(Seven)

Fallen went to kiss Seth again, but Kimble cried out and she was suddenly transported back to the real world. She was laying down on the bathroom floor in the tangle of blankets that had become her new bed. She was groggy and slow to wake, taking a full minute before she blinked woozily and finally sat up. This whole switching thing between a dream and reality was disorienting. She looked beside her but Kimble was gone. The floor was warm beside her where he had been so she knew he had just left. She rose and washed her face, feeling lightheaded and dreamy. She felt truly in love, something that hadn't happened to her in a long time. She looked in the mirror, but there was no sign that Seth had even touched her. She would have loved a hickey then, just something to prove it had been real. She called out his name, but there was no answer. The viewing screen was dark.

Fallen automatically reached for her jar of cigarettes, but hesitated. For the first time in a long while, she stopped to think about all the damage she'd done to her body. There were lots of jars on this vanity, most of them were full of poisons. Seth had just given her an excuse to reconsider what she was doing to herself. If she had gone to see him this once, it might be possible to do that again. If she were to die, she would never have that possibility again. She laughed softly and left the jar where it was.

Fallen wandered out into the main room, seeing that no one was on guard duty watching the Clansmen. She heard voices and next poked her head into the galley. Maylee and the X-men were playing poker. Logan was keeping watch, seated where he could peek through the door and see across the Main Room to the barracks door.

He looked up at Fallen and smiled, startled by the radiance in her face. He knew then. He knew she'd gotten off but was surprised she'd allowed Kimble to do it. No way would she look that good doing it by herself. Maybe she felt bad for the guy, he had been pretty badly damaged. Whatever. "Hey, darlin'," he drawled, his accent reminding her of Kimble's. "You look better."

"I am," she answered with a smile. "You guys seen Kimble?"

"Funny. Last I knew, 'de boy was barely walkin'," Gambit replied with a laugh. He cocked his head in bemused wonder when he saw the color in her cheeks. He didn't need his ability to read people to figure her out, not when she was so obviously pleased with herself.

"I thought he was with you," Logan grumbled, instantly on guard.

"He was. I fell asleep and just woke up. I must have just missed him." As she spoke, soft guitar music started to play from the lower level. She smiled. "Never mind."

She left them and went down to the lower level. She slowly crept down the hallway, following the sound of the music. She hovered in the doorway of the tool room and smiled when she saw Kimble there.

Kimble was seated comfortably on a work bench stool. He had taken the guitar out of the Storage Room and was tuning it, a skill he had picked up from the ship's computers. Joe Cool, he had a lit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes squinting a little as smoke drifted up from it. A jar of cigarettes and a fresh bottle of whiskey was at his feet, he clearly planned on sitting there a while. As in the Black Room, all the bruises from his face were gone, she had healed him with her Ristle. He didn't seem to notice her so she stood where she was, watching him.

Kimble had always been restless and Fallen learned quickly that she had to keep him busy. If he got too bored, he would torment her with practical jokes or worse until she went crazy. Because they both shared a love for music, she decided he should learn to play an instrument. She obtained music files and gave them to Seth. He wrote some codes and was able to create an actual instrument in their digital environment, one that Kimble took to immediately and with great enthusiasm. Kimble went even farther, copying her music files and teaching himself to play almost her entire library. When Fallen found a real guitar in a Dognan storehouse during a raid, she took it in case she ever got the hologram running. He'd tried playing it a few times already as a hologram and enjoyed it.

Back in the shop now, Kimble used a mental command to start a song playing overhead on the computer. He sat easy, smoking as he listened. The song was kind of melancholy and he now seemed a little sad. He had a strange haunted look in his eyes she'd never seen before. He scratched at one arm absently as he listened, taking the cigarette from his mouth and holding it. She could then see his hands were trembling slightly and she realized that the look in his eyes was fear. Real fear. Something had upset him badly.

Fallen knew what his problem was, he was taking too much responsibility on himself and he was burning out. He was trying too hard, but that had always been his way. He was a perfectionist at times and this seemed like one of them. He had gotten it into his head that he was her protector, but he wasn't even close to being capable of pulling it off. All the men upstairs had him seriously outclassed and he knew it, Logan had made that painfully and abundantly clear. Kimble wouldn't last two seconds against Valentin and Wolverine had already pounded him without batting an eye.

Fallen understood that she would have to find a way to help Kimble around his problem without being obvious about it. She could give him some fighting files, but she knew that would only cause more trouble. No, she would have to manipulate him out of harm's way. She was stronger now, in both power and spirit thanks to Seth. She would just have to be clever. She knew Kimble well enough to do this.

She remembered when she had first met him as she'd installed the program into the ship's computers. Like she had described to Henry, she'd bribed the Clan's Curator of Files to get it. She had found the Siskan files by accident while looking for something else. When she saw it was really a Siskan hologram, she knew she had to have it. Her bribe hadn't been much and she'd returned to the Lucky Dragon cheerfully with her prize. She knew what a Siskan Courtesan was, having seen a couple used by the Dognan. She was a little disappointed when she saw that the program had been severely damaged and most of the files were missing or locked out. There was no way she could do more than use him as a personality for the ship, but she didn't care. She'd been lonely and was interested in the challenge of restoring it.

Once freed from his deep slumber and forcibly brought back to life, Kimble was confused and disoriented. He had been an active hologram before and was more used to interacting out in the real world then inside this digital world. He chaffed against the confinement of his new two dimensional environment. He wasn't violent but vented in long colorful verbal arguments and complaints. She was impressed at how convincing his personality was, how real. It was like she was dealing with mentally deranged living being. She could tell then that he was special and meant for greater things. He intrigued her greatly so she decided to try and fix him.

She started by creating the control room. Given an environment he could interact in, Kimble was much better and more motivated to learn. He wanted to know and do it all right away. He tried to learn everything too quickly and got frustrated and overwhelmed. He was a perfectionist when it came to his work and nothing less would satisfy him. He still wasn't stable emotionally and Fallen believed it was because of all the missing files. She could try to build new files but didn't know how to integrate them into him. The best solution she could come up with was to create Seth and maintain the split.

She was pleasantly surprised when Kimble readily accepted his new partner and even enjoyed having Seth around. Kimble had needed the close interaction of another person and immediately calmed and settled down. He took Seth under his wing and helped him to develop and grow. They would disappear together off into the system at times and she now realized that one or both of them had created the Black Room by that time. Seth probably. His specialty was computer programming and codes. Kimble was better at manual controls, such as flying the ship. Kimble couldn't create the controls, but could master their use when he applied himself. It wasn't long before he flew the ship so well, Fallen didn't want to fly it without him.

Fallen used her telekinesis to maneuver the ship, but Kimble had a way of optimizing its use with the controls. He also maximized the distribution of Ristle in the system, improving efficiency. Fallen didn't have to work anywhere near as hard as she used to. She was excited and pleased by this. They were a good team. He helped her repair and design the Siskan engines she was using. Seth did the research and Kimble applied what he found. The Lucky Dragon soon became the fastest and most powerful craft in the Clan fleet.

Seth's research also led him to discover other Siskan programs he could borrow from to repair some of the damage done to Kimble. With each new find, the two of them became more interactive and vibrant. They shared a lot of the same files and so she perceived them as twins, Siamese twins. They were bonded together but separate at the same time. Seth found the skin program and gave it her, buzzing with excitement. He wanted her to decide what the two of them should look like. It would turn out to be one of the most defining moments in all of their lives.

Up until this point, the two brothers were blocky, misshapen humanoid figures moving about a pixilated control room. The skin program was a significant upgrade and changed all that. Fallen knew she wanted them to be pilots because they flew the ship. She wanted Kimble to be male because his aggressive outgoing personality would probably be more comfortable this way. She simply assumed he'd always been a man and he didn't question her decision. Problem was, all pilots were female. She found a skin for a pilot and with a little creative license, was able to modify it to her satisfaction. She decided to give Kimble the darker colorings and larger physique because of his physical way of doing things. When she saw him as a pilot for the first time, she was struck by his realism as he moved and got a feel for his new body. He was a real person to her now.

Because it hadn't occurred to her before, she asked Kimble if he knew what his real name was, the one his creator had given him. He just looked at her with those twinkling pale blue eyes and his grin teased the corners of his mouth. He said his name slowly, shyly, almost seductively as he purred it from his mouth. He was so serious for a moment, then busted up laughing. She knew then she was in for a wild ride. He wouldn't disappoint her.

She tried to fix his voice. She had believed his odd speech patterns were so poor because of the damage to the program. He resisted all of her efforts, manipulating Seth into reversing all of her changes. It didn't take long for her to figure out he had always spoken this way. He was intelligent and had a large vocabulary, but wanted to talk like an uneducated redneck. Whatever. He must believe it to be disarming or charming.

He also loved to swear. Lord, he was awful. It was worse when he was agitated, but she couldn't stop that either. The harder she tried to get him to stop, the worse he became. She learned to leave well enough alone. Of course, Kimble thought the whole thing was hilarious. He had a lot of spirit for a computer generated personality.

Fallen had originally planned to make Seth female because he was so timid and shy, but Kimble talked her out of it. He wouldn't say why, but was so insistent she gave in. He could get her to do almost anything he wanted if he was persistent enough. It wasn't until much later that he told her Seth's little secret. It was after one of Valentin's nightmare visits. She had been severely beaten and was giving up hope. She was going to overdose to try and kill herself, but Kimble talked her down. "Seth's in love with ya, always has been," he said, trying to soothe her distress. "The kid don' know it, is all. He's too stupid ta figger it out just yet, but he'll get there."

"How do you know?" she asked from behind her tears.

"Cuz he tells me things. 'Sides, just takes a good look at him. You kin sees it if yer lookin' hard enough."

Fallen took his advice and saw that it was true. It was in the way Seth looked at her and the gentle way he spoke to her. He went out of his way to make time for her and always wanted to be where she was. She'd just been too blind to see it and he was too shy to shout it at her. Fallen now knew why Kimble had been so insistent on Seth being male. Kimble had been looking out for her from the beginning. She loved him for it. He'd saved her that night.

She chose to color Seth in white to emphasize the differences between them. They were two individuals locked together.

When she discovered the hologram codes and began working on them, Kimble grew very excited. Almost immediately, Seth was behind the scenes manufacturing new codes that would allow for them to be separated and maintain integrity. The unspoken plan was for her to create two holograms and retrieve them both from the system. Fallen wasn't too sure she wanted to do that. Kimble was just too good flying the ship. What would she do without him? She dragged her feet on the codes, deciding. She wanted Seth out, but felt guilty about leaving Kimble behind.

Now the whole thing had been decided by an accident of fate. Her poor timing and bad decision to destroy them all had cost her Seth, possibly forever. Fallen did not believe Maylee's accusation that Kimble had orchestrated the events and turned them to his favor. No, Fallen had wrecked everything all on her own.

She continued to watch Kimble now as he sat staring off into space. The song had looped over again, but he didn't seem to notice. He smoked mechanically, lost in his own thoughts. He was really quite handsome, she thought with a smile. He gave off an air of animal sexuality that had to be a byproduct of the pleasure program codes. He had a dynamic presence that she knew would draw others to him. She recalled how silly she felt choosing the sexual attributes of the twins, but was now glad she hadn't shortchanged either of them there.

She just hoped Kimble would be able to handle himself out here. So far things didn't seem to be going too well for him. Of course this was the worst possible environment for him to be re-learning his way around. He had been in at least two fights that she knew of and got manhandled by Wolverine in both. This last one had been really bad. She felt a shiver of pain when she thought of how awful he'd looked. At least she'd been able to repair the damage. There was no sign of the punishment he'd received. Still, she figured Kimble's self esteem must be pretty low right about now. Part of her was hoping that was why he was having the nightmares. A simple stress thing could be worked out once they landed. It wouldn't take Kimble long to pair off with someone. No, not that handsome devil. She wondered how many maids Xavier had. She hoped it was a lot.

Unfortunately, Fallen also remembered what Seth had said to her about Kimble possibly struggling with the unlocked memory files. She knew Kimble was broken when she had found him, but didn't know why. The Clan was not known for their programmers, it was very likely the program had been corrupted just by someone fooling around with it. Now she began to speculate that the break might have been deliberate. She knew about the Siskan who had gone nuts and killed seven men, but the thought of Kimble being that Siskan had always seemed absurd to her. Kimble was just too playful and gentle to be him, his kiss was so tender. How could a deranged killer be so thoughtful and careful as her good sweet Kimble? It just wasn't possible. But what was he dreaming of that frightened him so?