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Chapter One: Spiritual

There was still a blue glow when he opened his eyes, and for just a moment everything seemed the same.

Until he remembered.

Two men stood in front of him, watching him carefully as he shifted this way and that. He thought fast, desperate, and decided the best option was to keep his memories to himself. Don't tell them what you know. Don't let them see who you are. You can't trust them. You can't trust anyone.

The Counselor leaned down to make something resembling eye contact with him, and he tensed in preparation.

"Hello. Do you know your name?"

Alpha, Delta, Omega, Gamma, Sigma, Theta…he rapidly flew through options and selected their identical first responses.

"My name is…Alpha."

Both men shifted in an almost bored kind of way, which meant their comfort level was high from what he recalled. They were used to this by now. No surprises. Good. The Counselor followed the script.

"No. You are mistaken."

"I'm sorry…I tried…" He used his own script for that, after all he needed to present himself as a unique identity. Hopefully they wouldn't catch on.

"That's all right. It's normal given your state. You're safe."

Lies. All lies. He had never been in more danger.

"Your name is Epsilon."

That much was true. And here is where it got scary. Both men were waiting for a reply to confirm that he accepted his new name. He rotated through options and settled on the vaguest response he had, which was still a bit too revealing. But it was his only choice.

"Welcome to the world, Epsilon, today is your birthday."

The Director's head tilted to one side, and Epsilon could literally see his life flash before his eyes. He wasn't going to make it. He started to tremble, his projection rippling slightly before he could control it.

"That's the first thing I said to you, Epsilon. You have a very good memory."

Oh God, no… "It's not good enough. I'm sorry…I just need more time. I'll keep trying." Anything to throw them off the truth, and he knew from vicarious experience that the initial interview was crucial to determine a fragment's main traits. Oh, God, is that what he was now? A fragment like all the others? He held himself steady and waited to be deleted.

The Director was still staring at him closer than he'd like, but he did eventually move his head in a different direction, indicating that he was considering other conclusions. Epsilon held breath he didn't need.

"That's all right. You should rest now, Epsilon. Gather your strength. Your implantation into Agent Washington will take place in a few days."

Agent Washington and another agent were killed…the last memory he possessed flashed across his databanks.

He couldn't do this. He was being torn apart. He was torn apart… He couldn't… "I'll keep trying," was all he could manage to say. He quickly logged off.

"Interesting," the Director mused. "I wondered if perhaps this one had inherited the memories after such a traumatic session, but it seems a better possibility that this is Alpha's determination or perseverance. Notice his constant assurance that he is trying."

"Hmm, yes," The Counselor turned to the Director. "He seems a bit unstable, though, perhaps he isn't the best match for Agent Washington. David's history of aggression could—"

"No, they are a good match. Agent Washington is continually striving to be better, to earn the second chance we gave him. He has never left the top ten of the leaderboard, and having an A.I. that is similar will only drive him further. It will be fine."

"If you say so, Director." The Counselor briefly entertained the notion that Epsilon's responses sounded eerily similar to earlier conversations with other A.I., but refrained from actually verbalizing it. The Director would wave off the notion with his typical arrogance, and he'd be left looking foolish.

Besides, they had repeated this interview enough times now that it was always the same.

Wash knew going in that having an A.I. implanted would be a new and foreign experience. He knew things wouldn't be the same and that he'd start a new part of his training that might have challenges and pitfalls.

He just didn't realize what that really meant.

When it hit him, it happened between one moment and the next. Before, he was in zero gravity surgery reminding himself that York said a couple of headaches, no big deal. After, he was screaming.

The problem wasn't the woman suddenly in the forefront of his mind telling him she had to go, that he'd make her late, it was all the emotion that came thundering in with it. Wave upon wave of grief, love, loss, pain and horror crashed over his mind, overwhelming him with its sheer raw power. He stumbled off the operating table, knocking a tray over in his haste to get away.

"Secure him! Get him under control!"

He was only vaguely aware of the sounds coming from his mouth as hands reached for him and he pushed them back. His own hands reached for the woman and instead found the floor.

"Don't make me hurt you."

But she was hurting him, just by existing in his head. He shook it, needing the pain to stop, wanting peace. He barely felt the prick of a needle as they sedated him but he felt the effects immediately. He sagged into waiting arms that loaded him back onto the gurney while he mumbled to himself, echoing the voice in his head.

"Don't say goodbye…hate goodbyes…"

He slipped away as they rolled him out of the room, barely aware of the Counselor's response to the Director's request to speak with him as soon as he woke up.

When Wash drifted back to awareness, it was because a voice was speaking inside his head, echoes of memories and dreams. It pulled him back into consciousness once he was awake enough to make out some of the words he kept hearing, a stream of babble that ran on and on. Words and images intermixed, some familiar and some all new. In time he was able to make sense out of some of it.

"Agent Washington and another agent were killed."

He was dead, then. Dead. Funny, he had always figured he would die on the battlefield. Or crushed under a car.

But if he was dead, why did his head hurt so badly? The pain was unbearable, so much noise. He wanted to scream again…

"Please. Stop. I'll do anything you want." That part of his past was one he didn't seem to recall, but the emotions associated with them felt very real. They came crashing in again; this time with all new flashes of…memory? Stress and horror and grief and anger…

And suddenly he knew so much more about what was going on in Project Freelancer. Oh my god…I trusted him and he betrayed me!

Wash opened his eyes, gasping for air, looking for anything that would diminish the barrage of visions and feelings. It took a few seconds to realize that whatever was going on, he was still breathing, his head still throbbing. No. He wasn't dead.

He barely glimpsed a medic before they quickly left, and he knew exactly who they were going to report to. He turned his head and realized he wasn't in the main bay where Carolina and her constant companion York still resided, but a segregated private room instead. That didn't reassure him at all. His mind was rabbiting in panic, throwing out thoughts and memories at random. They mixed with the nonstop babble and created a cacophony that overwhelmed him. It was highly disconcerting.

…can't trust anyone, pretend everything is okay. Don't think about it, don't think about it…

"Okay, okay!" he whispered out loud in spite of himself, desperate to achieve some kind of control. His thoughts (his thoughts?) subsided slightly, allowing him to take a few breaths and calm down. It was a small mercy, because just then the door slid open and the Director strode in purposefully, coming right up to Wash's bedside.

Wash had never trusted the Director completely and hadn't viewed him as anything more than his boss, especially after the incident where York was injured. But he always relied on the idea that the Director was basically a good man with some rough edges, and his drive to save humanity was his redeeming factor. Now that premise had blown away like smoke in a high wind.

There were no words for the new levels of hatred and disgust that flooded Wash at the sight of the Director. Everything that he had abruptly learned and felt about the project now colored his view. He could no longer see a driven scientist who just wanted to save humanity, the man who had given him a second chance. All he saw were the lengths the Director had gone to accomplish his goals, the torture and manipulation. The experiments… He knew too much now, and it would forever change how Wash looked at him. He had never wished for his helmet more in his entire life, but made do with feigning extra grogginess and avoiding eye contact.

"Agent Washington, you seem to have had a difficult time with your implantation procedure," the Director's smooth drawl grated on his ears and created a sudden visceral desire to throw up.

"Um," he paused for a deep breath, realizing his heart was pounding adrenaline through his system, like a fight or flight response. What was happening to him? "Yeah, sorry, it was a bit more intense than I expected. I didn't feel in control of myself. I'm better now."

"Are you sure?" The Director's glasses were boring a hole through him, making him squirm. He forced his rapidly darting mind to be quiet.

"Yes, I'm feeling a bit better. I'll be fine."

"And…the Epsilon A.I. unit? Has it made contact with you?"

Wash knew his eyes flickered. He knew it. But he quickly forced himself to stare back into the Director's glasses and appear guileless, striving to be like the man he had been before implantation.

"I'm not sure yet. It might be him I keep hearing but it's like a radio that isn't quite tuned in yet. Give me some time and I'm sure we'll get on the same frequency."

It was only the small pause as the Director considered his response that made Wash realize his story wasn't fully believed. He squinted and went for a nauseous headache look to make it more credible, even as his teeth gritted at the sight of the man in front of him. He'd trusted the program. He'd believed in it… He forced those thoughts away in order to focus on his lie.

Finally the Director nodded. "Fine. Don't take too long, Agent Washington, we want you back in good form as soon as possible."

"Of course, sir," Wash mumbled, suddenly highly aware of their reversed positions and that it was wrong for him to have to apologize for being less than peak performance, considering it was command's fault he wasn't. Odd how he'd never noticed the way the Director turned things around in his favor until now.

The Director turned to leave and then paused, making his next question seem like an afterthought. But Wash recognized it immediately for what it was: A ploy to catch him with his guard down.

"Oh, one more thing, Agent Washington. What were you saying on your way out of the procedure? Something about hating goodbyes?"

Wash could feel hatred surge from a place it had never come from before, almost costing him his carefully protected façade. He went for straight up denial, even tilting his head in a quizzical manner to complete the bemused demeanor.

"Goodbyes, sir? I don't remember what I was mumbling. I was really out of it. But my mother said I talked under sedation when I had my tonsils out as a kid and it never made any sense, so it was probably meaningless babble." He forced himself to appear unconcerned and as relaxed as possible as the Director nodded with one last considering look and left the room, then slumped back on the hard mattress to assess the sudden new situation he found himself in.

New thoughts and memory flashes were swirling in his head, mixing with his own. He wasn't sure how much of the disillusioned reaction was him and what was Epsilon. One of them (maybe both, he couldn't tell) was spinning out of control again, unable to pull focus from the Director. Wash could feel his blood pressure rising, his jaw clenching along with his fists. This was torture, he felt broken. Oh God, he broke me, he's putting me through hell, I can't handle this anymore—

"Stop it, stop it," Wash gritted between clenched teeth, fighting for control. The more he focused on being the dominant one the more it felt like Epsilon eventually subsided, slipping into a corner of Wash's mind that he could still feel and almost see. Epsilon curled into a pseudo-fetal position and rocked to soothe himself. Wash realized his own mouth was mumbling one phrase over and over.

"You can't trust anyone…you can't trust anyone…you can't trust anyone…"

Wash closed his eyes against the horrible images flashing through his mind, but it didn't help. All he knew was that those words rang more true than anything he had ever heard in his life. He knew it in his bones, in the deepest recesses of his mind. And even with the company of an A.I. in his head, he had never felt more alone.

You can't trust anyone…

"I know." Wash opened his eyes, not sure if he was speaking to Epsilon or himself. But he said it again so they both knew it. "I know."

He lay on the bed and waited for the medic to return.

Once the medic had assessed him and declared him free to go, Wash weakly pushed off the small medical bed. He could feel a headache coming on. At least this was one thing he had expected.

The medic reached out to steady him with a hand on his arm, but he pushed it away violently before he even realized he was going to. The medic backed off, wary now. It was a reaction Wash had seen from medics attempting to help Tex or Maine or Carolina, but not him. He was usually kind to them. They were just doing their job, after all. But now they looked like faceless minions serving a force of evil, and Wash didn't want any of them to touch him ever again. Still, he mumbled an apology as he left and headed for his own bunk.

When the agents had first arrived on The Mother of Invention, Wash had found it odd that each freelancer occupied their own small room with a bed and tiny bathroom attached. Surely it would save space to double up with two agents to a room since space was limited on a ship? Plus, it would give Wash someone to talk to and that would be good for team bonding to form a more cohesive unit.

Now it made sense. Once agents were implanted with an A.I. the Director didn't want them able to talk and compare notes privately, and he certainly didn't want them tempted to let their A.I. interact with each other. Everything was so clear now…

Wash strode down the hallway, hoping to reach his room before he saw anyone he knew. He felt like a combatant alone in enemy territory. He had left his helmet on his bed and had a desperate need to put it back on again.

Once he arrived at his door he punched in the code on the access panel and slipped inside, closing the door immediately. The space was dimly lit with the small light over his bed. He picked up his helmet and put it on. Wash found it soothing, an extra layer of protection from the world, a barrier to hold in and hide his newfound secrets, his piercing mistrust. It was almost dinner time, but he didn't want food if it involved being around people. He lay down on his bed and tried to sleep, ignoring the knock on his door and York's voice asking if he was there. He stared at the ceiling through his visor, sleep eluding him, and lost track of the hours passing.

Wash couldn't stop his mind from wandering, mulling over the sudden change in his world. The continual unrelenting stress of Epsilon's presence was so unbearable that eventually, halfway through a sleepless night, he wondered if he should approach the Director about having it removed. He knew he could never trust the director again, could never give the real reason why, but if he could make up a believable enough story maybe he could at least get it out of his head…

But he'd forgotten that anything that he thought would be easily picked up by Epsilon.

"I'm here, I'm here…What happened, is everybody okay? I gazed at the schematics, they're just, they're too complex…I just need more time to work on them…"

The memory was unfolding in Wash's mind, and suddenly the urge to throw up was back. It was like he was reliving it alongside Epsilon, and it was too real. He was never sure if the words he uttered were his own, or simply the echo of the memory.

"It's not your fault…"

A small blue flash signaled Epsilon's appearance in front of him, floating in the air. It was pulsing with urgent, distressed energy as it spoke aloud for the first time.

"How can you say that? Of course it is!"

Wash stared at him, struck by how fragile and vulnerable he looked as an insubstantial hologram. For the first time he understood why North and York were so protective and caring about their A.I. This fragment was so lost, so…small…and Wash realized almost instantly that it was trying to communicate with him, but it only seemed capable of doing so through its memories.

Because those were all it had.

Epsilon was begging Wash not to give up on him, and the only language available to him consisted of tortured, fractured memories.

The particular memory Epsilon was bringing to the surface crept through Wash's mind like bile up his throat, its acid burning a permanent scar. They had told Epsilon he was dead. They had told him Tex was dead, and that it was his fault.

This traumatized, tortured, shattered fragment was his A.I. and it needed him. It was clearly terrified to go back into the hands of the Director and Counselor and considering all the memories still surfacing, Wash could understand why.

"It's okay…it's okay…" Wash almost reached to touch him before remembering that was impossible. "I won't get rid of you, okay? We'll stick together."

He was grateful at that moment for their connected thoughts, because it helped Epsilon believe him. His pulsating anxiety ebbed enough for him to stop flickering and flashing through memories. Wash took that as a good sign.

"I just need more time…" Epsilon's voice was plaintive and pitiful.

"I know. Me too. It's okay. Let's get some sleep and start out fresh tomorrow."

Epsilon abruptly flipped to a different memory, which left Wash reeling. "Yeah, yeah, way ahead of you, buddy."

The arrogant tone of the memory told Wash this was before Alpha had begun to fragment, and since memories were the only way he could communicate, he forgave him the tone associated with it. Speaking through memory must be a limiting experience. Maybe in time Epsilon would gain a voice of his own.

Epsilon, tuned in to Wash's thought process, was reassured enough to log off and disappear. Wash shook off the memory of Alpha and the Director and settled in to get some sleep.

But that was easier said than done. Even after logging off Epsilon was active in his head and unable to stop continually bringing back flashes of torture and stress at odd moments, usually just as Wash was starting to drift off. It made it hard to relax enough to actually sleep.

As it was, just having Epsilon there was a jarring ordeal to manage, because they were communicating inside his head but there really weren't any words. Their language consisted of images and flashes of memory, sometimes a smell or a sound. Wash wondered if it was the same for all the other agents and their A.I. or if his was the only one muted to this level. He wondered if it would be safe to ask York or North, but that thought only made Epsilon more distraught which led to another onslaught of memory flashes.

"I can't do this anymore…" Epsilon was back, projected on top of Wash's chest on his knees, weary and beaten.

Completely exhausted and worn, Wash understood. "I know. I know it's bad, Epsilon. Just…try to get through this with me, get through a little bit at a time, and we'll be okay. I promise."

Epsilon looked at him, sorting through memories to use as a reply. Wash waited patiently, even though it only took a few moments. "You won't let them take you from me?"

The memory associated with it took Wash by surprise, the brightly shadowed figure of a woman infused with light, just like Epsilon. Just like Alpha. Who the hell was that? The pain associated with her was unbelievable, much like the other woman. Wash gritted his teeth so he could focus on the conversation they were having. Epsilon suppressed the memory somewhat to allow it, which helped. Wash had to breathe a moment before he could reply, though.

"I'm not leaving you, Epsilon. We'll figure this out. We'll make it stop."

Epsilon looked down for a moment and then back to Wash's face. His voice deepened suddenly, a throaty growl that made a chill run up Wash's spine.

"They'll pay for this."

"Yes. They will."

There are two schools of thought on Wash's memories inherited from Epsilon. One is that he has all memories of both the Director and Alpha, the other is that he has only inherited Alpha's specifically.

I have read some excellent fics that deal with the first one, but I tend to favor the latter since Wash says he doesn't have all the answers/doesn't know everything and that he got "flashes" once Epsilon was in his head. That's what is reflected in this fic. In Reconstruction Wash tells Church that he doesn't know what Tex is exactly or why she was the Director's favorite, and in Revelation he gives Church the name of the person the Director loved but no further details like his wife, etc. so it's possible he doesn't have all the facts about the Director's life. It seems more likely to me that he has certain powerful memories carried over to Alpha from the Director, and got a bunch of Alpha's memories on torture and other info, but not everything from either one. He got enough to connect some dots and know more than others, but he doesn't know everything the Director knows.

I really liked the idea that Epsilon is so freshly traumatized by his creation that he really started with nothing but a massive survival instinct and a mess of memories. (Epsilon's line in his goodbye speech at the end of season 13 says he was just a collection of someone else's memories.) I like to think it took time for him to grow into himself and become the caustic cynical crank we all know and love. Don't worry, he'll get there.

As for Wash, he manifests as two distinct personalities during the early years of RvB: The softer but capable marshmallow of Project Freelancer who loves cats, and the hardened rely-only-on himself agent who trusts no one. I'm trying to show his transition from one to the other in this story, and while his trust has taken a big hit already the softer side of him remains and that's the part that is becoming so protective of Epsilon despite the trauma associated with him. It's not until later when he's a solid member of Blue Team that he seems to have been able to merge the two together successfully.

Anyone who has watched RvB too many times will recognize some of Epsilon's lines from the show since that's his only mode of communication at the moment.

I feel like I'm rambling...update coming soon.