No. Not Dylan. Not in particular.

I'm afraid one day I'll fail everyone, including you.

[He clears his throat.] One day, I discovered that every person I ever loved was going to die if I didn't try to save them. The responsibility was put on my shoulders, and it involved killing my best friend. Only one of us was allowed to survive the fight. But I lost all my allies. [And friends and lovers. Everyone. No one wanted to stand beside of him.

He doesn't look at Ben.] So I was told by someone I had to undo it all. That if I wanted to save them badly enough, I would have to-

I wouldn't be the one to save them. They needed him to try. [He rubs the scar again. Tyr gave him that scar, before he left him dead on the floor with little more than a useless apology.]

[Ben doesn't look away from him, dark brown eyes steady and intent, and it's difficult to tell how much he understands. Some of it, certainly, the fear of failure, of letting down the people he loves most; he already did. But the rest of it is questionable.

The trangenic's gaze flicks down to the scar, but then immediately back up to Rhade's face when he doesn't recognize the source; he believes him, believes that he believes what he's saying, but it's a challenge getting around himself to say anything.]

That must have been difficult, sir. [It's a bland, awkward attempt, one he follows up nearly immediately.] How can all of that responsibility be placed on one person? How can you just... "undo it all?"

Time travel. [He quietly admits.] I had a chance to go back and die instead. And I don't know how it all can, but it couldn't be both of us. It just had to be the one. [He sounds so resentful and hurt for a moment. Another reminder the course of his life guided him into fate that he couldn't fight, and he couldn't live up to. Sometimes it hurts enough, the lack of choice or the consequences of actually having a choice, that it's almost enough to cry over.

But it's like guarding any other wound.] Someone with a unique perception of timelines told me.

[There was a time when the doubt that clouds Ben's expression would've been for the phrase "time travel;" this time, it's for what seems to him to be, at best, a dubious thing to trust someone else on.]

And you believed them. How can anyone else know your future for inevitable?

She wasn't human. She was... unique. She could see consequences of things, know probabilities. She believed in me first...

And then she didn't. Not even the woman I loved believed in me. She was the one that convinced me. I didn't have anyone left. Not even my people. [He remembers how badly he hated the Nietzscheans.] I returned here when I died, an inmate still. It's strange, after I graduated sometimes I think it might have been possible for me to have done it.

But then I'd still have to go through my best friend dying again. [He scruffs a hand through his hair.] I'm more confident in my decisions but I never want to go through losing everyone again. I'm just a Collector where I'm from. No one even knows I'm alive.

[Ben is silent for a few long moments, just looking at Rhade, considering what he's being told; he only understands half of it. It's a source of eternal frustration, that he's learned so much and he's still so lost half the time. The rules still don't make sense, even when people lay them out for him. His vocabulary isn't expansive enough, isn't adept enough.

But it all sounds so familiar, in its way, and at the same time like so much nonsense. That makes him angry, too - he doesn't know why. Ben switches his visual attention back to the words on the wall. He doesn't say no one knows he's alive, either; he doesn't say he lost everyone because they wanted nothing to do with him, either; doesn't say the sister he loved most killed him because she didn't know what else to do with him. He does think about pointing out that the swiftest way to lose everyone is to pull away from them, but it's not his place.

Rhade keeps trying to pull away from him anyway, so it's obviously not his place.]

And now?

I'm still afraid of it, but I can function. The hotel placed me in several situations that made me feel ineffectual and helpless and changed my focus.

[What Ben thinks isn't true- If Rhade didn't care or wanted to pull away, he would. He wouldn't try at all, and him being here is evidence that he doesn't want to.]

And it gave me the means to keep from interfering.

[Perception, as had been the favorite saying of one of the few humans that had let Ben near to him before Manticore ruined his life again, is reality; on some level he knows he's not being fair. It's why he's not just completely ignoring Rhade now, why he hasn't tried to get up and leave.

But he doesn't know what to do with the rest of this, either. Instinct says lock it down and keep it, because it won't matter one way or another anyway, and others might use it against him; his heart says lay it all out, work on it together like a chess strategy. It's become easier to talk to the private filter on his journal, but it still feels so...

Precarious.]

I apologize for the part I played in what happened. I wasn't... [He trails off, shakes his head at himself and locks the uncertainty in his voice down to stoic confidence.] It was my own fault.

It was the ship's fault. [He says nearly hatefully.] It's what it does. It sent us to that hotel. You wouldn't have wanted to be framed for murder [Even if he was capable of murder, and that's the situation Alec found himself in] or have someone trick you by imitating something that brought you comfort as a child [And likely brings him comfort now.

But at least he finally looks over at Ben.] I still need you at work, and I don't know what else is happening but your friends can't help what the hotel did either. They were probably all hurt by it.

[Ben is startled by the vehemence of the first statement, glancing over in what at any other time would be anxiety; then Rhade is continuing and Ben's expression goes somehow even harder as he's reminded about the Blue Lady.

She failed them. He knows even less than he did before, now, if She's even still around, if She ever was; he's still looking sidelong at Rhade when the other looks up to meet his attention, and he snorts softly but definitively.]

Friends. [It's another case of knowing it's not fair; he knows Aya and Rhade are his friends. Bucky. But underneath and over and around that is the certainty, the ironclad knowledge that in the end, transgenics come at the bottom of the pile each and every time. That's simply how it is.]

I said I'd report for duty. I'm not a liar. [A murderer, insane, basically useless, but not a liar. Not intentionally. And that? That upsets him too. Be it the Lady Herself or the ship or the hotel, he'd told people they were safe, and they were decidedly not.]

...you were going to leave, before. When Bucky was in charge of me. It didn't seem to matter, then, what anyone else thought. [What Ben thought.] You were going to go if you decided you needed to go.

Yes, because I never want to become that person that I'm afraid of again. [He admits.] And if I left, that would be why. This ship is supposedly here to help people, but its success rate is astonishingly low. I should have been able to help more people than I have. Friends and inmates alike.

Chang was my friend when I needed him, during another time the ship did horrible things. And then I found myself resenting him as his warden- it felt like a regression and that's terrifying, especially when I have a daughter at home waiting for me.

[And in the end, she'll be more important than anyone here. He knows that.]

Yes. [Ben knows that too. It's as it should be. Family comes first.

For him, too, even if he's no longer welcome among his. Rhade is still talking, and Ben's jaw tightens, looking down at his lap for just a moment before back up at the words on the wall.]

If you are afraid of this place, of what it can make you, is there a reason I shouldn't be?

No. [He scratches his head.] You should be. But after some time of being here, I've learned to control my fear. The hotel took my ability to do that.

And you are afraid. That's why you do what you. You need help to learn to control it- the things that you do to other people when you're afraid are as bad as what I did to myself. ...I'm not even sure the things you do aren't self-inflicted in their own way, anyway.

[It strikes him then. Why else would Ben tattoo his barcode on the backs of their necks.]

[He doesn't laugh, but there's a small, breathy noise somewhere in the back of his throat; he knows he should be afraid. It's other people telling him he shouldn't be, but he knows.

His shoulders tighten when Rhade begins talking about him, though, a thrill of ice down his spine when he hears the words self-inflicted. He can still hear Max, the disgust she didn't try to hide, the buried horror, the confusion. Don't you get it? You're killing yourself, over and over again.

He knows it's possible. Knows the rest of what she said is possible. It terrifies him that she could see it, that others might, too. Do you hate yourself that much? Hate what you're doing that much? Ben lifts his chin slightly, his voice cold, seething somewhere far beneath.]

I do what I do because it's what I was made to do. What I was trained to do. It's all I'm good for.

You're smart. It's not all you're going to be able to do. I can say that in complete confidence, no matter what I'm afraid of in myself.

[He understands self-hate. He shouldn't, but he knows he does. And how destructive it can be.]

Of course it's not all I'm able to do. It's all I can do.

[Frustrated. None of them understand but then again, how can they; they weren't there. They aren't transgenic. They have rights. They have families. They have futures.

They have choices.

Ben switches his eyes back over to Rhade, wide and bright with exactly what he's been accused of: fear, buried itself deep below the surface anger.]

The worst way to fail is to not even try. Dylan was right. Don't silence yourself.

I already know this. [He raises a brow at Ben.] It's just a fear. I wouldn't make the same choices that destroyed civilization again.

But when I came back to the ship, I got immediately back to work even if I need to recover. You've been avoiding people and hiding.

[Ben opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it again with a nearly audible click, shooting a glare back at the wall though he's not looking at it this time so much as through it; he knows why he did it. Resentment has never been anything safe to admit to or act upon. He's only just now getting around to the one.

He doesn't answer, at first, capable of being still and silent for as long as it takes to wait out a threat or an opponent; but when it becomes obvious Rhade isn't going anywhere, when he has time to remember that this man directly controls his fate, he swallows quietly and finally speaks in a much quieter voice.]

We weren't safe. She said we were, but we weren't.

The hotel lied to you. [He will keep his own athiest tendencies out of it, he knows there's more to it.]

The quote I left you means that... too often, to have faith one has to find themselves under stress to find that faith necessary. The original intent of belief was give people hope, and in the particular religion Nietzsche is referring to, there was a good number of religious ceremony that would be excused in this belief.

Later, people used it to take advantage of others. Whether or not that Christ was a real man born under the conditions Christians believed in didn't matter- what did matter was that suddenly the church that existed in his name took advantage of many of the believers. They demanded much, and these people would never see their rewards.

The hotel took advantage of you. It took advantage of me, too. You're one of the reasons I'm reluctant to leave, and from a father and a husband [or whatever he is] that's extremely important.

[Ben has an easier time following the narrative now than he would have when he arrived; he'd gotten some distance, perhaps, from the Lady by suppressing his faith in Her in order to survive what he'd thought was Manticore. The things Rhade is saying now are as appalling as that distance when he'd thought She was close again.

He remembers the night She found them; remembers how warm the card had felt in his hand, like an answer to a flagging fight. He'd seen an opportunity there and She'd turned into so much more. The reminder that he, too, promised reward without delivering it is enough to keep him silent on this though.]

Reluctant. [He repeats the word like he's tasting it, shifts his gaze down to where his hands are folded neatly in his lap.] I don't know where the blood came from. I can't remember. It didn't smell real.

Edited 2012-11-30 07:57 am (UTC)

Another lie, then. [His snort is a little sad, though.] I think I knew that by the end of it, though. Thankfully whatever else was affecting me didn't take into consideration that you would try to help me. [He thinks that might have been because of what happened with the Vanquish.]

[There's a break in his frustration, a sharp glance over. No one ever believes that he didn't do something. Especially not when the evidence is overwhelming.]

Why wouldn't I help?

If it tricked you again. [With more of the Blue Lady promising he'd be alright.]

You needed help. [He states this flatly; he could understand that much, no matter who was telling him what. He's sure of it.] I didn't understand the note, and I couldn't get into the room on my own, not like this, but...

I'm sorry, Rhade.

[If there's the sound of a man's heart breaking a little, it follows those words. It's not just a placating apology- it's a genuine one. He bites his lips between his teeth for a moment.]

I am too.

[And it's true. Even with the hotel's influence, he's angry he lost control, angry that he let the fear take him, and if things had gone a little differently he might have lost Ben there.]

It's Gaheris. [Because he's not a commander right now. Or even a Collector.]