EPILOGUE

The gravdeck on the Kerensky's Blues was quiet, with the hum of the engines being the only background noise. Everyone was off eating or finding ways to entertain themselves, and Julian found a nice, quiet corner to stare off into the heavens.

They had only been traveling for three and a half days on the warship since jumping from Kenton in a zigzag pattern back to the Falcon OZ. Julian had finally stabilized again and his recovery was astounding. Both Lex and the onboard doctors were amazed at the strength he conjured. But his movements were solemn, and his mood isolated him from everyone around him.

Thao made his way into the room behind Julian, and noticed that he could see Lex with his family on the next level through the glass walls. Since the deck was circular and gravity hit the outside ring, the floor and walls were difficult to reference, but made for some very creative internal designs.

Just approaching his friend Thao could feel the weight of the world emanating from within him. He simply walked up and put his hand on Julian's shoulder.

"Thao…" he started, slowly trying to formulate his sentence correctly, "I am sorry."

"For what?"

Julian turned a little so he could look him in the face, "You needed me back there, and I ran off. I put myself first."

Thao was going to respond, but he also wanted to articulate this properly. This was again a side of Julian he was not used to seeing, and did not want to mishandle it. So he thought about everything from the outside in and responded, "Did she need you?"

"… Yeah."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Julian paused, then looked again through the window to the stars, "No."

Thao dipped his head in defeat, but then realized that Julian was being a little too hard on himself. "You know, we did get the cure."

"And all those people down there--"

"Not our mission." Thao interjected. He didn't like being so cold, but there was only one way to deal with what happened, and that was not by accepting any responsibility for the extermination of an entire planet when it was out of your hands. "Look, I do not like it, but we cannot think that way. We get this back to Sudeten. We may have saved everyone in the Occupation Zone. Maybe even farther."

Julian looked away now, at Lex and his family, enjoying the scenery and joking around. "Yeah."

Slightly smiling, Thao left his friend with another light pat to the shoulder while looking at Christine jumping on the gravdeck floor, amused by the lightened gravity in a way only a child could enjoy. Julian, despite his condition, risked his life to save a freebirth child who had no bearing on the mission, yet in doing so hit the hearts of everyone on the team. "Hey, you did good out there. You surprised us all, again."

Then he left Julian to his thoughts.

After a few moments he hit the button that dimmed the walls so he could have some privacy. He sat down and buried his face in his hands. The revelations came to him over and over again, like waves in an ocean, crashing into his mind and overpowering it every time.

Ashley loved the man he was, yet it was the machine who carried him through. It was always the machine that survived. The man was vulnerable, and though he fought so hard to suppress that vulnerability, it was that that brought him the most joy. And it was that that gave him her, and the feelings he got when he embraced her.

That was the human side, the weak side, and the side she showed him was so much stronger than everything else. The other agent was the machine, and thinking back, it was Julian's rage that won him the day, though it was his control over his own emotions that allowed him to carry forward.

It was so confusing, but he knew one thing: he needed both. Balancing that was impossible, though he was cursed to do that every moment of every day. If one side slipped up…

Julian Buhallin never showed vulnerability. Not to his enemies, not to his friends, and especially, never to himself.

But just this once, for her, he let it all out. For the first time since he could remember, he cried.