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riversofmars · 3 years

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Hi all! So sorry this update took a while, I got side-tracked with the RiverDoctorPromptWeek which was a lot of fun :D But now that that's over, back to business! Hope you like this next chapter! <3

Chapter 13: Into the Lion’s Den

Torchwood Two Hub, 2021

“I did not expect that to be down here,“ Jenny observed, sounding thoroughly impressed as they followed the Doctor into the Torchwood Two hub.

“Looks can be deceiving,“ Vastra mused but she was surprised as well. Humanity really had improved on their defences since the time they lived in.

“Thank you for coming, Doctor,“ Kate greeted them, her expression one of relief. She felt better already for having them here. She looked the Doctor up and down, her new body would take a bit of getting used to but her identity was still unmistakable.

“That’s… the Doctor?“ Gwen raised her eyebrows, mumbling to Martha who was just as surprised.

“I’m sorry to be pulling you away from whatever you’ve got going on…“ Kate hadn’t expected the Doctor to arrive with as big an entourage as she had. She eyed the Doctor’s numerous companions with interest and, in the Master’s case, concern.

“I actually think both our problems might be connected.“ The Doctor didn’t stop to chat, she carried on along the corridor to where she presumed the main working area was.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a cell, would you?“ Vastra asked, giving Kovarian a little shove to walk along.

“Who is she?“ Kate asked with a frown.

“Long story but locking her up would be most helpful,“ the Doctor retorted.

“I’ll see to that,“ Gwen volunteered. They were set up for all eventualities in the hub.

“These are my friends Vastra, Jenny and Strax.“ The Doctor made their introductions as they reached the main area.

“And this…“ Kate had read the files on what had happened with Daniel Barton. It couldn’t possibly be…

“Oh don’t mind me…“ The Master looked around the room, hands in his pockets managing to somehow look bored, and yet scan his surroundings with interest. It was disconcerting.

“Doctor is this a good idea?“ Kate reached for the Doctor’s arm and stopped her in her tracks.

“I told you, I was busy too, there is a lot going on…“ The Doctor replied, watching, as the two Osgoods regarded the Master with surprise and distrust. The last time they had encountered the Master hadn’t ended well. She chose to disregard it for the moment, there were far greater concerns. “You said there were disappearances and potentially experiments going on? Any idea where I can find whoever is behind this?“

“We lost contact with Ryan, Graham and Jack when they were following a lead to an address that seemed to be connected to this project.“ One of the Osgoods spoke up, trying her best to ignore the Master who seemed to be intent on freaking them out as much as possible. He maintained a predatory smirk and mumbled threats. The Doctor hated his sense of humour.

“Daniel Barton is providing funds, that’s about all we know. The address was planted as a trap, we should have realised that,“ Kate continued ruefully.

“We had but they wanted to investigate regardless,“ Martha interjected. It wasn’t that they hadn’t realised that it was a trap, they had just decided to take the risk and it hadn’t paid off.

“Daniel Barton, eh?“ The Doctor regarded the Master with a frown.

“I don’t know what you’re looking at me for,“ the Master snapped, taking her meaning.

“Well, it’s quite the coincidence, isn’t it,“ the Doctor shot back sarcastically.

“Well, who knows maybe it was the Thirteen all along that’s been playing you and been working with the Kassavin.“ The Master rolled his eyes at her.

“Very funny.“

“Just saying, maybe I have been a good boy all along,“ he carried on mockingly.

“Shut up,“ the Doctor groaned, annoyed. She felt herself being pulled back and forth between wanting to trust him and remembering that experience had taught her not. The Master had been a genuine help at Demon’s Run - in his own destructive way, but a help nonetheless. But for whatever reason, the coincidences just kept happening, stacking the deck against him. It was beginning to look purposeful.

“So what is he doing here?“ Martha asked with distaste, recalling her own unpleasant experiences with the renegade Time Lord.

“I found him,“ the Doctor answered vaguely.

“Is he connected to this somehow?“ Kate asked, wondering if it might not be advisable to put him in a cell as well.

“Don’t know yet,“ the Doctor replied thoughtfully and the Master groaned, exasperated.

“Doctor, for the last time, I was sitting on Gallifrey while all this happened…“

“Then why does he have your face?!“ She snapped and he just stared her down, holding her intense, questioning gaze.

“I’m not following…“ Martha shook her head to herself.

“Nothing for your weak little ape brains to worry about!“ The Master exclaimed with surprising rage.

“Get it together,“ the Doctor snarled, her voice threatening as she stepped up to him.

“Stop goading me. I don’t know anything about it.“ The Master didn’t move back, if anything, he stepped even close, his eyes twinkling with madness, his darker instincts seemed to be struggling for control and he was just about holding them at bay.

“Perhaps if you could tell us what you have been doing… you said you thought there was a connection?“ Kate interjected, hoping to calm the situation.

“We have to find where their hideout is.“ The Doctor turned away from the Master, abruptly changing her priorities. She made her way over to the Osgoods at their workstations. “What sort of scanning equipment have you got here?“

“State of the art and then some but what are you looking for?“ One of them asked, relieved to be back in an area they felt comfortable with.

“Time Lord life signs. Scan for people with two hearts. If we connect the hub to my TARDIS, we should be able to do it,“ the Doctor explained, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she considered the logistics.

“You believe other Time Lords are behind this?“ Kate asked, surprised.

“If things are connected then yes, for sure. One particular Time Lord, that is.“ The Doctor nodded. “Chances are the Thirteen will be wherever they’re keeping Ryan, Graham and Jack. And my son.“

“Your son?“ Martha was the first to echo in disbelief while the other UNIT members just stared at the Doctor in shock.

“He was kidnapped, we have been chasing after his kidnappers ever since,“ Vastra interjected sensing that the Doctor’s mind was already on other, more practical matters as she leaned over the computer screens.

“Doctor I’m so sorry, I had no idea…“ Kate started saying but the Doctor wasn’t paying attention.

“He’s bound to have a Time Lord life sign too… between River and me…“ She explained to the Osgoods and took one of their keyboards off them to start typing.

“Right, okay, let’s get to work,“ Martha interrupted the stunned silence, calling them all to action.

——

Unknown location

“Tempting offer, mate, but I don’t think you can just turn people immortal,“ Ryan replied, looking around the room.

“Talking of immortal people, where is Jack?“ Graham asked, noticing his absence.

“Oh, he will be quite useful. He may not have the kind of immortality we are looking for but he might be just what we need to differentiate the genes,“ the blonde man answered graciously.

“Is that what your experiments are about? Making people immortal? You’re not doing a very good job, are you, if you’re killing them,“ Ryan snapped, pulling against restraints that had been fixed to their wrists. They had to find a way of getting out of here and get help, else they would be next in a long line of dead bodies.

“Every attempt takes us closer and we’re confident, we’re almost there now. You could be our first successes,“ the man carried on with charismatic confidence. He seemed awfully convinced of what he was promising.

“If you’re so sure about that, why don’t you try it out on yourself?“ Graham shot back, trying to get out of his restraints as well but to no avail.

“No need, I already have that ability, it’s your species I’m concerned with,“ the man answered and Ryan and Graham exchanged confused glances.

“What?“

Before they could ask any more questions, the door opened at the far side of the room.

“Padrac! There you are!“ A familiar voice barked.

“What…“ Ryan and Graham couldn’t believe their eyes as they watched the Master strolling into the room.

“Impossible.“ Graham shook his head. “She said you’d died on Gallifrey!“

“Did she now?“ The Master barely regarded them with a glance but it seemed to have picked the other man’s interest, who appeared to be called Padrac.

“You know of Gallifrey?“ He raised his eyebrows, surprised. He clearly hadn’t realised who they were.

“’Course we bloody do!“ Ryan snapped but focused his attention back on the Master: “We stopped you once and we will do it again. Just you wait, the Doctor will be on her way, once she realises this has been you all along.“

“The Doctor, ey?“ Padrac smiled, intrigued.

“I very much doubt that, you see, she’s pretty busy right now,“ the Master retorted. “You are the last thing she’s concerned with.“ Then he grabbed the other man by the arm. “Padrac, we need to talk.“

——

Luna University, 52nd Century

“Wow,“ Yaz breathed, looking out of the window as they made their descent to the moon’s surface. The university campus was quite a sight from above. Large domes were keeping the emptiness of space at bay and provided pleasant living conditions for the people below. They docked to what appeared to be a space port, for lack of a better word. It was a tall structure that stuck out between the domes and provided passage into the area below.

“What time period are you from?“ River asked, watching the fascination play on her young face.

“2020,“ Yaz answered absentmindedly as she moved away from the window.

“Ah, a little way off then, Luna University is the hub of academia in my time.“ River gave her a kind smile as she picked up Dorium who scolded her for tipping his box a bit too much. River chose to ignore his protest as they left the shuttle.

“What is your time?“ Yaz asked as they found their way to an elevator that would take them down to the surface.

“That’s a question and a half…“ River chuckled. “My parents were from your time, 2010 or something there about… and I lived there for a while… until the Doctor whisked me away and stranded me here, 52nd century… I guess I consider it my time, that’s where I spent most of my linear life… and it’s where I died. A time traveller doesn’t really have a home but Luna University is as close as it gets for me,“ she explained as they rode the elevator to the surface.

“It’s where you live when you don’t jump through time?“ Yaz understood what she meant. The elevator opened and they stepped out into the foyer of a large building of massive stone and impressive architecture. It reminded Yaz of a class trip they had taken to Oxford once where they had passed by the university. This appeared to be the Oxbridge of the future and it was very impressive.

“I teach here, too,“ River revealed with a smile. “This way.“

“Archeology, wasn’t it?“ Yaz asked as she looked around the entrance area, signs and arrows on the floor indicating which way each department was situated. “Isn’t that cheating when you can visit any time period?“ She realised she was falling behind a little bit, getting distracted by the sheer impressiveness of it all. She quickly caught up to River again.

“I certainly am the most hands-on archeologist out there,“ River chuckled. “Admittedly, not everyone is a big fan of that… but I don’t usually mention the time travel bit. Here we go…“ She grimaced a little, then put on her best smile as a middle aged man hurried to meet them. Quickly, she closed the door on Dorium’s box so as not to draw attention. A muffled protest came from the box but River gave him a little shake to be quiet.

“Ehh… Professor Song?“ The man greeted her, stammering, utterly surprised to see her by the looks of it. He was rather short and unimpressive looking, his suit was ill-fitting and there was a stain on his tie.

“If I have missed any classes, I’m very sorry, my last expedition ran over,“ River explained.

“Ran over? We received word from the Lux Cooperation that you died during the expedition,“ the man replied, utterly stunned upon seeing her. It was understandable given the circumstances.

“As always, accounts of my death have been vastly exaggerated.“ River gave a brilliant smile and a crystal clear laugh, hoping to put the matter to bed, just like that. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to my quarters…“ She didn’t want to waste time on idle chit chat.

“Well…“ The man went slightly pale around the nose and uncomfortably tugged at his collar to loosen it a little.

“Where are my things?“ River frowned.

“Storage. We tried to reach out for your family but when thirteen different people turned up claiming to be your spouses we decided it best to keep your affects sealed for the time being…“ He answered awkwardly.

“What can I say, I’ve had a good life, didn’t expect them all to come back and haunt me after my alleged death,“ River sighed, though oddly touched that the Doctor would go to such lengths.

“Quite.“ The man cleared his throat. “I’m just gonna need some identification, bio-scan or… just to prove you are who you say you are, you understand… doesn’t happen every day someone returns from the dead…“

“Here, hold Dorium.“ River handed Yaz the box. Dorium complained loudly and the university clerk jumped away from them in shock at the talking box. “Lead the way,“ River sighed at him exasperatedly. “There better not be anything missing!“

——

Torchwood Two Hub, 2021

“Here we go, that should do it.“ The Doctor had finished linking the Torchwood computers to the TARDIS and transferred Time Lord biodata prints across for reference, now it was just a matter of time.

“Scanning now…“ One of the Osgoods announced.

“Two here, that’s the Master and me…“ The Doctor smiled enthusiastically when the first results came in. It was working.

“I still can’t believe you brought him here,“ Martha huffed.

“As it happens, I have been very helpful through this process,“ the Master shot back.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,“ Mickey backed up his wife.

“It might be easier if you start scanning where you lost track of your friends?“ The Master ignored their quips. “Idiots.“

“Doctor, does he really have to be here?“ Kate asked softly, stepping closer to the Doctor. “No-one seems comfortable with having him around.“

“Well, I don’t like being here, and I don’t like playing nice, I would quite happily murder each and every one of you but we can’t all have what we want, can we?“ the Master bellowed, losing his temper at last.

“Master!“ The Doctor snapped, her eyes shooting up to him. They had been toeing a fine line and it was becoming increasingly hard to justify his presence to the others.

“Sorry. Sometimes my emotions run away with me,“ the Master took a deep breath and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Doctor!“ The Osgoods chanted in unison and the Doctor returned her attention to the computer screens.

“There we are!“ She exclaimed excitedly. Finally they were getting somewhere! “But… that’s not possible…“ She frowned, leaning in closer, doubting the findings and her ability to interpret them in equal measures.

“What is it?“ Vastra asked, concerned.

“There are three Time Lord life signs there…“ The Doctor revealed after a moment’s consideration. “Even if the Thirteen really came here and that is where they’re keeping my son, there should only be two…“

“They must have succeeded,“ the Master announced. “With their experiments.“ He laughed and shook his head: “Making more Time Lords, just after I thought I’d wiped them all out… that’s what you think they’re doing, right?“ He looked to the Doctor.

“We have to go now,“ she said, straightening herself up. They had no time to lose. They had no idea what exactly was going on in that place but it was entirely possible that the Master was right.

“I hope you’re not expecting to go alone,“ Kate spoke up and the Doctor looked around, finding everyone getting to their feet, determined faces looking back at her.

“No, I’m not. I’m quite happy to bring down the full force of Torchwood and Unit down on them… whatever it takes to get my son back and stop them,“ the Doctor smiled with vengeful fury behind her calm facade.

——

Luna University 52nd Century

“I can take it from here, thanks.“ River took the key card from the university clerk that had insisted on walking them to the storage area personally. He also insisted on asking the most impertinent questions about what had actually happened to her during the expedition and why she was only returning now. By the time they reached the storage locker, River had had enough.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to…“ The clerk started but River interrupted curtly:

“Quite.“ He handed over the key card and when River made no attempt to open the room in his presence, he finally got the message and departed.

“How long have you been dead for?“ Yaz asked as the archeologist unlocked the door at last.

“I’m not quite sure… but it is getting dusty in here, isn’t it,“ River commented as they stepped inside the room and flicked the lights on. They were garish and bright, almost clinical and all of River’s personal effects, her furniture, her books, her life - for all intents and purposes - looked incredibly lifeless, as if they were entering a morgue.

“What exactly are we looking for?“ Dorium asked, as River opened up his box and set him down on a sideboard.

“Well for a start, this,“ River replied when she opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a blaster gun. It appeared out of charge as she checked it over but that was easily remedied.

“Is the Doctor happy about you carrying a gun?“ Yaz raised her eyebrows, remembering many passionate speeches about how terrible guns were.

“Never but they’ve given up arguing,“ River answered with a smirk and attached the gun to her belt.

“Is that ‘cause they always lose the argument?“ Yaz chuckled. Her eyes fell on a box on the desk, full of picture frames that had probably once decorated said desk in the professor’s office. She picked up a picture of River and a tall, white-haired man. They were standing on a balcony, a beautiful sunset stretching across the sky behind them and two large towers of stone in the distance. Yaz turned the picture over, there was a note on the back that read “The Singing Towers, Darillium. “She said she used to be a white haired scotsman…“ Yaz mused as she turned the picture back around and smiled. It was a beautiful picture for sure but what was even more remarkable was the expression on the Doctor’s face. So full of joy and adoration. While River was looking at the camera and smiling, he was looking at her, as if the rest of the universe ceased to exist.

“Yaz?“ River drew her attention.

“Yeah?“ Yaz looked up, blushing a little, quickly she put the picture frame back where she found it, embarrassed. She probably should have asked before looking at her personal effects.

“Can I trust you?“ River asked, searching her expression for a truthful answer.

“Of course, why do you even have to ask that?“ Yaz was genuinely surprised.

“I don’t know you. Vastra, Jenny, Strax, Dorium even… I have history with them, you’re… new,“ River explained and it was obvious that she wasn’t trying to be unkind or distrusting, she simply had to ask before they got any further. “And for what we’re about to do, I need to know I can trust you, completely.“

“Of course. The Doctor is one of my best friends and to think what you’ve been through, both of you… whatever you need, River. I mean it.“ Yaz nodded, her assurances genuine and determined. After everything that had happened to the Doctor, Yaz wanted nothing more than to make sure she got her family back and found some happiness at last. It was long overdue.

“Good. I thought so.“ River smiled and waved her along.

“What exactly are we going to do?“ Yaz asked and picked up Dorium’s box as they carried on further into the room.

“We’re gonna be the cavalry,“ River revealed, she seemed to know exactly what she was looking for.

“And how do you intend to do that?“ Yaz frowned, stopping as River did too, in front of a large cupboard.

“Here we go!“ River announced, full of enthusiasm.

“An old cabinet?“ Yaz asked, confused. It was pretty, solid oak and classical craftsmanship but she couldn’t see how it would help them in their quest.

“I would have thought by now you would check every cupboard for extra dimensions,“ River chuckled as she opened the door.

“It’s a TARDIS?“ Yaz exclaimed as it opened up into a vast room in its own right, fully furnished with computer screens and a control console.

“Let’s go and see what that wife of mine is up to. I imagine there might be trouble as she hasn’t been around to pick us up yet.“ River grinned.

——

The TARDIS

“Are you sure it’s such a good idea to just fly in there?“ Kate attempted to be the voice of reason as they piled into the TARDIS.

“I’m done messing around,“ the Doctor retorted as she started working the controls.

“Just like back in the old days…“ Martha hummed looking around the control room. The Osgoods had agreed to stay behind and provide intel as needed. Everyone else was crowded into the control room.

“Everybody ready?“ The Doctor cut through the chatter. She was tense, it felt like they were finally getting somewhere and she was eager to get going.

“Ready when you are,“ Kate confirmed and there were nods all round. Without further ado, the Doctor launched the TARDIS. Their journey only lasted a few seconds as suddenly, they were knocked forwards, almost as if they had crashed into something. The TARDIS was shaking, instead of grinding to a halt as they had expected, it felt more like they were spiralling.

“Not as easy as all that, is it?“ The Master called over the racket with amusement.

“They’re using some kind of force field, I bounced right off it,“ the Doctor explained, ignoring the Master’s quip.

“If these are Time Lords we’re dealing with, I’m not surprised they prepared for that eventuality,“ Vastra pointed out, just as the Doctor managed to stabilise them.

“Let me try,“ the Master stepped up to the console, pushing her away.

“Don’t be stupid,“ she snapped, giving him a shove in turn but he ignored her, focusing on the controls.

“I’m not being stupid, in fact, I’m being extremely clever, now move,“ he snarled and after a moment’s consideration, the Doctor gave him room.

“Doctor, is this a good idea,“ Vastra mumbled to the Doctor who was watching him work. Before she could reply, the TARDIS ground to a halt.

“We’re in,“ the Doctor realised, surprised. She started laughing with relief. “How did you do that?“ She had watched closely but she couldn’t quite explain what he had done but she didn’t care, he had succeeded. She reached out to touch the controls, scan their surroundings when suddenly, the power started draining. The TARDIS wheezed and whined, almost as if she was in pain. The yellow crystal pillars started dimming, the lights were going out.

“Doctor, what’s happening?“ Kate asked, trying to remain calm as concerned mumbled erupted amongst the companions.

“I… don’t know!“ The Doctor’s fingers flew over the controls, trying to work out what was going on, trying to hold on to her oldest friend but the screens flickered off, the buttons stopped responding and the humming died down. “She’s shutting down!“ She exclaimed, in near panic. They had just landed in enemy territory and the TARDIS stopped working. Why was this happening?

“Oops… we’ll isn’t that unfortunate…“ The Master chuckled and utter silence fell around them, all eyes on him. Before anyone could say as much as “Told you so“, the silence was interrupted by a loud transmission:

“How nice of you to join us, Doctor, raise your hands everyone as you exit the vehicle in an orderly fashion.“

“Padrac?“ The Doctor mumbled, recognising the voice instantly, she was stunned. How was he here? What did he have to do with this? Maybe the Thirteen wasn’t working alone after all… Working with Padrac and probably even working with the person that had led them into this trap. The Doctor looked to the Master who grinned. Despite her better judgement, despite the many lessons she should have learned over millennia… she couldn’t believe she had fallen for it again. He started laughing now, clapping his hands together, enjoying his moment of triumph as silence fell in the lifeless TARDIS.

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regenderate-fic · 2 years

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Angel in Yaz's Head? Oh You Know????? Hello can I get something about one or both I'm 👀👀👀 (pretend these are the blurry ones from the server to truly convey my reaction)

OKAY YESSSS

angel in yaz's head was someone's idea in the dw creators server, i don't remember who. it was immediately after the flux episode where thirteen turns into an angel (so we didn't know what would happen yet) and the prompt was for yaz to get the doctor-as-angel "stuck in her eye" so the doctor would be like. kind of in her head the whole time she was in the 1900's. but i started writing it and then lost my flux excitement energy (don't remember why. but i can only sustain excitement for so long before i get tired) so i never finished or posted it. this is the entirety of what i wrote:

“No!” Yaz lunges forward, barely aware of Dan clamping his arms around her, holding her back. All her focus is on the Doctor, whose boots have turned gray, who’s now staring at hands of stone. She struggles, but Dan’s grip is strong: later, she’ll be grateful that Dan saved her life, but right now all she can think about is getting to the Doctor. The Doctor, who is currently turning to stone, and there’s nothing Yaz can do but watch. The stone is creeping up the Doctor’s body, and the Doctor looks terrified. She looks behind her as wings spring from her back, and then— just before her hands turn gray— she looks Yaz in the eye. Yaz blinks. The Doctor’s face is stone, her hands moving slowly towards her face. But when Yaz closes her eyes, she sees the Doctor in vibrant color, her blonde hair and blue shirt, even the rainbows on the edge of her coat.

"oh you know" is my 90 day fiance au which is like. where i have created a very convoluted chain of events so that i can have thirteen and rose be on the american reality tv show 90 day fiance, which is about people bringing their foreign fiances to the united states on a visa that requires them to get married within 90 days of the foreign fiance's arrival. this is of course the absolute perfect reality show concept that the us government has handed the learning channel on a silver platter.

you will notice that all of the characters in doctor who are british, and this may seem like a stumbling block. i promise you i have not made any of them american. INSTEAD, i have come up with a scheme by which rose, jack, and thirteen have gotten stuck on earth and the tardis is, for some reason, in the united states, and they need to be in the country long-term to look for it. jack, already being a us citizen, has green card married rose, brought her to the country, helped her get her citizenship, and then they've gotten divorced so that rose can in turn green card marry thirteen. (yes this would take years. they're all immortal, i think they can handle it. also this fic is NOT about the logistics of us immigration law. this is just an elaborate setup. if you poke any holes in it it'll all fall apart but that's okay.) the relationship between rose and jack is platonic the whole way through, thirteen and rose are of course madly in love.

the fic itself is told through transcripts of the show and gossipy articles etc about it during which fans of the show slowly realize something is very very wrong with these people. mostly it's just an excuse to be ridiculous with the three of them.

here are some excerpts:

rose trying to lie about being normal regular people

ROSE (cont.): Penelope and I actually met for the first time before I left England. It’s kind of a weird story, actually. I worked at this shop, and she kind of saved me during a bomb threat. And then we ran into each other again in the aftermath, and I don’t know. We became friends from there, I guess, and then a couple years ago we reconnected while I was visiting my mum. And now here we are! Cut back to the auto shop, where Rose is walking out from underneath the car. ROSE: I need a break. Jack, you want anything from the coffee shop?

rose doing drag for literally no reason

ROSE: Jack is really big in the drag scene around here. His drag name is the Lady Cassandra. It’s sort of an inside joke. She’s right out of a Victorian novel. I usually go to his events to support, but he’s been trying to get me to perform for months now, and I finally gave in. Show’s tonight. I’d be lying if I said I weren’t nervous. Cut to Jack pulling Rose through the door of a dimly lit bar. Inside, a small stage is set up at one side of the room. They walk through the bar into a brightly lit back room, in which other performers are preparing. Jack as the Lady Cassandra is wearing elaborate drag makeup and a long dark wig under the hood of a floor-length fur-coat. Rose as the Big Bad Wolf has a contoured face and hair hidden under a shaggy black wig. They take a table in the corner of the room and begin to touch up their makeup.

the doctor's introduction ("penny" is my personal name for the doctor in human mode)

PENNY: Rose! Hi! How are you? ROSE: Penny, you should be asleep! PENNY: Couldn’t sleep, but I installed a color-changing light on my toaster. Anyway, don’t you have that thing tonight?

news article speculating about what the fuck rose is on about

What Now-Demolished Department Store Did Rose from 90 Day Fiance Work at When She Met Her Girlfriend? That's right! 90 Day Fiance is back on our televisions, which means we can all sit back, relax, and watch while couples make the biggest mistakes of their lives. But we've already covered most of the juicy details. There's just one more mystery we're dying to solve. One of the couples, Rose and Penelope, says that they met when Penelope saved Rose from a bomb threat at work. Sound far-fetched? That's what we thought. Until we did some research. Turns out, Henrik’s department store in London did go up in flames back in 2005— but neither Rose nor Penelope are mentioned in coverage of the event. All that’s mentioned in the news is one death and a mysterious man in a leather jacket, running away from the scene.

and a joyous reunion

Penelope has just come off the elevator, pulling her suitcase behind her, and we see her looking for Rose. Rose jumps up and down, waving her arms in the air. ROSE: Penny! Over here! The baggage claim is crowded, but Rose is making a bit of a spectacle, and it doesn’t take long for Penny to spot her. The minute she does, she drops her suitcase and runs for Rose. Rose, laughing, runs to her, sweeping her up in a hug. They hold each other for a long time, swaying in the airport. Jack watches for a second, then rolls his eyes and goes to retrieve Penny’s suitcase.

i also have rose say she's "into historical fashion" to explain why half her pictures with the doctor have her in period clothing <3 basically this fic exists just to be very very silly. someday i'll have enough of it written to publish

#my wips #ask game #meta #not fic

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unwillingadventurer · 3 years

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Wrote a little Graham and Ian fic set after the most recent Doctor Who episode. Although you can read this independently, we did write a few other Graham and Ian meeting up stories:

The Waiting Room

Memory Lane

Another meet up

...

Wrapping his scarf around his neck and looking in the mirror, Graham O’Brien took a deep breath and glanced at himself, keeping straight and proud, more confident in himself than in recent times. From the corner of his eye, he swore he just saw a glimpse of her—his Grace—ever so slightly faded. But she was there and she was smiling. He couldn’t help but smile back.

Looking in his own bedroom mirror, Ian Chesterton sighed as he glanced at his own lined face and then at the empty bed behind. It’d been years now and each morning brought the same feeling of loss. For a moment he could imagine she was in the kitchen, cooking him bacon and eggs whilst doing the crossword. Then, for the briefest of moments, he saw her—his Barbara—ever so slightly hazy, standing by the bedside table. She was watching him as she used to. He turned to face her but she was simply a ghost-like memory.

…

“Ian, mate, how the hell are ya?” Graham said the next weekend as he stepped off the train and was greeted at the station by Ian.

“Bitterly cold isn’t it?” Ian said, removing a thick woollen glove to shake hands with Graham.

“Yeah, perhaps it was a bad idea to meet when it’s so nippy. You alright in this cold?”

“Oh, I’ve survived much colder than this.”

“With the Doctor?”

“How’d you guess?” There was a smile on Ian’s face and he fell silent for a moment. “Barbara and I were nearly shall I say… frozen to death.”

“And that makes you smile?”

“More that we survived!”

Graham chuckled. “Well come on, mate, let’s get out of this cold, get a bit of grub and a cuppa. You had breakfast?”

“Not touched a fry up since Barbara’s been gone.”

“Fancy trying it now, there’s a greasy spoon down the next street if I remember this area correctly?”

“I’d like that very much and you can tell me what’s been going on.”

…

As the waitress in the cafe placed down two plates of full English breakfast, Graham licked his lips in anticipation. “Have a butchers’ at that, me old son, cor this’ll warm your cockles.”

“There’s a lot of it,” Ian said, noting how Barbara would’ve cooked much less. “She’d be asking me to watch my cholesterol.”

“Alright for a cheeky treat though eh?” he said through a mouthful of sausage dipped in egg yolk.

Ian took a sip of his tea and waited for Graham to finish the bite. “So, you have news? When I got your call, I worried something might have happened to Ryan or the Doctor or that lovely young lady.”

“Ah no, we’re all alive and kicking, alright, you know? It’s just Ryan and I have left the TARDIS. We thought the Doc was gone for a while and then she comes back and off we go to another adventure. But when she asked us to stay, Ryan and me, well we made other plans.”

“You’d had enough?”

“Ah, I don’t know. Always the way though, glad I left and regretting it at the same time. You get like that?”

“I did at first but the desire to see home was far too strong for us. And remember back then we couldn’t get home at all. We didn’t have the choice.”

“Blimey, yeah, that is tricky. I just thought like what with you being a man who’s been in my position, that you’d know how I feel.”

Ian smiled. “First we bond over our much-missed wives and now…over leaving the adventure behind.”

“And the Doctor.”

“Him too. Of course, there’s adventure in Earth life too but adjustments are always difficult.”

“Yeah, me and Ryan figured there’s always something on Earth to fix. I’m so glad he’s here, not sure I could do it alone.”

“The person you shared it with is by your side that’s a wonderful thing. There’s not too many people who’ve experienced the highs and lows of a life with the Doctor as we have.”

“We’re privileged,” Graham said. “I can honestly say I’ve seen the best of people. My mate Yaz, the Doctor brought out the best in her. She does for all of us.”

“I know what you mean. But with the best of things, there was the worst I’ve ever experienced too.”

“Yeah, saw some terrible things that shake me to my bones.” Graham sniffed. “Look at us having a therapy session again. Wonder if all the Doc’s other travelling companions feel like this?”

“Oh, I expect so.”

“You ever met any of them, well except me?”

“Yes a few over the years, difficult to remember how and when and where. When you get to my age you lose track.”

“Get out of it, you’re a whippersnapper, well at least compared to the Doctor.”

Ian laughed.

“Anyway, if there are loads of us roaming about Earth and the universe, maybe we could sort of hook-up, you know, in the non-kinky sense and have a chin-wag about putting up with the Doc.”

“Like a sort of companion care support group?”

“Yeah, I mean, we’re not saying we need therapy or nothing and we won’t talk about our childhood traumas and all that but just have a laugh and share stories with each other. And make fun of the Doc, compare them to each other like rate-a-Doc.dot com.”

“At least you can call him Doc, we were forbidden.”

“There you go, already comparing… and she’s a she now.”

Ian grinned. “Of course, I apologise. My Doctor had his irascible moments but on the whole I’d like to leave a positive review of him.”

“Alright, no one star reviews allowed.”

They both laughed and leaned back in their chairs, memories flooding into their minds, Graham’s from the recent years and Ian’s from so long ago.

“Now, the question is, how do we find these previous mates of the Doc?”

“I have contacts and numbers if that helps.”

Graham whistled. “’Ark at you. Know people in high places do ya?”

“Oh, I knew the fellows at UNIT. The Brigadier was a wonderful man, passed away a while back now but through him we met a fair few people connected to the Doctor. And Torchwood paid us a visit when we got home in 1965 but I’m not supposed to talk about that. I also skype with Jo and her husband Cliff but they’re usually off on their travels. I knew Clara for a while but I’m not sure of her now but It’s one big family when you think about it, even though one half of us doesn’t know the other exists. It helps sometimes when I miss Barbara and feel so alone.”

Graham patted him on the shoulder and pointed at Ian’s plate. “Don’t forget your hash browns. You got to eat your grub me old mucker, we’ve got work to do. You’re stuck with me now. Us companions of the Doctor are a fam and we look out for each other.”

Ian reached across the table and placed his hand on top of Graham’s, patting it lightly.

“See and now your hands are warm.”

#fic #doctor who #classic who #graham o'brien #ian chesterton #just like writing these two <3

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sophfic27 · 3 years

Text

The Mysterious Watch (You know the one)

Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: I know what you’re thinking. The woman you’re with — yes, she is me, but no, she’s not ME. Long story short, I’ve temporarily made myself human. The woman you see has no idea she is the Doctor, and for the time being, you can’t tell her. Right now, her name is Joanna — she is a UNIT Field Operative currently investigating some aliens known as the Ralmaeth. I need you to keep an eye on me, if I’m reckless, don’t let me get myself killed. I have faith in you, Yaz. The Doctor

Pairing: Thasmin (Thirteenth Doctor x Yaz)

Notes: I have not written a Doctor Who fanfic in something like 7 years, and that was in middle school, so we do not speak of it, but I was struck with inspiration to start this. I have the rest of the fic already mostly planned out, so I'm hoping to have pretty regular updates with this. I posted this on AO3 and just now remembered I have this blog for fics so. It’s here now, too. Hope you enjoy!

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Meeting Joanna

Word Count: 1,578

Yaz sat at the little table in her family flat, scrolling absentmindedly through her phone. The Doctor had dropped her off here three days ago, and she was starting to get restless waiting to meet up with her again tomorrow as they had agreed. She blinked at her phone as it came to life, ringing, the Doctor’s name appearing on the screen as if by thinking about her she had somehow willed her to call. Or perhaps she had read her mind.

Yaz picked up a few moments after the phone started ringing and was greeted by a familiar voice on the other end. “Hi, Yaz!” said the Doctor, bright as ever. Yaz barely had the chance to say hi back before the Doctor continued, “Listen, I know we agreed on tomorrow, but I kind of need to move our meeting up a little,” she explained. There was a lot of noise in the back of the call. Yaz could hear rattling and the familiar whoosh of the TARDIS engines. The Doctor was in flight, and from the tone of her voice, it seemed like she was in a hurry.

“Uh, sure,” Yaz replied, “everything okay?”

“Oh, fine,” the other woman called back, “totally. Bit of a rush, but overall, brilliant.” She was rambling. Yaz could picture her scurrying around the console madly while on the phone. The Doctor went on, “What time is it for you?”

Yaz glanced at a nearby clock quickly, “11:30, why?”

“How does an hour sound?”

“For what?” Despite asking, she got up to get her stuff anyway, an hour wasn’t a lot of time for whatever the Doctor was about to say next.

“I need you to come meet me in an hour. I’ll…” she paused for a second, “I’ll be at a hotel. The Bronze Shroud Hotel, room 310. Meet me there.”

“At a hotel?” That was new, “why not just meet at the TARDIS like usual?”

“No time to explain, Yaz. Bronze Shroud, room 310, be there?”

Sensing she didn’t have much of a say, she agreed to meet her.

“Perfect,” the Doctor chirped, “now I have to go, I’ve got some things to… prepare. See you soon. And, Yaz…” she hesitated for a moment, and finally, “good luck.”

“Luck? With what?” but she had already hung up. Yaz looked at her phone, bewildered. She shrugged and gathered her stuff, and typed in the name of the hotel the Doctor had mentioned on her phone’s GPS.

An hour later, Yaz had parked and was making her way up to the entrance of the hotel. It was nice, about four stories high, and surrounded by nice bushes on the path. She made her way through the lobby, noting the check-in desk on her left, and the entrance to the bar and restaurant. She looked around to find an elevator and made her way over. When the doors slid open, the back of the elevator was a mirror, and Yaz found she was face to face with herself. She pressed the button for 3 and waited. The trip was short, and she was soon in front of room 310. Still a little confused, she raised her fist to knock on the wooden door.

A few moments passed, and a familiar voice came from the other side. “Who’s that?” she asked abruptly. Yaz could tell she must be just beyond the door.

She eyed the peephole with slight confusion, and called back, “it’s Yaz.” She waited for a moment, expecting the door to swing in, and the Doctor to welcome her in and explain everything.

Instead, “Y-A-Z?” the voice called back with it’s thick, northern twang.

Yaz blinked. “… Yes?”

There was another beat before the door rattled slightly, the sound of disengaging locks. Finally, it swung open to reveal… the Doctor? But she was dressed in a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and combat boots, and her hair was styled wavier than usual. And she was wearing makeup. The Doctor never did that.

She looked Yaz up and down and spoke finally, “I thought they might be initials,” she said simply.

Yaz blinked again, more confused by the second. “What?”

“Yaz. Y-A-Z. I thought they were initials,” she dug into her pocket and produced an envelope, smoothing it out slightly. “I’m Joanna. Jo to my friends. If I had any,” she said, “nice to meet you.”

Yaz stared at her, “meet?”

The Doctor — Joanna? — held the envelope out to Yaz, “I’m supposed to give this to you, apparently.” She waited expectantly for Yaz to take it.

Completely lost, Yaz reached out to take the envelope. As she took it, she noticed the Doctor was wearing a few random silver rings. Those were new. She examined the envelope. Scrawled across it were two sloppily spaced sentences. “DO NOT READ.” The words were underlined angrily. Under them, it said, “Deliver to YAZ.” With her name capitalized, it did look like they could be initials. But that didn’t answer even the least pressing of her questions.

She slid a fingernail under the lip of the envelope, but was interrupted by the Doctor saying “you gonna read that in the hallway?” Yaz looked up at her, she was stood in the doorway, arms crossed over chest, giving Yaz a sort of amused look. She moved to open the door more to let Yaz into the room. Yaz stepped in and looked around while the other woman clicked the door shut behind her and slid the locks back into place. The walls were covered in pictures, documents, and pages that seemed to have been torn out of a notebook and taped up. It was like something out of a film, the only thing it was missing was a bunch of red string. She saw there were a few open files sitting on the desk as well and a laptop pushed into the corner. The Doctor stood beside her, her arms crossed again.

Yaz glanced back at her and gestured to the wall, “what’s all this?”

The Doctor surveyed the chaos. “Our mission,” she stated. She then turned her attention back to the envelope in Yaz’s hand. “You gonna read that letter? I’ve been carrying it around for days, I want to know what it says. Although I’m not the one who’s supposed to read it. So…” she nodded to punctuate her point.

“You’ve been carrying it for days? But you only called me an hour ago?”

The Doctor stuck out her bottom lip in thought and shook her head slightly, “no, I didn’t,” she replied, “this is the first we’ve talked.”

Yaz stared at her again. Finally, she opted to just read the letter and give up asking questions. She broke the seal of the envelope as carefully as she could.

She drew the letter out and unfolded it. It held the same handwriting as the envelope.

Yaz, Don’t Read Aloud

“So?” said the Doctor, “I’m curious to know what I’ve been carrying.” “It says not to read aloud,” replied Yaz.

The Doctor looked slightly dejected, but then shrugged. “Damn. Makes sense, though. In case someone is listening.”

Yaz looked back down and continued to read.

I know what you’re thinking. The woman you’re with — yes, she is me, but no, she’s not ME. Long story short, I’ve temporarily made myself human. The woman you see has no idea she is the Doctor, and for the time being, you can’t tell her. Right now, her name is Joanna — she is a UNIT Field Operative currently investigating some aliens known as the Ralmaeth. The thing is UNIT doesn’t currently exist, their operations were suspended, but she doesn’t know that she’ll just think her mission calls for total radio silence to UNIT because the Ralmaeth might intercept any transmissions or messages.

This is where you come in, the Ralmaeth would be able to sense me coming, we’ve crossed paths before, so I’ve had to disguise myself for this, but they need to be stopped. Now in this form, I’m not as durable as usual, so I need you to keep an eye on me, if I’m reckless, don’t let me get myself killed. And don’t let me get you killed of course. She’s expecting you to be a fellow operative teamed up with her, so she’ll trust you. Ask Joanna to brief you on the mission and she’ll tell you what she knows. Help her investigate, help her stop them. When you’ve done that, I have one last task for you.

She’s carrying a fob watch. She won’t really think about it or even really notice it, but when your mission is done, I need you to have her open it. That’s how I’ll return to normal. I have faith in you, Yaz.

The Doctor

P.S. Obviously, don’t let Joanna read this. Tell her it was just a quick memo on the mission or something.

Yaz looked up at the woman in front of her. Joanna. The Doctor, but human, and unaware of the Doctor. She folded up the letter and pushed it into her jacket pocket.

Joanna raised an eyebrow. “Just a memo on the mission,” she recited the excuse from the Doctor, “can you brief me on what you know about our mission and the Ralmaeth?”

Joanna smiled, a glint shining in her eye, “Absolutely,” she replied and made her way to the wall of pictures and documents.

This was going to be interesting, Yaz thought.

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geniusgub · 4 years

Text

north//chapter eight

okay this is the reblog of this chapter because I thought I fucked up. sorry to those on the taglist who are getting tagged a second time. please enjoy and ignore my craziness!!

genre: angst, some fluff

warnings: hospitals, mentions of family death, guns, and drugs

word count: 11.1k

AMELIA

I drag myself up the stairs of my apartment, rubbing the sleepiness out of my eyes. I nearly trip off the top stair in my tired haze but I manage to catch myself on the railing before I faceplant. My bedroom is dark and is only lit by the moonlight from the open window, but I wasn't sleeping anyway. I haven't gotten a full night’s sleep since Spencer left. I won't until he gets back and we can argue about who’s hogging the covers and he can kick me in his sleep and I can lay my head on his chest.

I climb back into bed and tuck my legs under the duvet, trying my hardest to get comfortable on top of my freezing sheets. But before I can, my phone starts buzzing on the bedside table. I groan, cursing whoever is trying to call me at two in the morning. Unless it's Jenna or Frankie or Yaz and they're drunk and need a ride home, because this definitely wouldn't be the first time that happened. I reach over and pull my phone out of the charger, my blood running cold when I find Penelope’s contact. What in the world is she calling me about at two in the morning? What if it’s about Spencer? Is Spencer okay? Did he get hurt? Is Mike okay? She has never called me this late before and now that Spencer is upset while chasing a serial killer, his margin of error is so much smaller because he could let his emotions bleed into his work life.

I brace myself for the worst and squeeze my eyes shut. "Hello?"

"Oh, thank god!" Penelope exclaims and I can hear that she's out of breath. "I know it's 2 am where you are but I called you three times and you didn't answer and-"

"Penelope," I instantly shut her up. My hands are starting to shake and I feel my chest getting tight in a hauntingly familiar way. "What's wrong?"

"There," she lets out a shaky breath, "there was this crazy shootout at a diner and the unsub went nuts and Spencer was wearing his vest but-" I gasp, tears falling down my cheeks already, "he got hit in the neck. He's in surgery now and me and our unit chief just landed in Texas but I thought you'd wanna know," I let out a strangled sob, falling back against my pillows and curling up. "I'm so, so sorry, Amelia. I-I wish I didn't have to make this call. But there's one more thing I have to tell you."

"No," I whimper, covering my face with my hand, "no more, please."

"The Sheriff," my breath catches in my throat and my hand drops from my face to grasp at the bedsheets, "he was there too."

"He's okay, Penelope," I beg and plead more than I have in the last few years. "Please tell me he's okay. Please tell me he's okay. I can't- please."

"He's fine," Penelope tells me quickly. "He got shot twice but they both hit his vest. He's got some bruises but he got discharged from the hospital a couple of hours ago. I just thought you should know. I'm on my way to the hospital with our section chief to check up on Spencer."

"Wait,” my eyes widen, a waterfall of tears cascading down my cheeks, “Penelope, how do you know about Mike-"

"Rossi," Penelope admits shamefully. "After the whole weird thing when he recognized you, he made me do a background check on you and-"

"Oh my god.”

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! He's one of my higher-ups! I had to! But when you think about the positive side, me doing that background check on you allowed me to know about Mike and I could ca-"

"I-I gotta get out there, Penelope," I stumble off my bed and rush towards my closet, lugging out the first duffle bag I see and stuffing random articles of clothing inside. “I need to see Mike and-and I need to see Spencer.”

"Don't worry about a ticket. I'll get one for you. Just pack and get to the airport."

I hang up and toss my phone aside, failing at containing my tears as I hastily pack for an emergency trip to Texas. I notice a small stack of clothes folded in the corner of the room, and I remember that Spencer left some sweats here the last time he slept over. So I stuff those in my bag too and then check my phone again, finding flight information from Penelope and responding with a million thank you's. I step into converse and don’t even take the time to tie them before I rush out of my house and to the airport.

I'm sure I look like a complete mess as I drag myself through security, checking my phone every few seconds for some sort of update from Penelope. She only texts me once, telling me that Spencer is still in surgery, and that’s it. Nothing else. My cheeks are tear-stained and I occasionally burst into tears and I’m sure that everyone thinks I’m absolutely crazy. But once I get onto my red-eye, I have a row to myself where I can cry in peace.

Thankfully, the flight is short and I only have three hours to stress, but it's an excruciating three hours. I'm left to wonder if my boyfriend is going to make it off the operating table. I wonder if he's going to die not knowing that I'm in love with him. I wonder if he's going to die and his last memory of me will be my freezing cold shoulder. I'd never forgive myself if that happens. I don't think I could live if that happens.

The wheels touch down in Texas and I don’t even have the change to revel in the fact that I’m back in the place where I spent parts of my childhood. I can’t grin at the ice cream shop that I went to with my brother and I can’t feel angry when I pass by the doctor’s office that my dad dragged me to. I just hail a cab and stare down at my phone, waiting for it to light up with a notification. I tell the cab driver to take me to Mike’s station, and I’m sure he’s just another person who thinks I’m crazy for going to a police station at six in the morning. I barely choke out a thank you when I pay the driver and then go rushing out of the cab and into the station.

I recognize some of the members of the BAU standing all the way at the back of the station but I see Mike first, and I start crying again. His face lights up when he sees me he instantly pulls me into a hug, nearly lifting me off the ground. I guess nobody told him I was coming.

"Are you okay?" I squeeze him as tight as I can, not caring that my iron tight grip might be hurting him more than he was before. "Penelope- she told me what happened and, oh my god, are you okay?" I pull away and inspect his face, searching for any injuries on his face, the same way I do to Spencer when he comes home from cases.

"I'm fine, Amelia. That technical analyst got you here?" I unravel myself from his hold and nod. "I'm happy to see you, but I know you wanna see Spencer. I'll bring you to the hospital."

Mike leans down to pick up the bag that I had dropped to the floor, gesturing to the door and leading me away. "I'm sorry. You know I miss you, I just-"

"I know," he cuts me off, pulling away and grabbing my duffle bag. "Let's go," As he leads me out, I turn my head and find one of my paintings up on the wall. Mike smiles, nudging my arm, but he grabs me and pulls me out faster. "I hung it up, I always do. Gotta brag about your talent."

We get into Mike’s cruiser and he heads off to the hospital, silence falling over us. He doesn’t know what to say to me and I’m too worried that if I speak, then I’ll never be able to stop crying. I squeeze my eyes shut and let my head fall onto the window, staring at the passing sights that I know so well. But then my mind wanders back to Spencer and how he must be feeling right now. Can he feel anything? Is he still in surgery? Is he still mad at me? Does he even want me here? The last time I saw Spencer, he was snarling and hissing at me and he hasn’t texted me at all since he left for this case. I made the wrong decision. He doesn’t want me here. I shouldn’t have come.

My hands fly up to cover my face as a new wave of tears fall down my cheeks. “He’s mad at me.”

"What? Amelia, what are you talking about?”

"Me and Spencer," I hiccup, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. "I met the BAU team and Dave recognized me and I recognized him and I ran out because I didn’t want him to say anything. But I haven't told Spencer anything yet because I'm scared he'll hate me and he was so mad at me because I left so quickly and I was such a shitty person to his friends and he’s not gonna wanna see me-"

"Oh, my gosh, Amelia, breathe. Of course he'll wanna see you. He's in recovery and he's been through a lot and he's gonna need your support," Mike pulls into the hospital entrance and it's the first time since Penelope called me that I've felt any type of relief. "Come on, we're here.”

I hop out of the car and it takes everything in me to not break into a sprint to get inside the hospital as fast as possible. So I wipe my cheeks and watch Mike grab my duffle bag and carry it inside, trailing far too slowly behind him. Mike signs us into the hospital and I don't even bother to put on my visitor sticker, I just let Mike hold it as he leads me into an elevator. My heart is pounding against my chest and my hands are shaking beyond control, but I can't stop either of those things. Not until I see Spencer breathing.

The elevator jerks to a halt and the doors slide open, my senses filling with the nauseating smell of bleach. My eyes search frantically for any sign of Spencer or the team, and I’m looking for what seems like absolutely forever. But when I see Penelope stepping out of a room, I sigh of relief. It takes her just a second to spot us at the end of the hallway, raising her hand to give us a wave. She points inside the room beside her and that's all I need to breeze past Mike and sprint down the hallway and into Spencer’s room.

I've clearly just interrupted Spencer's and Alex's conversation, but no part of me cares. Spencer is laying down in the bed, his neck wrapped in gauze, his eyes half-closed as he struggles to stay awake. But his eyes widen when he sees me and he starts to try and sit up, his hands pushing against the bed. "Amelia," he breathes out, his voice hoarse, face softening and tears pooling in his eyes.

I move swiftly past Alex and to the side of the bed, leaning over to hug him as softly as I can. His arms wrap tightly around my waist and he buries his face in my neck, prompting me to squeeze his shoulders just a bit more. I hear the door to the room close and I assume Alex left to give us privacy.

"What are you doing here?" Spencer whispers with a quivering voice, hands grasping at my sweatshirt. "You- how?"

"Penelope called me," I pull away from his embrace and kneel on the tiny bed, moving as close as I can to him without tugging on any wires. He looks relatively okay, despite the gauze covering his gunshot wound. He just looks tired. Absolutely exhausted and worn down with bags under his eyes and pale skin. He looks like he does, sometimes, after he wakes up. I place my hands on his cold cheeks, brushing my thumbs against his skin. “You told me you’d always be careful, Spencer. And I told you to be safe and to come home in one piece.”

"I’m still in one piece,” Spencer’s eyebrows raise and a smile attempts to show on his face, “just now with stitches in my neck.”

I rest my forehead against Spencer’s, both our eyelids fluttering closed and relishing in this split second of peace. My heart is pounding in my chest and my emotions, yet again, just come pouring out. I’ve spent hours not knowing anything about how Spencer was doing. I didn’t know if he was out of surgery or even if he was alive. It was terrifying and it really made me come to terms with my feelings for him. I thought I was content being on my own and just having meaningless relationships with guys, but I always knew Spencer was different. I knew there was something special about him from the beginning. I quickly realized that I rely on him more than I should and that I don’t think I’d be able to live without him.

“Spence,” I whisper, my breath hitting his face and a soft sigh falls from his lips, “I love you so much.” Spencer lets out a puff of air from his nose and I start to feel his tears falling onto my hands. My eyes fly open and I lift my head, wiping away his tears. “You don’t have to say it back right now. I just had to tell you now. I was so scared on the way here.”

Spencer raises his hand and places it on top of mine, giving me a tired smile. “I do, Lia. I love you. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.” He moves his hand from mine and trails it down to my waist, trying to draw me closer. “I love you.”

I scoot just a little bit closer to him, looking down again to make sure I’m not pulling on any wires or tubes. But on my journey to finding Spencer’s eyes again, my eyes lock on the gauze wrapped around his throat and the tiny spot of red in the side of it. I reach my hand out and let my fingers dance across his jawline, locking our eyes to check for any type of indication that he is hurting from my touch. "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"No, not at all," Spencer murmurs, his eyelids fluttering under my touch and his breathing starting to slow.

"Why don't you just lay back down? It'll make me feel better," I laugh, placing my hands on his shoulders and guiding him gently back down to the pillows. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm just-" Spencer sighs, reaching for one of my hands, "I'm really tired. You don't even know what this case has been like."

I brush his hair off his forehead, earning a small smile from him. He continues to melt into my embrace, sinking further and further into this incredibly uncomfortable bed. "Yeah, I'm sure you're exhausted, sweetheart,” he hums in response, finally giving in and letting his eyes close all the way, pressing his hand into my back again to keep me close. "You should get some sleep, Spence," when I try to slip off the bed to give him some space, his hand grips onto my sweater as he tries to keep my body against his. His eyes fly open in panic and he tries to sit up again. "Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

"Don't go," he begs with teary eyes, "I-I can’t be alone. You don't know what happened before."

“Okay,” I give him a comforting smile as I move my hand to the back of his head, guiding him back down to the pillows once more. I’ve seen him after cases, a lot of which he told me were challenging and taxing. I’ve seen him shed some tears and let down his guard down on the odd occasion that his emotions were really pent up. But this is so different than those times. Right now, he’s broken and scared and looks like a kicked puppy. I hate seeing him like this. He’s usually so strong, walking with his head held high, even if he’s anxious and trying to shrink into himself. This is heartbreaking to see. "What happened?" I brush my hands over his cheeks once more, his eyes starting to flutter once more.

He breathes heavily for a moment, gulping as he nuzzles his cheek into my hand. "On the case, we figured out that there were a bunch of dirty cops working under the sheriff. And when they found out that I didn't die when I got shot, the main unsub showed up to try and shoot me. So Garcia had to get me in a wheelchair to get me outside and she pulled the fire alarm. Then the unsub paid off a nurse to try and give me medication that I'm allergic to and he had a gun and he tried to shoot me too and so Garcia had to shoot him-"

"Spencer, hey,” I stop him when he starts speaking all in one breath, “baby, breathe." He nods in the tiniest bit, scrunching up his nose and he fends off more tears. "Your team caught him, right? I'm right here, okay? You're gonna be okay, nothing's gonna happen. Just focus on yourself and on recovering."

"I just," he opens his eyes again and lets a few tears fall, "I don't wanna be alone right now."

I wipe those fresh tears and lean down to press my lips to his forehead. He lets out a shaky breath. "You won't be alone. I'm gonna be right here, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just gonna grab my bag from the sheriff and then I'm gonna come right back, okay? I won't even leave the doorway, I promise."

Spencer looks incredibly hesitant, but he nods anyway. "Okay, yeah. Just don’t leave."

"It'll be just a minute," I give him the sweetest smile I can muster up at the moment, planting one more kiss on his forehead before crawling off the bed. Like I promised, I never leave Spencer's line of sight and stand right in the doorway. Alex, Penelope, and Mike are all talking right across the hallway, and they look up when the door opens. I ask for my bag and let Mike know that I’ll be staying for a while and that I will say goodbye before I head home, then close the door behind me.

“Doing okay, sweet face?" I toss my bag aside and sit on the edge of the bed once more. He seems to relax with every step closer to him, and when I place my hand on his leg, he relaxes completely.

"Considering I got shot in the neck and then almost shot again twice after that?" Spencer sasses, making me snort out a laugh. “I’m okay, I guess.”

"You're ridiculous,” I scoot away once more to try and grab my bag, but Spencer grips my arm and tugs me closer to him.

"Can you come lay with me?" Spencer begs.

I glance around his bed and at the array of wires he’s connected to. It was hard enough to stay away from them when I was just sitting beside him. Laying down is gonna be significantly harder. "I don't wanna hurt you or pull on any wires.”

"You won't," Spencer insists, shifting himself over so there's room for me to squeeze beside him on his uninjured side. "Please?"

"You should be resting," I counter, but reach to unlace my shoes nonetheless. “It’s been a long day for you.”

"I don't want to," Spencer pouts, but his body betrays him as he lets out a roaring yawn, his face turning into a grimace at the pressure on his neck.

"Fine,” I fetch my laptop from my backpack and then slide until the ridiculously thin blanket. “You’re lucky you’re girlfriend isn’t a technophobe or else you’d be very bored right now.” I roll a table over the bed and set my laptop down, moving my gaze back to Spencer’s drooping eyes. He fights to stay awake, forcing his eyelids open every time they start closing. “What do you wanna watch, dove?”

"Can we watch a Christmas movie?" He requests, resting his cheek against the top of my head. I almost speak up to tell him that this position will probably hurt his neck, but I don’t want to ruin his comfortable position, especially if it’ll lull him to sleep.

"Sure," I open up a totally legal website and search up The Santa Clause, pressing play and then relaxing into Spencer. I’m not entirely sure why he wants to watch a Christmas movie, of all things, but I don’t question it. I just let out a yawn of my own and rub my eyes, feeling the exhaustion start to set in.

"You should get some sleep too," Spencer whispers. "I'm sure you didn't sleep a lot," I hum as a lame response, feeling his hands intertwining with mine. "As long as you're here then I'll be fine. And if you sleep then I'm more likely to fall asleep too.”

"No statistics for why that is?" I quip, glancing up at him with a smile.

"I'm in the hospital, give me a break," Spencer chuckles and he cranes his neck to kiss my forehead. "Just go to sleep. I love you.”

My heart pounds against my chest as he says those beloved words again, and I only manage to whisper my own proclamation of love before I drift off.

///

I’m woken up by Spencer shifting around beside me, and my senses are awoken by soft grunts and whispered words of frustration. I force my eyes open and look up at Spencer. "What's wrong? Are you okay?”

"Sorry, sorry," Spencer whispers, and I find that he's holding a jello cup, "just couldn't get this open, the oximeter is in the way," I take the cup from his hand and pull off the top, handing it back to him. "Thank you. And I'm sorry I woke you. You should go back to sleep because you’re-“

"No, it's okay. I shouldn't sleep for too long anyway," I look to the table and find my laptop is now closed and an untouched tray of food is beside it, aside from the missing jello cup. "Sweetheart, you need to eat. You're not gonna get better if you don't eat to get your strength back.”

"I feel fine," Spencer responds, shoving a spoonful of jello in his mouth. “And I am eating. See? Jello.”

I roll my eyes at him, sliding off the bed and moving the table away. "You should eat more than jello. I know it’s your favorite but it’s all sugar and you need more than that," Spencer keeps his gaze down on his jello, avoiding eye contact with me while I lecture him on a topic he definitely knows way more about than me. "I just want you to get better so you can get home, okay? I'm sure you don't wanna be in the hospital for much longer and you'd rather be at home, right?"

"Hospital food is gross," Spencer sighs, stabbing his spoon in the jello. "I've never liked it.”

I sit on the side of the bed and cross my legs under me, leaning over him, pushing his messy curls out of his face. "I know it sucks, but you've gotta eat. But if it makes you feel any better, I think you look much better now that you've gotten some sleep.”

Spencer gives me a small smile, raising his eyebrows. "Are you implying I looked bad yesterday?"

"Yesterday, you looked like you got shot. Today, you look like you're tired and you've got gauze around your neck.”

"I guess that's an improvement," Spencer shrugs and then shoves another spoonful of jello in his mouth. I guess I’ll have to go scour the hospital for more jello, especially if that’s the only thing Spencer will eat.

"I know I said you look a little better but did getting some sleep help?" Spencer continues to keep his gaze down on his cup of jello. "Are you in any pain? Do you want me to get a nurse to up your painkillers?"

"No!" Spencer blurts out, but he seems to retract back into himself right after speaking, his eyes locking on his jello. "No, just- I'm fine, I don't need it."

I furrow my eyebrows, bringing my fingers under his chin, lifting his gaze. "I'm just trying to help you, dove. I don't want you to be in pain or uncomfortable."

"I'm okay, really, I am," Spencer tells me yet again. "I mean, I've got stitches in my neck and I wanna be in my own bed but I'm okay."

"Alright," I give in far too easily. It's not worth arguing with a boy in a hospital bed. "Eat your disgusting jello."

Spencer scoffs as I drop my hand from his chin, crawling off the bed and stretching out my tensed up muscles. "I don't understand how you don't like jello."

"It's gross, Spencer. The texture is weird and it makes me uncomfortable. It's the same reason I don't like tomatoes- the texture."

"You don't like jello or tomatoes. I'm not sure this is gonna work out between us," Spencer jokes, taking a big spoonful of jello and shoving it in his mouth. "Mm, amazing."

"Gross.”

I see Spencer's eyes travel over my shoulder and then he smiles in the most adorable way, his eyes becoming five shades brighter. "Hi, guys."

I turn my head and find Spencer's team coming into the room. I plaster on the most genuine, authentic, sweet smile I can. I'm sure they're all a bit wary of me since my first impression inevitably left a bad taste in my mouth, but I know and I’m sure they all know that now isn’t the time to be hostile towards. Spencer needs as much support as he can get. I deserve hostility and side swipes for how I acted but not right now.

"Hey there, kid," Morgan smiles, reaching down to pat Spencer’s leg over the blanket. "How're you feeling?"

I turn my head back to Spencer with a soft smile and see that he's already looking back at me. "I'm okay. Thanks for coming. How's Garcia doing?"

"She's shaken up, understandably," JJ sighs, her hands tucked away in her pockets. "She's sitting in the hallway."

I turn back to Spencer, resisting the urge to brush his hair back again, and get on my feet again.. "I'm gonna go talk to her, just for a minute. Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Go ahead.”

I give the rest of the team one more smile for good measure and then leave the room, hurrying down the hallway and avoiding running nurses. Sure enough, I find Penelope sitting on a bench beside the elevators, typing away on a laptop. If she notices my presence then she doesn’t acknowledge me. She just continues to move her fingers at lightning speed. "Hi," I say softly, tearing her attention away from the keyboard and to me.

When her gaze meets mine, I can see how distraught she is. Her eyes are bloodshot and she has tear streaks in her makeup with black smudges where winged eyeliner used to be. I can’t blame for being like this though. Penelope doesn't shoot people. Penelope sits behind a desk with her stuffed animals to protect her and her colorful outfits to cheer her up. She's not out in the field with a gun and bullet proof vest, chasing serial killers. She’s not a fighter, she is the epitome of a lover.

"Oh," she slams her laptop shut, scooting over, giving me room to sit down, "hi, Amelia. How's Boy Wonder?"

I resist the urge to laugh at the adorable nickname that I plan on using against Spencer when he’s feeling better. “He’s doing good, Pen. I think he got some sleep and he’s eating jello and Spencer physically can’t be sad when he’s eating jello. He’s okay.”

"I shot someone, Amelia," she bursts out, throwing her hands up to cover her face and bursting into a new wave of tears. "Did you know that? A nurse tried to shoot Spencer and I shot him instead and, oh god, why did I do that?"

"Penelope, you saved his life," I scoop Penelope into a hug and tuck her head under my chin, the same way I do to Spencer when he’s upset, and the same way I do to my brothers and sisters when they are crying. "I know it's hard and shooting a gun is really scary but you saved Spencer's life. You protected him from a killer, someone who would take him away from you, and me, and the team forever. I’m sure it was really hard and really scary, but you saved Spencer’s life today."

Penelope looks up at me, her lips in a pout as she sniffles relentlessly. "You're good at this. You- I really like you. I know I've told you this but I like you."

"I know, P," I laugh, reaching forward to wipe her tears and cleaning off her smudged eyeliner. "I'm a protector. That's the way I grew up. I'm-" I let out a sigh and drop my hand, "you did a background check on me so you know why."

Penelope's eyes widen as she suddenly remembers the background check, and now she’s the one dragging me into a hug. "Oh my god, oh my god, I'm so, so, so, so sorry about that. Rossi made me, he's-"

"He's your boss, you told me," I murmur. "I'm not happy about it but it's whatever. I, um, like I told you, I haven't told Spencer yet but I know I'll have to soon."

"I just-" Penelope pulls away and puts her hands on my cheeks, "you're so pure and innocent and beautiful. You've got a good heart and you're kind and loving and capable of love and I'm just, I'm glad you became one of the good eggs and not one of the bad eggs."

I scoff out a laugh. "You mean bad eggs with tattoos and piercings?"

Penelope gasps, pressing her hand to her chest in surprise. "No, no. You're not bad for having tattoos and piercings. I mean, bad as in the people we hunt every day. The people we put away aren't capable of love in any way at all. But you, you clearly are. We've seen killers who have tattoos of their victims and cult tattoos and swastikas but you have strawberries and turtles and cute things. You're not a bag egg. You're good for Spencer, and you're good for me too so be my best friend, please, and give me another hug."

I laugh and try to make it as convincing as possible, happily wrapping my arms around her shoulders again. We sit in silence for a few moments, enjoying each other's company and getting to breathe sighs of relief for the first time in hours. "I'm gonna say it again. Thank you for saving Spencer."

"As much as I hate guns, I'd protect my family any day," Penelope wipes her cheeks once more and then stands, adjusting her skirt.

I follow suit, standing and picking up Penelope’s laptop. "Let's go back to Spencer, okay? He's a little wary of being in the hospital and having all his best friends there is gonna help."

Penelope holds my hand as we walk down the hallway to Spencer’s room, our hands swinging between us in the most cliche way possible. But my pace slows significantly when we get to the door and I watch the team interact with Spencer, making him laugh and bringing out his beautiful smile. A pout comes to my face.

"I don't think the team likes me very much, not after I made such a scene in the bullpen," I suddenly admit. "I don't blame them. I made myself seem very suspicious, and, you know, I'm technically a criminal, but-"

"They're really nice people, Amelia," she tells me softly. "All we want is Spencer happy, and you make him happy. That's all we care about, whether you're spray painting a brick wall in the middle of the night or not."

I let out a laugh, my voice echoing off the walls. "Wow, thank you, P. I appreciate it."

"I've decided I'm obsessed with you. Come hang by the BAU all the time. Braid my hair more."

///

SPENCER

Waking up next to Amelia is the most amazing experience. She is the only woman I’ve ever slept in the same bed with and I waited thirty years for the right woman. Her face being the first thing I see when I open my eyes in the morning is ethereal. It lets me know that my day is going to be perfect, even if my days will be like my next few weeks, stuck in my house while I'm on leave from my injury.

But waking up next to my beautiful girlfriend is how I wish I could start every single day. I'm usually awake before her and I get to watch her sleep, brushing her hair out of her face and listening to her hum when our legs intertwine and trace my pointer finger over her tattoos. I didn't think that my heart could pound so fast just by laying under a blanket with another human being. But then I realized that what I'm feeling is love. I'm madly in love with this girl and I can't stop how hard I'm falling, not that I would want to stop.

Amelia decided that she would stay with me at my apartment for a while to take care of me when I returned home from Texas. She was happy to take the role of my caregiver, especially if it means we get six weeks to ourselves in my apartment. So the second we got back to Virginia, Amelia packed a bag and situated herself right next to me in bed.

Nothing is out of the ordinary when I wake up first this morning, my neck stiff from the uncomfortable position I rolled into sometime during the night. My eyes linger over to the peaceful angel beside me, and I can't help the smile that comes to my face. Her cheek is pressed against the pillow and her lips are parted, her hair fanned out against the sheets. She's drowning in an oversized tee-shirt and her butterfly necklace is hanging loosely around her neck. She looks exhausted, that's for sure, but she's been busy taking care of me in the last few days. I have no intention of waking her up but my neck is sore and I need to move around before it starts to hurt too badly.

I shuffle around and try to be as quiet and still as possible, but I make a movement that’s too quick and it sends a shock of pain up my neck. A hiss falls out of my mouth before I can think to hold it in and in an instant, Amelia is awake.

"Are you okay, Spence?" I hear Amelia's squeaky morning voice and then her hand is reaching for me blindly, fingers batting at my chest before she rests it there, her head still pressed into the pillow.

"I'm fine," I tell her when I settle back against my pillow, placing my hand atop hers to calm her down. "Just wasn’t in a comfortable position," Amelia hums and doesn't even bother to open her eyes as she scoots closer to me, moving her head to share my pillow with me. It brings a smile to my face and I bring my free hand up to brush the hair off her face, allowing the sunlight to illuminate her cheekbone. Sleep calls me back to its grasp but I can’t get myself to close my eyes and stop admiring Amelia’s beauty.

"You're staring," Amelia murmurs. "Anybody ever tell you that's not polite?"

"You're beautiful," I whisper, bringing a small smile to her lips. She tries to suppress it but she fails, scrunching up her nose, “and cute," I correct myself now, trailing my fingers down her arm until I get to her hand, intertwining our fingers. "Are you hungry?"

"A little bit," Amelia's eyes finally flutter open and she stares up at me. She lets her smile shine through, craning her neck to press a kiss to my jaw. "Want some breakfast?"

"Yes, please.”

I purposely don’t try to climb out of bed yet and watch Amelia get up first. My cheeks turn bright red when her tee-shirt rides up and gives me a perfect view of her undies. And I can swear that Amelia knows I’m looking because once she’s steady on her feet, she reaches up to the ceiling and stretches herself as tall as she can. When she settles back on her heels, she twists around and smirks. “You’re still staring.”

The red tint of my cheeks don’t get lighter as I push myself out of bed, following Amelia when she scurries towards the kitchen. “And you’re still beautiful.”

Amelia’s giggles reverberate off the wall when we get into the kitchen. I become fully convinced that she caught me staring at her butt when the first thing she does is stretch up to the ceiling again. She never does that. I stare shamelessly now, and Amelia doesn’t give me another smirk before she starts pulling out ingredients for pancakes. I stand right beside her and pull out the bowl, perfectly measuring every ingredient and adding it to the bowl.

"Shouldn't I be the one doing most of the work?" Amelia sasses as I pour batter onto the skillet. "You're the one with the gunshot wound.”

"I'm capable of making pancakes," I nudge her hip when I lean over her for a spoon, and she slides behind me and rests her head against my back. “We should eat in bed.”

"Hey," she whispers, and I feel her pressing kisses against my clothed back, "guess what?"

I play along, mimicking her mischievous tone. "What?"

"I love you.” She sounds so sweet when she says those words and every time she does, another brick from my wall gets beat down and leaves a gaping hole, making my vulnerability shine through. And as the days pass, I become more and more okay with being vulnerable around the woman I love.

So I let a smile come to my face and let myself melt into Anelia’s embrace, my skin burning every time her lips press against my shirt. "I love you too.”

We swiftly finish cooking and then carry our plates back to the bedroom, settling under the duvet again. I lean against the headboard while Amelia sits at the foot of the bed, way too far away for my liking. But she sits with her legs straight out and her toes touch my calf and it makes the distance a little more bearable.

I don’t really notice the way that Amelia goes completely silent because I’m so hungry that I’m scarfing down my pancakes. I see her awkward glances around the room but I don’t think anything of them. Not until she sets her fork down on her plate. Her pancakes remain untouched.

I furrow my eyebrows at her, slowly placing my own fork down. “Lia? You okay?” She nods her head, her gaze dropping down to her plate. She picks up her fork again, stabbing the top pancakes once or twice and then putting it back down. “Amelia?”

"Yeah,” she answers quickly, quietly. She starts to nod her head at nothing, jabbing her fork completely into her stack of pancakes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m totally fine. I just-“ she wiggles her hips and then clears her throat, “yeah, I, well,” she takes one more agonizing pause and then speaks again, “my dad is a serial killer.”

It's an odd thing to blurt out, that's for sure. I freeze where I am- mouth open and hands by my sides and my breath caught in my throat. Amelia’s father is a serial killer? How could I not see this? This is what I’m trained to do. But the unknown details of Amelia’s father start to loom over me and the tension starts to build the longer I don’t say anything. And I’m sure my silence doesn’t help Amelia get the courage to say anything else. She just keeps her eyes on her plate and doesn’t dare to look up from it. But I can't even think of a good response. Not a what? or excuse me? or huh? because which of those fit this situation?

"He married my mom straight out of high school and they had me and then my little brother," she's speaking so quietly that I barely hear her. Amelia starts stabbing her pancakes as she speaks, clearly as a distraction. "Apparently, after my brother was born, he started killing these random women. I was told that he killed because he wanted another girl instead of a boy, but what kind of a reason is that to kill random women?”

“Damian Kelsey.” The name slips out of my mouth unconsciously. “He shot victims of opportunity and then put the symbol for female on their foreheads with blood. I studied him in school.”

“Yep,” Amelia nods and she already reaches her hands up to wipe her cheeks, “that’s Dad.”

“Well,” I gauge Amelia’s reaction to my voice and I debate if I should finish my thought, and when she doesn’t say anything new, I decide to, “that means I learned about you, too. Damian Kelsey was-“ Amelia starts nodding, “horribly abusive to his family.”

“He beat the shit out of me for my whole childhood. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t drunk and screaming at me and my mom and shoving us against walls and threatening us with knives and guns. I didn’t even go to school. I just hid in my room all day and hoped he wouldn’t come upstairs.” Amelia hunches over and puts her head in her hands. “Then my brother came along and suddenly, it all got so much worse. I started shielding him from the beatings and I started hearing my mom screaming at night from her bedroom. It was so awful. But I kept telling myself that I had to stick through it so I could protect Cody.”

“Cody.”

"Cody," she whispers, almost in confirmation. It’s as if she hasn’t said his name in a long time and needed confirmation that, yes, he was a real person. She keeps her head down but moves her arms, staring down at the abundance of permanent ink on her arms. I catch sight of her lips starting to wobble and a few tears wetting her Starry Night. "He was really smart. He loved the stars and the planets. He used to beg me to sneak out to get him astronomy books from the library down the street. You would’ve loved him. He was so young but so smart. He wanted to be an astronaut.”

I reach forward and pull her plate of pancakes off her lap, getting them completely out of the way. She takes this as an invitation to crawl into my lap, which it was, and curls up against my chest, gently tucking her head into my neck. I’m not sure what to say to her in this moment. I want to help her to make her feel better but I know the details of this case and how horrifically it ended and knowing that my amazing, beautiful, positive girlfriend was the girl who’s father I wrote a ten page research paper on makes it so much worse.

I remember learning about the Damian Kelsey case in my classes and grimacing at the details of what happened to his wife and children. And now, I’ll never be able to think of this case ever again. It hurts me to know that Amelia went through that, which is an incredibly selfish thought. Amelia lived through it but I have the privilege of only learning about it. So I do what I can to comfort her, which ends up to just be forehead kisses and a tight embrace as I try to form words.

"My mom got pregnant again, a few years after Cody was born. And I remember the days after my mom told us as being the best of my childhood. My dad was sober and everyone seemed happy and we even ate dinner in the dining room all together. We never did that,” she pauses and slides her hands around my waist, pressing her body completely against mine. I hold her as tight as I can. “But then my mom went to the doctor and found out she was having another girl and it all got so much worse. Dad came home from the doctor screaming and me and Cody hid in the closet for hours upon hours. And this went on for months and as my mom got closer to her due date, the abuse just got so much worse-“

"Amelia, you don't have to tell me this," I close my eyes and try to ignore the way her body is trembling in my embrace and how her tears are soaking the collar of my shirt. “I already know what happened and-“

"I do," she insists shakily. “One day, Cody begged me to get him a new book from the library. He was asking me to read him a book about Jupiter while we look up at the stars and I kept telling him no because Dad was drunk but he was relentless. So I eventually gave up and climbed out the window and went to get him some books.”

Amelia lifts her head from my neck and presses her hands to her face before I can see her tear stained cheeks. She breathes deeply in sync with my breaths, her nose scrunching up as she falls deep into her memory. If she wasn’t so distraught, maybe I’d let myself acknowledge how adorable she looks when she scrunches her nose like that.

“By the time I got back, they were dead. My dad dragged them to the greenhouse and shot them. He shot my six year old brother and my mother who was nine months pregnant and two weeks away from her due date. He just left them there to bleed out.”

“I know,” Amelia doesn’t seem comforted whatsoever by me already knowing about this case, otherwise known as her childhood. It doesn’t make her breathe easier and it doesn’t stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

“So I called the police and eventually the FBI came and I met Gideon and Dave. They promised that they would catch my dad and eventually, they did. And that’s why,” Anelia looks at me for the first time since she started talking, her eyes wide and bloodshot, “Dave recognized me when I went to the BAU. But I didn't want you to find out about this until I was ready to tell you and I thought Dave would just blurt it out, so I tried to run away.”

"It's okay, Lia,” I finally reach forward and start wiping away her tears, watching her eyelids flutter closed. She seems to find a moment of tranquility in the midst of this horrifying story, and I let my mind wander for a moment. I’m the one who can provide these calm moments for her? Seriously? But I don’t let my mind drift off too far and I jolt myself back to reality. “I’m not mad about you leaving like that anymore. I understand. It’s fine, I promise.” Amelia smiles just the tiniest bit, leaning her cheek into my hand and almost purring with pleasure. But she manages to collect herself and continue where she left off.

"Gideon and Dave came and spent two weeks searching for my dad. And in that time, I spent it sleeping in the police station because I didn't have anywhere else to go. But Dave was so sweet and he'd bring me food and tell me nice stories to get my mind off of the situation. I just always remembered him because he was so amazing to me and I guess he remembered me too. But at the station, I met Mike, who was the sheriff you just worked with in Texas. He wasn't sheriff at the time but he was really nice to me and brought my food and checked up on me. But after the BAU caught my dad, I was put into foster care.”

I know that foster care is not the best place to be. I’ve seen the negative effects of foster care for far too many years and I know that not being placed in a good home makes for a tough childhood- one that Amelia just admitted to having. I find myself staring down at Amelia and remembering all the times she has smiled and radiated sunshine and picked me up when I was down. Did she manage to come out of foster care strong or is she insanely good at hiding her dark feelings?

"I spent a year going in and then running away from five horrible and abusive foster care homes across the country. It was horrible and I got abused just as badly as I did at home with my dad. I just kept running away because nobody was listening and nobody cared and I didn’t wanna take the abuse. And then when I was eleven, I got too fed up with being abused, so I ran away again. My fifth foster home was in Oklahoma and I got all the way back to the police station in Texas. I met up with Mike, he called Child Services, and he took me in. And I stayed there until I was eighteen and I went off to college, and then I moved here.”

She goes quiet after that, bringing her hands up to her cheeks and wiping her tears. The silence swells in my ears. And no matter how hard I make my brain work to figure out what the hell I should say to make her feel better, I just malfunction. I see my girlfriend crying in my arms and suddenly I have no idea what to do. She always knows what to do for me and I’m failing her right now.

“I'm sorry, Spencer,” Amelia whispers from behind her hands. “I'm sorry I never told you. I've never told anyone before and I always refer to my foster parents as my parents so I don't go around telling people my dad was a killer and my family was just two of his many victims and-“

"Shh, shh," I finally get myself to speak, “Lia, I’m not mad. I understand why you wouldn’t wanna tell me.”

"And I felt so guilty about how I acted when I met your team. They must hate me for how I acted.”

"They don't hate you," I insist, pulling her hands away from her face so I can see her. She’s still pouting and no matter how many times I wipe her cheeks, her face doesn’t lift. "They don't hate you one bit, I know I don’t.”

"Yeah, well, you told me that you love me for the first time so of course you don't hate me," Amelia murmurs, flopping over and pressing her face into my neck.

I course my fingers through her hair, earning the quietest mewl from Amelia, her eyelids fluttering. The act seems to calm her down enough to slow her breathing, and to allow her grip on my shirt to loosen. Yet again, I’m struggling for the words to say that will comfort her even more. Just playing with her hair isn’t going to help her feel better for longer than a few seconds. But my eyes sweep across my bedroom, illuminated by the rising sun, and I land on Amelia’s backpack in the corner. It’s covered in an array of different colors and specks of glitter, and it surfaces a memory.

"There was a painting in the station that I thought had your signature on it. That really was yours, wasn’t it?"

A smile comes to Amelia’s face for the first time since we woke up. "Yeah, I saw it when I was at the station too. I send Mike artwork all the time for him to hang up at home or in his station."

"Hey,” I tuck my fingers under Amelia’s chin, bringing her gaze back to mine. Her eyes are glassy and she’s still pouting. “I love you. I don’t want you to think that my opinion of you has changed, because it hasn’t. I love you just as much, if not more, than I did yesterday.”

"Thank you for saying that. I love you too.”

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" I intend for this question to calm Amelia’s anxiety and show her that she can confide in me about anything, but then a bashful smile comes to her face and my eyebrows furrow.

“I mean, while I’m confessing things,” she lets out a tense laugh and I almost let out a sigh of relief when I notice her starting to calm down again. "So it’s not nearly as bad as my childhood, but, you know, you’re an FBI agent so you might not enjoy this.”

My eyes widen at her. “Excuse me?”

"Well I’m not a criminal but-"

"This is not promising!”

"Alright! Alright!” She lets out a genuine laugh for the first time. “I’ve been arrested for illegal street art. A few times.”

"Are you serious?" Amelia lets out a roaring laugh, tossing her head back in the most utterly stunning way. She is almost completely oblivious to my shock, and if she isn’t oblivious, she doesn’t seem to care. "How many times counts as a few?"

"Six," she blurts out. "But now I've got an FBI agent on my side!"

"That doesn’t make you exempt from getting arrested!" I shake my head at her but I couldn’t care less about this revelation. Honestly, I’m not surprised. Amelia has a rebellious nature at times and I would expect that after her childhood that has no freedom, she would want to enjoy her newfound adult freedom- even if it means getting arrested for doing graffiti.

Amelia’s laughter dies down and she brings the lightened mood down with it. Her face drops and she slowly unravels herself from my embrace, crawling a few feet away and pulling her knees to her chest. I watch her shut herself off from me, leaning her forehead against her knees.

She’s embarrassed and ashamed of the story she just told me. I can only imagine that she feels worse about it since it has basically been forced out of her. I can tell that she wasn’t going to tell me so soon but after Rossi recognized her, she knew that it would only be a matter of time before he let something slip. I feel infinitely bad for Amelia. But there’s not much I can say to her to make her feel better.

I’ve spent years working with victims and family members of serial killers and I’ve spent those years figuring out the right things to say to comfort them. But this isn’t the right situation and Amelia isn’t the right person to use basic lines like it’s not your fault and everything will be okay. That’s not the kind of encouragement she needs. She needs reassurance that I’m not mad that she didn’t tell me about her childhood and that I still love her regardless.

I love her. I love Amelia. What an amazing feeling.

I lock eyes on her tiny figure, curled up at the foot of the bed. Amelia’s shoulders occasionally jolt in the exact same way they do when she cries. Reaching out and dragging her back into my arms seems far too abrasive. I go with the next best option for comfort- honesty.

"So," I stretch out my legs, almost as a silent way to invite Amelia in. But I keep my gaze off of her and look down at my hands. "My life story doesn't quite compare to yours but, well, my dad left me and my mom when I was really young. My mom has schizophrenia and he couldn't deal with her episodes anymore, so he abandoned us. He just- he wrote a note and left it for me to find and got the hell out," Amelia looks up at me with her tear stained cheeks, lips parted and her pretty eyes wide. "So I spent most of my childhood being bullied in the most horrible ways, and my mom's episodes were so bad that she barely noticed.”

I’m not scared to tell Amelia. Maybe it’s because I know that her childhood is far worse than mine or maybe it’s just because I’m comfortable around Amelia. I hate talking about my childhood with anyone at all. This is the only time in my life that I’ve felt comfortable while sharing the story of getting tied to a flagpole and being ignored by my mother and abandoned by my father. I know that Amelia won’t judge me and I know she won’t use this information against me. She’ll listen and tell me she loves me and we’ll move on. She’s amazing like that.

"And so when I was eighteen, I had her admitted to a mental facility because I couldn't take care of her anymore. She's been in a facility in Vegas ever since. I barely get to see her because I work so much but I write her letters all the time," I take a breath and run my fingers through my hair. Amelia finally looks up at me with tears in her eyes, slowly unraveling herself and wiping the tears away from her cheeks. But as she’s opening up, I’m starting to close off, letting my thoughts run wild as I recall all the worst moments in my life. "Schizophrenia is genetic, did you know that? My mom could’ve passed it on to me. I mean, schizophrenic breaks happen in your early twenties but-"

"You're thirty," Amelia whispers so softly that I barely even hear her. "You're not in your early twenties.”

"I know," I look down at my hands, trying to be strong and fend off the tears that pool up in my eyes, “but I'm still scared. I love my job and I love the life I live. I love you," a smile breaks through on her face at this revelation, her lips quivering. "I don't want that to go away because I inherited something I can’t control.”

"It won't," she whispers, shaking her head. "I won't.” Amelia reaches for me, sitting up on her knees with every intent to come closer again. But I shake my head back at her and hold out a hand, silently telling her to stop.

"There's more," There’s always more. Her face softens, almost like she's disappointed at this. And I don't make a joke of it like she made a joke out of her arrests, because it's not a joke.

I pull at my hair because I don't want to tell her, but she's been transparent with me, so I need to do the same. Amelia is suddenly in front of me, pulling my hands out of my hair, intertwining our fingers gently. She brings our enlaced hands up and presses kisses to my knuckles, holding them in her lap, encouraging me to go on. Amelia gives me a soft smile, but I can't look at her face. I don't have it in me to face her with this incredibly embarrassing information. "A while ago-“ my voice is shakier than I expected it to be, "a couple years ago, I got kidnapped by an unsub. Tobias Hankel. JJ and I split up when we shouldn't have and the unsub knocked me out and tied me up.”

Amelia squeezes my hands, her thumbs rubbing against my knuckles. "You don't have to tell me," she whispers, leaning in close. “I know we’re sharing but if this is too much then I can wait for-“

I squeeze my eyes shut and fend off all of the images that resurface in my brain. "I do. I need to tell you,” I insist. "He tied me up and he tortured me and he made me pick which innocent people he would kill and he made me watch him kill them. And he-" I shutter, hanging my head in shame, "he forced me to take drugs. He injected me with dilaudid, it's a really strong painkiller. Then he made me overdose and I-I actually died for a few minutes. The team saved me after but-“ I let out a sigh, pulling my hands away from Amelia’s and covering my face. “But I got addicted, Amelia. I took drugs from the unsub when he got killed and I got addicted. I did dilaudid for months and I couldn't stop. I lashed out at the team and I shut everyone out, it was so horrible.”

"Oh, Spencer," Amelia exhales, leaning forward to hug me. But she's hugging me gently, and I can't tell if it's because of my injury or because of what I've just told her. She’s holding me like I’m a porcelain doll that could break if she squeezes too tight. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that.”

"I'm clean, I promise," that's the next thing I say. It has to be. I can't mislead her into thinking I'm still an addict. I can’t let her think that she’s dating some junkie. I need her to know that I’m a responsible federal agent who won’t go near drugs anymore. Amelia needs to know that I will love her without distraction and that I will stay clean.

"How long?" Amelia drags her nails against my back, her lips brushing against my neck, and I tighten my arms around her waist.

"Six years. Almost seven.”

Amelia pulls away suddenly, her eyes widening. "Oh my god, that's why you didn't want painkillers in the hospital. Spencer, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay. You didn't know. The nurses knew, it's on my chart to not give me narcotics.”

Amelia sighs and brings our hands up to her lips again and presses a long kiss to my knuckles. "I love you so much, okay? You didn't deserve to go through something like that, Spence. You're such," her lips quiver, "you're such a beautiful person on the inside and the outside, and I'm so glad I've met you.”

"Come here," I whisper, pulling my hands out of hers and inviting her into my lap, which she happily crawls into. Her head falls into my chest and I wrap my arms around her, kissing the top of her head. "I don't know where I'd be without you. Lonely, sad, sleeping by myself-"

"Getting coffee alone in the morning," she teases, “still not sure how to use your DVD player, spending Christmas alone, going-“

“Okay, okay, I get it. I didn’t have much of a life outside of my job before I met you.” I scoff, poking her sides and making her squirm around in my arms.

I keep poking her sides, bringing out her beautiful laugh. Amelia collapses backwards and tries to push my hands away, but I quickly flip over and pin her down, continuing to move my fingers across her rib cage.

“Spencer, stop!” She giggles, tossing her head back as she kicks her legs like a child. “Stop!” I relent, pressing my hands against the bed on either side of her waist, watching her catch her breath. “You’re way too good at that.”

“It’s just one of my many skills.”

Amelia brings her hands up to my cheeks, the pads of her fingers brushing against the stubble that I have yet to shave off. Her face softens and the sparkle return to the blue of her eyes, and any anxiety I had floats out the window. “Thank you.”

“Thank you? For what?”

“For not hating me because of my past.”

“Well, in that case, I guess I should be thanking you too.”

Amelia smiles a real, genuine smile for only the second time since this conversation started. She beams up at me, sprawled out on the bed with her cheeks flushed and a laugh still stuck in her throat. I settle down on top of her, bringing one hand up to brush through her hair. She moves one hand from my face and grabs my wrist, bringing it to her lips so she can kiss my palm. “I love you so much.”

And even though we’ve only been speaking those words aloud for a few days, every time she tells me she loves me, my heart flutters in my chest and my cheeks turn pink. “I love you too.”

Amelia cranes her neck and presses her lips to mine, drawing me closer and closer with every passing second. “I really love you, Spence,” she pulls away with a teasing smile and lets her head fall onto the bed, “but I’m starting to suffocate.”

“Oh, sorry,” I quickly pull myself off of Amelia and bring her up with me but I drag her right back into my arms. Amelia breathes a sigh of relief and collapses against my chest, closing her eyes. And I just hold her to my chest like I’m protecting her from anything else that could come our way. I hold her tighter than I’ve ever held someone before. I miss her again and make sure that it contains all of the love that I’ve had bottled up in my body over the years. And, of course, she lets me fawn over her, not giving it a second thought. So I just keep holding her, tighter and tighter and tighter by the second.

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polandspringz · 4 years

Note

POL pol pol polpolpol you should write... Everyone finding a way to hug Chase and them just having a huge cuddle pile and Chase being inexplicably happy

This took over a year to write. I hope you enjoy…

You’re All Flying High, But I’m Drowning Down Below

After four years of no sensations, you couldn’t really blameChase for forgetting to tell the team.

Although there had been instances when he had been removedfrom the tank to correct the placement of an IV or for cleaning, due to thepresence of the nanotech lying dormant in his body, those instances were alwaysvery brief and fleeting. To keep his body stable outside of the safecontainment of the tank while they worked for long periods of time, Dr. Wellerfrequently administered amnesia to Chase. In some ways, it was a welcomesensation. The numbing was a pathway to sleep he could no longer achieve on hisown but, that numbness always seemed to come too fast and too soon.

As the tank was drained of fluid and opened, sometimes, Chasefound himself wishing he could hold on for just a moment longer. But, hiseyelids always closed just as Dr. Weller and Caliban’s hands brushed past todisconnect his body from the supports, and he felt nothing.

Chase was certain he still could feel. He had lostthree of his limbs when his interceptor crashed and the wreckage tore throughhis flesh, giving the nanotech a clean entry to chew up his muscles and feastoff his nervous system, but he wasn’t paralyzed. He could still move his leftarm, and he knew that there was something that rushed past his skin whenhe raised it up to tap the glass. It was heavy at first, and it made hismovements slow as he swam through it, but other than that, there was nothingdistinct for him to connect a feeling to.

Along the way, he must have become numb to it.

The amniotic fluid that filled the tank, he could onlyvaguely remember the cold feeling of it the first time he woke up suspended init. Now, it had simply become mundane. His body treated the liquid pushing onall sides of him no different than how the rest of humanity regarded the milesof atmosphere that tried to crush them with pressure. Perhaps, he would havebecome truly comfortable living the rest of his life inside the tank, treatingit as natural as his life before it, had he not experienced the freedom hishologram and Holon gave him.

When he was still learning how to upload, and his Holon wasstill in early stages of design, his hologram was all he had to ground him withhis old self. He still wielded control over four limbs in his avatar, and as hetook a midnight stroll around the Experimental Science Unit’s headquarters twoweeks after being overwhelmed with information and choices, he foundhimself struggling to grapple with the reality that three of them were gone.

He had mixed into the main lab, facing his body in theprototype tank while everyone else slept. Weller had performed surgery for daysto save his life, and probably would have continued had his assistants notdemanded he take a break. They had cut off the infected limbs and sealed themup with metal plates to keep the nanotech that was in from spilling out.It wasn’t hard to look at the body that was floating in the tank. What was hardwas calling it his own. With his hologram’s face reflecting off the glass ofthe tank, his artificial image overlaying the new reality of himself, it washard to accept and believe that he was looking at himself, and not anunfinished clone of himself.

But, the Doc had said cloning was still far out of reach-even with regeneration being the solution to almost every war injury today- andneither were an option for Chase with that damn nanotech occupying more of hisbody than his own cells. Frustrated, he shut his eyes and banged his hologram’sfist against the tank, the pixels scrambling as they came in contact with ascreenless surface. A buzz went through Chase’s hand as the pixels rejected themotion. He froze.

He did it again. Another buzz. He reached forward and triedto push his entire arm through the tank to the other side into the fluid. Theprojection denied it, but Chase’s entire arm, his right arm, that should begone, was alight with that buzz.

He fell to his knees, both fists sliding down the front ofthe tank as he collapsed at the base. His artificial chest began to rapidlyrise and fall as his shoulders shook, and he clattered the tank with bothhands, forcing a rhythm of that buzzing sensation to build as he struggled tobreathe.

It was still there. He could still feel it. He couldstill feel.

At least in this form…

It’s not enough.

The lifeless, nanotech host with Chase’s face remained asmotionless as a corpse in the tank as bubbles rose to the surface. But, slowlythe displays on the monitors connected to the body began to flash and scream,and suddenly the room was dyed in red emergency lights instead of the calmingblue, but Chase couldn’t find it in himself to care. He kept slamming againstthe tank, frustratedly trying to make that buzzing sensation stronger andstronger.

He wanted to feel the soreness of his skin as his fistswelled with the repeated blows. He wanted to feel the sting rushing up hisarm, his right arm. He wanted to feel it frustrating his brain, angerand aggression as it demanded him to stop, but all he got was the faint buzzesas pixels moved aside and reformed the hands around the glass blocking theirway.

Footsteps pounded down the hall and there was a loud clangas the automatic doors were punched in and opened up- Caliban speeding up theemergency override by breaking them in as Weller jumped inside with two otherscientists hot on his heels.

“It’s his heart rate! The nanotech might have activatedagain and started-” Doc cut himself off as he saw the crumpled hologram on thefloor. His arm slowly fell, lowering out of where he was pointing for theassistants to go and instead, without glancing away from Chase, commanded, “Go.”

“Dr. Weller, but-” He raised his hand in a ‘stop’ motion,eyes still locked on Chase.

“It’s not the nanotech. I can handle it. Please, return toyour rooms,” he smiled before folding his arms behind his back and stridingtowards Chase, “Some of us should get sleep tonight. Tell the rest of theemergency team to rest too. False alarm.”

The two assistants stared at their boss for a moment beforethey shrugged and made their way back through the doorway and into theelevator. Dr. Weller stopped when he was standing right behind Chase, and spokesoftly.

“Caliban, please cancel the emergency alert and close thedoors, please.”

There was shifting as shuffling as the android moved aroundthe lab, the lights eventually fading back to the soft blue as he finishedsending off the cancelation. Then, he went to folding the doors back into theframe and realigning them on their automatic track. When the lab was quietagain, Chase finally spoke.

“Doc,” his hologram whispered with a broken voice, “I knowwhat you said earlier but… will I be… stuck in there forever?”

With his head bowed, Chase missed seeing Dr. Weller’s facecrumpling with guilt as he pulled his glasses off his face and pinched thebridge of his nose, shutting his sunken-in, shadowed eyes as he forced hisheadache to dull before slipping back on his spectacles and a reassuring smile.

“Oh, Julian,” he soothed, kneeling down behind the youngman, one hand settling down on the other’s shoulder, “I swear to you, I will doeverything I can to help you.”

Chase’s hologram shut his eyes. Inside the tank, somethingshiny materialized under Chase’s eye for just a second before it was swept upby the current and rose to the surface in a bubble, glittering like a pearl asit disappeared.

It took many months for things to change.

But, like Doc had promised, they did.

It was still before the Anvil, before the rest of the worldknew about gen:LOCK’s existence, and it was just when he was beginning toregain the feeling of having a family. He thought he had lost itcompletely in the Battle of New York, but now it had been almost a year sinceChase had met Yasamin, and he felt like he had gained a sister again. She wasno Dri, but he didn’t mind.

If you asked him what got the ball rolling, Chase wouldpoint to the night that he and Doc stayed up late in an effort to comfort Yazafter her Holon had very nearly been swiped by the Union. It was supposed tohave been a small raid they were intercepting, but they had more resources thanthe Polity base that requested the help had anticipated. Chase was standingnext to her, and while the Doc was speaking to her calmly, hugging her tightand telling her that no one was going to take her away from them, shehad turned towards Chase and reached out to try and bring him into the embracetoo, but stopped when her hand cut straight through.

He chuckled and brushed it off, but Yaz seemed dissatisfied.That was what sparked the question:

“Would I be able to touch him if he was outside of the tank?”

Chase’s answer was, “Of course, I’m not a ghost, you know.”

To which Yaz punched through the hologram’s face, sendingChase’s pixels out of alignment as he fake-gasped as they reformed. Doc pulledher arm back and calmed her down, reassuring her that Chase was only trying tobe the funny guy because it’s a sensitive topic, I’m sure he would rather wenot discuss this now.

Chase didn’t see any reason to avoid it. Once he wasrealigned again, he just shrugged, “I don’t mind. We can talk about it.”

So they did. It was obvious that others’ could touch Chase’sbody outside of the tank, so long as the nanotech remained dormant andthey were assured of that. Although Caliban could handle making repairsto the tank alone, Weller insisted on doing it because he was stubborn andrefused to let Caliban bumble around while he shouted orders from behindprotective glass. Although, Chase had overheard many phone calls with theColonel that insisted he do otherwise. But, there was still no guarantee thatChase would feel anything from the experience.

Still, Yasamin confided in the two of them-

“I would like to touch him. At least once. To know that heis real.”

Doc smiled, “Then, you can assist me the next time we do acheck up. Perhaps we can run some tests while we are at it. See if he registersany feeling.”

“Sounds good to me,” Chase said.

But, when he got in his Holon one day after weeks of seeingthe Doc slave over mysterious upgrades, nothing prepared him for the experienceof feeling wind rushing over him. He could feel it pushing him back,buffeting underneath the armour of his helmet as if it had a real face and notmetal. He had almost short circuited, and Yasamin herself seemed surprised atthe new sensations, and was bombarding the Doctor with questions over theirchannel. She ran past Chase with a confused expression, but any snap abouttelling him to hurry up died as she felt the wind rush through the hangaragain.

“You can feel it?”

“Yes. Yes! It’s-”

“Cold, right?”

“Yes! This is California though, I thought it would bewarmer?”

“Go outside!” Yaz gestured and Chase ran ahead of her,skidding to a stop as he stopped on the concrete runway.

A beautiful cerulean horizon line stretched out before him,just beyond the gray of the ESU’s training grounds. The ocean was rough today,crashing hard against the side of the raised base, and Chase wanted to run atit, jump straight on in and plunge. He had been trapped in liquid every day,but this was different, this water he would feel, he would feel thechill of it, feel the rush of bubbles and air flying around him. He took a stepforward, but a hand caught a hold of him and he was jerked to a stop.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up,” Yazwhispered, but Chase didn’t let it bother him. He was brought back to realitywhen he saw her armored robotic hand on his own manufactured arm. He smiled ather as they met each other’s gaze in the mindframe.

“Don’t worry about it, Yaz. My brain’s in here right now, soit wouldn’t be a good idea to fry everything if we don’t have a backup.Besides,” her body floated to stand beside him, “I can feel the seabreeze again. I forgot what that was like.”

“New York is by water too, is it not?” Her Holon let go ofhim and followed him to look into the distance.

“Yes, but I lived deeper into the city. You would only tastethe ocean air if you lived right next to it, but Mom always took me and Dri duringthe summer. One time, we even drove down to New Jersey for the beaches.Whenever we went over the bridges, Dri would stick her head out the windowbecause she didn’t want to wait to smell it.”

Yaz shifted, “Can you smell it?”

Chase tried, “Not yet. I’m assuming there is a lot more thathas to go into that, right, Doc?”

As if on cue, the Doctor’s hologram materialized a few waysin front of them, “Unfortunately for you Julian, yes. It may take a long time,but I am confident by the time we reach that point we will have come so farwith gen:LOCK and our research about nanotech that we will remove it from yourbody so we can regenerate you fully.”

The older man folded his arms behind his back and, turningto face both of his recruits, beamed at them with the sun shining on his face.Chase had to admit that, at the time, he did feel some fondness and gratitudetowards the man, who had become somewhat like a father to him with all of histime and dedication focused on helping him. Chase spread his arms out as thecurrent whipped up another cold wave of air, letting it buffet him, and hewished he had wings again so he could soar through the sky and push through theair, creating sensations all over him without having to wait for each rush ofwind.

“Chase,” Yasamin’s voice was quiet again, and she wasfidgeting, eyes cast downward even though they were the only two things in themindframe’s visuals, “Do you think that… since we can share our minds in here…If we sync up, you might be able to feel something too?”

Chase stiffened, but forced another white smile to adorn hisface, “You don’t have to force yourself Yaz, but thank you. I’m fine with justright now.”

“It wouldn’t be forcing me- I thought you would like a hugor-” but Chase was already floating away, his Holon started to move towards thetraining course.

“Don’t worry about it, Yaz. This is actually too much stimulationfor me right now. Having nerves again? I must be burning through my uptimealready! Let’s go.”

He heard Yasamin hesitate, but soon her Holon was clamberingafter him, heavy feet pounding upon the ground as they left Dr. Weller waitingby the dock. If he had anything to say about this, he kept his mouth shut.Chase was thankful for that.

“What do you mean he can’t feel anything?” Cammie gesturedtowards his tank even though his hologram was standing beside her, “How longhas he been like this?”

“About four years,” Dr. Weller said, spinning around in hischair.

“It’s fine, Cammie. I’ve gotten used to it by now.”

“He can feel things when he is inside his Holon. Ispecifically added that feature in to help him interact with the physicalworld. Unfortunately, that’s why the rest of you can feel pain when somethinghappens to your Holon body too.”

Doc’s voice dropped at that last sentence. Cammie’s mechhaving its head ripped off was still fairly recent, but whether the girlignored it or just didn’t pick up on the implication, she breezed right pastit.

“But it’s not the same right? Our Holons are too clunky toeven hug you! You mean your hologram doesn’t feel anything?”

Cammie’s expertly aimed poke missed as Chase teleported tothe other side of Yasamin, and the girl just doubled her efforts and chargedhim until Valentina caught her by the scruff of her collar.

“Nope. You’re all just registering as little buzzes to mybrain. But, it’s cool.” He tried to put on his most reassuring smile for theyoungest member. She seemed to buy it after a minute of scrutiny, and droppedthe conversation.

He should have put more effort into making Valentina andKazu believe it, but he didn’t think they really cared enough to do something.

Until training happened.

It was the same mix of group exercises- trying to get pastthe Vanguard, obstacle courses for Cammie to acclimate better to movement, andsparring- but everyone was acting out of sorts, at least to Chase it seemed.Yaz seemed to talk to him more during training, although normally she wassilent as she soloed her way, charging through the maze before stealing theflag. Her and Chase had been working together in the program for so long, theydidn’t need mindshare or communication to read each other’s movements, or asshe liked to put it-

“-to understand you’re going to do something stupid, eventhough it will probably work.”

Today though, Chase’s music stream was interrupted just ashe made a sick shot into the hoop after charging up the cliffside with thebasketball to avoid Kazu. Yasamin’s voice cut in through his feed, even as shewas in the middle of fighting Valentina in the ring.

“How are you feeling? You’re not doing those tricks just toburn through your uptime, right?”

The ball swished through the net and Chase lowered his armsdown as he skidded back down the rocks. The lenses of his Holon’s eyes meshedtogether as the lights dimmed as he sighed.

“You know we aren’t on a private network. Everyone can hearthis conversation, you really wanna talk about this right now?”

Kazu, who was bumbling after the runaway ball, stopped as hepicked it up, glancing over at Chase who was stopped at the base of the cliff.Valentina’s head looked up as Yasamin’s voice came over their channel, eventhough the yellow Holon continued an onslaught of strikes.

“Of course I know it’s not private. Everyone has beenlistening to your playlist for the past hour. Turn it down, please.”

“Fine, fine. But guys,” Chase said, “can you give us someprivacy?”

“Kind of hard to do when you’re all talking so loud!” Cammiecalled out from where she was on the grounds. Last Chase had seen, Miranda wasmaking her do more jumping exercises across the courtyard to get more used tosnapping from low to high in the Holon.

“Well, you heard ‘em, Yaz. Let’s save this conversation forlater. Kazu! Let’s go another round!”

Yaz sighed over the channel, “I was just checking to- Woah!”

Valentina’s right hand suddenly jutted out in a cross,Yasamin ducked out of the way in time and the fist soared cleanly past and overYasamin’s shoulder. Before she regained her bearings though, Valentina circledthe arm above Yaz’s head to hover above her other shoulder, gripping it tightlybefore their left hand came up and slammed her in the jaw, knocking her to theside like a ragdoll.

She slammed into the sides of the ring and instinctivelyclutched the jaw of the helmet as she glanced up at the purple Holon stalkingover to her.

“He told you to shut up, let’s leave them to their game.Besides, you need to keep your eyes on me.”

Yasamin pushed herself to her feet and lunged for Valentina’slegs with a shout, invigorated.

“So, kyoudai,” Kazu said as he spun the ball, “Wantto start playing fair?”

“Come on man,” Chase laughed, “You could’ve chased me upthere? Why not use some uptime to increase your speed?”

“Nah, I’m not meant for those crazy jumps and flips. Iprefer sticking close to the ground.”

Kazu punctuated his statement by jogging over to Chase, hisHolon’s heavy steps slamming into the dirt and kicking up dust as he boundedforward. He clasped one hand on Chase’s shoulder as he dropped the basketballinto the other’s palm.

“Now, let’s play something I’m good at, likebaseball.”

Chase’s brain stilled as he felt the weight of Kazu’s handagainst his shoulder. Kazu himself seemed startled when he felt Chase’sapprehension in the mindframe. To him though, his fingers just curled over theheavy armor, then pulled off suddenly when he felt the other stall. It wasn’tawkward, just surprising. Kazu’s hand floated above Chase’s shoulder, and thenhe narrowed his eyes, and slowly placed it back down.

Warm. The Holons were machines, and there was always thechance of overheating, but the heat from underneath the armor was different. Itwas present, radiating. Their armor sets were exactly the same, save for Chaseand Yaz’s having a few enhancements, and Kazu had dusted off his shoulders manytimes to clean off the dirt that piled up whenever Valentina used him as alaunchpad, but this felt different. Underneath his armor, it was just him, butunderneath this armor…

He patted Chase on the shoulder twice, before giving him astrong squeeze. The blocky fingers of the Holon skeleton were much larger thanhis own, and Chase’s mecha body was much, much different than his body insidethe tank. But, Kazu smiled.

So this is what Chase felt like.

“Come on, before the Colonel finds out.”

Chase breathed again as Kazu’s hand slipped away, and he letout a sigh he had been holding in before turning around to chase after theolder man.

“She’s gonna have Doc’s head if your swing breaks anotherstrider!”

A few days later, they all were lined up practicing theirshooting. Valentina slowly crept away from their spot, waltzing behind thegroup before their fingers trailed across Chase’s back. The armor dulled thesense, but Chase still flinched and missed the shot. Yaz fired her shot andglanced over at him, confused, but stopped when she saw Valentina creepingbehind him. She turned back to firing, but listened as Valentina’s voice cameover the channel.

“Would you perhaps be up for a spar?”

“You? Missing firing practice?” Chase quipped.

“I may like to slink off on my own, yes. However, having tostand around and shoot is no fun at all. Besides, the Vanguard wants me to workon my teamwork abilities, so why not?”

“Not really sure it counts as teamwork if you’re beating meinto the ground.”

“It will be a good chance to get to know each other. I feelas though we rarely have spoken outside of the team. Kazu is fun to play with,but I grow bored of his predictable movements.”

Kazu shot too high towards the sky, and the bullet clippedthe side of one of the building’s roofs, “Hey!”

“Ugh, just go, Chase,” Yaz said, exasperated, “If two keepon distracting everyone, nothing will get done.”

“Oh! Can we all come watch?” Cammie asked.

Chase looked towards one of the cameras, “Are we good totake a break, Doc?”

Inside the lab, Dr. Weller pulled away from a series ofblueprints he was writing on, to glance at the five Holons staring at him. Hewaved his hand dismissively even though they could not see him.

“Yes, yes! Go have fun. I trust the Vanguard to superviseif anyone tries to modulate their fear response again. Cammie.”

“Oh come off it, will ya? I haven’t done anything like thatsince!”

“You heard him,” Valentina said, and placed their hand backon Chase’s back just to trace it along the width of it before slipping awayagain, “Let’s go.”

The fight went as Chase expected. Sure, he had moreexperience than their new teammates, but Valentina was always an enigma. Eveninside a closed ring and with bodies so big, they found ways to hide, to sneakunderneath Chase, and stealthily land him in a chokehold before tossing him tothe ground. It was frustrating to be shown up in front of all his old friends,as even Migas had mixed into the courtyard with his hologram to watch thefight, but there was something more nerve wracking that kept stealing Chase’sattention.

Valentina was touching him.

A lot.

“Knock it off, would you?” He hissed as he dodged anotherswing from them. Valentina stepped back and tilted their head slightly. Hadthey been in their human body, Chase would have seen them raise an eyebrow.

“At what?”

“Touching me.”

“Hand-to-hand combat like this requires touch. I thought youwere aware of that?”

“Don’t mess with me like that. You know what you’re doing.”

Chase pointed a finger at them. The rest of the team sittingnearby looked at each other in confusion. Valentina stared at the accusatoryhand in front of them for a moment before they shrugged and yanked it towardsthem, tugging Chase forward so they could strike him in the middle of the backwith their elbow. Then, they were jumping up and over him, flipping in the areaas they moved behind him to deliver another strike.

Chase felt it again. Their hand dancing over his back as hefell forward. He whipped around, angrily.

“I told you to stop that!” He roared. Valentina stumbledbackwards as Chase suddenly rushed them. Valentina’s legs hit the barssurrounding the ring, and Leon prepared himself to order for Chase to be pulledfrom his Holon, but then Valentina shot their leg out and Chase tripped.Valentina stood up in time and pressed their hand squarely in the center of hischest, and pushed.

Chase fell in the center of his ring, and stared up at them.The harsh sunlight glinted behind Valentina’s head, which with his mechanicaleyes caused no pain, but Valentina’s figure became cloaked in shadows as theywere backlit. Chase could only watch their silhouette as they flexed theirfingers, staring down at their hand.

So this is what Kazu was referring to, Valentinathought. They glanced down at Chase, who somehow looked dumbstruck despite thelimited expressions of the mechanical face.

Valentina reached out a hand to him.

“I apologize for being so rough. Perhaps I did go a littletoo far.”

Chase stared at their hand.

“But, I did get to learn quite a bit about you. Let’s dothis again, sometime. Maybe then, you’ll beat me?”

It took him a moment, but Chase finally smiled at thethought of the challenge. Valentina saw his Holon’s eyes adjust for a moment,the blue light stuttering as if blinking before they glowed brighter once more.Chase reached up and clasped their hand tightly.

“Alright. I won’t go easy on you next time.”

Valentina felt the pulse in their grasp, and pulled him tohis feet.

There were more instances after that. Perhaps Chase was justhyperconscious of it, now that everyone seemed to be talking about it more, buthe had to wonder if the team was intentionally going out of their way to touchhis Holon whenever they were uploaded. The number of times he had been sluggedor wrapped in some sort of hug before being suplexed by Kazu suggestedotherwise. Valentina began making more offers to brawl, but they ended all oftheir fights with a handshake now instead of how they normally waltzed overtheir opponents and off the field, much to Yaz and Kazu’s continuedannoyance. Chase knew these little things had to be a result of theconversation they all had, but he decided to let it go. Nothing good came fromhim getting angry about something so small.

Besides, touch was… nice. Even with his hologram, he had noproblems trying to wrap his arm around Migas or even the Doc and Yaz. He couldn’tfeel it, but he knew that the gesture still meant something, and it wouldn’t bethe same with his gigantic robotic arms and their small forms. He couldtechnically touch Yaz with his Holon’s build but, each time he did that, shewould creep closer to him in the mindframe, and he would run away.

But, touch with the other Holons he could handle. Touch wasacceptable. Touch was good, even when Cammie ran up and tackled him as soon asshe got in her Holon as a good morning, afternoon, or evening as thanks forplaying with her in the Ether.

What wasn’t good was when Cammie asked him the sleepquestion.

She had been staying up late apprenticing under the Doc tolearn more about gen:LOCK. While Chase usually stayed in his tank at the end ofa long day, Cammie’s presence made him uneasy, so he let his hologram roamaround a bit more to observe her note-taking and tinkering. There seemed to beno harm to it, as she was mainly working with the armor and mechanical build ofthe mechs themselves, but one day while the Doc’s back was turned to his ownproject, Chase walked by and caught a glimpse of her display blown up with hispersonal data.

“Hey! What the hell is this?”

“Oh, Chase!” She hastily closed the screen, tucking it awayinto the toolbar on the holograph, but Chase reached over and pulled it backout, “I didn’t mean to, I was just-!”

Chase didn’t mind Yaz and Weller discussing his condition.He thought he was fine with the rest of the team knowing too. They were justfacts at this point.

Or so he had been telling himself. But seeing Cammie withall his files on screen made something in him panic.

“Doc, what’s this about?”

Dr. Weller merely turned around, blue eyes behind hisglasses calm and collected as always, only the slightest wrinkle suggestingannoyance, while the crow’s feet at the corners showed wisdom and understanding.He folded his hands in his lap, “Cammie is preparing for the day she needs totake over the program.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Doc isn’t going to live forever, y’know,” she scoffed, “It’simportant I know about each one of you now so I can help select future recruitsand keep you guys safe in the Holons.”

Chase saw his old Vanguard photo from four years ago blastedon the screen. Brown eyes and a normal face and hairline, uncorrupted by metalplates holding him together from all sides.

“Why does she need to see my information? Why isn’t shelooking at Yaz’s? Or Valentina’s?”

“Now, Chase, I understand the hostility, but-”

“I already looked at those,” Cammie folded her arms behindher back, “There isn’t much I need to know about everyone else. You however, inthe event we can’t regenerate you, there are many other things we have to takeinto consideration. If you’re still applicable for gen:LOCK, if you aged out,if you-”

“Alright, I get it,” Chase hissed with a little moremalice than necessary. He pressed a hand to the temple of his hologram. In hisreal body, he could sense a headache coming on. He still felt those.Somehow, “So, you’re just looking through our files. That’s all?”

“Well, I did have a few questions, but since you showed up-”

“Cammie,” Doc intervened, “I think it would be prudent tohave our discussion in the new year revolve around this.”

“I read that it has been difficult for us to decipher whichparts of you retain a sense of touch, but in the Holon, your senses return. Weknew that already. If you don’t have any sense of touch in your real body, Iwould say it’s related to your spinal cord damage and not damage to the brain,otherwise you wouldn’t be able to upload-”

“Cammie,” Doc warned, “Tread lightly.”

“I know. I know- But, spinal cord damage doesn’t make anysense. Yeah, you lost some of it, but only the parts for control of your lowerhalf, and pretty much any organs you lost. So, it doesn’t make sense for you tolose all sensations. So, that leaves us with your brain.”

She swiped and pulled up a spinning image of his brain.

“But! What I’m concerned about is the signs of damage andstress that are appearing on your brain data. If you’re gen:LOCK compatible,then you should be super neuroplastic, and recover from any sort of stressquickly. Heck, even though I’m still shaken up about my head being torn off, myscans don’t show as many signs of PTSD as you’d expect.”

Chase sighed and crossed his arms, “And? I’ve seen a hell ofa lot more combat and lived through a hell of a lot more than you. You think Iwouldn’t have some damage to my brain?”

“That’s the thing though,” She said, flipping through thescreens, her left hand pulling up an itemized list of medical recordsdocumented with dates that continued to scroll as she turned back to Chase andrested her arms on her lap, “All the dates from when these abnormalities andflare ups on your brain appeared are from a long time after the Battleof New York. At first I thought it might be an adjustment from uploading, butVal, Kazoo, and I aren’t showing any signs either. So, what’s the deal?”

Chase looked to Weller, giving the man permission to speak.With a sigh, Weller began.

“Cammie, if you must know, Chase has been suffering frominsomnia.”

“Insomnia? Why not just pump him with sleeping meds then?”

“It’s not that simple. I know you know, but your minds areincredibly important. Sleeping medication may be a temporary solution, but longterm use and overuse can have adverse effects on the mind.”

“Besides,” Chase mumbled, “We’ve tried that already.”

Cammie’s mouth formed into a small little ‘o’ before sheturned around to trace her hands over the screens. She easily found a date shehad skipped over, listing the medications that had been pumped into Chase earlyon in the gen:LOCK program, “Oops, sorry for missing that. But, is sleepdeprivation really causin’ all of this damage?”

“We’ve been… analyzing it for a while. It’s difficult todetermine with you five being our first test group, so we can’t rule outgen:LOCK as being a possible cause. Chase has been uploading for asignificant longer amount of time than the rest of you. However, we’vediscussed it before, and we both believe the issue is… much moreunderstandable.”

He extended a hand to Chase, giving him a chance to speak orback out. Chase let his arms drop to his sides and the tension left hishologram. Cammie was only trying to help, there was no reason for him to get sodefensive, but it was just… hard.

“It might be post-traumatic stress, but I feel thatit’s just from being in the tank so much. Sure, I can be out here and with y’alland I can go inside the Holons, but, at the end of the day, I have to go backin the tank. I may not be able to feel the walls around me, but… I know they’rethere. Sometimes, it takes me by surprise is all.”

“You’re claustrophobic? Hm, I didn’t think it would be thatplain.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, Chase can’t leave the tank. It isvery difficult with the nanotech to contain what remains of him, and the fluidhe is in helps to prevent it from spreading, and keeps his body from gettinginfected in it’s weak state.”

“So, Cammie,” Chase said, “Why are you so focused on mysleep?”

“Oh, yeah! Well, I’m no doctor-”

“I am!” Weller chimed in.

“Yeah, yeah. But, I’m wondering if you being sleep deprivedis affecting your sense of touch.”

Chase looked at her incredulously, crossing his arms. Shethrew her hands in the air and groaned.

“I know it sounds dumb. I couldn’t find any research tosupport it, but I honestly was too set in the idea to have it proven wrong bysome overly long academic journal. But, the way your eyes work is affected bysleep, right? So when you’re all groggy, and you’re slower at picking up onthings going on around you, don’t you think that could also apply to how yourbrain receives signals from your hands to register if something is hot or cold?Your danger signals might just be operating slowly, and since you’ve been likethis for a while, if you just get a good night’s sleep, we might start seeingsome results.”

Weller hummed, “She does have a point. Besides the senses Iput into the Holons, your cyberbrains don’t require sleep, and you’re alreadyoperating faster than you are as humans, so your senses aren’t dulled butenhanced…”

Chase sighed and hung his head, “I mean, it’s a good ideaand all, but like you saw Cammie, I’ve been this way for a long time now. I’mnot sure what’s gonna help fix me at this stage.”

Chase missed the way Dr. Weller’s eyes darkened in thoughtwhen a call from Migas caught his attention.

“Woah, sorry guys. Migas wants to play a game of siege. Let’stalk later.”

He vanished in a flash of pixels, and Cammie watched as Dr.Weller stared through the space Chase’s hologram had been residing in,boring a hole into the wall of the lab.

“Cammie,” she flinched when he addressed her, “for Chase’sbenefit, let’s keep this discussion confidential, shall we?”

Dr. Weller raised a finger to his lips and smiled at her.She gave a nervous smile back and squeaked out, “Of course,” before swivellingaround in the chair to squint at the files again. Dr. Weller looked back towhere Chase had been, before he turned back to what he was working on too.

In the silence, Cammie tried not to scream as she stared downat Nugget in her lap, thinking about the text she had already sent to the teamwith all her findings.

She ran her hands along her face as she began to sweat. Shejust hoped no one would confront Chase on the issue before she could tell themthe whole story.

Perhaps he had been too generous to give Cammie the benefitof the doubt, Dr. Weller mused as he entered the lab one night to find the teamasleep on the floor in front of Chase’s tank.

It had been a rough day for all of them. There was no mission,but during training he could tell they all seemed distracted. Even the Vanguardseemed concerned by how they kept slipping up. Cammie’s performance had takenseveral steps backwards, and Valentina and Kazu seemed to be more isolated fromthe team than usual. Yasamin was back to being silent rather than talking, andChase left everyone in the dust as he charged through the mountain range, onlyto overclock and burn through his uptime before he could continue.

Dr. Weller had to endure an earful from the Colonel all dayabout how useless his recruits were becoming, but he knew the root of herincreased high-strung attitude was because of the appearance of that Unionmech. It was almost a month ago now, but for that reason, they had beendelaying sending the Holons out on any missions. They needed to be prepared forwhatever or whoever they may have to face when they got another look atit. (Or him…)

Dr. Weller walked closer to the tank. Caliban was goingabout his normal routine of programmed tasks, but steering clear of thesleeping team piled up at the base of the tank. Chase’s eyes were shut, andWeller didn’t need to look at the monitors to know Chase’s breathing was slowand relaxed.

Good. It had been a while since he had last witnessedthat.

Technically, it was incorrect of Chase to say that he couldn’tsleep or couldn’t dream anymore. The crash and the nanotech haddestroyed his body, yes. But, that didn’t stop his body or his brain fromrequiring rest and other human needs. The first few nights adjusting to thetank were hard, yes, but Chase did eventually learn to sleep. Dr. Wellerhad records of his REM sleep after the surgery, detecting several dreams evenif Chase himself didn’t remember them. While inside the tank, Chase was hookedup to several IVs that provided him with nutrition and removed any waste toprevent infections. He could still eat and drink, just not in the traditionalsense. The oxygen mask was there for a reason too, after all.

He was still a human. It was wrong of him to think ofhimself as anything less. But, Dr. Weller knew Chase was miserable inside ofthe tank, and he cursed himself everyday for not being able to find a fastersolution to free the boy.

Because, that’s all he was in the eyes of the man. A boy.

He still remembered the scared look that flashed acrossChase’s face when he first explained gen:LOCK to him. They had pulled him outof the wreckage, flew him all the way to the west coast and then laid him on atable only for Dr. Weller to stand over him and shout what was likely nothingmore than mad science nonsense in the startled mind of the twenty one year oldwho was still feeling pain as the nanotech invaded his body.

Chase took the deal, and the rest was history. It shouldhave been. But, the thing that kept Dr. Weller from sleeping at night was thememory of the look in Chase’s eyes when the deal was offered. It haunted him.The nervous glance to the side before speaking. Perhaps it was Weller’s faultfor explaining it so poorly, but for a moment, and probably still to this day,there was a part of Chase that believed that had he not agreed to the gen:LOCKprogram that day, he would have been left to die.

They were his kids now. He would never leave them, healways reasoned.

But had he not agreed, what would you have done? Youwould have no obligation, no connection to him. You made a boy surrender hisautonomy to become your scientific toy. Now you’re doing the same with Yasamin,Kazu, Valentina, and Cammie. You continue to search for more recruits, morechildren to steal. How do you-

Dr. Weller took a deep breath and pulled off his glasses andwiped his eyes. When he was done, he slipped them back on and stared up at thetank. Kazu was asleep on Valentina’s shoulder, both of their legs stretched outas they leaned against the left side of the tank. Yasamin was against the rightside, turned away from the group. Her head rested against the fogged up glass,just below where Chase’s arm was. Cammie was sprawled out across the three ofthem, her head slinking down Yasamin’s back, her legs and feet across Valentinaand Kazu’s lap as Nugget slept on her chest. Dr. Weller smiled down at them.

He had told Cammie they couldn’t be sure but…

Some days Dr. Weller believed it had been his technologythat did more damage to Chase than the nanotech. After all, Chase had foundsleep easier, even with the nanotech inside. It was right after his secondbirthday that things went to hell.

Well, everything went to hell, Weller thoughtas he stepped over Valentina and Kazu’s legs, making his way to the monitornext to the tank. He really should send them back to their dorm so they couldproperly rest up, but-

He tabbed open the page displaying Chase’s brain waves, andtried not to gasp.

He looked over into the tank. He looked back at Chase’sbreathing.

Dr. Weller quickly and quietly rushed through shutting offany unnecessary noise and lights in the lab. He pushed Caliban over to hischarging pad and continued to dim the place until only Chase’s bedtime mixcould be heard drifting over the speakers, and the blue light from the tankilluminated the room. Then, he collected the things he needed and left the labas swiftly as he could.

He boarded the elevator, and clutching the blueprints in hisarms, he tried not to sniffle fearful that any noise would wake Chase from hisslumber, and his first, real dream in four years.

Good things had come since expanding the gen:LOCK program.He silently wished they would continue for his kids for a long while.

Then, the Anvil was attacked by the Union.

The battle was an ugly, chaotic, panicked mess. Chase hadstormed out of the eastern observation deck and immediately uploaded, takinghis anger out on Nemesis as soon as he collided with the other mech’s neck. Heknew if he didn’t stop him, everyone would die. The team, Migas, Miranda, Weller.But he wanted nothing more than to go up to Dr. Weller in his Holon andstrangle more answers out of him, to make him understand the gravity of what hehad done to Chase by not telling him he was just a copy.

If he could taste, he was certain he would taste bilewhenever he said the word. As he swung at Nemesis, he had to wonder if what theother him was saying was true or not. Did he even deserve to exist in his body,their body, if he wasn’t the original? Were either of them even theoriginal, or perhaps he had died four years ago in the Battle of New York andthe Doc had just copied his consciousness then. He had lied to him already,about the network going offline, about the mission being scraped, and he hadbelieved him. Could he fabricate memories too? He had heard from Cammie aboutthem being able to delete them, did the Doc go inside his mind and alter him tobe the perfect, obedient soldier so he would agree to the program?

He had always thought since he first saw himself in the tankthat something was wrong. But then Dr. Weller came in and comforted him. Maybehe had been right all along. The body didn’t belong to either of them. Itbelonged to the Chase who was dead.

In the background of the fight, him and Nemesis heard therest of the team clicking onto the network, and soon they were flying pastChase as they fought off the spider tanks and other Union soldiers storming thegrounds. Kazu and Valentina synced up, and suddenly their minds went silentacross the network as they became one. Yasamin crashed down next to Chase as hewrestled with Nemesis, and she reached out to him.

“Chase, we should try and fight him together!”

Chase continued to fire his gun at Nemesis as he struggledto free his leg from the mech’s claws. He couldn’t deal with distractions rightnow.

“What’s stopping you?”

“No, I mean really together!” Yasamin shouted as shemoved closer to him in the mindscape.

Her hand was so close to him, and Chase’s rage boiled as hethought about her touching him, getting inside his head. Nemesis yanked himcloser, nearly disarming his gun and pinning him down. Chase sliced his armacross the space between Yaz and him, shoving her away and he shouted at her.

“Let’s not do this now!”

She recoiled and floated away, going silent in the channel. Finally.Chase only had a few moments to savor the peace and quiet before Dr. Weller wasyelling at them to retreat. He punched Nemesis harder when he heard Doc’sfrantic speaking. Then, Yasamin was back in his ear calling out to him.

“Chase, fall back!”

“He doesn’t mean me, Yaz!”

“Chase!” She pleaded. And Chase grit his teeth as heprepared to jump Nemesis, hissing at the woman a reminder-

“My body can’t run, Yaz!”

His body slammed into Nemesis, and then the gen:LOCK channelwent silent for good.

When they first landed and hid behind one of the mountainranges, Yasamin immediately took control and began delegating tasks toeveryone. She spared no moment to make sure they were aware of their rationsand fuel, planning possible routes and trying to see if it was feasible to makeit back to the ESU’s headquarters on the west coast. The entire day, she wasnonstop in storming around the ship as she investigated every possible usefultool.

At nightfall though, things changed.

Kazu, Valentina, and Cammie had gone to bed. Chase was outin his Holon, patrolling the area to make sure no one was following them, andto clear his head by getting through his racing thoughts faster with theincreased speed and clarity of his cyberbrain. Yasamin was still in thecockpit, ready to open the ship’s doors if they needed to hide the Holon fromany sudden threat. She had gone quiet for the past hour, and Chase was going incircles as the rain pelted down on his armor.

He was somewhat thankful that the rain was slipping down inbetween the spaces of his armor. When the droplets touched the metal skeleton,he could feel the cold rush of it, like slime dripping down over his mechanicaljoints.

Doc had really improved the sensory features of theHolons. It was practically like having real skin.

He just started to lift his hands to the sky when he heardit.

“Chase…”

Yasamin’s voice crackled over the mic of the airship. Heturned around. He could barely see her sitting in the pilot’s chair, and so hewalked back and crouched down so he was eye level with the windshield.

She was curled up in the chair, a blanket around hershoulders as she pressed the mic button with one hand.

“Yo, what’s up?” He asked, the blue lights of his eyesflashing as he zoomed in to see her better. Her finger traced down underneathand around the control panel of the dashboard, her arm limp and her eyes low.Then, when she nearly let her arm drop, she puppeteered it back to the button,pressing down once as she whispered.

“Can you come back inside? I want to speak to you.”

Chase blinked at her for a moment, but then knelt downproperly, letting his Holon rest as he mixed into his hologram. Within a fewseconds, Yasamin heard the electronic noise as pixels materialized by the doorsbehind her, but did not turn around. Chase strided forward with easy, steadysteps, stopping behind Yaz with both palms up and his arms open.

“What’s the matter?”

She was silent, but Chase was patient. He watched as sheslowly lowered her hand again, folding them both into her lap as she pulled upher knees and leaned back in the chair. She stared out at the rain pouring downfrom the sky and hitting the windshield. A ring appeared around Chase’s restingHolon as water bounced off it and back down again. If there had been any lightleft behind the gray, murky clouds, perhaps the water would have glowed.

“The Doctor…”

He heard Yasamin’s breath hitch.

“He sacrificed himself for us to escape.”

Chase felt his heart stop in his real body inside the tank.

“Are you serious?”

Yasamin ran her hands up and down the fabric of the suitstretched over her thighs, “He helped us escape. We were getting into theelevator when Union soldiers appeared. When the doors closed, there was anexplosion.”

Chase cursed, “That’s just like him.”

He pressed a hand to his head and closed his eyes. All day,the others had been silent about what had happened and why they had fled. Hehad assumed it was everyone in shock over the sight of the nanotech drowningthe Anvil, but now he understood.

“Well,” he ran the hand down his face to his mouth, pressingit against his lips hard as he struggled to bite back more curses, “At least itwasn’t the nanotech. I lived through that hell, if it was an explosion, atleast it was mostly instantaneous and painless-”

“That’s not the point!”

Yasamin stood up from the chair and turned around to faceChase, an enraged scowl marring her face as she seethed.

“He sacrificed himself for us, Chase! Doesn’t that meananything to you?”

Chase stepped back, confused, “It does! Why do you think itdoesn’t?”

“Because you’re not upset! You’re just standing here makingsnide comments and-”

“I’m not making snide comments. I’m in shock, Yaz. I’vegone the whole day thinking, yes, all of my friends and family in the militarywere just eaten alive by the thing that nearly killed me four years ago. But, Ithought somehow the Doctor escaped on another ship.”

“Where would he go without our protection? We have Caliban,you know he would get captured right away without someone to guard him-”

“I was trying to be optimistic!” Chase shouted back, “Whyare you fighting with me? What do you gain by yelling at me?”

“I don’t know but the fact that you were so caught up inyour fight with the Union’s you that you let him-”

Chase snapped, “I didn’t kill him, Yaz! You can’t force theblame of his death onto me like this!”

Silence rang out in the cockpit after that, and Chase wassure that they had woken up the rest of the ship with that. The rational partof his mind prayed that they would take the hint and not try and intervene. Hecaught his breath after a moment, and just stared at Yasamin. Her head wasbowed so he could only see her brow etched into a scowl, her eyes scanning thefloor as his words continued to process in her head. After a few minutes, whenshe didn’t respond, he turned to go mix back into his Holon.

“I understand you’re tired,” he said, looking over his shoulderat her, “You should get some sleep. It will help clear your mind. I’m sureeveryone else is just as shaken up. They’ll need both of us to be level headedtomorrow.”

“Chase…”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his mindseep back into his Holon outside.

Yasamin reached out and her hand phased through Chase. Hiseyes snapped open and he turned around. She fell through him to the other side.

Chase stared down at his chest, where her hand had justforced its way through.

“Yaz, you of all people should know that I can’t-”

She whipped around, and her face crumpling with angry tears,she threw herself at him again.

This time, she stopped herself so she was hovering over his hologram, thepixels continuously vibrating at every point of contact as she wrapped her armsaround him, and tucked her head against his hollow chest.

Chase’s arms hovered by his sides, unsure of where to rest.

Then, he felt the gentle shake of her as she began to cry.

He relaxed easily, and put his arms around her.

He wished he could say he felt something during theexchange, some sorrow or grief or comfort in sharing this moment with the womanwho had become like his sister, but, the thought of her being familybrought up memories of the Doctor, and Chase’s mixed up thoughts scrambled evenmore inside, and so-

He awkwardly glanced out the window as she shuddered close,and Chase was thankful for the fact that he couldn’t feel.

After being interrupted three times during the night byUnion drones dropping Nemesis on them, Chase had downloaded after therealization Nemesis’s connection on the network. An argument about what to dowith the technology erupted, and although Chase was still angry at Dr. Weller,now that he had been given more time to think, and process what had happened,he still felt it would be a disservice to what the man had done to him to justshut down the program.

Especially since it was what gave Chase the littlefreedom he still had left. If Valentina, Kazu, Cammie, and Yaz just left, wouldhe just be left behind in the middle of nowhere, with only his body in a tankfor Nemesis to come and collect alongside him?

And so, he spoke the words, and unwittingly unlocked thefinal message from the Doctor.

He felt Yasamin’s hand slide through his pixels when Dr.Weller’s hologram disappeared. She awkwardly retreated when she remembered.Chase’s fingers twitched as the buzz went through them. He looked down at Yaz’sface, who was still staring where her father had vanished.

No. Their father.

He wasn’t just a scientific tool to the man. He had donenothing but care for him tirelessly. Chase was just too blind with rage to seeit.

Then, later, once the team had tried going to bed again,this time with more security in their minds about not being found, Yasaminapproached him again. She leaned on his tank and spoke to him quietly, but thecloseness frightened him and so he switched to his hologram again. Now with hisfeelings about Dr. Weller cleared up, his heart was only left to focus on thelarger knot tangled inside of it.

Nemesis.

He had come to accept that the Doc only lied to him aboutthe mission, and that he was being paranoid with thoughts of him ever doinganything malicious like fabricating memories of the past. He was obviously onlytrying to protect Chase from falling into despair and terror. But, that leftChase alone with the realization that while he had remained unchanging duringthe years, something devastating had to have happened to change the other himinto that.

Was it maliciousness at being left unsaved? Was it slowlybreaking trust in the Doctor and Polity that never came to his aid afterdisappearing? Did the original know he had been replaced, been copied? Did hissense of self warp into thinking he was so valuable, so important, that theywould fight a war to rescue him, only to discover they never even needed him inthe first place, just a copy of his mind?

But then Yaz reached out and touched him again, and Chase’sheart panged.

It wasn’t fair to her, to the rest of the team, to closehimself off like this. He had regarded her as if she was an idiot for the pastfew hours for trying to get close to him, for thinking that he was real. Thereal him was inside the tank, everyone knew that, but that didn’t change theway Cammie tried to always poke him, the way Kazu had patted his back andcalled him his brother, the way Valentina would help him up after they kickedhis ass.

Yaz was right, he was real to all of them. He just needed tostart thinking the same about himself.

But, the mess of knots in his chest wouldn’t subside, andso, he pulled away again.

He receded back into the tank, the buzzing of Yaz’s touchfading away as he hid behind glass, where no one could touch him, ever.

At RTASA, things were different. They felt like they allwere playing a game of catch-up as they explained things to Dr. Jha and then toHolcroft, being given amnesty despite being an ever present threat to endangerthe facility and also Holcroft giving them the timer to defeat Nemesis beforethey went forward with the future of gen:LOCK.

Their Holons needed repairs, so Cammie sought out gettingfinancial backing with Jha from Holcroft so they could print the new armor. Shehad been running around for days, between helping direct where to place them onthe Holon to modeling new skeletal designs on the CAD files.

A few days before the armor upgrades were to be finished,she sat down in private and went about dissecting whatever the Doc had leftbehind inside of Caliban’s mind. She had already been given files on monitoringChase’s condition, and most of the things he had locked away was all theresearch on the early stages of gen:LOCK with Chase, the incident thatled to the end of copying- Cammie shuddered when she finished reading, andlocked that file back away where she found it- and the goals for theprogram had it not been militarized.

There was a set of files that were fairly recent though. TheDoc appeared to have uploaded them only a few days before the Battle of the Anvil.Cammie nervously opened it, afraid it might be another confession like therecording of his final message or the copying.

A blueprint appeared on screen. Another CAD file? Shesquinted as she looked over it better.

She sat up when she read the title.

Oh.

There was another set of things modelled in the folder. Shepulled up that file too.

Oh! Her eyes widened, and she excitedly began to readover and rotate the designs inside the file.

She had felt a bit disheartened when she realized how far backthe prerecorded message was. Although she knew all the words the Doc had saiddid apply to how he truly thought of them, it made her wish he had the time togive them a more individual goodbye. Something more genuine than just a willand the end note of “Be well.”

They had been wrong. That wasn’t the Doc’s final message atall.

This was, however.

Cammie copied the files into her own folder and then mutedCaliban again, dashing out of the room as she sought out Dr. Jha.

Chase wondered if he had been forgotten about. Over the pastfew days, everyone seemed to have made themselves scarce. He didn’t mind beingleft alone in his tank, usually, but he had grown accustomed to openinghis eyes in their new dorm to seeing the rest of the group doing something. WhetherKazu playing the guitar, Valentina laying down as they logged into the Ether,or Yasamin reading, it had become a small comfort to him to know they werestill together, even though so much had changed.

But one morning, he opened his eyes and everyone was gone.

At first, it was no issue. He could navigate in his hologramaround RTASA as much as he did at the Anvil or the ESU. There were stillscientists working around the clock, and soon enough, he found his team huddledin some corner of the base, talking amongst themselves.

“Hey guys! Why did you tell me we were having a meeting?”

He was met cordially, but they all seemed a bit too quiet.They wouldn’t give him answers about what they were discussing, and they alldispersed quickly after his arrival. He was left confused, and ultimately hedecided to mix back into his tank.

A few days later, he was walking around again and spottedCammie and Dr. Jha outside a conference room.

“Oh, nothing! I just have to talk to Holcroft again!” She saidwhen he asked what was going on.

“Again? Is he pulling out of our deal?”

“It’s nothing like that, Chase,” Dr. Jha reassured him,significantly calmer than Cammie was, “There is another thing we have decidedto build for the benefit of your team, but we require more financial backingbefore we go ahead with the project. We also must decide how soon we canconstruct it.”

“Oh? What is it? Did you find something cool in Doc’s filesagain?” Chase looked to Cammie, who smiled nervously.

“Uh, yeah! Super cool, but like everything else withthe upgrades, it’s a surprise! So you better stay out of the hangar until they’redone, or else I’ll block your hologram from entering without my permission!”

Chase laughed, “I promise, I promise.”

“Cammie, we should get going. Holcroft is waiting,” Dr. Jhaushered her inside. Although she cast a smile back at him as she closed thedoor, Chase stiffened. He caught the faintest glimpse of Yasamin in the back ofthe conference room before the door closed shut, and Chase had to wonder if thewhole team was in there.

What were they talking about without him?

That night, Dr. Jha found Chase. She entered the dorm roomand stood patiently in front of his tank, waiting for him to notice her. He wasmixed into one of the observation decks, watching the sunset alone when heheard rustling coming from the dorm. Excitedly, he warped back into his tank,but his expression dropped when he saw Dr. Jha.

“Chase, wonderful, I have something I need to speak with youabout.”

“Is this regarding what you all were discussing withHolcroft earlier?”

Her expression fell for just a second, but she quicklyregained her smile and folded her hands behind her back.

“So you did see the rest of your friends in the room. I’msorry we excluded you. Holcroft wanted to speak to them too.”

Chase felt nervous. Dr. Jha seemed honest, but he didn’tlike the secrets that were floating around.

“Why not me?”

“Chase,” she cleared her throat, “Cammie had stumbled acrossRufus’ instructions on how to care for you. As the sole investor in gen:LOCK,Holcroft has also been providing funding for keeping you alive.”

Oh.

“So why wasn’t I in the room? You guys aren’t cutting meoff, right?” Chase joked, but Dr. Jha seemed startled by that remark. A brief panickedthought went through Chase’s mind, and he couldn’t help but cut out hislaughter, “You’re not, right?”

“Of course not, Chase. You are a highly valuable member ofgen:LOCK. It would be irresponsible for Holcroft to pull out of providing supportfor you when you are the most experienced.”

Sensing his apprehension, she continued.

“I assure you though, Holcroft would never be allowed tosimply cut you off like that. Not that I, or any of your teammates would allowthat. I assure you, we were not discussing anything of the sort. We thought itwould be uncomfortable for you to speak with Holcroft about such a topicthough, since he can be brash and might have misled you.”

Chase chose to believe her and move past it, “So, why haveyou come to talk with me?”

“Although you and I have not known each other for very long,Rufus did keep me updated on your condition, and we here at RTASA are equippedto support you.”

“So, where is this all going?”

“Cammie noticed that in Rufus’ logs of you, you were longoverdue for a check up. If you would allow it, we would like to remove you fromthe tank tonight temporarily. My medical team and I will oversee that you aresafe and unharmed during the procedure. Do you agree to allow us to do this?”

Chase still felt that something was off, “Are you going tohave to put me under to do it like the Doc used to?”

She nodded, “In Rufus’ instructions, he believes it to bethe least shocking way to help your body adjust to the lack of fluidsurrounding it. If you would like us to-”

“No,” Chase shook his head and sighed, “Let’s follow the Doc’sinstructions. He kept me alive this long, I trust his judgement.”

Dr. Jha smiled, “Excellent. Then, in about four hours, wewill begin. We will transport your tank to our medical wing right before then.”

She bid him goodbye and left the dorm with a wave. He wasalone again. An hour before the start time, the rest of the team came in andhelped Caliban walk him down. They all spoke happily and assured him everythingwould be fine, and Cammie told them all that she was almost done withthe upgrades and they would see them soon. Although Chase laughed alongsidethem and pressed his hand against the tank as they all patted the glass, as hewas pushed through the doors, he couldn’t shake the fear in the back of hismind that this was the last time he would see them again.

Cammie and Caliban stayed in the room as they set up Chasefor removal. They administered the anesthesia through the IV that hooked to thetop of the tank, and then, slowly began to drain the tank.

The last thing Chase saw was Caliban reaching out to catchhim, but everything went dark and then he was gone.

Chase opened his eyes to water.

He had grown accustomed to first seeing the fluid that was aglowwith the blueish light from the heaters of the tank. His eyes always took amoment to adjust to being hit with the harmless, but unnatural, liquid thatcovered his senses. He had learned to see through the fluid clouding hisvision, to move his arm through the heavy gel to gesture what little he couldto those who approached his tank.

This time, when he opened his eyes, however…

The liquid felt different.

It was lighter. Although he had grown used to thefluid to the point the weight did not bother him at all, the speed at which hefelt his hand jerk awake and cut through the liquid felt too smooth. Itwas too fast, like if someone had submerged his Holon self inside of it.

He had to wonder if that was true for a moment whenhe realized he could feel the individual bubbles in the liquid pebbling aroundthe skin of his face, the oxygen mask keeping them from touching his lips, butthey gathered around it all the same.

His eyes shot open as the sensations overtook him, andsuddenly his arm was swinging out- and there was no wall there to catch it.

Had he fallen into the ocean? Had RTASA sunk into the sea atlast? Why was he drowning?

Did they throw him into the ocean after thinking he wasdead?

And why was it so bright?

“Chase!” He heard Cammie’s scottish yip fizz over thechannel that hooked him to gen:LOCK, the ether, and his hologram. This timethough, it sounded more muffled. Not in a quiet way, but as if Cammie’s voicewas echoing inside a helmet or a mask before it was being picked up by the microphone.

He glanced around to try and see where her voice was comingfrom. It was strange, it was like her voice was buzzing not only over thesignal, but through the liquid too. As he tried to look around, he was stunnedfor a moment by the realization that he could turn his head. He couldalways move it somewhat, but for the first time in years he was able totouch his chin to each shoulder, and then he realized he was swimming.

There were still tubes connecting him and supporting him up,but as he moved his arm about, he realized he was drifting. Through the blue,oceanic like liquid, he swam, slowly coming to realize the more he thought aboutwhere he wanted to go, the more the machine supporting his torso helped himglide that direction. He smiled behind the mask and glanced where he thoughtwas up as he heard the rest of his team’s voices filter through thespeaker.

“It appears he is happy with the new arrangement,” Valentina’svoice wasn’t muffled like Cammie’s was. It sounded far away though.

“You can see him through there? It’s too foggy for me,” Kazusaid.

“I’m going in. Cammie! Are you ready down there?” Yaz calledout, to which Cammie responded cheerfully.

“Yup! It’ll take a moment to swim down, but I promise you it’llbe worth it!”

Swim down?

Chase turned around.

Cammie was there. Inside the water. She was floatinga few feet away behind Chase, a clear, helmet encircling her head and coveredin the same hexagonal patterns as their holograms loading in were. She wasn’twearing her gen:LOCK suit, but instead a suit he had never seen before. Itcertainly wasn’t Doc’s design, but he could see the influences were there. Itwas a green diving suit that covered her hands and feet completely. Althoughshe appeared to be free floating, Chase could see a harness of some alloy thatreached all the way up to wherever the surface was. She was typing into ascreen that was illuminating from her wrist. When Chase met her eyes, shegrinned, and waved.

“Cammie!” Chase cried out, and swam towards her.

“It’s me! In the flesh! Well, in the suit, I guess. Youlike?”

“So this is what you guys were up to?,” he laughed, “You putme in some sort of aquarium.”

“Of course not, you dummy. But, I suppose it is like a bigfish tank. We built it all in one night. It was still hard to keep it a secretfrom you though.”

“Well, you did a good job. This is amazing.”

“You’re not claustrophobic?”

“Not at all!” Chase swam in a circle, his arm freely glidingthrough the water. He faced her again and watched as her green eyes piercedthrough the helmet, practically matching the hue of the glowing water. Thebubbles crawling to the surface pearled around the screen of the helmet andsurrounded her face as she smiled at him. There were faint distortions on themask like when the holograms bumped into something. She swiped the screen onher wrist back into her watch.

“Try doing a flip!”

“I can do that?”

“Hell yeah you can! We rearranged all the tubes and wireskeeping you alive, and outfitted you with a harness that spins. Look, mine doesthe same!”

Cammie arched back and flipped backwards like a mermaid, thealloy attached to her harness rotating to the side as she curled over and backunder it again. When she was swimming down, he could see how the metal bar connectedto a protruding disk shape on her back and that was what spun and bent themetal into different angles.

“You try!” She said, and Chase took a moment to try ithimself. It was a little different than when he used to do flips at the poolwhen he was a kid, because back then he had legs that would push off and kickand bring him around in the circle, but he didn’t need them now. When hecompleted the trick, he moved towards Cammie, excited.

“You gotta tell me how this all works. This is amazing!”

“I know, right?”

“How am I swimming?”

“We took the signals that read your nerves signals tocontrol your hologram away from your body and hooked them up to this machine.Now, instead of it reading it and transferring it to an avatar like in VR, itjust moves in accordance to how you want to move. Quite simple to programactually, since we already have so much tech that reads brainwaves, it waspractically a step backwards for gen:LOCK, but building all this was whatdelayed it.”

“Delayed it? But you built it so fast?”

“It was actually the Doc who designed it.”

Chase stopped swimming.

“He came up with the blueprints, at the very least. I foundthem in the files saved in Caliban. He had been thinking about it for years, Ithink, but Holcroft wouldn’t give him the funding. He wanted Doc to put all hisfocus into gen:LOCK first, but Doc never stopped thinking about it. This washis final design. He uploaded it only hours before-”

“Cammie, you don’t need to explain. It’s wonderful. I’mthankful. So, that’s what you were actually talking to Holcroft about. Ithought you were discussing killing me!”

Cammie gasped, “Killing you? Are you crazy? Of course not!Why would we ever-”

There was a rippling through the water and Chase feltsomething vibrating behind him. He spun around slowly, watching as Yasamindescended gracefully down to their level. Chase had to wonder how big the tankwas, for he could not see the surface nor the sides of it. There was just anendless ocean everywhere.

“Yaz!” Chase shouted out, “Did you know about Doc’s plansbefore- Oof!”

Yaz flew towards him, unbound by the weight of the liquidshe soared forward and wrapped her arms around him. The screen of her helmetbuzzed like the pixels of a hologram against the side of his face as she tuckedher head into his shoulder, and he gently rested his arm on her back as theyheld each other.

Wait a minute.

Chase’s fingers ran along the fabric of Yaz’s suit, tracingthe fabric lightly until he began to shake. It was soft beneath hishand, not soft like a pillow or a feather, but the liquid against it made thematerial pliable and a bit silky. It was almost like… skin? He couldfeel warmth exuding from underneath his hand, despite the cooler temperature ofthe water, and then Yaz shifted her head and the helmet bumped against his faceagain and he felt the same warm sensation fluttering through the buzzinghexagons and fading into his skin.

“Chase? Are you okay?” Yaz started to pull back when shefelt the tremors going through him, “Cammie, is it a bad reaction to the newfluid?”

“No, it’s-”

“It’s just… I thought she was a hologram,” Chase said,glancing at Cammie before he turned back to Yaz and tightened his fist in theback of her suit, “I thought you were all just projecting yourself in here. Ithought-”

“No, no, Chase, we’re real. We’re here,” Yaz’s hands reachedup to cup his face, her thumbs careful of the oxygen mask as she caressed himand touched her forehead to his, “Dr. Weller wanted to be the one to show youthis, but… He didn’t have time. I was so worried it would never happen, butCammie made it possible.”

“I can feel you. How can I feel you?”

“Like how our gen:LOCK suits enhance our abilities bysharpening the speed at which our neurons transmit information and commands, Docwas looking into finding ways to share that information, beyond justmind sharing when uploaded. Her suit is sending information out to you, andsending that information to the nerves in your hand and skin,” she explained,swimming a bit closer, “It’s still in a very early stage though. When wetransferred you out of the tank, we had to run a series of tests while you wereunconscious to see if your nerves still work, and because we didn’t want torisk putting you in a completely new suit and disrupt your easy connection togen:LOCK, you’re actually experiencing a very dull version of what could be.”

“It’s enough,” Chase choked out, “It’s enough.”

“Oh, are we making you cry?” Cammie teased, floating infront of him with a smirk, “I didn’t expect this big of a reaction. I think youowe me a thank you!”

“Knock it off Cammie,” he batted her away while Yasaminwiped his tears that were being swallowed up by the liquid anyway, “It’s beenalmost five years since I felt anything like this.”

I didn’t know I could cry too.

“Besides, you don’t get all the credit,” Yaz said, “Youwould have never survived in arguing with Holcroft without us.”

“Yo!” Chase shouted up to the surface, “Are the rest of youcoming in or not?”

“I suppose that’s our cue,” Valentina stated, “You first,Kazu.”

“Huh? Why me? Wait! What are you-!”

There was a loud noise and crackling before Chase saw ashadow appear overhead, before the red suit of Kazu burst through the water andlanded in between him and Yasamin. There was a neater entrance made byValentina, who dove through the surface and shot down towards the bottom of thetank to join them. They floated up to hover by Yasamin as Kazu fumbled to righthimself.

“Poor fool couldn’t hook up his harness by himself”Valentina huffed, “Made me do everything.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t shoved me in, I would’ve figured itout!”

“We couldn’t keep them waiting any longer. It’s not my faultyou’re so slow.”

“Hurry up and hug Chase already, Kazoo! Before he getsannoyed by all of us bickering and kicks us out!”

Chase breathed out a laugh as he opened up his arm again anddrifted towards Kazu, “I could never get tired of you guys.”

Kazu righted himself and swam towards Chase, reciprocatingthe hug before he pulled back and draped one arm over his shoulders as heattacked his head with a harsh noogie.

“Woah, hey!”

“That’s for all the trouble you’ve been causing youraniki. Been wanting to do that for a while. It never felt right in the Holon.”

Chase winced as he lifted his head from underneath theattack but smiled still, “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Do you think we could playbaseball here? I can still pitch with this arm.”

“Let’s keep it restricted to our Holons, please. The glassis strong, but it’s not indestructible,” Yasamin chided.

“So there is glass? It seemed infinite in here,” Chase said,looking around. Cammie pulled the command screen out of her watch again andbegan fiddling.

“Yeah, unfortunately Holcroft wouldn’t let us build you a lifesizeocean, so most of this is an illusion.”

She dropped the imagery and the endless, blue shadows andlight refracting through the water shrunk back, revealing the main hangar ofRTASA. The tank was still quite big though, and Chase felt as though hewas a shark inside an aquarium tank. He could now see above, where a smallplatform hovered overhead. Built into the top of the tank was a small room thatled to where the tank could be opened for maintenance and if people needed toenter.

“But, the good news is, you’ll have full control of the settings,so if you ever want to see our lovely faces outside of the tank, you still can,even if you’re not walking around. And, the illusion works on the outside too.You’ll be able to block Kazoo out if he annoys you too much.”

“Don’t you mean he’ll block you out?”

“Nah, I’m too cute for him to want to block out. Besides, ifhe did, I’ll just disable it. I’m the only one you can’t get rid of!” She saidas she pounced on Chase’s back, being careful of the machinery strapped to him.

“Wait a second, the nanotech. Is it even safe for you to bein here?” Chase asked, suddenly drifting away from all of them.

“It’s still dormant, but, just to be safe, that’s anotherfeature of the suits that Doc designed.”

“We have to cover ourselves head to toe to prevent anypossible infiltration,” Valentina said, stretching their arm and fingers outthrough the water as they eyed the fabric of the suit up and down, “The helmetsare a bit clunky, but it’s like our Holon heads. Not too uncomfortable.”

“So, you’re safe?”

“As long as we’re dressed like this, and there’s no cracksin the helmets,” Cammie knocked on the outside of the helmet for emphasis, “We’regood.”

“But, just in case,” Yasamin reassured, There’s an emergencysystem that will draw us all out of the water if it ever detects yournanotech begins to move again.”

Cammie lunged at Chase and tackled him again, this timepushing down on his shoulders and flipping up over him until she was floatinghigh away. Her ponytail swished around inside the helmet, and as it brushed theinside of the container, Chase felt the distinct sensation of hair brushing hisforehead as she nearly collided heads with him.

“Let’s have some fun! This is like your, what, thirdbirthday?”

“Fourth if you count the fact that I’m the copy. How longcan you all stay in here though?” Chase asked.

“Don’t worry about it! We’ll be with you as long as you wantfrom now on!”

Or so they had said, but now…

Now Chase was trying to rip himself away from them.

Again.

“Not when we’re so close! We don’t have time!” She beggedthe rest of the team as the uptime warning flashed in all of their minds.

Chase had finally agreed to mindshare with her, with all ofthem. He was finally ready to let them in, and now they were talking aboutrunning away only to give Nemesis the perfect opportunity to kill all of themwhile they were back in their human bodies.

She wouldn’t let them get Chase. She wouldn’t let them killthe rest of her family.

“Yeah you do. You’re going to get the time you need to reset,”Chase’s affirmation made her freeze up as he lowered his hand on her shoulder.She had longed to finally be able to touch him for so long, and after gettingthe chance in real life, all that remained was in the mindscape. For him totruly open up and accept them all. But, as his hand settled on to her, fearstruck her at his next words.

“You can bet on it.”

She wanted to scream. Her mouth struggled to speak,eventually all she could get out was, “Chase, no!”

If he let go now, if he exceeded uptime…

“This has to stop now!”

“No! Not like this!”

The warning flashed louder in their ears. Yasamin felt herworld closing in around her as Chase continued to insist they run and leave himbehind.

“You will lose your body!” She shouted exasperated. They hadno more time. No more time for her to find the words she wanted to say. To tellhim why it wasn’t fair that he ran away from them after he just started to openup. To tell him why she was scared he would die before they got back to him.What happened beyond uptime was unknown. Chase’s body would be renderedcompletely empty, Chase would never be given a chance to be human again.

It wasn’t fair. She had just gotten the chance to touch him-

“Yaz… I lost that four years ago,” He confessed, “This is me now.”

Yasamin wanted to cry.

“You just said it. I gotta let go, right? Change. “

Yasamin reached out and grabbed his hand, desperately tryingto merge with him so she could run his Holon back with them.

“This is not what I meant!”

But Chase was already pulling away.

After the battle, Chase stood in front of the emptytank.

The others left him alone. They had downloaded and gone totheir room to retire for the night. But Chase couldn’t download now. Hehad burned through all his uptime, and now was stuck inside his Holon.In the adrenaline rush of battle, he didn’t mind it. Although they were bulky,they did provide a lot more freedom than his human body.

Perhaps he would have felt that way had his friends not justbuilt him a giant tank to give him so he could hug and be with them. Perhaps hewould have felt that way had he not just wasted their gift and time andenergy and arguing with Holcroft about how vital this would be to Chase’srecovery, to his improved gen:LOCK performance.

But, there was something about seeing the dark tank, knowingthe time his friends and his family had spent trying to make him happy again,that made him tighten his fist against the surface, and shut his eyes.

He regretted it. It was necessary in the moment andit helped them win, but he regretted it. There was a slim chance he could everreturn to his body now. There was the matter of Leon too, if he would ever wakeup. Chase should be thankful he had a consciousness left at all after how muchhe did during the battle. At least, he could still ping out in his hologramform to walk about with everyone like he used to. It just felt like he burnedthrough more than just uptime when he left his body behind.

But.

As he thought back to the battle, to the way he had syncedup with all of his friends, perhaps it hadn’t been a wasted opportunity.

Mindshare was different than any physical touch. It was moreintimate, yet more pure. Chase had spent so long longing to feel touch again,he had been denying perhaps a better alternative all along. When Yasamin hadreached out to him at the Battle of the Anvil, had he taken her hand, couldthey have saved the Doc? Would they have been able to beat Nemesis together inthat moment?

No, probably not. Chase was still so angry at that time, hewould have just clouded Yasamin’s mind and put her in danger, making thesituation worse. He was thankful he didn’t make her first experience inside hishead one so full of hatred and confusion. Especially since all that anger was directedat the Doc, it would have made for a terrible mix.

Still, it was strange. Learning he could touch again onlyfor it to be ripped away from him. He did it with his own hands though. Thiswas his own choice he made. He did feel that he was dishonoring Doc’s finalgift to him, though. Perhaps, had he not been so self-sacrificing, he couldhave experienced the touch of more people before the end. They could have allgone back to the Anvil, and maybe he would have gotten a chance to hug Migasagain, Leon even, had he not had to upload into the last Holon. Maybe even-

Miranda.

But, this was the choice he had made. It was something onlyhe could do in the moment, and now he had to live with that choice. And, he andMiranda had chosen to go their separate ways. He couldn’t keep going back onhis decisions.

Besides, his body was still alive inside the tank.Just not this one. They had moved him back into the smaller tank when the timecame for him to go to the transport ship and upload. Pretty soon, Dr. Jha andeveryone else would work on deconstructing the larger one now that it would gounused.

For the time being, he remembered her telling him.

If they continued to advance gen:LOCK, there was hope forLeon to be able to wake up again in his normal body. Perhaps the same could besaid for Chase, that one day he and his copy, however many they were,would get to download again and live a normal life. When the Union was gone,and the Polity was restored, Chase hoped that somehow, they all couldfind peace.

They all were human, after all. Doc had believed in that,had believed that Nemesis could come back to them somehow. Chase had to believeit too, so he could keep moving forward towards tomorrow.

Left alone in the hangar, Chase took his Holon and sat downin front of the tank, his back to it as he went into sleep mode. It was nothinglike sleeping as a human, but it would rest his mind enough to help pass thetime. He would have to get used to it from now on, having insomnia without the,well, insomnia.

As the light left the eyes of his mech, Chase let himselfdrift in the mindscape.

He woke up when he felt something roll off his shoulder.

Reacting quickly, he caught that thing that toppledoff his arm and rolled into his hand. His eyes adjusted and zoomed in on thesmall thing, gasping fully awake when he realized it was Cammie.

“What? What are you doing?”

She was dressed in her pajamas, and the hangar was dark, soit must not be morning yet. He lifted her up closer to his face, but that waswhen he caught sight of another abnormality, and connected it to the strangeweight on his leg.

Draped over his knee, Kazu was asleep. Chase used his otherhand to scoop the man up and deposit him beside Cammie in his right hand. Theyboth barely stirred. He searched around in the dark, looking for Valentina andYasamin. He found Yasamin had barely climbed up onto his form, and instead wasjust sort of hanging against the hip of his armor, slumped against it. Hepicked her up too, but was starting to run out of space in his one hand. Now,where was Valentina-

He turned his head, and felt him knock into something beforea weight flopped against his shoulder. Valentina had hidden themself on top ofthe groove created by the armor’s breastplate, leaning into its curve as itcurled over his shoulder, like it was a hammock. Chase carefully nudged themoff and caught them too, and then with both hands together, lifted histeammates close to his face as he stared down at their sleeping figures.

Because his hands were free of any armor, he could feeltheir warmth through his metal skin. It wasn’t just a weight pressing down ontohis skeletal frame, but instead he could feel them breathing, them moving aboutas Cammie rolled over again and nearly punched Kazu in the face.

Chase laughed softly as he tried not to wake them all up. Hewould have to ask them in the morning what brought them all out here. But, fornow, he just admired the senses he could feel transmitted through the Holon tohis brain, and savored it.

Perhaps this was the last thing that Doc had leftthem. Chase didn’t doubt that Weller hadn’t considered the possibility thatChase would do something this reckless. Maybe he saw it the moment Chase agreedto the program, saw that he was willing to die again, and decided he wouldn’tlet that happen. He created uptime so gen:LOCK candidates wouldn’t overclockthemselves to death, and then gave them all a sense of touch. Even thoughsometimes it caused them pain, he kept it in, to keep them feeling human.

To keep Chase feeling human.

He had to keep feeling human. He had lost his body, but nothumanity.

That was what the Union wanted, and as he looked down at thesleeping faces of his family, he refused to give them what they wanted.

Besides, if Cammie was able to interpret Doc’s notes soaccurately, who’s to say that she couldn’t go forward and do what even hecouldn’t do?

Chase tucked his friends close to his chest, and went intosleep mode again. This time, he dreamed.

#ask poland #my writing #writing #gen:lock #gen lock #genlock

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