Chapter 26: Loneliness

When Artima began to rise out of sleep, she thought time had been reset - that she was doomed to repeat one act or another of the poorly-written ballet of her ridiculously long life yet again. Truthfully she was surprised she was waking up at all, after the terrifying ripping sensation in her body and brain that'd been the climax of her push to keep her, Eugene, and Kheree alive. Or had that been some other life? Some other century?

Whisperings accompanied her rise to the world of the living this time, though she couldn't pick out words. Her skin was crawling strangely slowly, and in her half-dreaming state she thought she could see hundreds of snakes coursing over her. One wrapped around her hand and squeezed as though in comfort. On her face she felt a soft breeze and the lightest tickle of feathers across her forehead - then the pinprick and stinging scratch of talons on her crown, a pecking at the itch on the nape of her neck. Mostly though, she felt hunger. Hunger that pushed her ever upward out of this dream-state toward the waking world in search of something that'd sate it. The movement felt familiar - maybe she'd gone through this exact thing that time she'd been thawed. The whisperings - Kheree's voice? - clamored louder, encouraging.

Artima broke into the light like a thing emerging from a cave ready to hunt. Then, she took a deep breath and recognized not the operation room on Vingolf, but the peaceful interior of the med bay in the Isaribi. She pushed the whisperings away.

She sat up. She'd been changed out of her pilot suit at some point and was hooked up with both an IV and heartrate monitor. Would those two things always anchor her in time? But present day and memory threatened to overlap, flickering across her eyes so that for a second, she wasn't sure where - or when - she was. She tried to focus. The room was dark, and the lack of sound told her they were out of combat. All of the other beds and bays had been used and vacated but not changed and tidied, speaking of time passing but not urgency and greater priorities. Her snakeskin was at her feet. Eugene sat on the next bed over, his back to her. The suit copy he'd worn lay across the blanket like his second shadow, or one of the marks Duo had told her was left on the steps of Hiroshima after the bomb dropped - all that was left of a person.

Seeing him, though, made the confusion and weightlessness settle. Relief flooded her like a warm tide. Here was a person who had seen what she had seen. Here was a person that was anchored to his time and place. She could rely on that. He was impermanent, but real. "What happened?" she rasped to the flower silhouette on his back.

"We're retreating to Mars," he murmured.

Artima debated whether to probe further, because he did not elaborate. She had a feeling it wasn't the right thing to do yet.

"Shino's dead," he said without looking at her.

Oh. Her gut reaction was to make a comment on his limited exposure to true loss compared to her, and she stopped herself. After all, he knew. Just as much as she did.

Another word she couldn't make out was choked off. The sound made her want sunshine to miraculously fill the room and lay its warm embrace on his back and soothe him on her behalf, because she knew what was about to be said next, when he tried again.

"I want you to know that I'm trying very hard not to think about how close we were in Kheree...how we could have got him. I'm trying real hard not to blame you. Blame anybody - including myself, 'cus after all...I'm the one who told Orga not to get him. I'm trying not to think about how Tekkadan seemed to just take a nosedive ever since Orga let you on this ship - ever since he started looking at you like an oracle, or Death. So, don't say shit - because unfortunately I think you're the only one I want to be around right now. What a bad joke." He wiped furiously at one eye with a fist.

Even at this distance she could see Eugene's back shaking, and hear the quick hisses of stifled sobs and anger. He turned - one visible emerald eye glistening - started to say something to her but stopped himself. His gaze rose helplessly to the ceiling; he swallowed, blinked a few times.

Artima watched him stand and try to make himself tall but as he shuffled around the bed in her direction he seemed to sink into himself, his spine curling, until he dropped to his knees at her bedside and laid his head on the starch-stiff sheets. The hollowness that'd been inside her for as long as she could remember opened a little wider. Although unsure if she should, Artima reached out and gently ran her hand through his hair over and over, watching his muscles relax as she did so.

She thought about disobeying, and talking to him. Offer consolation, encouragement - however hollow - or share an anecdote from her past. Or even just refute, with stretched humor, his idea that Orga thought she was an oracle.

No. That would do him a disservice. And he meant it when he said I was the only one he wanted to be around - I know why. I know how he feels. No matter if it's awkward for me, no matter if I can't reciprocate, I can at least offer him this.

Artima let out the quietest of sighs and paused her hand. She reached over to the bedside table and grabbed her MP3 player, unwound the earphones. A stretch and she was able to reach the back of Eugene's arm, and she tugged. His head rose, revealing a blotchy face with bleary eyes and an uncertain expression. She jerked her head a little and shifted over in the bed. With a weary, pained exhale instead of a sob, he climbed onto it and laid next to her, facing away. She tucked one earphone in her own ear and the other in his, began to scroll through her collection in search of what she hoped was the peaceful vocal-less playlist she vaguely remembered starting to compile. When she found it, she set it on repeat - it was only five songs but it'd have to do - and adjusted the volume before resting it between them, carefully draping an arm around him and his shaking. It didn't take long for the shaking to translate itself, working its way out of his mouth in audible crying. One hand reached up and held onto hers.

Eventually the sobs quietened, his breathing deepened, and his grip grew lax before it fell entirely. Artima wondered how peaceful of a sleep it was. She hoped it would be. And if it was, was it the most peaceful sleep he'd had in years? After the things she'd seen in his memories she hoped he could at least be granted this. She wanted to give him what she, Taki, Heero and Duo never had, even if it was just for an hour. He needed to know such things still existed - because when it was all over and somebody lived to see it all be over, you had to know how to go on with the business of living. Artima wasn't so certain she knew how to do that for herself but maybe, just maybe, she could help somebody else do it.

Now that he was asleep she could mull over his words. It was true that she seemed to have brought bad luck on Tekkadan, though she knew better than to assume she was the only cause. After all, most of the decisions hadn't been made by her. Harsh as it was, it was Tekkadan that had determined Tekkadan's fate, and would continue to do so. She wasn't a member and could never be - not that she wanted to be. But she couldn't deny all responsibility. The real question was what to do now.

The familiar process - the whisperings - effortlessly flowed into her brain: Gather more information, secure options, determine needed resources -

Eugene resettled in his sleep. Artima forced the process to shut down. Rest needed to come first. Her mind wasn't clear yet; she'd undergone a trauma getting them back to the Isaribi and its aftereffects were still nebulous, and she'd be the only one to do anything about it. Rest was the safest thing right now.

Rest, and on a bed like this, involuntarily reminded her of the second and final night Kal had stayed over. The shared warmth, the tear-stained dozing. He'd had blond hair like this too, and been of a similar build though he was taller, her age. He'd been her ballet partner and she could still feel his hand on her waist, still see the blinks of his smile as he held her taut by one hand in her pirouette in front of him. She'd glimpsed the same kindness and humor that night out on the gun turret when Eugene had quizzed her about her fellow pilots. Of course, she knew now why Kal had seemed sombre and tortured that night and unable to tell her why - it was only a day or two before she and Taki ended up in the hands of his father, Dr Akimo, thanks to Kal's deceptions. But she liked to think that the kindness and affection she'd seen in him was real, like it was a root leading down to the true Kal underneath his father's machinations. To see it echoed in Eugene was like Kal had been reborn too. Like they'd been given another chance.

Timing's off though, isn't it, she thought. He's still a kid. I won't deny a connection because Kheree facilitated a memory-share - in that sense no one is ever going to know us the way the way we know each other - but that's where it stops for me.

The loneliness came back at that thought, of course - she ached for Kal in the same distant way she ached for Heero, in that wanting to be held by a body that understood, that wanting to have something to pour yourself into - but she'd endure it, and it'd pass.

You will endure anything. Was it her voice, or Kheree's? Did it matter?

To rest further didn't seem like a good idea after all. Artima carefully lifted her arm from Eugene and sat up. Her head span for a moment and then the world righted. She decided to remove her IV and heartrate monitor, got out of bed, tucked her earphone into Eugene's other ear and left the player in his hand. The cold method from earlier crept back and she let it take over, carry her out of the med bay into the halls of the Isaribi in search of Orga.

She passed open doors in the halls that showed sleeping children; her bare feet were soundless on the metal gridding. She wasn't in the right part of the ship to hear noise from the hangar if there was any but judging by the fact she didn't pass anyone, she assumed they'd traveled far enough away from the battlefield for the entire crew to be resting. She headed for the bridge.

You can't stay here, came Kheree's voice in her head. The entry-point on the nape of her neck itched under the gauze.

For a moment the sharp lines of the halls and doors and between shadow and light became blurred, fractured. She felt the snakeskin on her rather than the clothes she'd picked up in Tsuruga, felt the tilt and lift of zero gravity that threatened to make her stumble until she anchored herself with a hand on a bulkhead. She thought she was anxious for a cigarette but realized it was for her cockpit.

Feed. She thought she heard a tapping, like a bird's talons hopping on the metal around her. Frantic wings.

Her stomach growled. Yeah, I'm probably hungry -

No. Feed. Her jaw ached.

Her vision lurched again, like she was being tugged backward. Again the urge for something to be in her neck, to bite something, for a dark egg to close her away from the world.

No, she imposed on herself. Keep walking.

The voice faded.

Taki talked about me finding balance with Kheree. Looks like this new life is no exception - I'll have to be careful about being immersed too long, however physically capable I may be afterward.

Artima took the two steps up to the bridge door, opened it without hesitation.

"...to wonder who our real enemy is," Orga was saying. His back was to her, but crucially -

The blond fucker. McGillis. The door slid shut behind her. No one else was in the room.

McGillis' hand dropped from his hip as both he and Orga turned at her entry. "Hello, Miss Wei," he said. "Or should I say: welcome back, Kheree."

She realized he reminded her of Akimo. Eugene's tears, that could have been Kal's tears. Abrupt, unbridled rage surged in her. She crossed the small distance between them and landed a punch on his jaw, followed it with her opposite knee in his ribs as she grabbed his collar.

"Artima!" Orga barked.

McGillis was off-balance; it didn't take much to turn them both and slam him into the wall. "What lies are you here to spin?" Artima growled into his face, so close she could nearly taste the blood leaking down his chin.

"None." He even held up his hands in a placatory fashion, brought back that same placid smile she so detested.

"Let him go. He's here by invitation," Orga said.

Artima barely heard him and certainly did not let McGillis go. "You're the one that's done this." Their eyes narrowed at one another. "They're just kids. You came in here with your delusions and your selfish bloodlust -"

"No more than you did, Miss Wei," he said.

"- and you've driven them into their graves. And for what? So you can announce yourself as some savior reincarnated? You're no savior and you're no general. You're a piece of space trash that got lucky," she hissed. "Only cowards raise themselves by standing on the corpses of children!"

McGillis surged back at her, broke her grip, and turned them over - one hand was a vice on her forehead smashing the back of her skull into the diagnostics screen, cracking the glass, while his opposite forearm pressed over her throat. Motes danced in her vision. There was fury in his eyes. She debated retaliating, killing him right then and there, but didn't yet have enough information to know whether that was wise.

"We both know what happens to those children who are walked on and live, don't we?" he hissed back at her. "How many times did Dr Akimo walk on you, Miss Wei, or worse? How many times did you live? We're very similar in that sense - and I never pegged you for a hypocrite. We're the children who lived and with any amount of luck," he gave his forearm an implicit push, "at least one or two of them will make it out alive, too. Accept it."

Orga's hands were on McGillis' shoulders, pulling at him. "Get off her." His voice was low, defeated-sounding, but McGillis did let go and take a couple of steps back, straightening his coat.

Artima didn't move from the wall; she stared at the floor and waited to regain her breath and composure before she said, "You disgust me."

"High praise."

Her eyes darted up to his. "Get out. Don't come near these kids ever again. If you do, I'll kill you and bury your saint for good."

McGillis eyed her a moment more and then turned to go. He found that awful, banal smile again and called back to Orga, "You may have lost a big brother recently, Orga, but you seem to have gained a big sister instead. Be careful." He left.

Artima and Orga stood unmoving in the silence McGillis left behind. She couldn't refute his words - there were some similarities between them - and memories of those many years under Dr Akimo's…'guidance' rose to the surface. It'd taken several more years to forgive herself for being a child and not knowing better. For being a victim. Nevermind the Viper Construct. Where did that first cycle stop? She looked up at Orga; his tone earlier had suggested he wasn't surprised by McGillis' estimate for the number of Tekkadan survivors of the current course of action - whatever that was - and his expression confirmed it.

"You're not our big sister," he said instead of remarking on McGillis. He wandered closer to the captain's chair, laid a hand on the armrest. Still didn't look at her.

She was a little put out despite herself. One hand rose to dab at the blood she'd left behind on the diagnostics screen, trace the crack. "No?"

"I'm not sure what you are." His voice hardened a little, "And we're not kids."

"Because you weren't allowed to be. Because there was no one there to protect you," Artima retorted.

"The reason doesn't matter!" he said, finally looking at her. "It's too late now. Fine, you somehow decided it's your new mission to be our warden and believe me I'm thankful you brought Eugene back. But nothing's changed."

Artima came away from the wall, frowning. She'd not heard his voice this emotional since she'd known him. Her movements were slow - the slither out of that cave toward the light, toward the hunt.

"We still have to go out there and see this through," he said.

Out there. The hunt, out there. Looking at him, for a moment she thought maybe he still wanted, deep down, to go toward that hunt too. Maybe he could, if he was one of the ones that lived.

He pointed out into space, "There's still an entire fleet out there that doesn't think we're too young to die. What are you going to do, huh? Nothing different than what we'd already be doing for ourselves. I don't -" Orga cut himself off, pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. If she didn't know better she'd say his voice was choked. "No, I don't know what you are." He rounded the chair and sat in it.

The metal was cold underfoot as Artima coursed toward Orga in that chair. She reached up and touched the warm trickle in her unwashed hair, smeared the blood idly between her fingertips as all her focus honed in on him. She didn't know what she was, either, but for the first time his opinion about her mattered. It was as though he was a mouthpiece for this spot in history. She wanted to know how this time would remember her.

Orga's hand lowered and he leaned his head back against the headrest, staring at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. "I think I took in too much air."

But she also knew that this time, she had much more sayso. Much more control. Artima came to stand beside him. He appeared to have aged several years since they first met; the gold of his eyes was duller, his face more gaunt. As tired as Eugene, possibly more. She wanted to peel off the layers of his skin to find out where that brashness and determination she'd first observed in him were hiding. For the first time - moreso than that time under the water at Taki's dojo, when he'd reached for her, and moreso even than when she'd laid him out on the dusty concrete and breathed life back into him - she realized that Orga would not survive this without her.

That's what I am. Eugene was right. An oracle, or Death. Her eyes fell to the suprasternal notch framed by his loosened, dirty white tie - that cradle where his heartbeat drummed steadily, insistently.

Feed.

No, it's still his choice to live or die. Without knowing why, Artima reached out and tenderly rested her fingertips there, leaving her blood in that tiny hollow. Orga went rigid and she felt his eyes lock on her; his pulse picked up and reverberated through her fingers. Except it didn't feel like her hand, her body, her blood.

She met his gaze. There was a wariness there, but not an outright fear. Some of the brightness had returned. "Do you want me to save you?" she asked.

The way he looked at her nearly gave her her answer and she realized that the brightness in his eyes was hope.

What was it I heard Duo reading? "Come to me, all ye who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."? Except I am far from gentle and humble of heart.

Orga raised a hand oddly carefully and laid it on hers, pressed it downward until her entire palm laid against his chest, held it there. She felt his heartbeat more strongly, felt his deep breathing match it when his head tilted forward over them. When she felt him shaking she wondered if he was trying to gain strength from her, or draw out some kind of blessing. She noticed they were breathing in sync, as though her body was trying to facilitate. The quietness of the bridge seemed to fall into absolute silence.

She spoke slowly and softly, but clearly. "You've spent so long thinking about the survival of your crew. What about your own? Don't you think you're worthy of it, too?" When he didn't answer immediately or lift his head, she elaborated, "You need to cut ties with McGillis. I'll kill him for you if that's what you want. Do you want me to?"

His shaking stilled. It took a moment, but he did indeed release her hand and sat upright. The weariness was back in his face. "You sound like Mika."

Artima removed her hand, waited.

"I'm surprised you haven't asked about Kheree. Normally that's the first thing you're concerned with."

Artima, too, felt pulled back into her body. He was right, of course - it was the first time she hadn't immediately thought of Kheree's wellbeing. Not that she couldn't surmise it for herself.

"I don't know how you'd plan on killing him, even if I wanted you to."

"There are other ways," she said.

"She isn't repairable right now," Orga remarked as if she hadn't spoken. "None of our suits are."

"You haven't answered me," she said, low and demanding. She watched her blood at his throat quiver, though he was doing his best to remain still under her stare - injured prey pretending to be dead so that maybe she'd go away. I'm not going away.

"Eugene went to go see you, didn't he?" Orga spoke to the empty bridge rather than to her. "Why don't you go back to him?"

"You - haven't - answered - me," each word was punctuated with a step that brought her in front of the chair. Her hands latched onto the chair arms, her fingers gripping them like talons; she leant forward so that she blocked out all else. "Do you want to live?" she seethed.

At last his eyes rose to hers.

A Note from the Author: Thank you for your patience as always! Just a quick note to say that the Bible verse Artima refers to Duo having read aloud is from Matthew 11:28-30. Not mine! Man, this fic is turning out waaaaay longer than I anticipated. I appreciate you all sticking with it and I'd love to hear your thoughts.