Hell If I Know

The trip from Persephone to Red Sun is not as long as some runs, and it's a quiet one. As she recovers emotionally from the whole incident with the pulse torpedo, Nika has continued to be quiet. Not exactly brooding, but something's clearly been on her mind. And perhaps there have been other things to draw Christian's eye -- a shift in the casual way Nika will merely touch Arden's shoulder on her way past him at the dinner table, or the way she'll trade a smile in the hall as the two head about their business. There is nothing overt in her behavior, the two of them don't go sneaking off. But there's an afternoon when Christian brings tea to the bridge, when Nika helps herself to the cup, and she finally says to the Companion... to her //friend//... quietly, "Do you have the time to sit?"

"Always." Christian answers. He's seen it. The classic signs of someone dealing with a near death experience. He hasn't said anything, though. Christian has come to realize that pushing Nika often results in more walls than it does doors. He settles down in the co-pilot's seat. "I'm going to end up putting my name on this console." He says, pointing to the co-pilot's controls, "It is practically my station during an emergency."

She laughs quietly. "You might as well. I think you've probably earned it by now. You should brush up a little more so that it's not merely in an emergency that you could be the pilot." Nika sips her teacup and looks toward the front portholes. Her tone is casual, but something about the way she's watching him is not so casual. "I'd like to train you as my backup."

Christian turns to look down at the console. "Well, now that I have the shuttle, I should learn how to handle it better." He nods his head. "Okay. We'll start lessons as soon as you're ready, oh master pilot." He looks back up at Nika. "I understand." His voice grows soft. "That must have been horrible, knowing that you were the only one who could face down that thing."

Nika's expression is thoughtful. "No... what was awful was knowing we were probably not more than twenty seconds from dead, Christian. //Knowing// without a shadow of a doubt that I was not going to be able to outfly that thing. I'm good.... but not //that// good." She smiles faintly and looks at him. "Except apparently I am." She shakes her head slightly. "That's not why I asked you to continue your training."

"You were when you needed to be." Christian says, "We all have our moments of brilliance. Your's just happen to show up when things are trying to kill us." He falls silent, then, not digging for answers. They'll come.

She swivels her chair to look at him and says quietly, "If the time comes that we all part ways, I want you to be able to do this job. Besides... it's a practical skill for you. Being a Companion can be far more lucrative, but being able to pilot your own ship wherever you want to go or wherever a client wants to meet you gives you a freedom that most Companions don't enjoy." Nika studies him over the rim of her cup. "I'm not planning on leaving. But... it could happen. Hell, how many times have I been almost killed this year? At least three that I can think of off the top of my head. And I'd feel better with a backup."

"Mmm." Christian says, his brain spinning as he takes in body language, facial expressions, and voice tones. "Well, that's all very logical. You're right. Someone should learn how to pilot the ship just in case. It is a good skill for me to have."

She knows he's taking in other things from her, but before she says anything further, Nika merely smiles at him. "Tell me what you see?" she asks.

"You're struggling." Christian says, voicing his thoughts out loud. "You've faced death before. People shooting at you. Coming at you with bladed. Deadly diseases. But this scared you more than those things. It shook you down to your core. Now, you're finding yourself looking at Arden and maybe a small part of you is thinking.... what if? And then you think about who you left behind at the hospital. Some guilt. Some worry. Some wonder that feelings can seem so transient..."

Nika pushes out her lower lip in a thoughtful moue. "Close," she admits softly with a smile. "Though not transient... I don't love Brian any less for realizing that I love Arden too. They're very different men, and the feelings I have for each are as different as the men themselves." She leans her head back on the head rest and swings her seat back and forth a bit. "People change... Brian and I have both changed, and we haven't been together enough to change together. And Arden is the one changing //with// me right now. The thing I wonder about with him hasn't changed.... I'm not sure I'm good for him. He doesn't... seem to //feel// things the way I expect people to."

"Interesting way of thinking. My mother would be proud of you." Christian smiles, "Also, very insightful on your part. I'm proud of you. Of course Arden doesn't feel things the way you expect people to. We've been to where he was raised. You couldn't pick a culture more radically different from your own."

She laughs at that. "I can't decide if that's a good thing or not, your mother being proud of me," Nika admits on a chuckle. "It works in my favor, I guess, that Arden's the way he is. Because I'm selfish enough to want to have my cake and eat it too." She sips from her tea and says softly, "You're right that the torpedo has shaken me up a bit." Her tone is soft.

"It was... odd. We could have randomly come across it, I suppose." Christian says. He shakes his head, "Our luck is about that good, sometimes. On the other hand, there might be people who want us out of the way. Out here, we'd just be lost in space. No questions. Nothing to upset someone like Shyla."

There's a long pause, and Nika looks out the window. "It would upset her," Nika says quietly. "But... I'd likely be chalked up to collateral losses." She smiles just a little. "She's a soldier. She's been a soldier from the start, running cargo was never really what she wanted. The courier and transport work we did during the war was good... we kept doing it after, and it worked out for us. But.... giving her a place to //be// a soldier was a masterful stroke on their part. She's a good leader, if they listen to her." She's feeling her way through her own thoughts here, not entirely sure of her own opinions on the matter.

"True. Us dying in Blue Sun territory might make her ask questions, though." Christian says, "If this wasn't an accident, the only ones who had any idea where we might be were in Blue Sun. On the other hand, they would have needed some method to track us. It just being a random, lost torpedo that locked onto us in the Black makes more sense."

Nika sips her tea then lowers the cup to rest on her belly. Her feet are propped up on the console, as usual, and she looks very comfortable. But her expression is pensive. "I didn't say anything to anyone else, Christian, because I don't want to feed Rina's paranoia." She pauses, chewing on her lower lip. "So here's the thing.... those torpedos are //not// in wide use. Not back during the war, and certainly not now. The possibility is //very// real that it was just a remnant. The path we took from Blue Sun is not one of the better traveled ones, and the Black is a huge place. It could have sat out here for the past decade easily. //But//.... during the war, I don't //think// they were arming them with nuclear warheads." She looks at him, brow furrowed. "They're damn well destructive enough //without// that. I can't begin to tell you the horror of watching one of those things hit a ship next to you. Christian.... I think we -- Shyla, me, the Harbinger folks -- might be the //only// people, or maybe one of... I dunno three or four small groups of people? -- who have //ever// seen one of the damn things in action the way we did and survived. They were legends, rumors, no one could confirm their usage back then really. And to have run across TWO of them in my lifetime, one of them hot on //my// ass with a nuke attached? That just.... " She hesitates. "It makes me nervous. Some people in Blue Sun know me well enough -- know my reputation well enough -- to assume which route we'd take, but .... I can't for the life of me imagine how they could have set a trap for us when there'd be no way to really know for sure that we'd ever even GO that way."

"We might want to check for transmitters." Christian says, "Though I don't want to make Rina more paranoid either. Or maybe there was a vessel following us? One that launched the torpedo. I don't know much about warfare so... a nuclear warhead, though. That's something you send after a planet. Not a ship."

There's a grimace and she looks at him with shadowed eyes. "I've gone round and round this in my head, trying to figure out if Blue Sun would have set such a trap in the hopes of catching an Alliance ship out here or whether the Alliance is putting these things back into use. And I just cannot see how we were the intended target. Not really; the odds are just... so damn astronomically high, I can't see how it would work. I can run the sensor sweeps and see if we're broadcasting anything out of the ordinary, or on the down-low bands. But I do think the odds of it being personal are just... way too low, unless you see something I don't. If it was launched from a ship, which is possible because we were traveling dark and wouldn't have seen it, that means it was an Alliance hit just hoping to catch ANYONE making that run. Which actually seems far more likely in my mind." She purses her lips.

"There's another possibility." Christian points out. "It could have nothing to do with us. We have several people we don't know on board, one of which sent a transmission out not so long ago..."

"True enough..... which still requires SOMEONE to know our probable path and when we'd be there. In either case, the information's going to make it back to those in command in Blue Sun -- our passenger who helped dismantle it will, I'm reasonably sure, will have sent a message. But I'll drop a coded one to Shyla too, just in case." Nika grimaces. "I've been debating whether to do it or not. I guess it can't really hurt."

Christian nods. "It might help her. Either to know to watch her back or to know that these things might be out there. Its a nasty way to conduct a war. You launch your torpedoes from outside the system and take out the enemy."

Nika nods slightly and smiles faintly. "I'm going to hurt him, eventually... he's trying very very hard to be what I need." And she's let Arden in. She's given him a piece of herself that she's guarded very carefully for a long time. She gave him her tears, her trust. But she admits quietly to Christian, "And for now, he is." She can't look at her friend. "But I think I'm going to hurt him."

She looks at Christian. "I still think I'm going home... if he'll have me when this is all over."

"Well." Christian says. He sinks down to his knees, off the chair, so he can gently take Nika's hands in his own. "Be honest. Let him know what you feel. Let him know you're worried. Then let him decide. He can make his own choices. You know what Shakespeare said. Better to have loved and lost..."

"He takes what is said at face value unless you change it. He knows that I still love Brian. And I have not chosen to ... enlighten him to my feelings for him yet," Nika admits, offering Christian's cheek a brief caress. "I'm relying on you to keep me on the straight and narrow, you know."

Christian almost laughs. "Well, the narrow. I'm not very fond of straight. You and Rina would make an adorable couple." He winks and then his face grows more serious. "He knows, Nika. Maybe he's hoping you'll change your mind. Maybe you will. I don't think Brian will begrudge you exploring this. It might be what's right for you. You won't know unless you try it out for size."

"Aw, I'm not worried about looking that far ahead," Nika replies honestly. "I been thinking for a while... ever since getting my chest cracked open, really. Four months on Miranda. Now this. I've had a lot of time to try to figure out what I want, and still can't figure it. Just living in the moment. But I don't want to do that forever, I guess." She shrugs slightly. "Ain't ready for anything else right now, but you're kinda my touchstone to a baseline," she drawls.

A warm smile curls onto Christian's lips. "You're mine, too. You helped keep me from falling off the edge on Miranda. My first love affair." He sighs. "It was an interesting experience. I've had sex with people I loved before but never with someone I felt like I was in love with."

Sympathy crosses her Nika's face and she strokes his cheek. "I wish I could have been more help, Christian. Harry's.... an old soul, as my dad would have said. I'm sure she did love you... but perhaps she's far more like your mother than you would have expected. And I've often wondered if she found her one and only and lost him before I ever met her... or whether she's still looking, or maybe not looking anymore."

Nika shrugs. "Then again, I don't believe in one and onlies, either."

"No, you're right. Ones exist. Onlies don't, though. My mother and father are soulmates. That doesn't mean they can't love other people. From the time I was five until I was seven, they had another wife. A university professor. Then she was given a position in a university on Shinon and it was over."

That brings Nika's brows up. "Okay... now that... just weirds me out a little." And then she grins. "But it's actually kind of no different than what was happening to me on Miranda on the island. Brian and I each had our own lovers as well as each other -- though it was a hair awkward when the other lovers met up."

Christian can't help but laugh. He slips back up to his seat and leans back, "My family is unconventional, to say the least. Who knows what the one I help found will be like, somewhere down the line."

"I'd say it's pretty damn unconventional already," Nika comments wryly. "You've got a child with a woman you respect if not love, a sister who kicks your ass and fights with you for no good reason but still trusts your judgement about HER love life even as she sleeps with your brother. And a good buddy who keeps tiny crocodiles as a pet, and one who films every aspect of your life." She smirks at him. "How much more unconventional do you WANT it to be?"

Christian's lips break out into a grin. He laughs. "Well, orgy night would be nice... Arden is cute. Not really my type. I tend to like them a touch more manly. But I can see what you see in him."

Nika tilts her head. "I never asked you what you thought of the rest of my family... you only managed to spend days in the company of Brian, but ... you seemed to appreciate why Shyla and Harry would have my loyalty."

Christian runs his fingers through his hair, tossling it a bit "... okay. When we get to White Sun I'm seeing a stylist. I'm pretty sure I have split ends." Then he focuses on the question. "I liked them. Shyla is a leader. I felt like following her and I barely knew her. Harry obviously... and Brian I've known well enough. I know you. You're a part of him. I can see why you plan on going back to them."

There's a look of surprise. "How so?" Nika asks. This conversation is probably months overdue, but ... for whatever reason, she's finally willing to have it.

"These people care about you. They... formed you." Christian says. He leans forward, his elbow on his knee, his fist on his chin. "Shyla and Harry, Brian, they all helped you mold yourself into who you are today. You lived and worked together for years. I look at them, even Harry, as self-contained as she is, and I see pieces of you. And now that I know them, I see pieces of them in you."

Nika considers that and says thoughtfully, "I was very young when I went to them." She shrugs a little. "Rick asked me why I'd trust them ... that people change and I could be wrong about them." She looks at him. "They're my family. For the good, the bad, the ugly. As much as Nala. I might not //like// things they do, they may not //like// things that I do.. but it doens't matter. When push comes to shove.... they're mine."

Christian sits back again and nods. "I know. Silver webs connecting the groups of you. I imagine I can see things like that, sometimes. The Guild teaches visualization exercises. Aura reading. That sort of thing. To help with empathy training. They love you very much."

There's a blush at that, and Nika looks away. "It felt weird ... to finally square things with Shyla and walk away again," she admits.

"It was important that you did." Christian notes. "You've seemed freer since. I think you were worried before. That they resented you. Hated you. Pitied you, maybe. Some negative emotion towards you. Now that's out in the open and you have room to worry about Arden, diseases, and torpedoes."

Nika laughs. "Yeah, gotta love the things that took the place of THAT," she comments ruefully with a roll of her bright blue eyes at him. "So tell me something.... and don't take it in the wrong way. Was Rina... your rebound girl?"

"Fun question." Christian whistles, shaking his head. "No. There are things I can't talk about but she needed my help and it grew from there. I have no illusions that she'll fall in love with me. I'm not going to fall in love with her. I'm helping her until she finds Mike again."

Nika nods easily. "All right. I just... needed to make sure that //you// were okay with all of that. I would hate to see you get your heart broken twice," she admits softly.

Christian places his hands together, puts them against his lips and he considers. "I don't believe it is going to be. She's.. not right for me. I love her... but I could never be in love with her. She's closed to me. To everyone. She has her soulmate."

"I know," Nika finally says somberly. "Let's hope that wherever it is he's gone, he's getting his head back on straight."

Christian glances out at the stars, through the cockpit window. "I hope so. When he's ready to put her ahead of the mission. Or, at least, let her be part of it."

"Hmph," Nika snorts. "Not sure that will //ever// happen," she admits quietly. "Carter's whole life has been the mission, from what I can gather." She looks at Christian as she sips her tea and then sets the empty cup aside. "I don't doubt he loves her, but sometimes that's not enough." And maybe not just for Rina, either.

"No. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it isn't about love. Its about being able to share. Who you are. As long as he's the mission and not the person..." Christian lets it go at that. He knows Nika understands already.

She glances at him and smiles slightly. "We're all gorram damaged goods, I tell ya."

Christian snorts. "Not one of us normal. Then again, would we want to be?"

The sound of laughter winds around the bridge. "What's normal?" Nika demands with a smile.

Christian hmmms, pretending to think about that. Finally, he shrugs and grins. "Hell if I know."