Late V-Day Space-verse Fic: Better Than Nothing
Six days late, but it's done!
A little Unimaginable Things-verse fic, because I love me some space drama.
Holidays are a quiet thing on the Olympia.
There is Carlisle, who is so augmented and been away from Earth for so long that his classification of ‘human’ feels very much like a technicality. Once, in another life, there were a pair of children whose birthdays were celebrated with much fanfare. But those times had passed.
Edward staunchly refused to celebrate anything, arguing that he is not a person but simply a program. Carlisle still makes sure to buy him huge quantities of music and software around the end of June, without comment.
Rose had little use for the traditional holidays of her people, only bringing them up to ridicule them. Whatever she celebrates, none of them know of it. Emmett celebrates with his family, carefully logging leave three times a year. And Esme’s ceremonies are solemn, uplifting, and intensely private moments.
And few other cultures have holidays like Earth - casual ones propped up with commercialism and novelty. More than once, he’s tried to explain them to his friends, Esme curious but bewildered, Rosalie quietly superior, and Carlisle chuckling in memory.
Alice had been intrigued, never knowing Earth or the little cultural touchstones. Maybe he liked the opportunity to get a little bit closer, explaining those missing common links carefully and greedily soaking in her presence.
But of all the things that left a mark on them, a scar that would never heal clean, neither of them would have ever imagined it would be something as harmless and cliche as February 14.
—
before.
In a perfect world, she wouldn’t have been stranded in Cesset - the capital city of a planet called L’im - for a week straight. It’s a huge, sprawling city divided into sectors; more than half forbidden to tourists, travelers, or anyone without citizenship.
The rain comes down in bright sheets, and she settles in the doorway of a pick-up bay for the night; the last job she took turned into a scuffle and her lens is offline until her appointment with the technician in two days, once the bruising around her eyes heals more. Which means she might have money but no way to use it.
The stoop of the building keeps her out of the rain, and the night is still. She might even be able to snatch some sleep.
She rifles through her pack for something to eat - some half-finished cereal or a protein drink. There’s not much in there - food is so heavy to transport, and street vendors are always better than long-life snacks. But they are handy and the three bars, two gels, and one water will have to see her through.
(Does she think about going to the nearest comms center and getting Carlisle to wire cash onto a card for her, so she can get out of the rain and buy some food, get a bunk to sleep in? The gels are a slimy mass in her mouth as she takes a drag from the sachet, a gooey lump that is hard to swallow and artificially sweet, leaving a film in her mouth. She dismisses the thought of asking Carlisle for help quickly. She’s caused enough trouble. It's only two days. She’s lived through worse.)
Absently, she slides her hand into the back of the pack, searching for her slate. Old-fashioned, cheap, and well-loved, it was the first frivolous thing she’d ever bought herself, loaded with hundreds of books. It might have gotten her enough for a hot meal if she sold it (not a good meal, just one of the oily soups with a few tough cubes of meat that the city favored and sold at every store), but the sentimental part of her couldn’t part with it.
As she pulls it out, she freezes, seeing what is slipped into the front of the cracked cover.
It was an odd thing for her to bring with her, after everything. She doesn’t know why she slipped it into her pack instead of into storage. Maybe to remind her of better times. Or maybe that once, just for a little while, she was loved.
Paper is expensive and hard to come by - most planets use fabric or digital surfaces for art and letters. The planets that do use paper reserve it for books, mostly. It’s not easy to acquire privately. The old newspapers that Carlisle had bundled in storage should have been handed over for some credits but instead, Jasper had cut out squares, had folded them precisely into triangular shapes that had glided when he tossed them out. And she had laughed out loud, delighted as the little creations caught onto the draft leaking in from the departure bay. He had folded two whole sheets of newsprint for her in dozens of paper airplanes of all sizes; had shown her how to fold her own. Something all children on Earth knew how to do, apparently.
(The lie falls easily from her lips - “I was born off-world. I’ve never been to Earth.” But it’s not really a lie. Except she knows he’s picturing a story like his - adventurous parents, a tragedy - so it really is the worst kind of lie.)
All eight of the airplanes are folded flat in one of her boxes. They would be mistaken for trash now, she supposes.
What she kept is small, it fits in the palm of her hand. Rough pink speckled paper - probably bought from an artisan, because it’s too nice to be something that was just found - cut in the shape of a wonky heart. ‘Love you - J’ written on it in red ink.
For a little while, she was loved. That’s why she keeps it. No matter what happens next, she can remind herself that he loved her once. That he cared enough to make her smile.
Carlisle warned her when he arrived. Who he was. What had happened to him. And she thought...
She thought that it was romantic, a forbidden romance that could overcome anything that life threw at them. After all, the Jasper who teased her and bought her drinks and danced with her was sweet, kind, understanding. And Carlisle had smiled at her and let her walk away believing that things would work out and she’d get her happily ever after.
The stupid little Valentine he gave her sits in her hand mocking her, sitting in an old pick-up bay in the rain. She can feel the rain seeping in at the seams of her coat which is a cherry on top of this terrible day; Pro-tex is expensive and hard to track down on this planet, especially in her size. If the water is getting in, it needs replacing.
But it’s better than nothing.
—
after.
Carlisle talks him through Systemic Failure in the first two weeks, even lends him a few texts to go over.
By the end of the first weeks, he’s having nightmares of all kinds. Of finding her dead and cold back in Viltri, her eyes clouded over and the blood gathered under the tissue around her eyes and nose and mouth. Of waking up in a pool of blood as she silently hemorrhages out beside him, blood seeping through her skin. He dreams of her dead on the ground, her insides hollowed out, his father holding him back from her because it was ‘better her than them’.
“This is the one downside of the design of the Synths,” Carlisle sighed, as he looked over the notes he had downloaded from Alice’s lens. “There was a petition to take the earliest sufferers to Earth, to run genetic panels and see if there was something missing, maybe a transplant or donation that could offset the imbalances...something we could correct. We were denied rather forcefully.”
“A donation?” His mouth is dry as the voice in his head volunteers. Blood, bone, tissue, anything she needed.
“Unfortunately, your system has been compromised simply by leaving Earth. We tried with many local humans in the day, and there was nothing they could do for us.” Carlisle frowned, circling something in Alice’s notes. “None of us could supply the donation, and even then, it would take months and years of experimentation...”
She lies behind them in a capsule, wearing surgical modesty garments, green med-patches keeping her eyes closed. Spidery wires and tubes run from multiple arteries and places. She barely looks to be breathing, even though the readout says she is.
The first surgery was a week into her return, a hotspot on her thigh that Rose picked up with the handheld scanner. A thirteen-hour surgery that ended up with her losing more than sixty percent of the bone in her left thigh. Infected and eating away at the surrounding, healthy bone and getting ready to jump into her tissue and bloodstream. Carlisle had replaced the bone with titanium (he’d physically flinched when he heard that; titanium was one of the most expensive medical implants; almost all human implants were done with cheaper Med-fil and needed replacement every ten years. The idea that Carlisle had fucking titanium for surgery made him feel nervous). But the external support - the augmentation - would be waiting for them with the new supply pick-up.
Carlisle reassures him that everything is fine - more serious than he’s used to, but nothing that they cannot get on top of. They’re running her bloods twice daily, to make sure the infection doesn’t spread, and antibiotics feed constantly into her.
(The cost makes him feel sick. Alice will never get on top of this debt and he cannot even help her until his own debts are paid off. He’s got nothing of value to sell, and he just feels sick at what she’s going to wake up to.)
He leaves Carlisle alone in the med-bay when Esme makes dinner, picking at his food, and staying quiet. He’s still lingering over it when Rose and Emmett have cleaned up the kitchen and left, trying to wrap his head around everything.
The chime of his lens brings him out of his maudlin thoughts (he knows what happens to the people with debt they can’t pay off, that after death their bodies are broken down and sold off to recoup what they never managed to pay off. He’s been at those auctions and the idea of knowing the people behind the pieces on the block makes his stomach churn uncomfortably).
Memories: Six Years Ago Today!
The photo flashing up is of him and Alice together in a bar somewhere, cheek to cheek. Her make-up is all red and pink, with a glittery heart next to her eye. There’s a sticky, pinkish outline on his cheek of a kiss.
There’s a wire flower in her hand, iridescent and shaped like a rose and that’s what places him. Valentine’s Day. They’d gone out, she’d remembered the date, and he’d bought her the rose. They’d eaten and drank and come back to the empty ship - everyone else in the dock dorms - and had a rare night together, completely alone.
If his eyes well up at the sight of her, bright and smiling and so very happy, no one else sees.
He feels like an old man as he shuffles his dishes into the washer, as he slips down to the little room near the airlock that Esme keeps for her plants - the ones associated with her faith are in hand-painted pots and kept high so no one touches them. But there are a cluster that are free to use, and he plucks a spring of a flower, a short brown stem with tiny greyish flowers.
It’s easy enough to offer to watch Alice whilst Carlisle gets coffee and stretches his legs. Rosalie’s shift doesn’t start for three more hours, and Carlisle seems grateful for the respite.
Her pale, lifeless face is unchanged, unaware of anything. And he can see the scar near her eyebrow, the one he can’t think about too hard or he’ll remember the worst parts of himself.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Alice.” His voice is barely above a whisper, and he tucks the little stem in between the hinges of the capsule.
There is nothing but shame and regret and grief whenever he’s with her, and bringing such a paltry offering - one no one will ever notice - feels more like an insult.
But it’s better than nothing.
—
Who said V-Day fics had to be happy and romantic? When you can have regret and pining?
Lenses are both an arm and eye implant, and the user can set whether the ‘screen’ appears on their arm or over their vision. When Alice got punched in the face on a job, it definitely fucked up her lens.
Esme’s species is very plant-and-nature focused, and that is evident in their faith. I’m still figuring out her full backstory, because she and Carlisle are very much in love but agreeing its a bad idea and they need to remain friends.
Alice’s slate would essentially be an old Kindle type device without internet access.
I am at a crossroads with where to take this verse. Both versions are valid and good, but have different outcomes. I will continue to contemplate it.
I don't think I've mentioned it in-verse, but Carlisle is not Edward and Edythe's biological father.
I am having a good time with the world-building in this verse.
