viii. reprise

"All right. Well. Here goes nothing," Church says, which turns out to be pretty accurate, because absolutely nothing happens.

Carolina rolls her eyes. "C'mon, Epsilon. Don't tell me you're scared."

"Of course not," Church says. He hopes she doesn't notice the way his voice kinda squeaks a bit. "It's just, you know. Weird. Integrating with another Freelancer. I sorta wrecked the last one I did that to." And then he shuts up, because thinking about what he and Wash did to each other is just all kinds of fucked up.

"Hey," says Carolina, "if you'd rather ride back to the others in the motorcycle..."

Church glares at her. She shrugs, but he's pretty sure she's smiling back. They're both nervous, a little raw, and okay, that realization doesn't help with the anxiety at all, but it's kinda good to know.

After way too much awkward silence, during which Church very nearly decides to almost-just about-not quite do something, Carolina sighs, sinks down so she's sitting on the ground with her back to a wall, just looks up at the sky. "Yep," she says, morosely. "You're gonna be in a motorcycle forever. Maybe I can ride it dramatically into battle. Maybe I can transfer my armor mod into it. Caboose will finally have his dream best friend: a superpowered motorcycle who solves crime."

"Oh, fuck you," Church says, and finally jumps into her armor's empty AI slot.

Carolina's mind is quieter than he thought possible, full of carefully erected walls, well maintained, well kept, well organized. There are a few shocking gashes where Eta and Iota obviously clung to her as they were torn out by the Meta, but it's nothing like Wash's funhouse mirror of a brain, all distortions and deceptions and layer upon layer of scar tissue.

York's at the forefront of her mind right now, because of course he is. Church treads lightly, feels the Delta-memory inside him reach out to her in consolation, in understanding, feels her sigh a response. Beyond that, there's a wall that stretches out in all directions, and she tells him, not unkindly, that what she did after Freelancer is hers and hers alone, that she's holding tight to those memories for now. He respects that boundary, skirts it.

He finds the well of her combat knowledge, says, "Holy shit," because she's done some seriously incredible, badass things, most of them without an AI. Some of her self-control slips as he explores, excitement and pride sifting through her calm facade, look what we could do together. Something about her enthusiasm must be contagious because he catches himself smiling in response. He moves away reluctantly, resolving to do a little more digging once they're headed back to the others.

He flickers to life next to her. She's grinning at him beneath her helmet. "You ready to go take this bastard down?"

"Oh yeah," Church says. "Let's make him pay for what he did to us. To all of us."

There's a fire crackling in her. He recognizes the long, slow echo of it somewhere inside his own chest. And sure, that fire promises to be all-consuming, self-annihilating, but at least this time around they won't be burning alone.