Fic: Awake The Nation: Chapter IV

[speak_me_fair]

iv. {among a vanished tribe}

The gentle sound of waves crashing at the foot of the hill and the dancing sounds of water flowing in the brook that was closer at hand were meant to bring peace to those who heard them. The soft breeze in the trees and the warm lights that sheltered the pathways rather than glaring out the way, had all been arranged to promote restful contemplation and calm. Dom could sit out in the terraced garden of the home Saito had built for Kazue- his home now as well- and feel nothing but comforted. Mal would have loved it there. She would have added her own little sparks and touches that would delight and amuse. It was something she had always been good at.

Dom supposed that it was encouraging that most of the time this place did nothing but soothe him, allowed him to visit pleasant memories of Mal and their life together, rather than feeling the pain of their separation and his own loss.

Tonight though, tonight not even the delicate light and sounds of the gardens could calm him. He was feeling frustrated and angry- but wasn't sure exactly what he needed to do.

That Ariadne in particular thought she was protecting everyone, he had no doubt. It was her duty as Saito's General for one, and her instinctive action to ensure the safety of those she loved had always driven her, long before Yusuf had made his one and only perm-mod for her, the jeweled lights below her ear that could conjure up a fleet or an army vaster than any imaginings, enough to hold off war with any and all comers; enough to give Saito the time and space and peace within which he practiced his politics, introduced his empire's rules and laws without any visible effort.

So far. Dom amended his thoughts a little wryly. There was only so long they could have, any of them, before the fact that Saito's army was for the main part an illusion, and the man himself intended to rule- and rule absolutely- became apparent to everyone. The fact that Dom happened to agree with his aims was, quite honestly, more a relief than anything, because he could not imagine withstanding Saito- could not have imagined it when he first met him, minutes after he had lost his disguise as an AI- and could imagine even less now that he had worked with the man, and seen the extent of his dream- and come to share it.

I cannot forbid people to think. But I can certainly forbid them to act upon their thoughts. And I do.

Saito's words to them on their arrival on Seisui, half-overwhelmed by its beauty and the lack of holos. The lack of pretence.

They had known they were being bought, with that time and that freedom. It hadn't mattered, then.

It shouldn't have mattered even now. But for Dom, who would always have loyalties that came before Saito, whether he wanted to or not, it did.

He suspected that the fact it still didn't matter to Ariadne was what had made her refuse the knowledge Yusuf would have offered to give her freely.

And Yusuf -

Yusuf... Dom, as always, didn't understand him at all. He had once called him Ariadne's mod-inhibitor, and been grateful for the fact. But his priorities? No, those still remained a mystery to Dom, and until now he had simply accepted that.

With Arthur and Eames gone, though, he couldn't be quite so unquestioning.

Of all the people that Dom had learned to trust in the rocky aftermath of Mal's collapse, Arthur and Eames were a never-deposed first. Dom trusted them in a way that bordered on frightening, trusted them not only with his own life, but with the lives of his children. Why this should be true he had yet to figure out, but somehow, even while they seemed to be as uncomprehending of it as he was himself, they had never let him down.

Dom turned back towards the house, picking out the lighted windows and attempting to settle himself with thoughts of the many lives behind them, enclosed in wood and paper and screens of light and water. There on the end, Saito's study, his haven from the more pressing cares of government, and from which he had once run his dual life as the ruler of Seisui and the Mandell's AI, full of books, both paper and electronic, warm colors and comfortable chairs. Above and to the left the children's rooms, still dimly lit because Pip liked to sneak in something to read far after the time that lights-out had been called, and they all still pretended not to know. Further along, the rooms that Ari and Yusuf had claimed for themselves- brightly lit for Yusuf because he could never manage to confine himself to his workshop and always had parts for some ongoing project spread across the credenza and desk.

The light dimmed for a moment and he saw a slender outline pass between the light and the window. Ariadne was still awake, obviously.

More to the point, since she was actually there and hadn't found some reason, after her encounter with Saito, to simply disappear off into the stars again and leave Yusuf to deal with the fall-out, the two of them were still sharing what they tended to refer to as their quarters. Whatever had passed between her and Yusuf- whatever it was that she had decided not to know; whatever it was that Yusuf was responsible for; whatever she might know that had caused her to say she had let anyone down- it had not been the cause of any visible rift between the General and her mod-creator.

And that, Dom thought, was unusual.

Ariadne and Yusuf fought in the same way that they loved- unashamedly and openly and usually infuriating everyone around them, yes, but never behind closed doors unless it was insisted upon for the sake of everyone's ears and eyes, or a rare and self-indulgent wish for a modicum of privacy.

Ariadne might have fought with Arthur- Dom was actually pretty damned sure she had fought with him, because no-one except Arthur managed to make her second-guess herself quite like that- but she hadn't fought with Yusuf. If she had, the whole of Seisui and possibly a few other planets would have been aware of it, and Dom would have been unable to avoid knowing simply because of the volume at which those fights took place.

And Yusuf, unless he had completely missed his guess, and he somehow thought he very much had not, had been a prime mover in whatever scheme Arthur and Eames had cooked up between them and taken off to stars-knew-where.

Dom was beginning to feel decidedly shut out. And he was about to let someone, even if it wasn't the two he'd have preferred to explain the problem to, become extremely aware of just how little he appreciated that.

He gave a nod and slipped quietly back into the house, gently sliding the door closed behind him. If nothing else he would prefer not to disturb either the children or Saito. The former because the resulting chaos would distract him from his goal and the latter because he suspected that Saito was still entertaining- if that was the appropriate word for laying all his plans on the table with no argument accepted- one or two of their guests .

"Ari?" Dom knocked on the door. No signaling for admittance on the interior of Saito's home, you used good old-fashioned flesh against wood. "Ari? I know you're still up, I saw the lights."

"I'm naked!" Ariadne called back. Dom smirked to himself. Not unless you stripped in the last few seconds, he thought, and called back -

"Is that supposed to be a deterrent?"

"Um, yes?"

"Bad luck," Dom said loudly, and walked in.

Ariadne, as he had somehow thought, was fully clothed, standing in the middle of the room, and looking distinctly aggrieved.

"Naked means go away," she pointed out, putting her hands on her hips.

"Mm," Dom agreed pleasantly. "Except you're not, and you've regressed to acting the brat. Care to explain?"

"I don't think I need to explain why I'm not naked," Ariadne said, pouting a little. "You need to explain why you'd have come in anyway, though!"

"Because I live with far too many degenerates," Dom said, "and the day I find attraction to any of you a problem, I am going straight down to the coast and drowning myself out of shame. Now, if you'd said Yusuf was naked, I might have reconsidered, because at the risk of sounding like some actual children I know, ew."

"Insulted!" came the shout from Yusuf's workroom. "Also, not naked, thank you so much!"

"Good!" Dom yelled back. "Get out here!"

"But I'm working..."

"Too bad."

"Oh, please no," Ariadne whined. "You're using the dad-voice. Yusuf, he's using the dad-voice and I refuse to face that alone. Come out!"

There was some shuffling and banging, all very melodramatic sounding, as if Yusuf was doing it to impress Dom with just exactly how busy he was.

Dom was not impressed in the slightest.

"Dominic," Yusuf said as he finally entered the sitting room. "What a lovely surprise. Would you like some tea? Um... scotch? Arsenic?"

"How about a nice shot of truth?" Dom said, still smiling, and Yusuf sighed.

"Ah. Now that- that might be a little tricky."

"Right, what with Ari not knowing," Dom agreed in fake sympathy.

"What with Ari not choosing to know," said the object of discussion sternly. "Oh dear. Saito was supposed to be put off, not go running to you."

"It's Saito." Dom actually felt a little sympathetic, that time. "He never does what you hope for."

"Too bloody true," Yusuf muttered. "Oh, sorry, I said that outside my head, very silly of me, forgive my brain."

"Not this millennium," Dom said, "if even half of what I've hypothesized is anywhere near to being true."

"Do I get to hear the hypothesis before you start shouting?" Ariadne asked brightly. "Or before I have to leave so I still don't know whatever it is you did, Yusuf, because I don't want to have to kill you."

Dom blinked. Even for them that was a bit- odd. "Isn't it supposed to be if he tells you he has to kill you?" he asked in some bewilderment.

"Not in this instance," Ariadne said a bit grimly. "Oh, lords, just sit down, everyone. I might have known this would turn to crap. Or go bad. Which is what," she finished up, sitting down herself in one of the chairs, "I told Arthur."

"I just want to know where they've gone and what they are doing, Ari. It's simple." Dom shook his head, "Or is certainly should be."

"It's Eames," Yusuf pointed out, "and Arthur, for that matter. They don't appear to do simple."

Normally Dom would have wholeheartedly agreed with that statement, but at the moment he just wanted answers. "Yes, I know. And neither do the two of you and I won't even begin to discuss Saito. I just want this without all the smoke and mirrors."

The glances between Yusuf and Ari just served to bring back his earlier anger.

"Look, I'm not going to break. I just want some fucking answers!"

"Yeah," Yusuf said, rubbing at his forehead, and although he sounded a little worried, there was not a trace of the strained, forced gentleness in his voice that had characterized their interactions up until their arrival on Seisui. "Yeah, I know that, Dom, it's just-"

"We're not sure we have any," Ariadne finished up. She looked mildly annoyed, in contrast to Yusuf's open concern. "We can tell you what we know, I guess..."

"Yeah. Great. Start there," Dom clipped out.

"... but you see, we do not know very much at all," Yusuf chimed in over him. "Dom, I am not covering for anyone. I am not even being a good friend, or lying so that Ari will not have to know things. There is a great deal that no-one knows. And I think that may be why you were not told. You do not have a very good record of dealing well with uncertainty."

Dom conceded that. But still- "And the rest of you do?" he demanded.

"No," Yusuf said, looking at Ariadne, who had sunk back in her chair with her head tilted back, not looking at any of them. "No, we do not. Any of us. And I think it was uncertainty which has led to a certain amount of- let us be kind, and say lack of forethought-"

"Fucking idiocy," Ari said to the ceiling, "is more like it-"

"-lack of forethought," Yusuf re-emphasized, "which has Arthur and Eames going back to Station Nine."

For a long moment Dom was certain that he had misheard. For an even longer moment he was just as certain that Yusuf was joking. Then, very quickly, the serious look on Yusuf's face convinced Dom that it was the complete and utter truth. "But... but they hated it there. We all did. It's... horrible."

When, Dom wondered, had his vocabulary degenerated to that of a four year old?

"Yes," Ari agreed, "which is why they went alone. I refused to go back to that horrible place."

"You-" Dom frowned. "You refused? They went alone? After all that they have done for us, you let that happen? I don't-"

"I didn't want them to go." Ari explained. "I tried to talk Arthur out of it, but he refused to listen to reason."

Dom scrubbed at his face one-handed, "Ari, you know Arthur as well as I do. Don't you think he had a damn good reason if he decided to risk it?"

"Yes," Ari said slowly. "I know he did. And I didn't want to hear it. I still don't want to hear it. I don't want to know how bad it is, and I don't want to think about just how fucking badly I've let them down. But Dom, I can't go back there. Asking me to go back there is like turning around and- and-"

"-and asking Arthur to go back to the Boneyard," Yusuf finished unexpectedly. Dom stared at him. "What? We all have things we blame ourselves for more than others. The Boneyard is Arthur's private idea of everything he ever got wrong made into reality, would you truly ask him to go back to it?"

"I thought Eames would have more-" Dom started, and Yusuf waved a hand.

"Yes, certainly, and I would think so too, but remember, one can always come to terms with a graveyard. It is failure we cannot accept. You do not return to the Gates-Planet, I have noticed." He sounded almost kind- but this was Yusuf, who didn't know how to be kind, and proved it with his next words. "I do not think you have room to comment, here."

"You think Station Nine was your failure?" Dom asked Ari in amazement. "Ari, you did all you could-"

"Which was precisely fuck-all, yes," Ariadne agreed. "Oh, go on, Yusuf. Lay it on me. I know you told me the basics, but I'm not going to have a choice about finding out all of it when they come back, you said as much yourself, so you might as well let me know the details- without telling me what you made, thanks- at the same time as Dom."

"Well?" Dom snapped when Yusuf didn't say anything.

"I am thinking of how to phrase this so that no-one involved sounds insane," Yusuf said irritably. "Patience, please."

"Yeah, and even just with what I know, I can see how that would be difficult," Ariadne muttered, and Dom snorted in unwilling amusement.

"Hm. Eames was told- and I think believes, to a certain extent- that there is another Psion out there. Arthur has concluded from this... rather peculiar idea... that should this other Psion indeed exist, he will have found refuge on Station Nine, since that is where Eames knew to go. I do not know how accurate either of their conclusions are, I do not know how reliable the information they got was, although I assume it was reasonably so, as I was not asked to cover up any kind of death-scenario, and I do not care to speculate on anyone's mental states. I am also not going to tell Ariadne of what my involvement was in this, Dom, because there are some degrees of trust I demand to be allowed not to break."

Dom nodded. He could allow Yusuf that privilege now that he knew the rest.

Another Psion- fuck! It wasn't that Dom could begrudge Eames any hope he had of finding any of his people, it was just that what his people had been made into was amazingly dangerous. There were days when, as much as he trusted Eames, he thanked all the Lords for Arthur, because he had the feeling that without Arthur, Eames could have been a very different person than the one he currently was.

"You still shouldn't have sent them out there alone." Because if there was one thing Dom was certain of, this was it. "If there is one other Psion, there could be more. And how do you think they'll react to Arthur and Eames being together? "

It wasn't exactly a secret with the two of them forever together and traipsing all over creation doing errands for Saito.

"Don't see why they would mind two blokes," Yusuf said, with what even an irritated Dom had to admit was somewhat endearing confusion. "Considering they call each other brothers no matter what."

"No matter what what?" Dom asked, thrown off course entirely. It was Ariadne's turn to snort.

"Whether they're men or women, apparently, only Yusuf's decided words are not a thing today."

"Words are always my thing, thank you," Yusuf retorted, and seven hells, but it was tempting to just let them take over with wonderful, familiar, childish bickering.

"I meant," Dom said, rather more loudly than he had meant to, "the part where Arthur used to be a City-Corps soldier. You know? The ones who caused the hells-blasted Boneyard? Those City-Corps? Yes?"

At least, he thought, as they turned almost identically horrified expressions on him, he'd achieved mutual silence for one of the first times ever.

"Yeah," Yusuf said at last. "I can... see why that might be a problem. Except," he added with welcome returning smugness, "I am a genius, not that either of you doubted it for a second, naturally, so it won't be."

"I don't want to know," Ariadne said warningly.

"I kind of do," Dom pointed out, but Yusuf just smiled at them both with a highly annoying and probably (almost certainly, if Dom knew Yusuf at all) fallacious smugness.

"My best work," he said, apparently irrelevantly, "has always, always been based upon holos."

Ariadne, surprisingly, was the one to relax at that, rather than getting annoyed because she had been given a hint. Just as Dom was about to ask something in the aid for clarification, she laughed, and said,

"Well. You did give me an invisible army."

"I did indeed," Yusuf agreed cheerfully.

Dom just sighed, recognizing defeat. And promised himself a separate talk with Yusuf as soon as he possibly could.

Because Ariadne might be determined to remain in ignorance, but he was damned if he was going to remain the same way for much longer. And he was going to find out just why Yusuf was so pleased with himself this time.

Because last time, it had also involved Eames, and Yusuf hadn't been talking about what the two of them had really been working on then, either.

And none of it had meant anything good at all.

~*~

The lighting in the bar was typical for what it was, dim and more useful for seeing how much was left in your glass than illuminating the faces of the patrons. Eames had been in, it seemed, a million similar places, either with or without Arthur. The tables were small and packed together to utilize as much space as possible. He could feel the eyes of the 'tender on them when they entered, quickly shifting to anywhere-but as soon as he noticed Lukho.

So their public place was going to be just as private as Lukho wished.

"This is where most of 'em go," Lukho said. "No gaming tables, so I'm less likely to- favor them with my presence, I guess you could say. I would say it, so if they've got any sense, they'll use the same phrasing."

Eames rolled his eyes, not much caring whether the holo repeated his actions or not. His reaction was the same either way- unending scorn for Lukho and his pretensions- and he highly doubted this potential relative to Maf would bother concealing that she felt just the same.

"Don't you ever get tired of being lied to?" he asked, genuinely curious, and Lukho stared at him in quite a different way to his usual lecherous gape.

"No," he said simply. "Can't do, can I? No-one ever tells the truth, so I'd have to be tired of living for that to happen."

"Right," said Eames, thinking oh, you have no idea how much that would improve everything around here, if you got tired of living, that really would sort a lot of problems out.

"Newest arrivals?" Arthur said briskly, ignoring any metaphysical concepts in favor of the practical.

Lukho scanned the room as if weighing the worth of everything in it. And sadly, Eames thought, that was probably exactly what he was doing. Lukho did, after all, live on the skills of others and being able to judge a good 'fitter from one who was barely adequate was his bread and meat.

"The two at the far end of the bar, the guy with the gaudy shirt, the one nursing the beer and the woman in the blue jumpsuit ."

Eames signaled for the bar tender, slipping delicately onto the nearest stool. Turning towards the rest of the room he casually observed the people that Lukho had pointed out.

But Eames, too, had his methods of instant assessment- based on somewhat different values, true, but still assessments. He looked for how people moved, what they were trying to conceal or display or enhance. He looked for a past or for training in the small everyday gestures that no-one ever bothered to work at re-establishing when they changed their persona, and he based his conclusions or the skill of the lies surrounding him- and the why of them.

The two at the end of the bar he could discount at once- if this man was 'covering good' as Maf had put it, he wouldn't have established any sort of bond, even for a casual drink, where he might be tempted to relax. The woman in the jumpsuit- no. Plausible, but Eames thought her aura of hard-bitten weariness was due more to the need to constantly defend the value of her skills, and avoid paying for her presence with the work more usually found at the docks. Plausible, then, true, she fitted much of the criteria with her plain clothes and her almost tangible defenses, but Eames did not think those defenses included a holo. She was too aware of how she did look for that to be a possibility.

He might have dismissed the man in the too-brightly-patterned shirt simply on the grounds of his wardrobe and his obviously non-existent fashion sense, but Eames knew better than anyone that the best kind of disguise was one which made people want to avoid looking at you, rather than look again and more closely- it worked almost as well as the thoroughly bland and indistinguishable. Give people one thing to remember about you, especially something you could change and dispose of whenever you chose, and you were creating passing and very temporary holos constantly.

Him, then, or the man who was turning his drink around, slowly, between steady hands, a man who was not there to get drunk, but wanted to give the impression that this was the only reason for his presence.

The gaudy shirt man was ruled out a few moments later when the bartender deposited a drink at his elbow indicating it was from him. Eames shook his head, turning down the gift and making a show of leaning closer to Arthur. The man gave a shrug and a smile and went back to his drink.

"The man nursing the beer." Eames told Arthur under his breath, the bar's mood music drowning out the exchange.

"What do they trade?" Arthur raised an eyebrow at Lukho, prompting for more information.

Lukho began running down a list of their skills. A list that Eames immediately tuned out in favor of scanning the rest of the room.

"And then there's him. Brought in some scavenged tech, metal, entertainment holos... a mixed bag of stuff, really." Lukho's voice droned on.

Eames leaned close to Arthur again, "Buy a round for the house."

"There's over thirty people in here." Arthur replied. It wasn't a denial, just a statement of fact.

"But, darling," Eames raised his voice so that at least some of the people outside their little circle could hear him, "I want to celebrate and I want everyone to celebrate with me."

Quickly catching on, Arthur smiled indulgently and waved the bartender over to place the order.

"Good idea," Arthur whispered to him afterwards, "if a bit pricey."

"Well, you have to pay for the best," Eames murmured back in the same tones, and just knew that Arthur would be rolling his eyes at that particular attempt at humor.

But he had been right, and it really was the best way of making sure they had the right target. Everyone else, wary or pleased or just wondering if this was some exciting new angle, responded to their unlooked-for gift in different but quite open ways. The man in the gaudy shirt looked a little confused, then laughed, and raised his new drink to them in a sort of rueful half-toast. The couple across the room offered up in one case a pleasant enough smile, and in the other a slightly raised hand, a gesture of acceptance that was nonetheless very far from an invitation to join them. A small group at a table actually made a very public and obvious show of checking the drinks for some kind of contamination- if they hadn't been before, Eames thought, the amount of powders and liquids they were dropping into their glasses would make the drinks completely unpalatable by the time they were done.

And the dark-haired man with the dull expression and lifeless blue eyes, sitting silently alone, never even looked up from his own drink, still turning it slowly in his hands as though it were the only thing connecting him to reality.

Eames had a sudden sinking feeling that it might very well be true.

"Walk with me," Eames asked Arthur. It was the perfect way to talk to a lot of people. It was also the perfect way to keep Lukho guessing as to what they were doing.

Arthur offered his arm and Eames slipped his hand into it. They wandered through the crowd, stopping here and there to speak to people, being sure that they spoke to each of the people that Lukho had pointed out.

At any other time, Eames would have found himself actually enjoying sharing a drink with the man in the gaudy shirt, whose name turned out to be Dinsmore, or at least that was the name he seemed comfortable giving - though his eyes flickered a little nervously when he said it, as though he wasn't sure how it would be received. Eames, who wasn't sure if he himself had ever had another name than the one he still used even now that he was no longer a Psion, was perfectly happy with that, considering that it might have been the wariness of a man who was habitually mocked- or had been, when younger- for his name, or was using it as an alias for something much worse. He didn't seem to be the type to cover up much, and was one of the rare people who were on the station because that was where they found work, rather than because they were avoiding Saito and his new empire. He spoke admiringly of Saito, introducing the topic himself rather than having to be coaxed toward it, but it was a far-off admiration, as a poor man would have for the wealthy.

On another day, or if Eames had been appearing as himself, he would have tried to persuade Dinsmore that there was a place for him in Saito's new world, that he didn't have to stay on Station Nine and feel that his every piece of work was what gave him a roof over his head, that each time he took a commission he was starting all over again to prove his worth, that his life was as cheap and temporary as Yusuf's most basic of mods.

As it was, he only listened, and hummed in occasional agreement as a spacer might, with the same faint contempt for those who wanted to stay in the same place as Maf always showed.

Dinsmore was a good drinking companion, and a fairly nice man, and he showed not the slightest trace of offence or desire to keep Eames talking when he began to wrap things up and move on.

Leaving the man who so stubbornly clung to his own drink until last would have been too obvious- but making it just as obvious that they were going to talk to everyone who had been there when the drinks had been bought gave him plenty of time to start thinking about departure- and yet he did nothing, only sat there, always turning his glass, staring at nothing with those oddly dead eyes, apparently oblivious to the world around him.

If he's the Psion, Eames thought he's fucked. And I'm not looking at danger. I'm looking at someone worse off than I've ever been. Old God, I'm looking at someone who's worse off than even Dom ever was.

He didn't even need to look at Arthur to know that he'd reached exactly the same conclusion. Arthur, even with his new ability to see the same things as the rest of the world, had always been able to spot a problem long before it became evident.

After all, that had been his job, once. And some kinds of training were impossible to forget.

Eames knew that better than anyone. After all, he'd been the one trying to forget, right along with Arthur.

And neither of them had ever succeeded.

"Hello," Eames spoke quietly to the man. "Just wanted to be sure you got your drink alright and hope you're enjoying our tiny bit of celebration."

The man started as if he hadn't been watching them travel through the room for the better part of a cycle. "Oh, yes. 'S fine. Thanks." One hand finally left his glass lifeline, and went up to his collar, straightening it, a well-worn gesture that seemed to be so ingrained that it was automatic, unconscious.

And Maf was right, there was the edge of something at the open collar of his shirt, black against pale skin. As calmly as could be, Eames's fingers twitched out signs against his leg. Signs that Arthur knew too, and had once tapped out against a drink-sticky bar by the Horn Gate, but with different words than those Arthur had used, words that would mean something only to another Psion- jumper, brother, safety- and watched the man's face carefully as he continued their small talk, "Lukho told me you brought in quite a haul of scavenged stuff. I had a guess that there were still places out here where the picking were good. Now, now... I'm not going to ask where."

The man's face had remained blank at the signs which a Psion would have watched for, but became agitated when Eames mentioned the salvage.

"Lukho's got it... wrong," he said at last. His voice was slow, as though he had been tasting each one of the syllables before he let them leave his mouth, checking them for any off-putting flavor. "I trade with the salvagers. I don't... go out myself."

"And then sell it on at a profit?" Eames was getting beyond cautious, now. Something was incredibly wrong, here, more wrong than a Psion who knew himself to be found out- or had taught himself to forget and ignore the most basic of signs and signals so that he would never know he had been found out, or even found at all.

The man nodded. "The spacers. They'll pay extra for... knowing it's been checked."

"And they trust you to do that." Arthur didn't make it a question, more of an affirmation, a kind of reassurance that this man was being believed, being listened to.

Eames thanked every star and unknown that Arthur could do that, even through his slightly intimidating holo, that it never occurred to him not to make the best out of what was being given, even if that involved putting aside everything he knew he would need to insist on finding out a little later.

If Eames moved through time at his own pace, Arthur had learned how to spin it out, to make those around him feel that their own time was endless. It was a gift Eames lacked, and one he deeply admired- had openly admired on many occasions, and now, when he had to conceal his response, admired the most.

"They seem to." The man shrugged, his collar gaping just that slight bit more to show that yes, that was a tattoo. It seemed different, though, from Eames's own- smooth, flat and even, where Eames's were raised scars, crooked with all the feeling that had been dug in with them. Still, it was such a small sample to judge from, and could be part of a holo-mod.

"A man to be trusted is always good in business," Arthur held his hand out towards the other man, his cue to Eames that he was disabling the temp mod that allowed him to actually see the holos. If the man was wearing one, Arthur would know in a moment.

"Business, yeah," their possible-Psion agreed, and offered his hand in return. Arthur shook it, quick and perfunctory, before saying,

"So should we discuss this somewhere Lukho isn't? Or-"

"I'm not sure that's, um, possible," the man said a little ruefully. "He's got too many eyes."

"Including the ones in the back of his head," Eames agreed cheerfully. "Mind you, if they were visible, I can't help thinking they'd improve his appearance."

The man didn't even crack a polite smile, looking back down at his drink, and Arthur's head shook in a miniscule gesture.

Not him.

Eames was startled by the disappointment he felt.

They finished their round of the room and returned to gather up Lukho and leave the bar.

"That was it?" Arthur questioned. "There's no one else?"

"People come, people go," Lukho shrugged. "I let them."

"I'm very disappointed," Eames told him with a frown crossing the pretty face he wore... and then suddenly, for a five count, wasn't wearing at all.

"Eames?" Lukho scowled, but before he could react, Arthur downed him. He knocked him out cold and grabbed Eames's hand as Lukho hit the decking.

"What happened?" Eames asked.

"I'm not sure," came the reply as Arthur guided him back towards their ship. "All the mods dropped for a few seconds, then came back on."

"Bad luck that," Eames struggled to keep up without completely dropping character, a character they might still need to get off the station. "And it sounds rather familiar."

"Doesn't it just," Arthur said grimly.

"Salvage," Eames realized. "Fucking stars, the salvage-"

"Yes, I worked that out!" Arthur snapped. "And we've got more problems than that."

"Oh, how nice," Eames muttered.

"No, this is not a stating-the-obvious game, it's something you didn't know."

"And now would be the ideal time to tell me?"

"I don't think it's ever going to be the ideal time, when we're all on the station," Arthur snapped, and he wasn't angry at all, Eames realized, cold shock hitting him somewhere under his breastbone, like unwisely-swallowed ice. He was worried.

"What," he said blankly. "What."

He didn't know if he was even asking.

"He's not a Psion," Arthur said. "But I think he was Corps."

And then he was grabbing at Eames, and hard, and accurately, and Yusuf's mod was obviously still off, because either he knew Eames so well that he didn't even have to see him in order to bypass the holo and know exactly where he was and what he was doing- which was possible- or he'd seen Eames start to turn, and was not having any of it.

"Let me go, Arthur," Eames said through his teeth.

"Not a chance."

"But he was Corps."

"And so was I," Arthur stated calmly, "and here we are."

"But-" Eames cut himself off. Yeah, there was that and if Arthur could feel all of that guilt, after all he'd done to get beyond it, it was entirely possible that the other man could too. Since they'd started facing for Saito, he had run into a few other ex-City-Corps members. It had been about a 50/50 chance that they'd apologize outright. Of course the other fifty had left him with spittle on his face and split knuckles.

"Okay?" Arthur said, slowly lowering his hand, making it Eames's choice as to which way he decided to move. Eames chose sanity, fiercely and deliberately, and nodded sharply, back to following Arthur's lead.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, I'm okay."

They turned the corner and came to a dead end.

"Fuck! They've moved things here. Double back."

"I'm thinkin' you should get icy." A voice spoke from behind them, one Eames didn't recognize. "I thought rumors'd be th' draw."

Eames turned to see someone step out of the shadows. It was a man, tall and broad, his shirt open at the collar, his chest and exposed arms covered with rough black tattoos.

"Hello, bruv."

It was as though everything in Eames's brain shut down at the same time; all motor functions, all higher thought, all speech centers. He couldn't have replied for the life of him, more pertinently he couldn't have moved to use a weapon, to run, to activate his time-jack. He was surprised he could still hear, even, over the rush and roar of his accelerated heartbeat, thrumming in his ears.

And then he realized.

His brain hadn't shut down at all.

But his mods had been disconnected.

Both of them.

"Dustfucker," he snarled, and all the rage he had felt earlier flooded him again, pumping through his veins as though a sluice had been unlocked, his only feeling that wasn't the need for violence one of betrayal.

He wanted to get his hands on the Psion. He wanted to tear him apart, and oh, that, that was what he had been thinking of, wasn't it, while he talked about finding him, about how Psions did no good alone, while he said all the right things and worried in the right way and made Arthur believe he was genuinely concerned, he'd been lying to himself more than anything, and lying to Arthur had simply been a side-effect, collateral, inevitable.

The only thing he'd really cared about was making sure he was the one who killed this man, and no-one else.

And the worst thing was- he'd been right to feel that and right to think it and wrong, so very wrong, to let himself pretend it could ever have been anything else, that he'd ever wanted to find someone who'd survived their destruction for any reason except to kill him, because he'd been visible, he'd been known, and he had been waiting to be found, and no-one had even tried.

This man in front of him hadn't even tried.

"Get out of our way, jackman," the insult rolled off Eames's tongue too easily, just as dustfucker had, old ways of speaking coming back to him as though he'd never known any other. "This is you and me. It will happen."

"Don't think so," the other Psion replied. "I like your toy and I think I'll have him. For awhile."

"Eames?" Arthur sounded confused. It wasn't surprising. Here he'd probably thought he was doing something good for Eames, something to make him happy- and now this, instead, where no-one was happy and nothing was what it should be.

"Hsst, Arthur." Eames made a cutting motion with his hand. "It's brave talk and air. Two of us and him."

"Us?" The Psion laughed. "You don't get an us. Not with one who's not. Rules, all the rules, you forgot them all, sad, that is."

"Wish I could have," Eames snapped. "Wish I'd erased the lot on it." He wasn't thinking about the word 'toy'. He wasn't thinking about Lukho. He wasn't thinking about anything, because if he started, he was going to go under, and he was going to be unable to see anything, every way out, every possibility lost to him as he broke bones and cut off air and once again became what he had been made to enact.

"Heard you made a leap. Heard you failed your target."

"Yeah?" Eames grinned, slow and nasty, none of the anger he felt at hearing Mal referred to as a target showing through, his unconcern a self-made holo. "Funny, that. Didn't hear anything about you at all."

"That's the way, yeah? Got you out. Make a plan and stick." The Psion nodded. "Planned you and you're here. Target acquired."

"That's where the wrong is. I'm the seeker, no matter your plan," Eames scoffed. "Target surrendered willingly, because I'm here and there's you."

He could see Arthur out of the corner of his eye, frowning. But thank the stars, he was ready, as he always was, ready for whatever was coming, because he'd always back Eames even when he didn't understand what was going on. And that was why they were an us, and dust to the fucking rules, as well, he added mentally.

"And all of us disabled," his fellow Psion continued, "no discrimination, this mod-disabler's got, none at all, it's a radius not a target it takes, and you're no doubt thinking it's you with the advantage. So wrong."

Arthur audibly choked on hard mirth, at that, and Eames knew why. His fused, disabled old perm-mod was his best advantage. Having the new temps removed wasn't anything out of the ordinary for him, whereas Eames guessed the other Psion was feeling as physically out of sorts as Eames himself was. Even if he'd been practicing dead air for the whole time since the Boneyard, he had to have been feeling it. The only one with any advantage at all was Arthur, and Eames would have laughed too, if it wasn't all so disorientatingly fucking awful.

"And then..." the Psion added, "there's them."

Them? Oh...

Three other men stepped out from the shadows, their weapons aimed directly at them.

"Forgot to mention them. Sorry."

Yeah, Eames would give the man sorry just as soon as he could. Sorry and fuck off and here's your head for a bonus if he could. But right now it looked like he'd have to go along and plan for his moment. Stand off, he told himself. It's a stand off, so stand back and fucking wait.

Arthur wasn't even pretending not to be furious, visibly warring with his old training for the first time Eames had ever seen. Arthur, who had been trained to kill Psions all his adult life, who had been designed to hunt men like Eames, who would have been on the Boneyard if he could -

No. Eames stopped himself there, even as he walked in the direction the weapons were pointing. His fight wasn't with Arthur, or with his past. It was with here, and now, and his own kind, and he needed to stay in the here and now and deal with it.

No more reacting, no more lashing out. His thoughts raced, faster than his body could ever move, even if he had been free to try.

Stand off, and stand back, and think, for once, think and plan and come up with something that's not got revenge as its starting point.

Because he had a terrible feeling that for once, Arthur, not he, was the one who had gone beyond that.

They were led into a room that was very common for the station- just blank metal plates, oddly angled, and a few lights, some basic furniture and nothing more.

"I have plans," the Psion said with a smirk. "But you had the timing. I have a bit of catch up to do now. Have a nice rest."

And he closed the door, locking them in. A few moments later, their mods kicked back in, and they both, automatically, turned off their holo-appearances. Blind faith was all very well, but it was a pure substitute for the familiar.

Arthur gave Eames a nod as soon as it seemed they were clear. They checked for cameras and bugs then settled on the edge of the hard bed.

"Eames, I don't think I like your brother very much."

"How unkind, when he's tried so hard to be nice to you," Eames mocked back, but his heart wasn't in it. "Yeah. I don't like him much either."

"You know him?" Arthur was being weirdly cautious.

"No," Eames shrugged. "I mean yeah, I know him 'cos he's like me, but-"

"He is nothing," Arthur cut across him venomously, "like you."

Eames blinked at him, confused. "Yeah he is, Arthur, we're the same-"

"No." Adamant and very, very wrong, and Eames was almost embarrassed by how much he needed to have heard that, even though he knew, he knew Arthur was wrong, and should have been correcting him- but he didn't, he couldn't, and he shut up instead and allowed himself the luxury of thinking that maybe it counted if Arthur genuinely thought that, maybe someone believing that made it halfway to true. "If you were the same, Eames? I would have killed you back in that bar by the Horn Gate. You know it, I know it. So don't give me that utter fucking crap, ever again."

Not cautious at all, any more. Just furious, and determined, and everything Eames should have been running from, should always have been running from, this City-Corps soldier with his beautifully broken mod and the cold eyes that saw too much- and the equally cold heart that somehow managed to warm for him, and sometimes loving Arthur was the most terrifying thing in the world, because it burned though everything he knew and left him feeling scoured, empty of every certainty save that one thing. That it was love, that he could love, that he did love, that the whole universe could tear itself to shreds and burn down around every other inhabitant, and he wouldn't care as long as he had that love returned.

It also gave him hope, a tiny infinitesimal hope, that maybe at least in part, Arthur could be correct. Or at the very least correct in the him that he was now, because Eames knew he was different now, different from the Psion who hated and killed and followed all the damn rules because that was all he knew how to do. Without that a Psion was nothing- that's what they told him, told his brother, told all of them. And they believed because there was nothing else.

And now? Now there was something else. There was Arthur and the others and Saito's plan and their belief and trust in someone who they shouldn't ever trust.

He took a deep breath, "He's the me that I was... before." Before you. You and Dom and Yusuf and the new life you gave me.

"Before the Boneyard," Arthur forced out the name.

"Yeah."

"You know I wasn't there." It had been a long time since they'd needed to promise each other that, a long time since the words had needed to be said or heard, but Eames figured that if ever there was a need, it was now, and here, with the man he could have been out there with his 'plans', and the man who could have been the one to kill him locked in this room with him, himself as he might never have become.

"Nor was I," Eames said, feeling something tight and chilled and painful start to relax inside his heart as he said the words.

"I'm not a name on your shoulder and you're not a memory on someone else's."

"I don't have to remember my enemy with honor, because you aren't and you never have been."

"I could have been and I'm not."

"I could have moved time to kill you, and I didn't."

"I don't have to remember you yet."

"I don't have to worry about forgetting you."

"You promised you'd wake up with me, and you've never broken a single promise you made me."

"And I won't," Eames finished. He felt easier, lighter, realized only as he breathed in that his chest did ache, not from emotion but from how much he had tensed up, ready to time-jump, ready to kill, ready to arrive somewhere he wasn't sure of, ready to die; that it wasn't anger Arthur was looking at him with, but outright concern, and how had he ever managed to convince himself Arthur was cold, anyway?

~*~

chapter v