Fic: Awake The Nation: Chapter VII

[speak_me_fair]

vii. {won't ever again be exiled}

To Ariadne, the nighttime sky always seemed more beautiful on Seisui than anywhere else. Not even the remembered beauty of the Gates could compare to it, in her mind. It was as though a hush fell over the entire world and the only things that could be heard were the surf and the almost audible twinkling of millions of stars.

There were times, though, that she longed for cloud cover. The brilliance of the stars felt too illuminating for her mood- she was exposed, highlighted, obvious, all her mistakes and insecurities on display.

Tonight was a cloud cover night.

She stood beside Yusuf and Saito as they talked to Dom. He was piloting the Mandell, with the smaller ship that Saito had given him locked in tow position with his mod cloaking both ships. Arthur and Eames had both collapsed on a bunk and appeared to be sound asleep- as far as she could tell with the limited picture they were getting from the ship.

Usually, Ariadne would have been reaching out for Yusuf's hand, slipping her fingers between his as she had begun to do as an automatic gesture on the Boneyard, before they even became lovers. Now- she didn't even know if she was welcome to stand with him, never mind touch him.

She had failed him more than she had anyone else, and she knew it.

Saito could go anywhere and never be touched or harmed by events, a luxury none of the rest of them had, so she knew she would face no opprobrium from him. That there was a place she feared mattered less to him than that she had displayed the common sense worthy of his General, and chosen to stand back from a fight that was not hers and to which she could have added nothing.

Arthur, though they would always fight about it and as guilty and appalling as she felt, knowing that he had been to the Boneyard, been taken to the Boneyard, and that had she gone with them, she might have stopped that part of it, at least- Arthur would forgive her, she knew.

No- she forced honesty upon herself, as she had been doing again and again since the whole thing started. Arthur didn't care one way or another whether she had taken the easy option, or whether she felt she had let him down. She had not been needed, in the end, so as far as he was concerned, she knew the point would be moot.

And Eames -

Ariadne wasn't sure, yet, of just what had happened down on the Boneyard. Only that they had been taken there by the other Psion- Cato?- and Eames had sent him back in time, back to where he belonged. Back to die.

No-one was talking very much about what had happened, out there at the end. Ariadne supposed eventually she would be given no choice but to hear it, and know her failings afresh, but for now, there was no urge in any of them, it seemed, to start counting inadequacies.

She looked through the holo-vid at the man Dom and Saito had said was called Robert Fischer, and barring a faint sense of amazement, he was none of her business. The Fischer Corps were gone, along with Cobol, and they were nothing to do with her.

But Yusuf. Yusuf whom she loved with every beat of her heart, with every time she created armies from the perm-mod he had made for her and only for her, with every time she saw a dawn over a new planet, curving and carving a world into life out of light, Yusuf had been the one she had betrayed.

And he must know it, she thought. He must have known the depths of what I had done to him the second he realized he had no-one to go to but Saito. And it should have been me. Oh God of old, it should have been me. And he couldn't. Because I asked him not.

Dom was still talking, had been so all the time her thoughts were meandering, but he wasn't really telling them Ariadne couldn't have worked out for herself, with a little application. "They're worn out, Eames from the repeated jumps and Arthur from worry. And... something else happened that Eames isn't talking about yet. He's told Arthur, but Robert and I were busy getting the ships linked and figuring out what to do with Cato's men, the two who survived anyway. The other one we just left. One more body will hardly be noticed, I would imagine." Dom gave a shrug. "I don't know if we'll ever know what exactly happened. You know how tight-lipped Eames can be. Arthur too."

"And perhaps that is wise," Saito nodded. "Psion business is probably best left as Psion business, even if that just means Eames."

Be honest, Saito, Ariadne thought to herself a little grimly. Be honest and say that even if Dom knew everything, we weren't there and it's stopped being our place to ask.

Saito and Yusuf had been sort of there, she knew, but not in any way that had endangered them. Not in any way where they could have brought back new scars of any kind.

And she hadn't even had that, so why should anyone feel bound to tell her anything? As far as they knew, she could prove to be as untrustworthy as Cato had proven himself, as Robert Fischer, silent and trying to disappear into the darker areas of the Mandell as much as he could, had surprisingly not been, in the end.

"We should be home soon," Ari could hear the smile in Dom's voice, even though his rather wavery image looked as serious as he always did. "I hope the kids sleep through it, I don't know if Eames and Arthur are up for their typical welcome home greeting. Stars know, I'm not sure even I'm ready for that."

Dom signed off then, and the room was cloaked in quiet, the only sound being those of Saito as he did a few final checks of the Mandell's systems, taking over so that Dom too could get some rest.

"That turned out a lot better than it might have."

Yusuf didn't sound angry, Ariadne mused. But then again, he wouldn't. Disappointment rarely led to any sort of loss of temper.

But it did, she knew, lead to the quietly irretrievable knowledge that someone's love was made of a lesser, sub-grade quality than you thought it had been. That their love for you, and yours for them, was not great enough to outweigh the heaviness of bitter disillusionment.

She would have preferred it if he'd turned on her, as she deserved, had told her to leave, to get away from him. Had flung unwarranted accusations at her and left her room for a defense.

She had none of that. Only the silent Mandell, and Saito's equally silent focus as he maneuvered it along its course for home. And Yusuf, whom she now didn't dare touch or speak to, standing beside her and feeling further away from her than he would have had he gone to the damned Boneyard, and remained there, or been time-jumped by Eames and stranded in the past.

"I need to talk to you." Yusuf's voice was quiet and unlike him and Ari wasn't sure if he was trying to avoid disturbing Saito or was simply holding back the anger she was certain he felt. "Let's go... back to the suite."

The suite. Those words were more telling than anything. Before it had always been our rooms, or our suite.

Our quarters.

A part of her wanted to refuse, wanted to stay right where she was, because this was one conversation that she was certain that Yusuf would not have in Saito's presence.

Then again, with Saito completely immersed in the mainframe, and unlikely to hear one word in ten that they said, it was entirely possible that he would forget about privacy or the need for it altogether, if she insisted on staying.

So she simply followed him back, the leader of an army become the meekly led, and tried to summon up whatever courage she had left to listen to what he would say without flinching.

It was when she turned to close the door behind them that her courage failed her, utterly and completely.

"Yusuf-" she started to say, swinging around with her hand still on the door, braced for something she wasn't quite sure of, and found her throat closing, her mind a strange blank, because there was something wrong, something terribly wrong, with using his name, it felt too personal.

And quite suddenly, she understood Eames in a way she had never expected or wanted to.

Ariadne, who was still, in her heart, the Ivory-born Academe of her childhood, felt alone. It was something she'd never really felt before, not even when she had found herself aboard the Mandell and running from the only home she had ever known. Alone and guilty, because she had deserted the one family that had always accepted her and left them to go into danger without her.

How did Eames deal with what he must feel all the time? Deserted and alone, and guilty for being alive.

"I'm sorry," Yusuf said, and she blinked, not capable of processing that, because why should he- what did he -

She didn't understand.

"I am so, so sorry. I let you down. I didn't listen. You were right, Ari. Cold hells, you were so very right. We should never have let them go back there. And I-" He shook his head, angry, and she had been right about that, it rolled off him, she could almost feel the waves of his anger against her face, but somehow it wasn't aimed at her. "I saw the lights go out. My lights. And they could have been gone, and I wouldn't have known, you could have been lost to me, and I would have never been able to find you, and all because I took up a challenge. Because I didn't listen to what was truly being said. Not by Eames, or Arthur- or you. I discounted you all, and I thought I knew better than my own reason. I never knew I had so much arrogance in me, that I would play with the lives of my people for the sake of excelling."

"What?"

"Please, Ari." Yusuf closed his eyes, but continued to speak. As if he didn't want to see her reaction. "I should have stood up and told them not to go. Lords, I almost lost my best friend because... because I had to be right. I knew what I was doing and that was it."

"No, Yusuf." Ariadne blurted out. "I should have gone with them. At the very least, I should have gone with Dom and... I don't know. I should have done something."

"No." And then Yusuf did what she hadn't thought would even be a possibility again, and took her hands in his, his chem-calloused thumb running over her ash-tat scar with unconscious familiarity. "No, Ari. You and Dom- you were the only ones who got anything right. You couldn't go to Station Nine. You told Arthur that, you told me that and we didn't listen to what it meant. And I told Dom that he shouldn't go, and he was right not to listen to me. And no-one, no-one dared say it to Eames, and I should have." The self accusation was clear in his voice.

"Why should you? I could- Arthur could-"

"Because I am the one," Yusuf said, and his voice shook for the first time, "I am the one who told him that it is a lie. It is a lie that Psions are alone unless they are with each other, I said. And then I made it clear that I thought he should give up everything to find his brother." He almost spat the last word. "I, who decided to choose my people for myself, made it clear that he alone in all the worlds had no choice as to who he belonged to. What kind of hypocrisy is that, to give to a friend?"

"He would have gone anyway." Ari knew that was true.

"Maybe," Yusuf conceded. "But at least he would have gone with the knowledge that I am as much his brother as some possible Psion. That you are, that Dom is... that we are all his family. And that no matter what he found or didn't find, that would always be true."

Ari moved to put a hand on Yusuf's shoulder. How odd, to be the one offering comfort when she felt she hadn't deserved it herself. "He knows, I think, even now."

"That," Yusuf said tiredly, "would be a large part of the problem. He knows. He knew. I know now. But-"

"He would have gone anyway," Ariadne repeated, steadfast in this one certainty. "Yusuf-" She swallowed down dryness, and said the words she always thought, and so rarely even hinted at, "My love. Listen. He did go anyway. He knew, and he still went. This isn't your fault." A tiny, incredulous laugh caught on a bubble of air in her throat, and escaped her as no more than a breath. "It's not even mine. We just- we just all fucked up. We stopped feeling and we kept thinking and we fucked up."

And that, she realized, was no empty attempt at consolation. It was the absolute truth.

"I... We fucked up." Yusuf repeated. "Now we fix it."

"And now we fix it." Ariadne agreed. "We fix it and we don't do it again. We show Eames that we're his brothers, and that he's never going to be alone."

Not alone and not guilty, she thought firmly. None of them. Not Eames, not Yusuf and not her.

Yes.

They could do that.

~*~

Saito's study was not to Yusuf's tastes at all. It was comfortable, but rather old school, and contained a few too many books of the non-electronic variety. Apparently, no one had notified their friend that print was dead long ago, and that what he had here was a burial ground. Still, Yusuf had to admit, it was cozy and relaxing, and preferable to some places that he'd had to visit for meetings- cold rooms with overly bright lights and hard chairs. In Saito's study, there was a tea tray and a drinks cart and he could sit with Ariadne tucked up against him in comfort and support, so he had to admit its superiority, tastes aside.

He also had to admit that he needed that support at the moment. Even after his talk with Ari, Yusuf was feeling raw and disappointed in himself.

The fact that no-one else seemed to be just rubbed on the raw, for some reason he didn't want to examine too closely. After all, it wasn't as though he wanted everyone else to feel as confirmed in their stupidity (or in his) as he did, was it?

The answer, he thought, was probably yes, since he certainly didn't feel that he was going to believe any time soon that the others (apart from Dom, who to be fair had managed to do the right thing all the way through) understood just how close they had skated to the brink of disaster.

Ari, perhaps. But then Ari had known before they started what an incredibly bad idea it all was, and to give her credit, while she hadn't chosen the best way of informing them of that fact, at least she'd tried.

The greeting between her and Arthur had been- strange, was the only way that Yusuf could describe it, even in the privacy of his own mind.

Arthur had said bluntly, as soon as he saw her, "You were right," and Ariadne had shrugged a little and said in tones that gave nothing away as to her earlier half-distraught regrets, "So were you."

Not apologies, then, from either of them; neither given nor accepted. But then he'd never really understood their relationship, even when they were on Station Nine, and as long as they weren't actively at each others' throats, he never made much attempt to do so.

They were all settled now, or as settled as they were going to get, Dom perched, hip-cocked, on the corner of Saito's desk, Robert Fischer- Fuck! Robert Fischer?- sprawled in one of the wing chairs, fingers tugging aimlessly at a thread on the gauze that had been hastily wrapped around his hand. Eames and Arthur were almost an unwitting mirror of he and Ari, Arthur leaning back against the arm of the sofa, about as relaxed as an over-strung mandolin, despite his overt indolence; Eames half-lying there with one leg taking up what little there was left of the remaining sofa-space, his boots still on and his eyes lidded and unnecessarily watchful beneath their heaviness. Yusuf wasn't sure who was protecting whom, but was just as certain that there was protecting going on. They both looked exhausted- Eames's skin was a bit drab and grey under his tattoos and Arthur's eyes looked like two burnt holes in the blanket of his face.

Eames was leaving Boneyard dust all over Saito's expensive upholstery, and Yusuf truly wished he didn't know that his friend was absolutely unconscious of the fact, despite the inherent irony.

Dom, he realized almost immediately after, must have noticed all of that about them both as well, because he wasted no time in getting them started.

"Right," he said, and somehow he had managed to get hold of a healthy glassful of what Yusuf bitterly suspected was Saito's best shell-sand filtered rice spirits, damn him, and where was the bottle, and how had Dom gained ninja skills in the last two days?-"I'm not asking for an explanation. I got some of one from Robert, I heard enough from Yusuf and Ari here to work the rest of the 'hello, there's another Psion, let's not tell Dom because he might actually be able to help', and thank you for that, really, part out for myself. So I can tell you both now I don't really need details of the why or how this happened. I do want to know what the fuck you thought you were all playing at, though."

Despite his words, he sounded almost cheerful, and in no way unfriendly. Yusuf, who in Dom's position would have been working on holding a grudge until the end of time, blinked at him. Ari had sat up, and was openly staring, and Eames and Arthur just kept on looking like sleep-deprived spacers. Which involved staring, too, but Yusuf wasn't sure whether that meant they were as flummoxed as he was, or that they hadn't actually registered a word that had been said.

Robert just kept on picking at his gauze, and Yusuf was very close to smacking his fingers away, because that did not count as a contribution or even a half-reason as to his presence.

Dom shrugged. "What?" he asked. "Now I have to be nice about it, too?"

"That would be the issue here," Yusuf said. "You are being nice. It's very inexplicable."

"No, nice would be me letting everyone sort through this in their own time," Dom pointed out. "As it is, my niceness expiry date came at the point of getting Saito too distracted with household matters to be here. And if he's listening in, I wish him joy of it, and am adding a healthy fuck off while he's still homed in on whatever mod his interface linked to thistime."

Yusuf glanced down at his mod-tracer, which was now operational again, and had been since Eames had stopped doing- whatever the seven hells it was he had been doing, and he wanted to know what the fuck it was they'd been thinking, as well, nicely and succinctly put, Dominic- and saw Saito's user-light blink off. If a light could look mildly embarrassed, he rather thought that one would have.

He supposed, deciding to keep his mouth shut, that he couldn't be too demanding about that 'thinking' explanation, since he rather thought Dom would have said 'you two' rather than 'you all' if he hadn't been included in the not-quite-a-question.

"I think you summed it a'ready," Eames managed to say. "Brother he was, but not jacked. Wanted mine and wanted the Psion's back. Didn't get them."

Arthur just nodded blankly, tugging Eames tighter against him.

Yusuf frowned as he picked his way through the shorthand of Onyx-speak. Someone wanted the Psions back? Could Eames do that? Or more importantly, would Eames do that?

A decade of Psions alone would wreak havoc with Saito's plans, but the whole Psion army, all of them jacked and battle ready, could bloody well bring about apocalypse. Stars and lights, how could anyone even consider that as an option, Yusuf wondered, and then felt guilt crash down on him. That, as he had just called it, was in fact Eames's family, it was his brothers; and the City-Corps, backed and financed by the Gates-Planet as a whole (and by men like Yusuf's father, in a rather nasty particular that he still didn't care to contemplate), had committed genocide against them.

Which outcome was worse Yusuf still didn't know.

What he did know was that Psions could be taught to have other family, to form connections to non-Psions, and to not use the jack that been forced on to them- Eames was proof.

Eames was also proof- or rather Eames being there with them was proof- that even if he could have brought back the Psions, he hadn't, which rather suggested he wouldn't, and if nothing else, had certainly refused to do so when this other Psion had been controlling the time-jack which he himself had apparently lacked.

The scientist in Yusuf wanted to know where and when and how this other Psion's jack had become non-operational, what he'd been using to control Eames's time-hopping, and how in all hells Eames had managed to take control back.

The part of him that was still feeling rather flayed by guilt about just what an appalling friend he had been recently didn't even want to imagine what it had all been like, and was quite happy to never find out.

He suspected that wouldn't be a part of him that lasted very long, though. Fascination with a problem would always be his driving force, and just because he was currently feeling like shit over something really didn't mean it was going to last, or in fact last until the end of the conversation, if he was honest. Sooner or later, someone would say something far too interesting to ignore.

Looking around him, he really, really doubted it was going to be Arthur, though, which unfortunately meant the guilt over that little facet of events was going to be staying with him for some considerable time.

"Yeah," Dom was saying patiently, having apparently picked his way through the Onyx-speech to arrive at the conclusion of 'great, yes, like I said I'd worked that much out, so thank you for being utterly fucking useless', which a small part of Yusuf, not concerned either with feeling like a prize shit or with how exactly Eames and this other Psion had been manipulating time, couldn't help but agree with, "that's not what I meant, I can see that much. I meant more- the Bone-AR-724, I mean, sorry- what the fuck was that?"

Eames blinked his eyes so slowly that Yusuf was almost expecting him to fall asleep before he gave his answer. Apparently adrenal let-down was hitting hard.

"Cato, ya mean? He's a Psion, jack or no, and they were all there... 'cept for me."

"I wasn't there." Arthur spoke as if it were an automatic rote reaction to Eames's words.

"And nor was I," Eames answered him back, his head dropping down to Arthur's shoulder. "'S why I took him back. He was there and was again. Won't stay though. Mal took him."

"What?!"

Okay, Yusuf thought, that was interesting, and not in a way that meant he had a sudden urge to take everyone apart and poke at things, either.

Robert sat up, and stopped looking dully absent and absorbed by his gauze-wrap.

"Then you did change the past!"

"No," Eames said slowly, "acos of not bein' there."

Dom rubbed his hands over his face. "I was wrong," he said into his palms. "So, so wrong. I need an explanation. Now."

"Wasn't there," Eames said again. "Not in my memory. But Mal was and remembered it- me. Named me magician an' all."

Yusuf untangled that and looked at Dom. "Was Mal on AR-724?"

"Of course not!"

"Was so," Eames insisted. "With the researchers. Told her to get gone, get safe. And she was. Took Cato too."

"No."

"Are you sure, Dom?" Yusuf asked. Being the voice of reason was a new role for him. He wasn't sure if he relished it. "She did call Eames a magician. More than once. I thought she was joking, but I do remember it."

"She would have mentioned something that vaguely important-" Dom started irritably, and then fell silent. "No," he said slowly. "No, of course she wouldn't. Of course she didn't. She knew she couldn't."

"I'm lost," Ariadne said, sitting up from her curl against Yusuf. "Or confused. Which? Someone?"

"You're both," Arthur said, which made Robert snort, and now he had a glass of spirits, and this was getting mysterious and unfair and- ah. Eames had the bottle. All was suddenly explained, at least to Yusuf.

Give, he mouthed.

Eames, unconvincingly, attempted innocence. Yusuf glared at him. Ari somehow ended up with the bottle.

Yusuf, who was in the end a most pragmatic man, just hoped she shared.

"She couldn't," Dom repeated, ignoring the byplay, "because if she did, it would have happened. And if it had happened, it couldn't happen. Mal devised time-paradoxes for fun, before- before. She'd have loved that. Keeping a secret, ready to tell it."

"Didn't tell her," Eames muttered, "not that she would never get to tell it. Couldn't say it. She was- young. Happy. Couldn't."

"Good, because you shouldn't have, either," Dom pointed out, remarkably serenely for someone who had just had a new aspect added to his world view. "Or her future would have changed. You were lucky it was her."

"Yeah, an' I know that, promise, but-"

"No," Dom said. "No, Eames. Anyone else would have asked. Mal knew not to. You met the one person who was guaranteed to make sure you didn't change anything."

"Did," Eames agreed with a sad nod. "Kept me from 'em. Cato wasn't there either and still isn't."

Yusuf frowned. "But what about the Cato that was there? He was there twice?"

"No." Eames shook his head. "Just said he wasn't."

"But-"

"You'll just make your brain hurt, Yusuf." Ariadne spoke up next to him. "There are some things that are non-crucial events. All changes make waves. Some turn into tsunamis and some just fade out."

"Tha's it." Eames agreed. "Good too, cause Cato was staying, wave or no."

"Ah," Yusuf said, because that much he could understand. "Yes, I see. He left in the first place because he piloted a shuttle out when the destruction of the planetoid began, I learned that much. He left again for the same reason, didn't he? He is always escaping, and always coming back."

Eames nodded. Dom's mouth curled up in a small smile, and Yusuf recognized all the layers of that look; pride and love and helpless admiration, all there in the open.

All for Mal.

"So in the end, you didn't even create a loop for Cato, you let someone else have that very dubious honor," Yusuf said, and laughed. "Not bad, my friend, not bad. I admire your powers of resistance against all temptation."

"I didn't," Eames pointed out. "Took him back, would've left him-"

"And changed nothing, because he had to be there for the beginning, no matter what happened next," Dom finished up, and he sounded as though he would like to laugh. Yusuf knew that he wouldn't, though, not now when everything was too new and raw and open. Dom wasn't one for adding salt to a wound.

"I'm glad I didn't go, now, whatever my reasons were," Ari said softly. "Very glad."

"Because you couldn't have resisted the temptation for change?" Arthur said tiredly, his first real participation in anything going on around him. Yusuf wondered what the hell had happened to him, out there in the dust of the Boneyard, and made a mental note to never ask about it unless he was being told.

"No," Ari said in the same quiet voice. "Because I wouldn't have believed Eames could. Sorry."

Yusuf had to marvel at Ari's bravery in saying what they all had been thinking. The temptation had to have been... irresistible. But somehow, Eames had still resisted.

"Couldn't." Eames shrugged. "I know me. I know Psions 'n me. That's it. I know what's what and those as were my brothers- they don't."

"It still had to be hard." Robert Fischer's quiet voice broke through. "I don't think my guilt would have allowed me to be quite as objective."

"Was easy," Eames shrugged and looked at them all defiantly, daring one of them to voice a single contradiction. "I made a promise."

Ari's scarred hand, which always found its way into Yusuf's when they were anywhere close to each other, tightened its grip on his fingers, and he rubbed his thumb across the back of it, thinking as he did so that Eames and Arthur weren't the only two in the room with their own silent code.

He knew what Ari was thinking about, because they had been there, back when that promise had first been made; there on the Boneyard, listening to something Yusuf had thought should be private, and that Ari had known would one day need to have been witnessed.

She had told him later that she would have been the witness, back on the Gates-Planet, that it was one of the positions she had studied to take up.

"I would have put away the sigils for them," she had told him afterwards, in one of her rare moments of almost-melancholy, "sealed them into the machinery. Made it official. I wish they knew that."

"I still think it was private," Yusuf had demurred then, but now, looking at Eames's challenging expression, he knew he had been wrong, that someone else hadto know what had been said.

What had been promised, he amended silently, and had been promised long before they even got to Seisui, let alone come up with the plan to destroy Cobol from its comparative safety.

The day of so many first times, as he folded her small hand into his, and kept it there, and after that it had become their gesture towards one another, so very long, it seemed to him sometimes, before they had become lovers.

That day was the first time she had heard the truth of the Psions' destruction, the first time he had ever let it slip what it meant to have people, and shown her his scorn for them, the first time she had ever seen Eames's true face, the first time either of them had known, let alone suspected, how deeply that strange connection ran between Eames and Arthur.

The day of discovering what the true Boneyard held; the day of finding the dead- so many dead- with the dry-dark and yet still-smeary traces of their death around them; the day of seeing the blackened rubble and the husked corpses, enclosed in tombs that had once been workrooms, had once been the Psions' home.

The day which was to hold, for all of them, the first time that any of them would have to watch what it looked like to see a Psion fall through time, remain so still and yet visibly fall through time, and lose himself and all that he was in opposing and lost memories. The day Yusuf, at least, had understood just what the tattoos were for. Understood that time could change and reverse and obliterate itself, but a Psion's skin was scarred and blackened for eternity.

He had run from that, he suspected, as much as he had run from what he had thought to be something which should have remained hidden and private.

But later, much later, after Mal's self-immolation and her destruction of Cobol, Ariadne had told him the full words, the ones they hadn't stayed to hear the end of, running back to the comparative shelter of the Mandell and away from something they hadn't been invited to listen to.

I want to wake up with you. I want you to wake up with me. I want the words we say when we awake and when we leave to be the first thing and the last thing we say to each other. Wake up with me.

Yusuf remembered, and remembering, he knew damn well what that promise had been, keeping Eames from what must have been something he longed for.

"You did," he agreed into the silence that Eames had brought about. "And you are doing a very good job of keeping it."

~*~

Being home was the best feeling ever, and Arthur didn't care how sappy and trite that thought was, it was completely true. He and Eames were relaxing in the shade, where the hillside gently drifted down to meet with the sand of the beach, and he had, with Saito's backup, forbidden anyone from disturbing them for at least two hours. No Dom, no Yusuf with his unending questions about time loops and the control of the time-jack, no Ari with her attempts at apology and her pinched, worried expression whenever she looked at them, and, thank the stars, no James, Philippa or Yumi wanting attention or distraction or, Lords forbid, asking questions that were even more mind-numbing than Yusuf's.

Whether it was the fact that Eames had benefited from Mal's healing-mod, and Arthur had been stuck with the Seisui regen bases, or that so many jumps had simply meant that only the last one was something Eames would remember, Arthur wasn't sure of, but the fact remained that he seemed to be dealing with far more lasting effects from their impromptu trip to the Boneyard than Eames.

On the other hand, that might have been because he was sleeping- to be sure, it was a disturbed kind of sleep that involved far too many sudden awakenings for his comfort, but still, he came by it honestly if erratically- and as far as he could tell, Eames had simply given up on trying for any sort of natural rest.

Arthur wasn't exactly thrilled about finding empty sleep-syringes hidden about their rooms.

Then again, he wasn't thrilled with his own dreaming patterns, either, so he was hardly in a position to comment. He just- hated it. All of it. He hated the fact that Eames was out and under too deeply for dreaming because he didn't want to disturb Arthur, he hated the fact that the damn syringes were rapid onset-offset, so he often fell asleep and woke up alone, he hated the fact that yet again, Yusuf was, whether he liked it or not, being an interfering bastard who needed to know when to back off and tell Eames no, and he hated the fact that he seemed incapable of telling anyone any of it.

He had to admit, though, that as excuses went for avoiding company, it at least seemed pretty reasonable. Everyone but Arthur, it seemed, had known almost as soon as they got back to Seisui that Eames had asked for (and got) a stock of sleep-syringes from Yusuf, which meant that everyone knew Eames wasn't sleeping properly, which meant that everyone automatically assumed Arthur wasn't sleeping properly... and for some reason, fewer people wanted to deal with a grouchy, whiney, I'm-going-to-put-my-fist-through-your-face Arthur than wanted to even try to talk to Eames, so that was a bonus all around.

Come to think of it, Arthur didn't really want to talk to Eames- or at least, not about the damned Boneyard. Mostly because it was going to mean him talking about the Boneyard, and he had a pretty good idea that not having to listen to what he had to say about it was at least half the reason Eames preferred drugs to any sort of half-way-to-natural attempts at retrieving or attempting normal sleep-onset.

After all, you couldn't discuss things with anyone, when you were too sedated to move- even when they woke up from dreaming and hit you in the face, because apparently waking up in any sort of dignified manner had stopped being an option for Arthur, some time since.

On the other hand, if it hadn't been for that pleasant little discovery, he might never have worked it out about the sleep-syringes, either. So that was at least a sort-of bonus.

Just not a very useful one.

So, no sleeping or talking, and just a lot of general avoidance was going on. None of that was particularly useful but in Arthur's mind it was all a neces-

"Oi! Eames!"

-sity.

Arthur whirled toward the person hailing them, ready to send them crawling back under a rock somewhere.

"Don't." Eames stopped him. "It's Maf."

Arthur would have felt a lot better if that had been said with any kind of interest, let alone the anger that Maf's appearance should have evoked.

Maf shouldn't have been on Seisui. Maf shouldn't have been anywhere near them, because Maf was supposed to have vague traces of self-preservation, what with being a spacer who apparently owned Lukho, Station Nine, and all its shit-licking denizens, and had absolutely no compunction about setting people up to be time-jumped on a whim, just because he could.

With all that already thrown down on the metaphorical gaming-tables he seemed to carry with him, and no further tricks up his sleeve, Maf should have been literal light years away from Arthur, because Arthur?

Was going to kill him.

"They said you was back." Maf stated, waggling his eyebrows at Arthur. "Hello, sweeting. Have a nice visit with Lukho?"

Well, the man had nerve, Arthur had to admit. "Of course, and amazingly enough he survived the meeting... something you may not do."

"Ah, the pup barks." Maf grinned as if he had not a care. "Does it bite too?"

"Oh, I can bite, Maf, and if you don't tell us why you sent us chasing after a fake Psion and-"

"But you found one all the same, yeah?"

"Don't play hardhead," Eames spoke up. "Even you know the difference between ash-scars and ink-tattoos, Maf. Why the chase? An' don't feed me a line about hoping I found family- it don't ring true."

"Never did feed you that line, though, did I?" Maf said, almost musingly. "Told you truth, only you wasn't in no mood for listenin'. Said every man needed a past, I did. Never said past meant family, mate. Never said Psions did, neither."

"You sent me," Eames said in the same flat, disinterested voice, "to the Boneyard. Mate. An' don't tell me you didn' know who was drownin' in his own fucking guilt back on th'Station."

"May've," Maf conceded, rubbing delicately at the tip of an over-pierced ear. "Possible. Meet lots, I do."

Arthur frowned. He wasn't sure what was going on between Eames and the spacer. Wasn't sure what Robert had to do with it or why Maf had tried to make them think that Robert was a Psion. What would Maf get out of it? Arthur was sure that no matter what Maf had plotted and planned, the outcome would be some gain for himself.

The question then was, what did Maf consider gain?

What did Lukho, a guilt-ridden ex-Corp put forth as a Psion, and an actual Psion have in common? Aside from Eames, of course. Arthur didn't think it had anything to do with the jack, at least, Maf seemed too smart to go down that road. But that didn't mean that he wouldn't sell a chance for someone else to make use of it.

"Hope it was worth it," Eames said suddenly, in the same crystal-clear tones he had used on Maf before, back in the bar of the vile little c-grade restover. "Hope to every fucking star it was worth it, Maf, because I don't take kindly to being sold out, and between you and Lukho and your deals, you sold me down the fucking river to Cato. Good price, was I? Or did it need to include a Corps-soldier, make it worth your while? You talk to Cato yourself, did you? Use me as a gaming chip?" He grinned, crooked and lethal and suddenly far too alert, and Arthur knew, before ever the orange light-waves began to hum around him, what that expression meant. "You disappointed I came through whole?"

"Lords, Eames." Maf's false grin turned more towards crafty. "Didn't sell you out. Don't you think I knew that you and your friend are smarter than Lukho thinks he is?"

"Then what was it, Maf?" Eames moved another step closer to Maf.

Arthur was torn. Eames jumping with Maf, a well-known spacer with ties over a large part of known space, would have much more serious repercussions than Eames jumping with Cato, who had been to the rest of the worlds nothing more than an un-jacked Psion who had been hiding for years.

Tsunamis and wavelets, Arthur thought. In the end, Cato had been no more than a wavelet.

Maf unleashed on time would be a tsunami.

"I hoped you'd do just what you did." Maf shrugged, "Well, not exactly. I didn't know about Cato being there or his connection to Lukho."

"Didn't you." It wasn't in any way a question. It was just full of an utter, scathing disbelief that had very little to do with what was happening here and now and on Seisui, and everything to do with the choice that Eames had been forced to make again, and again, and fucking again, under Cato's control.

There was no reason, Arthur understood with a kind of clarity that came with utter horror, for Eames to trust in anything being real, any more. He'd been forced to see Arthur's name carved into his shoulder, had felt it, thanks to the warping mod-controls that had been used on his jack, he had re-met Mal for a first encounter he hadn't known about, he had delivered Cato into hell without looking back, and all of it had been lived out on a place where every Psion known had died.

"Well, I might've heard rumors," Maf admitted, "but I just thought they'd draw you there quicker. That was my part of the game, Eames. You could do what I couldn't... so I just arranged for you to do it. I won, 'cause you did. "

"And that means you owe me."

"Now, Eames, I just-"

"You owe me."

There was silence, and a quick nod from Maf.

And what, Arthur wondered, did it mean that Maf owed Eames? Not that he'd argue with the concept because yeah, it was pretty obvious. Arthur also wondered what exactly they had done that Maf thought he could not.

"Robert," Eames said, looking at him, and damn, sometimes it was almost impossible not to give the story that Psions were mind-readers as well as time-shifters credence. "He sent us there because he wanted Robert out." His expression was more a snarl, now, than the lethal grin of before, but it was ugly and real and honest in its anger, and Arthur had never been more glad to see anything in his life, because this wasn't the Psion of the Boneyard, or the new owner of the time-jack who had come back, drained of every emotion save distrust, to Seisui's harbor.

This was Eames, who had dragged them all through the hell of Station Nine with nothing but a false body and the ability to play it for all it was worth in his arsenal of tricks; who had destroyed his every opportunity for what must have looked like pure redemption, no matter how often it had been offered to him; who cared more for a promise he had made in the bone-dust and ash-sand of the Boneyard than he did for a thousand lives he could have brought back at the cost of nothing more than the love Arthur so very rarely admitted to.

Rarely, and yet continually, and yet had never felt more than he did now, beating through him like a second pulse, a modified heart. Eames had come back with learned distrust, but Arthur had come back with a raw new faith, and it hummed through his air more than Eames's controlled time would ever do.

He put his emotions aside, and blew a gust of air out from between slowly unclenching teeth, forcing calm down upon himself like a hood, before he turned toward Maf. "You couldn't have just asked? You had to make this some part of The Game?"

Yeah, Maf was playing them and Arthur was speaking with capitals and italics in his words. The whole thing was un-fucking-believable.

"Yeah, 'n if Lukho got wind Robert would have been locked up tighter than yer Gran's bloomers."

There were several responses that came to Arthur's mind, and not a single one of them could ever have been as satisfying as the decision his body made for him before his mouth could choose the perfect rejoinder.

He was fairly sure the crack he had heard was something appalling happening to Maf's jaw, when his blow hit target, as dead centre as any of his piloting runs.

"The fuck -?" Maf howled in garbled tones, sat down in a heap with his hands clamped to the side of his face, and quite suddenly leant sideways and coughed out blood onto the sand, unable to say anything else as he tried not to choke.

"Nice," Eames said appreciatively.

"I thought so." Arthur agreed, shaking his hand out to the side. He always forgot how much it fucking hurt to strike bone against bone, until he did it.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, only Saito wanted to know if you-Maf!" Robert's polite inquiry suddenly became an excited jumble. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Robert wouldn't be getting an answer any time soon, Arthur thought, but somehow he didn't feel even the slightest bit guilty.

"Arthur," Eames said, sounding positively gleeful about it.

"O-kaaay?" Robert said uncertainly.

"Want to match?" Arthur asked, as politely as he could.

"Not... especially," Robert said very carefully. "Er. Right, okay, since apparently Maf is playing the part of Exhibit A, what the fuck did he do now?"

"Insulted Arthur's Gran," Eames said.

"Oh, well, that explains everything," Robert said with an eye-roll. "No, shut up, Maf, that makes as much sense as anything else and I don't feel like trying to rehinge your jaw back to your skull, thanks all the same." He tugged Maf to his feet by the collar of his jacket.

"Mmmrrr," Maf said venomously.

"Is it very wrong of me to be enjoying this?" Robert asked innocently.

Eames started to laugh.

"Not at all," Arthur said generously. "All yours. Carry on." He was very tempted to laugh himself, but he somehow thought being polite and blank-faced about it was making everyone but Maf enjoy themselves more, and it was so nice to be on the side of the violent angels.

"Wsn ar," Maf complained, and tried to tug Robert closer to him. "Shsn a on."

"Well, that made all the sense in the world." Eames chuckled. "Would you like to try that again?"

"Stop talking, you idiot." Robert pulled back and frowned at Maf. "This. This is why I went back to the station. I... I had things I needed to think about and I knew that even if you came there you'd have to act like you didn't even know me."

"Awwer-"

"Stop!"

This was all beginning to make sense to Arthur. They'd had some kind of disagreement and Robert had gone to Station Nine to get away from Maf. It was a good choice, Arthur thought, because Maf would never let Lukho get the upper hand on him by letting him know he was interested in Robert.

Eames heaved a sigh, the sound of the terminally and tragically put-upon, and said, "Maf. I'm gonna do you a favor, okay? Next time you want one of your pretty boys to kneel, beg, and cry for you, check they're not a Psion, City-Corps, or a Gates-man."

"Arrr graaah maa-"

"That would be the part where my name's Fischer, yes, now shut up and let the nice Psion explain," Robert added.

"Mrr-aaa dnn-"

"Be quiet!"

"Next," Eames said, holding up a second finger like a checklist from hell, "find out if he really is faking or if you're tapping into something he does. Not. Fucking. Want."

"Oo-ii."

"Yeah, because you paid for me," Eames said, apparently having no difficulty with translation, "and I was wearing a holo."

"Roo."

"And then," Eames finished up, getting into Maf's face while a grinning Robert held him still, "try talking to him, not sending people you already owe, you stupid bastard, to Lukho's station."

"I'm sorry he got you mixed up in this." Robert apologized. "Causing you trouble was the last thing I ever wanted, Eames. Seems like I can't manage to stop hurting Psions, even inadvertently."

"Eees sa ooay," Maf interrupted, one hand reaching gently towards Robert but freezing when Robert scowled at him.

"I don't care if Eames said it's okay, Maf." Apparently, Robert had taken the same gibberish lessons as Eames, because he deciphered that bit like a pro. "You fucking well don't treat people like commodities. That's a lesson I learned the hard way- what in all hells is it going to take for you to learn?"

And there was the kicker in their relationship, Arthur figured. Was Robert his partner or his pet?

"Nnn," Maf said vehemently. "Aa-o. Ook. Aa-o."

"Great, it took Cato, that makes me feel-" Robert stopped. "Oh," he said in a different tone of voice. "Well. Yes, I suppose that's all right."

"Oh good," said Arthur to the sky. "How nice for you."

"No, it's- yeah. I. I guess I should get his jaw seen to," Robert said a bit dazedly, and dragged Maf along the dunes and up to the path.

"What?" Arthur said in complete bewilderment.

Eames snorted. "Maf meant thinking Cato'd taken Robert was what made him learn. I mean, whether he really has learned is not anyone's problem but theirs, but-"

"He did ask for help," Arthur agreed. "Must have hurt."

"Yeah. Both things- his jaw and thinking he'd lost Robert."

"Eames..."

"That's swelling up." Eames pointed out.

"What? Oh, my hand. Yeah, I probably should get some ice on it. Or just use one of the new mods Yusuf's been so desperate to try out on a victim."

"Yeah. And then let's grab a nap. You look like crap."

"Well, that's good, because my looks should match how I feel."

"Not sure you've got an advantage going with that," Eames said, "but whatever makes you feel better about it."

"I-" Arthur started, and then stopped, because fuck, if Maf could try for honesty, why couldn't he? "It might," he said with careful precision, "be a bit worse. Than crap. How I feel."

"Yeah, I did sort of guess that bit," Eames said, but he didn't sound guilty, thank every corpsed lord, and he sounded more as though he was saying I'm listening.

"I might have had doubts about..."Arthur stopped and cleared his throat. "I mean... I had doubts that you would choose your promise over doing what Cato wanted. Not... not for Cato, but for yourself. Because fuck, Eames, that's your whole life... your brothers...fuck! Not that I don't think you take your promise seriously, but what's one broken-mod ex-Corps soldier when compared to your entire past?"

Eames just shook his head, "I'm a Psion. I don't have a past. I only have time to use as I please. And spending it with you is my choice."

"I know, but-"

"I choose you, Arthur. Annoying, frustrating and as stick-stiff as you can be, I choose you."

"You choose me-seven hells, you chose me every time," Arthur said, still not quite able to deal with that piece of knowledge. "I don't- what the fuck am I supposed to find to give back, for that?"

Eames stared at him for a moment, visibly grasping for words, and Arthur was just on the verge of saying something along the babbling lines of 'look, never mind, it doesn't matter, I wasn't looking for a real-life answer, I just needed to say it,' when Eames apparently decided to give up on saying anything out loud, and instead pulled Arthur into an embrace that was not in the least romantic, pressing the flats of his palms on Arthur's back, and holding him still.

"Okay, listen," he said roughly. "And listen good, cos I am not going to say this again. You already gave it me, Arthur. You gave me the choice to make in the first fucking place. And you let me know it was mine to make. I heard you. I heard you just fine, when you thought I was sleeping. You said you'd wait for me. You trusted me that much, so much you could tell me whatever I chose, you'd be there waiting. And you don't know. You don't know. Cato, he talked a load of bollocks, yeah? But he got one thing right. We never knew what home was meant to feel like. We never had to. Home was us. And see, that's a choice Cato couldn't force on me, cos it wasn't one. Home's you. Wasn't anywhere else time would've sent me. That's my control. You're it."

There was no reply for that, only warmth and comfort and the sudden relaxation of muscles that had been tense so long that Arthur hadn't even felt them until they relaxed. It was dizzying, that feeling, just Eames holding him still and looking at him with eyes full of the sincerity of truth.

Arthur dropped his head down, resting his forehead against Eames's. "Yeah. Alright."

The words were more acknowledgement than agreement, but Eames seemed to understand anyway. "Right, ice packs and then sleep."

"Yes. Please."

But he didn't move for a long time after that, and Eames made no attempt at shifting away, or letting him go, which was good, because Arthur didn't think he was going to be up to not being the one to make the first move back or away for a long, long time.

He was done with waiting.

~*~

epilogue