What felt like a gajillion emotions rushed all through me as Abi and Mickey held onto me. Everything that had happened since Zoryla said goodbye to me felt surreal.
So many things to talk about, to ask, but the most important first. The moment they pulled back from the hug I looked desperately at Mickey. "Beth?"
He looked at me with tears in all his eyes and managed to smile. "They're okay," he said, and I immediately felt a ball of guilt and fear unknotting in my chest. "They've still got a lot of recovering to do but they're okay. We're still not completely sure what happened and they might need some supportive equipment for a while, maybe forever. But they're alive. They sleep a lot more than usual but they can talk a bit and they're getting better every day."
"Thank GOD," I collapsed into his embrace again. Mickey always gave the most incredible hugs that made you feel safe and warm and like nothing could ever hurt you. Mickey stroked graspers through my hair and Abi reached out and touched the small of my back. I withdrew and turned to face her, looked her in the eyes, saw the endless questions behind them but also the concern, the relief. I could feel myself becoming a person again, with the knowledge of Beth alive and being back with two people whom I loved more than anything.
"What about you?" she asked, in a quiet, pensive, serious murmur, like she was scared if she spoke too loudly something would shatter. "What happened to you?"
I realised she was looking down with concern and I followed her eyeline to my cool robot arm, which I'd almost forgotten about. The both of them were looking at me with their medical analysis goggles on, and I felt such a thrill of fondness for them.
"Oh, this old thing?" I grinned and wiggled my new fingers gleefully, delighting in the sounds it made with that funny movement. "Well... my arm got infected and they had to cut it off. But they gave me a new one!!"
"They as in the people who captured you? The Weraynians?" Mickey held out a grasper curiously and I offered my arm so he could look over it, nodding. Abigail's eyebrows knitted together and she reached out and joined Mickey in feeling the joint where the prosthetic connected to my arm stump.
"Yeah! They were actually really nice to me, it was like staying in a hotel, sort of? I mean I was very sick for a lot of it but I wasn't treated badly or anything. There was this one guard Zoryla who looked after me, and when they evacuated she gave me codes so that we could send a distress signal." Abigail frowned, fingers hesitating mid movement, and I knew she was filing this information away in her mind, her reworking of the Staarus vs Werayne conflict.
"Well I'm glad you were treated well," Abi said finally, voice still a bit restrained. "I was... so worried not knowing where you were or what was happening to you."
I realised Mickey had a grasper on Abigail's shoulder comfortingly, and felt surprised to understand that I'd underestimated how my absence had affected my friends. I fought through all the mess in my memories to the last time we all saw each other. To my paralysis after Beth got hurt, to Abi screaming for me to move, being ripped away from each other. And I was reminded of other times we'd been apart and not known if the other was okay. We'd had this war looming over us for so long, and my own travels. We could spend weeks or months with no contact with each other, and I suppose in a way I'd filed this under that type of incident, thinking that while my friends would miss me they'd surely be more focused on Beth. I felt really selfish all of a sudden. And I thought back to the last time Abi and I had been separated after the death of a friend and my own descent into weakness, after Halapatov and Riowyn, how Abi had begged me to stay but I'd left her on the hill and didn't go back for so long, the guilt I'd felt learning that Abi had been genuinely scared for me, fearing that in my mental state at the time that I would end up in danger and she might never see me again. I had a habit of retreating into myself and distancing others from me when things got bad, compartmentalising and trivialising my own experiences and not really seeing how they affected others... Right now I wanted to brush everything off and go back to normal, knowing Beth was okay, and jump into action. But I needed to acknowledge this, give my friends space to work through these feelings with me.
I delicately moved Abigail's hand from my robot arm to my face, took her in as I felt her cool palm against my skin. I smiled a little as both her and Mickey visibly relaxed. "I'm okay, I'm here." I said. "Things have been hard but we're together now."
She shook. Mickey was openly weeping. I cursed myself for trying to deal with emotions when I don't actually know what I'm doing.
"Hey, it's alright." I said unconvincingly. I realised we were still standing where we were when we'd reunited and moved slowly towards where I'd been sitting before. "Let's sit down and you guys can tell me what you've been up to."
Mickey and Abigail sat either side of me and commandeered one of my hands each. My right (as in, my prosthetic) was in Abigail's left, and I must be incredibly unobservant, because it took me until then to notice something was different about Abigail.
"You're wearing the teleport watch!"
She blinked and glanced down at her arm, like she wasn't even aware she was wearing it.
"Oh. Yeah. You left it behind, so I guess I just... wanted to hold onto it for you."
I felt incredibly dumb as I remembered that yes, in fact, I had not taken the teleport watch with me when we went on a dangerous mission to Werayne, and therefore did not have my usual emergency escape route. Things could have gone down so differently, that way. I'd gotten wildly out of practice with the teleport watch, really. When I was younger I'd often used it to remove myself from a difficult situation, but working with the Alliance had trained me in more conventional methods of conflict resolution. And then of course I'd almost been arrested simply for owning such a crazy powerful device, and Robyn had to defend me in court - you know, kind of a big deal. There was still a part of me that felt like that watch was a part of me also, so it was kind of weird to see someone else wearing it, even Abi, who knows almost as much about it as I do (I guess Robyn also knows a lot, but that's Robyn so it kinda doesn't count).
Abigail was watching me stare at the teleport watch, no doubt trying (and succeeding!) to follow my train of thought. She quickly moved her other hand to the latch, while still holding onto my robot hand, and started the opening process. "Of course, you'd want it back," she said but I delicately extricated my hand from hers and stopped her.
"No, keep it." I said firmly, and watched with a considerable amount of pleasure as Abi fixed me with a deliciously rare quizzical look. "It makes sense, I think. You know how it works, you can like, detect weak points in force fields and so on. And you won't forget to take it on important missions. Plus it looks good on you." I winked at Mickey, who raised the Ranigrousian equivalent of an eyebrow and shook his head at me with a warm smile.
Abigail sighed, "Okay." she secured the watch once again and then reached for my hand again, fingers barely brushing mine before she seemed to think better of it and placed the hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "Thank you." she said.
"No worries." I felt like my brain was buzzing with all of this emotional work that I normally would be shoving into a corner. I kept my eyes on Abigail, who I could tell was struggling with emotional regulation herself right now, and willed her to understand, to see what I was trying to do, trying to be understanding and good and not brush things off. "So, fill me in. What happened after I got taken?"
As it turned out, a lot had happened, and not very much. As in, from my team's perspective, it was more of the same, except delayed by mine and Beth's situations. More training for Abi, Lexie and Jayken. More surveillance on them. A couple of missions. Rojjel diverting information about the project in secret. Mickey pulling the Alliance back all by himself. And then of course, protests on Halapatov, worsening conditions on Aandrigo, all the bombings and attacks on Werayne which I'd heard about, plus some wins by Werayne, evacuations in some places, and so on and so on.
"And I know Alexa has had some success getting in contact with Aandriggian activists, but we're still mostly operating on the down-low. Oh, and the Protector and her girlfriend have been pretty active, they've brought quite a few rescues to our medical outposts." Mickey explained and I perked up.
"The Protector has a girlfriend? No way! She must be someone incredibly cool!"
"She's actually Paladanian!" Mickey said, and Abigail listened with raised eyebrows; clearly this wasn't news to her but still quite interesting. "Actually, she's half Paladanian and Weraynian."
"What?!? How is that even possible?" I burst out, amazed.
"I know right! Apparently she's a Paladanian who was captured as a child during the last Weraynian scare."
"The one from when my parents were children." Abigail supplied.
"Yeah," Mickey continued, and I nodded eagerly. "She was augmented and experimented on by the Weraynians, and affected by the same brainwashing most of their troops have, that Jayken escaped. She's a bit of a legend really, she's one of the first Weraynians Anise encountered when she arrived in the Staarus system, and helped her realise that everything wasn't as clear cut as it seemed. The Protector later rescued Terra when she was captured by the Staarus side, and they've been a team ever since. They're actually so sweet together, I'm really happy for them. I've only been around once or twice but Anise seems so happy, and Terra's really nice as well, if a bit quiet."
"She's quite buff." Abigail added appreciatively, and then avoided my gaze when I turned to make a bemused face at her. I looked to Mickey, open mouthed, and he laughed.
"So what now?" she asked, changing the subject. "Are you free to go?"
I scratched my head, kinda enjoying the feel of my reinforced new hand on my scalp. "I think so, I mean, they said I was medically clear or whatever."
Mickey tilted his head. "We can go to the hangar and double check, Trista's waiting for us anyway."
"Trista's here?" I felt oddly giddy. Like it's not like me and Trista were close or anything but I'd been on my own for so long the idea of seeing more people I knew got me excited. "Do... do you think we're allowed to go see Beth?"
Mickey and Abi exchanged a glance. "I don't see why not." Mickey reasoned. "We'll have to contact HQ, but they should be okay with it, given the circumstances."
"They have been getting more harsh with us lately." Abi muttered.
"Yes," Mickey said in his stressed voice, tendrils sublimating visibly on his head. "But we should be able to sort this out."
"Hmmph." Abi said cynically, and watching her I wondered how much of the last weeks she'd spent with Alexa, her whole attitude seemed to have shifted. I guess I couldn't blame her for being pessimistic, all things considered, but she was normally so insistent on seeing the best in people; it seemed that had washed away, leaving something new in its place. I didn't know what to think of this new Abigail, but I held tight to her hand as Mickey led us back towards the hangar, my own robotic appendage serving as a reminder that I, too, had changed in an irreversible way, but we still had each other. I still loved her more than anything. I just wondered if we had lost something, both of us, all of us, some good feeling between us that we might never get back.
In the empty hallway before the hangar, Mickey swiped his graspers in front of the door and said, "I'll just get ahold of the team at HQ before we go, okay? Confirm what the plan is."
I nodded and went to follow, but felt the pull on my hand as Abigail planted herself behind me in the hallway.
"Wait." Abi said in a small voice. I swiveled to face her. She was looking at me so intensely, and stepped in closer as I stood there a bit dumbly. She grabbed my other hand and leaned down toward me, swirly eyes all dilated. "I just- I don't know the next time we're going to be alone."
I nodded and she kissed me, arms wrapping around my waist. I lifted my hands to her hair and curled my new fingers in it as we broke apart. She smiled at me, the most wonderful sight, and rested her forehead on mine.
"I missed you," she whispered.
"I missed you too." I said, and trusted she knew how much I meant it. I turned back to the hangar. "Let's go, okay?"
She nodded and we went through, hand in hand. Mickey was off to the side, having a hurried conversation with someone there and also holding up his comms. At the far end of the place was a familiar ship, and as we got closer an even more familiar face appeared as our pilot stepped out to greet us.
"Trista!" I lunged forward and gave her a hug. She laughed and patted me on the back.
"Good to see you in one piece, dear, new hardware included." she said, and I grinned.
"Can you take us to Beth?" I asked.
"Of course I can," she opened the ship's entryway. "Come on in then, let's get the ship rattling."
I sat anxiously in the back of the ship as Trista brought the ship to life, swinging my legs back and forth. Before too long Mickey followed us into the ship, and he sat next to me with his serious medical face on. I smiled at him weakly and braced myself for whatever he had to say.
"Don't worry, we're allowed to go visit Beth before returning to HQ." he said reassuringly and I relaxed, swinging my legs a little less ferociously. Abi regarded Mickey tensely from beside me. I wondered what she was thinking. "I've called ahead to the med station where they're treating Beth. They've said they can wake them up for a visit, but I just figured I should prepare you for what that'll be like."
The relief that had slowly spread through my system since learning that Beth was okay stopped dead in its tracks, leaving parts of me raw and itching. Abi was pointedly not looking at either of us. Oh no, they'd kept something terrible from me. Beth might be dying after all. Or maybe they blamed me for everything, and wouldn't want to see me. Oh god I was spiralling.
I stared intently at Mickey and casually said, "Mm hmm?"
"There's this... thing that happens to them ever since they got injured. Well, it turns out Beth is somewhat quantoformous, and so it seems that while they are physically fine and healing on their human side, their other genetics have been affected far worse. It's sort of like... glitching. They're hooked up to a lot of machines to get it under control, but it still happens sometimes even with them. It's a bit confronting when you first see it, it seems very painful but they've told me it just makes them tired. So they spend a lot of time sleeping, and when they glitch we have to call the medics to come in and stablilise them."
"That sounds... terrifying." I said, though I still wasn't sure what Mickey meant by glitching. A part of me wanted to see it and another part of me needed Beth to be as okay and solid as possible when I saw them.
"It is." Abigail squeezed my hand. "But it is getting better. Mickey and Steve know more about it than me. I've only seen it a few times."
"Will Steve be there?" I asked Mickey, feeling hopeful and he nodded. I grinned.
"Yes! I called him to make sure and he said he'll wait to see you but he can't stay too long. I called Rojjel and Alexa and Jayken as well. Hopefully we can meet them there."
"Where is this med station anyway?" I asked. "Are there still any safe areas in the Staarus system?"
"Thus far no Alliance craft has been targeted by Weraynians." Abigail said in her measured tone. "But this particular station is orbiting Halapatov in an irregular pattern somewhat synced to Aandrigo. It's relatively easy to get to from HQ. It's not impossible for it to be attacked, but it's evaded Weraynian notice so far."
"Hmm," I instinctively turned to look through the cockpit window as Trista smoothly flew us through the ships and debris. I could vaguely see Halapatov, and wondered which of the small boxes around it was Beth.
Of course I got distracted long before we actually reached the med station, and like usual I emerged from the ship into a brand new environment with no real understanding of my place in the universe. Space travel is kinda wild like that.
Mickey led us to Beth. My arm set off some alarms which delayed us a little and I vibrated with anxiety with each extra moment that passed before I was reunited with them. I tried not to imagine what kind of room I would be walking into, how many machines or tubes would be on Beth. I was normal I could be normal.
Finally, finally, Mickey opened a door and behind it was the most relieving sight. Beth sitting up in some high tech bed talking animatedly to Steve who was perched next to them. They turned to face us as the door slid open and I froze for a second, breath in my throat. This didn't feel real.
Beth spread their arms wide and yelled, "BABE!!!" so excitedly and loudly as Steve shouted a relieved greeting that it shocked me out of my own mind and towards Beth. Then I stopped as my brain registered Things; Beth really did look so so tired, despite the energy they were projecting, something was wrong about them that I couldn't quite place, and my techy mind was analysing the machine they were so casually nestled in, with some serious magnetic resonance and quantum parts hooked up to them. I hesitated, I was so clumsy and didn't want to mess up anything.
Beth reached over and pulled me in, and I shrieked a little. "Don't worry! It looks worse than it is. You can't break anything, certainly not me."
Steve hopped onto my shoulder and leaned his forehead against my face. I couldn't help but smile. "Take it easy, why don't we. Gawd, it's good to see you Soph, you can't imagine the state I was in when I got the news."
"I'm so happy to see you too Steve," I said earnestly, and made eye contact with Beth. "And I can't even express how relieved I am to be here right now."
Beth smirked, and to be fair, I didn't really know how to act serious around them. In direct contrast to my Mickey and Abigail approach, I decided it was therapeutic to be unserious right now, to be silly.
I cleared my throat. "Got a new gadget though! Look!!!" I held up my arm and made it whir with some pre-practiced moves.
Beth and Steve oohed and aahed appropriately, Beth asked some decidedly inappropriate questions, Steve and I briefly discussed upgrades, and then somehow we ended up throwing random things between the five of us to show off some of my arm's new tricks.
We were laughing and things were so so normal when Steve excused himself and gave us all hugs before leaving, even Abigail. He mainly hugs people when he's upset and it effectively brought my mind back to the reality of our situation.
"Say hey to the others when they get here, alright Mick?" he said as he left and I turned to Mickey and said,
"Have you heard from them, Rojjel and Jayken and Alexa? Are they still meeting us here?"
Mickey and Abi did their new annoying habit, exchanging a worried look.
"Just Rojjel." Mickey said simply, and added as I opened my mouth to question him, "I'm not sure why."
"I have some theories." Abigail said bitterly. I shot her a worried look.
Beth crossed their arms. "Well, it's still the most visitors I've had since I woke up, so I'm not complaining."
They then proceeded to tell a long winded anecdote about the last time they'd been in a medical facility, and the over the top gifts their hook up at the time had sent them, and the ensuing ridiculousness Beth engaged in to try to turn them down nicely.
Suddenly, Rojjel appeared in the doorway, with a kinda wild look in his eyes. He stopped short when he saw me, and gave me a curt nod with pursed lips. I smiled brightly.
"Hi Rojjel! Long time no see!"
"Hello, Sophie." he responded, much stiffer than usual. I could see Abigail smirking out of the corner of my eye, for whatever reason. Rojjel looked me over, fixing his gaze on my new arm and then clearing his throat. "It's good to see you've returned to us. Your new prosthetic looks quite intricate."
I shrugged. "It's pretty cool. I'm hoping to make some modifications when I get the chance."
He raised his eyebrows. "That should be interesting." He adjusted his goggles and walked over to Beth to give them a quick hug.
We sat for a while, all catching up on the past few months, avoiding talking about anything too dark though. I realised after a bit that Beth was starting to get really out of it, despite trying to be their upbeat usual self, and then all of a sudden they cried out unnaturally and started glitching, distorting before our eyes, like they were part here and part in another dimension. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Even with the warning it was really alarming and upsetting. Mickey stood up quickly and pressed the call button, and a medic ran in and fiddled with one of the machines attached to Beth. They quickly returned to their normal physical presence, but looked absolutely exhausted. I reached out and touched their arm, the guilt tying itself up inside me again.
"Alright, we need to go and let Beth rest." Mickey said in his medical authority voice. I knew he was right but I held onto Beth, thoughts screaming in my mind in that entirely unhelpful way I'd been trying to repress.
Beth traced their fingers along my palm and tilted their head tiredly. "It's okay, Sophie. Don't worry about me."
"You know that's impossible." I said.
They narrowed their eyes at me defiantly. "Well, you'd better figure out how to do the impossible then. I'll be alright, I'm already feeling so much better just knowing you're back here and safe."
"Hmm." I said, unconvinced, and Mickey took my hand.
"Come on, Sophie," he said softly. "They need to sleep, that's the best thing for them right now. We can come back soon."
A very scared part of me wanted to refuse to leave the room, feeling certain that if I left them something terrible would happen. I felt like I needed to stand vigil by their bedside for as long as possible until they were okay. But I managed to give Beth another careful hug, and let Mickey lead me away.
I wrapped my arms around myself in the hallway, and Mickey hovered next to me. I leaned against him, letting myself be comforted by his familiar presence. Abigail and Rojjel stood awkwardly to the side. I forced myself to make eye contact with Abigail and smile to let her know I was okay. She nodded but then frowned and turned to Rojjel and murmured something, and then they moved off, continuing in conversation.
"You want to go sit and talk?" Mickey asked.
"Probably a good idea." I said, and followed him through the medbays to a mostly empty area. He sat down and I wrapped my arms around him.
Mickey was a very good person to talk to when I felt awful. He was the best listener out there, and happy to be a distraction, or to go into detail about something, no judgement, no trying to fix things unless I asked for it, kind and nice and thoughtful comments. He was the best, my best friend, always there for me. I should be better to him, he'd done so so much with this war and was probably feeling a lot of the same things as I was.
I could tell he was waiting patiently for me to talk, if I wanted to talk, and even though there was a lot of things I knew I could and probably should discuss I decided to focus on something more important first.
"Have you heard much from your girls?"
He turned his head at me and smiled that genuine Mickey smile. He loved his daughters quite literally more than anything else in the world. "I have. You know, Robyn finally went and collected them from the daycare and she's been looking after them in her apartment."
"Ooh, really?"
"Yeah, I talked to her yesterday and you'll never believe what's happened."
"What!?"
"They've only gone and progressed to their next sporing stage months ahead of time!"
"Oh my gosh, Mickey! That's so exciting! I'm sorry you're missing it."
He smiled, teary eyed. "I do wish I was there. It sounds like Robyn has her hands full; she was obviously expecting just to have to adjust their water every now and then, but now she has multi limbed Ranigrous babies branching out of their tank. She told me she was able to find a suitable replacement enclosure, and procured some Ranigrous like nutrient paste that they've been enjoying."
"I bet she's already read every Ranigrousian parenting book there is and become an expert." I said.
"Oh, definitely." he laughed. "This is such an exciting time for them, I'm supposed to video call them once Robyn's got everything all set up and our connection's stable. We could say hi to them together."
"That sounds perfect." I said. "At least, given the current circumstances. I can't wait to go back and play with them. I hope they like hugs."
"They better!" he said, and then sighed. "It's gonna be hard, waiting to see them again. Who knows when all of this will be over."
I tensed up a little. "It's really going crazy isn't it. I had no idea what I was getting us into when I suggested you guys come here. Like, I couldn't have imagined that we'd end up supporting the Weraynians!" I stared at the wall, rubbing my arm and thinking about Zoryla. "It's so messed up, this whole situation. What the Weraynians and Aandriggians have gone through... I was so young when I first came to Flauraan. Back then it seemed to make so much sense that the Weraynians were the villains - though now it's obvious that they were just one violent group in that situation. It's just, I think back to then and how the Weraynians convinced the humans on the ship that they were the victims and that's how it almost led to my people attacking Flauraan. I thought the Weraynians were just sprouting propaganda, but it's the other way round." I sat up and Mickey shifted his grasper from behind me. "I just feel so stupid for bringing the Alliance here to support this, I thought I was helping but it was just reinforcing the real bad guys."
"Sophie, don't be silly." Mickey said gently. "The Alliance is an aid organisation, and just because this is an unjust war doesn't mean that every person fighting in it is evil. Like you said, there's very strong propaganda at work here, and most people on the frontlines are just being used by the government. Those are the people we're helping. I'm glad the Alliance is here. We got to help people, and now that we know the truth we can make sure the Weraynians are liberated."
I looked at him, so optimistic and passionate and I was so thankful in that moment. I snuggled into his side once more. "You're right."
I hoped he was right, anyway. Weraynian liberation seemed a long way off. I felt a sudden sense of urgency and jumped to my feet. "Mickey, let's go find the others."
"O-okay." he said, surprised, rushing to stand up beside me.
I dragged him along by the grasper and retraced my way through the place until we found Rojjel and Abi in deep conversation. They turned when they saw us and I latched onto Abigail.
"Abi, what's the plan now?" I asked and I could see her mind whirring behind the swirling grey in her eyes. "Are we going back to HQ? Or are we defecting?"
From the way she looked at Rojjel and then me I realised that they had been discussing that very thing. "I don't know. We were expecting Alexa and Jayken to be allowed to leave the base to visit you and Beth, but Rojjel was just telling me that the leaders absolutely forbade it. Which is of course incredibly suspicious, especially given that Jayken visited here just last week."
"He brought homemade cookies." Mickey said wistfully, "Have you tried Jayken's cookies? They're heavenly."
"They really are. He has quite the talent." Rojjel agreed. "Anyway, I believe it will be incredibly difficult for us to make a clean break, as they seem uncomfortable letting our whole team off of the base at once, in particular Jayken."
"The Protector might be able to help us." Abigail added thoughtfully. "However I feel like we don't want to instigate anything that might result in backlash on him and Alexa, or their families. I don't know if I trust our leaders not to retaliate in the face of open defiance." She sighed. "We'll need to do some more thinking and devise carefully laid plans before I'm comfortable defecting, with Alexa and Jayken still at headquarters."
Of course, this plan to make a well thought out plan did not end up working out. Mainly due to the fact that while we were still at the med station, Abi's communicator alerted and it was Alexa.
Abi struggled to hide an expression of confusion and panic as she answered the call.
"Alexa, is everything okay? What happened?" Alexa's voice sounded frantic through the communicator, and Abi's eyes quickly widened. "Oh Staarus no... Alexa - Alexa, we'll fix this, okay. Hold on, let me fill in the others and we'll figure out what to do."
"What's happened?" I asked, anxiety spreading through me at the look on Abigail's face. She looked tortured. Rojjel and Mickey stood tensely by us, waiting for the bad news.
Abigail looked between us all. "Jayken's been taken."