Taking out the microneedle pads hurt, but Alfred thought he probably deserved that. Two more Aurea had launched while they had been docking, their pilots' projections appearing momentarily before Alfred pulled out the pads. One boy was intent, brown hair and corrective lenses, eyes half-lidded in concentration, and Alfred could feel that was the one piloting the massive Albatross glider. The other boy was white-haired and his projection gave them a feral smile as the small, lethal Shrike shot past. They arrowed towards the slower Cree on the southern horizon.

Alfred pulled himself back into his suddenly inadequate human body. His human eyes were weak and boring by comparison with his Aurea senses, but he could use them to watch Arthur walk stiffly along the floor below. Alfred leaned on the railing and checked over every inch of Arthur's body for injuries. Nothing. It still didn't excuse Alfred for not saving him.

"Move, Jones," Ludwig said, striding along from Leviathan's hatch. "Evening rations. Let's go, we have a schedule."

"Supper," Alfred said blankly, his eyes still on Arthur's disappearing back – he could have died – and Ludwig gave him an odd look.

"Let's use normal words, shall we?" Ludwig said after a moment. Alfred realized that supper had come from the bright white space in his head and shook his head to clear the weird feeling. He shouldn't be listening to that.

Arthur seemed intentionally trying to keep out of his way. At evening rations, he came in late, checked where Alfred was sitting next to Ludwig, and carefully placed himself at the other end of the table. The room was noisy with Antonio and Romano picking up a long running argument over whether kissing in the rotum was inappropriate, a topic which made Alfred give them a startled sideways look. The last pilot, Feliciano, turned out to be a bubbly twin of Romano. He was apparently disappointed Alfred wasn't female, "because we haven't had a beautiful lady pilot for years," he told Alfred earnestly. Ludwig seemed to stiffen in annoyance beside him.

You have Arthur, Alfred wanted to say, but Arthur was too far away to hear it and be irritated, so there was no point. "Maybe you'll get one next time," he said. He crumbled the pale ration cute between his fingers. He supposed he had to eat it because they were the only food his new knowledge told him existed. But he had the faint, wistful feeling that food wasn't supposed to be one taste and one crumbly texture.

Feliciano looked at him with amiable bafflement. "But there are only eight Aurea," he said.

"How do you get new pilots, then?" Alfred said.

"Someone has to die," Ludwig said.

"That's ridiculous," Alfred said indignantly. "Can't they just make more?"

Ludwig's face was like stone. "They don't."

Alfred felt a nasty twist in his stomach. It was heroic to fight anything that looked like the Cree, but he'd thought his Aurea had been new. "Who was the last pilot in mine?"

Feliciano's face had fallen at the turn the conversation had taken. "Leave him alone," Ludwig said abruptly, laying a heavy hand on Feliciano's arm.

"You sound like you don't even care," Alfred said.

Feliciano made a small, miserable noise. "My stomach hurts."

"Change. The. Subject." Ludwig said, spacing each word as if it would explode if he put it too close to the others.

Alfred realized he was mentally holding his breath, waiting for Arthur to jump into the conversation and tell him off for being a tactless git. But when he looked up, Arthur was at the other end of the table, his head bent in a quiet discussion with Antonio and ostentatiously paying no attention to Alfred's conversation. Alfred suddenly felt terribly, terribly lonely.

You failed him already today, he told himself. His stomach was twisting and he knew that was his fault. Arthur didn't owe him acknowledgement, whatever he remembered or not. "So," he said brightly, trying to turn the mood up again. "You and Romano. Twins?"

Feliciano had curled up with one hand over his stomach, but at that he looked up with that blank expression on his face that all of them seemed to get when Alfred used words he shouldn't know. "Huh?" he said, although it came out more like a quizzical sigh. Huuuuh?

Alfred could feel the same confusion on his own face. It was like they were talking a different language. He had to fight through the white space in his head even to get the word siblings, twins, family. "Brothers?" he tried.

"No?" Feliciano said. He looked at Ludwig as if for confirmation.

But at that moment the door slid aside and in came the two boys who Alfred had last seen flitting past on the Aurea screens.

The white-haired boy was a coil of aggression and sharp angles, while the other boy with the long brown hair walked in as if this was an – the words upper class restaurant flashed across Alfred's brain, but he couldn't remember how to pin them to an image. The elegance contrasted sharply with the ugly round wound on his forehead, like a newly burst blister. Blood was leaking from it in a near-black ooze.

Now that Alfred looked through his new knowledge, he did know that you risked getting hurt in battle – when the Aurea were damaged, their fluid-based processing systems were badly thrown off, and the microneedle pads fed in fluid that made the pilot's physical body part of that. Blood blisters on the skin were the most common side-effect, but deep in his new memories floated worse words like organ rupture, internal bleeding, cardiac failure. He was so distracted by this new and unwelcome development that he jumped when the white-haired boy slammed his hand down on the table in front of him.

"You're in my seat."

Alfred wasn't a brawler or a bully, but he didn't take well to being bullied himself. His back stiffened and he looked up. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't see your name on it."

"Funny," the boy said, red eyes and sharp teeth glinting at him. "Because I wrote it right here. See?" He traced a word on the table in front of Alfred. Neither of them looked at his moving finger.

"Excuse him," said the bored voice of the new boy at the other end of the table. "He gets wound up after fights. Do sit down, Gilbert."

"Shut it, Roderich," Gilbert said, without turning his head. His red eyes on Alfred were mocking. "Do I need to pull you out of it, new boy?"

Alfred slowly got to his feet, not breaking the gaze. He took a step away from the hard plastic edge of the table. "I don't want to fight you," he said. "But if you really want a beating, I give as good as I get. Better." There was a fierce energy surging in his body. He knew he shouldn't give into this gnawing desire, but everything had been confusing and Arthur had rejected him and Alfred had nearly got him killed, and all the swirling white in Alfred's head felt like it might coalesce if he could just punch something. The other boy looked like he felt the same way.

"Yeah?" Gilbert said, raising his fists. He was grinning. Alfred looked at his stance and his eyes and raised his calculation of his skills by several notches. He flung his own hands up just as Gilbert threw the first punch.

It escalated fast. Feliciano yelped and tried to duck out of the way. Antonio and Romano shouted from down the table. Ludwig roared and tried to grab Gilbert's shoulder, but Alfred and Gilbert were going at it hammer and tongs now, a real bare-knuckle boxing match, and he couldn't get a grip. Gilbert was grinning like a maniac. Alfred got a couple of nice hits in with satisfying thuds, taking another couple himself, and they were going for each other again when more hands reached in and broke them up.

Roderich had grabbed one of Gilbert's arms and was hanging on grimly, and Ludwig had seized the other wrist in a grip that looked like it was on the verge of breaking a bone. And there was a cool hand on Alfred's shoulder, not applying any pressure, but something in the familiarity of the touch made Alfred falter and stop.

"No," Arthur said, and a balloon seemed to burst pleasantly in Alfred's stomach, flooding it with warmth.

He flashed Arthur a grin over his shoulder. "Anything you say, babe." Don't take that hand away.

Tragically Arthur hadn't developed into a mind reader, and pulled his hand away. "Trust you to spoil my food."

Alfred caught his hand as he pulled it back. "Do you?" he said, low and urgent. "Trust me? Do you remember?"

Arthur gave him a strange, edgy look and yanked his arm away. He turned his head away and went back to his seat.

"Gilbert," Roderich was saying, his voice like cut glass. "Do you happen to recall that you are flying my tracker contact maneuver, and that I need you undamaged for practice? Or did that not register?"

Feliciano was tugging Alfred back down again. Alfred managed to tear his eyes away from Arthur long enough to sit down. "You can't beat up Gilbert," Feliciano whispered. "He's flying an important mission soon."

"Huh? Him?" Alfred said, flicking a glance at Gilbert. He'd bet on him in a wrestling match, but not for any kind of sensitive mission. "What's he doing?"

"High Command sent us down a new tracker they want us to plant on a Cree to detect how many ships they have behind their defense lines," Feliciano said. "And what type they are, that sort of thing." He waved a hand vaguely. "I forgot the details."

"Tracker, huh?" Arthur said thoughtfully. He leaned down the table, pitching his voice over the chatter. "Hey, Gilbert," he said. "It's okay, I can fly in your place if I lay you out. Don't sweat it." He grinned.

Gilbert made to throw a ration cube at him, but he was smiling as well, a deadly sharp-toothed grin. Alfred remembered him ripping past him in his Aurea earlier that day, and suddenly felt uneasy. Was he better than Gilbert? He'd have to practice and find out. One thing was certain: he needed to be good enough never to leave Arthur in danger again.

The rest of the evening was divided into study – advanced mathematics and battle tactics – and a military hygiene routine prompted by the same mechanical voice in Alfred' head that had provided all his new vocabulary. 21.00 hours – shower. 21.10 hours – lay out clothes for next shift. 21.15 hours – dental hygiene. At exactly 21.17 hours he was sitting on the edge of his bed while Arthur brushed his teeth. On the other side of the room, Feliciano appeared to have gone to sleep on Ludwig's shoulder, sitting on the bed beside him, one hand over his stomach. Ludwig was scowling, as if this was the one nagging question he didn't have an answer to. The others seemed to have different sleep shifts.

There was one thing nagging Alfred above everything else. "I feel like… I lost some time," he said. "What's the date?"

Arthur always looked at screens more than Alfred did. "Twelfth of the fifth month," he said, without looking at Alfred.

Alfred started. He didn't remember what date it had been when he had woken up in here, but he had a sudden strong feeling that they'd lost more time than he thought. Lost from what? a mocking voice said. The life you made up in your head? There's nothing but this. You were made for this.

No. The eighteenth was some sort of … anniversary? But whose – someone he knew? A friend? He had the feeling it was very important. "Arthur," he said, after a moment's thought. "I think it's your birthday coming up."

Arthur stopped, his washcloth in his hand. "Birthday?" he said blankly.

"Don't you remember?" Alfred said. He could feel his own birthday – months away – tucked in the bright white thoughts.

There was a moment when Alfred could almost feel Arthur's straining thoughts himself, but an instant later Arthur's expression changed to forced neutrality. Alfred could recognise when he was covering up stomach-aching disappointment. "I don't know what this 'birthday' thing is," Arthur said. "Stop making up words." He turned the tap on to full blast.

()()()

The next morning, Alfred was the last one up. It felt familiar, as if he was usually the last one up in any situation. Briefing at 06.00, said the voice in his head, and it was nearly that now. He hummed a fast, frantic tune as he stripped off and pulled on his pilot overalls. He had dressing fast down to an art.

He ran out into the passage and nearly collided with someone else coming the other way. Arthur.

Arthur had stopped and was staring at him, with that peculiarly intense green-eyed stare that made something odd happen in Alfred's chest. After a moment, when the stare didn't move, Alfred realized he was staring straight back, probably looking like an idiot. This was stupid. He tried a grin.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Arthur said, which was admittedly not the reaction Alfred had been gunning for. Arthur stepped forward and reached for Alfred's neck.

"What are you-" Alfred said, but trailed off when Arthur started adjusting the neckline of his pilot overalls where it had folded over on itself. Not that Alfred objected, but it was kind of hard not to respond to Arthur's fingers brushing lightly against his skin.

"You're a mess," Arthur snapped. He straightened out the fabric that had bunched around Alfred's waist. "Do you know what will happen if you go into briefing like that?"

"No?" Alfred said. He tried to help but Arthur knocked his hands away, and he pulled away with his fingers spread, unable to keep a small smile from tugging at his lips. Now Arthur was tugging out the creases in his trouser legs and picking lint from his knees. He'd forgotten Arthur's obsession with neat clothes. Although this level of it was something new; there was a tension in the line of Arthur's back that said it was about something more than fashion. But Arthur's head was level with Alfred's hips now and Alfred's thoughts were veering off in unhelpful but distractingly attractive directions.

"Collected for discipline," Arthur said, "and I won't let that happen to you."

"You won't?" Alfred was finding this conversation more and more baffling, but any signs Arthur still cared about him were welcome. "Why? What happens?" At Arthur's peremptory gesture he gave him his sleeve cuffs for attention.

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" Arthur said, and then, as if the answer was obvious, "No, I know you don't. Idiot."

His fingers encircled Alfred's right wrist as he said it. An irresistible compulsion lanced through Alfred, and twisted his hand around and grabbed Arthur's wrist instead. He held it lightly, looking intently into Arthur's eyes, enjoying the feeling of the fine bones under his fingers. If there had been irritation or fear in Arthur's face Alfred would have dropped the hold, but there wasn't. There was only the faint, pleased surprise that was so familiar it hurt. Arthur had looked like that the first time Alfred had bought him a birthday present. He'd looked like that the first time Alfred had awkwardly asked him round to hang out. He'd looked like that the first time Alfred had rested his head on his shoulder – no.

"Jones-" Arthur said uncertainly. His other hand was raised, the fingers slightly spread. He made an abortive movement, as if he couldn't decide whether to touch Alfred's face or not. "Jones, I-"

"Kirkland! Jones!" a voice barked from behind them. Arthur jumped, stiffening all over, and turned around.

It was Ludwig, immaculate in perfect uniform and combed hair. "Get into briefing! It won't wait for you!"

Alfred barely suppressed a desire to punch him. "Sir," he drawled.

Arthur sketched a quick salute. "Sir," he snapped, and grabbed Alfred's arm. "Come on!" he hissed. "You can't be late!"

"Why, what's going to happen?" Alfred said, but he got no answer. Arthur pulled him into the rotum, where the others were all lined up. Even Antonio had got the creases out of his uniform, and Romano was standing to attention by his side. Feliciano was practically quivering with nerves, facing a screen projection that covered half the wall.

Then Alfred saw the screen, and his eyes narrowed in confusion.