Admissions

(Many thanks to Andy for doing this with me. Thanks, Andy!--Maer)

 ***

Joshua stood in front of the door to Rina's room. He had checked engineering and he knew Cooper was in the lounge, which meant she probably wasn't there. He had only been part of the crew for a short while, but he already had an idea how this conversation would probably go. But Rina had given him a push in the right direction, so it was important he honored that. And he needed to ask. Needed to understand for sure. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. "Rina, are you around?"

 ***

Friday, 23 Aug 2520
Kuiper II class, Summer’s Gift
En route to Blue Sun
22:00 hrs, ship’s time

        Arden had given me pain meds during my daily check-up and to spare him worry, I took them. I also took the extra doses he'd packaged up, thanked him, and when I reached the privacy of my quarters, promptly stowed the pills in my desk. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate his concern, I just didn't want to get hooked on the damned things. That wasn't all Arden gave me. He also gave me strict orders to take it easy, to do no heavy lifting, and to be assiduous in asking for help when I needed it. He didn't want to see a repeat of what I'd done to myself on Miranda and neither did I.
        Which explained my current goldbricking. The initial dose of Arden's meds had already worn off and I lay in my bunk with my databook catching up on my reading and ignoring the pain as best I could. I'd just gone through a couple of trade journals when Joshua tapped on my door and I hauled my ass off my bunk to unlock it. As long as we had those pirate bastards on our ship, I was leaving nothing to chance. Especially not with Cooper walking around at will.
        I put my foot to the door and opened it a crack, confirmed it was Joshua and let him in.
        "Come in. Have a seat," I said, closing and locking up behind him, then leaning against the bulkhead. A mistake: I'd leant against the shoulder that had taken Fei Wu Ling's knife. I shifted to lean against the opposite bulkhead, a matter of three feet, and gave Joshua a wan grin. Damn, I hurt and didn't feel like entertaining company, but he was crew and if it wasn't for him, we'd be in considerably less happy circumstances. So I sucked it up and pasted that smile on my face and nodded my hello.
        "What's up?" I asked, and shifted my weight.

 ***

"You don't look good, Rina." His eyes skimmed across her, focusing on the points where he had performed surgery. "I came to check to see how you're recovering. I know Dr. Arden is doing his usual great work, but I feel kind of obligated to do my own checking, seeing how I performed most of the surgery on you. I don't get to play at doctor very often." He looked at her again, with concern. Hopefully she was following doctor's orders. "I had another question for you, but maybe I should come back some other time. Let you get your rest."

 ***

        "You really know how to compliment a lady," I said, pushing off the bulkhead and laying prone on my bunk. I tucked my hands behind my head, despite the pain it cost me, crossed my ankles and looked at him standing at my desk. "Lucky for you I'm not a lady. What's on your mind?"

 ***

Joshua's cheeks turned red slightly. "Yeah, I will never be mistaken for a ladies’ man." He leaned against her desk to settle himself a little and sighed. There was no way he was going to be able to ask the question without seeming like a complete ass, so he just needed to ask. Keeping his voice even and calm, he asked, "Were you planning to kill Fei Li Kan? Was it something that needed to be done? No judgment here, honestly. Just trying to understand this new world I find myself in."

 ***

        "Fei Li Kan shot me as I was coming up the stairs." I said without heat. "As far as I'm concerned, he made his intentions quite clear. It was him or me."

 ***

He slowly nodded. "I get that. I don't know if it is me, but I get it." But. The word was hanging in his mind - he could almost see it hovering there in front of his face. He could just let it go. But she had said she'd let him know when he was being a nuisance. And he had to know where the lines were drawn. "But let me ask you one more thing. My curse is that I have a pretty good memory...at least for things in the present day. And I saw his wounds when I was playing doctor. Those were caused by hand to hand combat. Did his first shot mean it had to be to the death, no matter what?"

 ***

        I closed my eyes and sighed, playing it back in my head.
        "If you doctored me, then you saw the impact bruising. You also saw the placement. He shot me, Joshua, where it would have killed me. That's a pretty clear declaration of war." I sighed again, buying myself time to frame my response and hating how much of a necessity it had become of late. "I'm not a diplomat. I'm not a negotiator. I sure as hell am not a pacifist. If someone tries to steal my ship, or shoot at me or my crew, I'm going to do what I can to either take them down or take them out. For damned sure, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure they don't pick this crew or this ship to harass... Ever. Again."
        I turned my head and looked at him. Joshua in a lot of respects was still a child and even though I considered myself a pretty poor model for adult behavior, I instinctively knew that my tone would affect him greater than my words--as with any child with a parent--and adjusted my tone accordingly.
        "But there's something you couldn't have known from looking at him or me in med bay: I could have double tapped him once he was down, Joshua. The gun was in my hand. No one was near enough to stop me. I had my finger on the trigger and it would have taken less than a second. Two years ago, I would have done it and walked away, completely convinced it was justifiable self-defense. That was me then. Now?" I breathed a laugh, not quite bitter, no. "Not so much, thanks to Christian and Arden and Nika. I hesitated and that's how I got how Fei Wu Ling's knives in me. The Feis are both alive and so am I and as far as I'm concerned, that's where I'm leaving it. If they want a rematch, fine. Til then, I'd really rather not go through a dress rehearsal, okay?"

 ***

Milder than he had expected, honestly. Hell, she could've justifiably ripped him a new one. "I swear I'm not trying to judge you or your actions. I need to make sure that's clear between us. I don't have the ability or more importantly, the right to question the way you handle yourself. I just need to find my way. "

He didn't want to leave it at that. "It's just that..." he paused and motioned his hands in the air, frustrated with his inability to find the right words. "I don't know. I'm good at being other people and that makes me vulnerable. I don't know if I can explain it. I'm just going to have to be careful, I guess." He shook his head and stood away from the desk.

"I'll figure it out. I know what my job is now, thanks to you." He was rambling now but he couldn't seem to stop himself. It seemed to be happening a lot lately. "I don't know if I'll ever fit in with this world. But I'll do my best not to get in the way of what needs to be done, either."

He looked towards the door. "I should probably be going anyway. Don't want the Lenore to think we're whipping up secret plans in here."

 ***

        "They can go hump themselves." I snorted and struggled upright. "Joshua. Wait."

 ***

He paused at the door, turned back to look at her. "Rina, if you undo all my surgical work sitting up in your bed, I'll be very upset."

 ***

        "Then get your butt over here and qualify that last statement," I snarled, angry from the pain and the puzzle he dangled in front of me and threatened to snatch away.

 ***

He chuckled. "You get your way, don't you, Rina? It's kind of comforting in a force of nature sort of way." He wandered back over, grabbed the desk chair, turned it around and sat down in it backwards.

"I've explained what Blue Sun had me doing, but I've never really explained it." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know whether it has to be done this way, but it's the way I do it. When I would become someone, I'd really become them in my mind. It wasn't playacting for me. When I stop being someone, it's like shrugging off a heavy coat that you've been wearing for so long that you didn't realize you were wearing it." He pantomined throwing off an imaginary coat on to the floor next to him.

"All of that is the long, involved way that I really identify with people. Maybe more than I idenitify with myself. Clear so far?"

 ***

        "Somewhat clear. How difficult is it to isolate your head from the people around you, so you can be you? From your description, it's like you're a Cortex router stuck on receive and your off button is hard to press."

 ***

"When it's just casual, it's all background noise. I think I said before, it's like Christian reading people's body language. But when I really am trying to be someone, that's when I get focused in. And it's not just reading, although that's part of it. "

What was the best way to explain it? "It's like getting to be part of a story - one that I get to be right there for. I'm that person with everything that comes with being that person. It's an amazing feeling...an amazing experience." He softly smiled as he thought about it. "It kind of bothers me that I got so much enjoyment out of something that Blue Sun generally used for their own purposes, but I tell myself that it's not the act that's wrong, it's what it is used for." He had been telling himself that a lot, in fact.

"But when I think about someone dying, I think about what it must have been like, and selfishly, I think, 'There's another book closed that I'll never get to be part of." It's stupid, selfish, and creepy. But I think it anyway. And I don't know if I could kill anyone. And that's what I guess I'm trying to think about. Is it necessary for me to be able to kill someone?"

 ***

        "Not as long as I'm in the room." I eased back onto my pillow so as not to rip out my stitches. "As far as the rest of it goes, maybe what you need is a break from assimilating other personalities and work on developing your own. I guess you could say you're finally going to get your childhood, Joshua, and learn to be you. I'll help you, if you let me. I'll watch your back while you do it. And as for what I think of the moral implications of your abilities, I think the reason for their application matters much more than the fact that they exist at all."

 ***

He nodded. "I don't expect to have to do a lot of that anymore. I have myself a new job, it seems. Stewards don't need to be other people." But that wasn't his only job, as he saw it. Official in Charge of Keeping the Crew out of Trouble had been Christian's unspoken role, or at least that what Joshua pictured it as from all the talk about him.

He reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it slightly. "Thanks for the offer. We all need to watch each other's back, right?"

 ***

        "Always." I squeezed his hand back. "I've gone without it and trust me, it's better not to have to." I shut my eyes and tried not to think of the pills stashed in my desk drawer. Things were still manageable yet. Maybe later. I looked at Joshua again. "If you need anything, even if it's only a sounding board, you know where to find me."

 ***

Another nod. "I do indeed. And you'll make sure to completely follow doctor's orders, right?" He looked her in the eyes as he stood up. "Can't heal properly if you don't do what Dr. Arden asks."

 ***

        "I promise to follow orders," I said, stifling another growl. "Miranda taught me that. What I do not promise is not to bitch about it. Just so you know."

 ***

Miranda? Joshua wondered what that was about. They had mentioned something about a Christmas wave, but he hadn't had time to really view it. Too wrapped up in his own problems. He needed to make time.

So many layers the rest of the crew had - real depth to them. He knew it wasn't their fault that it made him feel shallow, a thousand surface layers no thicker than tissue. Like Rina had said, time to become his own person and develop his own layers.

"Remind me to ask you about Miranda sometime...when you're not supposed to be resting," he said, slipping into that official tone of voice he had heard so many doctors use before. "I should let you rest now." And with that, he opened the door and walked out, closing it behind him as quietly as a ship door can be closed.

 ***

        I heard Joshua's tone shift and didn't call him on it. He needed the space to try things out and jumping down his throat every time he did it would only make him afraid to strike out on his own. I wasn't being facetious about Joshua getting that second childhood--this time around, he'd have the luxury of remembering it and it would give him the base he needed to find himself.
        As for his echoing Arden's orders, I figured I needed the reminding and suiting action to word, I closed up my databook and put it on my desk. The magazines I'd been flipping through and taking notes from I simply shucked to the floor. I'd get to them later. I slapped the lights off from the console on my headboard and tried to get comfortable on my bunk. If I was going to be useful later, I'd need to rest up for it.
        It wasn't until I was drifting off into sleep that I realized I'd been wearing nothing but my jog top and my skivvies.

 ***

It wasn't until halfway down the hall that Joshua realized what Rina had been wearing and blushed in response, causing Annie, who had been walking past him to give him a very strange look before she quickly moved on.

 ***

Andy's a great RP partner--he gives you so much to work off of. See more of Joshua using the timeline links below.

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