FanFic - DP/UF - Crossroads [2]
MegaZone
-------------------------------------------------------------------TWO
"Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity
and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer
together."
--Frankenstein
Benjamin D. Hutchins wasn't the sort of man Kei usually went
for; too short, too heavyset, and altogether too quiet. Kei was a loud
person, and she liked loud people. Short, silent Hutchins seemed
appropriate for Yuri, perhaps, but no; as Hutchins once said, "There
are things known and there are things unknown, and somewhere in the
middle are me and Kei."
Kei put it more succinctly with: "Guess I'm funny that way."
But that was a long time ago.
Not that it mattered; they were still the same relative ages.
Such were the benefits of the Omega-2 retrovirus. Damned expensive, in
ways beyond monetary--but handy.
Hutchins parked his Tornado at the bottom of the ramp and
walked to the top; it was at that point that he stopped and came
rigidly to attention.
From somewhere else in the ship came his hosts, the crew of
Lovely Angel; the WWWA esper team known far and wide as the Dirty
Pair.
Ben gave the standard Wedge Defense Force salute and said
stiffly, "Permission to come aboard, ma'am?"
"I wouldn't touch that line..." Yuri muttered.
"Shut up, Yuri," Kei growled, elbowing her partner sharply in
the ribs. "Granted," she replied.
"It's good to see you again," said Hutchins, relaxing from his
military pose. There was a hint of pain in his eyes and his voice,
and something else as well...
"And you," Yuri replied.
"It's been far too long," Kei added. She too seemed haunted
by something.
"Has it? I lose track." They started walking back, toward
the wardroom. "You know, I could've thoroughly hosed you guys.
What's the matter, Kei? Your aim really sucked."
"You always did know how to compliment a girl."
"What're you doing here?" Ben asked after they had settled
into the wardroom. "I don't see any mass death, destruction, and
chaos around..."
"We don't do that anymore," Yuri said quietly. "Our last
fourteen missions have come off without a single hitch. We've almost
lost that horrid nickname."
"No kidding? People have stopped calling you the Lovely
Angels?" He got a wardroom-sofa pillow in the face for that one.
Just then, a huge mound of redblack fur sloped into the room,
fixed Hutchins with a mournful expression, and uttered a low meow.
"Mughi! Hey, chummer, what's happening? Haven't seen you in
a while," Hutchins called, reaching out to scratch the huge, catlike
animal behind an ear.
"He's missed you," Kei said.
"He's not the only one," Yuri muttered.
"Oh, shut up, Yuri!" Kei turned to Ben. "Are you planning on
staying?"
"I don't really know at this point...right now, I could do
with a shower and some food, in that order."
"You know where the shower is; welcome to it."
After three months of hard starfaring to get here in the first
place and then a long, hard ride across the desert, the shower was the
most marvelous thing in the universe. Ben was almost starting to feel
human again, although, by sheer point of fact, he wasn't; too much
metal, retroviral gene modification, and biometabolic augmentation in
him for that any more. It didn't bother him; cyberpsychosis was not
something he was especially concerned with being a victim of. Hot
water raced across his skin as he worked at scrubbing out the last of
the Musashi dust. He leaned back against the wall and let it hit him
full in the face, marveling at the way a simple thing like a shower
could make him happy. He wasn't a hard man to please, really; he
liked simple things. Simple food, simple showers...simple
relationships...
He shook his head violently, squeezing his eyes shut, spraying
water from his long hair across the cubicle. That was a long time
ago, he said to himself, we're not gonna get into that again.
The shower door opened. He whirled, his wired reflexes
kicking to full levels, dropping to a combative semi-crouch, all by
reflex.
With a smile, Kei stepped into the shower. "Little jumpy,
aren't you?"
"Kei--I--what are you doing here?"
"Showering, you?"
"Wh--"
"I wanted to talk to you, privately; I figured this would be
just about the best place to do that."
"Talk to me about what?"
"You...me...us..."
"Kei--"
"Don't interrupt me. I know what happened back then hurt you
a lot. It hurt me too. I still have scars from it, and I'm sure you
do too." Kei paused for a moment, reflecting on their past. "But
what we had was special... damn it, I don't want to just let it die!"
"Kei...we haven't seen each other for a hundred years, except
to shoot at each other. It's been dead. For a century, dead."
"No. It's been hibernating. Waiting for the right moment."
She smiled. "I kinda think that moment's here."
"What do--"
"If you didn't want this to happen, why did you come here in
the first place?"
"I..." He had no response for that one.
"Well?"
"I guess I did, subconsciously...I'm just...I dunno, afraid.
Afraid it might happen again, afraid it might be worse. Damn it, Kei,
I loved you, and part of me still does. What you did to me almost
killed me, in more ways than one. I almost killed myself over it, but
I was stronger than that, even then."
"I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't want to hurt you...I
thought you were the one responsible for it. It wasn't until just a
couple of years ago that I knew you hadn't done anything. Two years
I've had trouble sleeping at night because I've known we split for no
good reason." She looked on the verge of tears. "Two years of agony
knowing I hated you when I should've loved you all the more."
"Look, try to understand my position here...I've been waiting
for you to come to a decision ever since you said you needed time.
But now...now that the time is here I'm scared of what might happen."
"Whatever happens...just let it."
An hour later, Ben was sitting on the corner of the bed in his
old cabin and Kei was crying on his shoulder. Years of aggression and
bottled-up guilt, amplified by the odd depression one feels at certain
times in one's life, were rushing out of her, and the shoulder of
Ben's blue bathrobe was soaking through. His arms were around her,
and he was stroking her back in a comforting manner.
"You don't need to feel this way," Ben told her softly. "I
told you, I forgave you. I always told you that, even when you were
trying to kill me."
"And I don't understand why you should," Kei replied, her
voice muffled. "I hated you, I wanted you dead...and you infuriated
me all the more by never hating me back."
"I had some good friends," Ben said with a small grin.
"Listen," he went on, "I don't think dwelling on the past is a good
idea. We've come full circle in this; I think we should just start
all over again. Clean slate. No strings. What do you say?"
"Okay," Kei replied. "Hi. My name's Kei--"
"That isn't quite what I meant," Gryphon said with a smile.
They drew one another into a tighter embrace.
<<<Pearl Jam: Even Flow>>>
In the fore end of the ship, fiddling around with something or
other on the Angel's shipboard computer, Yuri heard an electronic lock
go PING! as it was engaged. She smiled, and so did Mughi.