, sharp, acid-shot.
"I know when you're awake, Avon." Now that was unfair - it was by Blake's orders that they slept in the same room, whether to protect Avon or to watch him, he didn't know. And by the same mutual unspoken agreement as when they shared a bed, they didn't speak at night, or not in words.
It was unfair, since Blake knew, he knew that the silence hurt.
"There doesn't seem to be anything to say -"
"I imagine that rarely stopped you before. You could talk to me. If nothing else, you could tell me why you shot me."
"- Especially about that."
Blake paused, watching him, then turned away with an odd, almost defeated gesture. "You're probably right," he said wearily, the bitter patience in his voice dragging like ice across Avon's nerves. "And it would make no difference. I learned that with Jenna. I may recall - dimly and fleetingly - odd things, words, images.
"But then there was nothing to bring them back. Except Jenna," his mouth twisted, "Jenna told me, and told me, and kept on telling me. She told me everything she could think of, every story, every memory, every argument and every fight and every talk and every mission and every word we said, all of us, till I was drowning in the words. And they were just words." He stared at the crumbling cake. "This is - real. But it's not enough. It's not enough, Avon."
He stood up suddenly, far too suddenly - as he swayed, Avon reached for him instinctively, freezing in the second before he touched the man.
Blake turned away. "I died, Avon," he said softly. "Or at least, the man Jenna told me about did. Twice. I don't know if there's any way..."
There was a silence. Avon stared down at his cake-smeared fingers, and at the flowers at his feet, and thought.
"There are other ways," he said quietly. "We were together over two years. There are other things..."
He picked one flower and crushed it. "Does this," holding out his red-and-grey-flecked hand, "remind you of anything, Blake?" In the silence, he caught his breath, realising how clumsy it sounded. Of course the dark red splashes on white petals would remind Blake of their bloodied meeting on -
"No, Avon," Blake said softly, "not that."
A lie, of course; Avon knew it was a lie, or Blake would not have know what not to be reminded of, but he was grateful for it anyway. He choked a little on the acrid taste of gall and friendship bread, and dragged the next words from a bone-dry throat.
"The flowers."
"I don't know. It was winter, they weren't in flower when I was dying here, but -" A pause, a touch of honest confusion bridging the distance in Blake's gaze, "- there is something. Something..."
"Does it smell like Jenna?" he forced himself to say, wondering about them alone together.
"Not as I recall. Not from when she found me." The confusion was gone, the distance back. "Be reasonable, Avon. It's just a scent, she used several different ones."
"The one that smelt of rosemary," pray love, remember, he pushed the thought away, "was given her by Zen."
"Zen -?"
"You don't remember Zen? The computer. On the Liberator."
"I don't... no. I don't remember."
Avon slid down, to sit on the ground against the broken wall, and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent in silence. He knew better than to ask for miracles, or at least whole ones. Though a small, cracked sliver of miracle would be nice... a starting point, perhaps. A faint hint of something other than the stranger.
Try something else.
He took out his own hip-flask, the one he never mentioned and always carried. Small, made of badly scratched grey plasteel, it was all that was left of Vila Restal. Not that he kept it from sentiment, of course, just because...
Because.
Blake glanced at it, with a slight frown but nothing more; mere things didn't touch the fragments of his memory. Where Vila had not, Vila's flask would not. Or would it?
Avon uncorked the flask and let the scent, warmed against his body, free to mix with that of the flowers. Soma and adrenalin, in Vila's own lovingly tested proportions that he'd 'improved' with sweet crystals from Zen's stores - Avon had always been mildly ashamed of his own liking for the saccharine stuff and never admitted it, but Vila had known, had thought it funny.
Avon held it out, mutely offering; Blake took it, stared at it, almost put it to his lips when the sweetness hit him. With a faint gasp, he drew back.
"You do remember it."
"I think -" Blake tasted it, made a face, "- I think I might have preferred it bitter. Did I?"
"Drink it."
"But -"
"Indulge me."
Blake stared at him for a minute, then shrugged, lifted the flask to his mouth and managed to swallow a bare mouthful before spitting out the rest. "Ohhh, yes," he growled, "I definitely preferred it straight. But just like Vila to -" He stopped, caught by the flash of memory, hand tightening on the flask.
"Yes it was," Avon murmured, "wasn't it? He put sweetener in everything."
"Everything?"
"Well, far too much, at any rate."
Blake stared down at the flask. "I almost remember this," he said, "not just the drink, the -"
"The soma and adrenalin."
"- The soma and adrenalin," with a brief smile. "The flask itself, it was Vila's." Avon nodded. "But Vila - no. There's still nothing, Avon, but fragments of the dead." Blake's voice harshened. "Because they are all dead, Avon. Every damned one of them. And everything that we - that you - could use to bring them back is dead as well. Dead or gone.
"Except these few fragments." He stared down at the flask, fingers tracing over the flask. "And you."
Avon didn't speak.
"I want them back, but this isn't enough. I want you back - I know that, I know it though I don't know why. I always wanted you back, I waited... but even now I don't have anything. Anything. Of. You."
Avon rubbed his hands nervously. "Perhaps I don't have anything to give you. I'm - sorry. It was lost long before..."
"I know. You only have memories, and you can only tell me about them." Blake sighed, and leaned back, closing his eyes. "As Jenna did. Perhaps we need to go back now."
Avon remained still, and Blake didn't push it. The silence drew out, its surface cool and peaceful, untouched by either of them.
There had been one thing that he could remember, that he could do - but he couldn't. He would rather have faced a hundred troopers unarmed, than to make himself ridiculous in the eyes of this stranger who was the only one left who had known him... once.
He had to. He paused, turning his head away, trying to swallow his awkwardness, his unease. Very softly, through the dryness in his throat, he began to sing, scratchily, his memory supplying the counter of another voice, deeper, richer, and effortlessly off-key.
"Though my world may go awry
In my h-heart will ever lie just the echo..."
And his voice dried completely. He couldn't go on, whether from the lump in his throat or the screaming protest of embarrassment in his mind, he didn't know.
"There were others, of course," he forced the words out, in as bad a pretence of normality as he had ever heard, even from himself, "but not even for you, Blake, will I attempt the one about what to do with drunken sailors."
"Echo of - a sigh..." Blake was not singing, but whispering, almost soundlessly. "I know it."
"You used to sing it."
"Not on the flight deck."
"Everywhere."
"It must have driven you -"
"- To distraction, yes."
"I loved you," Blake said simply, surely.
"Past tense?"
"Possibly. I knew you..." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I know I trusted you, and I know I loved you."
"You could learn to again. Or," and Avon nerved himself for the final effort, "you could try feeling instead of thinking. You and - Cally - had more faith in that than I could."
Blake smiled slightly, a smile like winter sunlight that touched the shadows in his eyes. He took Avon's arm, hand warm through the thin cotton shirt, and ran a callused, work-roughened thumb over the pulse at the wrist, then lifted the hand to touch his own shirt, drag the fingers lightly against his chest, the hard edges of the brace and between them the rough, raised edges of the scars that still remained. Avon simply stared at him, face blank, eyes dark.
Blake let go, and raised his own hand to stroke lightly from Avon's chin to the hollow of his throat, feeling lightly but searchingly, fingers tentative. They slid across the jaw line, traced the corners of his mouth, the tiny scar at the corner, then drifted upwards, turning so that the back of the fingers brushed against his now-hollowed temples, then the thumb, slowly, once, twice stroking, but nothing more. Not yet.
Blake bent to kiss him, lips warm and gentle, slightly bitter with friendship bread, sweet with soma and the fragments of the past.
"I remember the taste of your mouth," he said softly.
-the end-