Hiya!

Gah, sorry, I know I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I had a mini family crisis that needed sorting, still I'm putting it up now so it's not all that late, is it?:)

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Chapter 3: An Attempted Apology

Present day:

Ember stared at Caleb, completely at a loss of what to say.

"Why did you lie to me?" Caleb asked, looking as if Ember had murdered a puppy.

"Because I wanted to protect you." Ember replied, her voice quiet and full of shame.

"You keep saying that." Caleb stated. "But you never say what you mean by that."

"It means she doesn't want you to be hurt." Tweaks replied before glancing at Ember. "Bang up job on that, by the way."

"I realize what I did was wrong, but please, let me explain, I'll tell you everything you want to know." Ember said.

"Right now I don't even want to look at you." Caleb stated.

Ember stared as Caleb walked out of the command centre, feeling like she'd just gotten a stab to the heart. She tried to go after him, but before she could even take a step, Tweaks stepped in her path, stopping her.

"Let him go." Tweaks said.

"No way." Ember replied, trying to push past the older girl.

"Let him go." Tweaks repeated firmly, grabbing hold of Ember's arm. "You've done enough damage for one day, don't you think?"

"What?" Ember asked, staring at Tweaks. "How dare you..."

"He trusted you, more than anyone else and you betrayed him." Tweaks replied. "How can you possibly do something like this? I thought you knew better."

"I don't have to justify my actions, least of all to you." Ember replied firmly. "And I don't need my face shoved into the fact that I made the wrong choice. I am perfectly aware that what I did was wrong, alright?"

Neither of them said anything for a few moments and Ember pulled her arm free from Tweaks' grip. She ran her hands over her face as she thought about how the hell she was going to apologize to Caleb but she couldn't see an immediate solution as it would mean talking to Caleb and judging from his reaction that was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment.

"Why the hell did you bring me back?" Ember demanded.

"Why'd you think?" Tweaks replied.

"For this?" Ember asked. "Couldn't you have just dropped me a message or something?"

"No, this has to be done face to face." Tweaks replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well, fat lot of good that's going to do me if Caleb won't even look at me." Ember stated.

"Then you're just going to have to find a way to solve all of this." Tweaks said firmly.

Ember glared at the older girl for a moment before leaving the command centre. The last thing she wanted was to get into a massive fight with Tweaks, the only person who didn't hate her all that much at that moment.

Despite the fact that Ember knew that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, she made her way to the lair to get some shoes as the gantries were killing her feet. When Ember stepped into the lair some time later, she found that Caleb was sitting in his chair that stood right in front of the windows and he was staring out of them, looking out over the water, clearly lost in thought. She quietly walked over to the storage room and stepped inside before looking through the boxes from some shoes to wear. When she had found them, she pulled the boots on and walked out into the main room of the lair to find that Caleb was leaning against the table with Tweaks standing at one of the tables, looking over a map.

"Found everything you need?" Caleb asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's just a pair of boots." Ember replied. "It's not like I haven't borrowed stuff before."

"That's when I could trust you." Caleb stated.

"You can still trust me." Ember said.

"Oh really?" Caleb scoffed. "That video you left said otherwise."

"I did it to protect you." Ember replied. "I didn't want to see you get hurt!"

"Bang up job on that." Caleb replied.

"Caleb, enough." Tweaks said, glancing up at Caleb for a moment and giving him a warning look.

"What you did still hurt me." Caleb continued, ignoring Tweaks. "If you wanted to protect me, you should've told me the truth about everything."

"I know, and I wish that I could've done something to stop you getting hurt when you found out the truth, but I couldn't keep lying to you, Caleb." Ember said. "You're my grandson, my future grandson and..."

"You mean nothing to me." Caleb said harshly. "I don't even know who you are anymore. What am I supposed to call you? Are you Ruby or Ember?"

"You know who I am, Caleb." Ember said calmly.

"No, I don't." Caleb stated.

"Yes, you do." Ember replied. "I am the recruit you counted on to help you defeat Neuros; I am the recruit that stood by your side on the decks of FutureGate to take down Arkon. I am your future grandmother who killed an Alien in order to keep you safe. But most of all, I am the girl from the 21st century who made the biggest mistake on the face of the Earth when I first started lying to you. And if you wanna hold a grudge against me because of that, then that's your choice..."

With that Ember left the lair and walked over to the outer decks. When she stepped out onto the deck, she felt the cool sea air brushing through her hair and she took a deep breath. She still didn't know what she was going to do to make things right with Caleb. She did know that she felt like she'd explained things as best as she could. She glanced up for a moment when she heard footsteps coming up behind her only to find that it was Tweaks.

"Come to tell me off again?" Ember asked, unable to keep the resentment from her voice.
"Actually I came to apologize." Tweaks replied, leaning on the banister beside Ember. "you're right, I didn't have the right to tell you what to do, but you've got to understand that I've been here for the past month, I had to watch Caleb trying to repair the time portal, desperate to get answers."
"I couldn't tell him everything before Tweaks..." Ember replied. "I just couldn't... when Cybele told me everything that Caleb had gone through when I left the first time... I couldn't put him through that again. When he lost his memories... it was the worst thing in 2110 for me and then he killed Orion... I know that it wasn't his intention, he was trying to protect me... but if I had told him who he is to me... who I am, I could've ordered him to stay put and stopped it from happening."
"Ruby..." Tweaks said before sighing. "I don't know what to call you anymore."
"You can call me Ember now..." Ember said quietly. "I don't ever want to be called Ruby again..."
"You don't know that, Ember." Tweaks continued. "Not unless you can see into the future."

Ember sighed as she leaned back against the banister and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I do know that I've blown things completely..." Ember stated sadly. "I wouldn't be surprised if Caleb doesn't trust me ever again."
"Give it time." Tweaks replied. "Things'll be back to normal sooner or later; Caleb'll come around."

Ember just scoffed and shook her head. In her mind, things weren't going to be the same ever again. How could they be? She had lied to Caleb, who basically had the emotions of a 5 year old, well, since Orion he had probably matured a lot when it came to emotions so she couldn't really say that he had the emotions of a 5 year old anymore. Still, Things would never be the same again.

"So how long are you going to stay this time?" Tweaks asked.
"Don't know..." Ember replied. "Depends on whether I'll be able to sort things out with Caleb... if not... then I guess I'll just have to go home knowing that my future grandson hates me."
"He doesn't hate you." Tweaks stated.

Ember scoffed once again. From where she was standing, it sure felt like it.

"Pessimist." Tweaks shook her head. "What happened to you? You used to be so optimistic, so driven to do everything you can to help Caleb."
"The optimistic side of me blew up when the time portal did." Ember replied, staring straight ahead of her. "But I'd still give my life to keep Caleb safe."

With that Ember pushed herself off the railing and walked back into FutureGate, going back to the lair. She might've deleted all the correspondence that she'd had with Caleb, but she knew she would be able to retrieve it. It wouldn't be that hard, she had enough tricks up her sleeve to retrieve any deleted data. After all, she had been the one to delete all of it, so she could retrieve it with the snap of her fingers, well, not literally, but it shouldn't be that hard. What she hoped to achieve with this was to regain a little of Caleb's trust.

When she walked into the lair, she found that Caleb was once again sitting in his chair, again looking like he was lost in thought. Ember sighed silently as she took place behind the computer and booted it up.

"What are you doing?" Caleb asked.
"Showing you who I am." Ember replied.

Caleb didn't ask anything else and Ember silently got to work. 10 minutes later, she'd retrieved every file that had been part of her correspondence with Caleb before she left the computer.

"You wanted to know who I am." Ember asked to which Caleb turned face her. "Watch every message on this thing, and it'll show you..."

Ember retreated from the computer and stood at the front of the lair, staring out of the window. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Caleb walking over to the computer and sitting down behind it. Not long later, she could hear her own voice drifting over the speakers and the wait began. After the first message, which was from her telling Caleb that she'd been able to access the time link, Ember decided to leave Caleb alone so he could watch the messages in private. In the end, she decided to head down to Cybele's hide out, why she didn't know, probably to let the AI know that she was back. As soon as Ember
In the end, Ember decided to let Caleb do stuff on his own and went down to Cybele's hide out. When she got there, she walked down the steps and Cybele appeared as soon as she stepped of the final step.

"Ember." Cybele said, saying her name as if it was something disgusting.
"Cybele." Ember nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'll take it you're not too happy with my choices then?"
"Do you have any idea of what you've done?" Cybele asked angrily. "You have ruined everything."
"Did I?" Ember asked, raising an eyebrow. "I did what I thought was right, Laura."
"You made the wrong choice." Cybele stated.
"You might think so, but I don't." Ember replied. "I had no right to keep the truth from Caleb for as long as I did, I should've told him the truth straight away. instead, I listened to you because I thought 'hey, Cybele is Caleb's mother, she might know him better than me' and because of that, Caleb murdered a person. He killed someone to protect me, while I was the one who was supposed to protect him. Tell me, Laura, did you want that for your son?"
"No..." Cybele started.
"Well then." Ember interrupted. "We made the biggest mistake on the face of the planet in keeping the truth from him, a mistake we've got to bear the consequences off now. We both thought that we were doing the right thing, but we were wrong. And when I say that I'm going to stop hiding the truth from him, I mean everything, so don't be surprised if Caleb comes asking questions."

Without waiting for Cybele to respond, Ember walked up the steps and left the hideout.

Don't you just hate it when friends are fighting? I know I do! Still, it was enjoyable to write! (I know I can be ebil when I wanna be!:P)
Anywho, that's it for this chapter. I'll be posting the next one on Tuesday.

X Abby