sakon76

The newest story in the Alliterative Arc that

sandpanther and I are writing. The first two stories in the arc can be found here with the others that haven't been finished/polished yet being posted on our journals. This piece refers specifically to A Human Heart (see linked page), Crystalline Chaos (see

hoshikage's journal), Reflections in Rhapsody (posted here earlier) and Of Kids and Kittens (a not-yet-posted work in progress by

sandpanther). Also, episodes 29 and 31. Hope you enjoy.

The man who lay on the bed was very old, even by modern standards. He'd outlived his friends, his contemporaries, even many of their children and some of their grandchildren. The man who sat beside him was, legally, a few years younger. Only legally.

"Ryuu-san," the seated man whispered, his companion's hand clasped between his. His eyes were full of tears but none had yet spilled.

The man on the bed smiled and shook his head slightly. "No. There's nothing you can do this time, Mirai."

"I can't lose you," the other said desperately.

"Yes, you can," the dying man said serenely. "It happens all the time, to my kind and yours. Most of the time in far worse ways."

Mirai's head dropped so that all Ryuu could see was silver-white hair. The pressure on his hand grew momentarily, then finally Mirai nodded.

"We knew this was coming," Ryuu said softly. "We always knew. I regret nothing." He paused. "Well, except not being able to go on with you," he amended softly, squeezing Mirai's hand affectionately. His partner... lover... best friend... everything, really, looked back up at him. "I'm human, Mirai. We're not meant to go on forever."

"'Beauty is fleeting'," Mirai murmured. "'That's part of what makes things beautiful in the first place. The snow will melt, so enjoy it while you can'."

Ryuu breathed a laugh. "Not fair," he complained. "That was over a hundred years ago. How can you remember that?"

"I remember everything, Ryuu-san. I made sure to. So that after you were gone, I'd at least have that."

"You promise me you'll be okay?" Ryuu asked.

Mirai shook his head. "No."

"Mirai...."

"I won't be stupid, Ryuu-san. I'll live. But I will never, ever, be 'okay' again." Mirai's tears finally spilled free as his voice choked. The part of them that was invisible, a connection to one another on a level entirely separate from flesh and blood and bone, curled tightly together, shuddering with misery and imminent loss.

"Shh," Ryuu soothed, reaching up with a hand that shook, brushing away tears with a gentle thumb. "Your problem is that you /know/ too much. It hurts your ability to believe."

"What do you believe?" Mirai asked.

Ryuu smiled. "Things will be all right. You'll see. The universe let us find each other for a reason."

Mirai only shook his head numbly.

Ryuu breathed a sigh of annoyance and let his head drop back down onto the pillow again. "I love you," he said, opening his eyes.

"I love you, Ryuu-san," Mirai replied. Ryuu smiled tiredly and closed his eyes again. It wasn't long until the soft beeping in the background changed to a quiet hum.

"I love you, Ryuu-san," Mirai repeated, pressing a kiss to the hand he held and another to the forehead of the man in the bed, who only looked to be sleeping. In the places where they'd long been curled together, entwined in one another's beings, he was already cold and empty. He smoothed Ryuu's hair back one more time, placed his arm by his side, looked back once more, and left the room.

The party that rose when he returned to the waiting room was small: George and Marina's oldest daughter, now an old woman herself; Konomi's third granddaughter, who had always been close to her grand-uncles; Teppei's son, who watched his own son bustle now to pronounce the death.

"Uncle," Reiko said softly as Mirai approached. She held an envelope in her hands. "He gave this to me to give you after...."

He took the envelope, noted his name on it, written in Ryuu's elegant calligraphy, written in the Ultra script Ryuu had spent a century trying to master. It was a thick envelope, with a long letter inside, and photographs, and legal paperwork that blurred as he looked at it. They'd both known he wouldn't stay long on Earth after Ryuu died. There were too many memories, and too many other worlds that needed an Ultra to protect them. Perhaps by throwing himself into what needed to be done Mirai would be able not to forget, but to have the pain of what was gone ease a little.

A white card fluttered to the floor. Mirai bent to pick it up, turned it over to read.

"Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die."

Alone, in the company of those who loved him, Mirai cried.

*

Some days Mirai despaired of ever understanding Earth culture and getting the nuances right. Too many of his journal entries, in his opinion, began with the words "Earthlings are strange." And he knew it wasn't /their/ fault, that it was /his/, he was the outsider... but he still failed too often for his liking.

So he tried to fix his mistakes when he could. A small wrapped box at the captain's terminal the morning after his birthday party, containing coffee beans. A self-imposed course of study on what humans considered appropriate food for each meal, and learning how to cook them. An invitation to Ryuu to spend his next day off however he liked, no picnics involved. Subtle apologies all, and he hoped they were understood. Every mistake he realized and corrected, after all, was one less mistake that he would make again.

Ryuu browsed Mirai's bookcase as Mirai sketched, quick fletches of pencil against paper gradually forming and shading the apple that sat on the desk before him. Two dimensions mutated into three through the interplay of light and dark. "History," Ryuu muttered quietly, finger hovering just shy of the books' spines, "landscaping, memoir, travelogue, solar energy harvesting techniques, geo-thermal engineering, men's fashion?" His voice rose slightly, a question, on the last. Mirai looked up. Ryuu just shook his head, though, and continued on with his exploration. "Cookbook, human anatomy, origami, GunPhoenix manual... what's this?" He fished out a volume, but his body blocked Mirai from seeing it.

"What's what, Ryuu-san?"

Ryuu turned and displayed a plain navy blue volume, one eyebrow raised in silent query.

"Oh. My journal," Mirai said dismissively, turning back to his drawing, comparing it to the real thing. "You can read it if you like."

"You'd... let me read it?" Ryuu sounded surprised.

Mirai looked back up. "Ryuu-san." He reached out with the energy that Ryuu could not see, caressed the one who was already the better half of his self. "There's nothing in me to keep from you."

*

His own kind, Moebius knew, waking from the dream, could feel the gaping raw pain in him that was the knowledge that the one person who mattered the most to him was forever gone. For the most part they respected his loss. Those few who didn't, who thought it was his own fault for loving a mayfly human, shortly learned to stay clear of him.

He'd hoped, on his return to the world of his birth, to receive another assignment immediately, but no such grace had been forthcoming. The Ultra Father had wanted him to bide with them a time, to instruct some of the younger Ultra just entering the Garrison as to what planet-side duty might hold for them. His students all seemed to have a worshipful respect for him that embarrassed Moebius. He wondered, but didn't /think/ he'd been so bad when Tarou had initially agreed to train him.

//It's because you've been on Earth,// Hikari told him during the scientist's brief return to the Ultra Star himself. //You've spent a lifetime there. Their lifetime. They think you understand humans.//

Moebius sent a wave of disbelief to his friend, who had only chuckled. //You're one of the ones who bonded with a human; they should give you that respect. I only lived with them.//

//You lived with them longer than any of the rest of us ever did,// Hikari replied. //And none of us ever loved one the way you did. Your understanding is better than you think.//

Still, all of Moebius' days held a certain same numbness to them as he trained and taught, studied himself, and waited for his next assignment. His feelings ran in slow circles, the grooves worn growing no more comforting for their familiarity. Ryuu had never come here, to the World of Light, and Moebius had seldom returned during the century he'd been the Ultra assigned to guard Earth. But the lack of shared memories, he found, didn't make anything easier; he had always known Ryuu was curious about his homeworld and would have liked to visit it. He kept turning now to where Ryuu should have been, to share with him something new, to point out something he thought Ryuu would like.

But Ryuu was never there.

//Do you really want to leave here?// Hikari asked.

Moebius mutely nodded.

//Ryuu was never here,// Hikari said quietly, questioning.

//All I do here is the same thing,// Moebius answered. //They're bright enough and eager enough, but I can't lose myself in them. Everything I'm teaching them reminds me of him.//

//Do you think anywhere you go will be different?//

Moebius shook his head. //No. But if there's something different, something new for me to do, maybe it will stop me from thinking so much.// It felt disloyal, to want to stop thinking of Ryuu for even just a moment. But he'd promised to go on, and he knew that if he couldn't find a way to live in the moment as well as with the memories, he'd end up going mad.

Hikari just looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. //I'll see if I can do anything.//

Two days later, Zoffy gave Moebius another assignment.

*

The people of Barandia looked very little like humans, save for their bipediality, and Moebius easily joined one of the nomadic tribes, a wandering hunter-gatherer. It was a very different life from any he'd lived yet, and he absorbed himself in learning their ways, in studying the land and its bounty, at learning good food from poison. As Arak'na'kash, he could almost forget the name Hibino Mirai and all that had gone with it. Like the Ultra, the Barandians mated only once, for life. His tribe thought him a widower, and respected his quiet deep mourning.

His new, adopted people feared the rare appearances of Moebius almost as much as they feared the monsters he defended them from. But though they were largely a timid folk, he found he enjoyed their peaceful simplicity. He learned to sing with them, and to play the hand-drums to accompany their dances. He studied the weaving they did on portable looms, and minded children with an alacrity that relieved harried mothers. He tried to make himself useful, and found that it made him feel better, even if the dreams of Ryuu and his life as Mirai did not abate. Eventually, it became not more than once a day that he turned to the presence that was no longer there, and turned away broken-hearted again.

Eventually there came a time when he had to transform before one of his tribe to save her. Ala'ka'quem, only a child, fled and reported it to the members of the tribal council. When he reappeared, tired and injured in his left shoulder, the elders spoke with him, and while they did allow him to explain himself, in the end their judgment was the same. To protect their tribe, they banished him. Moebius submitted to their decree and quietly left.

After several months of protecting the tribe from afar, he chanced to meet Ala'ka'quem again, both of them gathering food against the winter. She froze momentarily and so did he, but rather than fleeing as Moebius had expected, Ala'ka hesitantly approached him and apologized. It loosened something inside of Moebius, and they spent the rest of the afternoon talking as they gathered halas'q'va together. He'd still followed their tribe at a distance, and admitted to watching their evening fires from afar. She was more curious than most of her kin, and he and Ala'ka eventually become friends as he told her stories of the worlds beyond the sky. She came not to fear Moebius, and while he couldn't go to her wedding feast when it happened, he was able to elude her clan and leave a finely woven (or so he thought) grass mat as a gift for her.

Two summers later, she came to him one day with the news that her spouse had been gored to death in a hunt. Her deep pink eyes, raw with pain, had studied him and she sang softly, "Now I think I understand you," before leaving again.

They met many times over the years as she rose to lead her tribe, and when she died he dared to come openly to her pyre and meet the eyes of her nephew, who took her place on the council. To his surprise, Ash'ka'vardi met his eyes evenly, and nodded in acknowledgement.

*

Eventually, the wave of monsters attacking Barandia lessened enough that another of his kin, younger and with less experience, was sent to the planet instead. Moebius realized Zoffy's subtle touch in the implicit recall orders and after a few days showing his replacement the ropes, he left quietly, returning home.

As he had expected, upon his return he was once again put in charge of teaching youngsters. Zoffy appeared before him shortly thereafter and asked obliquely if Moebius was angry at him for the duty.

//No,// Moebius replied, shaking his head. He wasn't; Barandia had given him enough time to mourn and to heal the ragged edges of himself. He was in control of himself again, not bleeding pain the way he'd been the last time he had returned to the Ultra Star. //Teaching them is what I need to do right now. It's the right place for me to be.//

Zoffy had nodded and the rest of their conversation had been brief.

In teaching, Moebius hadn't thought he would have that much to pass on. He still felt himself to be young and inexperienced, unworthy of training others. He wasn't as good or brave or wise as his brothers, didn't have Leo's martial arts skills or the Ultra Mother's healing ability. Fighting had never come as easily as him as it reputedly had to Tarou, and he didn't have the depth of experience or the reputation that many of the others did. He bore no Star Marks of honor. But somehow, either young Ultra had become younger or he had become older, because he found he did indeed have a lot to teach them. They were so young, so inexperienced, so eager.

They were like the children of the Barandians.

They were like the children of Konomi's preschool.

He taught them to fight as best he could, and passed them on to other masters. He taught them what to expect, that some would fear them and some would adore them, and with any luck they'd make friends on other worlds. He told them that those friends should be their strength.

Once in a while, when his students asked about love and loss, he told them about that too.

*

Theoretically there were certain areas of the Phoenix Nest into which Mirai, a civilian now, was no longer allowed, the Operations Room being one of them.

Mirai never had been very good with those kind of rules, Ryuu thought as he entered the room and saw a note waiting for him at his station. Or, rather, Mirai delighted in finding ways around the rules. He wasn't sure if Mirai actually physically snuck into the operations room (and the break room... and the Laser Phoenix... and the weapons lockers...) or if he dematerialized to leave his notes and gifts for Ryuu to find. He supposed to a certain extent it didn't matter. Mirai had been there anyway, and if he ever wanted back into GUYS it wasn't like Ryuu or the top brass were going to deny him for a heartbeat.

He opened the note and puzzled through its contents to find that it was a reminder that Mirai had invited family over for tea that afternoon and to not forget to show up. A short menu was written underneath in Japanese and Ryuu blinked to see that omurice was included. He just smiled, though, and folded the note, tucking it into a pocket as the first members of his team showed up for their shifts.

He wondered which of Mirai's relations it was that liked omurice.

*

Human technology didn't seem to have changed too much in the three centuries he'd been away from Earth, Mirai thought, touching a glass of water to his lips and sipping slowly as he watched the rainbow lights flicker across the dancers below. Pure water was a luxury on Mars, liquid usually relegated to a condensed syrupy form that had no taste. He indulged himself, ignoring the faint metallic tang. After a while it had become easy, as the coppery sensation was in the recycled air as well. It was just another background note in this indoor planet.

He'd thought that being back among humans, even after so long a sojourn away from them, would have been hard. But the time between seemed to have faded the pain, and he'd become Hibino Mirai, using again the form of a young man who had long ago nobly sacrificed himself to save others. Being pure Japanese was somewhat rare on Mars, but not unheard of. Learning to speak Basic and fit in again had been more challenging; he still found himself slipping into Old Japanese once in a while. A century's habits were hard to break.

Ayala, his teammate in MADT, was caught momentarily in a spotlight as she whirled to the wild music. A smile touched Mirai's mouth as he watched. She'd been the one who had dragged him to this club, and though he'd protested, he didn't now regret going along with her plan. There was a certain energy to the crowd that couldn't help but make him glad to be alive. He thought momentarily of his empty quarters, where he'd be otherwise, and of the small cream-colored cat named Momo who shared them with him. Since his cats had always been pets--mostly gifts from Ryuu--it seemed somehow cruel to him that some of the native-born Martians considered cats to be mine canaries and used them to detect leaks and infestations. It was nice to have one again, though.

The thought of Ryuu, as always, brought forth a faint phantom pain, and Mirai closed his eyes momentarily. He had the sudden desire to write Ryuu's name, as he'd not done for centuries, to lose himself for a night in the lines and curves of memory.... No. Mirai steadied himself, straightened, and opened his eyes. Ryuu was gone but not forgotten, not by himself. That presence and memory was his strength, a warmth in the cold, a light in dark places.

He returned the empty cup to the bartender, and made his way down crowded stairs to the dance floor to join the flashing braids that Ayala threw mercilessly back and forth in the air.

And froze, as he felt an energy brush against his, sweet and hot and /familiar/ as it matched and filled up patterns in himself long since empty.

On the far edge of the dance floor, another person froze, stillness incongruent with the music and dancing forms around him, then slowly turned to look across the distance between them.

*

It was hard to see through the mist from the fog machines and the flashing lights that colored the crowd and air, but Ryuuji /knew/, beyond a doubt, who the person standing stupidly frozen by the stairs had to be. He thought he'd known the first moment he'd seen Ultraman Moebius on the holoscreen, protecting the Arandas settlement from a monster (Bemstar, something in him had whispered), that this moment would be coming.

/I didn't expect you to still look like Mirai,/ he thought numbly. Because Moebius had been Mirai in his dreams, in the dreams he half-remembered that had driven him to learn an old Earth language. He'd also studied the fragments of what they knew of the Ultra tongue, making leaps of logic and insight and uncanny knowledge of the latter that had stunned his teachers. (Somewhere, he'd joked, maybe in another life, he'd learned the language to an almost native detail.)

Maya and Phil, with whom he'd been dancing, tried to pull him back into the embrace of the music, but he shook his head and walked away from them, toward Mirai.

He'd never told them, never told anyone about the dreams. He'd been too ashamed of being different, of knowing old things that no one needed to know anymore, of sensing things that most other humans couldn't, and not wanted to end up in the Mars Registry as a Gifted. He'd stuffed Aihara Ryuu's life to the back of his mind as best he could, during tests and schooling, feeling only the numb resignation of inevitability when he'd been told his parents had been lost in a red sandstorm. But now he could feel shock, astonishment, even wonder, and he knew none of it was his.

He noted the MADT uniform Mirai wore, and wasn't surprised. The dreams, it seemed, had been real. And if his stomach was tied up in knots and his body felt far away as he took those last few steps, a ringing in his ears that had nothing to do with the volume of the music, it all seemed to fade away to clarity as he and Mirai stared at one another.

Mirai spoke first. "Ryuu...san?" he asked hesitantly, the name accompanied by an aborted caress of energy. As though he was afraid Ryuuji was some kind of hallucination.

At the moment, Ryuuji wasn't sure he wasn't. Who was real, himself or Aihara Ryuu? "I thought you were a dream," he told the Ultra in human form.

Mirai looked stunned for a second. "Then...."

"He came back as me, I think," Ryuuji said. Then, enjoying Mirai's flabbergasted look, he smirked and remarked, "What, you think I'd let you get in trouble by yourself?"

Mirai's eyes flew wide. "Ryuu-san," he whispered, and Ryuuji realized he'd just said a very Aihara Ryuu remark.

But then, it wasn't like they were different people, was it? Because either Ryuuji or Ryuu, he'd fallen in love with Mirai a long time ago. He smiled and extended his hand. "Have you learned how to dance?" Mirai nodded. "Then dance with me."

And when Mirai took his hand, the things that had seemed off or discordant in Sorano Ryuuji's life shuddered into place, and he knew what he was, and who he belonged with.

*

The first time Ryuuji ever went inside Mirai's quarters, he petted the cat, looked at the screen and holo of Mars with a feeling of deja vu, and stopped cold as he saw the small shrine set up atop a bulkhead. A stethoscope coiled around a soccer ball, a toy motorcycle, and an origami rabbit. In front of them a stick of incense had burned to ash in its holder, the faint scent still lingering in the air. A small cup of pure water sat next to it, and as Ryuuji looked more closely--yes, there behind the toy bike was a glass jar half-filled with coffee beans.

"Ryuuji-san?" Mirai, holding his cat in the crook of one arm, looked concerned.

"I don't even want to know how you got all that," Ryuuji said. Then, curious, he asked "Nothing for him?"

Mirai looked reluctant for a moment, then set the cat down on his bunk and thumbed open the top two buttons of his shirt. From beneath it he drew out a simple chain that held two rings. One was a simple flat band of platinum with a single half-twist. The other was a gold ring with dragons carved into its sides.

Ryuuji stopped breathing for a moment. "You...."

"They were the only things I took with me," Mirai said quietly.

*

//How is this possible?// Moebius questioned Ultra Mother and Ultra Father, reaching telepathically across space to touch the two shining presences that knew so much more than he. Their energies overlapped, twined together in a pattern very similar to the one he had shared with Ryuu. The one he shared now with Ryuuji, who he'd reluctantly left at the door to his own quarters not that long ago.

//Nothing is ever lost,// Ultra Father replied.

//Destined meetings will occur regardless of what others may think best,// Ultra Mother concurred. //The wise do not try to fight them.//

//You knew he was here,// Moebius realized. //That's why....//

//Yes,// she agreed, and looked at her husband. //Regardless of species, one's own heart always makes one stronger.//

//Do all humans reincarnate?// Moebius asked.

//Everything comes back,// Ultra Father replied. //Ultra as well as humans, in many forms.//

//Even monsters,// Moebius remembered.

//Even them,// Ultra Father agreed. //Which is why we stay to fight.//

Moebius bowed his head humbly, feeling Ryuuji drifting in sleep not too far away. //Thank you,// he whispered. There was a wordless caress of affection from Ultra Mother, and one of gentle pride from Ultra Father, and they quietly withdrew from the connection, leaving Mirai sitting close-eyed at his desk, a cat on his lap and many wonderings in his head.

*

Of the two of them, Mirai was by far the better cook. But for some inexplicable reason, he liked Ryuu's food better. This explained why Ryuu made sure he cooked dinner roughly half the time. It did not explain why he refused to wear any of the succession of aprons that hung on a hook in their kitchen. Mirai did, even the frilly pink one that made him look like some kind of parody of a housewife. He didn't understand why Ryuu found that one particularly ridiculous, but then they didn't have the same cultural background. Ryuu's complete refusal to wear any of the aprons stymied him as well.

"Why not, Ryuu-san?" he pestered, sitting on a stool and watching Ryuu efficiently chop lettuce into a salad.

"A master chef," Ryuu said, paying attention to his work, "can prepare an entire meal and not get a smudge on him. You should know that--isn't one of your brothers a chef?" Mirai nodded. "While I'm not a master, I'm still good enough not to need an apron. Therefore, I refuse to wear one." He flipped the knife in his hand and used its spine to brush the shredded leaves into a bowl. "What I don't understand is why you use one."

"In case of accident," Mirai replied promptly. He tilted his head to one side, looking beyond Ryuu. "Ryuu-san, the pot's about to boil over."

Ryuu turned and moved the pot to an unused burner for a moment, turning down the flame on its original burner before returning it. "Thank you."

"You're sure I can't help?" Mirai asked.

"You cooked last night. Tonight's my turn." Ryuu picked up a spoon from its rest and stirred the sauce, testing a sip experimentally. Just a little more salt, he decided.

"Thank you, Ryuu-san."

The warmth that was Mirai's happiness was reward enough for the cooking endeavors.

*

For nearly two weeks, Ryuuji resisted the thought that he should leave the Engineering Corps and apply to join MADT. He wasn't Ryuu, he thought vehemently even as he spent time with Mirai each off-shift and became closer and closer to him. He didn't have to be in the defense force. He was doing good, necessary work where he was. He /liked/ his job.

Then he watched helplessly on the holo as Birdon poisoned Moebius and the Ultra disappeared.

It was a race between his feet and his heart to get to one of the docking bays, to get a suit and stash an extra into the rover he checked out, putting the pedal to the metal to get to where he /knew/ Mirai lay in the red Martian dirt, in pain. Just because the idiot /could/ survive the surface didn't mean he was able to come back by himself.

Mirai's pale, dusty face was beaded with fresh sweat as Ryuuji bundled him into the rover. He started shivering and gasping for air as soon as the canopy was resealed. They were met at the bay by Huntingdon, Mirai's CO, who nodded his thanks to Ryuuji and had the medics settle Mirai in medbay.

Ryuuji turned in his resignation and application both the next morning. The speed with which the latter was approved didn't surprise the part of him that remembered another captain who also knew pertinent secrets. His first day in MADT was spent in the infirmary, ostensibly reading a training manual while waiting for Mirai to wake. In reality, less than five pages were turned all day as he examined whether or not he'd finally gone mad, suddenly turning his life upside down like this for a complete stranger.

It was late in the evening before Mirai woke, still flushed with fever. He blinked his way muzzily awake as Ryuuji set aside the book and leaned forward, taking one of Mirai's hands. "Ryuu...ji-san?" Mirai asked, remembering to tack on the second half of Ryuuji's name, as he'd been trying to in deference to who Ryuuji was.

"Do I look like him?" Ryuuji asked quietly.

Mirai just looked at him for a moment, then quietly nodded.

Ryuuji breathed a laugh and straightened a little. "I'd always wondered," he explained, "ever since I figured out they might be more than dreams."

"I'm sorry," Mirai apologized.

"It's stupid," Ryuuji said, shaking his head. "I know he's me, but somehow I end up jealous of him. Because he had you first." He laughed a little and tried not to let it sound bitter. "There's a saying about 'beware the endowments of a widow's first husband'."

Confusion crossed Mirai's face for a few minutes until he figured out what Ryuuji meant. "It doesn't matter, Ryuuji-san," he said quietly, then squeezed Ryuuji's hand when he tried to protest. "Whether you're Ryuu or Ryuuji or whoever you may be in the future, you're the same person. We just move though time in different ways. If /I/ came back as someone else, would that change how you felt?"

"No," Ryuuji whispered, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "You know it wouldn't."

Golden energy caressed him, warm, comforting.

"Idiot," he whispered, "don't do that. Save your strength for getting better."

"I already am," Mirai replied, sappy idiot that he was. "I found you."

*

Life would be very close to perfect, Ryuu thought muzzily as he rolled over, resisting opening his eyes just yet, if only he and Mirai had anything resembling matching sleep schedules. Because on mornings like this, when they didn't /have/ to be in the operations room bright and early, it would be very nice to just lay in bed, half-asleep, and enjoy one another's presence. But the space to his left, in a bed which was generally too small for two people unless they enjoyed being cozy, which luckily he and Mirai did, was not only empty but cool to the touch.

Brightness touched at the verge of his mind, sensing he was awake. Ryuu half-swatted at it, denying that he was--but Mirai only laughed at his grumpiness and gave the mental promise of heading to the commissary soon for breakfast and would Ryuu like him to bring back some toast and juice?

In spite of himself Ryuu smiled and gave his assent, feeling the phantom sensation of solar warmth that let him know Mirai had indeed been on the roof of the Phoenix Nest basking in the sunrise. Cracking one eye open, he faced the day just enough to realize he was in Mirai's room, and closed his eye again, trying to remember if he had a full uniform here or not.

They'd begun taking over one another's rooms slowly, a jacket left here, a spare pair of socks there, a book one was in the process of reading left in the other's room. Shared keys or not, it was starting to progress to the point of annoyance because often enough when Ryuu was looking for something in particular it ended up being in Mirai's room. Which, together with Mirai's apparent need for roughly half the sleep Ryuu required, was leading him to some thoughts about the matter.

Soon enough he heard the key in the lock and feigned sleep as Mirai came into the room, bearing a tray that had the faint smell of breakfast about it. "Good morning, Ryuu-san!" Mirai said cheerily, setting the tray down on his desk. On not receiving a response, he asked "Ryuu-san?" Ryuu heard him move closer and bit back the urge to smile. Mirai knelt down next to the bed and gently poked Ryuu in the shoulder, asking "Ryuu-san?" again as a worried flutter brushed against Ryuu's mind.

Ryuu opened one eye. "Have you ever considered a career as a cabana boy?" he asked.

It took a moment for the meaning to sink in, but when it did, Mirai's eyes flew wide and he looked horrified. Only looked, Ryuu knew; inside, he could feel Mirai laughing. "Ryuu-san!"

Ryuuji woke from the dream disquieted, as always, his identity swimming as he fought to separate out /that/ life and /this/ one, a task not made easier by the fact that Mirai knelt by his bedside, looking concerned. "Ryuuji-san?" he asked.

As if Mirai's voice had been a catalyst, the tangle of sensations around Ryuuji's body suddenly made sense, and he realized he hurt rather a lot. Fortunately it all seemed to be far off from him. There had been Dinozaur, and then a landslide... he looked up and saw an IV drip probably filled with blessed pain-numbing chemicals. And it was attached to him.

It took a moment, but Ryuuji finally remembered how to speak. "Cabana boy," he said, trying to tease because if he wasn't distracted then Mirai would worry and worse, he'd angst.

The corners of Mirai's eyes crinkled in confusion, then he caught on, his eyes widening. He smiled.

*

In one sense, Mirai knew, Ryuuji had known him all his life. They'd been friends and partners and lovers for most of Ryuu's lifetime, and Ryuuji had been dreaming those memories for all of his. But in another sense, despite how their selves curled around each other, despite the sure knowledge Ryuuji had of Mirai's love, they were still strangers, and Ryuuji was very young, younger than Ryuu had ever been. Maybe Ryuu had been as cautious and hesitant at seventeen, Mirai admitted; it hadn't been until Ryuu was twenty that they'd met. And Mirai was much older now than he'd been when he and Ryuu were trying to overcome the differences between them and make their relationship work, so it wasn't like certain distances weren't even greater between them now than they had been then.

But still, he didn't quite understand the ebb and flow of Ryuuji's feelings. Sometimes Ryuuji wanted nothing more than to touch, to hold them together, to be one and stay that way, strong forever. Sometimes Ryuuji resented the bond between them, to never having any freedom of choice in who he loved. Sometimes he felt horribly guilty about that resentment and wanted to make it up to Mirai. And sometimes he felt keenly the pain of his isolation, and the knowledge that it was because of the bond with Mirai that he'd been different all his life.

Mirai wanted to apologize for everything. He hadn't known, then, that loving a human would affect Ryuu through all his future incarnations, would change him and make him a little more like an Ultra, a little less like a human. He would never be able to make up for the pain that he had caused his most important person. But at the same time, he knew he would never, could never choose differently. Because Ryuu or Ryuuji, that person was his heart.

"Oh, for God's sake, just sleep with him already," Tony advised over lunch one day. Ryuuji was not talking to Mirai again, except in their minds. Mirai could always feel Ryuuji, who didn't have the experience yet to dampen the bond between them.

"Tony-san!" Mirai protested in shock. Not that he didn't want to--touching Ryuu had always momentarily transcended the bounds of flesh and let them each /be/, at once both themselves and the circle of union which they were together--but it had been a very long time and he was not going to impose that upon the situation between them now until it felt stabler.

"Look," Tony replied, pointing at Mirai with his fork, "you want him. He wants you. It's that simple."

Mirai looked away and said quietly, "It used to be."

"Huh?"

"Nothing," Mirai said, looking back at his teammate. He looked at the remaining spaghetti on his plate and decided he was done eating. "I'll talk with you later."

*

Other people didn't dream of their past lives every night, Ryuuji grumbled to himself as he climbed into his hammock. They dreamt of normal things, of rat plagues or rainbows or converations with trout. But for him, ever since he could remember, he'd been dreaming of life as Aihara Ryuu. And ever since Mirai had come back into his life--come INTO his life, he corrected himself; they'd only met two months before--the dreams had taken on a razor-sharp quality, to the point where he was starting to confuse them with his actual memories.

Not that Mirai, the gentle, generally approving warmth hovering in his mind all the time, would find anything wrong with that, he muttered--then felt immediately guilty, knowing that Mirai had no ulterior intentions, loved him just as he was, without trying to turn him back into Aihara Ryuu.

If Mirai was listening, Ryuuji couldn't tell; he sighed and closed his eyes, trying to relax and sleep.

Ryuu had thought about it, then decided that he'd know when the moment came to exact his revenge on Mirai. He'd known it wouldn't be in the first few days after Mirai had (more or less, given that he'd been noncorporeal at the time) seduced him and inadverdently opened the bond between them wider. Things had still been new and raw between them again and they accidentally did the psychic equivalent of tripping one another or banging elbows for a few days until they each began to get a handle on how deeply entwined together they were and how to dampen things down. Mirai, of course, managed it faster than Ryuu. And then there was the fact that most of the time they were around their teammates and while Ryuu didn't trust Mirai to have any sense of embarrassment about such things, /he/ certainly didn't want his sex life to be breakroom talk.

But he thought they were used to one another enough again that he might be able to make good on his threat and let Mirai know how it felt on the human end of sex. His research material certainly couldn't have escaped Mirai's notice--one of the downsides of their bond--but Mirai at least had had the good sense not to ask.

Even with the reading and diagrams and pictures, though, Ryuu knew it was going to be a learning experience for both of them. He wasn't about to claim virginity--a couple of encounters with willing partners had long taken care of that--but he'd never slept with another man before, and the anatomy and care thereof was distinctly different from that of a woman. If it wasn't Mirai, he knew, it was probably an avenue he'd never have travelled down his entire life. But it was Mirai, and so he'd done his research and his preparations against what he realized, knew, and hoped to be an inevitability. And, he thought with a smirk, the psychic bond he shared with Mirai would actually be an asset for this kind of thing. After all, it was a definite way to know what pleased one's partner....

Mirai, who probably knew what was in Ryuu's thoughts, only smiled brightly at him and looked back up at the sky. The moon was new, the industrial light pollution wasn't too bad, and there were a fair amount of stars out. The Ultra Star, where Mirai was from, seemed to glow more brightly in Ryuu's sight than the rest, but that was probably just Mirai's influence, he thought sardonically.

/Negation/ shimmered forth from Mirai, but then a hesitancy and a wondering if that was possible.

Ryuu smirked. /Kidding,/ he sent back, and his hand found Mirai's on the railing. They curled around one another, the way Mirai claimed their energy--their /ki/--was curled around one another. Ryuu couldn't tell if that was so or not, but found the imagery comforting. Mirai's hand shifted, their fingers interlacing, and Ryuu immediately felt like they were back in elementary school, holding hands on a play-date... but this was Mirai and the momentary embarrassment flowed back into acceptance. Even if anyone was there to see them, Ryuu thought, there was no way he could feel ashamed of loving Mirai.

Though if George made any more cracks like that first one, he would feel absolutely no hesitation in punching him again....

Mirai's emotions bubbled against him as Mirai shook, holding laughter in. "Ryuu-san!" he finally chided.

"He deserved it," Ryuu retorted, but smiled himself. He held Mirai's hand a little tighter for a second, then looked out over the railing again, not wanting to see Mirai's face on the off-chance he refused. "Stay with me tonight?" he invited.

Mirai became very quiet, body and mind both. Worried, Ryuu quickly looked back at him. Mirai's fingers tightened on his, though, and a balm of quiet happiness washed forth over the both of them. "Yes," Mirai said softly.

Ryuuji thrashed awake, nearly falling out of his swinging, swaying bed as he stared up at the ceiling, half-expecting to see stars there, to feel a warm hand curling around his.... His left hand cradled his right, tried to soothe away the phantom touch of fingers that were only a dream. A dream of a man who had died over three hundred years ago, he reminded himself as he did whenever he felt himself slipping too close into being Aihara Ryuu. No matter that they both loved Mirai, that one was the reincarnation of the other, he couldn't let himself be that person. Because if he did, he'd lose who he was, immolating himself in the love and memories of a ghost. Aihara Ryuu was /dead/.

He swiped angrily at his eyes, roughly wiping away tears because the dream was so fresh and he could feel anew how much Ryuu--he--had loved Mirai, how things had been so easy between them. How Mirai would have and did give Ryuu anything he wanted, because he was just stupid like that and nothing had been more important to him than his one precious person. How Ryuu had shaken off something as integral as his own sexuality for that love.

He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, knowing he'd been up far too long and that was why things were affecting him so badly. Still, a part of Ryuuji wanted very very much for things to be like that between them again, to not be holding Mirai at arms' length for things that he knew intellectually were only peripherally Mirai's fault. To let things be right and easy again....

*

Mirai stared at his blank monitor and bit his lip, expression pained.

"Mirai?" Ayala asked. "You okay?"

Mirai looked up at her and in his expression she saw unhappiness. But he just shook his head in the negative. "It will be all right, Ayala-san," he replied, as formal as ever. "I hope."

*

When Mirai finally managed to corner him and asked "Ryuuji-san, will you have dinner with me tonight?" Ryuuji had no idea what was going through Mirai's head and thus little choice but to agree in order to find out.

Somehow he didn't expect to end up in a Chinese eatery, watching Mirai as Mirai watched the waiters bustle about, bringing forth bowls of soup, platters of wontons, plates of spiced duck. Mirai smiled brightly at Ryuuji, then looked at the menu, which was written in Cantonese and Basic. "Do you know what's good, Ryuuji-san?" he asked.

Ryuuji hesitated before asking suspiciously, "Have you eaten here before?"

Mirai shook his head in the negative. "Never."

"Then why...." Ryuuji let the question die.

"Because Maya-san said you liked it," Mirai answered.

Ryuuji snapped his menu shut and signalled to their waitress. As she came over, datapad and pen already in hand, he asked Mirai "Do you want me to order for you?" He barely waited for Mirai's affirmative response before switching languages and ordering appetizers, soup, three main dishes, steamed rice, and dessert for the both of them. Mirai's eyes were wide by the time Ryuuji finished and looked back at him. Belatedly, Ryuuji realized that Ryuu had never been that good with foreign languages, excepting one.

But Mirai didn't seem to fault him for the difference, admiration shining in his eyes. "You speak Chinese?" he asked.

Ryuuji nodded. "Cantonese, among others." Seven, counting the Ultra language. "You?"

Mirai actually counted them off on his fingers. "Five."

"Only five?" Ryuuji was surprised. "But all those planets...."

"Ryuuji-san." Mirai's gaze was even. "I was only sent to one other world."

"Why?" Mindful of their setting, Ryuuji kept his voice low. "Three hundred years...."

Mirai toyed with his cup. "After Ryuu-san died, I went home and tried to teach for a while, but I wasn't that good of a teacher. I was sent to a planet called Barandia instead, then brought back when I was better. Then I was sent here."

There were so many things missing from that three-sentence summary of three centuries that Ryuuji couldn't even begin to count them. Not the least of them, though, was the fact that Mirai was clamping down so tightly on the link between them that it might as well not have existed.

//What aren't you telling me?// he asked. Mirai's eyes widened a fraction at the contact. //Why aren't you telling me?// he pressed on.

Mirai toyed with his cup some more, looked away. "I thought you didn't want to know," he murmured, and the comment caught in Ryuuji's throat as he realized how he'd been acting, and how Mirai had interpreted it.

After dinner they went out to the surface, jaunting just far enough away from the city to leave it behind a ridge and watch Phobos rise. They were both quiet for a time, having exhausted work talk over dinner and by a mutual agreement keeping away from talk of past lives.

What was bothering him the most, Ryuuji finally acknowledged to himself as the white-gray asteroid moon broke the horizon, was not being tied to Mirai. He could live with that. He /had/ been living with it for weeks now. He accepted the fact that he had even less privacy than he would have had if a normal marriage had ever been an option. As if /normality/ had ever been an option.

He glanced over at Mirai, sitting on his own rock, staring up at the sky, and was reminded of a first date from another lifetime. "No sandwiches?" Ryuuji teased.

Startlement flashed from Mirai, and a feeling of vague questing, then a realization of what Ryuuji was referring to. "No robot monsters, either, this time," he retorted with a faint smile.

"Avert," Ryuuji agreed, casting away bad luck.

Mirai just looked at him, though, then looked down. "Ryuuji-san... if you really don't want me here, someone else can surely...."

"Did I say I didn't want you here?" Ryuuji demanded.

"You felt it," Mirai whispered, not looking up.

"Hell...." If he hadn't been in a surface suit, Ryuuji would have run a hand through his hair. "It's not like it was ever easy the first time," he offered lamely.

"I thought it was eventually," Mirai murmured.

"The /beginning/ of the first time," Ryuuji clarified, and suddenly wondered if it was going to be like this every time he came back. If things would always be difficult. If someday whoever carried the memories of /him/ would be sitting on some alien planet or space station having this conversation with Mirai. If he would ever be able to make it easier on the Ultra. "I don't not want you here. I'm just not sure who I'm supposed to be. Ryuu always knew who he was. I don't, now less than ever."

Mirai hesitated, then asked "Do you remember Floranomous?" Ryuuji nodded. "When I couldn't remember anything, not even Ryuu-san, you... he... still stayed with me. Even though he couldn't feel me any more, even though we didn't even speak the same language any more... he stayed. Even without remembering what he was to me, even without knowing who I was, I loved him for that." His dark eyes met Ryuuji's. "You're Sorano Ryuuji. You're Ryuu-san, yes, but you're also a new life of experiences and memories. I don't expect you to be exactly the same as before. You can't be. It doesn't mean I will care any less."

"Because you can't," Ryuuji pointed out. "Ultra being monogamous."

"Love is not the same as liking," Mirai pointed out. "I will always love you, but it doesn't mean I will always agree with you or even like you. Sometimes things turn out badly that way." His eyes were distant again. "We have our tales of tragedy, too. Like your Romeo and Juliet, only worse."

Ryuuji waited a minute before quietly asking "What happened while I was gone?"

Mirai looked reluctant, closed his eyes, then opened them again. A thin thread of emotion streamed from him, and Ryuuji lost his breath.

Pain, as sharp as a knife in the gut and as dull and all-pervasive as bone replacement surgery. Loneliness, an emptiness as cold as deep space. Loss everywhere, the sun gone out of the world and only a promise holding him to continuation, the knowledge that Ryuu-san would not want this making each day survivable. Waking each day knowing that there was no air to breathe, and never would be again--

"Ryuuji-san!" Hands caught him as he started to keel over, the thread of emotion cut off with a shocking abruptness. "Hold on! Breathe!"

Ryuuji looked up, at Mirai's face that had concern written all over it, and wondered how Mirai had managed to survive centuries of that horrible feeling. "Mirai," he choked, "I'm sorry...."

Mirai's expression shifted, worry slowly fading to acceptance. "Ryuuji-san, it's not your fault," he said. "It's like Ryuu-san said... we both knew that it was coming. And now, at least, I know you'll come back again."

Ryuuji shook his head, finding the words didn't come out quite right. "Not that. For shutting you out. I shouldn't have done that."

Mirai's expression was almost angelic. "It's all right, Ryuuji-san." Hesitantly the warmth of his presence touched up against Ryuuji. Ryuuji bit back a shiver, suddenly realizing how much he'd missed that touch of /ki/ against /ki./ How much he'd missed it all his life. "I haven't been that forthcoming either."

"Let's start over," Ryuuji suggested. "It's in the past."

Mirai's face lit up like the dawn. "Yes," he agreed, and his presence curled more firmly against Ryuuji's, warm and comforting and familiar. Where they both belonged.

*

When Ryuuji first felt the mild burst of surprise from Mirai, he wrote it off, engrossed in tightening nuts and bolts and essentially trying to ensure MADT's new experimental speeder wouldn't shake itself to pieces the first time some fool opened it up to its limits. Someone inevitably would (the chances were fair that it would be himself) and Ryuuji was not going to have their death on his conscience.

A hour later he was finished, wiping his hands on a rag when his stomach grumbled. He sighed, checking his internal clock and compass and finding that both pointed in the direction of the commissary. He spotted Mirai as soon as he entered the room. Mirai was sitting at one of the tables, chatting with someone Ryuuji didn't recognize. He looked up, though, as Ryuuji grabbed a tray, inviting him to join them with a brief wave of a hand and a pulse of happy/welcome/together?. Ryuuji nodded shortly and went about getting some meat and salad and bread for carbohydrates, with wobbly red jelly for dessert. There was a niggling sense in the back of his head, in those areas he generally tried to ignore, that he should know whoever Mirai was speaking with. There was warmth from the table behind him, and shimmering energy like sunlight through water, and it didn't all feel like Mirai's presence. But that was silly; the man was clearly an alien of a species Ryuuji didn't recognize, not in his own memories or in Ryuu's either.

It wasn't until he rounded the table and set his tray down next to Mirai's that the stranger's energy and identity clicked into place for Ryuuji and he froze.

The man leapt to his feet like he'd been bit, knocking his chair over and generally drawing the attention of the room to himself. He stared at Ryuuji like he'd seen a ghost. "Captain?!" he demanded loudly, his tone incredulous.

Ryuuji had a stunned, sinking feeling as he stared back. "Kitten...?" he asked numbly.

Of all the Ultra to show up on Mars....

(Finis. For now)

Soundtrack:

I'll Be There, by Escape Club
I'll Be, by Edwin McCain
One More Time, by Daft Punk
Time After Time, by Cyndi Lauper
True Colors, by Cyndi Lauper