April 28th




First Fionna had left, slipping out without a word as he'd attempted to vent some of his frustrations against the infuriatingly amiable new Overlord.

Then Lirssa was gone, in a less meaningful fashion but with no less impact to his heart when he'd come back from the locker rooms to find her gone.

Two girls (in one case a woman), increasingly significant to his life in different ways, and he'd let them go without even a cursory attempt at making chase. Instead, Steve had ultimately opted to return to the tension relieving solace of the rings, until the aggression roiling in his veins was shrugged off and his thoughts had coalesced into the heavier weight of more guilt. In the end, the minimal amount of small talk he'd attempted with Myria ended with a farewell and his hasty exit, in the fleeting hope that he'd catch the younger of the Eye's two female occupants before she managed to obscond with Raza.

As fortune would have it, the machinist hadn't been able to arrive in time to prevent the good-intentioned brother-napping, but was leaning his broad frame against the hood of his truck in the alley when Lirssa exited the Eye with Raza in her arms.

It did not take her long to snuggle up Raza from the comfort of his bed. It was late enough that he was in pajamas, but early enough that he had not quite settled into sleep. The bag for him was packed with just bare essentials. She was not about to grab the emergency bag. This was not an emergency. It was instinct more than anything that said she needed to get Raza out so the adults could focus on whatever frizzle was happening of late.

When they stepped out to the alleyway, Lirssa was babbling all sorts of plans of fun and adventure to her brother. The words faded away when she spied Steve. "Feelin' better?" She hoped the bouts had served their purpose.

From the looks of the machinist, he was in a sore need of a shower and moreso a bed, but the worst of the tension had seemed to have bled away since Lirssa had seen him last. While not gone entirely, it allowed him to focus on the world before him a little easier and when the pair drew closer beneath the hazy ambient light of the street lamp, he was quirking a slow smile.

A fond smile.

"Could be a lot better, Ace," Steve admitted honestly. "But all things considered, my heads screwed on a little straighter than it was a few hours before. Glad I got a chance to catch up with you before you were gone. I've got one of Raza's carseats in the back seat of the truck, so why don't I give you a ride to the Academy?"

His tone said: Indulge me.

She could hear it in his voice. It was beyond just a friendly offer of a lift. There was some sort of need in there, and while Lirssa was reluctant to get into anything she did not drive herself these days, she gave a brief nod. Before she finished the step closer to the door of the truck, she was already resorting to old behaviors. "It's a long drive. You don't have to you, know. We can catch a cab." Being beholden to someone struck sour notes in her mouth, and she figured there would be a trade to pay for this. Everything had a price.

She was a teenager, so it might have come as a pleasant surprise when he reached out to scoop up the sleepily babbling toddler and pressed the truck's keys into her palm. "Third gear sticks a little."

One of the back passenger doors was opened with his free hand soon after, only a few careful moments to taken to secure their precious cargo in his proper place before Steve was rounding to the passenger side to climb in. When he too was settled and buckled in, he took up a slouching lean against the door's interior to regard Lirssa in profile.

"Wouldn't push the issue," he confessed gently. "Not under normal circumstances. But I've seen the confusion and concern in you lately, and I know what it's like to be your age and more than a little frustrated by bein' left in the dark. The adults like implyin' or tellin' you it's for your safety, but... Well, you know the deal."

She was stunned. There was no mistaking it. Not from the offer of the keys, though that too gave her some pause. It was what he said when she had taken her place behind the wheel. He got it. If he did not really understand, he was giving a good show of it.

A beat and she turned the key. There had not been a lot of experience with such type of machinery, but she understood its concept. The requirements of the clutch and gas, the even balance to get the truck moving, she used it all to give herself time to chew over what he said. In the end, she let out a slow breath, and simply said, "Yeah." It was a weighted word. She heard how it sounded like a drop of an anvil, solid and resigned. She flicked a glance his way trying to catch if he dropped his mask, a crack in the routine.

She stopped herself. Another deep breath and release, she focused on making her way through the ever changing streets out of West End. "Reason I got Raza out." Honest words for what she took as his honest words.

The last thing he would claim, verbal or otherwise, was any sort of ambivalence to the plight of position. A deep empathy lied within that previous statement, like to be punctuated by a corresponding story that would (for now) best be saved for another night.

"I won't be upset if you burn out the clutch," he teased briefly. "It'll make for the perfect argument with your ma about workin' a new one into our current budget." It was even worth a smile.

The mirth, however, was short-lived beneath his growing need to bring her as much into the loop as much as personal experience (and thought of Fionna) deemed prudent. "Seems like for the last few months, old ghosts have been comin' out of the woodwork to pester a lot of the Rhy'din citizenry. As it turns out, I've got less post-traumatic stress from my war-torn refugee background than I thought and a bonafied poltergeist. In the form of an old girlfriend."

It wasn't a plethora of information, but it was direct.

Information, direct at that, was a welcome relief. A child of Rhydin, she took it all in stride. It made sense to her as it might not to others. Being told instead of having to parse it out or wait until the threat was imminent broke down the rough formed walls. She actually grinned. "Mister, you sure bring interesting baggage with you, though guess she'd not like being called baggage much, would she?"

But just like routines in her youth, she could flip and flop one direction to the other. The joking was abruptly set aside to ask, "You and Mom in danger at all?"

"Sweetheart," the machinist mumbled wryly. "You ain't got any idea. Not that there aren't those who got it worse, but I'm pretty sure I could make a good poster-boy for fu--...." He looked over his shoulder at Raza, having caught himself. "Screwed up histories. Couldn't say how she got here from my Earth or how she got so nuts... but yeah."

Both weathered hands rose a moment later to scrub the tips of his fingers self-conciously through his beard, hawkish blue eyes slantined towards the window and outwards. Steve was silent for sometime before directing a look back to the teenage driver.

"It's Rhy'din, Lir. Goin' to the market for produce is dangerous. This? I won't lie and say I'm not sweatin' it, or that it hasn't already taken it's toll on your mom and me. The whole situation's shown me a new level of guilt, that's for sure." A deep breath was drawn in slowly and then exhaled. "We're workin' on a solution. Slower than I'd like, but we're workin' on it. I don't want anything to happen to any of you."

She could not help but chuckle, something short and closer to a squeak than a laugh, when he mentioned Rhydin. "So, guess Mom's never told you where I came from." It was an assumption, and when she thought a moment longer on it, she realized it was pretty stupid. "Sorry... doesn't matter. Point bein', yeah, I don't want anythin' happenin' to Raza, either. Not sayin you and Mom won't keep him safe. I don't doubt that. He's gonna make it through even if you two go down in a heap around him. But that's just the thing. I don't want him all bein on alert, readin off you two. I imagine he probably does good bein there, but he's a kid. He isn't supposed to be the rock that keeps all the crazy at bay for the adults. He's supposed to be relyin on you two bein his rock."

Her mouth twisted one way and then the others. "Butter and beans," she grumbled. "I don't mean to get all preachy, I guess I'm just tryin to explain why I'm doin this. It isn't that I don't trust ya'll. I do. But this is near, and you gotta deal with it, and Raza doesn't."

"It does matter," he countered, but didn't push the issue. Chalk it up to other stories, other times. "You matter."

He chewed on her lengthy response and the logic wise beyond her years, holding her beneath the heavy weight of serious regard and showing respect through silence. So much for the typically irreverent act! When he did speak, it was one equal to another. Afterall, he wasn't her father and had yet to try to be.

"Even if the wards keep the interior of The Eye safe from spirits and all manner of other things, your logic makes sense." A beer would have been so nice right around then. "I've got a line of somethin' that will at least keep the situation away from home, relieve some of the stress, and keep the rest of you safe."

It was his problem, so far as he was concerned, and it was his intention to deal with it.

"You gonna stretch out that line and let me in on it or that best kept close? If it adds more of that guilt you're talkin about earlier, I'd say stuff it and spill the beans. I can't even parse out what you got guilt for." She liked having the task of driving to help her focus. The demands of each limb to keep the truck happily moving through gears harmonized with the routines of her youth. It settled her like little else did.

A glance to the review mirror caught Raza drooping into his slumber. "He's out." She said as if they had managed an accomplishment. Another glance to Steve, and she added. "He really likes you, ya know. Keeping us safe is well and good, but best be includin' yourself in that equation."

"Lookin' into some magic gee-gaws that'll keep her away from the lot of you." If this continued, he was going to be sitting in a booth (maybe at the IHOP) every Sunday with the teenager and asking her to forgive him because he'd sinned. It was enough to make him puff out a mirthless laugh, something quickly dismissed. "Plenty, Ace. Plenty to be guilty for. Recently it was just a matter of not seein' through a ghostly bout of possession until it was almost too late and I nearly did somethin' that I'm regretting anyway. Some things are just a little too personal to share."

At Lirssa's announcement, the machinist ventured a look over his shoulder, his gaze lingering on the sleeping Raza with the slow creep of a fond smile. "Never wanted kids of my own. Most days... I still don't think I do. Or that maybe I shouldn't. A little over a year ago, I couldn't imagine ever having something like what I've got with all of you. These days? I dunno how I ever managed to slog through this place without."

Her concern back-handed and/or off-handed, drew a look back to her face in profile.

"Sometimes, when your ma looks at me, I kinda get the impression that she's waitin' for me to leave. Or to just one day be gone and not come back, for whatever reason. I still haven't been able to find the words to convince her that no matter what comes, nothin' in the world is more important that comin' home to her. And the rest of you too."

The glance that time caught his eyes, and she looked away. "Can't let that feeling get to you. Can't say it isn't there. Maybe it is. This place does it to folks. I see it all the time. They fear the going away instead of just accepting it's gonna happen -- but not right then. Not that moment." She smiled at the words, old words whispering in her memory.

"The thing is you just keep living like that doubt isn't there, and it'll go away. There's no magic pill or fix it all action that'll make it go away. Just time." Nearing the Academy so much of the scenery altered. Streets were more predictable, ships landed and lifted off for the stars in irregular intervals like lightning bugs on a summer night.

"As to the guilt? Are you trained to see through ghostly possessions?"

"Any man can love a woman enough to die for her," Steve intoned gently; seriously. "I love your ma enough to live for her. Through anything."

And it was all he was going to say about that. It felt like enough.

At the mention of the possession, he grimaced. "I'm not, but the signs were there. I was just... really worked up. Had a head full of steam and a heart full of go-go-go." He wasn't going to mention many more of the details, for Fionna's sake if not his own. "I should let it go, I know. I'm trying."

And she took that explanation. A few nods of her head; she could understand that. Guilt had played its role in her life often enough that she could not press him further on it.

The lights of the ship bay were the first signs of the Academy. The lights were always on as ships came and went at all hours. Beyond it the walls of stone and brick of the dormitories and classrooms, oddly juxtaposed to so much of glass and metal structures around it, waited in angled shadows and shafts of neon light. "Ever been here?"

"Star's End?" Blonde brows hitched upwards. "The Academy? Nah. I know a few guys who work on the grounds, but I never had much reason to come up this way before."

He stared for some time, soaking up the moment.

"It does remind me, after a fashion, of the private school I ended up in as a kid. It was an academy, of sorts."

The truck rolled around to the side of the building as Lirssa avoided the main entrance. "I look forward to hearing about that." She took it as fact that she would hear about it. The truck was brought to a stop and she made sure that it was out of gear and parked before she cracked open the door. "Thanks for letting me drive." A look over her shoulder to sleeping Raza, she said to Steve, "You'll tell Mom why I've got him, right? I'll bring him back to the Eye by dinner time tomorrow."

"Come by the shop on a slow day," he nodded. "I could be convinced to relive a humorous memory or two." The wide curl of his smile was genuine.

He was already leaning over the seat and working fingers deftly at the buckles of the sleeping boy's harness when she addressed him again, earning a sidelong look and then a nod. "If she's still awake, yeah. If not, I'll make sure she knows first thing in the mornin'. And I'll see if I can't put the both of us on a better track by the time you're home. Dunno how much your ma would've wanted me to tell you, so maybe you should play vague on the details until I've had a chance to bring her up to speed on our little pow-wow. Cool?"

"Yeah, I'll keep it quiet. Honestly, I don't see me even needing to say anything. And hey, Steve -- thanks. Even though I can't do anything to help, knowing what is going on...well, thanks." She got out of the truck and claimed the sleeping Raza with a caress of her cheek against his head on her shoulder.

"You're family, Lir." He murmured, offered up another smile as he slid across the bench seat to lay claim to the wheel. "Now get that little booger into bed and get some shut-eye yourself."

Farewells were said and the machinist made a point of lingering until he was sure his young charges were safely within the boundaries of the academy, before finally putting the truck in gear and pulling away. The parting smile had yet to fade, subtle as it was.

For a while, he didn't so much feel like Atlas.



(Adapted from play with the awesome Lirssa Sarengrave, with thanks.)