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Don't worry. I'd never assume that we're friends.

[A comment that should be sharp and acerbic just comes across as sad and pathetic, and hey, it turns out he kind of hates this! This vulnerability, the unobstructed view Church gets of his face and every shift and flicker of his expression. It feels too much like putting a loaded gun in someone else's hand and trusting that they're not going to shoot you with it.]

Her name was C.T. She... [Does he really wanna go there?]

[He doesn't have a lot of choice.]

She said she knew you.

Yeah? Well then I sure didn't meet her in Blood Gulch. Maybe boot camp?

It's... [He's already said "it's complicated" too many times for that to sound like a reasonable excuse, so Wash simply sighs.]

Here, let me start with - has anyone here...recognized you? Anyone that you definitely haven't met?

...Nnnnn...maybe? I dunno, there was this one girl who was kinda weird? But you're the only one I know.

[Here he was sure that Pyrrha would've. But maybe he hasn't run into her yet. Who knows.]

Well, here's something fun that I found out a couple months ago: there's another you out there. Or there was. Someone who got stuck with a lot of other people who're now here, and lived a whole other... [oh lord is he going to regret asking this but] ...you don't remember getting married at any point, do you?

I'm pretty sure we murdered 90% of myselves, Wash.

[Hm. Did he mean for that to come out so harshly? Did he mean for that to come out at all? They weren't him. But Wash thought they were, and he...doesn't...like to think about the Alpha. Kitty petting kitty petting it's fine.]

But what the fuck do I know.

That's what I thought, but apparently it's a lot less simple than that, because a lot of people here have memories involving you that I didn't know existed.

[This would be a wonderful time to segue into ABOUT THAT, and bring up how Epsilon is, you know, A Thing.]

[A wonderful time to do it, Wash realizes painfully, as he continues to not bring it up.]

Like getting married? [He laughs, but it's skewed, more towards scoff.] The last person I thought I was gonna marry ran off and joined the Freelancers. ['And also is a ghost memory AI part of me, I guess, I think,' he does not add.] Who would I even get to officiate? Sarge?

It'd put a new spin on shotgun wedding...

I'm just saying that's a memory of someone else's that I saw. C.T.'s. She remembered it, and...it complicates things, is all I'm saying.

[As if he didn't have enough of seeing memories that weren't his, right.]

A friend's memory of a different me getting married. Well...at least someone wants to bone a robot! Score one for me. Who's the lucky lady, huh? Or, oh man, it...it wasn't her wedding, was it?

No, it was...you were human. And the other guy was, uh...

[It was Ardyn, but like...he doesn't want to say a "better" version, but maybe a more well-groomed one? One that looked definitively happier. Knew how to smile like a real human being and everything, and not like someone who was trying to force a shape seen in other people's lips, effecting some vague approximation.]

You...haven't met Ardyn, have you?

Whoa, I was human? Was I hot? Tell me I was hot.

...Wait, Ardyn, the uh. Theeeee guy living with Ignis the birdman?

...

I mean I could live with that, y'know, visually speaking, but...I...definitely don't understand in the, uh, broader concept of me having met him in another parallel dimension and thennnnnn...marrying. That.

Oh my god, why is that your priority.

[He doesn't remember ever putting his face in his hands, but at some point, he started massaging the bridge of his nose between pinched thumb and forefinger as if that would be enough to ward off the budding headache.]

Yes, that one. A different one. Presumably you'd known each other for a while at that point, but I don't know. Just don't - ask Ardyn about it. I don't think he was very happy to see that on display.

Why wouldn't that be my priority! I've been a robot for so long I barely remember what being human was like; of course I wanna know if I was hot!

I bet I was totally hot and you just don't want to admit it.

[He will take the not asking Ardyn thing under advisement but no promises will be made. Wash doesn't have to know that.]

You looked happy. [Wash is not and never has been any kind of judge when it comes to how objectively or subjectively attractive someone is, all right.]

That's what I remember.

...Oh.

[Somehow that didn't occur to him. It really...should have, huh? Ami gets more gentle pettings down her plant-based spine, and Church decides to focus his attention there.]

I mean, yeah, no shit, I would hope I'd be happy on my wedding day.

[He can't think of anything to say to that.]

[It's hard to look at him. This isn't unusual. He's just...increasingly difficult to look at, the longer this conversation goes on for. The way happiness seems peripheral and unattainable and what's he supposed to say?]

Anyway. If people recognize you, that'd be why. They knew a different...you.

Really wouldn't be the first time, huh. [Between him and Alpha. And Epsilon. And Beta Eta Iota Omega Gamma Theta Delta Sigma.

A him that moved on from Tex and got comfortable and happy enough with someone else to marry them. That's one of the weirder things he's heard. He can't...imagine that.]

No. It wouldn't.

[Again, the window is perfect. It's perfect, and he should discuss what needs discussing, before someone else shows up out of nowhere and tips over the fragile balance they've managed to cement in place.]

[With an effort that feels almost painful, that's wrenching in its resistance, he forces himself to say it:]

That's...actually something we should talk about. In terms of what happened, after the E.M.P.

You mean after you lived and I died.

[Plain and simple fact that's already difficult to live with. Given...that he's...living. His hands still on fur, but he still doesn't raise his visor face to Wash.]

We don't...have to. Probably. We don't have to talk about anything. I mean, fuck, we could start from scratch if we really wanted to.

[It's an out. If they want it. But if this is the unspoken tension breaking, then damn it, Church, stop resisting it and ride the wave.]

Yeah. After that.

[He's trying not to wilt, which is proving difficult, considering that this is completely and entirely his fault. All of it. The event in question, the lead up to it, the aftermath. The conversation they're currently having or, perhaps more specifically, failing to have.]

...was that a pun?

[Because he's, you know. Scratching a cat.]

What? [He doesn't see the pun right away and now just thinks that's nuts, Wash, c'mon.] If I was making a pun, it'd be funny.

...Okay if we're going to have a conversation with a capital C, let's. Just. Let's get it over with, I guess. Lay it on me. Ripping off a band aid, right?

[Ripping of a bandaid. All right.]

[Deep breath, like a swimmer about to take a plunge, and then he just - goes for it.]

After the E.M.P., Caboose didn't turn Epsilon in. He woke him up and fed him stories until he remembered who he was. Which was...you, in a sense. You, and your memories.

[The thing about bandaids is they're there for a reason, that reason being to cover a wound and help it heal. But you don't put a bandaid on a gushing laceration. You put it on a papercut or something.

If Wash wanted Church's sudden undivided attention, he's got it.]

What does that mean?

[Putting Caboose in charge of anything was never going to go right, but surely the Reds would've been able to cobble together half of a brain cell to o something like they were supposed to.]

Wh--di--what does that mean, Epsilon woke up and remembered he was me?

I mean he remembered who he was. And who he was just - he had all your memories. So he's you, before you were...before you forgot who you were.

[Wash suspects, though he wouldn't want to test this theory directly, that having a knife slowly inserted in between his third and fourth lumbar vertebrae would be marginally less painful than the effort of trying to maintain this conversation and look at Church and not succumb to the urge to bolt.]

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