Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine. All hail the rightful owners/creators, may they live long and prosper.
Auth Note: Set at the end of "Shaft," wedged among the final scenes. (Season 2.) Part of the Devil's Walk Series. (You are permitted in times of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge. ~ Bulgarian proverb)
One day the rising of your rage
will dissolve the fear,
I promise you this.
~Margaret Randall (from "The Staff of Life")
Johnny swears the mossipede's venom is all but gone from her bloodwork, but she'd swear she can still feel lingering traces.
There's a taste at the back of her tongue, like she's swallowed something sweet. It isn't constant, and not altogether unpleasant – but she's brushed her teeth three times without getting rid of it. And Johnny forbid any sort of alcohol for at least twelve hours, to prevent complications with the antibiotics.
"Afraid I'll start hallucinating again?" she'd teased.
"Hells, yes," he'd admitted, laughing. "When you have a bad trip, it's all blood and death. And who did you think you were talking to, besides Khlyen?"
She hadn't told them about her talking reflection, the Other Her, the woman who looked like her, talked like her, but seemed somehow. . . off.
Making herself smile, she'd replied, "It's all a bit hazy. I might have been talking to a mossipede at one point."
As she sits on her bunk now, aimlessly strumming her satara, the Other Her keeps flashing into her mind. It wasn't real, she knows it wasn't real – but damn, it had felt real, still feels real. Things the Other Her had said: We're exactly like him. We've never been anything but a puppet on a string. He's still pulling our strings.
The freshly healed wound across her stomach still aches. If she'd accepted Johnny's suggestion to take more painkillers, then it'd probably hurt less.
"I've had enough chemicals for one day," she'd declared. She's wanted to think clearly, and painkillers were sedating.
Her fingers play snatches of old songs, notes she touches without true intent.
He's still pulling our strings.
Well, Khlyen doesn't have a monopoly on that market. The RAC can make her jump, as can Turin with his "unsanctioned Warrants." Where does what she wants rank on the hierarchy? She's supposed to be the one making decisions, not simply reacting to the orders of others.
Maybe she's simply overreacting to the accusations of shadows. Or maybe she's pissed because the Other Her is right. It would be pathetic if her hallucinations are more perceptive than her consciousness.
When Alvis walks into her quarters, she doesn't know if she's pleased or wary to see him. During the darkest of her hallucinations, he'd known exactly what to say, exactly how to reach her. Even he could manipulate her, if he wanted to.
Perhaps it's an unfair thought. Alvis had helped her, helped all of them by convincing her to cooperate with escaping the mine. It's got to be leftover venom making her so suspicious, even paranoid. She'd been the strongest proponent for getting Alvis out of Old Town. Now she's lumping him into the same category as Khlyen?
"How you doing?" Alvis asks.
"Never better," she lies.
The monk smiles. Taking the instrument out of her grasp, he says, "Okay. Now, without the bullshit."
Is she that obvious, or is he that good at reading her? Her emotions bounce between concern and confusion. She shifts over to make room for Alvis to sit beside her, but moves too quickly and pulls the newly mended skin on her stomach. She's not even entitled to grumble about the pain, since the wound was self-inflicted.
Alvis wounds himself all the time. Self-inflicted or not, pain is pain. Not only does he not complain, he does things to extend the suffering. All the Scarbacks do; all in the name of religion. Can transgressions really be made right through physical suffering? And, if so, what are the limits of the transaction?
When he sits down beside her, she reaches for his left hand, turns it palm-up and folds back his shirt sleeve. There's a fresh scab across the vulnerable wrist skin, which will eventually be a new scar to match the dozen already there.
"You do this to take away other people's sins," she observes somberly. "Does it work on yours?"
More than once she's tried to understand this concept of his religion; most of the time she gives up within minutes, unable to accept the idea. Why the hells would anyone want to hurt themselves to make up for other people's mistakes?
You're still a killer, the Other Her had pointed out.
Alvis gives her an honest answer. To be fair, it'd been a long time since he'd tried to answer her with perfect Scarback dogma. And she knows she's asked various forms of the same question many times – not to ridicule his beliefs, only to understand them.
She hadn't realized he'd had to kill to escape Westhole. Somehow she'd figured a sympathizer had released him during the confusions of the bombings. The monk is still human, and has the capacity for violence. He's a revolutionary in talk and practice. She's seen him fight, and kill – but only to protect others. To hear him admit he'd killed to protect himself is somehow reassuring.
It could be his confession, the lingering venom, or both that give her the courage or stupidity to make her own confession. "I think it's time I stop running away from what I really am."
"Which is?"
"A weapon," she answers without hesitation. "It's what he made me – I might as well use it." It's not as if she's telling him anything he hasn't already seen for himself. If she's never specifically detailed the heinous things she's done since childhood, it's not like she's gone out of her way to hide them.
But the monk doesn't agree with her assessment. He shakes his head, meets her eyes squarely. "No. Your sins can be forgiven."
Now she feels foolish. Even if she could accept Scarback philosophy, what the hells kind of sacrifice would it take to make up for all she's done? She isn't looking to get more blood on her hands. Enough people have already paid for her mistakes. But with the honest way Alvis is watching her, she knows better than to say anything like that. Instead she tries to lighten the too-serious mood, twist the conversation towards anywhere but the place it's eventually headed.
One day his religion and her reality will collide. And because he's a good man, she'll have to walk away from him then, because those parts of them aren't compatible. Since the beginning, she's suspected she likes him for who he is, and he likes her for who she could be.
Maybe Alvis suspects that, too. Instead of pursuing the point, the monk turns to a safer, much more interesting subject. The odd skin-message he pulls out of his satchel is fascinating, even to the paranoid parts of her mind. How had he managed to find the long-dead monk? Maybe like calls to like, even in death. She's thoroughly distracted by the scraps and pieces of the puzzle surrounding her.
Arkyn, monks, messages, Khlyen, green liquid. . .
"What's the connection?" she wonders, because there has to be one somewhere – somewhere close.
Mystery bends to reality when Alvis says he's going to the monastery on Leith. He couldn't stay much longer on Lucy, she knows – not without something seriously erupting between him and D'avin. Alvis doesn't belong in space, much as she likes having him near. He needs the silence and order of a monastery, a place filled with people who believe in sacrifice and redemption.
But, gods, it's nice to have him nearby, nice not to have to skip through the back alleys of Old Town just to find him.
He has his world. At least she gets to visit. When he's on Leith, how often will she (realistically) get to see him?
So now her paranoia's going in the opposite direction. She's never this mentally manic – it has to be the venom.
Alvis smiles at her as if he can tell exactly what she's thinking. Maybe he can – maybe, right now, she's okay with that. He relies on his faith for tomorrow, while she gave up on tomorrow the day of her wedding. Now is something they've always agreed on.
Lucy has a habit of choosing the worst time to make announcements. "Dutch? I've analyzed the micro-radiation burst from Arkyn."
From the corner of her eye, she sees Alvis shake his head, knowing he's already lost her attention.
The instant Lucy finishes telling her the analysis results, she realizes the magnitude of what Turin didn't disclose at their earlier meeting. When she curses the RAC officer, Alvis laughs.
"So, did he lie, or just not tell you?" the monk asks, amused.
"Both, probably. Not quite sure. It's not funny," she adds, mock-smacking him.
"Not for him," Alvis agrees. "I'm not sure I even want to know what you're going to do to him."
She slants the monk her best wicked smile. "Lucy, take us back to Westerley. Turin and I need to have a chat."
It's deep night by the time Lucy lands on Westerley again. D'avin is asleep in his quarters, convinced by her promise to wake him when they arrived. Johnny is passed out on the couch in the galley, unconvinced by her promise but falsely confident in his ability to, "know when we get there."
She doesn't wake the brothers. Technically, she should be as tired as they are, but she's wired. Could be the last traces of venom, could be her anger at Turin's actions. Could be that she's been driven to make a new decision, and she just can't wait to announce it.
She sets the defenses on Lucy, creates the parameters to wake the boys should anything unplanned transpire. They're in Badlands nowhere, with scans indicating no lifeforms around for miles (other than Turin and a few stray animals.) Alvis is still asleep in her bed, so she does final checks and steals silently down the ladder into the cargo bay.
Except that Alvis isn't in her quarters: he's sitting on a bench, watching her descend one rung at a time. He laughs at her surprise. "D'avin made me agree to wake him if you tried to go on your own."
"He doesn't know by now that Scarbacks lie as easily as everyone else?" she returns. She walks over to him, smiling, reaches out to straighten an imaginary wrinkle from his cape. "Good to see you in robes again, Uncle."
"That's not what you said before." He kisses her long enough for her to start wondering if he's trying to be a deliberate distraction. But then he lets her go, saying, "I didn't lie. You're not going on your own."
So she takes an extra riffle from the weapons locker, and two pairs of night-goggles, and they walk down Lucy's ramp together.
It's an easy walk over the hill to Turin's camp. Their footfalls barely make a sound on the dead ground. Overhead, pollution clouds the starlight, but some small amount still filters down.
They have a short, silent disagreement at the camp's edge. He doesn't want her to go inside alone, without a riffle. She hands him her riffle anyway, taps the holstered gun at her thigh, and pulls out a sturdy knife. He frowns and shakes his head no. She grins at him and walks away, towards the tent.
Turin keeps a light on while he sleeps. It's quite convenient for her. The man isn't a light sleeper; she crouches at the edge of his bed for several minutes, toying with her knife, before he abruptly awakens.
At least he's smart enough to sleep with a gun under his pillow. She'd been on the edge of loosing the very last of her respect for him. She almost laughs to see his expression at finding her in his camp, his tent, practically his bed.
"You know, I've been thinking about how long people have been making decisions for me. Pulling my strings," she clarifies, echoing the words of her shadow-self.
"This epiphany have a foreseeable conclusion?" Turin asks, warily eyeing her knife.
Oh, yes. She's reached a decision. And she's delighted to share it with him.
"Here's the arrangement," she says, pulling her knife from where she'd thrown it, oh-so-close to his head. "You want my help finding out what's really going on with the RAC, we do it my way." She allows herself a small, predatory smile. "I'll be in touch."
It's a deliberate insult to turn her back on him. She saunters out the door with a careless step. Once outside, she quickens her pace back to Alvis. He returns her goggles and riffle, and they beat a hasty retreat to Lucy. Turin might or might not let her have the last word. . .
"Dutch, what the hells?" Johnny demands via the comm link. "Stop and wait for me before you take off. Turin's gonna be pissed to have you show up on his doorstep at this hour. No telling what he might do."
"He yelped like a little boy," she laughs. "We're almost back. Go back to bed."
"Is Alvis with you? Alvis is with you," John guesses. "Way to go – drag the monk with you for back-up. This his idea of a date night? Because it sounds more like yours."
"I can hear you," Alvis reminds him.
Then they're walking back up the ramp onto Lucy. Johnny's waiting in the cargo hold, frowning, dressed and armed as if he'd actually planned to go after them. "D'aven's gonna be super pissed when he finds out you didn't get him up to go with Dutch."
"Don't tell him," Alvis advises. He takes her goggles and riffle, puts them away as if he's done it a thousand times.
Johnny makes an obscene gesture at the monk's back. "What did Turin say? What'd you tell him?" he asks her.
"I'll tell you about it in the morning," she assures him, smiling. "Go to bed. You're grumpy." She laughs. Maybe it's only exhaustion, but in this instant, she feels absurdly happy. "Lucy, take us to orbit Leith. Alvis has to be at a monastery tomorrow, then we'll come back for Pawter."
"Acknowledged. Setting course for Leith," Lucy states. The low thrum of engines coming to life can be more felt than heard.
Johnny runs a hand over his face, sighing. "Fine. Whatever. To be continued later," he agrees, turning away. As he climbs up the ladder, he adds, "Lucy, no unscheduled stops. Anything else, and you talk to me first."
"Yes, John. Sleep well," Lucy agrees with mechanical fondness.
As soon as Johnny's boots clear the next level, she taps off her comms link and reaches for Alvis. One brush of a finger over the space behind his ear and his link is closed, too. They're alone as much as is possible in the cargo hold of a small ship. She's happy, doesn't care exactly why.
After a moment Alvis pulls away from her to ask, "Do you have a fever? You're really warm for just coming in from cold night."
"Not exactly sexy talk, love," she laughs. She unfastens her jacket, tosses it aside, reaches for the knots of his cape.
"Hmm. Weren't you supposed to have more antibiotics a few hours ago?" Alvis won't be distracted. "Let me see the cut on your stomach."
Sighing, she leans back against the workbench and pulls up her shirt enough to expose her self-inflicted wound. "It's still closed, doesn't hurt like it did before. Johnny said it probably won't scar. Sorry to disappoint."
Alvis glances up from his inspection, smiles, traces the new skin with a feather-light touch. "No need to keep a reminder of the experience."
She's not likely to forget anything that happened in the mine anytime soon. "We have a few hours before we reach Leith," she says hopefully.
"Longer than that before morning comes," Alvis corrects. He shifts his hold on her, sinks a little lower to kiss the place she'd sliced open hours before.
"Like the way you think, monk," she laughs.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the Other Her standing in a corner, easily leaning against a bulkhead, smiling as she watches them, toying with a knife.
She blinks. The Other Her is instantly gone. The shadows are silent and empty – for now.
[end]