Holy Seven

((Sarah: *L* I think.. any place I put it, it'll be ignored. It's not the general run of the mill for AFF. That's okay! If anyone reads it, it's going to be worth it. Thank you so much for reading! It's really appreciated.))

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Chapter Ten


"Is he awake?" the unfamiliar voice woke Lucky from his uneasy state. He'd woken already once before, his head pounding and his eyesight blurry. What the hell? What had happened?

Well, it was easy enough. The fight had gone badly. The first hit on their flank had knocked against their shield generator and they had to pull back fairly quickly. Hopelessly outnumbered, seven to one, the Thirteen's fliers had made a hasty retreat and it was in the act of retreating that he and Haven had been hit in the back right side.

The hit did nothing to the gunnery system but it had created some sort of electrical malfunction, coursing through the console, which had thrown Haven against the other side of the ship. The kid was knocked out either from the electric shock or from the impact and he hadn't woken up. He lay on a bunk across the small room, pale and more fragile looking than before. A bright red gash took up the left side of the kid's face where he'd more than likely been injured when the flier impacted with the surface of a nearby asteroid. The last think Lucky remembered was spinning with no power to the flier, and the oxygen down to dangerous levels, thinking it was too bad he wasn't going to ever be able to tell Haven -

Well, he'd never figured out what he had wanted to tell Haven and now they were alive, if not whole, considering the shape of his ribs, and he had plenty of time to figure it out.

"I'm not sure sir," the second voice, one he recognized from earlier, and someone he assumed was a guard, answered.

"Yeah.." Lucky grunted, his eyes shut tightly. "I'm awake." There was little reason to hide the fact.

"Ah," the soft male voice returned and Lucky could hear a metal chair scrape painfully on the floor. "And you are?"

"Captain Mason Hendricks," Lucky winced and opened his eyes. "You?"

The man sitting before him, straddling a card table chair and giving Lucky a calm gaze through strangely disconcerting silver eyes, had black hair shot through at the temples with white. His face was the quiet of the old soldier, and there were some scars that Lucky picked up on instantly just because he knew what to look for; a mark on the man's neck, a slender line just above the adam's apple, a light puckered mark on his forearm where a slug had passed through and most possibly exited on the other side. He wore mining clothing, but he carried an air of understanding no miner had ever had.

He remained silent, considering, and then in a careful tone, "Cpl. Justice Ivenson."

"WHAT??" Lucky sat up, shocked, then groaned as his head protested loudly. "Ah shit.."

"You might not want to move too quickly. You took a few severe blows to the head." Ivenson chuckled mirthlessly.

"Screw that, you're supposed to be dead."

At those words, the older man's face turned deadly. "I suppose so. Did you help her then?"

"Help... her..." Lucky intoned in confusion.

"Help her try to kill me," Ivenson looked at the pilot on the bed with an air of deadly bemusement.

Lucky gathered the hard, almost nonexistent pillow from behind him, pulling it into his lap and sighing past the pain. It was hard to think. "I don't know anything about trying to kill you. I only know that Haven told me you were dead. Your flier blew up. You were, gah... you were flying the prototype and when the pair of you were trying to escape, it blew up. Who tried to kill you?" he narrowed his eyes against the raging headache. "You guys got some tylenol or something?"

Ivenson smirked. "We have drugs for knocks on the head. I thought, though, being an air man, that you might prefer being awake."

"Yessir, I'd prefer it. Thank you." Lucky just wanted the pain to stop. He didn't need anything that would knock him out too. Just something to take the edge off.

"As for who, maybe you should tell me how you ended up in a flier with Haven?" Ivenson asked. "Then I might entertain telling you more about how she tried to kill me."

"Who the hell are you talking about?" Lucky snapped. "And I won't tell you jack shit about me and Haven."

Ivenson chuckled. "Ah, I see. So she's finally taken a lover. I wondered about that. Well, you needn't tell me about you and she. But maybe you'll tell me how you came to have her in your ship and where my other flier is. It almost seemed like she was doing navigation for you. But I can't imagine Haven doing something as demeaning as navigation." He sneered coldly. "Not after all she's done to try and get on top."

Lucky gaped. His head was hurting, his mind was weak at present, but he wasn't stupid.

"Haven is a woman.." he could kick himself. An idiot once more.

"You've just noticed?" Ivenson looked amused. "That knock on the head must have been more than we'd previously thought."

"-and she tried to kill you..." Lucky was feeling more and more confused.

Ivenson leaned back, holding firmly to the fore of the chair. "I suppose it could come as a surprise to you. Yes, your dear little lady love tried to kill me. She didn't tell you that?" He smirked. "But then, maybe she didn't."

Lucky, not sure how to take the statement in its entirety, chose instead to focus only on the main parts. "But, why? Why did she.. how do you know?"

Ivenson smirked. "Let's think this through. She and I and Trias were the only living beings who knew about the black flier project. We were the only ones who knew what made it so much more than a simple flying machine. It must have rankled, knowing she couldn't get it copy written and that all of the power of the system would be under my name. After all she'd done."

'But she LOVED you!' Lucky wanted to shout, but kept to himself, only grimacing at how tensing his muscles made his head hurt more.

"Trias died. Healthy old man, someone said it was old age but she and I talked about it. We knew it had to be more than a fact of aging. A simple clotting medication might have caused the problem. Something put in his drink, something put into his veins. We hadn't heard from him for a week. We both worried something had come about. His son was concerned, asked us if we'd heard from him. Then we find out he died in his home. That he'd been on a vacation for two days and when he returned, he died soon after walking in his front door. It was strange, I didn't think about it, how Haven had taken a quick flight Earthside that week. I was just as blind as maybe I am now." He looked angry at himself and smoothed the emotion over with a half smirk

"You think... Alex killed Trias..." Lucky wasn't sure.

An eyebrow raised and Ivenson laughed. "Alex? Ah, you mean Haven. Yes, I -"

"No, I mean Alex." Lucky stuck to his original thought. One thought at a time. He was trying crazily to grasp two concepts at once.

"Alexander," Ivenson corrected. "Haven Alexander. That is the name she gave, isn't it?" Then at the silence he laughed softly. "Ah, so you didn't even know who she was. How interesting."

"The southern tip of Mars. The Alexanders... you were part of that project.." Lucky stared.

"Ah, you've heard of it?" Ivenson looked pleased in a sickly angry way. "The Alexanders and their so famous project. Trying to rehabilitate the minds of fritzed men and women. They were successful to a point, too you know. Yes, little Haven grew up watching the wasted and destroyed minds of those who were too greedy for technology to wait for something that was safe."

Lucky shook his head. Haven Alexander. He remembered hearing about her. Not in name, just knowing that after the Alexanders had died, their daughter had vowed to continue their work. She had been thirteen at the time.

Shit, he wasn't about to try and calculate now. The important information imbedded in that was that Haven wasn't a boy and wasn't even a teen. That was enough for now. "So... you worked on that project too," he repeated. Why was the man insisting on making him repeat himself?

"No, just friends with them. It was really her father's project. He and her mother prepared much of the needed information. I simply applied it to machinery. It was mostly her father's programming together with some changes Haven made later to make it more safe. I was, however, very interested in the project and I did work quite a bit on coupling remote sensors to the chips in a way that didn't overload the synapses. It was a great deal of hard work." Ivenson did not look proud of his accomplishments. Rather he looked angry.

"So," he continued, "all of that hard work and in the end, she can't even take advantage of it. Oh how it must have bothered her so terribly! And she was the only one left, with Trias dead. And I know I certainly didn't fix the prototype to blow. And I had argued with her about taking it. It had the working gun system. It was safer for her to fly that, to escape with the information and with the chip, with everything. She'd insisted that with her chip she could outmaneuver bullets." He laughed then, harshly and hatefully. "And to think, I was busy watching her to make sure she'd be okay! She must have laughed seeing how gullible I was."

"But... why?" Lucky couldn't understand.

Ivenson stood almost violently. "Do you think I haven't asked myself that question a million times?" he all but shouted and then advanced, catching Lucky at the collar, pressing his face into the pilot's. "But it's over. Everything is over. I'll find out what it was you all are planning to do and I'll put a stop to it. And if you think you'll see a single ounce of credit for that damned chip and that damned flier, you're more foolish than you look."

As Ivenson let him go, Lucky fell back with a gasp.

"Now, what are you doing in our flight space?" Ivenson growled.

"Rou- routine flight.. pass," Lucky fought against nausea.

"Bull shit! We saw that flier passing overhead last week. We know you all knew we were here. What the hell were you doing in our flight space? Did you know I was here? Who told you?" Then more low, "Who the hell do you work for, Captain Hendricks?" His eyes slits, Ivenson looked as much like a snake as he sounded.

"Fuck you," Lucky hissed back.

"Oh I can, young man," Ivenson smiled without a single touch of warmth. "I can fuck you up so badly you'll never see the light of day."

And while Lucky was trying to fight the sudden fog descending, he heard the clang of a metal door closing.

~*~**~*~

Chapter Eleven


'Dog?'

Jake frowned, looking at the head radio man through the plate glass. The older man was deep in a discussion on the phone. He was trying to tell Mr. Wold they had lost two of their pilots. That was the kind of conversation you didn't want to have around others.

'Dog! Anyone there?'

Jake leaned forward, touching the console buttons and opening a channel. 'This is Jake Nero of Project Thirteen. Declare yourself.'

'Holy shit! Jake... Jake, this is Lucky. I'm about five minutes out...'

Jake stared at the radio console and then flipped a few knobs, working at the distance radar. There, a lone flier, normal in this airspace but now that he looks at it, flying erratically. 'Lucky! You okay? You're flying off, buddy.'

'Yeah, know it,' Lucky sounded frayed, difficult to understand. 'Dunno how long I can remain conscious, buddy. You wanna hook us in? Using liner 554.766.4233.1 I'm needing some serious help in grounding her, m'friend.'

Yeah, you could tell that from the way his voice was coming through. Jake nodded and without more talk, instantly inputted the numbers. Then as the protocol went through its finalization he leaned over and pressed the toggle once more, 'Okay, got it in, Lucky. You're coming in at Bay 1A, right next to the med unit.'

'Thanks, pal,' Jakes voice crackled through wearily, drunkenly almost. 'Tell'm to get two beds t'gether. I got Haven too. And... and h - err - he's in pretty bad shape.'

'Got it, Hendricks. I'll tell Dog and have Gus and Chops there to meet you guys.'

'Yeah.. good... good thing...'

Jake did an all call for the guys and then rapped on the door to Dog's room, opening it.

"... thought that it wasn't necessary, sir. I don't see the need to risk our entire operation for two pilots. It was only one flier and we need to discuss with the terrorist group what their demands are, but that is only if the men are even alive..." Dog waved Jake into a chair, his face red with anger. "... No sir, I don't desire to tell you how to do your job. I am, however trying to do my job, the one you paid me for. And... " he looked over at Jake and then with a sigh, "Sir. I have one of the men in the room. I will call you back. We may know something." And without saying goodbye, the short man slammed the phone onto its cradle.

With a grimace, the radio man turns to his second. "Jake."

"Lucky just checked in. I got them on auto flier coming into the medical bay."

"Them?" Dog's eyes are sharply aware of the use of pronouns.

"Yessir. He said he has Haven with him. Said Haven is in piss poor shape."

"Fine," Dog stood and picked up the phone again. "Call Gus and Chops down, tell them not to touch Haven, they need to know about augments to do medical work on someone."

"Already called them, sir. And I'll be sure to tell them that."

Dog stopped, staring at Jake and then his mouth twisted slightly. "And don't let them muck with him at all! I don't even want him cleaned up, you hear me?"

Jake, shaking his head in confusion, ducked out the door to go and intercept the boys and the flier down at the flier housing unit.

--------

Lucky's head hurt like a bitch. A sumbitch? Wasn't that how they used to say it? Did it matter? It hurt as much as it hurt the first time, maybe even worse. And the light in the medi room was too bright, forcing him to close his eyes again.

Still, he managed to see some dark shadows nearby. "Who's there?" he croaked.

"Mason?" the pleasant voice was distantly familiar. Nice compared to last time when no one was familiar at all.

"Yes? Who's that?" Lucky clenched his jaw against the sudden rise of pain.

"It's Mr. Wold," that was Dog talking, Lucky knew Dog. "He's come to check on you boys. You had us worried, thought we'd lost you both."

"Oh," Lucky said stupidly. "Well, nice of him."

"He's not going to be capable of telling us much, Mr. Wold," stated a third voice. Who was that? "At least not yet. Give him another day."

"Owens?" Lucky creaked carefully against the pounding in his skull.

"Right on the button, Hendricks. Nice to see you back."

"Hell yeah... you workin' on us?"

Owens laughed lightly. "Yep. You know me, the best doc in the biz."

"Crazy, you patching us up and all, why didn't you call in an outside man?" Lucky was surprised, he was slurring, he wasn't going to last much longer.

"Cause we didn't want them to work on Alex," Mr. Wold's voice, that time.

"Ah, sure," Lucky calmly agreed, not knowing what he was agreeing upon. He could feel the world going real blurry, even though he had his eyes closed.

"Think he'll be out a while," came Owens again, only from far off.

"How about Alex?" That was Mr. Wold.

"It will depend on if Alex wakes or not, sir. It's possible we've lost - "

And blissful darkness took over.

---------

When Lucky woke the next time, his eyes felt puffy and his body was in pain, but there was a significant difference in how he felt overall. He could open his eyes this time. That was an improvement.

Owens sat by his bed, a tall, slender man who didn't look as strong as he really was. He'd always seemed to Lucky to be more like a concert pianist about to sit to produce his latest composition, not a doctor and celebrated grounds man. And certainly not as the vice president of a trillion dollar space mining company. His red hair no longer in the military cut, flared wildly about his long head and his hound dog eyes seemed contemplative, more than normal. Slender, long fingered hands curled about one another between his knees and he leaned on his elbows.

"Y'd think it was you who was sick," Lucky spoke softly, testing the waters of his skull to see if they were safe.

Somehow it didn't strike Lucky strange that his voice hadn't surprised Owens. The red haired man smiled in a gentle way, the way that made him the pianist going out for a glass of wine after. "It's been debated," he joked in his calm way.

"Just so long as they don't catch you, right?" Lucky grinned Then toned it down as it bothered his brain to do it that large.

"They'll never catch me," Owens smiled. "How you feeling, Mason?"

Lucky shrugged gingerly. "Like I was in a flier crash."

"Was that what happened?"

Lucky shook his head in a careful manner. "No. Probably dying to hear m'story?" Problem was, Lucky wasn't sure how much of the story he wanted to tell.

"It would be nice."

"Okay, we... we got hit from behind. The back right rudder I'd say. I don't think it permanently damaged the flier, but I don't know. I grabbed a miner's flier to get back home."

"So we saw. From one of the southern tip mines, it seems, though the number can't be traced to it reliably."

"They never can," Lucky intoned dryly.

"So you got hit.." Owens prompted.

"Oh, yeah. Hit. And went down on an asteroid. The hit had shorted the nav console. I think Ha- Alex got hit with a surge of electricity. I saw h-him going down. And then next thing I know, I'm waking up in a room with Alex off on the side. I didn't wait around. I just grabbed him and got us out of there. Figured we could seek them out later and find the flier?" He wasn't sure why he had just taken all of the other information out of there. It just was.. well, he would get to it if he had enough time.

"If we even want to," Owens nodded. It's better to have you boys home."

"How's Ha- I mean, Alex?" It wasn't that he didn't think it right to call his gunner by the name he'd been given in the first place. It was just, knowing the duplicity of the name 'Haven,' made him want to shy away from it.

"A fractured rib and a good concussion, but otherwise in good working order."

"So you know," Lucky spoke softly.

"Know?" Owens was careful and Lucky could see it.

"Does Dog know? And Mr Wold? That Alex is a woman?" Lucky just came out with it. Because he was putting things together a bit more quickly than before.

"Of course," Owens answered in his normal unflappable manner. Nothing could surprise the man, could it?

"So and augmented human and a woman to boot. Anything else I don't know?" Lucky asked bitterly. "You must know then that Alex isn't her real name." He shook his head. "It's making me wonder, Brett, just how much else has been kept from me."

"You know her real name, then?" Owens skipped the rest and shot straight for that last piece of information. The sharp tone in his normally quiet voice was such a distinctly subtle difference from before that Lucky looked sharply at him.

"You don't?" Lucky asked and was surprised to find Owens shaking his head.

"No, I was never told. Mr. Wold is the only one who knows who she really is." He looked over his shoulder toward the other side of the room, probably at the gunner laid out on the next bed.

Lucky gaped and then frowned. "Well, it might be for a good reason, but I don't see any reason you couldn't know." He wasn't sure, but now that everything else was out... "Haven Alexander."

Owens had a calm look on his face of deep thought just after the name. His brow furrowed long deep lines and he grunted in acknowledgment.

Lucky didn't try to interrupt him, however. Instead the pilot closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come once more. And as dreams did come upon him, he wasn't sure but he thought he heard Owens murmur, "That changes everything."

~*~**~*~

Chapter Twelve


The medical wing was cooling down. Evening did that, there was a moment before the heat came on, about an hour or so after dusk, and the ward was allowed to get cooler. Owens said it was because of the need for the body to be at a lower temperature in order to sleep properly. He'd set it up soon after he'd arrived.

Lucky pulled his blanket more securely around his shoulders, mindful of the IV drip next to him, and watched the pale face on the bed. She looked the same. She was still Alex Haven. In so many ways he couldn't help but see her as something fragile and with a hard history, in dire need of someone to just be kind.

But there was another, darker side to this now. Because he had suspicions. He had thoughts given him by a man presumed dead, about her.

She had never seemed to him to be a killing person. But he'd seen how she had looked at Hal, the face she'd had on her face when they entered the fire zone, the dead calm that was there when she knew it was time to fight. He'd seen the willingness to do whatever was necessary. He'd seen it often enough on the old flier pilots. He knew it well. His own father had had it on his face while he'd beaten his wife those years ago. His best friend, a man who later committed suicide to escape the feared dreams, had had the same look a few times. He knew it intimately.

So he couldn't just throw out that information. It was possible that she had killed Justice, or tried, rather. It was possible then, that she was a danger to the operation. Maybe her augmentation hadn't been as successful as she'd said it was? How did fritzers work? Only she was a new form of augment. Maybe there would be a new form of fritzing? Could it make someone who may have been a good, decent human being, into a sociopathic monster?

It was nice to be able to blame the chip for his fears. But as much as he wanted to believe Justice knew what he was talking about, he couldn't help but wonder. He'd seen glimpses of the child under all of that icy stillness. He'd seen the hurt of being seen as something less than human. And he'd seen the resignation.

If Haven had been a killer, why would she have told him she could never have the chip but for by her own death? And why would she have been so hurt and uncertain when the others talked about augmentation, about her abilities. If she cared so much about being the best, as Justice had intimated, why did he always get the sense that she felt she didn't have the right to anything, even happiness, let alone credit for work she'd done even before she was augmented?

With a sigh, he refocused on his enigma. Now that he knew she was female some things he hadn't understood before made more sense. The underlying feeling of attraction, for instance. He had never been a boy lover. Not even a man lover, really. He could find something of beauty on her face. She still seemed inhuman with her perfect beauty, but it was more acceptable, knowing she was human.

He sighed, reaching out and tracing the side of her face with a fingertip. He had done that many times in the few hours he'd sat by her bedside. Owens was unsure if she would waken. Owens wasn't sure if she'd survive this. It wasn't that she had any permanent damage, Owens had said. It was, instead, that they didn't know how the chip had been impacted and if it had been broken, thereby breaking her.

But if she'd killed Ivenson, wasn't she already broken? Lucky wondered as he felt the soft silk of her skin under his finger and murmured, more to himself than anyone else, "'But like love, the archers are blind."

It didn't make any sense, why some things made sense and why some did not. Why he knew she was lonely and she felt she had lost worth in becoming an augment. Why he knew she could not kill another yet why he knew she was very capable and would not hesitate if the reasons were adequate enough.

He sighed and lifted his hand away just before the door opened behind him and footsteps approached.

"How's he doin?" Dos asked from behind him.

"La quilla de la luna rompe nubes moradas y las aljabas se llenan de rocio," Lucky smirked and looked back at his friend.

Dos chuckled. "Yanno, my dad may have been Mexican but it doesn't mean I can speak the damned language any more than I can speak Chinese."

Lucky laughed then and leaned back. "It translates something like... the keel of the moon breaks through purple clouds and their quivers fill with dew. It's Lorca, I think."

"And this is supposed to mean something to me," Dos grunted as he sat down in a chair and dragged it across the floor to settle in beside Lucky. "You are strange sometimes, Hendricks."

"Yeah, well, life is strange," Lucky calmly stated and sighed, rubbing his eyes. "He's no better, no worse. Owens says he's not sure. He's giving the kid another few days before he starts to talk about taking him off the IV."

Dos looked up at the drip alongside with a smirk. "He's only on one."

"Yeah, well, apparently that's all he needs. His body is in perfect health. He is getting fluids and energy from the drip, but if he's not going to wake up, then there's little reason to keep him alive." He didn't understand why he sounded so... cold, as he said that.

"Hnnm," Dos murmured soft hummings as he reached out and patted the arm before him. "C'mon, kid. You can do it, right? Come out of it and all. You should see Lucky here. He's going nuts without you to worry about. You need to come out of it," then he turned to gaze quietly at Lucky. "You think he can hear me?" he asked.

Lucky shrugged. It was hard, he had surmised during that small space in time as Dos talked to Haven, that it was the mental need to be careful not to let go of any of her secrets, to call her kid and to act like she's a boy, even when she's out of it, that is making him so cool. He's putting too much effort to hiding a secret. It's why he never was good at lying.

Thank heavens no one knew the right questions to ask. Owens was too busy with Mr. Wold and the company to dig for more information. They were trying to find the flier Lucky had left with Justice. They were trying to find the colony that had attacked their fleet. And Lucky hadn't said anything. And he wasn't sure why he hadn't told anyone that Justice was alive.

Just seemed wrong, somehow.

"Lucky?" Dos said again.

"Hunh?" Lucky blinked out of his thoughts.

"You think he can hear me? Hear what I'm saying to him?"

'Sure hope not,' Lucky thought and then shrugged. "I don't know what he can hear, Dos. They say folks in a coma can hear a helluva lot. But Owens isn't sure the kid is in a coma."

"Oh," Dos muttered and continued to stroke Haven's arm. The touch was making Lucky angry. How dare anyone touch Haven? She had fought so hard to keep from being touched. Well, by everyone but Jux.

And that led to thoughts on Jux and Hal and everything that had gone on.

Dammit, it was just too much. He felt he had almost all of the pieces but for the corners and the edges. Like he could almost see the picture, just couldn't exactly make out what it was. He needed the key colors, that eye, the nose... something to make it all make sense.

It was frustrating.

"Sorry, Dos. I'm sorry. It's my head, I think. It makes me grumpy," Lucky tried faintly to make up for his angry reaction.

"Hey," Dos grinned, unperturbed, "you never needed an excuse for your attitude before."

"Ha ha," Lucky stated in a dry tone.

"That's me, the funny one," Dos quipped. His dark eyes kept watch on Haven and Lucky wondered if Dos saw the same thing he did.

"Hey Dos? When you ... I mean, Alex," Lucky wasn't sure how to ask what he wanted to know.

"Hmm?" Dos looked away from the patient to the injured man along his side. "What about Alex?"

"You think he's... different looking?"

Dos blinked and then burst out into laughter. "Holy shit! You just noticed? Or you been acting like you didn't notice? I thought you were the only one who was oblivious."

"To what?" Lucky asked, confused.

Dos shook his head with a grin. "You mean how pretty he is, right? Poor kid looks like a woman for heaven's sake. If he were a woman I'd be all over him, myself. Prettiest boy I ever seen. And I've seen some damn pretty boys before too."

Lucky blinked.

"Not that I go for that kind of thing, mind you," Dos amended swiftly. "But I've got eyes in my head. I thought he was a girl the first time I saw him. So did Gus, because he asked me about 'the cute piece of ass' and turned a bright shade of red when I told him that the ass was male." Dos's face was all smile, enjoying this story. Lucky could see it in his mind's eye, the look on the pilot's face when he founds out that the person he was ogling was a boy.

What would they say if they knew that Alex was really a girl?

"Yeah, but he's more than... pretty..." Lucky blushed, trying to say it in a way that didn't make it sound perverted. "Wait!" he said quickly. "Let me say it all the way or it's going to sound all wrong."

"You're pretty wrong already, bud," Dos snickered.

Scowling at his friend, Lucky tried to wrap his head around the mystical moment that was Haven Alexander. "I mean, not that he's pretty. He is that. But that he's... inhumanly so. Like he isn't real, sometimes?"

Dos tilted his head, then looked down at the still, pale face before them. "Sorta like he's something else?"

Lucky nodded. "Yeah, like he's not human after all."

"Nah," Dos shrugged out of the moment with a laugh. "I mean, he's real pretty and that's weird on a guy, but he's always seemed pretty human to me. Besides, I don't believe in alien life forms. We would have found one by now."

"No, no no no. I didn't mean alien.. I meant," Lucky sighed, shaking his head. "Dammit, Dos. You don't have to make it so hard."

"It's no fun otherwise," Dos laughed. "Okay, okay," and the small computers man rose his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, I understand. Yeah, sometimes he's sort of... weird. And I don't mean just because of the augmenting. It's like he's been made and remade until he's just perfect. It's creepy and I did think at first that maybe he'd had some surgery done to his face or something. But I've looked closely and he's got these little discrepancies, things that make me sure he's come by these looks naturally. So I just figured he's one of the few, one in a thousand, unlucky bastards born with a natural beauty. Someone who hasn't never looked normal. And I figured that might be some of why he acts so funky as well. Being all perfect all the time must make him pretty miserable."

"Miserable? Why?" Lucky frowned.

"Well, cause when you look like that, the whole world expects things of you. You can't just slip into a crowd and disappear."

Dos was right about that. Lucky couldn't have bypassed staring at Haven, male or female, had he seen her in a crowd. He'd have noticed immediately.

"So what if he doesn't wake up?" he interrupted their conversation with something else that had been bothering him. "What about his program?"

Dos sighed. "I dunno, buddy. I don't want Mr. Wold to get ahold of the program. I've kept mum about it so far. I've promised him that he could use my program in his new fliers. He's getting in enough for the whole crew. But he's been asking me a hell of a lot of questions about the black flier and about Haven. You think he knows about the kid? How he's an augment?"

"Yeah, Alex told me that Wold had the best offer, with the least restrictions. Seems like Alex was a pretty hot commodity between companies a short time ago, but no one was willing to let him have too much control. No one but Wold, that is."

"Yeah, weird huh? I always figured Wold for being smarter than that. Putting an augment into a cockpit is asking for some serious mayhem if the chip takes over."

Lucky nodded slowly. "It is intriguing, that's for sure."

"In a way, it's almost as if he doesn't worry about Haven, know what I mean?" Dos smiled. "Like he is sure he can take the kid out if he fritzes."

'Or that he thinks Haven won't fritz,' Lucky thought quietly and didn't answer.

Taking his silence to mean the end of the conversation, Dos reached over and patted Haven's arm. "Okay kid, c'mon. Time to wake up, kay?"

And with a soft sigh, the dark forest eyes shudder and open.

Dos stares and in a breathy voice, whispers, "Holy shit, Lucky... look!"

Lucky couldn't help the small quailing feeling of worry. More fritzing? What would it look like this time? If last time it had led to Justice's murder attempt?

Or if there hadn't been a real fritz, if it had all been in Justice's mind? What... what if it happened now? What... what if...

"You okay kid?" Dos was standing up, between he and her bed, patting her hand. Lucky wanted to shove the small man out of the way, but instead he backed up.

"Where'm I?" the soft voice, low and sweet, tremulous almost, it was as beautiful as the rest of her. It moderated itself against Lucky's ear and he felt a shiver in his stomach.

"Y'er at the base, kid! You guys got shot down and the Cap hisself saved yer ass!" Dos grinned. "Cute as it is, it wouldn't have done much good in enemy hands."

"Enemy?" but her voice was already fading.

Lucky stood and looked over Dos's shoulder. He couldn't help the hurt that washed over him, though he didn't kow the cause. "Just rest now, kid," he spoke gruffly, and a bit angrily. "You can talk later."

Darkened eyes like some forgotten land, flickered to his, confusion in their depths, and something... something distant, relief? "Mason.." a soft sigh and those eyes closed while a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

Dos chuckled and patted her hand. "Just do what the doc orders and you'll be back on board. Holy shit, Lucky, I can't believe it. He's awake. Isn't that just so cool? I'm gonna go tell Owens!" and before Lucky could stop him, the young man had run out of the room.

Her eyes were slits, almost closed, with dark bands of iris under each row of lashes. The smile remained and Lucky reached out for her hand.

But he hesitated. She was awake. And he wasn't sure if he should be forming attachments. Because this particular attachment might turn and stab you in the back, like she had to Justice Ivenson.

Returning his hand to his side, he rubbed it absently and turned, going back to his bed in a worse mood than when he'd woken up.