Roy watched the patrol with sharp eyes. Innocence lurked in the building shadows to Roy's right. They needed to get past the patrol to get food. Their own supplies had run out the day before and their serum two nights before that. They were getting weak without food, weaker than they could afford.

They had been in Shadowlair's slums for almost two weeks. They were healed up and ready to go but the streets were teeming with soldiers. The annihilation of the militia had left a power vacuum filled by too few soldiers. The end result was a dangerous spike in the crime rate and a dangerous spike in the arrogance and aggression of the more brutal troops thronging the streets.

Roy hadn't dared start shit near their hide out and for a while that had been fine. Innocence would wear a scarf and goggles and get supplies as needed. Roy would spend the nights lurking bars and shady corners picking up gossip and trying to find a safe way to contact the resistance.

Then Innocence was jumped by a gang of junkies. They'd stolen the kid's serum and supplies and worked him over pretty good. Roy had found him and taken him home, cursing his own carelessness the whole time. He shouldn't have let Innocence out alone the boy had never lost the look of a wide eyed innocent even after the war and Camp 19. It didn't matter that he had killed and would likely kill again Roy was certain that sense of awe and gentleness would never really leave Innocence.

So Roy had spent the next few days nursing Innocence. He had wanted to hunt down the junkies and beat them badly but he didn't have the time and honestly didn't know how to find the specific assholes. The slums teemed with junkies now.

"Roy?" Innocence asked.

Roy didn't reply, he could see what Innocence had commented on. A second patrol had arrived. As they settled into a new post Roy felt his stomach rumble.

"Fuck."

"Two patrols there's more than food down there." Innocence muttered.

Roy nodded and faded into the shadows with Innocence.

"We need another plan."

"We don't have time, we're too short on Serum. We should go to Charity."

Roy sighed. He didn't want to go to Charity like this. Sure she was the de facto ruler of the Slums and even owed him a few favors but she was hard as nails and washing up on her porch with hat in hand wouldn't do him any favors.

"Okay, come on kid." Roy sighed.

Charity, to her credit, didn't give him shit. She offered a couple different jobs, he accepted them all and he and the kid ate a solid meal on credit and set out to get back in the black with Charity.

The first job was to scare off a pervert who was freaking out Charity's girls and the johns. Roy did his scary act – to great effect. Innocence watched Roy and wondered how much was an act and how much was raw honesty. The blubbering asshole swore to leave Shadowlair and they left.

Innocence watched Roy light a cigarette, the dark of the slums momentarily driven off by the flare of the lighter. Roy's bicolored eyes glared at the flame as he carefully puffed to get the cheap cigarette to light. Roy was a handsome man, mildly scarred and, like most of Mars humans, perpetually smudged with dust, but handsome. At times he was warm, personable an extremely likable man who acted righteously with a streak of amused pragmatism. Others, he was two breaths from a monster.

Innocence wondered what had made Roy like that, so clearly aware of right and wrong and so clearly struggling to stay in the light.

"Come on we can hit up the cheap asshole on the way back then settle up with Charity."

"What about the missing girl?"

Roy puffed on his smoke and glanced at the sky.

"If we have time."

They found the girl, Lily, in Tierville the market section of Shadowlair. She looked bad and was afraid to talk. Patiently Roy coaxed her into admitting her pimp was a sadist with a bad clientele list.

Roy tried talking to the pig but he wanted too much serum to buy the girl's contract so Roy used his fists and a bat instead. Innocence quietly rejoiced at the man's pain. No one should be forced to live in terror and work until they dropped regardless of their profession.

The girl thanked them and ran her ass out of Tierville and out of sight toward the slums. The men followed her more slowly.

"Will we have enough to lay low again?" Innocence asked casually.

Roy laughed. "Yeah but we won't kid. You've waited long enough. We'll see if Charity can help us find a contact so we can find out about the militia and the resistance."

"Thank you Roy –"

"Save it kid." Roy said and smiled.

Roy was pretty sure Innocence wouldn't thank him for putting the kid on this path in a few years, hell a few months. Really if Roy insisted it was too dangerous he was pretty sure he would be able to convince Innocence to head to a different city and start a new life, it would take time and Innocence would hate Roy, if only just a little bit, for it for the rest of their lives but it could be done.

Only that wasn't Roy's decision to make. He had offered the kid a way out and Innocence was hell-bent on finding out what had happened to his parents and joining the resistance. So be it. It wasn't Roy's place to live Innocence's life for him. As much as it pained the older man to see aspects of his younger self reflected in Innocence they each had to walk their own path.

They made it back to Charity and settled up.

"Good news Roy I got a line on a resistance contact for you."

Roy hesitated, looked at Innocence's tired face and relaxed.

"Thanks Charity, we'll take care of it first thing tomorrow."

"Sooner the better sugar you know how skittish these political types are."

That night Roy slept soundly while Innocence watched him. Roy didn't sleep much if was injured or sick he would sleep for a day or more but generally four hours was enough. Innocence watched his friend sleep, the slow steady rise and fall of his chest and felt an ache for him.

Aurora was, in many ways, a near theocracy. Religion permeated everyday life to such a level that even the people's names were taken from the Neo-Bible. His affection for Roy and before Roy a boy on his street had been sacred secret longings. He had assumed they would fade with age the terror of his introduction to Camp 19 hadn't just been very valid mortal terror of injury and death but also exposure.

He loved Roy as a benefactor and protector, but more and more every day that love was turning in to something else. He could never let Roy know, aside from their sex Roy was at least ten years older than Innocence and that was just physically. Roy and Innocence were so very different in more ways than chronological age that nothing could ever come of Innocence's midnight longing.

Still, he would watch Roy from time to time when he thought the older man wasn't watching. He would drink in the lines of his face, the language of his stance, the way he moved and smelt, the rough amusement in his voice when Innocence had made a funny comment, the gentle rebuke when Innocence screwed up…

After a few more minutes Innocence stretched out on the floor and willed himself to sleep. The long day of exertion finally won out over his racing mind and aching heart and he slept.

Roy opened his eyes two hours later, the thin watery light of the evening rendering his bicolored eyes monochrome. He looked at Innocence and sat up. He ached from stem to stern, felt like he'd run a marathon and wrestled a mole queen at the finish line. He slipped the technomancer glove off his hand and flexed his hand feeling the ache rise and course through him.

He hadn't let out the power recently, he would have to do so that day or drain it off some other way and soon. Losing control of power and the terrible side effects of it had been one of the reasons for the establishment of the Source and the archaic conservative and brutal nature of technomancer training. A side effect was that if a student matured too quickly or their master missed signs of maturation terrible accidents could occur. Roy didn't think keeping secrets that lead to dead technomancer apprentices and masters was a particular good idea. One of the many reasons he had invited himself to leave them.

He slipped out of their shelter and into the cool air outside; he left his shirt open and picked up his armor. He sat at the table on the upper level with their shelter and began to clean and repair it. Keeping his hands and mind busy helped Roy settle the power surging through him.

As Roy worked he let his mind wander. He thought about the technomancer apprentice they had met at Camp 19, how she had allowed him to guide her to save their lives when the mole queen was rampaging, how she must have felt when he killed her master, Sean, to escape.

Another enemy. He wondered if he had ever seen her during his time at the Source, would it have changed anything if he had? No, he had seen apprentices like her before, so indoctrinated by the Source training regimen and their master's firm hands that they couldn't function outside of them. Literally could not comprehend an existence beyond them. So she would hunt him if she could and kill him happily.

By the time he finished working Innocence was awake. He prepared a morning meal for them and brought it out to Roy.

"How's your gear?" Roy asked around a mouthful as he nodded at his own gear.

They had upgraded to much better equipment but it was a far cry from new. Innocence sighed and shook his head.

"It could use a good scrub and some stitching."

"Okay, take care of it and pack up. I want to make sure this place will stay secure if we get lucky with the meeting today. These resistance people will have to be paranoid as hell. If we have to drop everything and go with them it'll be nice to know we have a fallback."

"Right. Good thinking." Innocence said as he finished his portion of the meal.

"Roy…I never asked before but…" He trailed off blushing slightly.

"What is it kid?"

"Did…did you leave anyone behind? I mean, for the war?"

"A wife or something?"

Innocence shrugged one shoulder sheepishly.

"No, I'm not the marrying kind kid. That whole renegade technomancer label really gets in the way." Roy chuckled.

Innocence's blush deepened.

"Oh. That makes sense. What…what about when you were…younger?"

"I've had my share of women Innocence, if that's what you're asking. Listen if you want a family one day then we should focus on that. People that join revolutions don't have long life spans and their families are a liability. This is your call; far as I'm concerned we can fuck off to Green Hope or some other Farmville and call it good."

"You can't stay in one place for long –"

"I know. But you can Innocence, that's what I'm saying. You're just an ex-soldier now, we can get you legit papers with a few well-placed whispers and some serum. You can have a real life –"

"I can't though Roy. For… a lot of reasons, my parents, the war….I don't want normal even if I could have it, not anymore, I can't walk away from my past and I can't run to a new one."

"Fine, but you say the word and we drop this shit only…say it soon kid we're coming up on a point of no return fast as hell."

Innocence just looked down at his empty dish. He was trying to find the courage to spill his real weakness to Roy, to tell him the real reason he couldn't have a family. But he couldn't gather the guts and then Roy was walking away to get dressed…

"Fuck." The boy sighed and retrieved their plates.