Buried Pain
Monday, 22 Sep 2521
Yan Wo Station, Yan Wo
Fury, Blue Sun (Qing Long) system
1000hrs, ship's time
She still had a headache. The two jolts of adrenalin had worn off, but her jaw still ached from how she had been clenching her teeth. She allowed a rueful smile. Probably the massive amounts of stimulants and lack of sleep this past week hadn't helped either. Then the natural adrenaline jolt of escaping the Reaver ship had probably sealed her fate. Kiera sighed. There was no way around it; she was going to have a headache. And be as irritable as a wet cat because of it. She slowed her progress to Botany Bay. A nicer person would wait to talk to Joshua. Questions could wait. Her eyes narrowed and she gave a mental shrug as her pace resumed.
Kiera wasn't nice and she wasn't patient and she sure as heck wasn't gonna wait any longer to find out why in all the stars that Joshua had a dead man's finger. She stepped through the doorway of Botany Bay and looked to see if he was there.
--
Joshua could feel her coming if he couldn't see her coming as he leaned over his strawberry plants, checking their leaves to make sure they were still healthy. He was still mentally wide open, not having taken a dose of Flomoxipan yet. He wasn't sure why he hadn't gotten around to it yet, but the end result at the moment seemed to be a heightened awareness. Kiera was a like a big bundle of sharp edges at the periphery of his senses.
Without looking up, he called out. "Kiera, if you're looking to speak to me and not just take in some peace and quiet, I'm back this way."
--
Her foot stopped midair and with will, she forced it to land and followed it with the next step. She was used to being catfooted; she dismissed the sudden certainty that he had known she was coming long before her footsteps had told him she was there. That he knew it was her was not even considered; she was proud of her sanity and wanted to keep it. With a scowl, she made her way to where the voice had come from and planted her hands on her hips as she planted her feet. "Why the hell do you have a dead man's finger?" she snapped and waited for the answer.
---
"Hello, Kiera, it's good to see you too," Joshua said calmly as he stood up straight. He wasn't in the mood to be conciliatory - the events on the surface of Miranda had bothered him in ways he didn't quite understand. _And there was the problem, wasn't it?_ He didn't understand why he had gone in the first place. He didn't understand his own mind.
--
Her headache was threatening to make her eyes cross and his sarcasm, _his sarcasm_she reflected with surprise, just buggered her last nerve. The flash of fury seemed to burn through her like the fire of an electric shock, her fingers twitching for the gun that wasn't there, and then it was gone, leaving her only tired and a bit concerned. Her lips twisted with sardonic politeness. "Good day to you too, mister. Are we well? Have we been collecting a bit more archeological flotsam recently?"
--
"Seems that way, doesn't it? Let's just call it a good idea in theory that failed to pass the practicality test." That poor man, struggling against forces out of his control...taking control of him, turning him into a rage filled machine. Joshua had just hoped that maybe they would've been able to get something from him that would lead to a cure for the Reavers...or anything that would make his sacrifice worth something. Instead, now he was only a memory in Joshua's head.
---
"So there was a reason? One I'd understand?" she prodded more gently.
---
"I was called to him and thought he might be the beginnings of a cure." He shook his head. "Hard to give you a reason you'd understand when I don't understand exactly why I did it in the first place."
Joshua walked over to the wooden bench nearby. The pillow he had been using when he slept in the bay was taking up half the bench, so he shoved it off on to the floor, making room for both of them to sit. "Seat?" he motioned to one side of the bench as he plopped onto the other side with a distinct lack of grace.
---
Her eyebrow fell low as she frowned, but she went to sit beside him. "Called? By a dead man who would give you the beginnings of a cure? For PAX and Reaver madness?" She inhaled slowly and then let it loose with a whistle. "Tall tale, mister. Or the beginnings of a great ghost story." She tilted her head and regarded him with a little more worry than before. "How were you called to him?"
---
How could he describe color to a blind person? "I'm wide open, you see," he started his explanation. "Without my drugs for going on 7 days now and when I saw the subway tunnel, I could just feel the tug on my mind, like hearing a voice in a waking dream. So I followed it." Through the train, filled with the empty shells of people destroyed by his former employer, with no minds to call him, but yet he could still feel the call of that man like an echo in the back of his brain.
---
She was silent for a while, contemplating his words. She knew that he could absorb skills; she had experienced that with the shotgun. She also knew that he could absorb personalities. Her eyes narrowed at that thought before she let it go. Her mind poked at her. He had known it was her just moments ago. The scientist pursed her lips and told sanity to take a hike as the puzzle revealed itself. What had Blue Sun come with when they made Joshua? The answer was clear. . .a mortal vessel capable of reshaping itself with the potential to hold anything and be anything or anyone. She studied him anew with a cool distance to her thoughts. A Shepherd would have said that the souls of the dead and damned were calling him. She was inclined to say that the magnetic and electronic resonances still lingered. Either way, he had followed something into the subway and it had left him. . . . She let that thought peter out. She had no way of knowing how he felt except for asking. Let devils go where angels fear to tread, she told herself and opened her mouth.
"I'm just gonna hit you with questions for a moment Joshua. Let them gather and then answer them if you'd like or ignore them. How'd you know it was me coming here? What'd ya think called you to the subway? What made you believe that taking a finger would help find a cure for the PAX problem? What do the drugs do for you and how does not taking them affect you?" She inhaled and then finished. "What is bothering you about feeling these feelings and hearing the shadows of what has happened before? Do you experience it anew or do the shadows of someone else's emotions bother you because you still aren't sure who you are?" She sat back then and crosses her arms to wait. She had peppered him with questions; there was a method to her madness and the scientist wanted to see what he would say. _And his friend wanted to know too_ her mind added and a tiny wince crossed her face.
---
Holy crap, that was a lot of questions. Where to start? Maybe with the drugs - that was the foundation for the rest of the questions. "I have to keep my door shut, Kiera. That's what the drugs help with." He tapped the side of his head with his forefinger. "They call us readers, but maybe they should have just called us receivers, because when we're wide open, there's no telling what will come in, it seems."
He shrugged. "That's how I knew it was you, when you got close enough. You're emotional enough for me to pick up on it without even trying. At least with my front door standing wide open. As far as the subway, your guess is as good as mine. Faria would've said..." he paused, thinking about the Shepherd. He didn't really know what Faria would've said, other than to suck it up. "Well, the religious might say I was hearing the call of someone whose death needed to be witnessed. My guess is that doesn't really fly for you, so I'll let you think what you want."
---
She cut him a sidelong glance. "Well that proves you ain't as scary as I thought you'd be. If you were tiptoeing through my mind, you'd know that I'm of two minds on such things and the two minds don't agree. I ain't religious much, but even a sinner needs to pray sometimes. And you obviously aren't programmed to automatically sort that much info at once. You didn't answer in the order that was given you." She finally smiled, but it was muted and gentle. "What is bothering you Joshua? I gather that you weren't made to be a speaker for the dead or else they'd have tweaked your brain better for it."
---
"I don't read the crew's mind," he responded automatically. He then stopped and put his face in his hands for a minute as he thought about her question. What *was* bothering him? Was it the dead on Miranda? Was it the fact that he wasn't even sure if it was his own decision to walk on the surface? No, it was deeper than that, perhaps. "I don't know what I am, Kiera."
---
The answer came quickly. "A human being, you moron." She let her eyes twinkle at him, emerald and wicked. Then she sighed. "Are we gonna get deep here? I usually require alcohol and a mean firefight that I barely survived to get all deep and introspective on, but hell, strawberries and a headache will do too." She uncrossed her arms and settled deeper on the bench. "You are a mess, you know. An adult with all the accouterments without the delicious spicing of regret, guilt, experience, and joys that make us all human. If you had them, they're gone. And if you experienced them before, whose face and body were you wearing? And does that make them yours at all? Am I on target so far?"
--
"What does it say about me that I've gotten past all that?" And he had. He had used to want to know all that he had done for Blue Sun. But now he wasn't sure he'd ever know the truth and Joshua had adapted to that idea - the idea of living in the present and making a new life for himself. "I am happy experiencing life as it is. I just wish I understood what Blue Sun has done to me."
--
"I'd say that getting past that is great. But I'd say also that you ain't gotta past it if you're still worrying about what Blue Sun did to you. What does it matter what they did? What's that got to do with Joshua now? What if you didn't know that you were an experiment of Blue Sun? What if you'd had just woken up a few days ago and found out that you could do the stuff you could do? Would ya sit around and ponder where it came from? Or," and she paused and locked her eyes onto his, "would grab life by the nuts and use those powers to experience the world as very few can say they ever will? Damn, Joshua, if I could do a tenth of what you could, I'd die happy. I'm stuck in the box of my own head and have been fightin' and clawin' most of my life to get out of the prison of my parents' expectations just to suck a little honey outta life before it's all gone. Look at yourself, honey, and see the promise."
----
He chuckled a little. "I, as much as anyone, understand trying to squeeze everything out of life." Perhaps a bit too much lately, he thought. And she was right, it shouldn't matter where the powers come from. But still...
"I just hate not knowing what else might be in my head. And not being sure any of it is for the right. The problem with being somehow cursed with the conscience of a moral busybody."
--
"Maybe that's part of the adventure. Not knowing. Nobody know what they're capable of until they have to do it. If there is a wicked being in there, then you won't be the first kind man who hides a monster." She stretched out her legs and twisted to loosen her back. "You're trying to define who you are and prepare for who you might be before you even know what look for. Let it happen."
--
"So just float free and don't worry about what happens until it does?" Joshua's face crinkled into a mess of doubt. Not paying attention to why and how he was doing what he did had gotten in trouble at Blue Sun. He wasn't sure he had the makeup to let the guilt slide off of him.
--
Kiera's face softened and the hard gem glitter of her gaze broke a little. "You plan for the worst and live like it's not gonna happen. I'm worried about waking up with your foot on my neck but despite that I don't lock my door at night. I just hope that whenever what is in your head breaks free, you, Joshua," and she put a hand on his chest, "will remember me long enough to let me get away before something else takes over. I believe in you. I don't do that lightly." Pain, deep and wrenching, passed over her face before she could banish it. "You need to believe in how strong 'you' are."
---
Was he strong enough to give up Reading? Or to embrace it fully? Joshua didn't know. But he had a whole crew of people who were concerned about him, and that couldn't be a bad thing. And speaking of concern, he didn't think she'd answer, but...
"Sometime when you're ready to talk, I'd love to listen." She'd know what he meant.
---
Her hand withdrew as if he were on fire and she bit her lip hard enough that the skin whitened. Once again, the eyes frosted. "If you see pictures, my innocent," she growled, "then I'll let you in my head and show you. Other than that, it's the past and it's buried." She slid away from him and stared the challenge. If he backed off, then good. But if not. . .time had made it more painful. She was surprised by that. She had put that incident away. Damn, but these people brought up memories. Her nostrils flared. The time was coming.
--
Joshua looked hurt and felt it too, even though he had known not to expects sunshine and rainbows from her. "I would never Read you without your permission, Kiera," he said quietly but firmly,still a little hurt that she would think that, but keeping his eyes on her. "If you don't want to talk about whatever it is that has burned you so hard, that's your right and I'm certainly not going to make you talk. I'm just offering what friends offer - a chance to talk if you wanted to."
She should be careful, he thought. Joshua had noticed the buried past had a habit of rising from the dead at the most inconvenient times.
---
Kiera looked at his face registering the hurt and felt an irrational fury wave over her. She did not want to care that she had hurt him, she did not want to know that she could hurt Joshua. But she did and she knew that much of the anger was at herself for letting him within her heart and soul. Arm's length, she reminded herself bitterly. None of these people were at arm's length anymore. Her jaw worked as Allan's face came unbidden to her head. Holding the Smith-Chi child as he backed towards the door where his fellow kidnappers waited for him. Betraying Kiera and the family that had hired him and trusted him for two years. Her gaze turned inward. Betraying a young woman who was stupidly and hopelessly in love with him. She saw again his eyes on hers as they both fired and his lips moving with his last words. His shot had gone wide. Hers had not. And he had mouthed, "It's okay. I love you," before his muzzle had flashed. Her gut wrenched and she leapt up from the bench, spinning on him with all the deadly fury of a snake.
"You make me talk by being who you are!" she stated softly. "And that's bad. You are dangerous to my state of mind. I don't know whether or not that's on purpose. But I've been lulled to complacency before and it ain't gonna happen again." She was breathing hard and her eyes were wet with unshed tears. "I don't need a friend. They'll get you killed. I almost died rescuing your stupidly, overconfident slip of a girlfriend and I spent entirely too much time trying to make certain that you could use your arm again. Now I'm worried whether or not Nika will like her perfume and whether or not Arden thinks I'm a competent doctor. Lord knows, y'all are gonna get me killed!" She cursed, fluently and fluidly, the core accented Chinese coming easily as she turned to leave. "Got to leave before I lose my mind! I can't damn take this!"
----
Joshua wanted to respond and let her know that it wasn't on purpose, that he cared for her, despite her attempts to make sure he didn't. But the anger and emotional pain rolling off her in waves battered down his defenses, left wide open by his lack of drugs. As she stomped off, it was all Joshua could do to keep from falling off the bench, the pain in his head dominating his thoughts. He needed to maintain the illusion of control, because to do otherwise would just make her angrier which would only make it worse.
---
If he had touched her, Kiera thought, and shuddered, thinking of the intimacy of the human hand and the ones she refused to think of every night. Her head was screaming now, the headache beyond madness, and her fingers and torso spasmed and twitched with the strain of controlling her emotions. When her foot hit the door seal, she had finally regained a modicum of control, but her voice was icy and distant as she paused and turned towards him. "You never answered the first question, Joshua," she stated, the words like percussive blows. "I'm shooting in the dark, but if you took that finger in order to study it for some god unknown reason like finding a cure rather than taking it for a grisly prize for your warm and fuzzy emotional evolution, then that DNA is still good. I can study it if you want when I get back to civilization." And with that she went to find solace in drink and darkness.
--
When she left, closing the door behind her, Joshua finally let himself collapse on the bench, breathing deeply to help control the pain and push it away. If he needed practice in burying the pain, at least he knew who he could ask.
-- -- -- --
Go to Joshua's Crew Page or to Kiera's Crew Page
Go to CREW or TIMELINE
Go to Mutineers
