Last time: Viran learned what Kyr learned and got no sleep.

Now: Kyr goes to see Selina again.

Chapter 10- What Happened to Cien?

"Colonel." The higher ranking marine at the brig door said with a nod.

Kyr nodded back distractedly as he passed the two marines, into the room only sparing a nod at the two of them. The door closed behind him like a falling hamer, and he stood in the silence of the room. The only sound was the ambient background of the Defiant, and the buzz of the ray shield that separated him from... Her. She was sitting there on the edge of her bunk as if in a trance. Like she was sleeping with her eyes open staring listlessly ahead. Which her it was before him, he had no idea.

Selina, who was all he saw outwardly. The person who had haunted his nightmares as he had recovered from what she had done to him, and then returned to them anew after the awful thought of Cien and the twins being left in her merciless grasp.

Or Cien, his cyar'ika, his beloved. His wife whose mere presence in his life seemed to raise the sun in the morning and revealed the glistening stars come nightfall.

Such complete and utter opposites between the two of them, and if, somehow, this transference was true then he had no idea what to do. His mind raced as he looked at the person before him, trying to think of how to handle this, what to do. Wondering if it was true, if Cien could transfer back to her body. If it was fake, and Selina had somehow gleaned a few choice details from Cien just to play some twisted game.

Cien would never have broken. If not for the twins. And that was Kyr's dilemma. Cien would never have broken unless the twins were in danger, under any other circumstances she would have faced anything with defiance. But he knew that she wouldn't let anything happen to the twins. She couldn't. So if this was some twisted game of Selina's, then she would have had the perfect way to break Cien immediately. To get her to say anything, to do anything to ensure that the twins remained unharmed even if only to buy time. Cien could have lied, but there was technology out there to tell if someone was lying. If Selina had asked for details to somehow prove who she was, then Cien would have had to tell the truth to keep the twins safe.

That was the only thing that nagged at Kyr through the last day. That this was all a continued farce. Another horrible ploy at trying to hurt him and his family and continue her twisted game. Part of him had no doubt that Cien could transfer in some manner to another person. But he had to doubt this story.

"I never tried torturing people with boredom." Selina said quietly, still looking ahead. "I should have tried that. At least I kept things entertaining." She said with an undercurrent of amusement to her distant voice.

Oh. He was talking to her, then. "I remember getting bored." Kyr said flatly in response.

"Oh come on." She said, her smile growing as her hollow eyes looked up at him. "I came to visit. Don't you remember how much fun that was?"

He sighed, and tried to keep his anger under control.

"Not like here at all. Barely anyone comes to see me. And when they do, all they want to do is talk." Selina stated with a roll of her eyes. Then they settled on his T-Visor and she looked at him darkly. "Do you know how it all started?" She asked.

"How what started? Your dad blowing up? I was there." Kyr said with annoyance.

Selina rolled her eyes again. "No, how it started." She said with a sigh of exasperation. "I sat there for a month, chained to your wall, and -"

"It wasn't my wall." Kyr growled.

"It was always your wall." She said through a scowl. "And I thought I'd go mad from the sheer boredom of it all. Then the clock ticked." She said with shudder as she remembered the start of it all.

"Yeah, that does sound awful." Kyr with malicious mockery. "Where is she?" He asked.

Selina was silent, staring ahead, her face turned flat and her eyes hollow.

"Hey." Kyr called out annoyedly.

She stared ahead into the distance just like she had when he first entered, not responding to him at all.

"Wake up, demagolka." He called out, trying to get her attention while he snapped his fingers.

With each snap of his fingers she twitched and shuddered as if she was being electrocuted and she looked up at him furiously. "Don't ever do that!" She yelled.

"What, this?" He asked, snapping his fingers, and she grimaced like she had been hit with her electric prod.

"Stop it." She growled.

Kyr cocked his head to the side. "Weren't you just complaining about something…?" He said, snapping his fingers again as if he was trying to remember. "Something about not having holovids, no not that." He said, snapping his fingers and she shuddered and looked at him murderously. "Oh, that's right!" He said with a loud snap of his fingers, "you were complaining about how boring it was in here!" He said with another snap of his fingers. "We should play some snappy music!" He said, snapping his fingers again.

"STOP!" She yelled, jumping to her feet and running to the ray shield and pounding her fist against it. "Stop!" She cried.

Kyr took a step back as he swallowed.

"The clock, the ticking, stop." She said brokenly as she started sobbing and she collapsed downward to her knees, still against the ray shield as she cried. "Please." She said through tears.

"Fine." Kyr said placatingly as he knelt down to look at her as she continued sobbing.

She looked up at him, tears falling down her cheeks but she was blinking in a bewildered way, no longer sobbing. "Kyr?" She asked.

Kyr's heart skipped a beat and he wasn't sure what to say.

"You came back." She said. Cien said with Selina's voice but Cien's inflection of hope.

Kyr swallowed, he wasn't sure what to say, still.

"I missed you." She said, gently, reaching out towards him, and her hand hit the ray shield, and she looked at it as if confused.

"Is it really you?" Kyr asked, still kneeling in front of the ray shield just on the other side from her.

"It's me cyar'riduur." She said quietly, Selina's eyes glistened with tears of happiness.

Kyr looked downward, he still had his helmet on. "How did this happen?" He asked, his voice shaken.

Selina's face grimaced, and she looked downward, her face an odd combination of his nightmares of Selina and his dreams of Cien. "She had me chained to the wall so I could barely move as I sat there, and somehow had a Force suppressant."

Kyr grimaced as he pictured his wife in that state, but at least she hadn't been strung up like he had been for what small difference that made.

"She approached me, gloating the whole way." She continued. "But she made a mistake, she touched my chin. And I used that to enter her mind."

"Why do this?" Kyr asked, trying to understand. "Why transfer over, why not just kill her?"

"That would have left me trapped still." She answered, "and I couldn't have killed her if I was in her mind. And trapping her didn't work. This was the only thing I could think of with so little time." She said.

"So what happened to…" He started, not quite able to finish.

"What happened to the twins?" She asked. "And my… body?" She finished for him.

"Yes." He said.

Cien smiled in a troubled way through Selina's lips. "Without… me, my body was just unconscious, like in a coma. And then almost immediately after someone escaped with… me. One of Selina's henchmen, I never found out what happened. I was trapped in Selina, and something happened to the ship we were on." She informed him. "After that the next thing I knew Sasha was there, and she freed me somehow. Let me take control of Selina while you…" Cien said, trailing off as Selina's eyes looked away with the same troubled expression as Cien might have.

"Threatened you?" Kyr finished, shame edging into his voice.

"No." Cien said, shaking Selina's head. "Threatened her."

"Sasha freed you? Is that why she's trapped?" Kyr asked.

"I don't know." She replied, "I've been here the whole time." She swallowed nervously. "Please, Kyr, please believe me. I need you." She said, desperation in Selina's voice.

Kyr looked away, thinking for a moment. "I need to know it's you." He said quietly. "She's insane enough to do…" he spread his arms slightly to encompass the situation, "this."

"Ask me." Cien said. "Ask me anything. Our first kiss. Your first act of kindness. When you were aboard the Bloodstorm and you made me laugh the first time."

"Where did I first see you?" He asked quietly.

Cien thought for a moment. "Do you mean in the hangar at Haven? Or when you saw me at the research outpost? When you were 'temple running'?" She asked, looking at him directly.

Kyr stared at her. "What did you wear when we finally got home after you rescued me from Selina?" He asked her.

"My armor?" She asked.

"After that." Kyr asked, "before, uh…" He said.

She looked at him a little confused, furrowing her brow. "Some things are fuzzy," she admitted. "I do seem to have some things I can't quite remember." She said, her voice' laced with frustration. "I…" She broke off, and looked over behind her shoulder. "She's here." She said, fuming.

"Selina?" Kyr asked, "stay, please." He begged.

"Oh shut up!" Selina yelled at him. "Go away!"

"No!" Kyr demanded, stepping up to the ray shield. "Let her come ba-"

"GO! GO GO AWAY GO AWAY LEAVE ME ALONE GO AWAY!" Selina screamed as she retreated onto her bunk and curled in on herself as a crying, sobbing mess.

Kyr looked at her stunned. He turned and left, having the sense that he wouldn't be able to talk to Cien for quite some time.

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