Come Clean

Chapter Nine:

She knew that when she'd finally fallen asleep she'd been at the extreme edge of the bed, but she'd moved overnight to Tyr's side. When she woke up she was wrapped around him again, arm at his waist and face pressed to his back, breathing in the smell of him. Habit, yes, how they usually slept, but a bad idea under the circumstances, especially the part where she'd given him a bunch of reasons to divorce her just the night before even if he never remembered anything. Of course, with that in mind, why not take advantage of what might be her last night sleeping with him? Frankly she was surprised he hadn't pushed her away or left the bed already, either waking up before she did or when she did. He responded to the way her breathing changed, he'd said once. Maybe he was just trying to decide the best way to reject her, or considering waiting to see if his memories returned to confirm what she'd told him.

It didn't really matter. He hadn't pushed her away yet, so she waited to see what it would be, appreciating what she could while she could: the smooth warm skin against hers, the muscles firm under her hand. One or two of his braids almost always got trapped under her cheek or shoulder, tickling and keeping him superficially at her mercy. If this were a normal morning she'd be able to take advantage of it, let her hands wander, but it wasn't a normal morning and might never be again.

Of course, maybe she'd said too little last night, rather than too much, if she wanted to keep her normal. Maybe she should have mentioned her suspicions that she wasn't tired simply from the events swirling around her or that her uneasy stomach wasn't due to the stress of the last week. She wasn't sure, though, not enough to check with Trance and certainly not enough to tell this new-old Tyr. She'd had the same suspicions a few months ago and it had turned out to be nothing after all; she didn't want to repeat the experience. She would wait. Especially when she wasn't sure whether telling him now would keep him or drive him away from her faster at this point.

Besides, as much as she thought it might fix everything pre-amnesia? As much as she still suspected it would keep them bound no matter what he felt if and when he remembered everything? She almost didn't want to tell him. Selfishly or not, she wanted to know that he actually wanted her for her. Not because she was— maybe, might be— pregnant again, not because she was pregnant the first time, not because he was jealous over Leydon or hurting and on the rebound from Desiree. She wanted it to be that he remembered all of it and still wanted her with him, and not just because losing a Human wife would be even worse than having one in the first place. No, Nietzscheans didn't believe in romantic love, but they weren't immune to emotion. She'd known how broken up he was over Freya and Tamerlane, remembered how upset he'd been at Desiree literally and figuratively pushing him away, saw every day how much he doted on his "inferior" half-Human daughter. She wanted to know that he felt something for her, Beka, that wasn't physical attraction or respect for his child's mother or obligation from having actually married her. She didn't think she'd get it, but she wanted it.

She sighed without thinking and realized immediately the mistake she'd made. If Tyr hadn't already known she was awake she'd just tipped her hand. Reluctantly she withdrew and edged away, hoping he'd stop her but knowing that he wouldn't. He didn't, but once she'd returned to her side of the bed he rolled to his back to watch her rather than letting her slink away without comment or notice. "What?" and she sounded sharp to her own ears, but she was tense, and tired even after a theoretical full night's sleep. It didn't help that she'd been thinking of a normal morning, and after that stunt of his last night when they hadn't touched in days… She hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said she thought she could be half-dead and still want him.

"I've remembered more. I have… questions."

Oh. She got up on her elbow to get a better look at him. This felt like something they should be facing each other for. "When you say 'more,' do you mean everything or just… more?"

It seemed like he was choosing his words carefully. That made sense, if he wasn't sure if he had everything or not. "I am aware of… gaps in my memory, but I know where the gaps are and more of what's missing."

"Like…?" She wanted to know, not be hinted at for the next few hours, especially when so much of her own life hinged on what he remembered.

"The last year or two is still missing, most of it. Before that, I know more. Dylan's alliance-building, Harper's larvae." He hesitated. "Us."

"Nice to hear you admit there is an us."

"It's hard to deny that entirely when I remember, as you phrased it, clearing the air. And why." He paused. "There was another dinner, yes? Later. While Dylan was distracted by a woman he'd brought onboard."

"Molly? Yeah." Beka smiled a little at that memory. Dylan had borrowed the Maru for a planetary trip overnight and they'd taken advantage of the relative peace, Tyr cooking on the Obs deck again. Candles once more, water this time instead of wine, and they'd made it through dinner to dessert, which he'd sourced real chocolate for. They'd lingered over the table a while before making their winding way slowly back to his quarters. She still wasn't sure why he'd indulged her in a romantic dinner, something distinctly not his culture, but she'd appreciated the effort and he'd benefited from the engendered goodwill at the gesture for quite a while. "Didn't do that often. Didn't have many chances to."

He closed his eyes as if he were concentrating. "The dead walking?"

"The Bokor. Yeah, that happened, too." She shuddered. "Not something I really want to repeat."

"Did I really go out with a cable on the edge of a black hole to rescue Dylan?"

"Yup." He grimaced at her answer and made a derisive noise. "Hey, you're the one who told me you do risky stuff to impress a breeding partner, you can't pin this one on anyone else."

Tyr opened his eyes when she said that and looked at her again. "You already were breeding by then. After the tesseracts…"

She nodded. "After Harper's tesseracts probably messed with my implant. Not that we knew it yet. I didn't even suspect it until right before you heard from Freya again." She glanced away, awkward, wondering if she should even ask the obvious question. "Do you remember any of that?"

Briefly, she thought he wouldn't answer at all. Finally he said, "Not clearly." It rang false, but she didn't press him. She hadn't the first time, either, giving him his own space to grieve after she heard, as well as letting herself be mad. "I do remember you telling me you were having Catherine, but not much after that, not with any certainty."

"It's something."

"Yes," but he didn't sound convinced. She couldn't blame him. "Something" was still only a third of what he'd lost. But it was progress, and she'd take that, especially because while he wasn't saying anything about marriage yet he'd admitted a relationship and a pregnancy. She noticed he was still watching her carefully, and she wondered what else he had remembered. After a moment, he spoke again. "Last night, you said…"

"I said a lot of things last night." Level. Calm. She would be patient if it killed her.

"Nine months. I knew?"

She sighed. "You did." And she'd been able to see it eating away at him and at their relationship every month of it. "We agreed we'd have another once we dealt with the worldship. Cath was a baby, we were scrambling to organize alliances and fleets before it got too close to the known worlds, there was no way I was going to be pregnant again in the middle of that no matter how you felt about your genetic legacy and the chances of your line surviving. We started trying after we got the fleet limping back to Tera Zed and… nothing." She was frustrated all over again just thinking about it.

"I see."

She doubted that he actually did, but she didn't feel like going into more detail. It was a relief to hear noises from Cath's room at that point. "Let me go get her. I haven't got anything this morning. I've got Command this afternoon, though, and I don't know if you think you can take her or what, but tell me?" At his nod of acknowledgement she was off the bed and heading for Cath, relieved to leave the conversation. He could say he understood all he wanted, but he hadn't lived the last nine months, not even the last two years. And none of this was was doing anything to help her uneasy mind, so she took a breath as she stepped through the doorway and smiled deliberately for her daughter.

Tyr stayed in the bed longer, listening to Beka's voice from the other room. Upbeat now, without the thread of pain that had woven through her words this morning and the night before. That had surprised him: he'd never have anticipated her as being interested in children before, let alone dismayed by the lack of one. He could see her interacting with Catherine, with obvious affection for the little girl, but he also remembered her indecision at discovering the pregnancy and how many times she'd considered ending it over the following days, his own surprise at her decision to continue it instead. The jump was confusing, to see her abruptly— to his mind— agonizing over not being pregnant.

Of course, it may be less the pregnancy than the marriage. Given that the context had been reasons he wouldn't choose to stay married to her, she might view it as the item that would break his decision one way or the other. Not that she had seemed that interested in marrying him in what memories he had, either; she had clearly told him that she wasn't interested in marrying anyone, much less someone who would expect to have other wives. It was almost as confusing to have these memories as contrast as to have no memories at all. Of course, so many of them were before not only Catherine's existence but so many other things he couldn't remember still.

Not that he could be sure that the memories he did have he could trust. Everyone, except his own mind, insisted that Tamerlane was dead. Which could be believed?

He was distracted from his thoughts by Catherine bolting out of her room toward him. He got to his feet in enough time to catch her and swing her up before she asked. Half-Human, half-remembered, but his daughter nonetheless, with what he remembered and felt.

"Can you try getting her breakfast while I get dressed?" Beka was leaning in the doorway watching them.

"I can." Between his own previous exploration of the cabinets and Catherine's decided opinions on what she wanted, he was able to get her settled and return to his earlier thoughts while he supervised.

If he was right, if Tamerlane was alive, then his insistence on Beka having his baby and marrying him made far more sense. The rest of the universe would understand it as him being with his surviving family or, if they were cynical about a relationship between a Nietzschean and a Human, grief at losing his Nietzschean wife and son affecting his mental stability. Nietzscheans would see it as weakness and be inclined to believe that he couldn't have fathered the reincarnation in the first place. His son would be protected by his more visible offspring. Even as he knew that was true, that that was part of his reasoning over two years ago, he also knew that he had just wanted another child, wanted their child. Half-Human, yes, but his blood and his family's line being carried on. And if Medea had rejected him, as Beka had said… Or was that another dodge, marrying a Human woman even as a Kodiak wore his helix and bore his child? If Tamerlane did live and he hadn't told his wife of him, would he not have potentially concealed another wife to protect her, as well? Beka had used Medea's Human name…

Just as before, this speculation was pointless until he knew more. All he knew for now was that his son was possibly, gloriously alive, when the day before he had been mourning over him immediately after learning of him. He may have lost Freya, a thought that still unsettled him, but not Tamerlane. He had a solid reason for encouraging Beka to continue the pregnancy when rationally he would not have, not and risk both what small reputation he had built of his own among Nietzscheans and introducing unfortunate genes and traits into his line.

He still couldn't quite believe he'd put himself in that position at all, however, even having remembered their initial encounter on the Maru. Years of working toward proving himself, toward rebuilding the Kodiak and destroying the Drago-Katsov. Having already been accepted by Freya and with the promise of Medea once he had established a power base. All of this, and he had instead chosen to put all of that in jeopardy for a sexual relationship, one that gave him no power or advantages. With a Human, no less. An impressive Human, but still Human, and with weaknesses and recessive genes Nietzscheans had long since engineered or bred out. And why? Because she was attractive. Because he was jealous. Because something about her and her reaction to him appealed to him on a base physical level, enough for him to stumble on his path not just once but again and again. He'd had time to argue himself out of going to her, those first two weeks and months after besides, and he'd never succeeded for long. The cover it provided now would never have been something he could have conceived of at the time, certainly not enough to justify the effort in impressing her as a Human woman would expect as well as how he would work to win a Nietzschean woman. The physical appeal alone certainly shouldn't have been enough for him to do such damage to his plans, despite him knowing how it had felt this morning to have her pressed close to him, despite memories of other mornings coming back to him. And yet it had.

He wondered, idly, when her staying the night had turned his quarters into their quarters.

Beka had given him information, and he had the benefit of some of his memory returning, but so many of his actions still made such little sense. He didn't have all of his own mind yet and he knew she was holding more of the puzzle back, not just the way she reacted to questions but his own instincts and impulses telling him that so much more was missing. He was already sure that to press would only result in another incomplete answer. All he could do right now was wait, but he was not patient.

Familiarity. He would work with the crew and at what of his usual tasks and routines he could complete. He would spend time with Catherine. He would brave Beka's presence until his own traitorous mind and body yielded their secrets to him. So when Beka came out of the bathroom again, he told her that he would be with Catherine while she was in Command, and he knew he would try to stay by Catherine's mother that night. He needed to know everything, not just more.

The morning, once he had gotten ready for the day himself, passed quickly enough. He visited the gym and surprised himself by knowing the names of some of the others there. He went over more recent upgrades with Harper, ones that he would need to know about in battle, and stopped with him at his unrelenting urging to see Trance, to check on his recovery. She assured him that his memory would be back within the day, based on what he was willing to speak of regaining so far. And some was coming back to him as he moved through the ship: here he had battled Dylan, controlled by the aliens from the dimensional tunnel; here he had been overwhelmed by refugees driven mad by a sadistic doctor; here he had had a cadre of religious adherents taking nonsense as wisdom. Here Medea had rejected him after he had brought her up from the surface of Elba Nine.

At that juncture he had to pause, remembering not just the door sliding closed behind her but also, more devastatingly, her final rejection on the surface of the planet itself. He had hoped this morning that telling Beka of her refusal had been a fabrication similar to Tamerlane's death, but no. She had been unequivocal, insisting that she was simply no longer interested regardless of his affair with Beka. He had left her too long by herself, with no assurance that he was working toward their future, and she had put him and any obligation to the Kodiak aside. Unless they had been in touch more recently than his own mind was willing to admit to him, she was lost to him.

He followed that memory, those events, to the Maru. He had gone there after taking the slipfighter back up from the surface of the planet. He had found Beka in the cockpit, working on something that was probably busywork but might not have been given the usual state of her ship, and leaned against the railing above her to announce his revelation. She had told him to go to hell, as well as some other choice phrases, including doubting his parents' own marital status.

Standing there now, looking at the silent controls and the empty seat, he understood himself more. Freya dead months before and Medea refusing him, he had needed to secure Beka. She was his, and he needed them both to know that he would not abandon her like he had the other two women. Possessive, reactionary, but urgent at that moment. She had been angry and refused him, and he had gone away when she told him to, but he'd returned to the Maru days later with a set of helixes and asked again. He still wasn't sure what had changed for her in those days, unless that detail was one that was still concealed within his own mind, but he suspected it was a similar need to stake a claim against any other Medeas and Freyas in the known worlds, the same jealousy that had driven him to lie with her in the first place. At the time he'd only been relieved as she'd put her own helix on before clasping his around his arm. He had wanted to ensure her staying with him, as close as she was to giving birth, and he knew her enough to know that she would view marriage as a promise to be kept, one that she wouldn't take lightly. It wasn't perfect, as a way to keep her, but it was enough. At least, it had been then.

It was with more of the mystery unraveled that Tyr went to meet Beka now, but he was still troubled. He had yet to remember anything near or beyond their second encounter with the worldship, try as he might, and there was so much missing as a result. He knew himself better, understood his decisions, but was still reluctant to continue perpetuating what may yet prove to have been a series of a mistakes. Beka's own conviction that he wouldn't was weighing on him in that regard; she'd certainly provided compelling reasons the night before, and if there was more that he had yet to learn…

He didn't want to give up his daughter. She was his child, regardless of her genetics, and Nietzscheans loved their children. He would stay married if that was what it took to be her father. If he didn't have to be married, though? Would her mother still be his wife? Was it worth it?

That was as far as his thoughts had roamed when he rounded the corner to see the other two waiting for him. Beka had crouched down, listening to Catherine telling her something. Beka nodded, seeming very solemn, before breaking into an enormous smile and swinging Catherine up into the air, setting off a joyous squeal. He stopped, feeling torn in unexpected directions as he watched them. He'd considered so many reasons for why he had stayed in the past, might stay in the future— sex, concealment, access— but not any kind of emotion beyond what he felt for his child. He hadn't considered that perhaps the pull he had felt toward Beka that morning and the day before had gone beyond the physical after all that had passed between them. Nietzscheans did not marry for emotion first, after all, affection more likely to develop over time than to be driver of the display and alliances in a pride.

In that moment, he understood another reason he might stay.