Cain didn't go to the memorials. In the drunken, cigarette hazed days after the last battle he saw no point in mourning the dead. Instead, he lay on their little bed, in their little closet of a room and filled every part of it with ash and smoke. A bottle of vodka was his companion, cartons of cigarettes were his comfort and his hand was his sex. Over and over again until he was raw he pumped his cock and left his cum where it landed, on the sheets, on his stomach, on the walls where it ran down in slimy trails.

Sometimes he thought he heard breathing, thought he felt bony knees up against his ass and he would wake startled at the sensation and turn over, hopeful. But the pillow was empty; he was alone in their little bed. Ethan slept in a box, in a grave, on Earth, in the national cemetery with a stone pillow. "Beloved Son and Brother" it read, Cain was sure. Beloved son. His name would never be etched beside Ethan's. Ethan never knew his name. Ethan never knew he was beloved.

He dreamed every time he slept and his dreams were always the same. The final battle. The screaming and cursing over the radio as men died, as lovers were forever separated. The wounded crying for their mothers. Cain didn't find it as satisfying as he thought it would be when Praxis's ship was hit and he screamed in his last seconds before his ship fell.

Breaking their stunned silence, Abel had called out "Praxis! Praxis hold on, we'll..." Cain had screamed over him, cutting him off. "There's nothing left of that bastard to save, princess; concentrate on keeping us fucking alive!" He had expected protest but Abel had been silent after that.

He had heard the shot before the alarms had screamed at them. His mask fell and his helmet filled with oxygen. The Reliant had shaken in a great heaving shudder and then skittered off out of formation, in free fall. "Ethan!" he called out, saying his name for the first time. There was no answer. He had known there would be no answer.

For what seemed a very long time the Reliant drifted. Cain had watched the black space, as the ship rolled end over end towards the stars. He could still see some of the ships going down in flames as well as the Colteron's turning tail and trying to run away. The fighter/navie teams which still functioned continued to chase them, hunting them down, one by one. It had seemed all so very far away as he drifted along. It was the breaking of the silence when the radio squawked that had startled him alert. "Reliant, get control and return to base! You are still online. What the fuck are you doing Cain?"

Bering. What the fuck was Bering doing telling him to return to base?

"Sasha, do you hear me? That's an order, son, get your fucking gypsy ass back here!"

Bering. The same man who had humiliated him and used him like a whore at Basic. The same man who never missed a chance to remind him of that. The same man who partnered him with Abel.

Now it was Bering's voice demanding he come back. Cain remembered ignoring him, and the Reliant just drifting for what seemed hours, towards the stars. He had wanted a cigarette. He had thought about just letting the ship drift. There were stars out there. He and Ethan could have just stayed out there, forever. But in the end he needed a smoke, so he had decided he would come back, if he still could. He had released the buckles on the straps that held him down. He remembered shaking off the fog in his head before he had crawled to the back of the ship, towards Abel.

Cain couldn't remember if it was the dream or if Abel had really stared at him, his eyes wide with surprise. He saw that the navigator's controls were covered with Abel's blood shot out from his chest, when his heart had exploded. There were clots across the navigation screens and dark ruby lines down the front of his suit. His eyelids were wide open, frozen in death. Cain remembered reaching up to close them but Ethan's eyelids would only go part of the way down. He looked like he did in the still dark morning when he had been warm from the covers and pliant with Cain's cock up his ass. Cain had reached under him to cradle him in his arms, but had been surprised that he was so heavy. It had felt like his body was weighted down and Cain had trouble lifting him out of the cockpit and setting him down gently, behind the navigator seat. On impulse Cain had pressed his lips to Abel's forehead but he had seemed so very cold even after just a few minutes. Or had it been hours? Cain remembered things happening in slow motion, as if time was pausing until he figured out what he had to do. He had set Ethan's body down, out of the way, out of his sight.

When he lowered himself into Abel's chair and had reached forward to touch the screen in front of him, he recalled musing for a moment on how the screen looked painted with broad strokes, like a child's first painting. The blood, Abel's blood, no, Ethan's blood, had dried. In the dream, Cain touched the screen and the shiny ruby splatter had shattered into millions of little sharp-edged jewels. Cain had tried not to think about it but he couldn't chase his thoughts away and had thought to himself, what difference did it make now? What fucking difference did it make now?

Cain had tried to breathe a little slower, he was aware he was using up his oxygen too fast and his head was swimming for it. He knew he would need to hold out if he was going back. He had looked out to the stars again and recalled being surprised to see the Sleipnir from the Navigators window. He had looked down at the navigation screen covered with the dust of Ethan, the fine crystals that were once hot liquid that had pumped through his veins. Ethan's blood had once blossomed at the surface of his throat, the inside of his elbow and on the soft velvet of his inner thigh when Cain put his lips and teeth to them. Cain had opened a zipper on his flight suit and had gently swept the dried blood into a pile and then brushed it into the little pouch. He remembered thinking when this was over, that would be all he had left and he had wanted it. He wanted to keep it close to his heart.

"Reliant, we have you in our sight! Do you need assistance?"

"Fuck no!" he had snarled at the voice in the cockpit.

"Then come on in header I9alpha! Medics on standby for your return!"

Cain remembered turning his head to look at the small body behind him and then turning back to the controls.

"Tell them to fucking go help someone else. They can't help anybody here." he had demanded coldly, calmly turning back to the instrument panel. "Just have the fucking body bag ready."

He never looked back again as the Reliant had wobbled into the dock. When he had jumped down from ship, when it finally came to rest, he had pulled off his helmet and flung it away from him. It skittered across the deck and slammed into a wall. He had stomped to his quarters, cursing in colony Russian under his breath, shutting up anyone who tried to intercept him, with a menacing look and a "get the fuck away from me!" He had slammed the button on the wall next to their door and fell into the tiny space landing on his knees.

He remembered not being able to catch his breath, panting so violently his throat and chest felt like they were on fire. His head had been pounding, as if he had been on a three day binge. He had knelt there, slumped over, his head hanging down lower and lower until he had toppled over, laying there until what he thought must have been the end of time. He thought he had felt warm pressure at the back of his neck and gentle fingers easing out his stress but when he opened his eyes, the room had been empty save for him.

He didn't go to the memorials. He didn't give a fuck about any of them. Certainly not Praxis. He figured Praxis had bought his ticket home months ago and it was just Nature bringing him to task for sliding by the first time. Not the fighters he had bruised his knuckles on and not those he had fucked in basic. Not even Deimos. Instead, he celebrated his survival by drowning in a contraband bottle of the good stuff and every cigarette he could get his hands on.

His little mouse was now part of vast constellations of stars out there. There wasn't anything of Deimos or his navie left after their ship exploded in a huge fire-ball. With no one to mourn him back home on the colonies, what the fuck did it matter? Cain raised his bottle and missed his mouth spilling the contents down the front of him, so he sucked the vodka out of his filthy shirt. The only one that cared whether Deimos lived or died was Cain, and that was certainly fucked up. Cain wiped his face with the cum covered sheet, almost losing his control.

"Fuck you too, myshonok, I'm not bawling over your whore's ass." Throwing back the rest of the vodka, Cain crawled into the filthy bed and pulled the coverlet over his head. It was so empty here in this little room, in this little bed. Tomorrow he would make them move him; there were plenty of rooms emptied by the blast cannons of the Teron's. He just needed to get a different space. Cain slept until he was violently forced awake as all the vodka came back up, burning his throat and his nose as he vomited it out. He wiped the mess away with the coverlet, slammed the door switch to slide open the door and threw the stinking putrid thing out into the hall. It's not like the ghosts cared.

The next morning he got himself down to the mess. Eerily quiet, those who were left almost whispered, as if every moment was a funeral dirge. He got himself a cup of coffee and bowl of oatmeal that turned his stomach the moment he tried to put a spoonful to his lips. Throwing the spoon into the bowl with a clang, he pushed it across the table and concentrated on sucking down the coffee. At least it was hot. He wanted a cigarette and was about to pull one out, no longer giving a rat's ass about rules, when Bering slid into the seat next to him and put his hand on Cain's shoulder.

Cain hissed at him as he shook off Bering's hand. Bering just pulled it back and shook his head. "I can't tell you how..."

"Fuck off. Don't you fucking say it. Just fuck off. Don't you fucking touch me."

Cain kept his eyes steadily forward, blowing across his coffee, not looking at Bering, not looking anywhere but the space over the top of his cup.

"They are taking James off life support this morning; I thought you would want to know." Bering leaned a little closer so that other ears in the mess would not hear.

"Why the fuck would I care if that bastard lives or dies? Did you want me to say goodbye sweetheart, and weep over him like he gave a fucking crap about me? You were there, asshole, you know I'm nothing but a fucking gypsy whore to him." Bering pushed himself up and looked down at Cain, who was sweating and shaking, livid in his anger. Anger was Cain's safe place; anger meant he didn't have to feel anything. Certainly not the feelings that he feared would cut his gut to ribbons.

"Have it your way, Sasha, but I wanted you to know."

Cain jumped to his feet and threw his cup across the room, the coffee spraying out in a wide arc of hot brown liquid. Bering stood his ground when Cain got into his face menacing, his voice shaking "You fucking son of a bitch, don't you fucking use my name or I swear I'll kill you. I don't care what the fuck you do with that bastard, it has nothing to do with me. I was just something he wiped his cock on. Let him die, who the fuck cares?"

Cain threw several chairs across the room as he stormed out, almost running towards his quarters, slamming the room latch and barely making it the head where the coffee and everything else left from the last night came up until he thought he would surely rupture something. Sliding down the wall, he curled up on a dirty towel, eventually slept and dreamed of silence and frozen eyes.

He didn't go to Encke's memorial either, he didn't say goodbye. He had nothing to say to James or to send to his aunt who would bury James in a plot next to his mother and father. She would put a little flag on it every Memorial Day until the day she died but it was nothing to Cain. Cain no longer had any words; his world no longer had a language he could understand.

When he got sick of Abel haunting him, he demanded different quarters, there were plenty empty now. They moved his clothes and his smokes and his bottles into a room on an upper deck, what used to be officers quarters. Big enough to have a place to sit and gaze out a small porthole into the vast darkness of space and even a small table and chairs to eat at. Cain assumed his new quarters had belonged to some officer who was lying in some plot in some cemetery on Earth, his life gathered up in a box and sent to his family to remind them that their son, their father, their husband, their lover was never, ever, fucking coming back. If he drank enough he could sleep now.

He was grateful they let him move; Ethan's ghost was driving him insane, breathing in the little room, touching him, whispering in his ear.