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WHO: Maine and Ephemera
WHERE: Fight club
WHEN: June
WHAT: Dealing with the aftermath of a shared dream
NOTES OR WARNINGS: PTSD, mentions of violence/gore

[ Life goes back to how it was. It's almost startling how little any of it changes for Ephemera. The rest of New Amsterdam seems to be scrambling and screeching at each other, trying to find a new equilibrium amidst all the changes (and the fucking plants), but Ephemera rolls with it. That used to be his gift. Accepting new shifts in his reality and then rating them accordingly. Changing to meet the new shape of the challenge, the requirements of it. He changed when his family died, he adapted to the new world order with the only sort of thing that could swallow down his grief. The brutality carried him through. The rage became a friend.

And then he changed again. And again. Again.

He regrets it sometimes. The simplicity of his rage was comforting. The world was simple. The world was one shape. He had a mission, and now he doesn't.

Now, he doesn't know what he has. A life, but no path.

He spends a lot of time drawing, in the meantime. Sketching out memories, the people he's lost and the ones he's met here. Sometimes he looks at the ones he did of his family dead and tries to explain, even if just to himself, why he hasn't destroyed them. Why even after talking it out with Drake, he still feels like he ought to keep them. Out of sight, and sometimes out of mind for days at a time, but always there.

It hurts. The grief will always hurt. But the loss of them doesn't feel like it destroyed him as much these days. Or at least not all the way.

Life goes on. He moves with it. He adapts. And then one day he draws Connie. Not dead, not dying, but as he remembered her in life. She hadn't been easy to get along with all the time, sharp in a way he hadn't quite known how to deal with, but there were moments where she relaxed. Mostly with Hunter, but sometimes just when she was there, talking, and she would smile. He draws her in profile, her hair mussed from her helmet, and he draws her with that light smile she used to have. The glint in her eye. And he remembers the dream he shared with someone else, not so long ago. The other sketch he threw at Maine.

Okay, Ephemera thinks. Okay. Do better.

He folds the sketch in half and tucks it into his jacket. He's not fighting tonight but he's got friends now, to his own surprise, and they keep him in the loop. It's not hard to track down the big motherfucker who keeps destroying people in the ring, and to know when Maine is scheduled to fight. And it's not hard to duck into the locker room in the middle of the festivities and start hunting for Maine's gear. Have to stow your stuff somewhere, after all.

This doesn't have to be a thing. They don't have to talk. It'd probably be better if they don't. Now if he could just find where Maine stowed his fucking gear, then he could do this and get the fuck out before it turns into something they'll have to talk out. ]

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[ After the simulation, nothing about Maine's routine feels the way that it should. He goes through the motions. He works, he studies, he exercises, he eats and sleeps when he can. He spends as much time with Church as possible, aware that he's clinging but unable to stop himself. And when he gets too restless, or Church tires of his hovering, Maine finds a fight and beats the shit out of someone.

It's okay, he guesses. There's nothing inherently wrong with his routine. Sure, his free time is so limited that it cuts into his sleep, but he's survived on less. He can keep going. Besides, this schedule is only temporary.

But that's the big problem: it feels temporary. Tenuous. Like it could be sucked away at any moment, and Maine would find himself in another fake life — or in yet another new universe. For someone who views the world through a lens of black and white, who clings to order and routine and command structures like a lifeline, it's fucking exhausting.

Maine releases his frustration in the ring. Pummels his opponents and relishes how solid it feels. Too bad the competition is never really competition — not after training one-on-one with Carolina for months. The fights never last long. Maine lets people stare and cheer for a few moments. Then he retreats to the locker room, uninterested (as always) in celebrating his victory with others.

There are usually other fighters lingering in the locker room, chatting with each other, or getting ready for their matches. Tonight, there's just one man. The first man he ever met in one of these locker rooms.

Maine stops just inside the doorway. He remembers that dream. They were in a locker room in it as well. Maine was bare-chested and battered after his fight against Texas, peeling off his armor under the leaderboard's blue light. He's bare-chested now, too, but that's where the similarities stop. His hands and forearms are carefully wrapped, concealing any bruising. The blood splattered across his chest and up one shoulder doesn't belong to him.

He says nothing. Instead, he lets out a sound somewhere between irritated and disgusted. Why the fuck is Ephemera here? ]

[ Of course it goes wrong. Of fucking course. Ephemera goes very still, hands clenching and then relaxing. That was one of the sergeant's early lessons. Don't tense up before a fight or you'll get slow and stupid. Be smart, be ready, but not tight. Ephemera never learned to dance like she could, not with knives, but he remembers the lessons. And he remembers her, too. How she saw it coming before she died.

Anger is easy. Anger feels righteous, now.

Ephemera tips his head back. Counts to five. Then to ten. It doesn't help. ]

This will go easier if we don't talk.

[ He sounds tired more than angry. An unforgivable lapse. Then he takes the folded sketch out of his jacket and just sets it down on the nearest bench. There's no hint of the content. ]

I don't want to know anything about you.

[ That's the problem, though. He already does. ]

[ Talking is something Maine hasn't wanted to do since he discovered Ephemera is an enemy. He's followed Carolina's instructions. Kept his distance. Has done his damndest to not engage on the occasions they've met, even forcibly removing Ephemera from that shared dream. But here Ephemera is again, apparently seeking him out.

Maine curls his hands into fists. He's not tired from his fight. Not even close.

But Ephemera doesn't try to attack. Just sets down a piece of paper on a bench. Maine takes one look at it and feels his lip curl in distaste. He doesn't need to see what's on it; he can already guess. ]

Not touching that.

[ One drawing of a dead teammate was enough. He's not going to actively seek out another, no matter how much Ephemera apparently wants him to have it. ]

Do what you want.

[ Ephemera rocks back on his heels. Despite himself, he smiles. It's sad more than angry. This didn't have to happen. He can imagine a world where his family survived the shit with Freelancer. Where Connie accomplished everything she set out to do and they all lived. He can imagine it, but he can't reach it. There's nothing but this moment, and the memories.

This is where they stand. ]

I'm trying to remember them in different ways. I know you don't give a shit about my people, but I liked her. Connie. She was trying to do something good.

[ Not her fault it didn't work. ]

[ That's a presumption that causes Maine's irritation to climb. While it's true that he doesn't care about most people, he doesn't even know who Ephemera's people are. Any indifference is just that: the indifference of a stranger.

Then Ephemera speaks of CT again, and Maine doesn't know what "good" he's talking about. Isn't willing to ask. Not with the shadow of that dream lingering over his head. Not with the question of her name still haunting his thoughts, unanswered. ]

Don't know your people. Never met them.

[ Never fought them. Never killed them, either.

Saying it won't make a difference. Certainly didn't before. Maine does so anyway, his tone flat. Stating facts with no emotion attached. ]

[ Ephemera tips his head back. He feels so tired, suddenly. It's hard to fathom a version of Maine that hasn't wrecked his world, killed his people, but there are versions now. It's not simple, though Ephemera wishes desperately that it were. ]

Would it matter if you did?

Yes.

[ A curt answer. Only spoken aloud because Ephemera has his head tipped back, so a nod won't work. Maine doesn't bother to elaborate. To him, the reasons are obvious.

If Maine had met Ephemera's people, he would know them. He would have an opinion about them. If he'd experienced that part of the future, they'd be dead enemies. If he'd met them in a place where universes collide, they might be something else. Either way, they'd be more than nameless shadows his future-self kills.

Maine glances at the piece of paper again. ]

Don't want another dead drawing.

[ There's an underlying tension in his tone. Something that isn't anger yet, but could quickly become that. He hasn't forgotten the first drawing. Hasn't forgiven it. ]

It's not.

[ He smiles, despite himself. A tired expression. ]

She wasn't easy to get along with. But I liked her. I liked how she looked at my captain, how they smiled at each other.

[ Ephemera flexes his hands, then holds them up so Maine can see the tattoos. Rings on nearly every finger, simple black bands. One for each brother and sister he lost. And one, finally, for Connie. ]

I wanted to carry them with me, in everything I did. My family. And her.

[ The sketch must be of CT, Maine realizes. Apparently, it's one in which she's not dead. He resists the urge to glance at the folded piece of paper again. Knows that doing so won't tell him anything else.

… It's just been a long time since Maine has seen CT outside of dreams. She never showed up in the station, and it's not as though Maine has any pictures of her. They were never close: she was a teammate, a friend of a friend at best. Still, it's strange to think about how long it's been. Stranger yet that he doesn't know what fucking name to use when thinking about her.

Ephemera raises his hands, then. Maine looks at the tattooed rings. Knows that Ephemera's team is the "family" he's talking about. Knows that the future-Maine kills several of them personally.

He doesn't let himself carry the weight. He refuses. Not when Ephemera tried to kill Carolina and Wash. ]

She was with your captain?

Yeah.

[ The sergeant hadn't liked that, Ephemera remembers. Chica and the captain had gotten into arguments about it more than once, about the risk they were all taking. Getting involved in the super soldier bullshit, all that mess, when the sergeant said they should have been focused on building up their cash reserves in case they needed to run again. The UNSC had bounties out on them and by that point the Insurrection had cut all ties with them. They had no allies left, nothing to utilize except for Charon's very conditional protection. But they'd tried, still. One last cause, one last chance to do something good after all the awful shit they'd seen and done.

Ephemera breathes out slow. He never hated Connie. She tried her best. And they chose to toss their lot in with her, in the end. It wasn't her fault that it went so wrong. ]

She gave him a ring. Not....hnn. Not like that. I don't think they were the type. But he wore it on a chain, under his armor. None of us kept our dogtags, but he held onto that.

[ He doesn't say that the captain was insane at the end. What would it help? What would it change? Ephemera twitches a little, touching his knuckles to his mouth. It hurts still. The weight of the grief, the fact that he wasn't there to watch the captain's back at the very end. He'd known Hunter was gone then, that CT was all that remained. Something sharp and brittle, something broken. It was just too much. All the death, the fact that Ephemera was the only one left at the end and he still wasn't strong enough to go back into the field. Hunter died with the others, Ephemera knows.

CT was something, someone, else. A ghost, twisted up and hollow. Someone that Ephemera had still loved, and had been unable to protect.

He exhales sharply. He doesn't say that, either. ]

His name was Hunter. My captain. My brother.

[ Some of the Freelancers enjoyed gossip. Shit, they practically made a hobby of it. Big as the Mother of Invention was, it was still an enclosed environment, and people getting in each others' business was almost inevitable. South was the biggest offender, Maine thinks, always spreading shit she heard elsewhere — but her brother and York didn't seem much better.

Maine stayed out of it. He was never interested in the talk. Considered it a waste of time. He didn't bother to listen to rumors, real or fake, nor did he bother learning about his teammates' personal lives. What was the point? It didn't impact how well they fought together. Besides, they typically expected to learn something about him in return, and like hell was Maine going to share that.

So Maine doesn't know if the CT he knew had anyone special. Doesn't know if she was with Hunter already or if that developed later. Doesn't know how the two might've met. How this strange link between his team and Ephemera's might've been forged.

Ephemera speaks of his teammates as his family again. Maine can't relate. He has friends among his teammates, but they're not his family. His family has been dead for years. Still, Maine doesn't brush the information aside. Doesn't know what to say to it, really, but he nods in acknowledgment. Hunter, Ephemera's captain. CT's … something. ]

He looked after us. Got me straight out of training, picked the others special. We never got a corpsman, so he stole the handbook. Taught himself.

[ It's said softly. Ephemera knows he got lucky meeting Hunter and the sergeant in the middle of his Helljumper training. They didn't have to seek him out, or offer him a place on the squad they were building. He was nobody, just some dumb rookie, but they took a chance on him. Gave him a place to belong and he loved them for it, he loved them and they gave him a family. And there was a time he thought he would die from being apart from them, for being the last one standing.

He twitches. Exhales slow. ]

We did bad things in the war. We hurt a lot of people. But he got us out. He never lost anyone on a drop. Not even once.

[ A rarity in their circles, and one that made people look at Hunter suspiciously. But the captain kept them all alive, and in close to one piece. He did the best he could. He fought for them. ]

They were my family. Hunter, all of them. They were mine. I never had....they were my family.

[ Never losing someone on a drop is something Maine can't imagine. He did what he could for his teammates. Picked them up and carried them when their legs stopped working, or, on one occasion, when they lost their legs altogether. He protected them wherever he could. Used his body as a shield, same way he's protected his fellow Freelancers. But there's only so much that he or his fireteam leader could do. And there was nothing they could do during the drop itself.

Maine moves, then. Steps slightly closer, but primarily to the side. Clearing the doorway. Removing any inherent threat caused by him standing there. Then he folds his arms, mostly so that he doesn't keep standing there with his fists clenched. ]

Everyone does bad shit in war.

[ Maine doesn't say it in a comforting way. He sounds more resigned than anything. For him, it's a truth that he accepted a long time ago. ]

[ And then Maine moves away from the door. Ephemera tips his head to the side, wondering what he's supposed to make of that. What this is supposed to be. He didn't want to talk to Maine but here they fucking are. They're standing here, talking to each other, and neither of them has gone for the throat yet. There's no blood on the ground. What is he supposed to do with that, when he promised his family he would avenge them?

Ephemera twitches. Touches his knuckles to his mouth. ]

Yeah. We didn't kill kids, though. That was...that was our line in the sand. Didn't change anything, though. They still ended up dead.

[ He doubts Maine would care. Why would it possibly matter? ]

We tried to make it right. We really did. Didn't work. We couldn't change anything. And we couldn't help Connie.

[ Children die in war, same as everyone else. Maine doesn't think he's ever intentionally killed a kid. Guesses it'd depend on the definition of "kid." He stopped considering himself a child the moment he enlisted, even though at sixteen, he wasn't legally able to do so without his parents' permission. Maybe some Insurrectionists were as young as he was; maybe some were younger. Not like Maine ever stopped to ask.

Maine shifts his weight, not sure what to say to Ephemera's efforts to make shit right. Not sure what to say to Ephemera's team trying so hard to help Maine's teammate.

He remembers the dream again. Remembers CT asking if the Director gave him the ammo. Remembers when the dream twisted, and she called him a weapon. They were never friends. She wouldn't have asked him for help. ]

She was friends with Wash. Moved up ranks together. Stayed close.

[ Ephemera might know that already. Maine says it anyway. Figures that if Ephemera is set on carrying her memory, he should know who else she cared about. ]

I know.

[ He doesn't know much more than that. It hadn't seemed important. Connie still ended up dead. Those friends of hers didn't have her back. They betrayed her, didn't fight by her side when she needed them. But did she ever ask?

Maybe that's the better question.

Ephemera exhales sharply. ]

Did she have a family?

[ Hunter might have known, but Hunter was gone by that point. CT never said. ]

[ Maine shrugs. ]

Don't know. Didn't talk about personal shit. Project "discouraged" it.

[ Maine suspects he took that policy to heart more than most. Many of the others talked and gossiped. Got to know each other. Some of the lower-ranking Freelancers even used their first names.

Maine never did. He embraced the identity of "Agent Maine" so completely that he's barely thought of himself by his given name in years. ]

Oh.

[ Ephemera understands that, he supposes. He didn't know anything personal about the people he was in prison with, or about Felix and Locus. It hadn't seemed important and even if they'd offered, he didn't remember. He wasn't there to make friends or to be a person; he was waiting, his mission aways on the horizon.

It was different, in the end. Freelancer didn't operate like his family. There was no trust. ]

The captain buried her. I don't know where. But he...he did that.

[ It was respectful. Quiet. She deserved that much. ]

[ A burial means that there was a body that could be recovered. That's more than many get. More than most of Maine's loved ones got. He wonders if it gave Hunter closure. Thinks that burials are supposed to do that for most people.

They never gave Maine closure. Then again, he doesn't grieve the way most people seem to.

He nods in acknowledgment. Falls quiet for a moment, wondering where the fuck they're supposed to go from here. Finally, a little awkwardly, ]

You fighting tonight?

[ Or is Ephemera only here to drop off the piece of paper Maine still hasn't picked up? ]

No.

[ Ephemera rocks back on his heels. The drawing lies where he left it. The ball's in Maine's court now, or whatever the fucking metaphor is. He tried. He made a gesture that wasn't designed to strike a blow-or, at the very least, wasn't intended to draw blood.

Maybe this is the best they can do. Regard each other as something more than strangers. He doubts they'll ever be allies. Ephemera doesn't think he could bare that, after everything. Even now, he remembers the sergeant dying. How her eyes had gone wide and then very narrow before she was dropped. How she'd known it was coming.

He jerks his head toward the folded drawing. ]

Do what you want. I'm trying not to remember her dead.

[ So, Ephemera made this trip just to give him a sketch. Maine doesn't know how to feel about that. Doesn't know what to think. Figures he'll need to report it to Carolina, just to keep her aware of the situation. After all, it's on her instructions that Maine is doing his best to keep his distance.

Maine nods again. Then he steps a little farther away from the door, clearing it for Ephemera.

Evidently, Maine doesn't plan to pick up the paper while Ephemera is present — if he does so at all. ]

[ So. That's that.

Ephemera tips his head back for a moment, watching Maine. Wondering.

Then he exhales and walks out the door. ]

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