Save The Last Dance For Me

Part Seventeen

I watched as the sun set behind the rocks once again, tonight was going to be a great night. Rhys and I are going to some party and it's been my first one in a while, but for some reason he was a bit quiet on the walk there. I elbowed him lightly, trying to get him to smile.

"Is everything alright?" I asked, grabbing his hand.

"Y-yeah... I've just been contemplating a lot of things."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well... there's been this buzzing in my head for some reason and it's just been stirring around some thoughts," he sighed, "I need to tell you something."

"Go for it... I'll understand."

"It's kinda hard to comprehend, but I believe you." He smiled.

"Good." I kissed his cheek.

"So, I used to work for this company called Hyperion, the boss had just died so things were a little screwy. I was very dedicated to my job until I was screwed over by a man who is dead now."

I backed up a little, hearing those words escape his mouth.

"One thing lead to another and I was looking for a fortune of money, but on the way I was implanted with something and it invaded my cybernetics." He pointed at the metal ring and scar on his temple. "It was a hologram of my dead boss, Handsome Jack."

"Are you kidding?" I laughed, "that's his name?"

"Yes, he was very precise about it too," he laughed a little too, calming his nerves, "he manipulated my thoughts and decisions, but he said that he would bring me to the top."

"I'm guessing it didn't go over that well in the end."

"Well, he said he wanted to put a metal endoskeleton into my body and put his program into my thought process, taking over my body and living on."

"He... he isn't in you now, is he?" I asked nervously.

"No, I ended up taking out my cybernetics and this thing called and echo eye that projected his holographic form, he was gone... I did keep the echo eye and cybernetic chip though."

"W-what did you do with them?"

"That's been one of the things that had bothered me," he rubbed the back of his neck, "I haven't seen them in a couple of months."

"Oh... hopefully they're just lost." I rubbed his shoulder as he was still lost in thought.

"I really hope so, I wouldn't want them getting into the wrong hands since Helios is being rebuilt."

"W-what is Helios?"

"Oh, that's just the space station I worked on for Hyperion."

"Alrighty then."

"It's a bit of a confusing story, but something I've had to deal with for a while... I killed people."

"Purposely?"

"God no... but I still have to live with the fact that people have died because of my mistakes."

"That's a lot to carry with you."

"I know, but since you've gotten here, you've seemed to take my mind off of those times."

"Is that a good thing?" I asked, trying to read the expression on his face.

"It's a great thing." He laughed, "we should go inside now, have some fun with friends you know?"

We walked through the front door, music playing through the building while others talked amongst themselves, taking small sips from cups and laughing. It wasn't like the parties I went to in high school, there was raunchy dancing and people doing copious amounts of drugs. Maybe once you're on Pandora you've just seen it all and drugs really don't have much of an effect on you, Rhys tugged me along towards the back of the building where Vaughn, Fiona, and Sasha were sitting on bar stools and chatting.

"Hey." Rhys spoke.

"Hey, you guys made it." Vaughn smiled before pulling two other bar stools out for us.

"So I'm guessing that five minute walk was a pretty easy treck." Fiona remarked.

"Uh, yeah you could say that." Rhys laughed, grabbing ahold of my hand tightly.

"You gunna show us how you guys dance?" Sasha asked, changing the subject quickly.

I looked over at Rhys, his cheeks changing color like mine. I had no idea that they knew about our little dancing thing, we usually did it in private. He slightly nodded.

"I don't think it'll be too much of a hassle." He replied, helping me off the bar stool that I had just managed to sit on.

"Awesome!" Sasha waved us towards the empty dance floor.

Great, in the middle of the dance floor as people looked at us. I was fine dancing alone with Rhys but in front of others was not my cup of tea, he rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb as we walked over to the floor. A more upbeat song played through the speakers just upping the ante and pressure, he grabbed my hand quickly and placed the other on my hip.

"This is just like the other times... but a little faster." He spoke as I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck.

"Ok..." I whispered as I could see people looking at us.

He began to move his feet faster than normal, pushing them back then forward and pushing his hand against mine in a circular motion. I tried to keep up and did a pretty good lob at mimicking his movements, a smile spreading across my lips. He spun us around and we began to go back into the same motion, I began to laugh due to how fun this actually was, trying to ignore the slight pain in my ankle.

"Can't we be sweethearts, why don't we fall in love?"

The music played through the building and soon others joined us on the floor and dancing along with the music just as we did. Rhys looked around before landing his eyes back on mine, a smile shining through the dimly lit room. He spun us around again, facing happily as the music filled our ears, others continued to dance to this old music.