She was asleep, and Gabe took her hand in his and drifted back into the warm, inviting darkness of unconsciousness. He dreamed scattered, incoherent collages of past memories and future possibilities, inextricably interwoven as he floated atop the sea of consciousness, drifting on the currents between waking and dreams. Sometimes he was lucid enough to be able to sense his surroundings, and sometimes he was enveloped completely in his own imagination.

Slowly, and by degrees, he floated back toward the corporeal. She was still there, waiting for him. She was awake, though still in her bed, and she smiled at him as he opened his eyes.

They waited out their recovery by learning all they could about Riya's escape and Hale's "summons" to the Command Post. While, officially speaking, Hale had not yet even been tried, he was removed from the Command School's crew manifest, and his personnel file on the IF network listed his current assignment as "indefinite leave". The Court Martial might not have yet convened, but it was clear that the blame had already been assigned. The only matter in question, it seemed, was punishment.

They were released from the infirmary two days before Hale's arrival date at the Command Post, and their Earthbound transport departed early the next morning. Because Minerva Thoth was awaiting a verdict of her own from the Court Martial, Gabe and Sol were the only Scorpions on board. There were a few other passengers, heading back home to spend their leave time and return. Not Gabe and Sol, though. This would be the last time in their lives they would set foot in an IF ship.

The Court Martial's decision, when it came, was no surprise. The IF was going to assign blame, and because Riya had gotten away with it clean, Hale was going to take the fall. Gabe couldn't muster much sympathy for the man; Hale might not have deserved to go to prison for this incident, necessarily, but the list of crimes he'd committed over the past two years was long enough to make it, in Gabe's mind, irrelevant. Hale would have the next twenty years to pay for what he'd done to Gabe and Sol -- Gabe considered it much more merciful than what he himself thought the man deserved.

They passed their days lazily, reading and sleeping snuggled close as they waited for their strength to retrun to them. Gabe made an attempt to apologize to Sol for using usch extreme measures simply to complete the test, but Sol shushed him and kissed him and told him to go to sleep.

It wasn't until their fourth day that they met the only other passenger on board who wasn't from the CCP. They'd spent most of their time in the cabin assigned to them, but still, it was a very small ship, and it was only a matter of time.

The encounter, however, was no more coincidental than the preceding lack thereof. They were visiting the observation deck, which provided a much more expansive view of the stars. They both immediately recognized the man standing before the large polycarbon viewport with his arms folded across his chest, looking out at the starfield beyond.

Major Marcus Bryant.

He must have seen his reflections, because he spoke without turning. "Good morning, soldiers," he said, conversationally.

Gabe stiffened. Bryant was here. Bryant was not supposed to be here. Command School was supposed to be a memory.

Sol seemed equally confused behind her stoic mask. Gabe cosidered whether he should respond. Because their education was complete, but their contracts with the IF were not yet signed, they were civilians in the eyes of the law, and they were not required to treat the man with any deferrence or respect at all. After what they'd been through the past two years, Gabe was not inclined to be any more cordial than he was required to be. However, he forced himself to think of the times that Bryant had helped them, as well. His greeting was short, and the reserve in his voice was tangible. "Major Bryant."

Bryant turned, and Gabe immediately noted the lack of rank insignia on the man's uniform. Bryant didn't say a word, but the message was clear: he wasn't a Major anymore -- he'd retired.

He'd retired right after their graduation.

"I thought I would give the two of you a few days to settle in and recover -- I understand your final exam was . . . taxing." He folded his hands behind his back, and strolled a few steps toward them, casually. "I thought perhaps the two of you might join me for dinner this evening. 1900 hours. We have things to discuss."

Gabe's fleeting generosity fled. "What things?"

Bryant smiled softly. "No need to be on guard, Hunter. I'd simply like to speak with you and Ms. Solenis of the future."

Gabe was silent.

"I'll expect you at 1900, then. Enjoy the view."

Gabe and Sol didn't stay to watch the stars long after Bryant left. They returned to their cabin, where they could be reasonably sure that their conversation would be secure, having swept it quite thoroughly. There wasn't too terribly much to puzzle over -- the Major had stayed on with the IF just long enough to see Gabe through graduation before retirement, and now he wanted to find out what their plans for the future were. It seemed plain that Bryant felt paternal toward Gabe, which Gabe found distasteful. His own father had not left him with a high opinion of the role, and he had no desire for another. Sol suggested that perhaps Bryant felt that way because he had been such a close friend of Gabe's father's, and felt as though he had to compensate for his friend's deficiency. Gabe was not concerned with reasons or motives; Bryant was a figure from the past, and he wanted the past buried.

Still, they would go and have dinner with Bryant. They certainly would not be able to avoid him for the entire two months they would be on this transport, and in any case, Gabe owed it to the man, for what they knew he must have done to see that the case file on his mother's and sister's deaths found its way to him.

The day passed quickly, and 1900 hours came sooner than Gabe would have liked. However, dinner ended up being less trying than Gabe might have expected. Bryant never once raised the issue of enlistment, over the course of the meal, even Gabe found himself relaxing his guard. The three of them spoke of people they would see once they returned to Earth, of things they would do, of foods they would eat. They spoke of Sol's family, and of Gabe's interaction with them during their Earthside leave. Gabe's family was tactfully avoided, and Bryant admitted to having no family. "I always was a career soldier," he said. "I never had time for anything else." Gabe and Sol both saw the contained sadness behind those words, and it seemed to them that there was more to it than simple regret for lost time. Neither pursued it further.

They were sitting in Bryant's cabin with empty plates on the table he had secured, chatting idly now that major subjects of conversation had run down. Gabe had noticed that Bryant seemed to have something he was getting to, but putting off. He assumed that it would be about their continued association with the IF after graduation, but Bryant said nothing of the sort. After they had lapsed into silence for a moment, he stood, and said, "I have something I'm to give the two of you."

As he moved across the room to retrieve a plastic storage capsule, Gabe and Sol glanced at one another. The capsule was a standard storage container for space voyages, air-tight and extremely durable. He set it on the floor beside the little table, and stood back up. "Perhaps we can have dinner again next week," he said. He neither mentioned nor looked at the capsule.

They didn't commit to anything, but neither was particularly opposed to another session like this. It had been comfortable, almost familial, and that was something Gabe found very pleasant. They took the capsule with them when they left.

Back in their own cell, they set the container on the floor, and studied it carefully, not because they distrusted Bryant, but because they had been trained very, very well by Hale, and habit was hard to give up. The pressure sealant on the capsule was undisturbed, and had solidified completely over the container's seam, meaning that the capsule had been sealed for some time -- a few months, at least.

They sat on the floor, on opposite sides of the capsule. Gabe detatched the key, a small cylindrical object with a cathode on one end and a cord running to the container from the other. He touched the cathode to the sealant, and the electricity running through it started the chemical reaction that softened the sealant to a putty-like substance. Gabe replaced the key, and they peeled away the sealant.

Then the capsule lay there, ready to be opened. Gabe looked to Sol over the top, and smiled. "Go ahead," he said. He thought he knew already what they would find inside, and he was both excited and angry about it. If it was indeed what he thought it might be, then there could be few more precious material gifts. However, Bryant had said that it was something he was "to give the two of you." And that meant it wasn't Bryant who was responsible.

Sol hated Captain Hale. Nothing he said or did would ever make up for what he'd done to them for the last two years. Sol could have taken a harsh commander. Hard work and difficulty did not intimidate her. Hale had not been harsh; Hale had been cruel, personally, intentionally cruel to them, and he'd allowed the others to attack her, and forced Gabe to break them. She'd never seen what happened to Davis, but the others had been leary of standing too close to Gabriel after that - or too close to her, if they happened to notice. Whatever it was, Hale had been ultimately responsible for it, and Sol had despised him since. It wasn't a warm emotion; it was a cold, efficient hatred that had assisted her in withstanding the increasingly cruel and impossible demands Hale made on them, and nothing like a single sentimental gift was going to change that.

So Hale had gone to jail; perhaps he'd had a change of heart. She discounted that immediately. Hale had no heart. He was looking for allies, and he thought this would move them. She discounted that almost as quickly; Hale was evil, but he wasn't stupid. He knew them better than that.

It had to be Hale. Gabe doubted Bryant would have been so modest as to deflect gratitude from himself, and Muraida had been on the CCP, and wouldn't have needed Bryant to deliver the capsule for him. They knew no others who could have been responsible. It had to be Hale.

Why did it have to be Hale?

Gabe looked at Sol, without an answer. He had no idea why. It was inexplicable and out of character, and Gabe didn't understand at all. He didn't believe for a moment that it had anything to do with redemption. It was too late for that. Too late for forgiveness, too late to repent. What did Hale intend to accomplish with this?

Gabe didn't understand, didn't care to.

He reached into the capsule, withdrew the contents. The blanket still had electrical tape fastened to it. Gabe looked to Sol again, and offered a soft smile. To hell with Hale. If he thought he was going to receive any gratitude for giving back what he'd stolen from them in the first place, he was sorely mistaken, but that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy having it back.

Wrapped in the blanket were the chess pieces, the maps, everything besides each other that had made their lives at Command School bearable. Hale had tried to control them by threatening to destroy those things, but they had cheated and beaten him to it...only, here those things were, intact. Maybe Hale meant to tell them that their little gesture had been meaningless, and they'd never really had any kind of control - that he had been calling the shots the whole time, and unless he wanted these things destroyed, they wouldn't be. Maybe he was just trying to show them how foolish he thought their dramatics had been.

She looked up from the blanket to Gabe's face, and her angry hatred tripped on a shoelace and fell flat on its face as a gentle smile curved his mouth. Slowly, a new thought dug its way through the rubble and presented itself, and an answering smile gradually lit her features.

He's smiling. We won, we're free, we're going home, and he's smiling, truly smiling...and he's smiling at me. I need nothing else to be happy, and maybe that means it doesn't matter why.

"You won last time," he said, his smile growing a little wider. "You play black."

She managed a grin, and the remaining vestiges of her anger meekly retreated to make way for love, and she let out a sigh and took the blanket from his lap, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek as she did so. Her aim was off, and she tagged his nose instead, and she giggled, the stress of the moment dissipating, and tugged the blanket onto the floor in front of her.

The electrical tape was easy to lift from the surface of the blanket, and she peeled it back, sticking the pieces to themselves and dropping them back into the capsule. The blanket unrolled to reveal the maps, as uncreased as they'd been the day they'd been packaged. Hale had taken great care to preserve them, and Sol felt generally grateful that circumstance had allowed for this, but she skipped over Hale's participation to preserve her mood and carefully shuffled the maps out of the way.

The chess pieces clinked against themselves as they fell in a small heap onto the blanket, and she grinned down at them as she reached for her desk to use as the board. Her hand fell short, and instead she reached to the pile of pieces instead and shuffled the pieces slightly, just to make sure.

The knight was missing.

Hale knew, he must have known. That's why he gave this back to us. He gave us the maps the and rest of the pieces and kept the most precious one to himself, just to make us suffer.

Through the fog of her renewing anger, she became aware that Gabriel was watching her, and didn't seem the least bit put out.

She met his eyes, and her anger dropped into confusion as she blinked back the bitter tears her hasty conclusion had generated. He wasn't quite smiling any longer, but the intensity of his gaze made her awed and uncertain. She swallowed and bit her bottom lip, wanting to look down at the pieces and ask, but she couldn't look away.

That was how it was supposed to go.

But he knew, the moment her eyes swept over the pieces, that it wasn't going to go quite like that.

There was a spark of anger behind her eyes, and then she met his, and that anger turned to puzzlement. "The knight is missing," she said. Here eyes shone with the sheen of restrained tears, and Gabe forgot about plans and showmanship.

He fumbled in his pocket, awkwardly, hastily; his free hand reached over the blanket and sought out Sol's. He withdrew the lump of cloth from his pocket, and placed it in Sol's palm, closing her fingers around it and holding her hand in both of his.

She looked at her hand, and met his eyes again. She knew what it was, of course, but Gabe moved his hands out of the way, so that she could unwrap the cloth. The knicked and worn white knight was in even poorer condition than when she had last seen it; a year and a half in Gabe's pockets and hiding places in the various places they'd stayed had not been kind. The detail of its mane was almost worn away, and it was starting to build up a slight grimy discoloration from so much handling.

Sol let out a long breath and hugged Gabe, tightly. He allowed himself a relieved sigh, and kissed the fabric covering her shoulder.

He...

He was too close not to kiss, and she kissed him. It did nothing to clear her head, but when they broke she clung to him tightly and tucked her chin over his shoulder, and began to speak. "Do you remember when I fell out of the vents in Battleschool?" She didn't pause. It wasn't the sort of question that required in answer, when inquired of Gabe. "I fell and I cut my fingers, and I cried because I thought you didn't care...and I threw a fit."

She kissed his neck once, took another breath when she realized she needed one. "And you got angry at me...and later, in the infirmary, I figured it out. I tried to tell Naomi, but it didn't work, cause I didn't know what it was that made me want to love you when you told me you couldn't love me back. But...but you got angry at me, you got angry, and that meant you felt, and you hurt, and you were upset that I was upset, and I love you, Gabriel. I love you. Yes, I will marry you. Yes." Tears leaked from beneath her lids, and she pulled away and kissed him, and kissed him again, and left her tears on his cheek and unwrapped herself enough to put the knight in her pocket.

Later, when her pockets had been discarded and they lay cradled together in the little bunk they shared, she reached from the warm safety of the covers to retrieve the knight and then settle back against Gabriel, his arm encircling her comfortably as she set the knight on the pillow in front of her to study it. It reminded her of Gabe as she'd first seen him at the cabin during leave - scuffed, the color diminished under a layer of travelling grime, but still stubbornly intact.

Sol looked up and grinned as Gabe sat down behind her, and lifted her arms so he could slip his around her waist before snuggling back against him. "Any minute now," she replied with a grin, and kissed his cheek, and they quietly watched the terminal screen together. They had a dinner engagement with Bryant, and Gabe liked to be punctual.

The past two weeks had been perfect - they'd almost gotten back to sleeping a full seven or eight hours a night again - but after two long years in the Scorpion AIT, it was difficult to do nothing if there was something to be done. The conversation with her father had gone well; Sol got the impression that Gabriel and Jubal already had some sort of understanding, and the older man seemed pleased enough. Whatever passed between them during their private conversation had satisfied him, and Sol didn't really need to know. Maybe she could pry it out of Gabe later.

The next item they'd decided to tackle was arranging for the wedding Earthside. Neither had ever attended a wedding; Sol was in the vanguard of knowledge, having seen part of one on television once. Unfortunately, this proved to be no help when they were confronted with the details they were supposed to organize. The guest list was comfortably out of their hands; Sol's father would be sending out the invitations. The catering and the location were going to be handled by one of her father's sisters. Her family had kindly removed the vast majority of the work, but there was one item that only Gabe and Sol could handle: the dress.

Apparently, there had to be measurements taken, for her and for Gabe, but for some inexplicable reason he had only four measurements, and she had three times that number. Also, the directions for taking his were easy to decipher, and took them about ten minutes to complete; hers took them almost three hours, and while Gabriel seemed to get an unfair amount of amusement out of her suffering, she was extremely glad to see the end of it.

The ceremonial necessity accounted for, they dispatched the information to her father on Earth and spent the next few days recuperating before facing the last task they'd set themselves. The genetic records of all the children admitted to BattleSchool and their immediate families were on file in the medical databanks, and those databanks would be lost to them once they left IF service. Before they left the ship, Sol wanted a complete analysis done on each of them. Children were a luxury Sol and Gabriel were not willing to go without, and they wanted to be prepared for everything. Both believed there was no reason everything couldn't be perfect, if they were careful. The previous evening, they'd sent the analysis request in to her uncle, who remained at CS, and he'd promised a reply this evening by 6:00. Right on time, the message appeared. He must have automated the reply. Sol opened it and flipped to the report section.

It was laid out for a layperson to read, with indications next to recorded possible problems. Sol noted with satisfaction that neither she nor Gabriel carried any of the genetic diseases they were screening for, though there was a predisposition in her family for diabetes. The pedigree only included parents and siblings. Sol noted with interest that both she and her father carried a recessive trait for blue eyes, and flipped to Gabe's half of the family to see if he did as well. If they matched, they could have a blue-eyed child. She grinned when she saw that Gabe had one too; his mother and sister both had light blue eyes.

Something in his sister's profile caught her eye - a red dot, indicating a noted defect in her DNA. It was nothing major; Hannah had carried the gene for colorblindness, an inherited condition that was considered one of the mildest forms of genetic disease. Gabe didn't have it, so it didn't matter.

Alicia Gabriel's record was free of any red marks, just like Gabe's. Her own mother, she was surprised to learn, had been a carrier for cystic fibrosis, but both she and her brother had escaped without it. There was nothing of note in her father's record; it appeared the houses of Gabriel and Solenis had come from good stock. Sol grinned, and scanned over Simon Reiner's record as briefly as possible. There were no red marks, and she flipped back over to Hannah just get him off her screen.

Hannah. Sol smiled to herself and pretended to study the screen closely. She'd been uncertain how to bring up the subject of naming a child for his sister, but now seemed like a good time. Now they could be reasonably certain their children would be strong and healthy.

She snuck a glance at Gabe, and found he was watching her. She grinned and turned back to the screen. "Gabe...?" she said his name questioningly, as if she wasn't certain she already had his attention. His reflection smiled at her in the screen, and she was about to ask about Hannah's name when something she'd been staring at suddenly fell into place. Her grin faltered, and her brows drew together in a small frown.

Gabe noticed the change in her expression. "What is it?" he asked, sounding a little uncertain.

Sol was still staring at the screen. She flipped over to Alicia's record. Clean and orderly. No red marks. She moved back to view Simon's account. It was equally free of red marks. At last, she went back to Hannah's record, and the small red dot next to COL BLIND stubbornly refused to disappear. Neither Alicia nor Simon carried the gene for color blindness, but Hannah did. Color blindness could simply be carried, and not affect the carrier, but the gene had to be present to be passed. If neither parent had it, the child could not get it.

Which meant, in turn, that if Hannah had not gotten it from Alicia or Simon, she'd gotten it from somewhere else. She had Alicia's eye color, a distinctive pale blue. Sol reluctantly returned to Simon's record and checked for the blue-eyed gene, but there wasn't one.

Hannah had gotten the color blindness from her father, and her father could not be Simon Reiner. Sol could only think of one other man who had known Alicia at the time, had cared for her deeply and had spent his life trying to make up for her death by watching over her only surviving child.

She sat away from the terminal and turned to look at Gabriel. He had been paying close attention to what she'd been doing since she'd faltered, but there was no understanding in his eyes. He was still looking. He met her gaze automatically, but she could see the logic burning an irreparable path to the surface, and something frightening began to happen. His face changed, fell into the blank mask he used when they were not alone, but his eyes grew cold, as cold as she remembered him when he first arrived at BattleSchool, showing her nothing but her own reflection.

Gabriel, though not a large man, seemed to fill the doorway. "You fucking liar," he said. Bryant had never heard so much cold fury in the boy's voice.

Gabriel pushed past Bryant, not violently, but certainly brusquely. Bryant watched him stop in the center of the cabin's small living area, the muscles of his back and shoulders tense. Bryant looked to Solenis, who'd been standing in the corridor as well, though Gabriel had monopolized Bryant's attention at first. He put his question to her in his eyes, his face: What had happened? What could make Gabriel behave like this? But Solenis's eyes were no more open to reading than Gabriel's; less, even, for Solenis was wearing the mask of stone that she'd learned so very well from Gabriel. He looked to Gabriel again, and then back to Solenis, and stepped back to admit her. "Won't you come in?" he asked, almost keeping the edge of sarcasm from his voice.

Solenis did, and joined Gabriel in the center of the room, standing with her arms folded slightly between Bryant and Gabriel. Protecting him? Or perhaps Bryant?

Gabriel spoke without turning. "You said you didn't know, Bryant," he said, his voice now more deliberate, more controlled. He turned. His eyes locked on Bryant's. "I asked you what had happened to my father and you said you didn't know." Bryant felt his face fall, but he could not muster the energy to regain control. Did Gabriel know? How? Bryant opened his moth to ask, but Gabriel cut him off. "You killed them." Gabriel's voice was almost soft now.

Bryant shut his mouth. He looked to Solenis.

"Are you color-blind, Major?"

What the hell did that have to do with anything? "Once," he answered, not knowing why. "It was corrected a long time ago. Someone tell me what the bloody hell this is all about."

Gabriel's eyes were probing, as if searching for cracks in Bryant's armor. Solenis was also analyzing him, though seemingly with less malice. "He doesn't know," she said, still studying Bryant. Gabriel said nothing, just kept boring into Bryant with his eyes. Bryant could see the change in Gabriel; his fury was draining out of him, leaving him hollow. His shoulders had started to slump, and his eyes no longer burned. He was not the attacker any longer. Gabriel looked defeated.

Solenis placed a hand on Gabriel's shoulder, and spoke softly. "He doesn't know."

Doesn't know what?

A spark of anger seemed to flare up once more in Gabriel's eyes, and he moved forward, closing on Bryant. "You lied to me, Bryant. When I came to you in the brig. Now I know the truth. Now I know why they had to die. You know what I'm talking about. It's your fault. You took my family from me."

The thoughts that had stormed through Bryant's mind countless times in countless iterations. Your fault. You killed them. Murderer. Betrayer. Liar. Coward. They died for your disloyalty. For your traitorous, covetous soul. All your fault.

To hear them from Gabriel's lips undid the fragile self-absolution he'd clung to so tightly all these years. It was his fault. He had stolen what was never his to desire. By loving her, he had killed her.

Alicia...

I never meant...

But Alicia could not hear him now. It was too late to apologize. It was too late to explain. She was dead now, and he would not get to say the words that would unburden his soul. He would never get to hear the words that would redeem him.

It was just too late.

He was sitting on the sofa, though he could not remember seating himself. Gabriel and Solenis were still standing. Solenis's hand was on Gabriel's arm--comforting? Restraining? Bryant could not tell. He looked into the eyes of his accusers, knowing how much he had stolen from them, both of them, wishing above anything else in his life that he could take back that betrayal, that weakness that had cost the life of the woman he loved. What could he say to these two, the living victims of a series of crimes set in motion so long ago?

Nothing. There was nothing to be said. No apology would bring this boy's mother back. No excuse would undo the psychological trauma that had so drastically altered the consciousness that was Hunter Gabriel.

Too late.

"I can't change what happened," Bryant said, weakly. "I would. I wish everyday that things could have been different. But I can't. I'm sorry." Gabriel's eyes were now as unreadable as Solenis's. "I would have died in her place if I could have. I wish I had."

"So do I." Gabriel said the words without malice, without anger. They were a statement of plain fact. And Bryant could not bring himself to feel wronged.

Bryant's eyes had fallen to the floor, but he heard them leave. He sat very still for a long time, trying very hard not to think. Inevitably, his thoughts returned to the same question: could his death make any difference now? But always he came to the same conclusion, that he was nothing now, could fix nothing. His death would ease nothing but his own self-pity.

After some time, he shook off that self-pity enough to retrieve the food now waiting in the dumbwaiter, but when he sat at the table with his meal and his place settings for three, he found he had no desire to eat. He went back to his bunk, and attempted sleep half-heartedly. Eventually it came. As Bryant was falling away from consciousness, he realized he did not know how Gabriel and Solenis had learned of his crimes. But he fell asleep, and when he woke in the morning, he did not remember the question.

The pain was still there in the morning. He know it would be there every morning for the rest of his life. But if he could just get through the night, then tomorrow night it would be easier, and he would survive.

And he had to survive, whether he wanted to or not. He had to survive, because Hunter Gabriel was alive, and watching over him was the only thing Bryant could do for Alicia. It was not too late for that.

Bryant would survive. And he would make certain Gabriel did also.

His mind had refused to make the connection when he had first seen the data. There must have been some mistake. But Sol's face had not been confused; she had been watching him with concern. The realization had come slowly, and the he felt the ice spreading with each intuitive hop. Hannah had carried a gene neither parent had possessed. There could be no doubt at to who the mother was; that left the father in question. The genetic flaw in Hannah ruled Simon Reiner out. Reiner had not been Hannah's father. And the final leap--who was Hannah's father?--was the most obvious and the hardest of all for Gabe's mind to grasp.

Marcus Bryant had sired Hannah Gabriel.

That was when the anger started to grow. It spread its tendrils through the expanding ice, a cold fury that rooted itself in Gabe's soul. It was a sensation he'd not felt since Sol had been attacked outside their room in Command School. The desire to hurt. The desire to destroy. And as before, the focus was clear.

Gabriel had wanted to kill Marcus Bryant.

Not for sleeping with his mother. Gabriel did not have a firm enough rooting in his memory of her to feel outraged at that. Nor for betraying his father--that shell of a man was not Gabe's concern. Gabe wanted to kill Bryant because now he understood why Simon Reiner could have justified the murder of his wife and children. He must have found out about their infidelity, somehow. Had he known about Hannah as well? Was that how he justified the murder--that the child was not even his? And what of Gabe?

He couldn't process it all. It was too much. It changed everything. Bryant's story so long ago had contained very few lies, but it had explained nothing. Not without this final piece of the puzzle. Now Gabe knew, and he wished he didn't.

His every instinct told him to murder Bryant in the man's own cabin. Bryant had been the reason behind it all, the first domino in the series of events that lead to the murders of Gabriel's mother and sister. Gabe didn't know the story behind it, didn't want to know. He didn't care. It was what it was.

But now the anger had left him, and he didn't know what to feel. He hated Bryant. Or he didn't. He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure about his mother anymore, either. He wanted a stable place to stand. What could he depend upon, if not the ground beneath him?

His eyes stung. The fabric covering Sol's shoulder was wet. Tears. His tears. He clung to her tighter, and she held him, and stroked his hair, and she was his stable place. She was what he could depend upon. Gabe came apart, and cried into Sol's shoulder, and when she leaned him backward onto the bed his exhaustion overtook him, and soon Gabe was asleep.

He was not sure how long he slept; Sol was awake, still holding him, though she had disposed of their uniforms and had bundled them in a blanket. Gabe saw the concern in her eyes as she looked at him. She had asked a question. How long ago? Minutes? Hours?

"I will be," he said, softly.

Then he cuddled in closer and held onto her tightly, because she was the only thing left that he could depend upon. She kissed him, and whispered that she loved him.

After some time, he spoke again.

"Do you want to know the worst thing?"

Sol met his eyes.

"When I first realized that... that Simon Reiner wasn't Hannah's father..." He tried to find the words. "I was..."

He lapsed into silence for a moment.

Gabe was still asleep. He hadn't slept well the first few nights after their chat with Bryant. Nightmares of the helicopter crash kept him awake, and while her comfort seemed to calm him down, it took him a long time to fall back to sleep. The past week had been better, but there was a sadness left behind that left him quiet and sober, and Sol wanted to fix it. She wasn't sure she could, and that made her angry, but today she was going to try.

They'd been given some relatively comfortable non-uniform clothing to wear on the trip home, and she dug a set of it out of the small three drawer bureau she shared with Gabriel and then left to find a shower.

Only a week remained before their ship docked, and this was the first time Sol had ventured out before ten. This appeared to be true of almost all the passengers; the corridors were mostly empty, and the showers completely deserted. Showering and dressing only took her a few minutes. She dropped her clothing into the laundry chute and headed back towards the sleeping quarters, but instead of taking a left at the first intersection she continued on to the larger suites given to officers and guests, and one guest who had once been an officer.

Passing the time had been a difficulty throughout the trip, but never so difficult as it had become since the past two weeks. He'd needed, more than anything, a way to keep busy, to keep his mind occupied. He'd finished the arrangements necessary to finalize the purchase of his new home, a pretty little place on the Boulder River in Montana. It was not a large house, but the property's four acres were quite lovely, and while Bryant's land in Oregon had been three times that size, he no longer needed the acreage. Before, much of his land had been pens and paddocks for the horses.

There would never again be horses for Bryant.

The negotiations had been quick; he and the former owner had closed a few days into the voyage's third week. Bryant had haggled over the price more on principle than anything else. His accrued salary for the past thirteen years, in addition to a rather generous retirement bonus for a major, had covered the purchase with more than enough to keep him comfortable for the rest of his life. He'd paid what the property was worth, no more or less, to the apparent disgruntlement of the previous owner. The decorator he'd hired would handle the purchasing of furniture and other amenities. There was nothing left for Bryant to do.

After a short while he'd adjusted to minimizing his activities. It left more to do the next day, which was a good thing--it meant he'd have things to think about in the mean time.

The last two weeks, however, had been harder. He did not like being left to his thoughts; it wasn't good for him. He'd taken to spending time on the observation deck, but watching the stars for any length of time was not engrossing enough to keep thought at bay, and so it had to be kept short. He also kept sleep to necessity only, not only because his dreams brought back memories both pleasant and not--and both equally painful--but because it was when he dozed on the edge of sleep that the most dangerous thoughts came.

He occupied himself as best he could. The crew even let him spend time on the bridge, though it was against regulation. He caught up on current events to a greater degree than had been possible during his free time when Headmaster. Occasionally, he simply browsed the nets to figure out what culture was back on Earth, as it had been a very long time since he had been a part of it, and he knew that he had to integrate back into it if he intended to survive.

On his own, he simply would not last. And he knew he had to last.

And then came the knock at his door. He was expecting no visitors, and his mind could only come up with two people that would possibly have reason to come calling. He wondered if this visit would be anything like the last one.

He sincerely hoped not.

Bryant opened the door, but to his surprise, only Solenis stood in the corridor. He thought he could read tension in her stance, but it was very difficult to tell; her face was completely unreadable. He didn't know if his own confusion showed on his face.

She didn't know what she'd expected to see, but his orderly little room was just as it had been before. For some reason, it bothered Sol that there was no sign of the misery she'd seen the last time she was there. Surely, unhappiness that deep had to have some kind of outlet. He couldn't just hide that, could he?

But it's only new to us. He's carried it for years. He's had time to learn to bear it.

But she could see, after taking a few steps into his living room and turning to look at him, that he hadn't borne it without a price. Bryant looked worn more than he looked old. The lines around his eyes and mouth were heavy, his forehead creased. He couldn't have been older than fifty, but he could have passed for fifteen years older than that to the casual observer.

"I'm sorry to come without calling, but I wanted to ask if you have plans the first few days after docking."

Now it was Bryant's turn to study her. He couldn't read much from her face; Gabriel was too much a part of her now to allow for that. Her eyes seemed to betray a bit more, but Bryant did not know how to read them. An open book written in a language he did not know.

It sounded like an invitation. Bryant did not know to what, but the suggestion of a continued association after Earthfall--for Bryant had started to believe, after two weeks of silence, that Gabriel would have nothing to do with him now--pleased him.

"I've purchased a new home in Montana," he said. His voice remained a bit guarded, not wanting to let his relief show, in case this was not what he thought. "Nothing terrilby important."

Another thought occurred to him.

He'd borne his guilt in silence, because he'd known that he did not deserve the understanding, the sympathy, of another human being. He'd kept it a secret, because he deserved the suffering it caused him.

And then this woman, hardly more than a girl, who had found out his darkest secret--she told him that she understood. She sympathized with him.

And Bryant was happy and miserable at the same time.

He managed a weak smile at Solenis. She couldn't understand; she'd not had to bear the his pain, and for that he was thankful. These two had a chance at a happy life. He hoped neither of them ever understood. But that Solenis tried--that she sympathized--meant the world to him.

"Thank you," he replied.

She released his hand, and moved to go; not hurriedly, but she seemed to feel that it was the right time to end this meeting. His voice stilled her, however.

"Ms. Solenis?"

She turned back to face him.

"Ms. Solenis? I have every intention of continuing to keep an eye on Gabriel, but...should it have to be from a distance, I would very much appreciate it if you would look out for him for me. I know you do already, but..."

Sol smiled one very small, very warm smile.

"I love him, Major. That's in the fine print."