A/N: This chapter is in continuity with Chapter 29/WPW #76 and Chapter 51/WPW #128.


Mercury understood why Cinder and Emerald decided to join the Beacon kids for some fun in the sun. He understood the necessary deception they were carrying out... and he even understood the girls might actually enjoy themselves for a bit rather than remain hyperfocused on the mission.

He understood why he was left behind.

Understanding didn't do much to make him feel any better about it. He didn't mind the downtime so much, and didn't mind the absence of Cinder bossing him around, but...

He knew what it was to be alone for long stretches. For all his father's faults, Mercury did not consider the self-reliance he'd acquired to be among them. And Beacon was still available to him. He did not want for food or electricity or a roof over his head. He would survive their day beach trip easily enough.

But only surviving... well, being alone without a mission to carry out left him to his thoughts. To his pain.

There were still phantom aches. The prosthetics were intuitive and held him up well enough, but every now and then he'd misjudge the distance of a step and feel a jolt to remind him of metal grafted to his skin. It'd pass quickly enough and he could easily dismiss it... but then at night he'd toss and turn because of the aches of his wounded, shredded knees... only to remember he no longer had those knees and instead just feel uncomfortably hot as he wore long pants even to bed to keep up the deception as much as possible. Beacon may not have been much on security, but that did little to deter him from being prepared... and paying the cost for it.

Now, with his only two allies away and nothing to focus on... just that pain or his thoughts. And it was not so easy a choice to make.

Pain was familiar. Pain was natural.

What he thought...

He was never going to be normal. He knew that from a very young age. Yet he had hoped that if the day ever came he escaped his father's controlling influence he could, maybe... just on occasion... do something that wasn't just plotting the strike and the kill. Maybe he could savor in life's simple pleasures.

A day at the beach with friends. He'd never get to know that. Because going to the beach would get sand in his prosthetic and necessitate maintenance and he would be vulnerable; unable to carry out his orders on a moment's notice.

Because he'd reveal to the Beacon kids that his legs weren't what they appeared, and lose whatever element of surprise that might've had; because he'd willingly forsake an advantage in battle.

...

Because he didn't have friends.

Emerald and Cinder were cordial to him, but there was no sincerity in their bond; no affection. It was all convenience, all mutual benefit. Mercury didn't exactly trust either of them -another thing he assumed he'd never be able to fully do- but he tried to be friendly with them; to get along with the most important people in his life: the only people he had now.

They had no desire to share anything with him save the mission. And while they could exchange small talk and pleasantries, it was only ever to pass the time.

They'd never be close. They'd never bond.

They'd never go to a beach and just be able to enjoy it together.

Or, for that matter, any other setting where they might reveal his secret. They couldn't shed their own safeguards, and so long as they had an advantage of surprise they wouldn't squander it so they could have fun.

Mercury turned to his Scroll. Though he'd intended to surf the CCT and find something to distract himself, his home page was linked to the Beaconbook social network, and he saw the dense blonde from Team JNPR post about the beach trip, with a picture of himself and his friends -and Cinder and Emerald- having fun on the sand, with bright blue water at their backs.

He had many thoughts about what he saw. Just like the last bunch of thoughts: confusing, distressing... or worse, because he knew they would go to waste.

He'd never be there. He'd never be with them.

Mercury preferred the familiar pain to the newer forms. He set his Scroll aside and turned to his legs.

He was alone. No one would see him wince or hear him exhale.

When he was finished adjusting, Mercury was glad to have skipped the beach trip. Sand in the gears would've made things take so much longer.

He told himself to focus on that. He needed to stay focused.

He knew what the alternative was.