Things Hades noticed about Ba'al.
He often sat in the co-pilot's chair and looked out the window.
His Ha'tak's hangers used forcefields instead of bulkheads. When they landed in his bays one could look out into space from her little shuttle.
She thought nothing of it until the first time they landed in one of Miranda's ships. The hangar bays were protected by metal inches thick. Forcefields were not standard issue. Ba'al must have called in a favor from Miranda to have his made that way.
She really noticed when, after they finished, he had crept out of bed to the cockpit. At first she thought he had gone to relieve himself. She'd disguised a snort of laughter in a breath when he leaned over to brush a kiss on her forehead. Then she felt the ship lift up. She stirred in bed, but did nothing else. She trusted him enough. The most damage he could do was to turn them both over to Anubis. He'd kill them both. And Hades wouldn't mind.
As it turns out he did not betray them. He merely piloted the ship out of the bay and into the shallows of space just outside the mothership. They floated there in nothingness.
She dozed. They did not return for many hours.
A week or so later—Hades wasn't sure. Things had dissolved for her into a vaguely pleasant albeit bittersweet haze—she followed him to the front of the ship. She watched as he sat silent, eyes moving back and forth across the abyss and its swirl of glimmers purporting to be suns.
She ignored the goosebumps that formed on her skin. He had wrapped himself in the sheet. No doubt he knew from practice how cool the ship could be.
Eventually she broke. "May I sit with you?" She felt a twinge of guilt for disturbing him, but mostly she felt that she wanted heat and he had it.
"Of course." He smiled a little and held out one cloth-hung hand in invitation.
He closed his knees as she sat down. Her legs draped over his and she rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her to cover them both.
"What are you looking at?"
"I'm counting." He faltered, eyes blinking as he bit his lip in thought. "It calms me—. Parts of me."
She nodded. Her ears rubbed against his skin and it felt warm and good. She knew what he meant. His host liked it.
She wanted to ask how close they were. Did they still differentiate or were they truly parts of a whole? She hadn't had a host personality in so long, but she remembered it. It felt nice to have someone there with her, but later in their lives the two had grown together to the point of utter entanglement. And, of course, she knew what it was like to attached and compelled by a host, even one that wasn't there.
She fell asleep again on his shoulder. Just before drifting off she whispered, "What number are you on?"
He shivered at her breath. "One million seventy three thousand six hundred and nine."
She also noticed him watching her.
Not all the time. Sometimes he worked. Sometimes he wasn't there. But the hairs on the nape of her neck would prick up and she would turn to see him watching her pour her bourbon, or bathe, or map out their next destination. She'd smile at him, or ignore him, or invite him to join her. And the next day she would feel the tingle again.
It wasn't admiring or lecherous. Well, maybe a little. It was more like someone looking for the next move in a puzzle. Like she was something he wanted to figure out, but clearly not urgently enough to simply ask.
Then again, maybe she didn't know the answer. Maybe he had asked already. Some random day in a random conversation he had steered them to some random subject. They'd spoken and she had answered in her opinions, questions, and deflections. In the moments she met his eye and the moments she looked for somewhere else to be.
One thing did strike Hades: she cared enough to want to tell him the answer. Even though she didn't know the answer.
Finally, she noticed Ba'al setting aside papers. Sometimes he would return late. Sometime she would pass him in the hallway. She'd be out wandering and he would come bustling along with an aide or two. She'd shrink to the side. She looked to the floor. She didn't want to know if he looked up. He had a job and he was good at it. It was a job she had once, fucked up, and abandoned. She wanted nothing to do with his duties.
He'd often programmed late into the night. She'd scribble, with the habitual drink in her hand. Never a full play. Just tidbits. She'd look up to see the glow a screen lighting up his skin. Or he'd bee looking down at tablet and the light would catch him in profile. He looked so alien then. When the colors that likened him to Persephone succumbed to shadow.
And she noticed when he took the papers with him. Under his arm, either coming or going. He'd leave them in the other room, or pick them up from the bedside. Perhaps it was her imagination slowing down time, but he would linger on the pile until his fingertips slipped past the corner and rifled the last few pages. When he left he'd take them away.
No matter how many times she turned a blind eye, the God-lie was always there for him. That's what those papers represented. His dilemma and his longing for power.
Well it was his business.
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The world and characters depicted in this story belong to Roland Emmerich, Dean Devlin, Jonathan Glassner, Brad Wright, and the Sci-Fi Channel. No profit is made of their use herein.
