Just then, a panel on the wall started to flash. The front door alert, Fiearius realized at once. He couldn’t recall having any afternoon meetings planned nor visits scheduled, though it wasn’t all that unlikely to have Gates drop by unannounced to pester him about the ongoing Ellegy strategy. But he had no desire at the moment to be pestered.

“Who is it?” he asked the wall anyway and the panel stopped flashing to show him the video stream from the camera by the door. When he glanced over at it, he expected to see Gates’ grey hair and gnarled face, but he was greeted instead by someone else.

“Well speak o’ the devil,” Quin cooed as the Leta on the screen stared straight up into the camera lens and mouthed ‘let me in!’

He couldn’t fathom what she could possibly need. He’d only just seen her hours ago. But his brain ran over a thousand possibilities. There was an update from the Ellegian rebels she needed to give him. She overheard something the Carthians were planning behind their backs. She’d gotten into a fight with her shark boyfriend and needed comfort.

No, that was stupid.

Still.

“I better go see what she wants,” he groaned, hoping Quin couldn’t detect the genuine curiosity and (gods, he really was pathetic) misplaced hope behind his mask of irritation.

As he climbed out of bed and started to pull on the clothes he’d left scattered across the floor, Quin rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin in her hands to watch him. “Want me to put on an apron and pretend to be your housewife for her?”

“Shut it,” Fiearius grumbled, slipping his shirt over his head.

“Oh, honey, you’re such a kidder,” she cooed in over-the-top sweetness. “Shall I get started on your dinner?”

Fiearius rolled his eyes and headed for the door. “Just stay here.” He shut it behind him, blocking out her laughter as he crossed through his expansive quarters to the entryway. Leta didn’t even wait for the doorway to even open entirely before she slipped through.

“Hey, you’re not busy, are you?” she asked, brushing straight by him to the bowl of pure Carthian chocolates on a pedestal that the man who cleaned his quarters refilled every morning. “I can come back later if you are.”

Fiearius watched with interest as she unwrapped the thing and popped it into her mouth without hesitation. “Now’s as good a time as any. What’s up?”

“I have a favor to ask,” she said in a way that made him sure of one thing.

“I’m not gonna like it, am I?” he sighed, leaving the entryway and wandering over to fall onto one of the couches in the living room.

“Well, you may not be thrilled, no,” she admitted, following him and sitting down in the opposite chair. “It’s about Liam.”

Fiearius snorted. “I can’t teach him to satisfy a woman like I can, Leta. It’s a gift.”

Leta flashed him a dark look but ignored the remark. “He’s been getting a lot of slack from his editor for not producing anything recently. If he doesn’t put out something good soon, he’s going to have to leave the CORS. And, as you might expect, I would rather he didn’t.”

A frown creased Fiearius’ brow and a sense of worry hit him. Leta’s newest friend certainly had a lot of material for a ‘good’ story. He knew about the Councillor Initiative, he likely knew far more about the upcoming attack on Ellegy than he should, gods only knew what else he had been privy to hanging around with Leta. Any one of those stories, if they got out, could be disastrous. He was shaking his head before he even conjured words to answer.

“No no no. He cannot publish–Leta, you know how bad it would be if people knew what we were doing. Not to mention if the Society found out, there’s no way that wouldn’t come back to bite us in the ass, you can’t let him–“

But she too was shaking her head and holding up a hand to quiet him. “Gods, Fiear, that’s not what I meant. Of course he can’t publish military secrets, I wouldn’t let him, nor would he ask. It’s not that at all.”

Now he was just confused. “Then what’s he want?”

“We were thinking something a little more…personal.”

“Personal…” Fiearius repeated slowly.

“You know, an exclusive interview, one-on-one with the greatest admiral of the war, for the first time answering everything the Span’s wondered about.” She sold the thing just like the advertisement for it would, dramatic to a fault.

“Personal,” Fiearius said again, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Yeah, your story, how you got here, what you’re fighting for, that kind of thing. Everything the people know of you has just been snippy press conferences and a few backwater rag exposés. It’d be good for you to get your actual perspective out there. It’ll sway some people who are still on the fence about your involvement. Win over some questioning members of the Society itself, maybe. They’re far more likely to relate to you than anyone from Carthis.”

Fiearius’ glare deepened. “Personal.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to. Just the basics. You can talk it over beforehand so he knows what you’re comfortable with.”

“I’m not comfortable with any of it,” Fiearius snapped, rising to his feet and pacing around the couch.

Leta sat up straighter and braced her hands on her knees. “Fiear, I know you’ve had bad experiences with press in the past, but you can’t let that color your opinion entirely. Those other reporters, they were just sensationalists trying to get a scoop and lying to you and publishing the bullshit they did, that was awful, but they’re not all like that. Liam’s not like that.”

Fiearius shook his head, gripping the back of the couch. “That’s not even it, though, it wasn’t bullshit!”

Leta tilted her head at him and frowned. “What do you mean–you really are taking drugs again?”

“Wh–no, okay, the ‘psycho druggie’ one was bullshit, fine, some of them are,” Fiearius admitted. “But most of it? I did murder those people, I did steal that medicine, I’ve done most of the terrible things they accused me of. My ‘story’? Is full of exactly the kind of crap people already hate me for.”

“Which is exactly why it’s important that you take control of your own narrative.” She too stood up now and walked around the couch to join him. “If you just keep letting your name get smeared all over the place, the people won’t know what’s true and what’s a lie. But if you tell the story yourself, you can explain it all, you can rise above it and you can show how much you’ve changed.”

Fiearius let her words hover in the air for a moment before he growled, “And if I haven’t?”

“You have,” she countered at once. “I’m serious, Fiear, this’ll be good for you. Good for the cause.”

“And good for your lil’ boyfriend.”

Her brow creased and she folded her arms over her chest. “Yes. And you owe him, you said so yourself. You never would have caught that Councillor without him. You owe him.”

Fiearius groaned and leaned against the back of the couch. “Yeah, that’s why I’ve been so nice to him.”

“I wouldn’t say so nice,” Leta argued, “but regardless, give him his interview and you’ll be even.”

He eyed her curiously. “So if I do it, I can stop being nice to him?”

“What–no.”

He threw his hands up in the air dramatically. “Then what’s even the point?!”

Sighing, Leta dropped her hands on his shoulders. “Can I tell him you’ll do it?”

Fiearius met her stare squarely. There was nothing about this he liked, but even his mastery of denial couldn’t manage to formulate an excuse good enough to counter her. Nor would it matter. He knew Leta well enough by now to know that she wouldn’t be stopping until he agreed, no matter what he said. So he groaned and muttered, “Fine.”

“Great.” She clapped him on the arm and turned towards the door. “I’ll schedule something through Javier.” She waved cheerfully as she slipped out into the hallway, calling, “Thanks, Fiear, you won’t regret this!” as she left.

Fiearius continued to stare at the closed door after she was gone, internally wondering how tightly wound around her finger he was and whether or not she’d known that when she walked in.

“I have a feeling I will,” he muttered to the empty room, just as a glass was shoved into his hand.

He looked over in surprise to find Quin smirking at him, then looked down at the glass, full of coppery liquid that he couldn’t readily identify. Moments later, he realized he didn’t care and shot the whole thing back without a second thought.

Slowly Leta put down her mug, eyeing Liam warningly. “This better not be why you invited me to lunch.”

“It’s not,” said Liam quickly. Sincerity filled his eyes. “Leta, this has no bearing whatsoever on our relationship. I’m simply asking for a favor. I’d ask him myself, I really would. But my guess is — “

“Don’t waste your time with that,” Leta advised. She exhaled a sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

————————–

Fiearius sighed as he rolled over onto his back, his messy hair splaying out against the pillow and the sheet that had become tangled around his leg falling off the side of the bed.  For a moment, he just lay there, staring up at the high metal ceiling of his CORS admiral’s lounge and enjoying the feeling of the cool, expensive sheets against his sweat-sheened skin. Then he heard the click of a lighter next to him.

He glanced over as Quin put the cigarette to her lips and he frowned. “You shouldn’t smoke,” he pointed out apathetically. With the same lack of gusto, she shrugged her bare shoulders.

“I spent my whole life on Archeti. If my lungs don’t have a bit o’ tar in ‘em, they feel empty,” she countered, blowing out a trail of smoke that lingered just above the bed.

Fiearius twisted his face in distaste and waved his hand through it. “I meant in here. Gonna set off some alarm and get a flood of Carthians in here thinking their precious station is on fire.”

Quin made a small thoughtful ‘hmph’ and took another hit of the cigarette. The two of them fell into momentary silence before finally she glanced over at him and grinned. “Would be kinda funny though.”

Fiearius chuckled his agreement and stretched out his arms above his head. One fell carelessly back onto the bed, the other he slipped around Quin’s shoulders and used to pull her side against his. This was starting to feel familiar, this part. The part just previous was already commonplace and had been for ages now, but this part, the lying around after, just content to have each other’s company, was newer. Quin and Fiearius were often on opposite sides of the Span, but when they weren’t, he had come to genuinely enjoy spending his quieter hours beside her. He found their intimate moments comforting and, by the way she didn’t immediately gather her things to leave as she might have in the past, he assumed she agreed.

“Do you remember when we met?” he asked suddenly and he felt her shift away to squint at him curiously.

“Pardon?”

“You know,” Fiearius went on. “How you refused to meet with me so I stole some shit from your warehouse and you had Aeneas tie me to a chair and beat me for three hours?”

She scrunched up her face. “I do not remember that.”

“To be fair, you were only around for the beginning. And the end when I said he could keep going all he wanted, I still wouldn’t give your stuff back. And you said you liked my dedication and gave me a gig?” Now he looked over at her and could see no recollection sparking where it should have. “Seriously? You don’t remember that?”

“It’s a common enough story, kinda all blends together,” Quin admitted. “I do remember the first time I took you back to my bed though. After the Lorrinian job.”

Fiearius frowned. “That was the second time. The first time was immediately following the incident with Puvnacus.”

“Ah, bloody mess, that.”

“I was terrified,” Fiearius confessed through a contented sigh. “Incredibly turned on. But terrified.”

“Just the way I like ‘em.” Quin grinned maliciously and elbowed him in the ribs. “What brought this on, huh? Not like you to get all sentimental.”

“I dunno, just thinkin’ out loud.” Fiearius curled his hand around her arm. “We’ve known each other a long time. What is it, 8? 9 years? Just…a long time, is all.”

She was watching him curiously, almost cautiously, he couldn’t help but notice. He felt curious and cautious about it himself, not really sure where he was going with this. The words just kept coming out, surprising him as much as they might have her. “And most of that, we’ve been–” he gestured to the two of them, lying naked side by side in bed. “Just a long time to be together, I guess.”

Now, her curiosity turned into something a lot like suspicion. “Sure, but–we ain’t ‘together’, sweetheart.”

“Yeah I know,” he agreed, ignoring the beginnings of embarrassment that were trying to take over. “But — well –” He apparently couldn’t stop himself though. “Kind of?”

Quin sat up in bed at once and when she looked down at him, he could not have felt smaller. “No, honey. Not kind of.” She put his hand on his shoulder which somehow made it worse. “This thing you and me have? You’re a good friend. And a great lover. And a partner I’d lay my life on the line for any day o’ the week. But let’s not get mixed up with any extra feelin’s a’right?”

There was a primal instinct in Fiearius that he had had since he was very very young. He’d never been sure if it stemmed from the early days of being a child on the playground or if it had only first needed to manifest itself there, but regardless, it had never left. He didn’t like feeling pathetic. He didn’t like people making him feel pathetic. So when he felt pathetic? In return, he got angry.

He pushed himself up to meet her face on, hoping their actual size difference would help. It didn’t. “Little late for that,” he snapped.

She raised her brows at him, still calm as ever. “Late?”

“Yeah, late,” he said again, more forcefully. “Telling me not to ‘have feelings’ isn’t gonna stop me from having them.”

“Well,” she tilted her head and smiled. “Good thing you don’t then.”

Fiearius blanched. Whatever argument he’d been expecting her to use, it wasn’t that. “What? What do you mean — I do, though!”

“You sure as hell don’t,” Quin said with so much authority, he almost believed it himself.

“I do,” he snapped back.

“You don’t.”

“I do!”

“You really don’t.”

Fiearius growled in frustration and before he even considered what he was saying, the words tumbled out, “I do, I’m in love with you!”

The room got very quiet. The two of them stared at one another in complete utter silence, like a standoff in which neither party could yet figure out what action to take or whether they even wanted to act at all. And then finally, to his horror, Quin laughed.

Not just a regular laugh, either. A long, raucous laugh that made her double over and tears well up in her eyes. A laugh that followed something so hilariously ridiculous that she had trouble breathing. A laugh that made Fiearius wonder, if he had meant what he’d said, whether or not it would stay true when she finally got over it. He glared at her for a good solid minute until she was able to suck in a breath and speak.

“Oh honey,” she choked out. “You are many, many things.” She grasped one of his shoulders and cupped his cheek as she smiled sadly at him. “But one thing you are not is in love with me.”

“Not anymore,” Fiearius deadpanned, the anger he’d felt before subsiding into irritation. Still, he wasn’t done with this argument. “But come on, you have to admit. There’s something more to us. Isn’t there?”

Quin let her hands fall into her lap as she shook her head. “No. There ain’t.” She heaved in a deep breath, still recovering from her laughing fit before she told him, at least trying to be serious, “‘Us’? ‘Us’ is two consenting adults with a huge shared burden usin’ each other in their downtime. And that’s it.”

“Using each other?” he repeated incredulously. “How the hell do you figure that?”

“Simple. I’m usin’ you for that thing you do so well.” She winked and poked him in the chest with her index finger. “And you. You’re usin’ me to keep up a charade of emotional stability.” She lifted her brows, daring him to challenge the statement.

He opened his mouth to do so, but “I–” was all that came out. His eyes fell to his feet and he tried to wrap his head around this. Before he made it anywhere, she continued.

“Sweetie, I’m no halfwit, I know why you called me up for this lil afternoon exercise. And hey, I ain’t judgin’ ya. If you’re feelin’ low and lonely and need some company to forget it all, I am more than happy to oblige, no questions asked, but I care about ya, as dumb of me as that is. And I don’t want you gettin’ so caught up in your own lie that ya can’t even see it anymore.”

“It’s not a lie,” Fiearius objected, though his heart wasn’t in it even as he said it.

Quin frowned at him. “Darlin’ everyone with eyes can see you’re still hung up on that doctor o’ yours.”

“I am not,” he replied automatically. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been accused of it and it probably wouldn’t be the last. And just like everyone else who’d said it (Cyrus, Addy, Gates, himself…), Quin gave him that look. That ‘you are so full of shit’ look he was so familiar with. So he sighed. “It was years ago, she’s with someone else now, it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh she is, is she?” Quin rolled her eyes and lay back down on the bed, crossing her hands underneath her head. “Well that explains how weird you been actin’.”

“I’m not acting weird.”

“Three minutes ago, you confessed to being in love with me,” she pointed out.

Fiearius grimaced. “Fine. A little weird.”

Quin was shaking her head. “So this guy. Awful?”

“He’s alright actually.” Fiearius shrugged. “Helped me out with something I wasn’t expecting. She seems happy with him so he’s fine in my book.” When he caught her skeptical glare, he snapped, “What? I can be a mature adult sometimes. If I want.”

As he lay back down next to her she snorted a laugh. “That’s big of you. Still jealous though.”

“I’m only human,” he grumbled.

“Well you’re goin’ about this all the wrong way, y’know.” He glanced over at her and she smiled. “I know it hurts when someone you love moves on, but this? I don’t know if it’s for you or for her or for her new beau, don’t matter, shouldn’t be jumpin’ through hoops tryin’ to prove you’ve moved on too.”

“I know.” Fiearius let out a groan and pulled his hands down his face. “But fake it ‘til ya make it has worked out for me pretty well up to now.”

“It did let you go from space trash to respected admiral,” Quin agreed. “Well, maybe not ‘respected’.” He shot her another glare which she ignored. “Glad we had this lil discussion. You’re fine as all else, Soliveré, but thinkin’ I’d ever be engagin’ in romance with you? Dumb and pathetic as hell.”

Fiearius snorted. “Yeah, you were right.” He slipped his arm around her again. “I so do not love you.”

“I know.”

Finally, Finn’s expression softened a little. “I think that hurt the worst, by the way,” he admitted, quieter now. “When I heard you’d reached out to Leta, but not even a word to me.” He grimaced and shrugged. “I know you two are closer than we’ll ever be, of course you’d talk to her, but–I don’t know. I thought we had something too, you and I. More than just a friendship. A–well, partnership.” His eyes had been locked onto her through this whole revelation, but now they looked away. “You’d really come to mean a lot to me then, y’know. I really cared about you.”

For the second time, Corra felt the wind had been punched out of her. “I–I really cared about you too,” she admitted quietly.

A tiny smile curled into Finn’s lips. “Then why didn’t you ever contact me?”

Corra heaved in a deep breath. “Because I needed to be alone.” It was an admission she hadn’t even really considered until it came out of her mouth. “I’d always been surrounded by people. On Kadolyne, the Dionysian, the Beacon. And I just…needed to be alone for a while. I don’t know, it doesn’t really make sense maybe, but–”

“It makes sense,” Finn interrupted and he shrugged again. “Soul searching. Been there done that.” He nodded slowly before tilting his head at her. “Did it help?”

“I think so,” she muttered, brushing a nervous hand through her hair. “Maybe. I hope so…” She looked down at her feet before finally saying in a hurry, “Riley, I’m so sorry, I didn’t ever mean to hurt you even more, I just–”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He came towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You gotta do what you gotta do, I get that. Just one thing.” She looked up at him, trying to wipe her crying eyes with the back of her hand. “Are you done? Can you come back now?”

She sniffled a laugh and her vision blurred as it filled with tears. “Yeah. I think I can.” She only got one quick glance at the smile that broke over his face before he pulled her into a hug that threatened to crush her.

“Good. We missed you.”

Tears were still streaming down Corra’s face when Finn finally loosened his hold on her. But they dried quickly when suddenly he said in a tone she hadn’t been expecting, “What’s that light?”

Startled, she whipped her head around to see what he was seeing over her head. There was no light that she could make out, but when he let go and headed forward down the hall, she followed. It wasn’t until he pushed open a heavy door that had only been cracked open that she saw what he was talking about.

The archive was deserted entirely. Except, it seemed, for this one room. There were a couple of folded chairs, a table with some cards on it and a wall of console monitors. “Is this–” Corra began and Finn nodded.

“Security monitoring, looks like.”

The whole thing was shut off for now, the room dark, but it didn’t have the layers of dust the other areas had. This place had been occupied and not too long ago at that. But empty as it was now, there was one singular light on one singular console in the corner. It was tiny, red and flashed insistently, begging for attention.

Finn got there first, turning on the screen and examining its contents. An incoming message, Corra realized as she peered around his shoulder.

“All members,” Finn read, mumbling through some parts of the message, “emergency meeting…town hall…intruders? Looking for–Transmitter. The Holy Origin must be protected at all costs?”

Corra’s eyes grew wide and she swallowed as Finn whipped his head around to look at her. “What the hell? Who are these people?”

“I don’t know,” Corra answered, feeling suddenly short of breath. “But they found Cy and Addy.”

——————

The grand escape plan might have worked, had a few conditions been different. If the Gatekeepers of the Holy Origin had been fewer in numbers, for instance. If the basement Cyrus and Addy had been in wasn’t directly underneath their meeting hall. If Cyrus had been able to see well enough to not run them straight into the middle of a meeting.

“Well it was a good effort,” Addy mumbled behind him. She had her back to him, and his back to her, all four of their wrists tied together and attached to a pole in the center of the group’s hall. The blurry shapes of crazed people surrounded them, still debating how exactly they were going to dispose of the fugitives. One woman thought they should be burned because it would be cleaner. Another man wanted to simply shoot them. A more creative cultist thought something with knives would be more meaningful.

Cyrus couldn’t bear to listen to it anymore.

“Would have been better if I’d found the exit,” he found himself saying, voice hoarse, as he turned to look at her. “Hey. Addy. I–I’m really sorry. All that stuff I said–”

“I know.” Vulnerability shone in her wide, round eyes. “I know. I’m sorry too.”

“You and Kalli, you’re–you’re everything to me,” Cyrus admitted. “And I can be an ass sometimes, you’re totally right, but it’s only because I am absolutely terrified of losing either of you.” Carefully, so as not to pull something the wrong way, he twisted his hand around to squeeze hers. “I love that you’re adventurous and brave, really.”

Addy released a sad chuckle. “And I love that you’re logical and dependable even when everything else has gone to hell.” He felt her fingers lace through his and squeeze even tighter. “There’s no one I’d rather raise our daughter with.”

“Me either.” Cyrus looked up at the people still hovering nearby and swallowed. “I love you so much. If I ever gave you a reason to doubt that, I–”

He could feel Addy shaking her head. “No, don’t. Cy, I know and–gods, I love you too, don’t ever think otherwise.” Her voice was starting to shudder. “I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry…”

Around them, oblivious to their discussion, it seemed the Gatekeepers of Whatever had made their decision and that decision looked a lot like a double-barrel shotgun. Cyrus squeezed Addy’s hand tighter as a blur approached them and the man from the library spoke. “I promise this’ll be real quick,” he assured them. “Won’t feel a thing.”

Cyrus heard Addy choke down a sob. Her hands were shaking. Or were those his? He’d been near death before, especially living on the Dionysian, but never had it been presented as such a clear, unavoidable reality. He couldn’t say he was afraid exactly. It wasn’t fear that struck him then, as the clicks of bullets being loaded into a gun sounded by his ear. It was sadness, pure and simple. Sadness that he wouldn’t finish his work on Archeti. Sadness he’d never see Satieri again. And especially sadness that he’d never see the woman beside him again. He’d never get the chance to make up for the past few years. He’d never get to lay around with her in his arms in the morning. Never raise their daughter together. Never grow old together.

His own life didn’t feel like that big of a loss. But losing Addy’s? Losing Kalli’s? The very thought made his insides feel like they were imploding in on themselves.

“Which one of you wants to go first?” the man with the shotgun asked. Now, Addy wasn’t holding back her weeping, it was coming out in sharp, hoarse breaths.

Cyrus swallowed the lump in his own throat. “Me,” he managed, only barely.

“Cy–no,” Addy sobbed, pulling against the bonds.

“Better me than you,” Cyrus grunted, fighting back the water from his own eyes.

“You–I can’t–” she stuttered, but suddenly her sadness turned to anger. She twisted towards the man with the gun. “You can’t do this! We have a daughter! She needs us! You can’t do this! You can’t just–kill us!”

“Sorry, miss,” he replied, sounding a bit taken aback. “Don’t really have much choice.”

“You do have a choice!” Addy snapped, but her voice was already cracking. “Please! Please don’t do this.”

“The Holy Origin must be protected at all costs,” the man said and Cyrus yelped as he felt the cold barrel of a gun press against his forehead.

“The others–the people on our ship–they’ll come for you,” Addy bit angrily, but her heart was only half in it. He could practically hear the tears streaming down her face. “You won’t get away with this.”

The man with the gun sighed and applied more pressure. “The Holy Origin must be protected at all costs,” he repeated and Cyrus could hear the others in the room whispering along in unison.

The gun’s safety clicked. Addy let out a horrifying wail. Cyrus just drew in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. And then, there were two loud bangs. And a shout of, “Wait!”

Cyrus snapped open his eyes and looked around at the blurry shapes frantically rushing about in surprise. “Who–” began the man with the gun who pressed it even harder against Cyrus’ head.

“Wait, don’t!” said the interruptor again and Cyrus finally got the relief he was craving.

“Corra–” he heard Addy breathe.

He strained his neck to get a better look at the short brown blurry shape flanked by the tall brown blurry shape marching into the hall. “Don’t kill them. I have something you want.” She raised something shiny in the air, catching the light and flashing brightly in her hand.

All around them, the Gatekeepers gasped. “The Transmission” — “It’s the Transmission” — “How does she have–”

“Let them go, now,” Corra ordered, “Or I’ll destroy it. I swear to God, I will, don’t test me.”

“No!” shouted one of the Gatekeepers, lashing out towards her, but her companion, Cyrus assumed was Finn, seemed to raise a gun that stopped them in their tracks. And that was when things got weird.

“Look! Look at her ear!” someone else shouted.

“She has the mark!” said another.

“The mark of the slave,” gasped someone else to which Corra snapped, “Hey! I thought I said–”

But the man with the gun spoke over her. The gun fell from Cyrus’ temple and he lifted his hands into the air. “Friends! Gatekeepers! Release these captives at once.”

“Well–thanks,” Corra said, though she sounded less sure of herself than she had a minute ago. And for good reason.

“A great day is upon us,” the man went on. “The day we have long awaited. The slave has delivered unto us the Transmission. The prophecy is complete!”

As Cyrus and Addy were forcefully untied and raised to their feet, everyone in the room erupted into a chorus of cheers and celebration. Cyrus couldn’t see Corra’s face across the room, but he had a feeling it displayed the same emotion he himself was feeling just then.

He turned to Addy beside him. “What the hell?”

The basement fell into tense silence. Too tense. Even fuzzy as his vision was, Cyrus could see clearly through the dark that he had crossed a line. The woman before him had been angry before, but now she was much more than that. Much worse. He got the sense that if he said another word, he would be slapped straight across the face.

So he let her speak first. Rather, shout first.

“How dare you, Cyrus! How dare you put me in that position.”

“You put us in this position remember?” he shouted right back, thus beginning a volley of vicious words and expletives so loud and booming against the basement walls, Cyrus didn’t hear most of them, even the ones expelled from his own mouth. It was a fight that had been building for months now, possibly even years and now that their lives were so close to ending entirely, it had to come out. It always had to come out at some point.

But Cyrus hadn’t considered the consequences of shouting in the basement of wherever they were, nor would he have cared if he did. He was too full of despair and frustration to give even half a thought to other occupants. That is, until one of those occupants, a young woman by the look and sound of her, barged in through the door and shouted, “Would you two quiet down in here?!”

“No!” Addy shouted right back, resilient, but by some miracle, Cyrus experienced a brief stroke of genius. Or at the very least, cleverness. An opportunity had presented itself, one he hadn’t expected or even considered, but to hell if he wasn’t going to take it.

He couldn’t see much, but he could see the light from the space beyond the door and anger or frustration or rage be damned, he was going to get there.

Before anyone else in the room had a chance to act, Cyrus seized Addy’s wrist, yelled “Run!” and dragged her towards the light, not hesitating to shove the intruder aside on the way.

——————

There was nothing there. Nothing left of what was once the great Ellegian Consulate Archives, save a dramatic set of stairs and a small maze of hallways with very well-made, if aged, tiled floors. Corra stomped down one of those halls, her heavy footsteps echoing through the entire chamber.

“I can’t believe this,” she growled under her breath as she passed another room with rows of shelves that had been stripped clean. “Not even a scrap page of a book.”

“Weird that Eriaas guy didn’t have the sense to think this place would be raided as soon as his team left,” Finn commented, sounding far less angry than she felt. “Or he didn’t care…”

Corra groaned. “I can’t believe this,” she said again. She didn’t even bother peering into the next room they passed. It was dark and spacious and completely devoid of contents. Like everything else down here.

“I guess the bright side is that the Society won’t find it here either.” Seriously, Finn was way too cheerful. His positivity was grating on her nerves. “If it was here at all. Seems like it’ll be lost to time. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Corra snapped and then corrected, “No. Nothing’s lost to time. It’s out there somewhere. Somebody has it.”

“And you have the Transmission,” Finn noted. “So as long as you never meet, it’ll all be fine.”

Corra looked back at him, a glare set deep in her brow. Somewhere inside her, she knew he was probably right. Whoever had the thing, at least up to now, seemed content keeping it a secret. It was safe to assume they’d continue to do so and with any luck, the device was useless without Corra’s puzzle piece anyway. It was logical.

But Corra wasn’t feeling very logical right then. A stroke of anger mixed with frustration mixed with despair had overtaken her and logic from Finn was the last thing she wanted to hear.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” she barked, turning back to face him.

“No, actually,” Finn admitted with a casual shrug. He was examining a rock he’d picked up between his fingers.

Corra’s jaw dropped half an inch before it tightened. “Seriously? I dragged you out here to look for this thing and we find–” she waved her hands around them “–nothing! And you don’t get why I’m upset.”

“It was a longshot anyway.”

“It wasn’t a–” Corra ran her hands down her face then stared at him, feeling fury behind her eyes. “Why aren’t you angry?”

Finally, he met her gaze, but it wasn’t with the determination and hatred she was expecting, or that she craved. He simply looked confused. “Why would I be angry?”

“Because it’s my fault!” Corra despaired, without hesitation. “It’s my fault we’re in this stupid cave and there’s nothing here and I wasted your time and your crew’s time and–”

Finn’s face screwed up and he made a ‘pfft’ sound. “We were already here anyway. It didn’t take much time. And it’s not your fault we didn’t find any–”

“It is my fault!” Corra argued at once, marching back down the hallway towards him. “It’s completely my fault! So why aren’t you angry, huh?” She growled and then, without thinking, put her hands on his chest and pushed him.

“Wha–hey!” He stumbled backwards and she followed, a storm brewing inside and over her head.

“I brought you down here for nothing. I hijacked your whole ship for a stupid wild goose chase.” Her fingers curled and she pushed him again.

“Corra–”

“You should be angry. You should be resentful. Why aren’t you mad?!”

When she reached out to push him again, this time he seized her arms and held her back. “Corra,” he said sternly, but not sternly enough. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

“What the hell is the matter with you?!” She ripped herself out of his hold. “Why don’t you hate me?!”

A strange silence fell in the echoing hallway. Corra searched over Finn’s face, desperate to find what she was looking for there. Desperate to see the rage and the fury, even disappointment, but she found none. He was just watching her with confusion and, god forgive, sadness.

“What?”

Corra’s hands clenched into fists and she rubbed her knuckles into her temples. “Why don’t you hate me?” she asked again, calmer this time as reality set back in. She’d lost her sight of it for just a moment.

And Finn put her fear into words. “We’re not talking about the Transmitter anymore, are we?”

Well, this conversation was going to have to happen eventually, right. It had been gnawing away at her from the inside out all week and perhaps they had reached the point where she could no longer avoid it. Slowly, her fists fell back to her sides and she drew in a deep breath.

“I don’t get it, Riley.” Her voice was quiet when she spoke, barely even a whisper. “After everything I did–all that I did to you–God, Riley, I spent years believing that if we ever met again, you wouldn’t even look me in the eye. As you shouldn’t have. As I deserved. But–I come back and–and you want me to stay? You ask me to stay.”

She could feel Finn’s intense gaze upon her, but she couldn’t bring herself to return it. “Corra–”

“No,” she cut him off harshly because she wasn’t sure she could bear to hear what he had to say. “I nearly got you killed. I acted stupidly and put your life in danger. I risked our ship, our livelihood and our lives.”

“What? The whole thing with Callahan? Corra, he was transporting allies, I wouldn’t expect you to–”

“No, that’s not even it,” she interrupted again. “Even if I hadn’t done all that. Even if–” She shook her head. “I mean Archeti…”

Now, Finn immediately jumped in. “I don’t blame you for that. No one blames you for that–”

“Well they should,” she barked sharply. “You should.”

“Cyrus told me everything. You didn’t know what you were doing, you didn’t know–”

“I did know,” she snapped. “It took me a long time to realize that and come to terms with it, but I did know.” She expected him to interrupt again, but he’d gone quiet, watching her patiently. “Cyrus told me what the Caelum Lex was, what it could be used for. And I gave it to a man who I knew would do bad with it. It was a mistake, but it was an informed mistake. I’m done claiming ignorance.”

Finn was still staring at her, more stunned than anything else, which only made the frustration in her core deepen. He didn’t get it. He wasn’t going to get it. She had to make him get it.

“You’re right, I never had any bad intentions. I never meant any of it to happen.” She started towards him. “But it happened because I made choices and I took risks that I shouldn’t have taken. And I nearly destroyed you in the process.” She stopped just inches from him and prodded her index finger into his chest as she spoke. “So. Where. Is. Your. Anger?”

Finn looked down at her finger for a long moment, saying nothing, but she could see by the way his shoulders lifted and fell, his breathing had become heavier. His jaw was clenched. And when he finally met her gaze, she saw it. The rage and the fury she’d been craving. The retribution she deserved. When he seized her hand and threw it aside, she didn’t resist.

“You want anger? Fine,” he growled, lowering his face to glare at her. “Fine, I’m angry. I’m angry you left.”

It wasn’t quite what she was expecting, but the force of it was about right. “That I left?”

“Yeah! You left,” he said again, his tone cold and harsh. “When I needed you most. Injured and dying and having just lost–” He let out a crazed laugh. “Everything! My home, my family, my friends, everything that mattered to me. Do you know how miserable that was?!”

“Yes! And I caused that!” Corra wasn’t sure if what she was feeling was relief that she was finally getting the backlash she was owed or fear at seeing Finn like she’d never seen him before. Regardless, she barely noticed the water forming in the corners of her eyes.

“No you fucking didn’t!” Finn snapped. “Callahan stabbed me. The Society destroyed Archeti.”

“Neither of which would have happened if I–”

“No!” Finn groaned loudly. “No, just stop. God, you want me to yell at you? You want me to get mad and scream and shout so you can feel punished and seek redemption? Fine. Whatever. If that’s what you need. But I’m not going to just read the lines you want to hear. You want my anger, you can have it, but only for what you actually did.”

Corra braced her fists sternly at her side. “I know what I did.”

“And that’s easy isn’t it?” Finn growled. “It’s easy to assign yourself blame for a knife you didn’t wield and a terraformer you didn’t pilot.”

“Easy?!” Corra repeated indignantly. “You think that’s easy to admit my fault for that? Do you know how many people died?!”

It was the wrong question. Finn’s glare intensified instantly. “Oh I fucking know how many people died.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Then how can you say it’s easy?!”

“Because it’s all distant causality! You were one of many factors that lead to something terrible. So was I for working with Callahan to begin with. So was, God, Cyrus, for letting us take the Beacon at all. So was the fucker who first thought ‘hey wouldn’t building a spaceship be neat?’ Fuck all that, you want to make amends, admit to the one crime you actually did commit.”

“And what the hell is that?”

His tone was colder than she’d ever heard him speak. “Abandoning your friend when he needed you at his side.”

No matter how many times Corra had dwelled on this inevitability, she wasn’t prepared for it. Instantly she felt like all the air had been knocked from her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Certainly couldn’t speak. She just stood there, staring at him, completely dumbfounded, with lines of silent tears streaking across her cheeks.

It felt like ages before she was able to manage, “I–I had to–”

But Finn was already shaking his head in distaste. “You didn’t have to do anything. You wanted to. Because you thought it would be easier.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t want to hurt yourself. You didn’t do it for me. You left for you.”

“I had to make amends–” Every choked word sounded like a cheap excuse even to her own ears. “I joined the Conduit — I– I wanted to save people to–”

“And you could have done that anyway.” He was still watching her as though she was a disappointing child and he her father. “You could have told me. You could have said goodbye. You could have kept in touch. I could have helped, Corra. You didn’t have to disappear.”

Her mouth opened as she hoped a response would come from it, but none did. She didn’t have any excuses left. She’d made a choice that day and she’d made a vow to stick with it. But she had no defense for it, no offering to make up for it.