A/N: Hello. If you are reading this- DAMN you are patient. I'm not sure if I'll ever finish this. The downfall EFC suffered with the Renee Death season having killed most fans. But I am trying. If only to get one more unfinished story well you know.

Thanks and any threats and or pleadings would be a much appreciated kick in the ass.

You're still reading this? Go on. It's okay now. Read the story.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Rie'tta

Growling at a hybrid I shifted in the command chair. The lowly creature's eyes widened in fright and it scurried off on whatever task it was supposed to be accomplishing. Turning my glare on the bridge I felt bitterness rise in my throat. Half the consoles were unlit hulks, the frozen bodies had been removed, sometimes in pieces because of the effects of liquid nitrogen, but the shadowed forms stood as testimony. 'Damn that human.' My fist slammed the arm of the chair. The treacherous jumped up ape's deeds were unbearable. What was supposed to be a glorious revolution had fallen to ruins because of a pet that shouldn't have survived its master.

A shiver ran through my form. I could feel the cold leeching the warmth from my skin where I sat. Shortly after Tau'reds had gone to extinguish the bitch-spy all the systems had locked down and shut off, even the life support. Which left me in charge of a lifeless soon to be frozen crypt. I bared my teeth anger and hate warming me for a moment. I'd prostrated myself before the motherless bastard Tau'reds for this. Warmed his bed, fed his ego. Mutual hate of How'lyn, humans, and the high and mighty Cari'an had sustained me. Now what was my reward?

Command of nothing.

Anger frothed at my insides. I punched a command into the chair. Screams started to reverberate the air. The filth was being taken care of at least and their deaths were going to be worse than any a true Atavus would suffer. The hybrids' tremors as I leaned back into the chair were as pleasant as the sounds being broadcast to my ears. They knew they were next.

Da'an

Skin. Real skin. Not a facsimile to give humans the comfort of the known. My finger traced the back of my hand gently feeling the texture. Even my senses were different. There was an almost imperceptible difference to the world around me. Things were sharper yet muted. It felt so strange. Nevertheless I'd held this solid form of muscle and bone for months. Uncomfortable in one's own skin. That human saying finally makes sense.

Staring down into the reflective metal of the tabletop I considered the face I wore. Before as Cari'an I had taken for granted what my appearance was. Now I wanted to scrutinize. It was very different from the beautiful energy that had shaped my being for over two millennia. There was the hair. Long black blue waves of it sprouted from my head. Reaching up I took a few dozen strands and rubbed it between my fingers. The sensation was very sensual. Dropping it I decided it was worth keeping. Eyes were almost the same shade as they had been only slightly less luminous and they were physical now instead of representations. The angles and protuberance of the nose were sharper and less wide than the one I'd conjured before for my facade. Drawing back my lips I saw teeth slightly more pointed than human teeth and a pink tongue. I rubbed the tongue back and forth over the top of my mouth. The ensuing tingle was strange and new as everything else. There were subtle tastes to the air. As a Taleon I'd never tasted anything. A smile flitted across my face in remembered pleasure. 'Cheeseburgers are good.'

I was a true Atavus. Not the mindless beast I had been transformed into before when cut off from the Commonality. The subtle difference was not something most Taleons even knew or acknowledged. This body was like that of our true ancestors before the Kimera saved our race mixing their genes with ours. With the Jaridain who had given his life to combine into this we had connected the parts we had rendered asunder in our individual quests for the superior race either spiritually or physically.

What I had become before was called an Atavus but that was not accurate. The name came more from our haughtiness over what I had come to consider our supposed superiority. To become less than Taleon was considered the ultimate fall. In the old days sometimes as a punishment a Taleon would be exiled from the Commonality and the name Atavus had been the unfortunates' label for the few days as they suffered.

Hesitantly I rose once more. The length of time since Liam had departed was indeterminable to me. No time keeping devices adorned the walls and I had none on my person when I had gone to what I'd assumed was my death. For what need did I have of a watch when I would be facing the void? My body moved yet it seemed out of sync, perceptions both familiar and not making coordination odd.

My past had sprung forth from behind the shield containing it and I had to reconcile what I had become with what I was. I had killed again. With the same bare necessity as last only lacking the mindlessness of those days. Cold-blooded murder was not something Taleons committed. No, we had our underlings and genetically moderated accomplish it for us.

The derisive rebuke was born from my disillusionment with my superior race. A disillusionment that started with a strong willed human who would not be bowed. It was not a thought I would have allowed to form though before his death at my own child's hand. It was a death that effected more than thousands ever had. It changed me in a way I still cannot define.

Liam never realized how it wounded to see Boone's essence looking out through eyes that were not his own. Nor how I wished to stop him, to keep him with me once more. Debts and sins to him and his gave me no right to strip him of his vengeance. For as I had taken what he loved I was bound to let him go.

Once more he was revived and this time my feelings had a different edge. It wasn't something I had ever felt before as a Taleon. We had no such concept. Taleons are-were solitary individuals working together as a group. They didn't form partnerships binding their path with another for all time. The closest bonds between them are that of child and parent and even that is distant compared to human's feelings about offspring. It was as if something had taken my previous feelings and magnified them to the power of 10 EE 10. Even that comparison was an approximation. What to do with this feeling I had no notion. It was bewildering and irrational.

Pushing aside the conflict I broke from my stillness and strode to the door intending to turn about and make for the table and chairs in a motion called pacing that I had picked up as a spy here on Earth. Pretending to be a human had opened up the alien world of human quirks to me. Some of the habits I found comforting. Though the intangible reason for that comfort was perplexing.

Hair feathered my back as I strode the few feet I had been confined to. The teasing sensation sent shivers along my spine. My torso was no longer in pain from Tau'reds claws disrupting my energy flow and the easy movement was a relief.

My thoughts of Tau'reds reminded me of my rescue. Sandoval. The uncomfortable flashes I would get looking at the man made sense now as well as the sympathy I felt for that haunted soul. He had looked much worse than my memories of him. Broken and defeated. Truly haunted. The impeccably dressed Iceman under the yoke of his CVI that had been the man in my last days as a Taelon was nowhere to be seen.Whatever he had endured at How'lyn's hands must have surpassed even Zo'or's less than gentle ministrations.

When Sandoval had swept down to save me I had been in too much pain from Tau'reds ripping through the energy pathways that served as the equivalent of arteries in a human to really absorb who it was that led me away from my death. Our subsequent capture by the Resistance had not given me the chance to thank him. My Protector once more. The irony is terrible.

Liam had obviously picked up where he left off and was leading the Resistance again. This was not a surprise. His group's employment of Skrills however was. Then again… It explains what happened to the Skrill Queen. I always thought Liam's report on that incident was not in keeping with his usual methods. Another small smile curled my lips.

The child had a strong sense of right and wrong. Through his condemntion ofvarious actions on my part I had learned more of this concept. Boone had been much more quiet in his disappointments due to his CVI. Maybe that was why it took his death to truly reveal to me, that as a species, our lack of such things was great and how much damage that lack could and had caused. My last Protector had no reservations when he thought I had gone over the line. Humanity, sometimes I wonder who taught Ma'el as my last two Protectors taught me that led him to try and protect this planet and its intriguing people from our callous depredations.

Hunger clawed at my nerves. I stopped and put an arm around my stomach. Bar hopping before my death had not seemed appropriate so I had not feed. I'd learned that during a vigorous dance a human wouldn't notice if I drained a little energy from the amount they were already expending. They'd just leave the dance floor feeling a trifle more fatigued than they should. Several partners and I'd be feed enough with human food to supplement me.

Now I was regretting my actions. No sane Resistance member was going to let me feed off him or her. Not even with my reassurances that I'd stop. While starvation was almost preferable to the manner of death Tau'reds would have used the prospect was not something I imagined with relish. Liam won't let that happen. I sternly told myself. And it was probably true.

When I changed my tactics in face of my increasing doubts over our right to use other races as markers in our war with the Jaridains I lost much stature. Change was not an easy or well-accepted thing with my people. With that loss of standing went the contact within the Commonality. My loneliness, which I saw reflected in him, prompted me to reach out and become closer to Liam than I might have if not for that. He became more my child than Zo'or who as the last of us born was taken from me almost directly after I gave birth. Remorse and honesty made me admit however that some of the deepest betrayals in Liam's life came from me. From things I thought were necessary but maybe were just the easiest solution. I can't say that I'd blame him if he decided to let me starve.

Staring at the mirror that served as a wall for this small room I couldn't help but relive the damage I'd done to one I'd considered my child in intent if not substance. My other children had died over time, the first at the hands of a Jaridain connected to an energy cannon. Like so many Taelons I had continued on whilst my line had embraced the void. What made us cling to this existence when we knew there was no future? It would have been far better for us to embrace the void and avoid the decimation of so many other innocent species in our futile quest to survive. Logically we should have just let go, yet we would not. We did everything imaginable to continue. Arrogance and fear stayed our resolve in those misspent centuries.

Had the circumstances changed much? What reason did I have for clinging now? My current species was even more deadly to sentient life. A parasite living off those with real futures, what was my justification for continuing? Surely Liam would find things much easier if he did not have to battle with his feelings and honor over the simplicity of ending it with a blast.

Boone. Revenge for the death of his wife could salve some of the ache in the man's heart. My feelings for him, in all their strangeness, urged me to try and make him happy. Maybe my death would accomplish that in a way my life would not.

I'm tired. So tired of being at odds with the will of the universe and those I care about. Maybe its time to give up. I'd been ready to die for the people that had come to trust me as a spy why not die for those who had served me with all their ability and loyalty yet had been so wronged by me?

If I had still been Taleon fulfilling my depressive musing would have been a matter of thought. Being a being composed of energy did have its advantages. I quirked a morbid smile at my reflection.