The Haunting Past (Tag Jacob)

[Jacob Marconi]

Jacob stood there with his bottle watching Setsuna. She had always been interesting with the mysticism that surrounded her and the rest of them. He had never seen any reason for belief in it or the power they supposedly wielded. He took another drink as she began to speak. He let the bottle drop to his side as she started to ask Annika to power down this part of the station minus life support. When it done he checked the panel to confirm it had been done. He was impressed that she would think of that as she had been more of a terrestrial woman who walked with the ground beneath her feet and not deck plates with antigravity to hold you to the floor. He went to speak but the station dropped away leaving them standing in the nothing of space. He didn’t move and looked around in a silent wonder that none would have ever thought he could have held.

“Logical? I have been called many things. That has never been one of them.”

He chuckled as she continued to talk. She spoke first of the station and how it might be occupied again but the future was not something she wanted to reveal or was it something that was truly mutable and always in motion? The station showed the possible future tenants and then went and faded as he watched the formation of The Maw and its eventual and inevitable end. He was amazed and watched with awe. He stayed quiet as she continued and spoke of his ancestors. He leaned forward as he saw his mother holding him as a baby. Then it went back to her mother and continued back to show him something he never knew....his mother was the one who fought for everything in his life. His schooling, his acceptance, and most of all how much she worked to support him. She did everything for him and all he did was work and return the favor. He sighed but Setsuna continued showing him. He watched with a rapture as she can spoke about each event. Him becoming enlisted and working his way through the ranks and then finally becoming an officer. After all that girl announced to the world they were the rightful rulers. He accepted and even volunteered for their military. He became one of the few to earn honors after all the war he had seen he saw how tired he looked and then he left. Each of them doing the same. Men and women alike each taking up arms to defend and fight for a cause. His cause though wasn’t there. He sought causes after he left. He went to the furthered reaches of space. He had no cause to fight for. That was until Genarian Prime. A race of benevolent aliens, humanoid, and intelligent. Their medical advances were leaps beyond most in their quadrant of space. It rivaled those in the Sol System. They needed help and the company of mercenaries provided. He watched as he lost his arm again and how they healed him and gave him a new one. He was in awe as he had experienced them but never like this.

She spoke of how she gave her reports and what she went through for them. Intel was intel. It was served a purpose and that purpose was honored. He never ignored it he used what he considered useful. When she chuckled he looked at her and blinked. He didn’t say anything. He stood there in silence.

“I will take those a bit more seriously. We should go and get some rest. Annika bring power back up and after we leave seal the cargo bay again.”

He turned and left the cargo bay silently. He walked to his room and entered running everything through his mind he had seen.

[Setsuna Meioh]

It would take a moment for Setsuna to recover some of her strength. His facial expression was neutral to what he had seen from the timeline. She knew that it was a rare moment for this man to be lost for words. His usually came out heated and short tempered. Her eyes never left his face as he spoke. Her lips curled slightly at the corners when he would actually take her more seriously with her reports.

She shook her head at the mention of rest. She had not slept since the day the world fell apart. She took advantage of her blood for that reason. She would forever be watching over them. It was a duty that she would not fail at again. She let him go alone, feeling that he needed to digest or drink away what he just saw. She knew it would be too much for one human to handle. It caused her to pause, almost wondering if there was something more than what she first thought.

She glanced back at the alter as she nodded to the pictures. She understood what each of these loses meant for him. It was the same for her. She chose to grieve in a different way. She was a daughter of Chronos, a fact that had been surface, and as such she would finish this war. She would no longer be selfish for it was what caused this cycle of events in the first place. She would guard time with a cold eye as no one would mess with it again. It broke her heart that the universe had pay for her mistake. She vowed to those long forgotten gods that it would never happen again for as long as she lived.

Her hands balled into fists as she turned on her heel to leave the cargo bay. She swore an oath on the dead which was something that would not be taken lightly. She headed up the turbo lift, she would watch as everyone was sleeping off the booze. No one would know for by the time they all woke up, she would be on the other side of these walls.

Her footsteps paused on the outside of his door. Garnet eyes blinked as her hand paused right before knocking on the door. She could just as easily leave him alone with his thoughts on what happened. It would be the easiest solution. There was an odd turning point in their relationship. She lightly rapped on the door as she took in a deep breath. She would extend her own olive branch.