trans_9 | Reunion

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Reunion

Visitation Day came and went and Goliath still had not seen any of his clan in what felt like, and might have been, years. He still had not seen Elisa since she was nearly killed in his sleep, then vanished angry at him. There had been several times like these before, when the gathering of new crew members has been too painful for him to attend, knowing that his clan would come from elsewhere and at other times, and so podpops offered him only one chance at reunion with a loved one.

Disappointment had settled on him again, and he warded it off with productiveness. Elisa's car shone with the evidence of regular care, but the rest of the castle needed maintaining. He would invite more people in to work in the gardens, dispose of more of Xanatos' things - but first, he felt there was more still to gain by researching the Mayan sun amulet that he hoped could give him control over his waking and sleeping. It would be a good idea to contact Lupin again, but at the moment, it it pleased Goliath to conduct his research in solitude.

Deep in his reading in Castle Wyvern's library, he didn't hear footsteps until the door had already been opened behind him.

[EDIT: Subthreads now open for other characters to comment, starting with the Drunken Dragon]

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It had been a long, long time. Long since he'd seen her at all. Long since he'd seen her for any significant amount of time.

But Goliath would never forget that voice. He abandoned his reading with his heart racing.

"Elisa."

Once upon a time, he would have run across the room to her instantly. Just then, though, all he could think of was the last few things she'd said to him - the last time he'd failed to protect her.

He almost looked scared as he stood where he was, staring at her from across the library, uncertain and sad. How did she find her way? Was it really her? Had she been awoken after all, and he'd not been there to greet her?

What happened next?

"You're awake." He inhaled deeply, hanging onto his composure as he tried to think of what she would want from him. He still wanted to sweep her up in his arms, and feel the security of having her there, alive and safe with him. But he didn't know if she wanted that anymore.

"I - I am glad to see you."

Although Elisa had been told that she'd been on the ship before, she didn't remember anything about it and nobody had filled her in. She came from a time when Goliath wouldn't have hesitated before sweeping her up into a hug. Especially after a long period of separation.

She frowned, a little hurt and a little confused but, most of all, very concerned.

"That's me," she confirmed, holding out her arms in a gesture of confirmation. He didn't look glad to see her. He looked lost. "I've been told it's been a while."

That was a cue he could take just fine. He crossed the library in a few long strides and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close in the deep embrace she'd come to know so well.

He was shaking. Very slightly, but more than enough for Elisa to feel. All he'd had to remember for months was the sight of her, pale and bandaged in a hospital bed, turning away from him, asking the question - just what have you been telling everyone about us?

And then she'd disappeared. Like every good thing that he'd had before the end of the Earth he know. How long before she disappeared again?

"I'm sorry. I wasn't there to protect you. I am so sorry, Elisa."

That was better. Elisa took a few steps forward to meet Goliath in the middle of the room, throwing her arms around him and hugging him just as tightly. Waking up on an alien spaceship and a dozen new questions for every question that was answered had unsettled her more than she cared to admit. She needed reassurance just as much as he did.

"Protect me?" She took a step back to look at him, her hands resting on his arms. She didn't need his protection, she needed his friendship. And she'd never seen Goliath shake like before. "What happened wasn't your fault, Goliath! Mistakes were made on both sides. Jason got me out of the water in time and you stopped Demona. That's all that really matters."

She didn't have her memories. She couldn't imagine what else he was referring to. What if the memory modification had made him forget that she had been all right?

He stared at her in confusion for a moment.

"You don't remember - the last time you were awake, I -"

If she doesn't remember being gutted by a werewolf while he was asleep, frankly, he doesn't want to revisit it in detail. But her not remembering this at all is an issue of significance.

"Elisa. Do you remember being awake here before?"

"The last thing I remember before waking up here was your first sunrise back at the castle."

She hoped - with a level of desperation that surprised her - that he remembered the conversation they'd had. It had taken them months to reach that point. She hadn't realised how glad she was that they had reached it.

"I don't remember anything about this place. Goliath, what's going on? You're really worrying me."

Goliath had always been so strong, so solid. Seeing him genuinely unsettled left her feeling unsettled.

You know how I feel about you, right?

How we both feel. Yes.

Good.

That sunrise seemed so long ago. It had been so long ago.

And yet he still remembered it, clear as day. Their last meeting, his visit to her in the hospital - in comparison it was almost like a bad dream.

Without another word, Goliath drew her into his arms again, folding his wings around her, desperate for the assurance that she was, truly, there.

"It's been so long since that morning." His arms tightened around her, and his claws tangled in her hair. "So long, Elisa. But I have never forgotten a moment of it."

He'd fought for her, fought for the whole clan, with no reassurance he would ever see them again. He'd gone so far as to accept that he would not. That they could sleep in safety had been his only comfort, and it had been just enough to endure the sorrow of never seeing them again.

Now she was here, and she would understand the pain, barely suppressed, that missing his clan had caused him.

"That memory has given me strength when I had no comfort but that I might still fight to protect you."

He held her, wanting never to let her go. If he did, Stacy might take her back, and after losing everything he had lived for so many times, he didn't know if he could endure another such loss.

His eyes were wet with tears as he leaned back to cup her face in his hand.

"I have missed you. You, and the rest of the clan. I have missed you so much."

He hadn't exactly answered her question, but at least she could be sure that Goliath remembered the encounter with the hunters and, more importantly, what happened afterwards. Before she could say anything else, he'd pulled her back into his arms without the hesitation that had soured their first greeting. For a moment, she was content to simply allow the relief to wash over her.

"You know I'd never have gone back into those pods if I'd had a choice."

It had only been a matter of hours for Elisa, but she'd have changed that without question in order to have been at his side during the innumerable ordeals that he'd faced. She'd miss the clan as well - of course she would! - but she would never have left him willingly.

She wished she could offer him genuine comfort, but she couldn't even promise that she wouldn't leave again.

No one could promise him that. Already, anxiety that this meeting might not last was beginning to bother him.

He had been alone, very distinctly alone, and it had been unquestionably a nightmare. That nightmare might revisit him still.

"How did you find your way here?"

"One of your friends told me that the castle was on the ship and pointed me in the right direction. I guessed you'd be in the library."

She gave him a crooked smile, pleased but not surprised that she'd guessed correctly. If she hadn't been able to reach the clock tower by sunset and he'd departed by the time she arrived, she'd always headed to the library next.

"I'm just glad you're really here."

"I wish I'd been there to greet you."

He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his talons linger there. Had it really been years since he'd seen her? Aside from that brief visit, which still felt like it had happened ages ago? Time ran so strangely on the ship, but it couldn't have been less than a year.

"The last time I saw you -" he really didn't want to revisit that event, but it was important that she knew that it had happened, that the ship was as full of dangers as anywhere else in this universe. "The last time you were awake, there was a sickness going around that made the crew violent towards each other. One of them hurt you."

By his tone, it was badly.

"I was locked in sleep at the time, and could not be at your side. If it was Kang who guided you here, then that is only another favor for which I am in his debt. He was injured in the process of protecting you, and I do not doubt he saved your life."

Shame still hung over him, at having not been the one to protect Elisa when she was last awake. That he couldn't control his waking and sleeping didn't matter. He was trying to change that, now. If he'd begun this research earlier, perhaps he could have been there, and perhaps that whole event could have gone far better than it did.

She leaned into his touch, the comment - an affectionate and almost teasing attempt to lighten the mood - that she'd intended to make about his failure to meet her on the observation deck dying on her lips when he continued.

"We've had this conversation before," she reminded him gently, placing her hand over the claws that still rested on her hair. "You can't always be there to protect me. I can't always be there to protect you. It difficult to deal with sometimes, but that's just the way the world works."

She raised her free hand to tilt his chin down and force him to meet her gaze.

"Don't even think about blaming yourself."

How he's missed this. Her reassurance, her practicality. Just the comfort of knowing that she will speak from a position of sense when he is overwhelmed by his need to keep her, and everyone else around them, safe.

He lets her lean into his hand, relishing the comfort of the contact for a moment before reaching to the book he was reading when she came in, and flipping it back open to the page describing the Mayan Sun amulet.

"I am seeking a way I will never have to again."

She let out a low whistle as she examined the description.

"I remember that," she murmured, moving her hand to trace a picture with her finger. She wondered if the amulet that had been hidden in the clock tower had survived the explosion. In the chaos that had followed, there hadn't been time to look. "That's a difficult piece of magic, Goliath."

"A wizard on the crew is assisting me in seeking other avenues."

It was important, but hardly as important as her being back. He laid his hand on her face again, turning her attention away from the book.

"I cannot allow anything like that to happen to you again."

"Can't allow?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow. She understood the sentiment - she even appreciated it, despite her fierce independence - but the world didn't work that way. Although she didn't remember what had happened during her previous visit, it wasn't the first time she'd been injured in the line of duty and it definitely wouldn't be the last.

"We both know that it isn't as simple as that," she said, gently, "Being a cop is dangerous, but it was worth the risk to do the right thing. Life on the ship won't be any different. We'll work together and we'll take care of each other when we can, but that's enough. I don't expect anything else. I don't need anything else."

"I need this."

How could he make her understand, what it had been like to endure a year without his clan? Without her? With only a castle that he once valued more than his life, now only so much empty stone without the people he loves to live in it?

"Elisa, it has been a year, at least. All I have had in that time is the possibility that I might protect my clan by fighting this war. It has not been enough. You are awake again, and I am glad. But if anything should happen to you, I -"

He cuts off, sighing heavily to calm himself.

"Every time I think I have come to a position of security, it has been taken from me."

It is something he cannot say to the rest of the crew, to everyone else who is in the same position - who lives without the knowledge that their loved ones are surely safe, who face battles every day that they might not walk away from. It is something he cannot say to everyone who endures the same situation, but has only lost their whole worlds once.

"If I cannot protect you, I do not know how I can endure it again."

"Goliath ..."

She had put herself into other people's shoes on more than one occasion, but it was impossible to imagine what Goliath had been through - alone, without his family and friends at his side - on the ship. Especially since there was still a lot that she didn't know about Stacy and the war.

"I wish I could tell you that it's going to be all right, but we're fighting a war against a race that can destroy worlds. I don't know what's going to happen." She paused. A few hours ago - from her point of view - they'd been standing together on the roof of the castle. Everything had seemed full of hope. "All I can say that if anyone can protect me, it's you. But that doesn't mean that it's your fault if something happens to me again."

With every word, she reminded him of exactly why he missed her so much - and made him believe that her anger at him at their last meeting was, as he had suspected, the work of the rage virus, and not from her heart.

He still had to ask her what she'd meant. What had upset her.

He still had to ask her what that morning at the castle had meant. What they were, or would have been without his needing to ask, if the Ohm had not interfered.

They could have that conversation later - when that morning was not moments ago from her perspective. He brushed her hair behind her ear one more time, feeling himself growing calm again, giving in to relief at her presence.

Relief he did not trust yet, but relief all the same.

"This ship may make a liar of me. But there is nothing I would not do to always be there for you. No matter where we are. Or when."

He exhaled slowly, calmer than before.

"I am glad to see you again."

His first question wasn't something that Elisa could answer easily. She didn't remember the words or the bitterness with which they'd been spoken.

The second question, however, was even more difficult. She'd meant what she'd said that morning, but, at the same time, they'd barely scratched the surface of what needed to be said. The world was so much bigger and so much more complicated than it had been. Maybe that was a good reason to stop hiding from her feelings.

"And that'd be the ship's fault, not yours."

She relaxed a little when Goliath calmed, then, impulsively, wrapped her arms around him for another hug.

"It's good to see you, too."

They had a lot of serious conversations ahead of them. But just then, it was enough to Goliath just to hold her, and be comforted that he could.

Two of the Manhattan Clan - would they be the Transmigration 9 Clan now? It sounded better than the Stacy Clan - were reunited. Perhaps this time, they would stay that way. Perhaps that also boded well for a reunion with the rest of the clan.

It occurred to Goliath that he was hungry, and so might she be. "Elisa, this ship allows me only six hours awake, but I have most of those hours before me now. I would show you the ship before my next rest, if you would like to see it."

Better that he introduce her quickly, too, to the people he considered trustworthy.

She was rather hungry - she hadn't eaten a proper meal since before she'd fallen off the waterfall - but she'd had so many other things to think about that food had been pushed to the back of her mind.

A tour, however, was exactly what she wanted.

"That would be great. I've seen the observation deck and the weapons locker, but that's it."

She'd headed for the castle as soon as she'd realised that he was on the ship.

"We should visit the Drunken Dragon first."

It was close, and a good social hub.

"I probably owe Kang my thanks again."

"The Drunken Dragon?" she repeated, stepping back out of the hug and giving him a bemused smile. She hadn't been much of a social drinker back in Manhattan - she'd never had the time, before or after meeting the clan - but she understood the importance of a bit of down time and she was certainly eager to meet Goliath's friends. "Sounds like fun. But it might be a while before I can buy a round."

She hadn't heard anything about money yet. Did they even get wages?

"Kang does not charge for drinks. When we barter, it is mostly in favors."

Goliath had never been a heavy drinker for good reasons - it usually took too much to affect him in Scotland, and he hadn't had access in Manhattan. He hadn't minded it then, and didn't mind now - after all, the last time he'd drunk to excess, it went . . .

Well, not badly. Nobody had gotten injured. Everyone had survived the hangover. But Eva had a few embarrassing stories to tell that absolutely no one else in the multiverse otherwise did.

"It's a good meeting-place. There isn't much real food on the ship, but most of the crew gathers there at some point."

He offered her his arm. They could walk through the city streets any day of the year here without causing a commotion. That might not lose its novelty for a long time.

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