Reunion and Regrets

[Nineteen]

Nineteen was concentrating very hard on Alain's story, up until he let "Suji and I..." trail off. Her eyebrows shot up, and the devilish grin that spread across her face was immediate. The fact that he switched subjects only seemed to make her more certain of her conclusion.

"Get the fuck out," Nineteen barked out a laugh, staring at him in wide-eyed shock. "You and that chick? No way. Really?" She laughed again, drinking more of the beer and shaking her head. "Yeah she's a hero. Not the only one, either. Word is, both her, the other girl, and one of the guys they brought back yesterday all used to be in the same faction. They all helped destroy some huge Yeerk pool that was getting built out West or something. They're some of the only survivors of Dallas, too. They're like, the real deal. Your girlfriend especially. Had her dead face plastered over all kinds of broadcasts and then it turns out she's not dead, she actually even saved another Animorph -- by fighting her way into a Yeerk pool. Alone."

Of course, she understood that what she'd heard was probably exaggerated, but Nineteen couldn't help herself. What she was saying now wasn't even the most outlandish of the versions of this story. "Hell, Seiya uses them as examples in his History class, even if he doesn't use their real names."

Nineteen shook her head, still stunned by the news. "Really though? Really. You and her had a thing? How serious was it? Shit, she could probably kick your ass six ways from Sunday."

[Alain]

Alain had to smile at Nineteen's reaction though it was tempered by a reminder of Dallas. This was the first time he had ever heard it talked about outside of the history class and that lesson had made him feel uncomfortable. No one here knew about his past, not even Seiya. Seiya knew Cassie wanted him to be a scientist but he didn't know why. Cassie feared, and Alain had plenty of reason to believe, that if people knew what he'd been and what he'd done he would never make it through. Too many people had died. There were bound to be people here who had known people there.

"Yeah, we did," Alain said, hanging his head a bit. "Of course, that was before I joined, before I knew she was a hero, at least, a hero to everyone else," he said honestly. It was really hard for him to wrap his mind around the fact that Suji, the history teacher who like beer, good music and walked around in flip flops, was the one of the hero's of the west, Animorph warrior legend. The two just didn't match up and he said as much.

"It's hard for me to see her the way everyone else does. She's not the Suji to me. She's just Suji." Just Suji. Yeah right.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen shook her head again in dumb amazement. "Jesus, what's she like? Way people talk about her, she sounds kinda terrifying. Like Seiya if Seiya wasn't always busy monitoring the ship and had to send us into fights." She wasn't sure where the rumors originated exactly, but apparently Suji had been through New York city on occasion, and some of the people who had been in factions there worked here now. They talked, and Nineteen knew they probably weren't to be trusted; people that probably only saw her once before were running their mouths about knowing her "before Vegas." And normally, Nineteen didn't listen to the rumor mill, but if Alain and this girl had been something, well...

"So like, give me the details. You two were both teachers, sequestered away in a free human camp together? How much of a thing were you? Is she going to kick your ass? Can I watch?" Nineteen didn't seem to realize that her questions could be considered prying; if Alain didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't, and she knew that. For now though, he wasn't going to stop her from trying. Spreading gossip wasn't her thing, but she wouldn't pass the opportunity to hear it from the source.

[Alain]

Alain had a moment when he realized he could make up anything he wanted. He could weave some fantastic tale about romance playing out on the tropical beaches. And, somehow, it felt like it would play into the great myth that was Suji, because that is what it was, a myth. He wasn't sure how much to believe about her actions before he'd met her but he knew she wasn't some legend out of a story, she was a person who had been chewed up by the war and had needed to rest. Of course, that didn't seem like something he should reveal either.

"A thing," Alain said with his customary shrug. "Both adults and all that and it was a semi-tropical free human town. She's," he searched for words, "really down to earth. She enjoyed all the simple things and I guess that's what I liked. We were friends and it was just fun to do normal stuff for a while. I mean, normal with a hint of unbelievable. Like listening to music but doing so in the middle of a jungle."

Alain took a sip of his beer and thought about all the good times. He'd been so wrapped up in the memory of the night she'd left and the guilt he'd felt that he had let it cloud his happier memories. "I guess we're back in the real world now. That's what I feel like anyway. Like a summer fling you didn't expect to follow you home."

[Nineteen]

Nineteen looked a little disappointed that his response wasn't exactly the kind of stuff that would fuel the flames of what she'd already heard. But in a way, this was better. You couldn't really count on Alain to talk things up anyway; he tended to be too calm for that, and she had a feeling that he knew very well the power he had to tap into the buzzing hive of a gossiping training facility. The fact that he wasn't using it to boost her popularity or anything like that showed his good sense. If nothing else, Seiya probably would have made him do a lap outside the Bladeship in his underwear.

"I guess we're back in the real world now. That's what I feel like anyway. Like a summer fling you didn't expect to follow you home." At this, Nineteen look back over at him. A question formed on her tongue, and she tried to hold it in, but it was determined to be free. What she knew about Alain was that he'd been recruited from a free human camp. Before that he'd been a Controller. Before Suji had been at that camp, she'd been an Animorph.

"Yeah? And who followed who?" Her tone was quiet; it was more personal than Nineteen usually got.

[Alain]

Alain looked down at the slowly shifting light of the engine. "I told Cassie I did not follow Suji," Alain said firmly even has he hung his head on the railing. "But how true was that? I kept telling myself that too. That I was here for all of my own reasons, maybe inspired by Suji, but not caused by or anything. I don't know," he said, taking a larger drink of his beer than was kosher.

"It's all a mess," he said, after he had swallowed. "I guess I didn't expect it to be so...weird. I-" he hadn't really imagined it would be like this. "I thought she would be happy to see me. That we'd be friends at least or something."

[Nineteen]

Nineteen had expected some kind of guarded, vague response. When Alain actually opened up and gave her one that sounded a lot heavily than his normal fare, Nineteen looked away. She felt bad for asking, but in a way, that was what friends were for. And if she had asked it after knowing about their relationship for half an hour, there was no way Suji wasn't going to ask about it. And if she'd already called him out in front of other people, next to Seiya, Nineteen was hard pressed to believe that Miss Animorph Superstar was going to be gentle with Alain later.

"Hey, if you chose to be here, you chose to be here. You knew the risks. And even if she did have something to do with it, people sign up for this job for worse reasons, right? I mean, chasing a girl..." Nineteen smiled lopsidedly, trying to show it was a joke. "Probably only a bit more romantic than the kids that're here 'to save the world'."

Nineteen reached out and put a hand on Alain's shoulder. "You probably just shocked her. But if she really doesn't want to be your friend or something, fuck her. Her loss."

[Alain]

"Thanks," he said, looking up at Nineteen and meaning it. Nineteen reminded him of a few friends he'd had before all of this started. She seemed like one of those people that would always have your back once she'd decided you were worth it and he appreciated that. Especially because he hadn't had it before.

"Yeah, you're right. Besides, can't get much worse can it? Unless she comes after me in the mess hall or something. I figure I can take anything she has to say in private. I just hope Seiya doesn't use this as an excuse to keep me here after graduating or something."

[Nineteen]

"Man, never say 'it can't get any worse.' Don't you know anything?" Nineteen gave his shoulder a pat before letting her arm come back down to her side. Even though her tone was joking, Nineteen was picturing some crazed ex-girlfriend yelling at Alain in the Mess Hall. Nothing about the picture was pretty, and it just got worse if you remembered she could probably turn into a rhino or a polar bear or something.

"I'm sure-" Nineteen started, but she let the thought hang when someone else entered the engine room. There was the sound of footsteps on the metal catwalks, and Nineteen looked over. Standing not too far way was the girl herself. Suji. Woman of the hour. Nineteen sized her up and down. She didn't look like much; at least until you saw her eyes. You could tell there was some lightning-quick thinking going on behind them, and you could also tell that she was not happy. Still, if it came down to defending Alain's honor or something, Nineteen thought she could take her, one-on-one. At least until the morphing started.

"That's my cue," Nineteen said under her breath, pushing herself to her feet. "See you 'round Alain." As she walked towards Suji, Nineteen eyed her. "Nice to meet you," she said neutrally, though with everyone else practically throwing themselves at her feet, Nineteen figured it was about as cool as she could get away with. In return, Suji barely glanced at her -- as if she'd already put together everything she needed to know about the Combat Training instructor in few short moments -- and said only, "You too" with about the same level of enthusiasm.

Nineteen didn't waste any time in getting out of there. Eavesdropping probably would've been juicy, but she couldn't do that to a friend.

[Alain]

Alain made a comically 'hmmm' expression when Nineteen warned him about jinxing himself. Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything and he was about to suggest to Nineteen other ways it could be worse when he heard the door swish open. He looked up, laughter still behind his eyes and felt his stomach flip as he saw Suji standing there. Once again he had that weird double image of her. The girl he'd known in the tropical free human town, the girl who had begun to set down the weight of the world, and this woman who so obviously bore it every where she went. Suji looked cold and hard here, surrounded by the Bladeship's smooth, metallic walls.

Alain nodded to Nineteen when she got up to leave, watching with interest as Suji hardly gave her a second glance. He was used to the lightning quick judgments, just not to the coldness with which they could be delivered. Here's the hero of the west, he thought, looking at her with calm and searching eyes. here is who made it through horrors and came out the other side. But not completely whole.

"Beer," he said, holding up an unopened one. "New ingredients, new tastes. Care to try?"

[Suji]

Suji maintained her icy composure, if only to hide what was really going on inside her head. She felt hot and sick, felt happy to see Alain even though she wanted to throttle him for being here. Mixed in with that was guilt, and not just because she may or may not have played some part in Alain being recruited. That was certainly an emotion, but there was a more immediate, real guilt swimming in her guts too. It involved her, and Alain, and Drake, which was entirely stupid because Drake and her, well, nothing ever came of that because nothing could come of it. If her and Alain had shared something at a tropical haven then it shouldn't really mean anything. But none of that stopped the churning at her core.

"No thanks," she responded to the offer, and felt her molars grinding against each other in her clenched jaw. She couldn't do it. Couldn't pretend that things were the same here as they'd been there. Suji was so angry and she wasn't even sure who it was targeted at. What she did know was that underneath it was an ugly fear. Not just that Alain would get himself killed, but that he would complicate her life. At the free human camp he'd been a welcome respite, and she'd had feelings for him. Here, she couldn't afford that.

And there was Drake.

Stop it, Suji scolded herself. This has absolutely nothing to do with Drake. It could never have anything to do with Drake.

Resisting the urge to fold her arms, Suji stared at him. "What are you doing here?" She frowned, adding: "And spare me any bullshit."

[Alain]

"Alright," Alain said in response to her rejection and her request. "I'm here hiding from your admirers who have been chasing me all day and asking me questions about the great Suji now that they know I knew you from somewhere." Alain put the beer back down next to the others. He'd brought a box of them. If he'd had to drink alone, which had been his plan, it was more than enough to get even him drunk. However, he didn't admit to himself that that had been his plan.

"Why, what are you doing here? The engine room is an odd place to find a Hero of the West." He said the title with a bit of scorn and some anger. He didn't know why. Was he mad she was a hero? He wasn't, he was proud of her, proud to know her but...the anger was still there. Maybe because she was a hero and he was just a recruit and all day he'd had to come face to face with the fact that they were on very different levels, levels that didn't allow for the easy friendship they'd shared a couple of months ago. That title felt like the death of their relationship as anything other than senior animorph to junior and he couldn't help but hate that.

[Suji]

Suji's jaw worked some more. She knew what Alain meant by admirers, though she certainly wouldn't have called them that. They never seemed to really talk to her, other than to thank her for her service, but she was good at looking unapproachable. That coupled with the facts that Seiya probably warned them off, and a lot of them had see her dead body, seemed to be enough to get her left alone.

When Alain called her a 'Hero of the West', Suji's eyebrows rose coolly, though inside it twisted like a knife. If he thought she enjoyed being known, he was wrong. She didn't feel like a hero, and though she could tolerate her old faction-mates telling her she was (because she also knew they were), hearing it from strangers was unnerving. Once upon a time she would have yearned for that kind of instant respect and attention when she walked into a room. Now she just saw tons of faces she knew she wouldn't remember, whose deaths she'd one day hear about. Or not hear about. That was worse. All the people who died but whose lives weren't deemed "important" enough to spread word about.

Suji shifted her weight, and let out a long exhale. "I'm down here to talk to you. Why are you at the Academy."

[Alain]

Alain worked to wrestle down the anger until it wasn't in his voice. He could admit he felt it but it wouldn't do to show it. He didn't want to sound like a petulant child.

"I'm finishing up my training," he said, forcing himself to sound calm. "Like everyone else. This is how you become an animorph now so this is what I did."

He looked over at Suji, still standing a couple of feet away with her arm's crossed glaring at him. "For christ's sake Suji, sit down. Now I know how people must feel about me, having to look up all the time." He rested his chin back on the bar in front of him and gazed down at the softly glowing engine.

[Suji]

Suji let out a stream of curses under her breath, and took a few steps towards him. She did not sit down. Despite being barefoot the metal underneath still let out a dull clanking. The light from the engine through an eerie mesh-work pattern up across her face.

"Why are you here? Did Cassie put you up to this? Tell me you didn't sign up for this yourself." All the while, she found to keep her voice even, to keep the lump in her throat from squeeze her words tight. Her fists clenched tightly, and Suji wanted so badly to yell at him, but if she showed any more emotion, she had no idea what would actually come out. It was a terrible sensation, to feel unpredictable. Suji wasn't used to it, and it made her nervous on top of all of the mess of things she was trying to sort through.