Come Clean

Chapter Seven:

Tyr woke to the sound of a small child chattering over a commlink. Catherine, he realized, remembering the day before. He was in his own bed in his own quarters again, the sights and sounds mostly familiar, but with another body wrapped around his. Beka's. When he had gotten into bed after running and showering, she had been asleep on the far side; he'd slept through her contouring herself to his back and winding her arm around his waist. His first impulse was to move one of them away before she woke up herself, given that he doubted she meant to be there.

She must have been roused by the noise from the next room as well, because she stirred before he could do that. "Mm," she murmured against his back, "I had the weirdest dream…" As if to punctuate the statement, she pressed a kiss to the skin there, and he stiffened, unsure how to react. That was enough to catch her attention, and she froze. "It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"No."

A deep breath and then she moved away. When he sat up to look at her she'd gone to her back, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

He shrugged, not that she could see it. "If it's a habit."

"Yeah." After another moment she pulled her hands away and looked at him. "I guess you haven't forgotten any more, then?"

"No. I can still remember the worldship, and yesterday."

"But you haven't remembered any more, either?"

He hesitated. He hadn't exactly remembered, no, but his own sleep had yielded fragmented images that may or may not have been real memories, and he felt that so much hovered on the edge of his mind, elusive and not quite within reach. "No," he said, finally, reluctantly, "I haven't remembered any more."

Now she seemed suspicious, studying him as if she were trying to catch him in a lie. He was not entirely sure that she was wrong to do so, given that he had no idea what would be true or not. But her attention was diverted by a rising demand from Catherine, and she rolled out of bed. "I've gotta get her, and then I've got training exercises with some of the newest pilots this morning, so she'll be with Mara. But if you need me for… for questions or anything, Rommie'll know where to find me."

He nodded in acknowledgement. She gave it another moment, as if she thought he might say or ask something else, before turning away, pulling clothes out and heading into the bathroom. He felt vaguely impotent, seeing her going to her own obligations while he didn't even know what his were, and hearing his own theoretical child needing attention with no idea of how to help. But until he regained his memory or learned more about his daily life in this new setting, his hands were tied.

And he was so close to remembering, he felt. Again so much that he would have been disturbed by if it were not the norm had failed to do so: the quiet noises from a sleeping child or Beka's movements while they shared a bed would have woken him if he were not accustomed to them.

But while he slept…

Images, feelings, so real but so fragmented. A flash of big, trusting brown eyes in a baby's face, lit by flickering light. Harper, suspended in blue. Beka in the bunkroom of the Maru, a helix in her hand. A body in a uniform lying on the floor of a corridor, Magog kneeling over it. A newborn, still bloody, crying in his arms. Another Nietzschean, blond and self-assured, that he knew without knowing was Charlemagne Bolivar, standing by his side in battle. The ship's Magog, leaning over him and tightening a strap across his chest. All of it things he knew, on a gut level, were real, but none he remembered except perhaps the feel of the cold cold water filling his lungs and killing him.

And the emotions— he'd felt at ease with Beka nestled close to him this morning, and when he thought of what he'd seen in his dreams? Anger and disgust, pride and love, concern and fear, all where he expected them to be. But awake? That seemed far more complicated. Listening to Catherine now, his impulses were protective, caring, precisely what he expected toward his child; the maybe-memory of the newborn was, he thought, at her birth. But seeing Beka walk away seconds ago… He had not been surprised by the physical pull, familiar almost as long as he had known her, but the vague sense of frustration was unexpected. She could be aggravating, and he suspected she'd say the same of him if he were brutally honest with himself, but this felt different than their skirmishes over the last year aboard. More complicated than just irritation at a foolish decision endangering him. He wasn't sure how to reconcile it with what little he knew beyond suspecting that his sarcastic jibe about living happily ever after may have been sharper than he knew at the time. There was respect and a warmth that was perhaps affection, what he'd expect to feel, but the fact of that discordant emotion puzzled and irked him.

At that point Catherine's demands for attention grew louder, complete with a clear, "Daddy, want up!" and he found himself on his feet without intending to be, the plea tugging at him unexpectedly. Deciding to follow the impulse, with Beka still in the bathroom and unable to answer her call, he went to his daughter.

The blanket he had put on her the night before was on the floor and when she saw him she smiled and bounced on her bed, squealing gleefully when he picked her up. Again, holding her felt familiar, and the smell of her was… right. There was no other way to describe it. She chattered happily, talking about her blanket judging by the pointing and the words he caught. More than yesterday, which surprised him, but shouldn't have if he was in fact regaining his memory. He would be accustomed to his child's speech, would he not?

"She's in a good mood," Beka said from the doorway behind him. He had been concentrating on Catherine and missed— subconsciously disregarded?— the sound of her leaving the bathroom.

"Apparently." He turned to her, Catherine starting to recite her narrative again. Beka seemed dressed and ready for the day, including dark lipstick. "I don't… know where anything is," he admitted.

"Yeah, wonder why?" She pushed off the door frame where she'd been leaning and reached out. "Here, give her to me."

He did before going to get dressed himself. By the time he'd returned to the main room of his quarters, both of them were out in the little kitchenette and eating, Catherine scooping up some kind of cereal messily. He was more surprised to see Beka staring at toast, accustomed to seeing her eating heartier foods when they did have breakfast in proximity. When he commented as much, she gave him a jaundiced look. "I'm not eating anything heavy before training new pilots. I have to do the same maneuver twenty times for some of them to get it, and that gets to even me after a while."

"You'd think that they'd have trained them before sending them to us."

"You'd think, wouldn't you?"

They lapsed into relative silence, again feeling natural, while they ate. Shortly Beka was wiping up the child's path of destruction and chivvying her out the door, and he was left alone with his thoughts once more. Usually a comfortable place to be, or at least a familiar one, today was not, with his mind circling around what he knew and what he didn't, how many things felt right when they shouldn't, and wondering all the time at his other self's actions over the last three years. He did not wish to continue, and so he left his quarters for Med deck. If nothing else he could discover if his own nanos were doing as expected and breaking down the invaders.

This strange Trance was there already when he arrived. It was unsurprising regardless of not notifying anyone that he was going. "Hi! Here for an update on your brain?"

Tyr eyed her warily, unsure of this new creature despite having spent several hours in her presence the day before. "I am."

"Then it'll only take me a minute."

True to her word, it was only a minute, running one of her devices by his skull and comparing it to the screen. It was still an uncomfortably long wait before she gave him an answer of any sort, and he found himself wondering if the procedure the day before had in fact worked by the time she spoke. "Everything's progressing like it should. The defensive nanobots are dead, not just dormant, with no sign of resetting, and your own nanobots are breaking down and clearing away the dead ones. More slowly than Harper thought they would, though, I'll have him take a look. Have you had any headaches, dizziness, double vision?"

"No."

"Have you remembered anything?"

"No." This time the response was surly, probably too much so, but that question was no less aggravating with repetition. "How much longer until I do?"

"Probably a day or two. I'll expect an exponential effect as your nanobots clear more of the blockage." She gave him a calculating look. "Are you sure you haven't gotten anything, not even some kind of emotional impression?"

He hesitated before admitting, reluctantly, "Yes. But there's no… no context."

"But it's progress." She gave him a steady look, one that unsettled him with how she seemed to understand more than he was saying. She probably did, if this was truly the same Trance he had known. "Go spend time around everyone else," she advised. "Familiarity should help bring back the memories quicker."

He took the dismissal for what it was, though he was unsure who precisely he was supposed to spend time with if he didn't know his new relationships. He was somewhat surprised to find his feet, once he left Med deck, turning toward Dylan's quarters. But then, three years ago they'd had a reliably tenuous relationship…

Regardless, he was granted access immediately, Dylan working on something at his desk. "Tyr. What brings you here?"

"I find myself… at a loss." He moved— not paced, that would betray nerves to someone he did not wish to betray them to— to the chairs by the go board, held to one and studied the board.

Dylan gestured. "Figured you'd stop by for a game? We never finished the last one."

And yes, there was a game half-played. Tyr stepped around to study it from the other side. "Not today. Stopping by for answers, instead."

Serious now, the captain set the flexi he held down. "What do you need to know?"

"I—" But so many of the things he most needed to know were ones he was already sure that Dylan could not or would not answer. The remains, his son, his daughter, their mothers, why he was still aboard the ship he had only intended to use as long it served him and not the other way around and almost certainly not for four years or more… Even if the good captain knew any of this, he would have no obligation other than conscience to answer honestly, and Tyr had noticed that Dylan's conscience was often far more flexible than one might expect. "I need something to do," he said at last. "I have jobs aboard, yes? I assume you have no shortage of people to press the button that fires the missiles," he let a flicker of what Dylan would assume to be humor show, "so there must be other things I can do while I… convalesce."

"I don't know, Tyr. Wouldn't you—"

"I was told to be among the familiar," he interrupted, suspecting what Dylan was about to say. "I suspect I'm as familiar with the armories as anywhere else onboard."

"Yes, you probably are," Dylan said, after a moment's hesitation. "Arms master, and not just in the ship's records. Inventories, upgrades and maintenance with Harper, slipfighters with Beka, training and commanding the various forces on the ship… They all tend to fall under you. And, of course, your job as the cynic, commenting over my shoulder."

"Cynicism and pragmatism are hardly the same."

"My apologies. Should we compromise with 'survival oriented'?"

"Perhaps we should." This time it was actual humor he let show, just a small amount. "So shall I assume three years have done little to temper your foolish idealism?"

Dylan shrugged. "It's worked for me so far."

"So far." Tyr picked up a go piece and weighed it in his hand. "I intend not to be in the line of fire with you when it ceases to do so."

"Ah, there's the Tyr we know and love. We haven't lost him after all." He stood and came around the desk. "If you really want to, I'll have Rommie generate a list of things you can do that should help you catch up quicker. Hopefully you won't need them soon, but it's a start."

Tyr acknowledged the offering with a nod before frowning at the go board. "Then I'll start there." It would be better than sitting in some little-used area of the ship going over that endless, useless accounting the ship last gave him and waiting to recognize something, at least. He set the piece down with a click, making his next move, before turning to the door. It was only after leaving that he realized what he'd done.

This training session was even more interminable than they usually were. Beka would have sworn a couple of the trainees had never sat in a pilot's seat before she loaded them in, and she wondered what precisely they were actually being trained for at the High Guard Academy on days like today. But finally it ended, and while there had been a couple of close calls there hadn't actually been any collisions or ejections this time. Two of them were getting serious practice time before she actually let them go out in combat, though. She watched the group, with varying degrees of spring in their steps, head out of the landing bay once she released them.

"Captain?" Bowlus. At least he'd stopped calling her "ma'am" at some point, but she still hadn't convinced him to use her name. He'd gotten better otherwise, though, to the extent that she'd gotten him appointed as one step below her in the fighter squadron.

"That," she told him, "could have gone better."

"Could have gone worse, too."

"Yeah." She handed him the flexi she'd made her notes on. "Get Fitzmore and Sunset in the simulator until they can figure out up from down. They're not allowed back in an actual slipfighter until they're above passing in the tests, got it?"

"Got it."

When he hesitated, she raised her eyebrows at him. "Something else?"

Bowlus looked embarrassed. She hadn't seen that look on him in a while. "We heard about Anasazi…"

"Heard… what?"

"That he was in Med deck yesterday. He okay?"

"Yeah." It didn't sound convincing even to her. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Yeah, he's okay. Will be, anyway. Rough mission, we all have them."

He nodded. "Right. Um, simulator. I'll run them through. Let me know if anyone else should go, too." He waited a second longer, but when she didn't say anything else he followed the others out of the bay.

She leaned against one of the racks of storage cases once he was safely gone. He was a good kid, but the well-meaning solicitousness was a bit much some days. Probably a good thing she'd bothered with makeup or he'd be asking if she was okay. She wasn't, but had no intention of telling him that. Still, the training had been her main job for the day, so there was a chance she could deal with anything else from the Maru or her quarters and without being around others.

Food first, though, the toast hadn't lasted very long and her stomach was still unsettled, at least partly from hunger and partly from that corkscrewing dive she'd done a few times with the more competent pilots. Plus nerves, and worry, and… It wasn't like there was any shortage of things to unsettle her stomach. "All right," she said out loud. "Andromeda, where are Tyr and Cath?"

"Tyr is in weapons locker three, at Dylan's request. Cath is with Mara in cargo bay five. They appear to be playing a game involving chasing. I don't quite understand the rules."

Beka smiled at that. "I've seen it. I don't think there are any." She straightened up. "Can you let Mara know she can drop Cath off with me on the Maru whenever?"

"Of course."

"Thanks."

She might not be able to do much before they arrived, but Harper had updated her that morning on what he'd done the night before, and between their efforts the remaining work was mostly minor. She might be able to finish a couple of tweaks and adjustments, and then she could get the forms she had to fill out for the endless Commonwealth bureaucracy done while Cath slept after lunch. If she slept. This was a lot easier when she and Tyr could trade off the parenting, but she'd be surprised if he were comfortable doing much of that before he regained his memory, if he did at all. And then if he wanted to keep actually being Cath's dad.

Rev would probably tell her something about the Divine giving her what she needed, but she wasn't sure she needed any of this.

The day passed with no new problems, at least, her stomach settling with food and Cath sleeping that afternoon so she could catch up as she'd planned. She'd never thought when she agreed to this whole thing that there'd be this much paperwork and red tape, but it at least beat the paperwork and red tape some of the more frustrating drifts and orbitals came up with as a way to snare the unwary and their thrones. Getting that out of the way ate up a lot of time, but not enough that she couldn't take advantage of the few minutes between finishing those and Cath waking up to stretch out and close her eyes.

There wouldn't have been time to sleep anyway, but she couldn't relax enough as it was. From trying to figure out a way to give Tyr an out to thinking she could fix them, and now hoping he would regain his memory so she could and simultaneously being sure that even if he did remember it wouldn't matter… The last week had been dizzying mentally and emotionally and she was sure it wasn't going to improve any time soon. Frankly, whether or not he remembered, even if he did stay it was probably still going to be rough. The recent frustration may have touched off their last fight, and she may be able to fix that, but the simmering resentment behind it? Hell, that dated from the very beginning. When he went off with Desiree, when he didn't tell her about Freya until after Dylan did, when he had the gall to act like he was the injured party and didn't speak to her for two weeks after they slept together when she should have been the one offended that he'd told her he wasn't interested and then turned around and had sex with her anyway before walking out.

If anything the last couple of days reminded her of those two weeks, when he'd been struggling with his own actions versus his own beliefs and avoided her. At least he wasn't ignoring Cath as well, but the attitude of frustration and disbelief was still there, especially every time he asked her about some aspect of their relationship like he— or a version of himself, anyway— hadn't been there making his own decisions every step of the way. And she couldn't even begin to explain to him his reasoning at any of those points because he'd never explained it to her in the first place. She could assume all she wanted, but there was no way to be sure herself, let alone convince him.

Years on, she thought— even before he woke up yesterday not remembering a thing— that he must regret at least some of those earlier choices. She was yet another roadblock to him having a Nietzschean wife, after all. She didn't bring him any advantages to start with, and then when it came to having another child… He'd never voiced anything outright to her about those faults, but some of the things said in anger, especially last week, seemed to hint at it.

She was starting to think she shouldn't even try to fix it. Let him choose if and when he remembered everything up to that damned trip to Mayhora. She didn't want to kill herself trying to save something that he didn't want saved. She'd made way too many mistakes that way before, just look at how many times she'd taken Bobby back, and she wasn't going to do it again. Maybe she should take her own helix off, make him do all the work and persuade her to stay married, see if he still thought she was just as good as a Nietzschean wife.

But she hesitated. She never took it off except to shower; the only time she'd offered to do, the first time they'd had Nietzscheans aboard after putting it on, Tyr had insisted she wear it short of endangering her own survival regardless of who was on the ship, and had been disappointed when she covered it with a jacket in the end. She didn't want to be the one to take it off potentially for good no matter how frustrated she was. Not after seeing what it meant to him for her to wear it in the first place, not after knowing how she felt seeing him without his. Not after she'd promised the rest of their lives when she'd agreed to marry him. The idea of letting him go if he wanted pushed the limits of that promise enough, whether it was better for both their lives or not. She kept her promises and she wanted to keep this one.

So she'd wear it for now. She would let him decide if he wanted out, just like she'd planned last week. But he was only getting one chance, to put his back on or not, whether he remembered after all or he didn't. If he chose not to she was taking hers off, and even if he changed his mind afterward she wasn't putting hers back on, because she was not repeating her old mistakes.