Why?

Lucian asked me why.

How can I say that I don't even understand what our last argument was about? That those reasons aren't the real reasons. That Jonny stormed out again and I realised... that this time I wouldn't follow.

That was yesterday. Today was anger.

Fuck you, Jonny. I did my best through all the crap and I deserved better.

And then deflation.

And so did you.

Someone hurt me, Jonny. Someone hurt you, too? Could we cry in each other's arms and make it better?

Then the real world returns.

Free

Reports are coming through that Intaki is free.

Free from Caldari occupation, that is. Now able, I hope, to work out for itself how it feels about its role in the Federation.

Moira.'s done good work. Jonny should be proud.

I should be happy.

Endings

It's been over a year.

Joy. Audacity. Stories woven together. A daughter.

So many arguments and misunderstandings.

I'm worn out.

My heart aches. Why is who I am not right for you? Not right?

I still wish, but I wouldn't any longer call it hope.

I'm walking through the station mall in Gulf. Just walking. There are people. They don't know me. I move through their cool indifference.

What kind of peaceweaver am I if I can't even manage my own relationships?

I've spent so long not talking about the problems to anyone else. Least said: soonest mended. What do I do now? Once I tell Auntie Mara and the clan... they were getting to know him, to like him, to think he might have a future with them. Once I tell them, it changes. Once I tell them it becomes real.

Am I as concerned about failing as about joy?

When do you say 'enough'?

When do I say 'enough'?

I think I just did.

Please let this not be real.

This is real.

Ancestors and erendati, I am not myself today. Guard me while I fly, for I am falling, voiceless, into the void.

Hitches

I still can't think why I'd say yes. But people do: there must be a reason. Perhaps there's some definition of things that makes more sense.

It would be hard to say no without breaking things: families, hearts. Is that why people say yes?

It would be amusing - darkly - to find I'm the better freecaptain.

Tears

I'm leaving her.

I'm feeding her one last time. It still hurts. Each time the contractions; the scars below still healing.

But the milky softness of her; sharp fingernails; strong grip. Sometimes she looks up at me when she's suckling and I feel a desire to protect her that's so strong...

I'm leaving.

Putting my body into special storage where they'll dry me off, heal my new mark. Shucking off the bonds of blood and slipping into cloneflesh again, unchanged since before all this.

They're all here now, to see her claimed as kin. Mother came. Even Uncle Ashlar stood on the same ground as Auntie Mara tonight. She's one of us now, in her own right, her placenta planted in Paiho, her small body washed in the water of Waitimu and clan-marked in ash and oil, salt and blood. Kerem will nurse her and dry her tears, and she will have blood kin and milk kin to stand beside her as she grows. She has a place and a people while her parents roam the stars.

If I just I keep saying it.

It's also the end of this time with Jonny. My new place is built, and was blessed after Maia's naming. He's done well, working alongside the clan to make something.

I look into her eyes...

I've been checking ships. My crews are ready. I've been debating freespace in virtual bars. My mind is already elsewhere.

My heart is tearing.

Connections

I've not needed these words for months now. Life's been too full: home and building and the Culture Reclamation group taking off. And now I feel I should record some of what happened so it's here to come back to and remember.

In October Jonny brought his mother to Paiho. Jeannette Damordred. He smuggled her out of Placid despite the wars. I don't believe his father knew about it.

She's much like I expected, I guess. Teaches foreign affairs. Professor. Lives with strong-willed men and calmly does what she chooses.

It was good to meet my daughter's other grandmother. I think I could respect her. Maybe like her. I have a secure comm link for her, for talk and baby pictures.

Jeannette arrived during a discussion about a place for me at Paiho. I've been staying at Waimaru when I'm home, but it's not an easy place to have Jonny stay. An irony about Gallente: they're supposed to be the exhibitionists of the galaxy, but they're not comfortable in full-on communal living.

Ulf and I had talked about building a place for me, and for Jonny as well. Ulf seemed almost keen to find a way to bind Jonny to Paiho: for us to marry or Jonny to be adopted. I'm ... less sure. Not unsure that I want to be with Jonny, just...

Acacia suggested to me that I'm too serious about marriage. I want it to mean something. I expect it to be an alliance, involving 'Politics' and 'Duty'. And I want this -- this thing with Jonny -- to be... joyous, somehow, rather than dutiful. To be something we're in because we want to be; something we're moving towards rather than something we're struggling to get away from.

It seems I'm not alone in that: Jonny didn't want to be part of a bid for a couples unit, with all that that would entail. I requested a unit for myself. Not a normal request. Not usually a needed one. But I traded a little more of what the clan owes me for the right to try to raise support to build. And I got that: Ulf and Auntie Mara, and then talking to Waimaru and getting the house support, and then the rest.

And Jonny. Jonny at Paiho, working alongside Enki and Angel and Taine and all the rest. Jonny stripped to the waist building.

Oh, he is fine, and he is mine.

Is that strange to say, given what I said before? Ashar says I've joined the club of people who put up with freecaptains. I'm making a life which works for me, where he's welcome when he passes through, but it won't be the end of things if he wanders off.

He needs to be needed, but all I can give him is that he's wanted, and welcome. And maybe the chance that he could belong.

What else will I need to write about, to catch up? About the site we chose and this small place that's mine. About Elsebeth Rhiannon and tea. About Gerrard DuNord, and how our stories cross even though we've still not met. Of wars and the re-awakening of Re-Awakened: of feeding towers and jamming enemies and being the dodgy ones. And about the dispersion of EM for a time to meet some specific aims in factional war.

But now the workers are coming in and I'll stir myself and greet them.

Doubt

I met a man of faith in the house of all pleasures.

I've known some pleasure there, although mostly the companionable kind. Holding my knees, my toes tucked under Lucian's thigh as he told me stories of the Great Northern War. Teasing Ravenslock about his eyebrow's wayward apostrophe and his forays into booster sales.

But faith? Faith in the house of the freecaptains?

Ashar's voice; insistent; cruel; quoting Fractionite rhetoric: "'Freedom is a jagged bitch, a barbed-wire dream of agony and yearning, a wide-bore firearm clutched in shaking hands and pointed close at the face of God, a siren scream to pierce the heart and banish ease and complacency forever.' Did Jonny ever tell you that? That's what he was, you know."

And yet I found a man of faith among the Fraction.

Ricardo speaks of his faith. It's solid to him, sure, undoubted; there in hard times and in good. His soul is what makes him him.

He woke a clone, to see what it would be like; to ask questions. Found it was another person, as perfect and ensouled as he, himself. Now his two faces walk the worlds; make their choices.

He is not untroubled, but he is... comforted.

I cannot speak to him of doubt. I can only envy him his certainty and try to warm my hands at it.