Chapter Text
It didn’t matter how many times he did this, York thought he’d never tire of space travel. There was something calming about the way the ship glided through space, about the humming of the engines, about the spiraling patterns the stars formed. He leaned against the large observation window, fingers tapping his thigh in a nervous pattern. The journey back to Valhalla was a long one, and the cramped nature of The Hand of Merope had started to get to him on day three of their trip.
He saw Carolina out of the corner of his eye and tensed for a moment before forcing himself to relax. It was fine, he reminded himself. Things were okay. Sort of.
Carolina stood next to him, saying nothing for a long moment before admitting defeat and speaking first. “We should… talk, shouldn’t we?”
York stared out at the stars for a moment. “Probably,” he admitted. He stopped leaning against the window and turned to face her.
“Who starts?” He asked her, trying to keep his tone light but failing. They’d kissed twice since finding each other again, but York didn’t pretend that it had fixed things.
He wished he could smoke on the ship. Maybe that would make his hands feel less like shaking.
York sat down on one of the couches nearby. Hesitantly, she sat across from him. They were both in their full armor, and York had to stop himself from reaching out to try to remove her helmet, from trying to just see her expressions, so he could get a better idea of what he was dealing with.
They remained in silence for long enough for Delta to start buzzing nervously.
York forced himself to speak first. “I’m sorry about the Director,” he said quietly.
Carolina looked away. “That’s not what I’m here to talk about,” she said tensely.
“Then talk,” he said. “I… Carolina... I don’t even know where to begin.”
“You picked her,” Carolina said harshly. “You sided with her.”
Of all the openings she had to pick, that was the one she went with? York closed his eyes, even though she couldn’t see what he was doing. “Yes.”
“Why?”
York shrugged. “She came to me. She had proof; proof of what the Director was doing. I couldn’t just… let it happen.”
She seemed prepared to say something so he plowed on. “You were still out, Carolina. And they were already talking about pulling Delta. Tex made her case. She made it, and I chose. Going to you wasn’t an option. We needed to leave if we were going to get anything done. If we were going to help anyone.”
“So that was why?” Carolina demanded. “You needed to ‘do the right thing?’”
York felt something rise in his chest but he shoved it aside. “I joined Freelancer to be a good guy,” he snapped. “We were supposed to help people. End the war! Experimental research, cutting edge technology, the best of the best, all in one place. That was the pitch, wasn’t it? But none of it was true. I couldn’t pretend anymore once Tex showed me Connie’s files. I couldn’t stay, not after that.”
Not even for you, he wanted to say. He didn’t. She had to know it was there. It had to be enough.
He pushed himself to his feet. “I need some air,” he said abruptly.
“York.” Her voice was warning.
“Hold it against me or don’t, Carolina,” he said quietly. “But it seemed like you made up your mind when you stayed away for years.”
Carolina looked away.
<York,> Delta said, disapproving as York strode towards the nearest hallway.
“I know Dee,” York sighed.
York shook his head. He needed nicotine; and Delta was being smug about the addiction too, because of course he was. How had this become his life?
“Found you,” Tex said, and York tried to pretend he hadn’t just jumped. Even without using her camouflage unit, Tex was still sneaky when she wanted to be.
“Hey Tex,” York said, grinning.
She knocked her shoulder against his. “Running again?”
“No!” He paused as she tilted her head, always able to tell when he was lying. The downside to being an awful liar, he supposed. “Okay, maybe a little.”
She huffed. “Do you two have to make everything complicated?” She asked, seeming curious.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” York said, laughing slightly.
She shook her head. “Well, you’ll have lots of time to figure things out back at Valhalla, Private Harris.”
York couldn’t help but snicker at that. “Got to love Delta’s ability to fake paperwork, right?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a reference I should hit you for,” she told him. The two of them kept walking, side by side, and York felt himself relax in her presence. Tex would hate for him to ever tell her that, but she was a comforting person to be around, in her own way.
“Probably. Remind me to get Lopez to cue up some of those old earth shows when we get back. I bet you’ll like it.”
“We’ll see,” Tex said. There was a pause, before she added a quiet, “Sorry I broke your helmet.”
“Eh,” York tapped his fist against the cracked surface of his visor. “I’ll get a new one soon, probably.” He nudged her. “It’s fine. Much better than the last time you cracked my visor, right?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Look I’m just saying, you could have taken my other eye, and you didn’t, so I’m grateful.”
Tex looked like she was considering saying something else, so York drew to a halt. “Look. Tex. It’s fine. No harm done.”
There was a long pause, but then Tex shook her head at him. “Grif’s right, isn’t he?”
“About what? I understand Grif to be right about most things.”
“You really are a masochist.”
York laughed. “Tex, we’ve been friends for how long?”
Tex paused, taking his question seriously. “Not sure.”
York wasn’t sure either; he’d be hard pressed to find a hard starting point; a single moment when he’d looked at Tex and thought of her as a friend. They hadn’t started there, sure. But they’d made it. And now, York honestly wasn’t sure if he could imagine his life without his prickly, awkward, brilliant best friend.
“Years!” York said. “Years, and you’ve only just figured that part out?”
Tex shoved him lightly. “You’re a pain in my ass, York.”
“And you wouldn’t have it any other way,” York said, nudging her back, harder this time.
Tex sighed. “I need to find Church. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye,” York said absently, before starting to continue his exploration of the ship.
He hadn’t been on his own for more than five minutes when he felt the ship shudder and the lights began to flash.
“Okay,” he told Delta. “This time, I swear it’s not our fault.”
<I believe that can be assumed, York.>
Tucker loved that he was getting used to this; waking up between the two of them. He could feel Wash’s heartbeat under his fingertips, and Kai’s hands were wrapped tightly around his waist, keeping him pressed up against the soft curves of her body.
No matter how many times it happened, it was still incredible. The bunk the three of them were sharing was small so that Kai was pressed against the wall and Wash was sometimes on the verge of nearly falling off the bed, but they made it work. And they’d be back to Valhalla soon enough; and Tucker’s head was filled with plans for how to renovate the room they all shared, so they’d have enough room. Not too much room though; Wash slept best when they were all close. No need to mess with a formula that worked.
“Morning,” Wash muttered sleepily.
“Mmm,” was Kai’s contribution. Both of them laughed slightly at that. Wash rolled onto his other side so he could press his forehead against Tucker’s.
“Almost home,” Wash said softly, pressing his lips all-to-briefly against Tucker’s.
“We’re war heroes now,” Tucker grinned, propping himself up as best he could manage without knocking Kai off. “That mean we don’t have to do leg day?”
Wash laughed, and Tucker grinned, savoring the sound, still all-too-rare. “Nope.”
Tucker pouted, but Wash paid no attention to that, instead just brushing Tucker’s hair out of his face, smiling dopily. If Tucker occasionally struggled to believe his luck, Wash almost never believed it. Weeks later and he was still like this, savoring every single touch, every moment, as if he believed it would be snatched away in an instant.
Kai sighed, finally sitting up to wipe at her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Late,” Wash smiled.
“Your-late or my-late?” Kai groused, but she leaned up to peck at Tucker’s cheek. Tucker turned and kissed her properly, tugging her into his lap so that she’d be able to kiss Wash as well once they were done. Sure enough, the second Kai pulled away she reeled Wash in by the straps of the tank top he’d worn to bed, and Tucker laughed as Wash somehow managed to be surprised.
“Come on,” Tucker said, once the two of them were done, because Kai was starting to get that look in her eye that meant “morning sex”, which, although Tucker would normally be all for, he was starving and needed food first. “Let’s go get food.”
“Mmm,” Kai was still eying Wash like she was planning on eating him, so Tucker had to change tactics.
“And coffee?” He added innocently, and there, he had both of their attentions. Their joint addiction to coffee was freaking hilarious.
“Fine,” Kai grumbled, moving off his lap to search for her bra. “But you’re boring.”
“We could always bring the food back—”
“You are not putting maple syrup on my abs,” Wash said blandly, having heard this pitch at least three times by now. “Put on your armor,” he told them. “You know regulations.”
Kai and Tucker both sighed, but grabbed their armor—apparently ships had strict rules about that, due to risks of decompression. They were just starting to head towards the mess hall when the lights started to flash and sirens started to shriek, worse than Donut when Sarge declared a Red Panic.
“I know my ping pong ball trick can move the earth,” Kai yelled, “but this is a seriously delayed reaction!”
“Wait. What?” Wash yelled.
“Well that went fucking horribly,” Epsilon said, hovering over her shoulder.
“Could have been worse,” Carolina said, staring after York. He was different now, so, so different, and she didn’t know how to handle that. She suspected he was the same about her. There was a… heaviness to him she’d never seen before.
There had been a time when being by his side had felt natural, felt normal. They’d fought back-to-back, bantering back and forth, a rare bright spot in the midst of everything else in the world.
But that was gone now. They’d both done their parts to scuttle it, ripping themselves apart just as surely as the Director had. Him by leaving, her by staying away. Carolina was never felt more keenly aware of how long it had actually been since Freelancer had fallen apart than when she looked at York and saw how much he’d changed.
Epsilon nudged her thoughts, trying to pull her out of her gloom, but she ignored him, getting to her feet and moving further down the hallway. It was odd, having another AI in her mind after Eta and Iota. Epsilon was different than them; his presence was steadier, fuller than the other two, who had been buzzing, infrequent, whispering in tandem or in contradictions, sometimes overwhelming her, other times helping her to hit new heights she’d never have been able to hit. It was odd; Epsilon was the last of the fragments, by all rights he shouldn’t be so real, so full, but he managed.
She let her eyes flicker to the side, irritated as she realized he’d succeeded in distracting her. He sent a vague wave of amusement at her, his avatar vanished from view as they moved into the general population of the ship.
<Why’s he so obsessed with being a good guy?> Epsilon demanded. He’d been waiting to ask for a while, she thought, amused. <It’s… really freaking weird.>
Carolina raised one shoulder in a shrug. “He’s always been that way.” Epsilon nudged her mind, asking for permission, and she did the mental equivalent of pushing open a door, letting him explore her memories of “before”. He sorted through them efficiently like he always did, processing things too quickly for her to even notice.
<Still weird,> Epsilon declared when he finished. <You don’t obsess with that stuff.> There was a long pause. <Do you?>
And what a reminder that was, how fresh this partnership was. There was still so much to learn about each other. Had it really only been a few weeks? Carolina drew to a halt, staring out the window as she tried to formulate her thoughts. She frowned, noticing they were drawing close to a planet, but it didn’t look like their destination. “After what I did? What we did?” Carolina shook her head. “Epsilon, I’m not sure if we can ever get all the way back to good. But, I think that we have a chance to do better. And if we wake up everyday and try to make things better, eventually, we might find that better is good enough.”
Epsilon appeared by her side, hovering just over her shoulder, and something stirred inside Carolina that told her that it was right.
“Good enough, huh?” Epsilon mused. “Guess that sounds alright.”
Carolina smiled.
“That was a good little speech there,” he said. “What, did you rehearse it?”
Carolina waved a hand through his projection, a small laugh building in her throat. He snickered, jumping to her other shoulder.
“Look, I’m just saying, I’m pretty sure these things run in the family,” he said, and Carolina felt as if a bolt of electricity had jolted right through her, because…
Carolina threw her hand out wide as the ship suddenly gave a lurch, nearly throwing her off balance. “Epsilon! What’s happening?”
“I—Cee!” Epsilon reappeared in front of her face. “We’ve got to find the guys! The ships crashing!”
Carolina took off at a run, Epsilon throwing the speed boost into full gear, leaving the question of family behind for another day.
The sight of ships crashing was unfortunately common on Chorus, these days. Whatever weapon it was that the Federal Army was using to bring them down was effective. It was incredibly unusual that Kimball would even notice it, but she was outside that day, working with a group of more promising cadets when she saw it.
It wasn’t like most crashes; they happened far away from the Rebel base, far enough away that Kimball wouldn’t know they happened until Felix came back with a few containers of supplies and another grim report of no survivors.
But this time there was a nova in the sky; and Kimball saw everyone’s attention go up as pieces began to fall. Ragged parts of a ship; a big one too.
“Shit,” she breathed.
“That’s new!” Felix said, also staring. “Think the Feds have a new toy?”
Kimball shivered at the idea of them having something that could do that. “God, I hope not,” she said softly. A large piece, still smoking landed nearby. Kimball moved forward to examine it, wondering if she’d be able to tell what had caused the explosion. She kneeled down to examine it, finding nothing particularly distinct, but then again, she didn’t know much about ships. “Do you have time to take a squad and find the crash site?” She asked, glancing up at Felix, who was still standing, helmet turned towards the sky.
“No problem Kimball,” he said lightly. “I’m sure I’ll be back soon. I’ll let you know if I find anything useful!”
Kimball nodded, and ordered her people to gather the fallen pieces. No need to waste perfectly good scrap metal.
She looked at the sky again, and pushed away any thoughts of survivors. There wouldn’t be any. Not from a crash like that.