Part Three

Rebuilt Anew 3.1

By Asynca

Predictably, the rating for this story has changed to M. Consider yourself warned, and stop reading if you think adult activities are likely to offend you.

It was the early hours of the morning before Amanda and I crawled onto a pebbled beach somewhere north of Longyearbyen.

It would have been somewhere in the vicinity of freezing, and a savage wind bit the various parts of my body that weren't covered by the drysuit. I was too exhausted both emotionally and physically to really to pay much attention to my discomfort, but it did occur to me that Amanda was only wearing regular clothing, and would be much colder. Fortunately, once I'd helped her wade stiffly out of the water, she managed to pull the Wraith Stone from her neck with the numb fingers pultruding from the top of her guaze mittens and dropped it straight onto the snow-covered tundra. When it burst into flame, it melted a good section of the snow around it immediately.

Handy, I thought, and followed Amanda's lead by kneeling near it.

"Just give me a few minutes," she told me, peeling off my soaking parka and tossing it towards me.

I hope my silence was complicit enough, because I didn't reply to her. I still felt so sick, and shaken, and just so completely disgusted with myself. I couldn't get the sound of that horrible screaming out of my head, and every time I thought on it, I had a rush of fresh adrenaline and nausea. What had possibly made me think it was a good idea? What did I think was going to happen afterwards, after I'd resurrected her? That we'd all go home together and play Happy Family? That image would be burnt into my retinas forever: a skeleton screaming with my mother's voice. A nightmare I had created.

A hesitant hand on my back startled me out of my trance. While I had been staring into the flames, Amanda had apparently rounded the fire, and was now sitting beside me in the mud. She noticed where I was looking and laughed. There was defeat in her voice as she explained, "I'm already soaking wet. My jeans already have acid burn, blood and salt caked in them. What's a little mud going to do?"

It sounded like something the old Amanda would say, and the image of an adult woman dressed in a fancy corset, designer jeans and – admittedly now scuffed – Italian boots several inches deep in mud was at least momentarily entertaining. Furthermore, her hair was slick against her head and neck, but had begun to dry a little fluffy around the edges. In short, she looked absolutely terrible, just as she had in the disastrous Daishi Chen dig. I smiled. It seemed like such a domestic thing to see, Amanda looking her worst.

She sobered up. "I would have done it, too. If it had been me."

By 'it', I was sure she meant resurrecting my mother. I had one of those acute flashbacks again, and winced. Amanda must have seen that expression because the hand on my back rubbed a small circle. "You warned me not to," I pointed out.

She smiled vaguely. "When you're watching someone else screw up, it's easy to see where they're going wrong."

I snorted. "Basically, you're a hypocrite."

Her smile deepened, but her tone was laden when she replied, "Well, I'm already a traitor, a thief, and a murderer... might as well add 'hypocrite' to the list, too." It was all delivered so casually, anyone else might have thought she was kidding. She was kidding, I supposed, but she was also dictating what I had previously painted her as.

The theft was annoying, I decided, but forgivable. I'd be a hypocrite myself if I had a problem with her breaking into my house and stealing an artefact, as I'd certainly managed a rather large number of cat burglaries myself over the years. The murder I still had trouble with. True, she'd never specifically ordered the Doppelgänger to kill Alister. It was also true that I had killed James Rutland not really knowing that they were involved or what the impact would be on her. I also had to concede at that point I may not have cared what the impact was, even if I'd known. I could tell myself I killed Rutland to remain alive myself – because him and his men were conveniently shooting at me – but I knew deep down I'd also done it to ensure I achieved my own goals. My Doppelgänger had eliminated a possible obstruction just as she had been ordered to by Amanda, as had I. Alister and Rutland had died for similar reasons.

I also needed to remind myself that I had probably killed vastly, vastly more people than Amanda ever would.

"We're not that different," I realised aloud.

Amanda's lips parted momentarily as her wry smile faded. She moved the hand that had been resting on my back upwards to stroke a lock of wet fringe away from my face. It was such an intimate gesture, I would have expected it to make me feel uneasy. It didn't, so I let her tuck it behind my ear with gentle fingertips. "You know," she told me, "for a woman who can slay gods, speak a million languages and program nuclear reactors, you're surprisingly slow."

I thought of my total inability to operate the Thrall Stone and my stubborn insistence on using it anyway, even though that wasn't what she was talking about.

Her eyes searched mine, wistful. This time, I knew what was going to happen next far before it actually happened. I could have pulled away at any point, apologised, and stood up. Given what had just happened at the gates of Helheim, I doubted she'd blame me. I didn't, though. I found myself waiting for her to lean in. When she didn't move, I whispered, "It's alright."

She inhaled, I think possibly second guessing what I had meant. It seemed like ages before she did finally kiss me, her lips barely ghosting mine. She tasted like sea salt and rubber from my oxygen tank mask, but I didn't care. I pushed my chin into hers, feeling our mouths drag together and enjoying not having to mind any course stubble as I would usually have to. When I didn't pull away she bore down on me, and I allowed myself to be pushed onto my back. The mud was cool against the skin on my neck, and it was an odd contrast between the heat from the Wraith Stone and Amanda's hot breath.

She pulled away for a moment, checking on me. She had a strand of hair in her mouth, so I extracted it and mirrored her own movement to tuck it behind her ear. She leaned her cheek into my hand, and in the dim light I could see her eyes were swimming. "Is this really happening?" she murmured.

I winced again, remembering the horror I'd created earlier. "That's a good question," I admitted. If someone had listed the sequence of events that would happen to me that day, I'd have laughed in their face.

My nipples had become visible through the drysuit, and Amanda traced slowly around one with her index finger. It felt good. I put a hand up behind her head and pulled her face back into mine.

Whatever this was, it was an effective and welcome distraction from thinking about anything that had happened earlier. I was so sick of thinking about everything, I decided I didn't care to bother about what any of it meant. What Amanda was doing was affording me the luxury of focusing on something other than my shame and guilt, and there wasn't a chance that I'd refuse.

As we kissed, her weight on top of me was a familiar feeling; so familiar, in fact, I was constantly surprised when I felt things I didn't expect. I'd grown accustomed to reaching up a man's chest to his shoulders, and when I found myself doing that to Amanda, I met with a couple of unexpected obstructions. Likewise when I ran my hands across her shoulders and down her arms, they were so much thinner than the type of arms I would normally have been feeling. However, her skin was so much softer and smoother than I was used to, and my hands glided so easily across her hips and lower back.

When she use fingertips to turn my head and kissed down my throat, I knew she could feel my racing pulse against her lips. She moved up my body a little for better access to my neck, and the friction of her jeans drawing against my hips had me pressing them toward her.

I leant up a little on one elbow, and wrenched off my backpack, discarding it somewhere. When I lay my shoulders back down, I could feel the squish of the sludge even through my suit. While she was watching me, I lay my hands on her hips, and then pushed them backwards over the seat of her jeans, which was coated with glutinous mud. I ignored it, pulling her in towards me so our hips were sitting against each other.

She was breathing heavily when I reached for the zip of my drysuit.

"Ahem," a voice said very deliberately.

We hurriedly pulled away from each other, startled.

My Doppelgänger was standing with her hands on her hips on the other side of the Wraith Stone looking extremely amused. "Not exactly the state I expected to find you in," she said neutrally.

Even in the firelight, I could see Amanda's cheeks had turned a very violent red. "I suppose it didn't occur to you to leave us alone?" she asked sarcastically, frustration audible.

"Oh, it occurred to me," my Doppelgänger advised her. "Ordinarily I'd keep my mouth well shut. However, I brought company." She indicated some distance beside her, to a mercenary who was staring like a deer caught in headlights at us – it was the servile thrall Amanda had fashioned herself. "The rest of your men were getting on my nerves. My condolences."

I could imagine what had become of them, but I didn't want to know. It would lead to questions about how my Doppelgänger had 'appropriately' dealt with the matter of my poor mother, and I just didn't want to know, or think about it, or remember it. I tried unsuccessfully to push it to the back of my mind.

Amanda shrugged and she moved to stand up. "They knew the risks when I hired them."

I wasn't sure exactly how you'd warn someone about the risk of falling to their deaths, being revived as undead only to be torn limb from limb by the Doppelgänger of your boss's rival, but I didn't address it. I followed Amanda's lead, locating my soiled backpack and strapping it back on. "What are you going to do about him?" I nodded to the mercenary. I wondered if she intended to free him.

Amanda wrinkled her nose, collecting the Wraith Stone from the ground as the flames died from it. "Study him, I suppose. Come on," she told the mercenary, who trotted to her side like a terrier.

The lights of Longyearbyen were visible in the distance, and she began to walk through the thin snow towards them, rubbing her arms. Her mercenary very chivalrously offered her his jacket, and she pushed him into the snow as a reply. I chuckled, watching.

My Doppelgänger had sidled up alongside me. "I gather you two have reconciled." She smirked.

"Don't you start," I told her, shooting her a glare. I then caught sight of a dirty great tear in the shirt I'd leant her. "And watch my clothes, if you don't mind."

"If you're concerned I'm unable to take proper care of them, I'm happy to take them off," she told me oh-so innocently, and reached towards the buttons. "If you like, I can writhe about in the mud as well."

I stared at her, flinching at the image. "Shut up," I hissed, smacking her hand away from the buttons. "Stop teasing me, Amanda's a once-off."

She nodded smugly, eyes twinkling. As we started toward Longyearbyen, the Doppelgänger grinned at me. "You have no sense of humour," she accused.

Her grin faded when I raised my eyebrow at her. "Would you, if you were in my place right now?"