Chapter VIII: Fleeing Paris

Julian was still wakeful when the sun rose. Only twelve hours ago he'd been standing in his quarters at the Academy, debating what to wear to the ballet. It felt like far longer, and he was much more exhausted than he should have been considering how long he'd been awake. But he was also filled with crawling agitation, and could not even conceive of sleeping. He called for the chronometer display on the viewscreen instead, speaking only just loudly enough for the computer to register his voice. He feared it might be too loud, that it might wake Palis. Roused unexpectedly from slumber, she'd probably be inclined to renew the romantic advances he'd managed to dodge earlier. Julian didn't know if he'd dare to refuse a second time, and he desperately needed to avoid testing the question.

He watched the minutes crawl on as the daylight clarified and grew bright, filtering through the airy linen drapes. The cheerful morning sounds of Paris drifted up on the breeze, a slow crescendo of contented voices and briskly strolling feet. A group of children passed somewhere below: Julian could hear their laughter and their high, happy voices. All through the city — indeed, all over Europe — people were getting up and going about their daily routines, and heading out into the sunshine, while he lay trapped here, pinned naked beneath the slumbering body of a woman repulsed by his very nature.

Finally, the chronometer rolled over to 0900 hours, and Julian finally felt he could justify getting out of bed. Even if he disturbed her, it wouldn't be suspicious that he wanted to start moving for the day. He'd be able to play it off well, or he thought he would. If he had managed in the night, when all this was raw and stupefying, he could manage now. The hurt was no less horrible, the dread no less real, but he was calmer, more in control of his mind and his body than he had been in the first aftershock.

That was what he thought, at least, as he disentangled Palis's slender arms from his body and eased out from under her, packing his pillow in against her so she was not left suddenly bereft of support as he went. He slipped one bare foot off the mattress and onto the floor, and twisted his hips to do the same with the other. But when he tried to stand, he found his knees wouldn't hold him, at least not at first. He snatched at the headboard to brace himself, and the whole bed shuddered.

Julian held his breath, frozen with dread as Palis stirred. She rolled from her left hip onto her front, cuddling his pillow close, and she murmured something in French. Julian couldn't quite make out the words, but his brain thought the translation ought to be don't trust that cow. It made no sense, and that was reassuring: Palis was dreaming.

Still unsteady, but determined to get away from the bed and into his clothing before she awoke, Julian fled to the chair by the door. It took him two tries to gather all the pieces of his uniform into his arms, but even just clutching the familiar fabrics to his chest was soothing. He hugged them tighter so that he could feel his communicator pressing against his sternum, a cool and tangible proof that he was not really trapped here, at least not indefinitely. He retreated to the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and let himself slid down onto the floor.

He let the garments spill over his lap, and scrubbed his face in his hands before raking his fingers up into his hair. The neatly cropped curls felt coarse and brittle, and he remembered that he'd used soap instead of shampoo to wash them last night. He stared at the tub with its ornate feet and its elaborate control pad, and wondered if another bath might scrub away just a little of the persistent shame. But in his heart he knew better, and so he settled for getting dressed instead.

It felt good to put his uniform back on. Every garment restored a little piece of his identity. They were tangible reminders of his accomplishments, of the one thing in his life he had chosen and pursued and earned for himself. Since he was seventeen, Julian had believed that joining Starfleet and practicing medicine was the most worthwhile path he could possibly choose: the one that offered him not only scope for a fulfilling and meaningful life, but a chance at redemption. If he worked diligently enough, tried hard enough, helped and healed and saved enough people, maybe someday he could make restitution for the life that had been destroyed so that he could exist. Little Jules Bashir, who had only wanted to be loved — erased so cavalierly to give life to a new creation, a construction, an unnatural being that lived and breathed and thought and felt but could never be quite right.

Freak. Monster. Abomination. Augment.

Julian yanked his jumpsuit up over his hips and thrust his arms into the sleeves so wrathfully that one of the seams gave an ominous creak. It wasn't just the lies that separated him from the Moab IV colonists. Accelerated critical neural pathway formation and its attendant procedures did something embryonic resequencing did not: replaced a self-aware child with someone else. Something else. Julian did not believe in karma, or divine retribution, or any of the like concepts that were part of Earth's spiritual and religious legacy. And yet he knew that for his own sanity, for his own shaky self-worth, and for the sake of his soul if there was such a thing, he had to make amends.

He looked at himself in Palis's ornate mirror. His hair was tousled, the first shadow of stubble was showing on his jaw, and his eyes were glassy and far too bright. But what he saw most clearly was his combadge, which was canted crookedly over his heart so that the point was aimed at his armpit. He straightened it carefully, then tugged his cuff down over the ball of his hand so he could buff the gold and silver surface to a smooth shine. Two quick taps reactivated it, turning on the Universal Translator again and — far more importantly — reconnecting Julian to the Starfleet communications network and his core identity.

It had been almost nine years ago that he'd set his eyes on this goal: on the Academy, Starfleet, medical school, all of it. He had been sure then that it was the right path for him, possessed of a level of certainty he doubted many teenagers felt when contemplating their limitless futures. He had known, even then, that his own had been limitless only by virtue of the lie, of what his father so often called our little secret. Disclosure or discovery would have threshed his options for career and education to chaff, leaving him with only a handful of choices that even at seventeen he'd known were unsuited to his temperament and his talents. Unable to accept that fate — perhaps too cowardly, perhaps too arrogant — Julian had decided that the lie and the secret had to continue. He would never forget the moment he had signed the affidavit at the end of his Academy application, declaring he had made no knowing errors or omissions. It had been the first time he had actively endorsed his parents' lie, the first time he had not just covered up their crime with his frightened silence, but with a willful statement to the contrary.

He had never looked back from that, and he promised himself he wasn't looking back now. What was done was done. He couldn't change any of it. All he could do was look forward, press on, and do all he was able to retroactively earn what he had taken. The only place he knew how to do that was in Starfleet.

And looking at himself now, as he reached unseeing for the comb he kept in Palis's top lefthand drawer, staring all the while into his own troubled brown eyes, even that wasn't enough. He wouldn't be satisfied or fulfilled on some luxurious Galaxy Class starship meandering through the heart of the Federation, or at some prestigious research facility with the sort of grants that graduates at the top of their class could have almost for the asking. He needed to be out there, in the vastness of space, on the far borders of the Federation. Somewhere his skills were most needed. Somewhere he could learn just what he was made of. And somewhere, he thought with a deep, spastic shudder, far away from Earth with its angry mobs of anti-eugenic protestors.

Julian felt a little shiver of despair as he realized how true all this was. How am I going to tell Palis?

The comb stopped its methodical raking. He stared at himself, dumbfounded both by the realization that took him now and by the fact he hadn't actually considered this sooner. He had still been thinking as if he and Palis were going to be married, to spend the rest of their lives together, and now… that was absolutely out of the question. He couldn't marry a woman so viscerally disgusted by genetic engineering that she believed a woman deserved to be attacked and beaten by a mob simply because of her genes and the fact she'd had the audacity to return to her ancestral homeworld despite them. Last night, Julian had thought how unfair it was for him to touch Palis when he knew, even if she did not, how revolted she would be if she knew the truth. But it was just as unfair to expect himself to live a lie like that forever.

He couldn't go forward, continuing to court her, to make love to her, to plan a future together, knowing what he did about her now. They had seemed so perfectly matched in every respect, so perfectly in accord on questions like the interspecies diversity in ballet companies stagingLa Naissance de la Fédération, or matters of interstellar politics, or matters of medical ethics. Clearly, they both abhorred eugenics, too. But this was the impassable obstacle: Palis could not separate the engineer from the engineered, the creator from the creation, the perpetrator from the victim. She was equally repulsed by the Moab IV colonists as she was by the philosophy of the colony's founders, and that meant she'd be just as repulsed by Julian as by the actions of his parents and the Adigeon doctors.

He didn't always love himself, couldn't always find his worth beneath the morass of deception and ill-gotten privilege. But Julian did know this: no one, not even him, deserved to live a life married to a person who despised what they were at their very core. No one deserved to keep up a façade like that out terror that their spouse, the one person in the Galaxy who was supposed to love them for who they were, would one day learn the truth and despise them instantly. Last night, some part of him had known he didn't deserve to be coerced into sex just to protect his secret. That part of him had been able to speak up in Jules's voice, using Jules's simple words, when Julian's mighty intellect was floundering. And that small, buried part of him was right. He might not be worthy of many of the good things in his life, but no one — no one — deserved that.

He looked at the bathroom door, beyond which he could hear the faint sighs of Palis's deep, slumbering breaths. Their relationship was over. It had ended last night, shortly after she'd switched on the news feed. She didn't know it yet, and he couldn't tell her yet, but it was over.

Julian finished with the comb and put it neatly away. He washed his hands and his face, and debated whether to shave before deciding it could wait until he was back in San Francisco. He wouldn't be here long: as soon as Palis was awake, he'd explain that he had to get home to work on his research paper, and he'd kiss her and bid her a fond farewell just as he always did, and he'd hurry out the door.

He was going to have to play along for a little longer. At least a few weeks. He couldn't let her suspect he was planning to break off their understanding — thankfully, mercifully not yet an actual engagement — until the memory of last night faded a little from her mind. If he ended things now, she would wonder why. She'd think back with that keen analytical mind that would probably ensure her a vibrant career in choreography for decades after she could no longer execute the leaps and pirouettes, and she'd remember how he had gone silent during the broadcast. How afterwards, for the first time in their relationship, he'd declined to make love to her. She'd put two and two together, and she might not come up with four right away — but she'd start looking for it. Julian wasn't so naïve as to believe that his parents' efforts to cover their tracks would stand up to a full-blown investigation by Starfleet's Judge Advocate General. If Palis started hunting, the truth would come out. Then it would be his doorstep beset with protestors. His right to existence debated in the media. His presence on Earth decried as a travesty.

He couldn't allow that. He had to keep up the pretext of a loving relationship. Julian thought he could do it. A little light conversation over breakfast today, their usual subspace chats when they could coordinate a time they were both free to make the call — and he suspected they'd find it much harder to coordinate from now on, what with his final weeks of medical school requiring so much of his time and attention. That was plausible, wasn't it? Of course it was. And then, when a few weeks had passed and he could no longer delay another visit to Paris… that would be the time for the tough conversation. For him to explain that he couldn't take the job with her father, that he was going to pursue his Starfleet career, and that upon further reflection it really wasn't fair to ask either of them to compromise their dreams for the other, was it?

It sounded good. It sounded achievable, and plausible, and quite above suspicion. The only disagreements they'd ever had — that both of them were aware of, anyway — had revolved around the question of their futures, and their ostensibly incompatible career goals. If that proved the sticking place, ultimately insurmountable, Palis might be hurt but she would not be surprised. Julian had seen that crossroads coming since Docteur Delon had offered him the job at his facility. Palis would have seen it too. Until now, they'd both been hoping they could find some way past it, but if they could not? If Julian made sure they could not? He could think of no more self-evident and completely unincriminating reason not to get married.

He had found his courage, so it seemed. He opened the door and moved out into the bedroom in stocking feet. Palis was still lying where he'd left her, the sheet lying in artful twists over her lithe, unclothed body, her hair tumbling around her, her beautiful face serene in slumber. Julian retrieved his boots from under the chair and slipped out of the room, drawing the door almost closed behind him, and he went out to the dining area. He pulled out a chair, sat, and leaned forward to put on his footwear.

He was tempted just to scrawl a note on a PADD apologizing for his need to get back to campus, and to sneak out now before Palis woke up. He couldn't bring himself to do it. That was a crass enough move to pull on someone you'd met for a one-night stand. If he tried it with Palis, he'd hurt her horribly — and rightly so. It was the sort of behaviour that painted sex as something cheap, transient, and tawdry, instead of the beautiful exchange of trust and passion and affection it was meant to be, even when it was casual. And as little as Julian liked to remember, they had made love last night and it had been beautiful. That thought made his chest ache. It had been beautiful, and he knew that no matter what had come after, he'd always remember that, and the countless times before, and wonder… how had he let something so exquisite slip through his fingers? And would he ever find anything like it again?

He couldn't think about that, now. He'd never be able to carry off the act over breakfast if he did. So he went to the computer terminal in the living room and logged on to the Academy database. A couple of levels of routine encryption got him into his student files, and he opened the outline of the atresia project. The questions and critiques Docteur Delon had supplied last night were filed away in his brain for easy access, and he started implementing some of the changes.

He was so engrossed in his work that he didn't hear the soft footfalls or the comfortable, measured breathing, until two small hands closed on his shoulders. Julian jumped, startled, and whirled around to find Palis smiling down at him, her eyes laughing.

"Easy, my treasure!" she chided, pursing her lips playfully. He heard the pet name in English now, though she said it in French. Belatedly Julian hoped she wouldn't pick up on the fact he'd turned on his combadge. She might think nothing of it, or she might wonder… "Did I frighten you?"

She had frightened him, and not just in this moment. She terrified him now. Julian felt nauseous at the thought, but he forced a rueful smile. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought I'd better get some work done. I'm on duty in the Infirmary tonight, and I won't have much time for homework."

"Ah, of course, homework," said Palis, gently mocking. She had pulled on one of her diaphanous summer dresses, really a bit too lightweight for the season, and she was apparently not wearing much under it. Her nipples stood out against the sprigged fabric, and Julian felt the stirring of passions he'd believed irrevocably lost last night. He knew he'd never be able to act on them, not if he wanted to retain even a shadow of his self-respect, but the impulse was there. "Do you have any idea how pleased I am to be done with school?"

Julian chuckled, and the sound was almost natural. "I know that feeling," he said. "I'm counting down the weeks."

"Mmm. So am I," said Palis, and she bent to kiss his cheekbone. In his ear, she murmured; "Come, let's have breakfast. You know I always work up an appetite when you come to stay."

The suggestive note in her voice told Julian she was hoping for a reprise of the previous night's activities when they were finished eating, but there was nothing to be served by announcing his need to depart right at this moment. That might seem too much like evasion. Instead, he followed her into the dining area and took charge of the replicator, ordering a selection of pastries while she went to the refrigerated cabinet to fetch a selection of fresh fruit and half a wheel of Dutch cheese.

It was easier than Julian expected, sitting over the traditional French morning fare and making inconsequential conversation. Palis was in the mood to dissect last night's performance, and did so with great enthusiasm while dipping her croissant into her coffee and brandishing the cheese knife like a conductor's baton. Julian had his perennial favourite instead: sweetened Tarkalean tea. Palis never thought much of that choice at breakfast, and sometimes Julian did like to indulge her regional sensibilities by taking his own cup of strong, dark brew. But he would be materializing in San Francisco in the middle of the night, with the need to get some proper sleep before his duty shift. He couldn't be imbibing stimulants right now.

Finally, when the replicated pastries were only crumbs, and the orange peels and apricot pits were piled on a saucer, Palis sat back and ran her bare foot up Julian's calf, caressing it through the cloth of his uniform. "Would you like to head back to bed?" she asked. "It's not even noon yet."

Julian had been expecting such an invitation, and he was prepared. He smiled regretfully and rose to his feet, gathering their plates. "I can't," he said. "It's half past two in San Francisco, and I'm working tonight."

Palis made a little sound of disappointment, then got up to put away the fresh foods. "We never have enough time together," she sighed. "And soon you'll be gone for six months!"

This was as good a time as any to plant the idea organically. "I know," Julian said softly, as the dishes melted away into the replicator's matter reserves. "I'm not sure when I'll have time to come back, either: the workload is starting to wear me down."

Palis whipped around to look at him, dismayed. "But you were supposed to come back the Sunday after next!"

Julian's stomach clenched. He'd forgotten that. How had he forgotten that? "I… I think I'd better not," he said carefully. "We have surgical skills exams the following week, last chance before the finals to get pointers from the professors, and…"

Palis strode towards him, silencing him with the force of her movement. He thought she might seize him by the throat of his uniform and demand to know what he was keeping from her. Instead, she twined her arms around his neck and rose up on her toes to kiss him tenderly. One hand toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck. "Poor Julian," she said fondly. "You really are anxious, aren't you? About the final exams?"

"Yes," he said gratefully, not only glad she wasn't questioning his motives but earnestly relieved to be able to admit that. It wasn't something it was acceptable to talk about among the medical students, especially not for those at the front of the pack. "I'm… I think about it constantly. Everything that's at stake, and the price of failure."

"My treasure…" murmured Palis, kissing him again and stroking his hair. It felt so good to be comforted, and at the same time Julian felt himself shrivelling with dismay and dread. She'd never be so considerate if she knew the truth. In fact, she'd probably be calling for his expulsion from the Medical Academy if she so much as suspected, with all of Docteur Delon's professional clout behind her…

"You know you'll do well," she was saying. "You've worked so hard. And if you don't get valedictorian — so what? Papa will be disappointed, of course, but surely it won't make a difference to us…"

Julian closed numb hands about her wrists and drew her hands down from his neck. He looked at her, still not quite able to comprehend how everything had gone so catastrophically wrong in the span of just a few hours. He didn't know how he was able to bear the eye contact, or how his voice remained so level and so benignly regretful as he said; "I need to be going right away, I'm afraid. I can't come back in two weeks, but maybe in five? Just before exams start?"

Five weeks would be long enough, wouldn't it, for the details of last night to fade from her mind? He was going to remember them all his life, but for her they hadn't been traumatic, or even unusual. A successful performance, joyful lovemaking, a sample of the daily news followed by a cathartic little rant, and then falling asleep in one another's arms: that's what it had been for Palis. Not the hellscape out of adolescent nightmares Julian had endured.

"Sure, okay," Palis said. Or rather, she didn't: it was just the Universal Translator trying to capture the essence of Oui, d'accord. "Five weeks. I'll have to check my rehearsal schedule to see what's happening, but I'll let you know my windows of opportunity, all right?"

"Fine," Julian said. His lips were numb now, too, but at least he could see his means of escape now. "I'm sorry to leave so early."

Palis slipped her arm through his and walked him to the front door. "I understand," she said, patting his hand possessively. "Papa was always just the same. A doctor's work is never done, even a trainee doctor's."

"Right…" Julian said breathlessly.

She kissed him on the threshold, and he could not refuse her. He tried to make his own response natural and believable, but it wasn't easy when he couldn't feel his lips, and his head was spinning, and his hands felt like they'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen. But at last, he was able to scurry down to the end of the corridor, looking back once to wave as Palis blew him a kiss before shutting the door. A moment later, he heard her singing contentedly as she wandered deeper into her flat.

(fade)

His desire to get the hell out of Paris notwithstanding, Julian didn't make for the nearest transport hub. He struck out for the one twelve blocks over instead, trying to stride off some of his writhing wretchedness before he had to talk to another person. It seemed to help, at least a little. He was able to give the operator the necessary instructions, and he climbed onto the otherwise empty pad. A moment later the beam grabbed him, and he felt the pleasant tingle that melted to a nanosecond of prismatic nothingness before materializing in the familiar, beige utility of the Academy transporter room.

"Welcome back, Cadet…?" the officer behind the controls said, raising an eyebrow in query.

"Bashir," said Julian. "Medical Academy Cadet First Class Julian Bashir, back from leave in Paris."

"Ah, yep, here you are," said the operator, consulting the computer. "Just come sign back in, and you're free to go. What's with all the late night beam-backs, today? Aren't you tired?"

"A bit," said Julian flatly. "In Paris, it's almost midday."

"Ah, makes sense." The officer stepped aside and let Julian sign himself back in. "Have a good one!"

"Thanks," Julian said, though nothing seemed less likely right at present.

He stepped out onto the still and silent grounds, breathing in the familiar scents of sea air and cherry blossoms. The latter should have soured his stomach, mingled as it was with the memory of lying sleepless beside Palis, but somehow it didn't. The smell, more than anything, reassured him that he was finally safe, a continent and a spreading ocean away from the woman who had, all unwitting, shattered his heart and his sense of safety.

It was almost three in the morning, but Julian wasn't alone. Across the quad, just past the old oak tree, stood a cadet wearing the undifferentiated crimson of the Academy proper. He was younger than Julian, surely not more than twenty, with a boy's narrow shoulders and slender jaw. His hair was chestnut, parted to the right in a way that emphasized rather than distracting from his youth. Two bars glinted on his collar, catching Julian's enhanced eye: a sophomore.

He was looking up at the sky, staring at the strewn brilliance of those stars bright enough to be seen in the heart of San Francisco. His otherwise handsome face was twisted as if in anguish. Julian knew that look: he had spent most of the last two days fighting to keep it off his own face. The intensity with which the young man stared at the stars drew Julian's own eyes upward. Cassiopeia spread her arms across the heavens. He could see Polaris, and the brighter, unwavering glow of the Starfleet drydocks: several brilliant pinions in tight formation. The Domum Pacifica orbital habitat was the greenish light above the western horizon. Various other glints and glimmers represented satellites and small starships.

But there was one, brighter than anything but the spacedock and the habitat, that seemed to lie directly in the young man's line of sight. It wasn't a permanent fixture in the sky: Julian knew this starscape too well to have any doubt about that. Whatever it was, it was large and it was low: well in the thermosphere. It was stationary, in perfect geosynchronous orbit.

It had to be the Enterprise. Julian stared up at it, fascinated, momentarily forgetting his misery and his ugly predicament as he let himself be carried away on the nacelles of a childhood dream. He didn't want a posting like that, cushy and prestigious and — now he thought of it — conspicuous. But there was something about the flagship of the fleet that transcended the question of whether it would be desirable to serve on it. The Enterprise was a symbol of all that was admirable about Starfleet: it was a symbol of adventure, exploration, diplomacy, integrity, freedom.

It was a symbol of everything that Julian Bashir wanted in his life, and of all that he wanted to be.

A fragile, tremulous sound reached his sensitive ears and tugged his attention down from the heavens to the grassy parkland below. The little cadet was no longer staring up at the stars. He had choked off a noise very like a whimper. Now his head hung as if in shame, and his hands were balled into fists at his side. As Julian watched, he lifted one to his mouth, biting it and screwing his eyes tightly closed as if against the urge to scream. He fought through it, and his arm dropped to his side again. After a moment he opened his eyes, set them towards the building that housed the quarters for the cadets in officers' training, and trudged off as if he bore the weight of the Quadrant on his shoulders.

Julian watched him go, wondering whether he ought to call out to the boy. He looked like he needed someone to talk to. But would he want that from a stranger? A stranger with his own woes on his mind, at that. In the end, Julian decided it was better to stay silent. When the younger man disappeared into the shadows on the far side of the knoll, Julian turned towards his own dormitory and dragged his weary bones bedward.

(fade)

He had intended to go through his usual nightly routine, and it did start out that way. He shed his uniform into the reprocessor, laying his combadge on the little table next to the bed. He climbed into the sonic shower, and let it blast away the residual scents of Paris and Palis. He shaved, cleaned his teeth, brushed his hair. He put on his pyjamas, relieved he didn't have to face the room beyond naked, as he had in her flat. He started across the room towards his bed…

And found himself, instead, taking a sharp turn and making for the closet. The door swished open and before he even knew what he wanted, Julian was on his knees, groping into the back as he had done on Thursday night. This time, though, he drew the lockbox towards him, already tilting it to provide easy access to the mechanism. He keyed in the initial combination deftly and then performed the series of mental calculations required to decrypt the lock. Finally, the latch released and he lifted the lid to dip his hand inside. He felt the familiar, matted roughness of well-worn imitation fur, and the soft body yielded under his grasp. He drew the well-worn toy to him, sitting back on his heels as he wrapped both arms around the bear and hugged Kukalaka to his aching chest.

Julian struggled to his feet, misery washing over him in waves. He could hear her voice and all the awful things she had said. He could feel the pain of the loss of a relationship he had not yet technically ended, and the dread of the day when he would have to do so. His heart ached for what might have been, and for what never could, and it ached for the little cadet out on the grounds, and whatever secret demons he was carrying to bed across campus. It was all too much to cope with, too much for one person to bear.

He reached his bed at last, and crawled beneath the covers, holding Kukalaka tighter still. He choked out the command that dimmed the lights and plunged him into darkness, and he lay there, hot tears trickling from tightly closed eyes. He hugged his bear, the one remnant of the little boy he once had been before strangers on an alien world had taken him, changed him, violated the very essence of his being, and made him this. Kukalaka had been the one constant in his life, with him when he was small and bewildered and innocent; with him at the hospital on Adigeon Prime when even his mother had walked away; with him through the growing pains and the wild, wonderful days of discovery and the loneliness that came from being still too different, now too clever, to fit in with his peers. With him at fifteen, when his world had imploded, and he had been left with no one to trust, now he could no longer trust his parents. And with him now, as he tried to find the courage to go out again this evening and face the world that would label him a monster, and would strip him of everything that mattered, if it ever learned the truth that lurked in his genes.

Julian drew up his knees and tucked his arms, curling his whole body around Kukalaka's familiar, reassuring softness. Desperate and exhausted, he held his bear and waited, in vain, for the pain to go away.

(fade)