((No 7))
You decide to slow down this time and pick up a new hobby. You always wanted to learn the ins and outs of your rifle's mechanics and the realization has sunk in that you now have a lot of time and opportunity to do it. The basement of the Lodge becomes your playground. You spend countless hours learning, and for the first time since the initial Unity you feel brief moments of contentment in the silence of pure focus. You throw yourself into the craft, diving deeply into the satisfaction of nearing perfection in this one instance, in a universe of infinite instances.
You don't know how long you will stay in this universe. You finish the ancillary but delay, taking Sam with you as you gather more power in temples, and as you grow more powerful, he seems more frail and human in your eyes: delicate, transient, momentary like the clinging petals of a flower. He doesn't seem to see it that way, though, and he continues to be astounded by your abilities with an endless enthusiasm that transcends time and space. Perhaps that's his power.
One night when you're lying in a cot wondering about where your Sam might be -- the first Sam -- your Starborn Sam – a chill runs through you and it hits you like an avalanche of boulders: you've killed a lot of Starborn. Could one of them have been your Sam? How could either of you have known? Could you have miraculously found him only to kill him unknowingly? Was he gone forever already… because of you? Perhaps the worst part of it was that you may never know and that any one of the many faceless wraiths you've shattered into starlight could have been the One; the precious pearl in a sea of sand. Crushed; vanished. Gone.
The irony wracks you with a sudden shocking anguish, a violent crashing wave, and you sob, your instant sorrow blinding you. You finally mourn the loss of your husband in an explosive release; it's a brief collapse followed by the powerful burst of a supernova.
A Sam is suddenly there but you don't care, and he's valiantly attempting to hold together the pieces of someone that he has always known to be rigid, inflexible, and unemotional, now turned into mush, lacking form like mud slipping through his fingers.
You anguish over why the Emissary would encourage you to go through with the Unity, to behave as if it were the best thing to do, the only thing to do. You wonder if the Starborn only wanted you to share in their misery, if that was their motivation – to destroy that which they can never have again. A bitter rage mixed with stretching sorrow flashes through you like crooked, scalding fingers of lightning.
As the thunderstorm eventually ebbs and aftershocks remain, your awareness of your surroundings fades into focus like the slow turning of a lens; the spartan bunk, somebody's half-opened board game nearby, an empty Chunks package. Earlier, the two of you had collapsed, resting in an abandoned corner of an old mining camp after a long day of storming pirates. Sam's presence is close. He's sitting beside you on the cot, and you can feel his physical warmth as well as his intangible warmth. His hands grip your upper arms as if he's been trying to keep your soul in. You're bent away from him, your back bowed, coiled tight like someone who's just lost nature's chunks. You feel his sincere concern without even looking at him. He's a bit of a natural nurturer, which is good for Cora, since Lillian sure as hell isn't.
You don't even know why you're thinking about Lillian right now, and you wish you weren't.
As he notices your awareness return, his hands relax and fall away from your arms, and there's a pause as if he's not sure what to do. He carefully rubs your back, just between your shoulder blades, but not much. The two of you have never been physical, even platonically.
"Hey," he says.
Your breath catches rhythmically, and your eyes feel as if you haven't blinked for a while.
"You alright?" he asks, but you both know you're not alright. It's just something to say.
You swipe your wrist across one eye, gathering yourself, scooping up the shattered stars, forcing them back together.
"Yeah," you lie, your voice watery. "Yeah, I'm okay."
There's a lot of silence.
"Okay," is his soft reply, his voice managing to express his acceptance of your deflection, his natural warmth, and openness to talk more if you want it. You appreciate that.
As you turn to look at him, you realize just how anxious he is over your uncharacteristic behavior.
"I didn't know Starborn got sad," he remarks.
It makes you huff a piece of a laugh and rub your eyes.
"I wouldn't have thought so, either," you reply, "not until I became one."
He looks over your face as if not sure if he should ask what's on his mind, but he does.
"What sort of a thing could cause a Starborn to cry like that?"
You lean back on your hands and sigh.
"Good question," you reply simply.
He waits a few seconds and then says, "You're just going to leave it at that, aren't you?"
"Yeah," you say, giving him a half-grin.
"Well, that ain't fair."
"Maybe you wouldn't understand."
"Try me," he says, and you're tempted.
"Sam."
"Sorry," he replies, rising from your cot, straightening himself and looking around as if getting back to the business of storming the universe.
"Hey," you say, catching his attention as you rise from your bunk and meet him in the middle. "Thanks. You know, for… you know."
"Nah," he deflects, almost bashful. "I was just doing what anyone would—"
"Not everyone is like you, Sam Coe," you interject.
"Am I in trouble? You're using my full name."
You laugh.
"We're all in trouble," you say, feeling a lightness bloom inside you. "That's the nature of existence."
"Spoken like a true Starborn," he remarks.
Sometime later the two of you finish up working a bounty and he stops you in the dusty hallway of the Rock.
"Hey," he says. "When you get a second, can we talk?"
"Yeah, sure," you say, but your heart sinks with dread.
You share a couple of lagers outside in Akila City and he tells you about living in the shadow of Solomon Coe, and you know all this already, and you know he's opening up to you, and you can't. You can't. You just can't.
You hate that you aren't the person Sam Coe needs right now; that you can't be. You once were, but that person was long ago shattered like a clay pot. But you listen, and you love hearing him talk about his ancestor, and the two of you have a very lovely conversation.
But that's your cue to go. You know Sam doesn't fall easy, but when he does, he falls with the magnitude of a crashing meteor.
"Hey, Sam," you say, after the sun has set and the twilight breezes notes of desert sage, "Ever wondered what the Unity looks like?"
He chuckles.
"Of course, I have," he replies.
"Well, guess what?" you ask.
"What."
"I'm your ticket to a front-row seat," you grin.
He leans forward, his arms crossed on the table between you, and the reckless, intense fire in his gaze makes your skin prickle, your neck grow hot, and your shoulders tense.
"I'm in," he says.
