#turq8

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 Trailing his hand down the wall, Barry made his way by memory. After eleven years he could have done it with his eyes closed.

Which was essentially what he was doing. 

It was stupid, so fucking stupid. Okay, sure, that first year he hadn’t known to take his glasses off. Why would he? But by the third time they regenned he should have figured out that his glasses were going to be important and he should set them aside before … whatever it was that happened at the end of the cycle. That fourth year he’d died, that could be excused. The eighth year he’d had it ingrained in him not to even think of removing his mask. So that year could be excused, too. 

But that still left six regens. Six opportunities to set aside a pair of glasses in case of emergency. 

Well maybe next year he’d remember. But for the rest of this year he was practically blind. Anything beyond arm’s reach might as well not exist. He could make out colors and if he squinted really hard sometimes he could get a slight hint of shape to the faceless blurs around him. 

It’s fine, he told himself for probably the thousandth time that day.

It wasn’t fine. Sure, he could make his way around the ship, fumbling his way from room to room by memory and feel. But once he was there he didn’t have much to offer. He couldn’t work in the lab. Experiments were off the table - literally if he was trying to do them. Just trying to clean basic equipment in the lab had resulted in two broken beakers before Lup kindly, patiently, but insistently suggested he leave the job to her. He couldn’t help look for the light. He couldn’t take notes on their observations. He couldn’t even help with chores around the ship!

Pushing open the fifth door on the left, he was alone, finally. Dark blur straight ahead was his bed and beige-ish blur to the left was his desk. And then the blurs were watery and the tears of frustration and self pity that he’d held off all week caught up to him. He leaned against the door and let his facade drop.

He was so tired of being a drain on the crew. Not being able to help, having to be looked after, and maybe worst of all, pretending it didn’t kill him by inches, pretending it was all just a silly thing to be joked away. ‘Barold bumping into things for three more months,’ wasn’t it hilarious? ‘Barry fell of the rock jetty, lost his glasses, almost died, and now he’s talking to the coat rack because he thinks it’s Lucretia.’

“Barry?”

Fear shot hot and electric through his body, startling him into embarrassed silence. He swabbed his hand over his face, trying to disguise the fact he’d been leaning against his door crying because he…

“Oh, fuck,” he said. “I went in the fourth door, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Lup answered. That one syllable was so patient and kind and understanding and honestly, it was just salt in his wounds. He didn’t want to be understanding about this whole thing and he really didn’t want Lup to be understanding about him bumbling into her room and having a breakdown.

“Sorry, I, just, um,” 

A blur separated itself from the bed-blur, straightened into a taller blur, and approached him. He could almost see the shape of her hair in her silhouette - it was loose, not braided was all he could make out - when she was close enough to take his hand. “C’mere,” she said, tugging him gently towards the bed-blur. “Hold on,” she said. The Lup-blur bent then straightened again. “Don’t want you tripping over my boots,” she explained. There was a clunk to his right and he assumed she’d tossed the shoes towards the wall to get them out of the way.

It was disconcerting, being pulled into a sitting position on Lup’s bed. Their rooms were arranged identically, looked identical to his unassisted vision, and sitting on her bed was, in theory, no different than sitting on his own.

Except it was. It wasn’t his bed, it wasn’t his room, and worse - oh so much worse - it was Lup’s bed in Lup’s room. His face was burning and his stomach was winding itself into furious little knots and dammit, he hadn’t thought he could feel worse than he did three minutes ago but, look at that!, here he was sunk lower than the freezing point of mercury. 

“I didn’t mean to bug you,” he mumbled, eyes aimed at the floor or where the floor was if he could at least be trusted to get that right.

“Hold still,” she tells him. Then she’s pushing the hair back from his forehead and there’s a weird sensation, like a pinching pull that doesn’t quite hurt but it’s just so odd he can’t figure out what’s going on.

“Stop frowning!” she tells him, her voice colored with laughter. “I’m just clipping your hair back.”

“Why?” he asks before he can stop himself. He feels like he’s three steps behind what is happening.

“Because we’re doing face masks.”

“What?”

“Relax,” she tells him. 

And for some strange reason, he does.

 ---

 They’ve been alone. Over the years, in a dozen planar systems, across doomed worlds, in forgotten ruins, or just in the lab working silently, they’ve been alone.

They’ve been alone. Over the months of study and composition and practice. They’ve been alone, just the two of them and their music filling the empty room, no witness to the way the notes have been building and the music has been building and the way the tempo has somehow gotten slower. Here at the end, right next to each other, a pair of pathways that have wound ever closer over the years, the paths have almost joined and yet.

And yet.

They meander these last months. Dancing closer and closer but not touching, not mingling, not yet. 

Each step forward slower and slower until the momentum is crawling forward, making the distance of a few inches last and last.

They are alone together on stage. 

There are so many around. Instructors and audience and all the people that it takes to keep an infrastructure like this running: janitors and receptionists and the guy that refills the coffee machine in the fourth floor break room. Anyone in hearing distance that day notices. It’s like that sometimes. You can go weeks and months and nothing sticks, even the pieces that get rebroadcast, they run together at some point. It’s beautiful, amazing, but there’s filters to restock and inquiries to respond to. There’s a leaky water heater that needs tending to. But for a minute, you stop, lean on the broom and take notice.

But not Barry and Lup, alone, finally, despite the people surrounding them. Their music is still echoing around them when their hands find one another. 

Lup and Barry, alone on stage. Two paths that have run side by side, so close for so long, join at last.

There’s applause and then the song is sent out anew, reflected from deep within the mountain instead of from her violin and his piano. There’s applause and an empty stage.

Alone, finally.

 ---

 There’s a pillar of bone carved with arcane symbols. There on the hill, two people lean together, forehead to forehead. Further away another watches. But in this instant there’s no one else. Seven on this planet yes. Eight if you count their strange, duck loving new shipmate. 

But for now. On this hill. In this moment.

There are only two. 

Two liches.

Alone, finally, after years of study.

And then like so many times before, they pick up their responsibilities and work and pull it all back on like a costume they only ever drop for a little while.

In those moments they are alone.

 ---

 He’s alone.

This was the final place. It was supposed to be… 

His shoulders sag. It was supposed to be their happy ending, their settled-at-last, their no-more-running. 

But he woke up and she wasn’t there.

It felt different. He didn’t say it, but it did.

And then morning turned to day turned to week turned to months.

He’s alone.

 ---

 Exhaustion wears them down, hang like too-heavy cloaks on backs that can’t stand tall without her. 

He’d been alone.

But feeling the last of her disappear - the her that was only in his memories - he knows what alone really means. He can’t lose her that way, not again, not like this.

“Taako, k- kill me! Right now!”

 He’s falling.

Forgetting.

Forgotten.

Alone.

Final.

y

 ---

 He’s alone. There is so much that makes no sense. Three guys - one of them made of fucking wood if you could believe it - and him naked in a tank full of goo. 

Then he got in the one guy’s pocket? Somehow?

The details are fuzzy.

But dammit, he’s happy. Something feels right. After so long. (How long?)

He’s alone.

Alone, but -

Finally.

 ---

 Who’d have guessed this was a skill? The ultimate hangover and when you got that giant memory dump poured on you every time you did something stupid like fell off a cliff or didn’t bring enough water into the desert… well, you got better at it.

So while the others recovered, he was alone, the only one not under fire from a million contradicting thoughts.

Alone, Finally.

At the end.

And then… and then… his brain comes up empty at the thought. And then?

Alone?

 ---

 The pale green glow throws strange shadows across the cave. There was a ball of brilliant fire but, well, anchoring yourself in a body after a decade out of practice took some concentration. And he didn’t exactly have the concentration himself.

After so long. After everything. After endless nights in this very cave, planning and plotting and hoping.

Alone.

And then.

Finally.