A measure of Sacrifice (4/8)
Title: A Measure of Sacrifice (4/8)
Authors: butterflyweb and rawthornewrites
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: GD/Top, BaeRi
Warnings: Character death, violence
Summary: Seunghyun passes out at 8:14, Seoul time. By the time he wakes, at 10:32, the fifty-six Allied Military outposts on Earth and eleven out of fifteen satellites in space have been blown to smithereens.
Author's Note: This is a follow up to A Measure of Salvation, however, if you prefer the ambiguity of that fic's ending, by all means, it can still stand alone. Banner made by the wonderful and talented atenais_pala.
The sound of the door slamming against the wall is enough to wake anyone, be they human or otherwise. Jiyong hisses, hands clenched into fists and tension in his arms before Seunghyun even has time to react. It's over his shoulders that Seunghyun sees the General's face, her eyes small and dark and angry as they peer at him from the foot of the bed.
"We had a deal, Lieutenant. I got your people out of their cells and you got me information. This is the thanks I get?" she spits, digging fingernails into her bare arms. "Call off your dog. Now or I swear to God none of you will see the light of day again, Nabu or no fucking Nabu." For someone so controlled, so poised, it's nice to see there's a soul inside of her, that she's fallible, like the rest of them.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he gets out, voice thick with the sleep he tries to will away, sitting up in the bed.
"Your AI," Lee seethes, small eyes narrowed as they focus on him. "He's locked down the med bay, we can't bypass him."
Gods damn it, Daesung. Seunghyun drags himself up, one hand going to the covers to make sure they stay up. It's embarrassing enough to get told off by a superior officer, he doesn't particularly want to add to that by flashing the General.
"I didn't know. Why would he do that?" His throat feels raw when he speaks and he doesn't realize he's craving a glass of water until Jiyong is pressing it into his hand, his alien eyes glaring daggers at their intruder.
"Because he's a fucking computer virus," the General snaps at them both. "I don't know and I don't particularly care. We don't have time to play his little games."
She takes a step forward, kicking at the mattress, in fatigues now, dull khaki adding to the sallowness of worn features. "So get up and get dressed and get your ass down there. I want access to the medbay in fifteen minutes, got it?"
Jiyong jumps back and simultaneously looks like he might lunge forward and snap her neck. Seunghyun envisions the many ways that could complicate things and reaches for his lover's arm to still him. Maybe later, when they've defeated the Nabu, stopped the whole damn prophecy from happening, got Youngbae back and reached some measure of normalcy; maybe then Jiyong can have his fun. It's more kindness than he feels like granting after having his sleep interrupted, but he understands. There are bigger things at play here and the General didn't ask for her title.
Neither did he.
"Fifteen minutes," he repeats. "Got it."
Lee holds his gaze a long moment before turning on her heel. "Fourteen now," she calls over her shoulder, footsteps drifting down the hall.
"Bitch," Jiyong growls after her, hackles clearly risen, his gaze dark. Seunghyun can feel the tension of the muscles underneath the skin, remembers the way Seungri had bared teeth at him and gives a little more respect to the Ahma's warring past. They weren't a people to be trifled with.
They still aren't.
"Knew there was a reason I got off this rock," Seunghyun mutters as he drags himself out of bed, eyes sweeping the room for any sign of his clothes. "Any idea what I did with my pants?" The previous night is a blur, glued together with the memory of Jiyong's body against his, the softness of the bed. The sound of Daesung's voice. They have holo projectors on the base, it's pat of the in-house entertainment service for officers and paranoid higher-ups with no families.
He was real. He was here. And now he's taken the medbay hostage.
Jiyong crawls out of the bed, pulling on his own pants, his shirt next, nodding to the far end of the room where a pair are thrown over the back of a chair. He looks uneasy, on his guard and it doesn't do much for Seunghyun's peace of mind.
"Why would Daesung do that? Youngbae is in there. He's...he's keeping the staff from helping him."
If there still is something to help, Seunghyun thinks to himself, refusing to put the idea into words. "I don't know, babe, but we'll find out in fourteen minutes." Whether they want to or not. Lee is right about one thing, this isn't the time to play games. Daesung of all people would know that. With access to the mainframe, he sees everything. He wouldn't do this without a solid reason.
Seunghyun finds himself fearing that reason might have to do with Youngbae's condition. How does grief register for a computer as developed as Daesung? How would he react?
He pulls on pants and a clean cotton shirt, tugging on his boots before making his way out of the room. Jiyong flanks him. They have no escort and that alone is sign that General Lee is more stretched for staff and resources than she's letting on. Then again, a twenty-year old is chief of the military in this corner of the world. Things can't be going too well.
She stands by the sealed doors, her shoulders rigid and straight, arms crossed over her chest. Gun strapped to her thigh. Lee nods to the laptop they have hacked into the keypad's computer interface, her temper perilously short.
"Use that. Talk to him, get his holographic ass out here, I don't care. I want those doors open."
Asking nicely doesn't seem to occur to her. It doesn't cross Seunghyun's mind either, not for longer than a fraction of a second. He eyes the laptop in passing but doesn't touch the keyboard.
"Daesung, what the fuck are you doing?" He figures the laptop would have a microphone installed. It follows that it's open and listening in on their slightest murmur.
It takes a few seconds of traded looks with Jiyong before Daesung's voice cuts through the speakers. "I want Seungri brought up here immediately."
Seunghyun's heart plummets.
"Daesung," he gets out, mouth dry, willing the AI to materialize. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
There's a long pause before the speakers crackle again. "Seunghyun, get me Seungri. Now."
He knows it, then. Something's happened and it's only right that Seungri should be first to say goodbye. He looks to the General expectantly.
"Not a chance. We don't negotiate with hostage takers... let alone alien ones." Old prejudices rise to the surface, fear and frustration making her react without thinking. Seunghyun tries to temper his ire. This isn't the time for their camp to splinter into warring factions.
"He can get him up here himself, you know," he points out, fighting to keep his voice even. "He's asking out of courtesy to you. Your men don't need to see you lose face on the eve of war." Nails dig into his palms. "Please."
He watches the muscles in her jaw twitch as she clenches her teeth, torn, but it's to her credit as a leader that she doesn't waffle over the decision. Lee gives a single, sharp nod, gesturing to one of the men standing at her side.
"Bring the Ahma here. Go." She turns to him with dark circles under her eyes, probably having stayed up all night. "What kind of tech is he that you can't even control him?"
They've spent so much time on Daesung's ship that the idea of controlling him seems foreign. It's the natural order of things, true, but this particular program has long stopped being a tool. He's a person.
A very fucked-up kind of person, true, but a person.
Seunghyun darts a look to Jiyong. "I don't actually know. He had control of the ship by the time I joined the crew... You'll have to ask him."
"What do you mean by the time you joined the crew?" Lee retorts. "Aren't you the Captain?"
Jiyong's eyes slip to him in silent question and despite his earlier words, Seunghyun has to resist the urge to snap at both of them. This isn't the time for his life story. He needs to get in that bay just as badly as Lee does. He needs to see...
"He is," Daesung's voice crackles through the speakers. "Because we wanted him to be." He sounds almost proud to say it, like democracy is a tool the military would respect in their decision-making.
Lee looks frustrated, her hands curled into fists, and he doesn't blame her, hating this waiting game, hating that Daesung is making them play it.
"Where did the ship come from? Did you steal it?"
The eyeroll is audible in Daesung's snort. "Do I look like a computer virus to you, lady? This guy bought the ship off a little moon in the Delta quadrant. He was a crap pilot, so he gave me the run of the ship. Then he had an unfortunate accident involving an airlock. That was after we picked up Seunghyun and way after I met my first Ahma. The rest is history."
History, Seunghyun thinks, about to open his mouth when Seungri comes around the corner in cuffs, forcibly restrained by the officer escorting him. The Ahma is even paler than his namesake, the dark circles under his eyes standing out like bruises. Enough to show he hasn't slept, hasn't even tried and Seunghyun feels a wave of crushing guilt for leaving him down there in the first place. He should've insisted, he should've played his hand with Lee for all it was worth.
"He's dead, isn't he," Seungri gets out, his eyes dull and something painful in his voice. "He's dead, that's why you came to get me."
Daesung groans through the PA system. "Only Seungri comes in. No one else or I lock down the base and gas everyone, got it?" Somewhere between watching Disney movies and colluding to prevent genocide, he seems to have learned how to play terrorist games with people who've spent the better part of their lives training for events like this one.
Seunghyun feels torn between pride and anger. "No one else," he repeats, holding Seungri's gaze. Trying to impart how sorry he is, how much he regrets this. Youngbae should be standing in his place, they all know that. They're all thinking that.
"Move it," barks the General, her sidearm out and pointed at Seunghyun's chest. "If I lose one bargaining chip, I'm going to need another. Let's see how far your computer's prepared to go."
Jiyong's hand clutches at the back of his shirt, out of Seunghyun's line of sight, given away by the heat of him, pressed beside him.
"Fine." Seunghyun grinds out, nodding sharply towards the door. "Go, 'ri."
The Ahma looks torn, if only for a moment. "You're mine to kill, remember that," he hisses as he brushes past them, waiting with eyes closed for the med bay doors to slide open. He steps through without looking back, swallowed up instantly by hard metal and silence.
Seunghyun waits, pain in his chest from where he thinks his heart might be breaking. Jiyong's breath brushes his shoulder. "What did he mean?"
He doesn't voice Seungri's threat, shaking his head in answer to the question. "Nothing."
His heart aches in his chest as the seconds tick by, silence on the other end of the doors, and he can do more than imagine the grief Seungri has to be feeling. He can share it, stuck tight in his chest. Youngbae had forsaken his entire race to try to save Seunghyun's world. He was the reason Earth is still standing. Not him, not Seungri or Daesung or Jiyong. And he paid for it with his life.
Sss... Seung... Seunghyun. Seunghyun, gods--
The whisper of words into his mind unsettles him, just like it did the first time he heard it. His first instinct is to jump, but the sight of the General's gun keeps him from moving a muscle. Maybe he imagined it. Maybe...
Can you hear me? I'm in here. I'm here. Please hear me.
"Holy shit, Bae--" Seunghyun breathes outloud, hope a surge in his chest that nearly leaves him lightheaded, gaze snapping towards the double doors. Closes his eyes and tries to think a response, to let him know it's alright, that they're all here--
Youngbae, are you alright? Seunghyun thinks carefully, intently, anxiety like a gnawing thing inside of him.
Don't shout...humans...
"Bae what?" Jiyong presses him, hand suddenly digging into his back. "What about Youngbae? Talk to me, Seunghyun! What's going--oh..." His expression softens almost instantly, lips open around a long exhale. He understands, he sees it.
He hears him.
General Lee has no such patience. "What the fuck is going on?"
Seunghyun can't help the smile that breaks free, doesn't care if it's inappropriate, if in the scheme of things, his joy is small and this victory overshadowed by thousands of defeats. He doesn't care at all.
"He's awake."
*
The dark mahogany of the desk clashes with the young woman seated behind it, peering at them with distrust and suspicion. It isn't hers, anyone can see as much, but the picture of three young women with a dog at their feet features the General's smiling face, so the jury's out on whose office this is. Seunghyun emits no judgment. They've retreated here to work, not to examine Lee's past.
"I don't like this one bit," she mutters, leaning back in her chair. "And I can't believe you bought it in the first place." Her finger points to Seunghyun but there's irony in the accusation.
He shrugs. "Youngbae's got aces up his sleeve."
"I noticed, what with the coming back from the dead act."
He barely restrains a glare, finding himself glad the Ahmas are with their Nabu, that Daesung's backed the hell down. It makes it easier to let shit like that slide. Barely.
"Call it bullshit if you want to, it's happening, and that vision is the only reason you aren't licking a Nabu's boots right now."
Lee arches a brow. "You sound like you believe there's some truth to this prophetic mumbo-jumbo. Funny, I thought it was drilled into all recruits that the only thing we should trust is our gun and the guy fighting next to us. Not soothsayers, alien or otherwise." Her hand turns the flap on a beige folder lying on her ill-fitted desk. "Then again, you're not just any recruit. Turns out you fought in the Battle of Europa. Was it as bad as they said? I mean, we all saw the footage, but that doesn't cover it, am I right? The horror?"
The bloodshed never quite translates through the screen. Seunghyun can smell it now, like he did then, through the thick plastic of his mask, his oxygen can nearly depleted as he trudged through the rows of bodies and the carcasses of ships. He remembers seeing it all played back when he got back, endless fields of ice reflecting back sunlight and death. He watched it over dinner, with his mother, right before she passed away.
He ate fish and didn't stand up for the anthem when they brought his comrades home in closed coffins.
Seunghyun glances away. "You found my file."
The eraser of her pencil taps the desk, her expression unreadable.
"It was a medical discharge, wasn't it. You were cracking up in the field." There's no malice in her voice. No sympathy, either.
"The official term is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." He doesn't correct her, not exactly, but admitting she's right takes more courage than he possesses. He hasn't been that strong in a long time. "I wasn't doing so well, so I was discharged."
And he went as far away from Earth and the massacres humans led as he could, only to find himself thrust into the heart of another mess. Talk about irony.
She leans back in her chair.
"How're you doing now?"
His jaw tightens, fingers curling around the edge of the chair arm. "I"m not crazy, so don't even fucking go there. This is real." The Nabu who followed them here were real. Their bombs were real. "Or you wouldn't be sitting here while your friends rot in some ditch." His gaze slides to the framed photograph. "Unless they were your sisters."
It's a hit below the belt but she deserves it. Seunghyun bites down on the inside of his cheek to hold back an apology.
Lee doesn't shift a muscle, her poker face perfectly in place. "I'm prepared to grant your friend sanctuary when this is over. We've updated him with whatever information we had, although I'm sure your computer is doing a better job of it as we speak. Between the two of us, what would you do in my position? Would you sell out the troublemakers who've brought nothing but death and destruction to your planet... or would you take them at their word?"
He tightens his jaw at the accusation.
"This is my home. And I'm going to help defend it, whether with you or not. You can take me at my word on that."
"I don't trust you," Lee tells him evenly. "Any of you. I woke up one morning and my world was coming down around me and... I've got you to thank for it." Her hands shake as she closes his file, arranging the bottom edge so it lies parallel with the desk. "It's on you to fix this. You don't get to sit it out."
He doesn't argue with her, doesn't tell her that this isn't their fault, that he and Seungri and Youngbae tried everything they could to save Earth, an obligation the latter two never had to undertake. He keeps his mouth shut because he can see that she's coming undone around the seams and if the military taught him anything, it's that only a coward demands recognition.
"We've lost eighteen embassies in the attack. We have riots going on across the Asian continent and down into Europe. Where people aren't revolting, they're dying." Lee tugs a hand through thinning hair. "None of our alien allies have answered our requests for aid. Seems like no one wants to stand up to the Nabu."
No one would, he thinks, what with the mixture of fear and awe that follows Youngbae's people wherever they go. They're believed to be too powerful, too wise. No one wants to piss off the witches and end up with a curse on them.
"Then we'll have to manage on our own," he suggests, leaning a hand against the desk. "It's not impossible."
She shoots him a look, sinking back in the tall chair, her spine losing some of its rigidity. Is quiet for a moment.
"Your Nabu. Can he help us? At all?"
Seunghyun knows that a week ago he wouldn't have hesitated to say yes. Things have changed. "He'll help us with what he knows. He was... out for a long time. There are gaps in what he remembers." He recalls the way Seungri's smile flickered when he came into the room, the polite way Bae behaved around the Ahma. It was only later that he found out Youngbae doesn't remember anything about the Nabu takeover. That whole day has been erased from his memory.
He asked what they were doing on Earth so soon.
Something flickers in Lee's gaze. "I'm sorry."
Seunghyun shakes his head. "It could've been a lot worse." He inhales, sitting up a little straighter. "He'll help with what he can, at the very least information about the Nabu. Daesung will help, too, and you should take him up on it, misgivings aside."
"I don't like working with alien tech. None of us do, after what happened." She makes no pretense that their prejudice is born out of anything but fear and that, at least, is worth respect. She's not infallible, but she's far from stupid, either.
"Daesung is more human than a good number of Earthlings I've come across," Seunghyun returns, pushing a hand through his hair, leaning back in the chair. "He's just protecting his crew. You need him."
She taps her pencil in an unconscious release of nervous energy, not looking at him.
"We'll see. He's on two strikes with me. I don't want the third to come in the middle of battle."
Fair enough, in her shoes, he'd feel the same. But he's not in her shoes, his conscience reminds. He fled all this because he couldn't take the weight of responsibility. She's on her own, having to answer to the same code of duty he gave up.
"I'll reenlist," Seunghyun offers. "If you need me to."
She shakes her head. "You'd be an officer with an alien crew. I'm not under the impression you'd be giving them up. Now's not the time for formalities." Almost absently, she pulls the tie from her hair, winding it around her hand to pull it up again, the action a kind of nervous habit. "But I'm through bargaining. You and your crew are following under my command. Cross me in battle, I'll shoot you out of the sky, alright?"
Seunghyun nods. "Got it." He stands on an aching knee, gleaning that the conversation is over. At the door, he pauses a brief second. "Does that mean you'll be giving us a ship?"
Lee doesn't bother dignifying that with a reply, but he thinks he catches sight of a smile on her lips just as the doors close behind him. Maybe there's hope yet.
Authors: butterflyweb and rawthornewrites
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: GD/Top, BaeRi
Warnings: Character death, violence
Summary: Seunghyun passes out at 8:14, Seoul time. By the time he wakes, at 10:32, the fifty-six Allied Military outposts on Earth and eleven out of fifteen satellites in space have been blown to smithereens.
Author's Note: This is a follow up to A Measure of Salvation, however, if you prefer the ambiguity of that fic's ending, by all means, it can still stand alone. Banner made by the wonderful and talented atenais_pala.
The sound of the door slamming against the wall is enough to wake anyone, be they human or otherwise. Jiyong hisses, hands clenched into fists and tension in his arms before Seunghyun even has time to react. It's over his shoulders that Seunghyun sees the General's face, her eyes small and dark and angry as they peer at him from the foot of the bed.
"We had a deal, Lieutenant. I got your people out of their cells and you got me information. This is the thanks I get?" she spits, digging fingernails into her bare arms. "Call off your dog. Now or I swear to God none of you will see the light of day again, Nabu or no fucking Nabu." For someone so controlled, so poised, it's nice to see there's a soul inside of her, that she's fallible, like the rest of them.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he gets out, voice thick with the sleep he tries to will away, sitting up in the bed.
"Your AI," Lee seethes, small eyes narrowed as they focus on him. "He's locked down the med bay, we can't bypass him."
Gods damn it, Daesung. Seunghyun drags himself up, one hand going to the covers to make sure they stay up. It's embarrassing enough to get told off by a superior officer, he doesn't particularly want to add to that by flashing the General.
"I didn't know. Why would he do that?" His throat feels raw when he speaks and he doesn't realize he's craving a glass of water until Jiyong is pressing it into his hand, his alien eyes glaring daggers at their intruder.
"Because he's a fucking computer virus," the General snaps at them both. "I don't know and I don't particularly care. We don't have time to play his little games."
She takes a step forward, kicking at the mattress, in fatigues now, dull khaki adding to the sallowness of worn features. "So get up and get dressed and get your ass down there. I want access to the medbay in fifteen minutes, got it?"
Jiyong jumps back and simultaneously looks like he might lunge forward and snap her neck. Seunghyun envisions the many ways that could complicate things and reaches for his lover's arm to still him. Maybe later, when they've defeated the Nabu, stopped the whole damn prophecy from happening, got Youngbae back and reached some measure of normalcy; maybe then Jiyong can have his fun. It's more kindness than he feels like granting after having his sleep interrupted, but he understands. There are bigger things at play here and the General didn't ask for her title.
Neither did he.
"Fifteen minutes," he repeats. "Got it."
Lee holds his gaze a long moment before turning on her heel. "Fourteen now," she calls over her shoulder, footsteps drifting down the hall.
"Bitch," Jiyong growls after her, hackles clearly risen, his gaze dark. Seunghyun can feel the tension of the muscles underneath the skin, remembers the way Seungri had bared teeth at him and gives a little more respect to the Ahma's warring past. They weren't a people to be trifled with.
They still aren't.
"Knew there was a reason I got off this rock," Seunghyun mutters as he drags himself out of bed, eyes sweeping the room for any sign of his clothes. "Any idea what I did with my pants?" The previous night is a blur, glued together with the memory of Jiyong's body against his, the softness of the bed. The sound of Daesung's voice. They have holo projectors on the base, it's pat of the in-house entertainment service for officers and paranoid higher-ups with no families.
He was real. He was here. And now he's taken the medbay hostage.
Jiyong crawls out of the bed, pulling on his own pants, his shirt next, nodding to the far end of the room where a pair are thrown over the back of a chair. He looks uneasy, on his guard and it doesn't do much for Seunghyun's peace of mind.
"Why would Daesung do that? Youngbae is in there. He's...he's keeping the staff from helping him."
If there still is something to help, Seunghyun thinks to himself, refusing to put the idea into words. "I don't know, babe, but we'll find out in fourteen minutes." Whether they want to or not. Lee is right about one thing, this isn't the time to play games. Daesung of all people would know that. With access to the mainframe, he sees everything. He wouldn't do this without a solid reason.
Seunghyun finds himself fearing that reason might have to do with Youngbae's condition. How does grief register for a computer as developed as Daesung? How would he react?
He pulls on pants and a clean cotton shirt, tugging on his boots before making his way out of the room. Jiyong flanks him. They have no escort and that alone is sign that General Lee is more stretched for staff and resources than she's letting on. Then again, a twenty-year old is chief of the military in this corner of the world. Things can't be going too well.
She stands by the sealed doors, her shoulders rigid and straight, arms crossed over her chest. Gun strapped to her thigh. Lee nods to the laptop they have hacked into the keypad's computer interface, her temper perilously short.
"Use that. Talk to him, get his holographic ass out here, I don't care. I want those doors open."
Asking nicely doesn't seem to occur to her. It doesn't cross Seunghyun's mind either, not for longer than a fraction of a second. He eyes the laptop in passing but doesn't touch the keyboard.
"Daesung, what the fuck are you doing?" He figures the laptop would have a microphone installed. It follows that it's open and listening in on their slightest murmur.
It takes a few seconds of traded looks with Jiyong before Daesung's voice cuts through the speakers. "I want Seungri brought up here immediately."
Seunghyun's heart plummets.
"Daesung," he gets out, mouth dry, willing the AI to materialize. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
There's a long pause before the speakers crackle again. "Seunghyun, get me Seungri. Now."
He knows it, then. Something's happened and it's only right that Seungri should be first to say goodbye. He looks to the General expectantly.
"Not a chance. We don't negotiate with hostage takers... let alone alien ones." Old prejudices rise to the surface, fear and frustration making her react without thinking. Seunghyun tries to temper his ire. This isn't the time for their camp to splinter into warring factions.
"He can get him up here himself, you know," he points out, fighting to keep his voice even. "He's asking out of courtesy to you. Your men don't need to see you lose face on the eve of war." Nails dig into his palms. "Please."
He watches the muscles in her jaw twitch as she clenches her teeth, torn, but it's to her credit as a leader that she doesn't waffle over the decision. Lee gives a single, sharp nod, gesturing to one of the men standing at her side.
"Bring the Ahma here. Go." She turns to him with dark circles under her eyes, probably having stayed up all night. "What kind of tech is he that you can't even control him?"
They've spent so much time on Daesung's ship that the idea of controlling him seems foreign. It's the natural order of things, true, but this particular program has long stopped being a tool. He's a person.
A very fucked-up kind of person, true, but a person.
Seunghyun darts a look to Jiyong. "I don't actually know. He had control of the ship by the time I joined the crew... You'll have to ask him."
"What do you mean by the time you joined the crew?" Lee retorts. "Aren't you the Captain?"
Jiyong's eyes slip to him in silent question and despite his earlier words, Seunghyun has to resist the urge to snap at both of them. This isn't the time for his life story. He needs to get in that bay just as badly as Lee does. He needs to see...
"He is," Daesung's voice crackles through the speakers. "Because we wanted him to be." He sounds almost proud to say it, like democracy is a tool the military would respect in their decision-making.
Lee looks frustrated, her hands curled into fists, and he doesn't blame her, hating this waiting game, hating that Daesung is making them play it.
"Where did the ship come from? Did you steal it?"
The eyeroll is audible in Daesung's snort. "Do I look like a computer virus to you, lady? This guy bought the ship off a little moon in the Delta quadrant. He was a crap pilot, so he gave me the run of the ship. Then he had an unfortunate accident involving an airlock. That was after we picked up Seunghyun and way after I met my first Ahma. The rest is history."
History, Seunghyun thinks, about to open his mouth when Seungri comes around the corner in cuffs, forcibly restrained by the officer escorting him. The Ahma is even paler than his namesake, the dark circles under his eyes standing out like bruises. Enough to show he hasn't slept, hasn't even tried and Seunghyun feels a wave of crushing guilt for leaving him down there in the first place. He should've insisted, he should've played his hand with Lee for all it was worth.
"He's dead, isn't he," Seungri gets out, his eyes dull and something painful in his voice. "He's dead, that's why you came to get me."
Daesung groans through the PA system. "Only Seungri comes in. No one else or I lock down the base and gas everyone, got it?" Somewhere between watching Disney movies and colluding to prevent genocide, he seems to have learned how to play terrorist games with people who've spent the better part of their lives training for events like this one.
Seunghyun feels torn between pride and anger. "No one else," he repeats, holding Seungri's gaze. Trying to impart how sorry he is, how much he regrets this. Youngbae should be standing in his place, they all know that. They're all thinking that.
"Move it," barks the General, her sidearm out and pointed at Seunghyun's chest. "If I lose one bargaining chip, I'm going to need another. Let's see how far your computer's prepared to go."
Jiyong's hand clutches at the back of his shirt, out of Seunghyun's line of sight, given away by the heat of him, pressed beside him.
"Fine." Seunghyun grinds out, nodding sharply towards the door. "Go, 'ri."
The Ahma looks torn, if only for a moment. "You're mine to kill, remember that," he hisses as he brushes past them, waiting with eyes closed for the med bay doors to slide open. He steps through without looking back, swallowed up instantly by hard metal and silence.
Seunghyun waits, pain in his chest from where he thinks his heart might be breaking. Jiyong's breath brushes his shoulder. "What did he mean?"
He doesn't voice Seungri's threat, shaking his head in answer to the question. "Nothing."
His heart aches in his chest as the seconds tick by, silence on the other end of the doors, and he can do more than imagine the grief Seungri has to be feeling. He can share it, stuck tight in his chest. Youngbae had forsaken his entire race to try to save Seunghyun's world. He was the reason Earth is still standing. Not him, not Seungri or Daesung or Jiyong. And he paid for it with his life.
Sss... Seung... Seunghyun. Seunghyun, gods--
The whisper of words into his mind unsettles him, just like it did the first time he heard it. His first instinct is to jump, but the sight of the General's gun keeps him from moving a muscle. Maybe he imagined it. Maybe...
Can you hear me? I'm in here. I'm here. Please hear me.
"Holy shit, Bae--" Seunghyun breathes outloud, hope a surge in his chest that nearly leaves him lightheaded, gaze snapping towards the double doors. Closes his eyes and tries to think a response, to let him know it's alright, that they're all here--
Youngbae, are you alright? Seunghyun thinks carefully, intently, anxiety like a gnawing thing inside of him.
Don't shout...humans...
"Bae what?" Jiyong presses him, hand suddenly digging into his back. "What about Youngbae? Talk to me, Seunghyun! What's going--oh..." His expression softens almost instantly, lips open around a long exhale. He understands, he sees it.
He hears him.
General Lee has no such patience. "What the fuck is going on?"
Seunghyun can't help the smile that breaks free, doesn't care if it's inappropriate, if in the scheme of things, his joy is small and this victory overshadowed by thousands of defeats. He doesn't care at all.
"He's awake."
*
The dark mahogany of the desk clashes with the young woman seated behind it, peering at them with distrust and suspicion. It isn't hers, anyone can see as much, but the picture of three young women with a dog at their feet features the General's smiling face, so the jury's out on whose office this is. Seunghyun emits no judgment. They've retreated here to work, not to examine Lee's past.
"I don't like this one bit," she mutters, leaning back in her chair. "And I can't believe you bought it in the first place." Her finger points to Seunghyun but there's irony in the accusation.
He shrugs. "Youngbae's got aces up his sleeve."
"I noticed, what with the coming back from the dead act."
He barely restrains a glare, finding himself glad the Ahmas are with their Nabu, that Daesung's backed the hell down. It makes it easier to let shit like that slide. Barely.
"Call it bullshit if you want to, it's happening, and that vision is the only reason you aren't licking a Nabu's boots right now."
Lee arches a brow. "You sound like you believe there's some truth to this prophetic mumbo-jumbo. Funny, I thought it was drilled into all recruits that the only thing we should trust is our gun and the guy fighting next to us. Not soothsayers, alien or otherwise." Her hand turns the flap on a beige folder lying on her ill-fitted desk. "Then again, you're not just any recruit. Turns out you fought in the Battle of Europa. Was it as bad as they said? I mean, we all saw the footage, but that doesn't cover it, am I right? The horror?"
The bloodshed never quite translates through the screen. Seunghyun can smell it now, like he did then, through the thick plastic of his mask, his oxygen can nearly depleted as he trudged through the rows of bodies and the carcasses of ships. He remembers seeing it all played back when he got back, endless fields of ice reflecting back sunlight and death. He watched it over dinner, with his mother, right before she passed away.
He ate fish and didn't stand up for the anthem when they brought his comrades home in closed coffins.
Seunghyun glances away. "You found my file."
The eraser of her pencil taps the desk, her expression unreadable.
"It was a medical discharge, wasn't it. You were cracking up in the field." There's no malice in her voice. No sympathy, either.
"The official term is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." He doesn't correct her, not exactly, but admitting she's right takes more courage than he possesses. He hasn't been that strong in a long time. "I wasn't doing so well, so I was discharged."
And he went as far away from Earth and the massacres humans led as he could, only to find himself thrust into the heart of another mess. Talk about irony.
She leans back in her chair.
"How're you doing now?"
His jaw tightens, fingers curling around the edge of the chair arm. "I"m not crazy, so don't even fucking go there. This is real." The Nabu who followed them here were real. Their bombs were real. "Or you wouldn't be sitting here while your friends rot in some ditch." His gaze slides to the framed photograph. "Unless they were your sisters."
It's a hit below the belt but she deserves it. Seunghyun bites down on the inside of his cheek to hold back an apology.
Lee doesn't shift a muscle, her poker face perfectly in place. "I'm prepared to grant your friend sanctuary when this is over. We've updated him with whatever information we had, although I'm sure your computer is doing a better job of it as we speak. Between the two of us, what would you do in my position? Would you sell out the troublemakers who've brought nothing but death and destruction to your planet... or would you take them at their word?"
He tightens his jaw at the accusation.
"This is my home. And I'm going to help defend it, whether with you or not. You can take me at my word on that."
"I don't trust you," Lee tells him evenly. "Any of you. I woke up one morning and my world was coming down around me and... I've got you to thank for it." Her hands shake as she closes his file, arranging the bottom edge so it lies parallel with the desk. "It's on you to fix this. You don't get to sit it out."
He doesn't argue with her, doesn't tell her that this isn't their fault, that he and Seungri and Youngbae tried everything they could to save Earth, an obligation the latter two never had to undertake. He keeps his mouth shut because he can see that she's coming undone around the seams and if the military taught him anything, it's that only a coward demands recognition.
"We've lost eighteen embassies in the attack. We have riots going on across the Asian continent and down into Europe. Where people aren't revolting, they're dying." Lee tugs a hand through thinning hair. "None of our alien allies have answered our requests for aid. Seems like no one wants to stand up to the Nabu."
No one would, he thinks, what with the mixture of fear and awe that follows Youngbae's people wherever they go. They're believed to be too powerful, too wise. No one wants to piss off the witches and end up with a curse on them.
"Then we'll have to manage on our own," he suggests, leaning a hand against the desk. "It's not impossible."
She shoots him a look, sinking back in the tall chair, her spine losing some of its rigidity. Is quiet for a moment.
"Your Nabu. Can he help us? At all?"
Seunghyun knows that a week ago he wouldn't have hesitated to say yes. Things have changed. "He'll help us with what he knows. He was... out for a long time. There are gaps in what he remembers." He recalls the way Seungri's smile flickered when he came into the room, the polite way Bae behaved around the Ahma. It was only later that he found out Youngbae doesn't remember anything about the Nabu takeover. That whole day has been erased from his memory.
He asked what they were doing on Earth so soon.
Something flickers in Lee's gaze. "I'm sorry."
Seunghyun shakes his head. "It could've been a lot worse." He inhales, sitting up a little straighter. "He'll help with what he can, at the very least information about the Nabu. Daesung will help, too, and you should take him up on it, misgivings aside."
"I don't like working with alien tech. None of us do, after what happened." She makes no pretense that their prejudice is born out of anything but fear and that, at least, is worth respect. She's not infallible, but she's far from stupid, either.
"Daesung is more human than a good number of Earthlings I've come across," Seunghyun returns, pushing a hand through his hair, leaning back in the chair. "He's just protecting his crew. You need him."
She taps her pencil in an unconscious release of nervous energy, not looking at him.
"We'll see. He's on two strikes with me. I don't want the third to come in the middle of battle."
Fair enough, in her shoes, he'd feel the same. But he's not in her shoes, his conscience reminds. He fled all this because he couldn't take the weight of responsibility. She's on her own, having to answer to the same code of duty he gave up.
"I'll reenlist," Seunghyun offers. "If you need me to."
She shakes her head. "You'd be an officer with an alien crew. I'm not under the impression you'd be giving them up. Now's not the time for formalities." Almost absently, she pulls the tie from her hair, winding it around her hand to pull it up again, the action a kind of nervous habit. "But I'm through bargaining. You and your crew are following under my command. Cross me in battle, I'll shoot you out of the sky, alright?"
Seunghyun nods. "Got it." He stands on an aching knee, gleaning that the conversation is over. At the door, he pauses a brief second. "Does that mean you'll be giving us a ship?"
Lee doesn't bother dignifying that with a reply, but he thinks he catches sight of a smile on her lips just as the doors close behind him. Maybe there's hope yet.