A Town Called Defiance
An Imperfect Home
So I wrote this chapter as a sort of counterpoint to the first one and it turned out far shorter than I thought it would, but I still think it does its job. I was listening to Terminal by Echosmith while writing this.
Most people, Votan and human alike, particularly in the initial aftermath of the Votan arrival on Earth and then again during and after the Pale Wars, had a pretty us and them view of living with their new alien neighbors. The humans viewed the Votans as nothing more than invaders looking to take their home away from them and the Votans in turn looked down on the humans as inferior beings that should offer up their homes and resources just because of that fact. There was a sense of community in splitting off into these factions that Irisa could understand, but despite efforts, whether consciously or unconsciously, by both Nolan and Sukar, she would always be an outsider to both worlds.
Throughout her life both humans and Votans had hurt her and loved her in equal measure. She couldn't be sure if she had ever been anything more than a tool to her birthparents and the rest of the cult that very nearly sacrificed her but if there had been a time where that was the case she couldn't remember it. And of course over the course of time that she had spent on the road with Nolan there had been times where human settlements had turned them away simply because she wasn't one of them. In times like those Nolan told her that the world was full of stupid people and that she shouldn't let their words and actions get her down. She needed to keep pushing forward in the hope that something better was waiting for her over the next rise or beyond the next valley.
Nolan had been the only constant in her life, the only thing that she could identify that resembled the definition of a home, for so long that she had begun to think that she would never need anything else to make her happy. As long as she had her father she had someone that loved her unconditionally and anyone or anything else would just get in the way. Defiance had been a wake up call for both of them in that respect. Somehow, despite their best efforts, Defiance and the people that inhabited it wormed their way into their lives and never went away.
Now it was three years since the day that Nolan left her, three years since he sent her back to Defiance alone and left with Doc Yewell on a mission to find the Omec a home. She looked up at the stars as if they would offer up the answers to questions that deep down she knew she already knew the answers to. Why did he leave her? How she was supposed to move on with her life without Nolan's constant presence in it? Again, deep down, she knew that she already had.
She had been angry in those initial days, weeks, and months, angry that he could leave her so easily after everything they'd been through, angry that she was just supposed to figure it all out on her own now. It hadn't been easy for him though and she had already been moving away from his guidance and finding her own path for a long time. He was doing what any good father would have done in a similar situation. Spending an unforeseen amount of time in space with him and Doc Yewell wouldn't have been the best life for her to live and he was giving her a chance to find a better one.
She supposed that she was doing what he wanted. She had a job, head Lawkeeper after her father's departure and spent day and night with Berlin and whoever else showed up at the office wanting to help trying to wrangle Defiance's lingering issues. She had Amanda who was dealing with her own grief at the situation that left Nolan on an extended journey through space but tried to help her through the process where she could. And she had Berlin which wasn't something she was entirely ready to define, but was still the most stable something she had had since Tommy. Her life in relative terms was going pretty good presently and she just hoped that wherever he was out there that he would be proud of her.
Joshua Nolan was still out there somewhere among the stars, that's why she came out into the cool night air every night to gaze up at the stars and hope. She wasn't sure exactly what she would do if he ever came waltzing back into the town and came looking for her. Maybe they could do the dinners around the table that the McCawley's always used to do and pretend that they were just a normal family living in the world of Nolan's childhood. There would probably be crying and more than one hug that she would pretend not to enjoy. He could reenter her life at any moment and she'd welcome him back with open arms, but for the first time in her life since the day he rescued her from those cultists she was finding that she increasingly didn't need him to.
Defiance was her home now, a gathering place for all of the outsiders that weren't wanted anywhere else where she had friends, a job, a life. Once people left her they never came back. Her birthparents had never gone back to being her parents after they offered her up to the cult. Tommy and Sukar hadn't come back either. Despite the hope that she supposed would always linger there she couldn't allow herself to become consumed by the hope that Nolan would be different. He may come back at some point in the future or he may not, but he had given her a chance to keep pushing forward without him, a chance to make a life of her own, and she needed to continue taking it every day for her own sake.
She picked herself up off the ground and brushed the dirt off of her clothes. Nolan had given her the home that she had always wanted and while it wasn't with him that didn't make it any less special. She would never be fully Irathient despite her blood or fully human despite her upbringing and in Defiance that was something that finally felt okay. The Pale Wars were over and while there would always be lingering issues Defiance was the proof that coexistence could work. In a town like that it turned out that her diverse background was actually an asset that helped her diffuse situations far easier and faster than almost anyone else would be able to. It wasn't perfect but no home ever was and every moment that she spent in the place that her father had given her in his final act before sacrificing himself she was more certain than ever that home was exactly where she was.
As far as future chapters go I'm not sure. I had plans to do a chapter about Pottinger when I first started this because I think what they did to his character was stupid. I personally never saw him as a rapist and I feel like that whole storyline could have instead been used to make his character more likable but they just squandered it. I mean that pales in comparison to the McCawley massacre which was probably the single dumbest event on the show in my opinion. I mean personally I think that season 2 was written more poorly as a whole, especially the Irisa stuff, and by the beginning of season 3 it was already getting rumors of being canceled but that bloodbath was much more of a waste as a single event in a final season that was actually much better than the previous one. Anyways, sorry for ranting, I really do love the show, I just think better decisions could have been made. I guess we'll see where the inspiration takes me next. This fic is also on Archive Of Our Own now.