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Sure can't, cuz I'm not fucking Epsilon! [Replace. Replaced him. Like they're interchangeable. There's more to the story, there has to be, but Wash just doesn't--he's so bad at--all this stupid shit they don't even have to talk about--]

Maybe she just, I dunno, reintegrated into Epsilon, I can't fucking answer that! You're the one who was there!

She wasn't there anymore, Church. She was gone, and - I shouldn't have told you.

[He shouldn't have, except that he had a right to know. He had a right to know what happened after Wash asked him to throw everything away.]

It doesn't matter anyway. Epsilon is gone too, now.

Did you have a hand in that one, too?

No.

[Not accounting for the fact that he almost did. He would have, if he'd managed to succeed back on Sidewinder. Would have turned Epsilon right on over to the hands of someone who ended up being far, far larger of a problem than anyone really anticipated.]

[Was that inevitable?]

He did what you do best.

Gave himself up so that someone else could keep fighting.

That's not--

[Church, you'll never get another shot at fixing all of this. That's what had tipped the scales, wasn't it? Of all the good points Wash needled him with. Not just the not knowing. It would have haunted him, probably. Yeah. But he's pretty sure he could have lived with that. Not the insistence that it was, in particular, his fight. He didn't know Alpha. He had no stake in what happened to Alpha. No desire for revenge for what happened to someone he wasn't, someone he didn't know. It was about him, and yet, it was never really about him, was it?

Not just finding out about you, but finding out about everyone close to you as well.

Fixing it. For everyone else. If he had a chance to ease things, to undo some of the pain, to fix anything for the rest of the fuckers and dipshits he'd come to know, if any of it had even remotely been his fault--or even if it hadn't--didn't he owe it to them to see it through? Fix it. For everyone close to him.]

You don't know me at fucking all, do you? That doesn't sound anything like me! That's not me! Stop compar--just-- [He could just choke on it. They're not the same. He wasn't replaced. Was it just that easy? If Delta had survived, or Iota, would one of them had taken his place? Interchangeable pieces of himself?]

Don't sound so fucking choked up about it anyway! After what he did to you?! Isn't it good riddance he's gone--that they're all. gone?

It is. It isn't. He and Carolina were close, and he was...

[He has to go and unpack his own fucking feelings on the matter, as if any of them are the least bit important, when they're not. None of them are. Why would they be? They didn't talk, him and Epsilon, not after Epsilon nearly liquified his brain in his fucking skull and then tried to vaporize him on the spot. Why should they have? What did they have to say to each other? What do you say to someone when you can't just laugh and call each other dicks and say you'll share a beer somewhere down the line?]

[He's not Tucker, who knew Church in that friendly and familiar way that didn't come from ripping someone's memories out of their skull. He's not Caboose, whose singleminded fixation on winning Church's approval drowned out all else.]

Never mind. You had the right to know. That's all.

To know that Epsilon didn't go where it was supposed to and then decided it was me and then made Tex only to lose her again and then helped another Freelancer raid some shit and then died?

Yeah. Great story, Wash. [He hasn't gotten Loud yet, but there's a quality to his digital voice that suggests that's very close. Helped along by the fists at his sides. He's pretty sure if he lets himself gesture all over like he tends to, he's going to instead throw a punch, and nobody needs that right now.] No, no, go on, Epsilon and Carolina were close, and he was what? Important? Heroic? A friend to everyone? More fucked up than either of you thought given he's an amalgamation of all the memories the Alpha decided to forget to stay sane? What was he except the thing that made you crazy, or the fucking key?

What do you want me to say.

[It's tired, resigned, as if that might defuse the tension vibrant and high-strung between them.]

I didn't know him. I didn't talk to him. We didn't talk after that, because he tried to kill me twice and I wasn't going to go for round three. I thought you'd want to know, but next time? Do me the favor and tell me to shut the fuck up before I even bother.

You thought I'd want to know I got replaced by a bundle of fucked up memories?!

I can't believe I died for this asshole! Fucking up and takes my place! What a way to thank a guy for all his hard work and sacrifice! Was everyone just okay with this weirdo tin can facsimile running around?!

Because they missed you.

[They missed him, in the way that Caboose always called Wash Church as though that wouldn't spark a million identity crises in the span of half a minute, dragging up every muted association he took the time to tear apart back when he first had to put himself together.]

So they wanted you back, in whatever form they could take.

They...

[Oh, don't get him wrong, he's still angry. There are still emotional impulses that are, sooner or later, going to get sublimated straight into misdirected anger. But for one blessed moment, it dissipates like smoke. Everything about him starts to relax, in a way. Go limp. Like it's a revelation that smacked him in the face.

They missed him. That hadn't even crossed his mind.]

You mean...Caboose missed me. Caboose missed me, and then decided to take something his two brain cells decided was the closest he could get, and...and, and he just tried to bring me back out of...

I mean, cuz nobody else would. Maybe--Tucker? Maybe Tuck--what happened to Tucker?

Not just Caboose. Tucker was...after what happened with Junior, they kind of made him this ambassador. He was out in the desert, with these Temples that belonged to the aliens. He was keeping enemies of the UNSC from taking the place for themselves.

[Boiling this down to a summary that that conceivably makes sense is a hell of a skill, and it's not Washington's best quality. Given his penchant for dramatics and generally cryptic bullshit, it's safe to say he's fucking terrible at it.]

[But he seems to have sensed that some of the tension has gone down, that it's a little less immediate. Ami starts to bump the top of her head against the backs of Church's knees.]

He...missed you too.

...He wasn't there. You didn't go and like, gather him up in your merry band.

[Absently, he reaches down to pat Ami. It's kind of nice? It's kind of nice to have something physical there. Annoying to try and interrupt, but-]

Not the Reds. They'd never miss a damn dirty Blue. Obviously.

You might be surprised.

[Of course, this is before Wash ran into Grif's fatigue and refusal to go along on yet another fucking adventure.]

All of them found you, eventually. All of them missed you, when you were gone. Enough for it to hurt. Enough for everyone to feel it for months after.

[It's somehow, simultaneously, the best and worst news he could've gotten. Great! He's loved and his presence is missed, just like it ought to be! But also, jesus fucking christ, did they actually...care? About him? Sure, the pickings are slim, but that seems like a poor choice.

Ami nudges again, more insistently, and there's a brief moment where he forgets himself. Where he is. Because he looks and snaps on instinct:] Caboose!

[...but it's just a confused and mildly alarmed tiger-plant. Wash is out of armor, looking as tired as he always sounded, looking like David. His friends missed him and then replaced him with a crazier version of himself. He's a dead AI. All of them are dead. There's nothing left of Alpha.

There's nothing left of himself.

Embarrassed, he looks back at Wash. Doesn't acknowledge the mistake. Just a slip. Wash has had plenty of those, hasn't he? Wash who won't die, can't die.]

That's a lie. [It's not. He knows he's not. Easier, though, to make the accusation, angry, make it angry.] I'm--I'm the asshole, I'm Blood Gulch's Next Top Asshole, I'm--I'm detestable, I just yelled at everyone, and sure, I'm important, but not, like...not like that, right? [Alpha was the incident that led to everything where it was. More than important.] What about you?

[Ami doesn't seem to understand the significance of the slip-up, but Wash...his jaw tightens and there's a moment where he thinks Church is trying to resteady himself but he's not sure such a thing is even possible anymore. Have either of them ever had a moment in their lives where they were anything but unsteady?]

Church? [He already hates it - the note of concern that draws the name out, the way he knows to call him Church, the way it's going to sound fake because it sounds too nice.]

You were their friend. They're loyal. They don't...give up on people, on their people. And - what about me?

[Church waves a hand. Wave away the concern. It's fine. It's fine, it's okay, just a slip, we're not talking about it.]

I mean--you. Did you--?

[No. Why the fuck would Wash have ever missed him? He didn't talk to Epsilon because he didn't want to almost die again, and the short while he knew Wash, they were at each others' throats. Besides. They're here now. Better or worse.

He moves for the door.]

Never--nevermind, it doesn't matter.

...

[He has no idea how to answer that.]

[Does he? Can he? Does he have the right to say that he...considering their relationship, the scramble of uncertainty and back-and-forth and constant sniping and then outright hatred and denial and then, finally, release - does he have any right to say that he missed him?]

I'm sorry.

For what I did to you.

And I would've taken it back if I could.

[He stops in the doorway but doesn't turn.]

Stop, Wash, stop, just--just fuckin' stop, okay!

[It's good to hear, but he can't. He can't hear it right now. His brain's sitting in a tire rolling down a very rocky hill while buzzing on a pot of coffee, everything's running overtime to process and while he wears his emotions on his metallic sleeve, he's never been good with them.

An apology's a good place to start. Rather than a good place to end.]

You can't take it back. It's done. And no god damn amount of my being here is going to change what happened! It means even if I could leave, I can't, because going home means I will cease to exist!

So congratulations, Wash--you've exorcised all your demons and busted all your ghosts! And now this ghost is gonna go fuck off and make himself useful!

[He needs air and space and maybe a place to yell and kick things without people giving a fuck. He steps out, only to return a few short moments later.]

And I'm stealing your cat! C'mon, Ami, let's get you some sun.

You think that's why I wanted -

[No. No. Shut up. Shut up and just - ]

[Closes his eyes, clenches his fists, shuts his mouth. Straightens, and lets him go. There's nothing he can say or do to make it better. The most he can give Church now is the one thing this conversation hasn't allowed, and that's space.]

[So he stays quiet, and lets him go.]

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