Chapter Fourteen
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Letting go doesn't mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be.
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Through tear clouded eyes, Kam watched him fall, saw the blood… he'd never seen so much blood… a slick wet pool of it gathered around Jack's head… he wasn't moving… Jack… please… oh God no… please no… please… he sobbed out the man's name, but he didn't respond.
"Shit, Fletch," Leese swore as the gush of red seeped from the gash in Harkness' head. Even O'Marra seemed shaken savageness of Fletcher's attack. They both knew the man had a temper on him, but they hadn't expected this. "I think you killed him," Leese said at last. When he said it, Anders stopped struggling and just… wept.
"Harbouring a fugitive's a capitol offence in some systems," Fletcher glared at the kid who was the real source of his ire. He grasped Anders by the chin and squeezed tight enough to leave a bruise. "So's bein' one. But you're worth way more alive than dead… way more," the malevolent glint in his eye suggested he had more than collecting a reward in mind.
Kam didn't care. He knew he should, but looking at Jack lying there nothing else in the world mattered… he didn't even feel the bruises Fletcher was leaving on his chin.
He watched O'Marra go over to Jack… kneel down. "Fuck," he looked up at Fletcher. "He's not breathing. We'd better get outa here."
Kam didn't see the genuine fear in O'Marra's eye when he exchanged a glance with Leese. He didn't see anything as cold blackness washed over him… he wasn't losing consciousness. He was wide awake. He just couldn't feel anything.
I will love you forever… he closed his eyes and let them take him. Nothing mattered any more…
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No matter how Jack died, the first breath was always came as scorching fire invading his lungs. His whole body blazed with it for an eternity… an instant. His eyes flew open and the light hurt… Kam… the sound of his young crewman screaming his name in the dark… the blood in his veins froze at the memory.
He saw Henry. Then Smeed. They were crouched next to him looking unhappy. But they weren't who he needed to see…
"Kam…" he pulled himself into a sitting position with Henry's help, looking around, knowing he wasn't really going to see him, but praying… He'd been laying in a pool of cold blood… his blood. Enough of it that it looked like he might have bled to death. When he touched the back of his head, however, there was no sign of injury, just cold sticky blood matting in his hair. Memories shifted through the haze… he remembered being hit from behind.
"Fletcher… Leese… O'Marra…" Cold fear gripped Jack's chest as he remembered the faces of the men who had attacked him. The men who had Kam. "They'll take him off the Station," he realized. Once they hit open space, he might never be able to track them… if it wasn't too late already. "I have to find him."
There was no telling what Fletcher would do when he discovered that Kam's contract had been paid off. The Houses, as unscrupulous as they were, wouldn't pay a bounty on a contract that had already been settled. If nothing else, they were in the business of making money and they'd made a good sum of it when Kam's contract was paid off.
"Station Security is already on it, Jack," Henry assured him as he helped him get to his feet.
Jack swallowed. He wasn't sure that was good enough.
He checked his wrist strap. Years ago he'd programmed it to monitor his vital signs, so he would know how long he'd been dead… a quick glance at it now told him that he'd been gone almost ten minutes. It felt like forever… "The docking bay…"
"The docks have been shut down," said Henry. "No one's going anywhere. Security has checked with every ship that left before we found you. They're still here. I promise. We'll find him."
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"What do you mean he doesn't have a contract?" Fletcher was shouting at the person on the other end of the transmission, but Kam hardly heard him. He was surrounded in the Nothing, wrapped up in it, but even that wasn't enough to make the hurt go away. He curled in on himself in the corner… he didn't know where he was. He didn't care. Nothing mattered.
I'll love you forever… when the last star goes out, I'll be there waiting for you in the dark… you gave my life meaning. You made me whole.
There was a long silence. Then more yelling… Fletcher and O'Marra… Leese was quiet. Leese was always quiet.
Then O'Marra was gone and it was just Fletcher, Lesse and him.
Kam closed his eyes.
I keep my promises too, Jack, he thought at his Captain. And even if it was only a dream, I meant every word I ever said to you.
Rough hands grabbed him and shoved him into position… he barely felt it.
Rape, Jack had called it. Only you can't rape somebody like me… he murmured at them how it was his pleasure to Serve…
Eventually someone threw a blanket over him. He didn't move. He prayed for the stars to go out.
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Kam woke to the sound of his name… a hand on his shoulder. He didn't know the voice… but that didn't matter.
"Yes, Sir," he murmured, moving onto his hands and knees, his back to the man because he didn't expect the man wanted to see his face.
His whole body ached but it didn't matter. It didn't matter that he was bruised, battered. Torn. Two holes. A stem. One purpose in life and not even the Houses to protect him now.
But some day the stars would go out and he would find those blue eyes again... some day…
The hands bundled him up in the blanket and lifted him off the floor… the feeling was so familiar that he looked up, hope surging in his chest… but there were no blue eyes. The man's ivory skinned face was framed with thick auburn hair. His eyes were dark brown. "Do I know you?"
Henry gave half a smile, "No… but you might have written an essay about me once a very long time ago. Sleep, Mr. Anders," he said with enough force to make the weakened man succumb to slumber. Chances were it was what his body wanted anyway.
Jack caught up with him as he crawled out of the service hatch with the young man in his arms.
"He's all right," he said quickly, before the Captain could ask. "I told him to sleep," he assured the other. Kam had been through enough, he didn't need to see Jack standing there covered in blood a few short hours after he'd seen him bludgeoned to death.
"Fletcher… the other two…?" Jack asked.
Henry shook his head. "There was only one man down there with him. Dark skin. He didn't know where to find the others. He's dead," he added. "Station Security will pick up the other two, Jack. It's over." He glanced at the young man bundled up in his arms. "He's all that matters now."
"All right." Jack agreed and turned to follow him.
Henry shook his head. "Go back to your ship. Take a shower," he advised. "Put on some clean clothes. I'll make sure someone looks at his injuries. I'll keep him safe."
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When Jack emerged from his shower, clean and wearing fresh clothes, he found the Smeed still there. Waiting for him. His first officer had followed him back to the ship in silence, a sure sign that something was on his mind.
(The crew had given Jack a wide berth when the came back, no one wanting to know whose blood he was covered in.)
The hot water had done nothing to make him feel better. He should have been paying more attention. He should have kept Kam on the ship where he could protect him.
He should have expected Fletcher to pull something like this.
I never should have let Fletcher walk off my ship alive…
Smeed was still staring at him.
Jack poured two glasses of scotch and handed one over to the other man. "Whatever it is, just say it already." He knew what it was, however.
"He saw you die, Jackie."
He sat down heavily on the sofa. "I know that." He had a rule…
"You always said if any o' the crew see you die…"
"I know."
"If any o' them sees you die," he continued, perching himself on the edge of the coffee table. "You quietly slip off and I finish the job, pay them with a nice little bonus and then me an' you meet up later. Nobody ever knows 'bout you. Nobody, Jackie."
"I know."
Smeed was talking about Reia… Reia Gullivan. Ten… fifteen years ago now, Jack reckoned. The last time I got involved with a member of my crew... Rule number one: don't get involved.
He broke rule number one within two weeks of signing Reia onto his ship. She was bright and funny… She made him feel good about himself. She knew who she was and she wasn't looking for anything but an honest job at a fair pay.
He gave her an extended contract, breaking rule number two… Jack thought. One job. One crew. Then move on.
He and Reia were on a routine salvage job on some old hulk of a ship in a degrading orbit around a gas giant. There was nothing special about the ship or the planet or the solar system. Nothing alien or high tech, just salable junk for a change. But even on a routine salvage things sometimes went wrong.
Her air tanks malfunctioned… she would have died if he hadn't forced her to take his…
He never saw her again.
Humans were suspicious of anything alien and even though Jack wasn't alien, what would Reia have thought if she saw him alive again after she'd watched him suffocate, saving her life. Would she ever have looked at him the same? Could she have trusted him? Would she have believed his story about being born human, dying, coming back to life and never being able to die again?
Would she have hated me when she grew old and I didn't…?
"It's not just yourself you're protecting," Smeed's voice cut through his thoughts. "It's for his good, too and you know it. He saw you die… he doesn't need t' see you come back to life. Not in the state his mind's in after everything that's happened to him."
Jack downed his scotch without meeting the other man's gaze. "What if I don't want to let go this time? What if this time it's different?" What if some part of him already knows?
"Pretending for just a minute that this isn't just some lusty infatuation on your part and that he sees you as something more than his only chance at freedom… if you really care about this kid, you'll let him go, Jackie.
"I'll pay out his contract, tell him it's what you woulda wanted. He can get those damned tattoos removed. You had his contract with the House paid off. I'll write him a Letter so fine he'll find work in no time. He'll be a free man. He can go anywhere, do anything he wants. I'll make sure to slip in a little bonus," he added. "Enough for him to get by on for a bit until he finds a decent, honest job. He can have a life, Jackie. He can meet somebody to grow old with, maybe even have a family."
The one thing that I can never give him…