Chapter 4

Eden 5

They ended up spending the rest of the morning on the ship, Gaige going through things to take to her parents' place and Artemis organizing what she'd need to modify Gaige's arm. They decided to eat lunch there, rather than raiding her parents' pantry, and afterwards, Artemis grabbed a few cuts of meat from the freezer to take back with them and they headed back down to the planet.

They made their way back to the house, not really interested in exploring the town. Artemis was curious about Gaige's old school, though she didn't know how to broach that subject. And Gaige, while curious to look around, didn't want to run into anyone that she might know who still lived in the area, as well as that she had other things she felt she should take care of first.

Following the same path as the day before, they quickly found themselves back at the house, and after locking the door behind them, made the way to the kitchen to drop off the food, and then out to the workshop.

After a bit of looking around, Artemis determined that she could, in fact, re-coat the cyber-limb plates here, though it would take some time. Gaige got to switching out the anti-electric plates for her old ones, while the other girl got started setting things up.

Feeling that she would just be in the way, Gaige left her to do her thing and headed back inside, going up to her room and started going through all of her old stuff, trying to decide what to take back to the ship with her. She quickly found herself in a bit of a predicament, a lot of the stuff weren't things that she necessarily wanted to take to the ship, but that she didn't want to get rid of either and would feel bad just storing at her parents place indefinitely.

When her dad got home from work, he found her in the middle of her room, still trying to decide what to do with her stuff.

The Next Evening

That night Gaige continued to tell stories of her adventures and the following day had proceeded much like the previous afternoon. When evening came around and Gaige's dad showed up, she relocated to the lounge to continue talking with him when the doorbell rang. Her father was busy looking for something so he asked if she could get it.

Opening the door, she was met with a tall, well-built man, about her age. He smiled a bit awkwardly at her as she stood there staring at him.

"Can I help you?" She asked, her hand behind the door resting on her pistol.

"So, you are back." He replied, "Not that I doubted your father when he told me."

"And you are?" She said, this time drawing her gun and holding it against the door, wishing that both Deathtrap and Artemis weren't working out back at the moment.

"Sorry, I completely spaced, seeing you again, it's, well, a blast from the past, to say the least. You probably don't remember me, well, at least I hope you don't, I was a bit of a, uh...I'm Gabe, I was in some of your classes back in school."

"I remember you" Gaige said, her voice dropping into arctic territory "What do you want, and when did you talk to my dad?"

"Yeah, I suppose you would remember me." He said, shoulders slumping a bit "I work with your dad, well really for him. He's my boss. As for the rest, well, I've wanted to see you for a while now. See the thing is, I was, well, I was a jerk to you back in school, and I feel bad about that. I'm not going to ask you to forget it or anything stupid like that, but I've wanted to apologize for the way I acted. There was no excuse for it. So, I'm sorry."

"Well, you've said your piece, you can go." She said, starting to close the door.

"Hey, Gabe. Why don't you come in." Suddenly came from behind her causing her to snap her head around and fix her father with a hard glare, as if to say 'NO'.

"Don't be rude dear." He said, brushing her look off and stepping up to the door. "Come in, come in."

"Thank you, sir, but it seems that this may not be a good time."

"Nonsense, you two should talk." He pulled Gaige aside and whispered "Just hear him out. He helped me quite a bit with getting some of your charges dropped after all."

Gaige gave him a hard stare and when he didn't back down, she gave a flat reply "Fine, but I want Deathtrap and Artemis here for it, and I'm keeping my gun at hand."

A short while later they found themselves sitting around the kitchen table, Gaige, Artemis and Deathtrap on one side and a very nervous looking Gabe on the other, glancing around like he didn't know where to look. Gaige's dad stood off to the side quietly sipping on a cup of coffee in case he was needed as a moderator.

"So, what is it you want?" Gaige asked coldly.

"Like I said, I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved back in school." Gabe replied, choosing to look at Gaige.

"Great, you did, bye."

Her dad cleared his throat and looked at her sternly.

"What do you want me to say?" She shot back "Him and his buddies made school a living hell for me back in the day, and now what? I'm supposed to be all, forgive and forget? Well forget that. He can say his piece, and I'll even listen, but that's it."

"That's all I'm asking" Gabe replied "And that's what I was trying to say. I didn't realize how mean we were being. I thought it was all a bit of fun, sure we picked on kids, but I thought it was OK. They were weird, or nerds, or not as cool as us. But as I got a little older, I started to see what that was doing to them. How much it was hurting them. I saw someone I knew, someone close to me nearly die from it."

"Who?"

"My girlfriend's younger sister. Well, I guess ex-girlfriend if we're being totally honest. But that's beside the point. I was dating her at the time. Anyway, her sister was a cute kid, shy and a bit bookish, but nice, at least when I was over. Except she started to get withdrawn, none of us noticed at first, I was probably the first to realize that something was wrong, only seeing her once a week or so. But it continued to get worse. Each time I was over, it seemed like she was withdrawing further and further, but I didn't know what was happening with her, and to be honest I was a bit too preoccupied at the time to give it much thought. Until I happened to see her slip in one day.

"I was in the kitchen, I'd come down for some juice or something like that, when the side door opens and Emily snuck in. That's her name, by the way. Anyway, she slips in and freezes, like she didn't expect to see me there. And I look at her, all frozen up and I see she's been crying, but not just that, her books are all a mess, like they had been stomped on. So, I asked her what had happened and she just says 'Nothing, I fell down.'. But I don't believe her. Something about how she said it worried me, so the next afternoon, I headed for the school and watched. Sure enough, as she's leaving, I see a couple of kids start talking to her. Only they're not really talking. I could see that. The next thing I know, they've pulled her backpack off and dumped it on the ground.

"Now, I was about to go over there, when I see a teacher walking out of the school, but this guy, he was the worst of them all. He just walks past. But as he's doing so, I can hear him yell at Emily to not treat her books so roughly. I mean, he had to have seen what was going on, but he just walked away. Well, I didn't. I knew that I shouldn't get involved, but I had to do something. Right about then, the kids walk away, laughing, so I walk into their path and confront them.

"I tell them that I saw what they were doing and asked them why they were harassing her. Well, the first one, who seemed to be the leader, told me to piss off and when I didn't, he took a swing at me. Well, I drop him, I was a pretty decent boxer back in the day, if you remember. Anyway, the rest look spooked, so I asked them again. This time they seemed to be inclined to answer. The first one tells me it's cause she's a freak, the second says it's cause she's a nerd, always has her head in a book. But the last one, looks at me and says 'We didn't mean anything by it. We were just having some fun, she knows that, it wasn't like we did anything to her'. And that was the one that got me, cause I don't know if you remember the time we got sent to the principal's office for fighting, but when he asked me why I'd been bothering you, that was almost exactly what I told him. That I didn't mean anything by it and I was just having a bit of fun.

"And that's when it hit me. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I was no different than these jerks. The way we treated you was appalling. What with the name calling and the graffiti. But mostly it was the small things, the harassment, the shoving, and that type of thing that I remember. And I realized that the first thing I needed to do, was to apologize to you. Except it was too late, you were already gone. By a good couple of years actually. But I knew that if you ever came back, I would need to tell you this.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, and that's not what I'm here for. I just wanted to let you know that some of us are sorry for what we did, and that we did eventually grow up."

He fell silent as Gaige mulled what he had said. Eventually her father spoke up.

"Gaige? What do you have to say about that?"

"What do you expect me to say? I mean seriously, what were you expecting to happen next? That I would drop to my knees and forgive him? That I would ask him to marry me since all is forgiven? What? What does everyone expect me to respond with?"

A hand gently touched her arm, causing her to look over to see Artemis looking at her.

"What do you think?" Gaige asked her.

"I think what he did took courage. It's not easy to admit your faults, especially to the one that you wronged, we both know that." She held up her hand, stalling Gaige's heated response "I'm not saying that you should forgive him, or forget what he did. Only that you acknowledge that he has at least realized that he was a jerk. And that he is trying to make it better."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. Whenever we have a fight, I at least hope that, even if you can't forgive me, that you can at least accept my apology."

"Yeah, but we're different, you've never done anything like what he did to me."

"I know, that's why I'm not telling you to forgive him, nor suggesting that you even should. I'm just asking that you recognize what he is trying to do now. That he at least recognizes that he did wrong, even if it is too late. Besides, you're not that girl anymore, and if he hadn't been a bully to you, you may not be the girl that you are now, either."

Gaige looked into the other girl's eyes for a minute and then sighed. Turning back to Gabe, she said "You're lucky that she's standing up for you. And like she said, I'm not the same person I was, so maybe you're not as bad as you were. I'm not gonna be your friend, but I'll at least acknowledge what you came here to try and do. That good enough?"

"It was more than I expected." He replied, seeming like a weight had been lifted off of him. "Well, I should be taking my leave before I do anything to ruin the little bit of progress that I've made."

He stood up and stopped, looking back at Gaige before adding "Oh, but don't expect any of the others to show up to apologize. I don't think any of them had any kind of, well, insight on what they had been doing. Heck, after you fled, a good number of us badmouthed you, but then, after you got famous, a number of the guys started bragging about having, um, shall we call it, intimate knowledge of you?" Seeing the rage building across the table he quickly added "No one believed them, of course, but I was just passing that along to let you know the kind of things that went around."

He nodded to Gaige's dad and left, with the old man following along to see him out, leaving the two girls alone in the kitchen with Deathtrap.

"I still can't believe that you were on his side." Gaige said, miffed "What was it? Just because he's now kinda hot, you don't know what kind of jerk he was back in the day."

"His appearance had nothing to do with it. He is definitely not my type. I just wanted for you to be the bigger person."

"Again with the weight jokes."

"That wasn't a..."

"I know, I was just trying to lighten the mood. Sorry. And I get where you'd be coming from, but I can't see him without thinking all the things that him and his buddies did back when I was in school."

"Then why did you say what you did to him?"

"Cause you were right. If it wasn't for them, I don't think I would've ever built Deathtrap. I mean, he did start out as an anti-bullying robot, and without him, I never would've left the planet. Well, at least not like I did. So, none of that would have happened. So, you were right, I am who I am today, because of him. Doesn't mean I have to like him, but I should at least acknowledge that."

About then, her dad came back into the room and declared "Well I think that went well."

To which Gaige fixed him a hard glare and asked "Is there anyone else around here that I should know about?"