*
Fire and brimstone. Rommie had never identified with the ancient Earth phrase before. Unfortunately, she thought, changes seemed to be abounding.
Slipping from beneath Tyr Anasazi's arm, she pulled a sheet around her body in a ridiculous front of modesty, probably one Dylan had instilled, and moved towards the colossal expanse of windows to the rear of the Sabra-Jaguar leader's suite. The dawn was scarlet, blazing heat and light. She curled a fist and slammed it into the nearest window, marveling at the durability of the material and the facade of weakness it offered her.
"Ascendent?" Tyr moved up from behind, a hand snaking out to halt a second attack, voice atypically concerned.
"It's the ship. I...it...is gone. I can tell."
"I'm not certain what you want me to say." He appeared genuinely startled.
"That it wasn't in vain?" Sweeping past him, she moved off to dress.
"I happen to be doing the best I can with a very unpleasant situation." He pointed out curtly.
"Then do more." Pausing in the wardrobe doorway, she looked back. "Tyr, just find out if any of them made it."
"My best." He echoed, not very reassuringly, pulling on his own garb and striding out into the hallway.
The avatar slid to the floor and cried.
*
"Rommie. Rommie, listen to me. Rommie, I need you. Rommie! I know you can hear, you never stop hearing. Fine, be that way. I'll just sit here and be quiet too. Rommie...how can you be so quiet? How can you be so empty?"
The litany showed no signs of stopping. In fact, it seemed to be repeating with little breath between, a considerable task for any non-artificial intelligence. It also seemed to be directed to provoke response, preferably acknowledgment. The Andromeda Ascendent's avatar released a small sigh. It had worked.
Opening her eyes, she allowed the optical setup a moment to adjust to the sunlight pooled bedroom she and her companion were seated face to face in. Within seconds, the shadows abated, and Trance Gemini came into clear view, smile burgeoning, arms flinging out to pull the android in for a hug. "Oh, Rommie." Trance prattled.
Wrong. Odd. Rommie frowned, disengaging the arms and glancing down at them. "This isn't right. You were gold the last time I saw you. And you had long outgrown litanies."
"Yes, well." Delicate purple hands clasped, dark eyes shining with understanding and pleading warmth. "You see, that was my future self. I come from the past."
"What? Again?"
"Oh, you wouldn't know, would you? I'm so sorry, Rommie, but so much has happened, I barely understand it myself, I hope the other me does, but in the meantime I'm stuck here trying to help everyone and what a mess it is, Rommie."
"You can say that again." The android gingerly touched her face, feeling for damage.
"I was so afraid they had done something bad to you, Rommie, when you wouldn't speak to me..."
"Trance." She cut in swiftly. "Did Dylan survive?"
"Yes." Trance nodded urgently. "I saved him, and he's going to be okay, Rommie, after he gets treatment, he's just a little out of it. He..."
"No, don't do that." Still trying to fit all the drifting pieces of her universe together, Rommie shook the girl's shoulder as the small lavender chin began quivering. It had been years since she had seen any weakness of that sort in Trance Gemini, and she frankly did not feel up to readjusting. "I don't want to hear any more. Listen to me, Trance. I have no clear idea how you got to your future, nor do I really feel like thinking too deeply on it, but I do want you away from this particular locale."
"But Rommie, if I go..."
"Trance, if you stay you'll only have very bad possibilities to choose from. That's a promise." Losing her patience, the avatar glared.
"Not necessarily..."
"I didn't ask you to pick amongst possibilities, Trance. Now I mean it, go. The Maru is still intact, isn't it?"
The young Trance bit her lip. "It's bad, Rommie. We've lost a lot of important equipment already, and the AI program we installed from Andromeda's file copies is gone."
"Gone?" For a bare second, Rommie was numbed. Despite her newfound freedom from feeding off a ships energy, she had felt...connected...to some part of her former ship as long as the AI program had been on the Maru. All of the years as a self-contained android personality hadn't quite prepared her for the idea of completely losing her sisters.
"Gone." Trance confirmed with the blandness only a creature who died and repeatedly came back could ever muster. "The Maru still works, but without personality. Beka wrestled the systems into working before I changed places with the other me, but now she's dead, and I don't know how long I can keep her work up..."
"Great." The android muttered. "Bring the Maru down, Trance. We can store it. I'll provide you with a new vessel if you want. Gift of my little empire."
"An empire?" Trance sat back, eyes widening. "Rommie, what did you do?"
"Very simply, Trance, I joined hands with Anasazi."
"Oh, Rommie." Trance breathed, staring at her friend. "Why?"
The android stared ahead, voice modulating to pure coldness. "He betrayed us. He betrayed the Commonwealth, he...he betrayed Harper, and Dylan, and Beka. But he has everything I need, and...we work well together. I trust him to adhere to my wishes as far as he possibly can."
She sensed more than saw Trance reach out, a small purple hand stroking her shoulder. "Tell me the whole story, Rommie. About what happened to you all."
"I can't."
"Of course you can...just think of me as your child...waiting for a bedtime story."
"Trance, even were I able to have children, I most certainly wouldn't use my past as slumber notes." Straightening back up, Rommie sighed again. "Not that the standard applies. I'm a machine. Children will never happen. And he knows that as well, yet it doesn't matter. Only because of Tamerlane. With his bloodline practically secured, Anasazi can afford his negligent little...dalliances. Pets. He need not expect anything critical of them, or respect them." Briefly, her eyes flitted shut, head thrown back to bump against the pristine metal wall. "I want you to go, Trance. Take Dylan and somehow escape this. Tyr and I'll be combining the prides under Tamerlane's name and, hopefully, a Commonwealth charter, as best as I can, but it will take time, and more blood. I don't want yours and his amongst it."
The sharp, thick voice of a guard cut in from the doorway. "It's time."
"Time? For what?" Trance moved between them, large eyes flickering with apprehension.
Rommie shook her head slightly. "Time to be recognized as consort to the new Nietzschean leader, Trance. Bloody ascension, but one I can only hope will someday lead to the Commonwealth Dylan wanted so much."
"No." The purple being broke out. "Rommie, you can't let them...they'll ruin you."
"If they do, I deserve it." Standing, Rommie cupped the seeming child's face in her hands, meeting the dark, infinite eyes. "Trance, you've already helped me far more than you can ever understand simply by being here...both at this hour and at this time in your past. That future version of yourself has an agenda, and I trust her explicitly with it, because she's you. She won't fail a third time. Whatever happens here, everything will be better in the new timeline she creates, it has to be. And that's all I need to know. You don't worry about me. You worry about yourself, and take care of Dylan."
Stepping back, the avatar nodded to the guard and followed him out the door. And somehow, she didn't look back.
"I will, Rommie. I will." Trance promised softly.
*
"You're killing my people."
Dylan Hunt stared at the creature before him. Unbelievable, he thought. "No." Finally, his voice came, steady and unyielding. "No, I'm not. You are. They are. Your people are killing themselves, and you can't help them. You screwed up somewhere. And you want someone to blame it on. God knows, I don't exactly reproach you. Bearing the weight of the universe does tend to bring out the ugly in us all."
"You have no idea what you're talking about." The delicate blonde in the white dress wheeled, pacing the room.
"If I had shot you..." His smile was quirky, humorless. "Would you have stayed dead?"
"Dylan!" Turning, she stared at him.
"It's an honest question, considering what you are. Who you are." Glancing around, he shook his head. "It's a damn good illusion. Ethan was a damn good illusion. Or was he? Did he just not exist, or did you do away with him?"
Something seemed to die in the brilliant blue eyes, and almost immediately they transformed into inky darkness. The voice lowered, retaining the same girlish lilt, but of a more familiar type. "You don't understand, Dylan. To my kind creation and destruction are of the same coin. Everything is illusion. Everything can be born and destroyed at our hands, if we make the right choices. I made bad ones, bad mistakes that made everybody mess up. And I can't fix them here. In another universe, maybe I did. But not here. I made things much worse. We just have to live with it. And I wanted you to be able to...I wanted to take care of you like I promised. I just forgot that the one thing beyond my kind is love." Turning, she sat on the floor.
"Trance." The name made her jerk, and he straightened, somehow both relieved and disappointed by the affirming reaction.
She inhaled, gaze straight ahead. "How did you know?"
"Aside from the meltdown?" Sitting by her side, he considered. "Little details. Your voice. Not totally Trance, but close enough at times to warrant curiosity. Your innate habit of anticipating exactly what it is that makes me tick. Your ability to trigger just the right memories. The eyes. Alien eyes. The damned pin on my tunic. Your tattoo pattern, isn't it? Very obvious. Almost as if you wanted me to figure it out."
Her smiled was edgy. "You were all my responsibility. I was supposed to protect you."
"And you've tried for the past few years. But you're right." His voice was quiet. "Happiness isn't enough for me. Not when it's at the expense of my family. You don't want this any more than I do...it's tearing you apart. Whatever promises you made have long out-lived their worth. We have to accept the universe we live in. Let go of the bogus dreams. Let go. For once in your life, lose control, Trance."
"I lost control." She remarked. "And we lost everything."
"Look, Trance." Gripping the illusory human arm, he tugged her around to face him. "Maybe this universe isn't perfect. Maybe I can't even make it good. But I can make it better than what it is now, if I try. Someone's been keeping up the facade of a High Guard, it's a start. We just help them."
"I'm not very certain you'll want to." Her lips pursed, expression taking on a very familiar concentration. "Dylan, the High Guard leaders are Tyr and Rommie."
His expression shuttered.
"You remember."
"Every moment." A wry, self-castigating smile crossed his lips. Hunt sighed, deeply, then released her arm.
She considered, head lowered. "I'm sorry. I could still bring back Ethan."
He touched her shoulder, shaking his head. "But it wouldn't be the same, would it? Trust is something you earn."
"Then give me the chance."
His response was immediate. "I'm not certain I can give any of you the chance again."
She glanced up at him, shoulders huddled together, brows knitted. "You know that's really not fair. I'm not the Trance you think I am. But then again, maybe I'm not even the Trance I think I am anymore. I've been living in this silly illusion for so long..."
"So take it off."
She smiled, an enigmatic, wry twist of the lips. "I really can't do that now. What would poor Ethan think?"
"I thought we agreed he was an illusion best left alone."
"Dylan..." A little of the impatience of his golden Trance and Liandra began to creep back into the formerly childishly, remorseful tones. "It isn't that simple anymore. I can destroy what *I* create permanently, but *you* and I created Ethan. He's only half mine, no real illusion. Half-human. I can't make him go away for good, and it was really selfish of me to make him go away at all."
"So I really have a son." Dylan absorbed the fact, eyes crinkling in bemused amazement.
"Yes, you do." She touched his shoulder, fingers morphing just ever so slightly into a familiar gold tint. "But it won't be enough, will it?"
"I have to go see Rommie." He continued, gaze distant and absorbed in thought. "And Tyr. I'd be surprised if either of them ever want to lay eyes on me again, but I have to try. And who else...Molly?"
"Captain of the High Guard flagship."
"I knew she could do it." Brief peace flashed in Hunt's eyes. "Rev Bem?"
"Rommie's advisor. He...uh...pulls her one way when Tyr is jerking her the other. At least that's how she puts it."
"Bless him for being her heart." Dryly spoken, the words nonetheless echoed gratefully. "What about Beka, and the ship?"
"Oh." She hadn't wanted that to come up.
"Trance?" His tones sharpened.
She sighed slightly. "Dylan, the Andromeda really was lost in a black hole. I wasn't lying."
"And Beka was aboard her." He shut his eyes, tones growing wearied.
"Actually." She admitted, hoping Beka would understand the broken promise. "Beka was outside her. In an EVA suit. Saving you. She unhooked her tow line, Dylan, I couldn't pull you both in before the hole's gravity trapped us all. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Voice rough, he lifted both hands to pull her in for a hug, and the alien recognized for the first time that she was shaking, and how utterly scared she was he'd reject her. "Don't be." He repeated, voice soothing, inane. "It's over, Trance. It's all over."
*
The desert edifice from which both the Commonwealth and the combined forces of the Nietzschean prides operated was vast, clean, airy. Glancing back briefly, Dylan caught the reassuring smile Liandra...no, make that Trance...shot at him, and settled into a more placid frame of mind. Smile breaking, he took the arms of the Magog stepping towards him. "Rev Bem."
"Dylan." The alien Wayist acknowledged, eyes saying perhaps more than the single word could have ever encompassed.
"Captain Hunt." Familiar, politely restrained tones echoed from nearby shadows, and Tyr Anasazi stepped forward.
"Tyr." Halting in his tracks, Hunt stared at the man who had always been so much more than crewmember or nemesis to them all. Wears power well, he thought with amused savagery. Will play humble host in exchange for absolution of past sins.
The Nietzschean parted his lips to speak, then clearly back-pedaled, instead smiling darkly, briefly, nodding his head towards the vast building behind him. "I believe that what you are looking for is within. Her gratification at this reunion extends to all of us, I am certain."
"Well, Tyr, from you, that's something. Are things that simple, then?" Eyes bearing down on Anasazi's face, the High Guard captain schooled his tones to softness.
The Nietzschean shrugged shoulders, brows lifting expressively. "Things have apparently never been more simple, Dylan."
"Go on." Trance said encouragingly, touching his back.
Once again, he fought back a wince, wondering just what it was about her small, intimate touches that suddenly sent him into automatic recoil. Hell, they hadn't bothered him for years...hadn't bothered him at all, unless in the most shameful ways. She's not my Trance, he realized, the idea taking root and refusing to let go. Not the Trance I spent time with in the mists, not the Trance all grown and ready to be a lover and a companion, not the Trance who seemed...older. Knowing. An equal. A better, a guide.
Not the Trance who had abandoned him without a second thought to pursue a mission she had already failed at once, abandoned what small pleasure she might have found with him to make sure the relationship need never come about in a better future.
No, he sighed. This Trance, the one who hid behind illusions and self-doubt, wasn't his Trance. The universe had won another round, and somehow, it didn't matter. He regretted very little now, except that she, the ancient one, was out there, somewhere, alone.
Just to assure that he wouldn't be, in this universe or any other she could get a grasp on.
Turning, he gripped delicate elbows, spinning away from the Magog and Nietzschean and well out of hearing. "Thank you."
Eyes lighting vividly, his alien companion smiled, a peculiar peace shining through the elegant human exterior. "Go on, Dylan. You've been without your soul, and Rommie her heart, long enough."
"Tell Anasazi that." He muttered.
"Careful, he might hear you." Tyr's voice drifted from behind, liberally threaded with amusement. "And take righteous offense. I do not believe that you will find your avatar in any worse condition than when she last left your side, Captain Hunt. Nor do I believe you will find her unhappy."
"Just unappreciated?"
"Oh, very appreciated. Ascendent is satisfactory in every way."
Ignoring the deliberately jabbing undertones, Dylan smiled. "Pity it won't pass down. I always thought she had the perfect maternal disposition."
The Nietzschean's brow flicked up, lips curving. "So I have often observed." Tones raising, he pointed their gazes to a cluster of distant children. "Tamerlane!"
Briefly, one of the elder children turned from the group, husky skin glowing in the sunlight. Smile breaking, he lifted an arm in an unaffected wave, before settling to a more discreet salute.
"Your son." Dylan stiffened as the realization hit.
"And the reason every bit of this exists as it does this day, I should point out. I do not play games with my blood in the balance, sir. Everything that I did...well, this will someday be his legacy. A worthy cause, wouldn't you say?"
"I'm actually reminded of a little quote from Nietzsche, Tyr." Hunt glanced into the sky, blinking at the scorching sun. "'It's beginnings were, like the beginnings of everything great on earth, soaked in blood thoroughly and for a long time'. Wasn't it, your new Commonwealth? Is it something he'll ever really be proud of, or is he too Nietzschean to care?"
"Where there is to be greatness there is always to be blood, Captain Hunt, do not fool yourself into believing otherwise. There was blood spilled. Seamus Harper's, by his own weakness. Rebekah Valentine's by her recklessness. Yours by sheer persistence of cause, and you have become a martyr for it...do not think that this Commonwealth is built upon any foundation but that of your legacy. Ascendent would allow nothing less. Go to her, sir. It is time that her loyalties reaped gratification."
*
Pausing just inside the monumental doors to the general conference room, Captain Dylan Hunt straightened his High Guard uniform and settled his gaze on the sole figure walking towards him from yards away. Rommie was beautiful, unchanged, her own High Guard uniform set off disturbingly well by the Nietzschean arm helix, and she was crying. Opening his arms, he allowed his eyes to fall shut as her inhumanly strong arms wrapped around his neck, using all that remained of his strength to lift the android from the ground and squeeze in a bear hug. Finally releasing her, he smiled, holding out a hand and accepting hers.
"Shining Path To Truth and Knowledge. It's good to see you're still around."
FIN
Fire and brimstone. Rommie had never identified with the ancient Earth phrase before. Unfortunately, she thought, changes seemed to be abounding.
Slipping from beneath Tyr Anasazi's arm, she pulled a sheet around her body in a ridiculous front of modesty, probably one Dylan had instilled, and moved towards the colossal expanse of windows to the rear of the Sabra-Jaguar leader's suite. The dawn was scarlet, blazing heat and light. She curled a fist and slammed it into the nearest window, marveling at the durability of the material and the facade of weakness it offered her.
"Ascendent?" Tyr moved up from behind, a hand snaking out to halt a second attack, voice atypically concerned.
"It's the ship. I...it...is gone. I can tell."
"I'm not certain what you want me to say." He appeared genuinely startled.
"That it wasn't in vain?" Sweeping past him, she moved off to dress.
"I happen to be doing the best I can with a very unpleasant situation." He pointed out curtly.
"Then do more." Pausing in the wardrobe doorway, she looked back. "Tyr, just find out if any of them made it."
"My best." He echoed, not very reassuringly, pulling on his own garb and striding out into the hallway.
The avatar slid to the floor and cried.
*
"Rommie. Rommie, listen to me. Rommie, I need you. Rommie! I know you can hear, you never stop hearing. Fine, be that way. I'll just sit here and be quiet too. Rommie...how can you be so quiet? How can you be so empty?"
The litany showed no signs of stopping. In fact, it seemed to be repeating with little breath between, a considerable task for any non-artificial intelligence. It also seemed to be directed to provoke response, preferably acknowledgment. The Andromeda Ascendent's avatar released a small sigh. It had worked.
Opening her eyes, she allowed the optical setup a moment to adjust to the sunlight pooled bedroom she and her companion were seated face to face in. Within seconds, the shadows abated, and Trance Gemini came into clear view, smile burgeoning, arms flinging out to pull the android in for a hug. "Oh, Rommie." Trance prattled.
Wrong. Odd. Rommie frowned, disengaging the arms and glancing down at them. "This isn't right. You were gold the last time I saw you. And you had long outgrown litanies."
"Yes, well." Delicate purple hands clasped, dark eyes shining with understanding and pleading warmth. "You see, that was my future self. I come from the past."
"What? Again?"
"Oh, you wouldn't know, would you? I'm so sorry, Rommie, but so much has happened, I barely understand it myself, I hope the other me does, but in the meantime I'm stuck here trying to help everyone and what a mess it is, Rommie."
"You can say that again." The android gingerly touched her face, feeling for damage.
"I was so afraid they had done something bad to you, Rommie, when you wouldn't speak to me..."
"Trance." She cut in swiftly. "Did Dylan survive?"
"Yes." Trance nodded urgently. "I saved him, and he's going to be okay, Rommie, after he gets treatment, he's just a little out of it. He..."
"No, don't do that." Still trying to fit all the drifting pieces of her universe together, Rommie shook the girl's shoulder as the small lavender chin began quivering. It had been years since she had seen any weakness of that sort in Trance Gemini, and she frankly did not feel up to readjusting. "I don't want to hear any more. Listen to me, Trance. I have no clear idea how you got to your future, nor do I really feel like thinking too deeply on it, but I do want you away from this particular locale."
"But Rommie, if I go..."
"Trance, if you stay you'll only have very bad possibilities to choose from. That's a promise." Losing her patience, the avatar glared.
"Not necessarily..."
"I didn't ask you to pick amongst possibilities, Trance. Now I mean it, go. The Maru is still intact, isn't it?"
The young Trance bit her lip. "It's bad, Rommie. We've lost a lot of important equipment already, and the AI program we installed from Andromeda's file copies is gone."
"Gone?" For a bare second, Rommie was numbed. Despite her newfound freedom from feeding off a ships energy, she had felt...connected...to some part of her former ship as long as the AI program had been on the Maru. All of the years as a self-contained android personality hadn't quite prepared her for the idea of completely losing her sisters.
"Gone." Trance confirmed with the blandness only a creature who died and repeatedly came back could ever muster. "The Maru still works, but without personality. Beka wrestled the systems into working before I changed places with the other me, but now she's dead, and I don't know how long I can keep her work up..."
"Great." The android muttered. "Bring the Maru down, Trance. We can store it. I'll provide you with a new vessel if you want. Gift of my little empire."
"An empire?" Trance sat back, eyes widening. "Rommie, what did you do?"
"Very simply, Trance, I joined hands with Anasazi."
"Oh, Rommie." Trance breathed, staring at her friend. "Why?"
The android stared ahead, voice modulating to pure coldness. "He betrayed us. He betrayed the Commonwealth, he...he betrayed Harper, and Dylan, and Beka. But he has everything I need, and...we work well together. I trust him to adhere to my wishes as far as he possibly can."
She sensed more than saw Trance reach out, a small purple hand stroking her shoulder. "Tell me the whole story, Rommie. About what happened to you all."
"I can't."
"Of course you can...just think of me as your child...waiting for a bedtime story."
"Trance, even were I able to have children, I most certainly wouldn't use my past as slumber notes." Straightening back up, Rommie sighed again. "Not that the standard applies. I'm a machine. Children will never happen. And he knows that as well, yet it doesn't matter. Only because of Tamerlane. With his bloodline practically secured, Anasazi can afford his negligent little...dalliances. Pets. He need not expect anything critical of them, or respect them." Briefly, her eyes flitted shut, head thrown back to bump against the pristine metal wall. "I want you to go, Trance. Take Dylan and somehow escape this. Tyr and I'll be combining the prides under Tamerlane's name and, hopefully, a Commonwealth charter, as best as I can, but it will take time, and more blood. I don't want yours and his amongst it."
The sharp, thick voice of a guard cut in from the doorway. "It's time."
"Time? For what?" Trance moved between them, large eyes flickering with apprehension.
Rommie shook her head slightly. "Time to be recognized as consort to the new Nietzschean leader, Trance. Bloody ascension, but one I can only hope will someday lead to the Commonwealth Dylan wanted so much."
"No." The purple being broke out. "Rommie, you can't let them...they'll ruin you."
"If they do, I deserve it." Standing, Rommie cupped the seeming child's face in her hands, meeting the dark, infinite eyes. "Trance, you've already helped me far more than you can ever understand simply by being here...both at this hour and at this time in your past. That future version of yourself has an agenda, and I trust her explicitly with it, because she's you. She won't fail a third time. Whatever happens here, everything will be better in the new timeline she creates, it has to be. And that's all I need to know. You don't worry about me. You worry about yourself, and take care of Dylan."
Stepping back, the avatar nodded to the guard and followed him out the door. And somehow, she didn't look back.
"I will, Rommie. I will." Trance promised softly.
*
"You're killing my people."
Dylan Hunt stared at the creature before him. Unbelievable, he thought. "No." Finally, his voice came, steady and unyielding. "No, I'm not. You are. They are. Your people are killing themselves, and you can't help them. You screwed up somewhere. And you want someone to blame it on. God knows, I don't exactly reproach you. Bearing the weight of the universe does tend to bring out the ugly in us all."
"You have no idea what you're talking about." The delicate blonde in the white dress wheeled, pacing the room.
"If I had shot you..." His smile was quirky, humorless. "Would you have stayed dead?"
"Dylan!" Turning, she stared at him.
"It's an honest question, considering what you are. Who you are." Glancing around, he shook his head. "It's a damn good illusion. Ethan was a damn good illusion. Or was he? Did he just not exist, or did you do away with him?"
Something seemed to die in the brilliant blue eyes, and almost immediately they transformed into inky darkness. The voice lowered, retaining the same girlish lilt, but of a more familiar type. "You don't understand, Dylan. To my kind creation and destruction are of the same coin. Everything is illusion. Everything can be born and destroyed at our hands, if we make the right choices. I made bad ones, bad mistakes that made everybody mess up. And I can't fix them here. In another universe, maybe I did. But not here. I made things much worse. We just have to live with it. And I wanted you to be able to...I wanted to take care of you like I promised. I just forgot that the one thing beyond my kind is love." Turning, she sat on the floor.
"Trance." The name made her jerk, and he straightened, somehow both relieved and disappointed by the affirming reaction.
She inhaled, gaze straight ahead. "How did you know?"
"Aside from the meltdown?" Sitting by her side, he considered. "Little details. Your voice. Not totally Trance, but close enough at times to warrant curiosity. Your innate habit of anticipating exactly what it is that makes me tick. Your ability to trigger just the right memories. The eyes. Alien eyes. The damned pin on my tunic. Your tattoo pattern, isn't it? Very obvious. Almost as if you wanted me to figure it out."
Her smiled was edgy. "You were all my responsibility. I was supposed to protect you."
"And you've tried for the past few years. But you're right." His voice was quiet. "Happiness isn't enough for me. Not when it's at the expense of my family. You don't want this any more than I do...it's tearing you apart. Whatever promises you made have long out-lived their worth. We have to accept the universe we live in. Let go of the bogus dreams. Let go. For once in your life, lose control, Trance."
"I lost control." She remarked. "And we lost everything."
"Look, Trance." Gripping the illusory human arm, he tugged her around to face him. "Maybe this universe isn't perfect. Maybe I can't even make it good. But I can make it better than what it is now, if I try. Someone's been keeping up the facade of a High Guard, it's a start. We just help them."
"I'm not very certain you'll want to." Her lips pursed, expression taking on a very familiar concentration. "Dylan, the High Guard leaders are Tyr and Rommie."
His expression shuttered.
"You remember."
"Every moment." A wry, self-castigating smile crossed his lips. Hunt sighed, deeply, then released her arm.
She considered, head lowered. "I'm sorry. I could still bring back Ethan."
He touched her shoulder, shaking his head. "But it wouldn't be the same, would it? Trust is something you earn."
"Then give me the chance."
His response was immediate. "I'm not certain I can give any of you the chance again."
She glanced up at him, shoulders huddled together, brows knitted. "You know that's really not fair. I'm not the Trance you think I am. But then again, maybe I'm not even the Trance I think I am anymore. I've been living in this silly illusion for so long..."
"So take it off."
She smiled, an enigmatic, wry twist of the lips. "I really can't do that now. What would poor Ethan think?"
"I thought we agreed he was an illusion best left alone."
"Dylan..." A little of the impatience of his golden Trance and Liandra began to creep back into the formerly childishly, remorseful tones. "It isn't that simple anymore. I can destroy what *I* create permanently, but *you* and I created Ethan. He's only half mine, no real illusion. Half-human. I can't make him go away for good, and it was really selfish of me to make him go away at all."
"So I really have a son." Dylan absorbed the fact, eyes crinkling in bemused amazement.
"Yes, you do." She touched his shoulder, fingers morphing just ever so slightly into a familiar gold tint. "But it won't be enough, will it?"
"I have to go see Rommie." He continued, gaze distant and absorbed in thought. "And Tyr. I'd be surprised if either of them ever want to lay eyes on me again, but I have to try. And who else...Molly?"
"Captain of the High Guard flagship."
"I knew she could do it." Brief peace flashed in Hunt's eyes. "Rev Bem?"
"Rommie's advisor. He...uh...pulls her one way when Tyr is jerking her the other. At least that's how she puts it."
"Bless him for being her heart." Dryly spoken, the words nonetheless echoed gratefully. "What about Beka, and the ship?"
"Oh." She hadn't wanted that to come up.
"Trance?" His tones sharpened.
She sighed slightly. "Dylan, the Andromeda really was lost in a black hole. I wasn't lying."
"And Beka was aboard her." He shut his eyes, tones growing wearied.
"Actually." She admitted, hoping Beka would understand the broken promise. "Beka was outside her. In an EVA suit. Saving you. She unhooked her tow line, Dylan, I couldn't pull you both in before the hole's gravity trapped us all. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Voice rough, he lifted both hands to pull her in for a hug, and the alien recognized for the first time that she was shaking, and how utterly scared she was he'd reject her. "Don't be." He repeated, voice soothing, inane. "It's over, Trance. It's all over."
*
The desert edifice from which both the Commonwealth and the combined forces of the Nietzschean prides operated was vast, clean, airy. Glancing back briefly, Dylan caught the reassuring smile Liandra...no, make that Trance...shot at him, and settled into a more placid frame of mind. Smile breaking, he took the arms of the Magog stepping towards him. "Rev Bem."
"Dylan." The alien Wayist acknowledged, eyes saying perhaps more than the single word could have ever encompassed.
"Captain Hunt." Familiar, politely restrained tones echoed from nearby shadows, and Tyr Anasazi stepped forward.
"Tyr." Halting in his tracks, Hunt stared at the man who had always been so much more than crewmember or nemesis to them all. Wears power well, he thought with amused savagery. Will play humble host in exchange for absolution of past sins.
The Nietzschean parted his lips to speak, then clearly back-pedaled, instead smiling darkly, briefly, nodding his head towards the vast building behind him. "I believe that what you are looking for is within. Her gratification at this reunion extends to all of us, I am certain."
"Well, Tyr, from you, that's something. Are things that simple, then?" Eyes bearing down on Anasazi's face, the High Guard captain schooled his tones to softness.
The Nietzschean shrugged shoulders, brows lifting expressively. "Things have apparently never been more simple, Dylan."
"Go on." Trance said encouragingly, touching his back.
Once again, he fought back a wince, wondering just what it was about her small, intimate touches that suddenly sent him into automatic recoil. Hell, they hadn't bothered him for years...hadn't bothered him at all, unless in the most shameful ways. She's not my Trance, he realized, the idea taking root and refusing to let go. Not the Trance I spent time with in the mists, not the Trance all grown and ready to be a lover and a companion, not the Trance who seemed...older. Knowing. An equal. A better, a guide.
Not the Trance who had abandoned him without a second thought to pursue a mission she had already failed at once, abandoned what small pleasure she might have found with him to make sure the relationship need never come about in a better future.
No, he sighed. This Trance, the one who hid behind illusions and self-doubt, wasn't his Trance. The universe had won another round, and somehow, it didn't matter. He regretted very little now, except that she, the ancient one, was out there, somewhere, alone.
Just to assure that he wouldn't be, in this universe or any other she could get a grasp on.
Turning, he gripped delicate elbows, spinning away from the Magog and Nietzschean and well out of hearing. "Thank you."
Eyes lighting vividly, his alien companion smiled, a peculiar peace shining through the elegant human exterior. "Go on, Dylan. You've been without your soul, and Rommie her heart, long enough."
"Tell Anasazi that." He muttered.
"Careful, he might hear you." Tyr's voice drifted from behind, liberally threaded with amusement. "And take righteous offense. I do not believe that you will find your avatar in any worse condition than when she last left your side, Captain Hunt. Nor do I believe you will find her unhappy."
"Just unappreciated?"
"Oh, very appreciated. Ascendent is satisfactory in every way."
Ignoring the deliberately jabbing undertones, Dylan smiled. "Pity it won't pass down. I always thought she had the perfect maternal disposition."
The Nietzschean's brow flicked up, lips curving. "So I have often observed." Tones raising, he pointed their gazes to a cluster of distant children. "Tamerlane!"
Briefly, one of the elder children turned from the group, husky skin glowing in the sunlight. Smile breaking, he lifted an arm in an unaffected wave, before settling to a more discreet salute.
"Your son." Dylan stiffened as the realization hit.
"And the reason every bit of this exists as it does this day, I should point out. I do not play games with my blood in the balance, sir. Everything that I did...well, this will someday be his legacy. A worthy cause, wouldn't you say?"
"I'm actually reminded of a little quote from Nietzsche, Tyr." Hunt glanced into the sky, blinking at the scorching sun. "'It's beginnings were, like the beginnings of everything great on earth, soaked in blood thoroughly and for a long time'. Wasn't it, your new Commonwealth? Is it something he'll ever really be proud of, or is he too Nietzschean to care?"
"Where there is to be greatness there is always to be blood, Captain Hunt, do not fool yourself into believing otherwise. There was blood spilled. Seamus Harper's, by his own weakness. Rebekah Valentine's by her recklessness. Yours by sheer persistence of cause, and you have become a martyr for it...do not think that this Commonwealth is built upon any foundation but that of your legacy. Ascendent would allow nothing less. Go to her, sir. It is time that her loyalties reaped gratification."
*
Pausing just inside the monumental doors to the general conference room, Captain Dylan Hunt straightened his High Guard uniform and settled his gaze on the sole figure walking towards him from yards away. Rommie was beautiful, unchanged, her own High Guard uniform set off disturbingly well by the Nietzschean arm helix, and she was crying. Opening his arms, he allowed his eyes to fall shut as her inhumanly strong arms wrapped around his neck, using all that remained of his strength to lift the android from the ground and squeeze in a bear hug. Finally releasing her, he smiled, holding out a hand and accepting hers.
"Shining Path To Truth and Knowledge. It's good to see you're still around."
FIN
