Sabrina was the first one up the following morning. She savored the rare time to herself as she lingered over the small breakfast she'd ordered in the small dining area at the rear of Khediva's living quarters, and sighed a little when she heard footsteps approaching. They weren't Tirqwin's; she was intimately familiar with the sound of his stride. It was with relief that she recognized Ford as he entered the dining area, going straight to the provender and barking out an order for a cup of tea, which he'd learned to like.
He didn't seem to notice her until he turned around, blowing the steam off his tea. "Oh. Good morning."
His sulky expression told her something was up. "What's happened?"
"I've been summoned again. The Committee obviously has more to add to what they said last time. Though I can't imagine what." He sat down across the table from her and scowled into his cup. "Probably just to impress upon me my utter unworthiness to meddle with things only Wayfarers understand."
Sabrina let out a sympathetic sigh. "Oh, Ford. I'm sorry. What a horrible thing to start off the day. Maybe at least they won't keep you long."
"I can hope, but I've never met a more long-winded group of pontificators—and I've been subjected to more than one lecture by the Council of Trême!"
"I'd come with you for moral support, if I didn't know that would only make things worse," Sabrina said.
He gave a wry little snort. "It would, I'm afraid."
"Well, when you get back how about I get Khediva to conjure up some hot fudge sundaes and we can have a little pity party."
Ford seemed to really look at her for the first time that morning, and the sudden concern in his eyes surprised her. "I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
He paused. "Everything."
Sabrina shook her head slightly, then gave him a rueful smile. "So am I."
Ford looked at her for a moment more, then downed his tea in one long gulp and got to his feet. "I'm going to be late."
"Well, good luck."
"Thanks." He hesitated again, as if he wanted to say something else; then he rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment and left.
What was that all about? Sabrina wondered, looking after him. She shrugged, finishing her tea and contemplating having another cup. After an internal debate, she compromised by ordering it decaffeinated, smiling as she remembered her Aunt Euphrasia's indignant remarks when her doctor suggested she switch to decaf tea.
She was halfway through when Scotty wandered in. "Good morning," he said, as he passed her on his way to the provender.
"Good morning," she replied, stifling a sigh. His speech patterns were still all wrong, even now that he'd mastered English again.
"Oh. Uh, I meant..." he paused and grimaced in thought. "Man, I gotta get some caffeine in me or those damn zombie hunters'll be after me again?"
The tentative way he said it made her smile. She recognized it as one of the phrases he'd picked up from the video records Khediva had shown them; he was trying, with indifferent success, to integrate them into his everyday conversations.
Encouraged by the smile, which looked different from the pained ones she usually managed, Scotty grabbed his coffee from the provender, ordered a plate of what the research scientists called "hash" (which Sabrina suspected was really just colorful recyclables from the environmental system), and sat down across from her. "Howya doin', Sea Creature?" he essayed.
"You know, you don't have to pick all that back up again," Sabrina said. "I never really appreciated being called that."
"I know. Khediva says that's why I did it. I figure if it was my purpose to annoy you sometimes, I must have had reasons. And you must have had reasons for allowing it."
"Bad habit?" Sabrina suggested.
"I need some bad habits, to make me seem human again," Scotty said earnestly.
That got a small, surprised laugh. "Khediva again?"
"No, that was Tirqwin. He says they're helpful social cues. Like when you twist your hair, like you're doing now, that means you're feeling insecure or unhappy."
Sabrina's hands dropped abruptly to her lap, out of his view. "I wouldn't base my entire take on human psychology on what Tirqwin and Khediva know about it," she advised.
"You're the resident expert, but you don't like to talk," Scotty shrugged.
"It isn't that. Sometimes I talk a great deal too much," she grimaced. "I just...have a lot to think about right now. To deal with. Give me some time. I'll get better."
"We don't have a lot of time."
She looked him in the eye for the first time since he'd come in, but said nothing. After a moment he began to fidget, tapping his fingers against the coffee cup in a restless gesture that secretly delighted her. He could not have learned that from Tirqwin or Khediva. Though I guess he could have gotten it from Ford, the Master of Restlessness, she admitted.
"I, uh," he began, then fell silent again. After a moment she heard his foot tapping the floor.
What else can I get out of him? Those fidgets...they're not conscious memories, but somehow they're still there, some kind of instinct maybe. Maybe there's still something—
She made herself stop thinking that. She'd been dreadfully disappointed too many times, thinking she'd found a sign of her brother in this new person. She had to stop looking. It was only hurting them both.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Why don't you just spit it out, Scotty?"
He stared at her in confusion over the rim of his coffee cup, which he'd picked up while she argued with herself. "No!" she said, just in time. "I meant, why don't you just tell me whatever it is you're trying to avoid telling me." Literal as a Praxatillian. About as far from Scotty as you can get. See?
Her nonrational voice told her rational self to shut the hell up. Scotty swallowed a gulp of coffee and said, "I've decided to try downloading the memories."
Sabrina nodded and looked down at her hands. After a minute, Scotty said, "Aren't you going to, uh, argue with me? Or something? They said you would argue with me."
"On what grounds? They are your memories; you have the right to try to regain them. You're an adult; you've certainly been told the risks. I can't imagine what it's like to be you, and it would be presumptuous of me to imagine I could or should make or influence your decisions."
"That," he grinned, "sounds like something Khediva made you memorize!"
"Nope. Pure me. Though," she admitted with a rueful half-grin, "it did take me quite a while to refine it last night."
"Did you know?"
"It was inevitable, wasn't it?"
"I guess so. But you still don't like it."
"No. How could I? We've come this far, done this much, so we wouldn't have to mourn you."
"Him. And you already are."
"Yes, but—with you, there's something left. A new start. Possibilities. If this doesn't work, all those possibilities will cease to exist. We'll have thrown them away reaching for something that's already lost. I...don't believe in sacrificing the future to the past. I never have. I don't think that Scotty did either."
He was silent for a while. "Scotty believed in taking risks to get what he wanted. Especially if what he wanted was necessary for your happiness."
"Scotty's risks were very rarely for me. I think you mean Mara's happiness, most of the time."
"Don't you think it comes down to the same thing in this case?"
"Maybe," she said slowly. Then she shrugged. "In the old days, I'd've said yes. We're both orphans, and she'd lost all her siblings before I met her. But now she has a new family, and Scotty has been only a memory for her for a long time. She could adjust more easily now." She looked up at him and said, "And she can adopt you more easily than I can, for now. Please don't base your expectations of other people's feelings on me. I'm a mess right now. I know that. Please don't do this for me, because I don't think it's what I want, really want. Mara would love you easily. She would take you in her arms and give you everything you need to become whoever you want to be. Don't...don't deny her that chance. She has never even met you."
"And I've never met her, but I know enough about her to be sure that I don't want to until I can tell her, with a clear conscience, that I did everything I could to get Scotty, her cousin, whom she loved, back. That is why you all came here, after all."
"We came here because, in my hysterical grief, I begged Tirqwin to try," Sabrina said.
"You can't know that. Who are you to say that your tears affected him more than his wife's? It was probably both." He shrugged. "You are a family. I've watched how all of you interact, and how complicated it all is. You all keep hurting and loving each other. It's not a Wayfarer concept, so I haven't been able to get a lot of background on it, just what I've seen. But Ford says it's the same on Praxatillus. I don't believe him though," Scotty finished with a wry smile.
"Why not? Families really are like that."
"But this one's...I don't know how to describe it. I think Ford and I could be friends, but he's too busy watching me so he can stop me when I do something that makes you hurt."
"That's...because he feels sorry for me. And because he promised to be my big brother. Scotty would have acted much the same way—did, in fact, on several occasions. Siblings try to protect each other." She shrugged. "When they're not driving each other crazy, that is."
"And Tirqwin's been so kind, like he really is my father—"
"He is," Sabrina interjected.
"—but he can't seem to decide whether to let me be myself or try to make me into what he thinks you think I ought to be."
Sabrina chuckled a little at the description. "Poor Tirqwin. Every day I see a little more why he was so dead set against having me here." She sighed. "I know I haven't been easy to live with lately. Sometimes I think he's having trouble reminding himself that he loves me."
"But he does," Scotty said. "Not like he loves me, which is in kind of a perplexed way. He gets exasperated with you, but you don't surprise him much. I mean, he knows you pretty well, and he likes it that way. I'm forever doing something that surprises him, that he automatically thinks is wrong for Scotty—and then he has to remind himself all over again that I'm not really Scotty. And it makes him sad, every time."
"But can't you see that it's the depth of love we all have for Scotty that makes us keep doing that?" Sabrina asked. "It hurts, but we know it will get better, so we keep trying. And we will become adjusted to you, just as you're getting used to us. You have all the love that Scotty had. Just in different ways right now."
"But I want the old ways," he replied. "I want all that comfortable familiarity, both ways. I want to be able to look at you and guess what you're thinking. To finish your sentences, or have you finish mine. I want to have Tirqwin look at me when I've done something foolish and know that he's trying to make himself angry and not succeeding because it's just so Scotty, and he's happy I'm alive."
Sabrina didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I can understand why you want that," she said. "But it is not worth risking your life. Your sanity. Who you are."
"I think it is."
They were silent for a long time, staring into their respective cups.
"Then there's nothing more to say, is there?" Sabrina said, very softly.
"You could wish me luck," he suggested.
"I do," she said. She hesitated, then reached for his hand. "I...haven't told you anything about our religion. We aren't really a religious family, back on Earth I mean." She smiled a little. "I haven't worked out if they even have what we'd call religions on Praxatillus, so I can't speak for the other side of the family. But I think...I think Scotty still believed in God. The One we grew up believing in. I still believe too, even after everything, all we've seen. And I will pray for you, every moment, with every breath, until this is over."
He squeezed her hand and got to his feet. Then he paused. "It...really is a terrible risk. I do know that, Sabrina."
"I know," she whispered.
"And...I..." He cleared his throat. "Don't ever think I didn't feel loved, or that I didn't appreciate it. I do. This isn't...this isn't throwing that away."
Sabrina looked at him, her eyes darkened by unshed tears. "You were always loved. And you always will be. Whatever happens."
"Thank you." He looked at her for a moment more, then turned and left.