165. Meeting the Past

“I met Vox on my second day in the Deathwatch”, Arrick started his tale. “And I liked her. She was considerate and sensible and a stronger fighter than anyone I had ever met but very nice in boasting about it… But liking a brother… Well, you know how it is. It’s not as if you can get attached to anyone in the Deathwatch. You just go on your mission and be done with it. So, I went on my mission. Investigate genestealer activity on… some hive planet. Don’t remember the name. There were seven of us. Two veterans and five new to the Deathwatch. And guess what? We were caught by the genestealer cult! Since I was the sergeant, they busied themselves with torturing me until their broodlord would arrive back. I didn’t even understand what they wanted. Completely nuts.” Arrick looked around for a moment. He seemed rather less comfortable now. “There was a woman”, he continued. “She suddenly stood in the room in the middle of the night and freed me for no other reason than crazy kindness. She hid me over the following day in one of her hideouts and the next night we went back to the cult, got my brothers free and our armours back…” Titus waited patiently while Arrick was silent for a while. “Well, we spent the whole day together in a small room and even humans need only so much sleep…” The wolf tried to move but with his arms not obeying him, he just rolled from side to side a bit. “I always had a thing for people who used an upper hand to help me out…”, he said. “And she was… Soft and considerate and caring. I mean, she had come to steal provisions and found me by accident. She risked everything to get me free and keep me safe, without asking anything in return. I don’t know why. People can be like that… When I found out that she had been the last girlfriend of the head of the cult I almost killed her for the chance to be infected and with my hand at her throat, all she thought of was that she didn’t want to hurt me because she was a psyker and burst into flames because I stressed her out.” He laughed bitterly. “Come to think of it, I always had a thing for psykers too… Magically attracted to them, you could say. The woman before her was one as well… Whatever. I fell in love. Blindly and stupidly and I was already grieving because I had to send her off to Terra since she wasn’t sanctioned. After we had engaged the cult and tried to kill the broodlord, I found her dead. Bullet to the back. Took half her shoulder with it. She was a healer but she couldn’t heal herself from that.” He paused. “My kill team and I made it out but it turned out that all my brothers had been infected by the broodlord. All six. The damned xeno had returned in the night, they had only still fought at my side to get off planet and only the mission follow-up revealed them.” Arrick gritted his teeth. “The Inquisition killed them all, liquidated every single female crew member on the ship that had transported us to make sure no one carried that damned seed and I had to spend five weeks in quarantine, contemplating on the many ways in which this dead sweetheart of mine had saved me… She had gotten me out just in time. Well, and when I came out, I was scheduled to go back to the chapter in a week or so while another team was sent to deal with the damned genestealer cult.”

Titus frowned.

“Was the planet called Almond?”, he inquired.

“No. Forgot the name. Some hive world beginning with M. Why?”

“Because we had contact with a genestealer cult on Almond. It was a hive as well.”

“Not Almond”, Arrick repeated and Titus scolded himself that he had interrupted his flow. He was glad that the captain went on: “You might imagine what kind of state I was in after that”, he said. “Lover dead, brothers infected and dead, Arrick worthless and would have liked to be dead. Hell… And you know what happens if you don’t seem stable enough to your chaplains, right? So, I couldn’t even confide in anyone… None of the brothers talked to me. Nobody even tried to and then, two days before I was leaving, Vox came back. She took one look at me and flat out asked me what had happened. I wasn’t inclined to tell her. Hell, I don’t even remember how she got me talking, especially since she did it during training but she got it out of me. All of it.  I got wounded badly that day. So bad that my return had to be postponed. When I awoke after the first night, Vox sat by my side. She had to leave but she returned the next evening. I remember this feeling of her. She was just there, sacrificing her nights for me. Returning whenever her duty allowed, never speaking much until I started to talk and…” He took a deep breath. “Somehow, she brought healing. A psyker with blue eyes and the face of an angel, who came for me to bring healing in the night… Story of my life really. Lying around wounded to get visitors in the night.” He grinned at Titus. “I applied for a second mission when I was released from healing duty”, Arrick said and moved around again. “And was put in charge over Gladius. I remember thinking that maybe I could prove myself worthy of Aegis. Maybe I could stand at the side of the one who had come for me in the night… Well, and then, we arrived on Zenith and walked into that trap, bam! Two missions, two captures. What a record!” He laughed and his voice went soft. “And then it was her outside the door, coming for all of us, pulling us through. Don’t know if I’m just small-minded or soppy or stupid… But I couldn’t bring myself to distrust someone like that. And really, Titus?”, he said, his one-eyed gaze wandered over to his superior again. “Tiberius told me a few things about how you met Vox and I bet that wasn’t half of what had been going on. How could you ever doubt anything about her?”

Titus shrugged defensively.

“In hindsight, I think that it was mostly fear. Fear of rejection.”

“That, I can understand”, the white wolf said, looking at nothing. “Makes you stupid, something like that. That’s why we’re supposed to know no fear”, he laughed. “Which only means that we don’t know how to handle it when it comes.” He took another deep breath and looked around, emerging from wherever he had sunken. “At least I didn’t have to fear”, he then added plainly. “I just got rejected.”

Titus folded his muscled arms and refrained from asking when this had happened. He was growing uncomfortable with the direction this monologue took but he had asked and Arrick did not seem inclined to spare him anything.

“When I had kicked you aside because you had been attacking her, she turned her face to you”, the white wolf said thoughtfully. “When I told her to find someone alive to hang onto, she looked to you. When she wept blood for your quarrel and tried to kill herself with the pistol in my hand and I stopped her, she whispered your name. And not only did you two lovebirds make me sick on our way to Thetis, when she was Mistress of Secrets again, she chose you as her lover.”

Titus turned away in embarrassment. Vox had taken half the burden of his guilt onto herself but Arrick could only see what had been readily visible. I dawned on him that she could not recall what had been going and with her half of the picture missing, he suddenly felt the weight of his failings weigh on his shoulders again. 

“You know, what bothers me most?”, Arrick interrupted his train of thought.

“Can’t begin to imagine”, Titus said hoarsely.

“That I’m not entirely certain I’d have done better in your position.”

Titus took a deep breath.

“Thank you for that”, he said. “I can’t think of another time I have screwed up as hard as that.”

“Funnily, screwing up makes Vox just care for you more, have you noticed?”

“No”, Titus said sternly. “I haven’t. What I have noticed is that Vox used to be able to see everything about a person and not let someone’s failings get in the view.”

“Probably the better way to say it”, Arrick conceded.

They both were quiet for a while. Then Arrick suddenly fixed Titus with a calculative grin on his features.

“You really think I could be sleeping with her if you had died?”, he asked nonchalantly and immediately laughed. “Sorry”, he grinned. “Sometimes I just can’t stop myself.”

Titus got a grip on himself.

“That’s what I appreciate about you”, he said calmly. “Most of the time”, he warned him though.

Arrick looked at him and Titus saw something happening behind the white wolf’s stare: The spark of defiance in his eye suddenly seemed to wink out. Marked with leaden tiredness, his gaze wandered down to look at the metal covering his body now. The prosthetics spanned half his torso to ensure the needed stability.

Titus leaned forward and laid a hand to Arrick’s shoulder again. 

“Thank you, Arrick”, he said quietly. “Thank you for saving my life.”

The captain looked at him.

“You’re welcome”, he said with a short, brittle smile. “Can I ask you something else?”, he inquired.

“Sure.”

“I would like to know why you always seem to know everything I told her and vice versa.”

Titus sighed.

“You noticed that?”

“It’s rather obvious if you have a greater attention span than a krike.”

“What’s a krike?”

“You don’t know krikes?”, the white wolf asked in surprise. “I thought, almost every world had them. They’re some kind of large rodent, about this big”, he waggled his feet and held the toes about half a metre apart. “And attack you if you move too fast. If you get out of reach, they just forget that they were attacking you while they run towards you. Unless you keep moving of course. Then they’re nasty buggers. Can take your thumb right off if you don’t watch out. Tasty though.”

“I’ll watch out for them”, Titus promised.

Arrick grinned.

“I do have a higher attention span than a krike”, he pointed out. “So, will you answer me?”

Titus weighed his rights and obligations for a moment.

“I want to ask Vox before I do that”, he decided.

“Thanks for considering it”, Arrick said solemnly and somehow seemed to sink back onto his slab further. “Titus, I’m rather tired”, he admitted.

“No worries, Arrick”, he replied soothingly. “Do you want me to leave or stay?”

The captain looked at him for a moment, considering this question.

“I think I’d feel awkward with you in the room”, he said cautiously. “Also, I think you’d better watch over someone else.”

“She was worried that nobody would watch over you.”

“Yeah, but I’ll not open warp gates in my dreams. No need to guard me at all times.”

“You mean won’t fall to daemons if unattended?”

Arrick gritted his teeth, his features clouding over.

“I’m not Celeste”, he growled bitterly.

“Do you want to talk about that?”, Titus asked softly, noticing the sore spot.

“I’m not sure how long we can talk about me not being Celeste”, Arrick grumbled. “And since I don’t want to talk about being with Celeste…”

“Arrick, I have to tell you that Celeste and Saphane were lovers”, Titus said quietly. “I don’t mean to hurt you, I just think you should know to avoid trouble. You’re still a captain and Hierouba died on Corred. Vox is going to suggest Saphane as chapter mistress. There will be times when you might get talking.”

Arrick stared at the ceiling for a long time, a number of expressions crossing his face. They ended in a rather devious grin.

“We seem to have a rather high wear and tear on chapter mistresses lately”, he stated.

“Yes”, Titus confirmed cautiously, wondering what he was getting at.

“And didn’t Aegis always have trouble keeping their chaplains alive? I mean, Vargov had just achieved the two weeks running-award when I met him.”

Titus could not help but grin himself.

“You mean a chaplain as chapter mistress will implode at inauguration?”, he asked.

“Be sure not to stand too close”, Arrick counselled and they both sniggered.

“Come on, ultrimate alpha”, the white wolf said then. “That’s the lightest note we’re going to get tonight. Let’s leave it at that, what do you say?”

“Promise me, you’ll be alright”, Titus asked while he stood up.

“Oh, you know me”, Arrick said easily and probably tried to shrug. Since he lacked several muscles for this movement now, he only wobbled a bit. “I’ll sulk at the fact that masturbating will be a pain in the groyne now and fall asleep over it.” He grinned when he saw Titus face. “I should leave if I was you”, he said happily. “Lest you die of embarrassment.”

“I’ll be sure to bring some parachutes tomorrow”, Titus said in a baffled tone, making the friend laugh again.

“You know, for the frequency with which that comes up, I really would like to hear the story behind that”, he pointed out.

“It will be my pleasure to tell you. Good night, Arrick.”

“Good night, Titus. May the Emperor guide you through the darkness.”

“May he guide us together”, Titus replied and tried to look natural while he pulled Arrick’s blanket higher clumsily. Arrick called out to him when he was at the door. Titus stopped.

“It worries me that you don’t say that anymore”, Arrick said and the gaze of his dark eye had this sharpness to it he always displayed when he tried to figure something out. It was rather uncomfortable to see it in this instance.

Titus looked down.

“That’s a story I cannot tell you”, he said quietly.

“Thanks anyway, Titus.”

“Sleep well, white wolf.”

“Now, leave already!”

“Giving up so soon?”, Titus asked, allowing the amusement to return and Arrick grinned and decided to grant him the last word.“I met Vox on my second day in the Deathwatch”, Arrick started his tale. “And I liked her. She was considerate and sensible and a stronger fighter than anyone I had ever met but very nice in boasting about it… But liking a brother… Well, you know how it is. It’s not as if you can get attached to anyone in the Deathwatch. You just go on your mission and be done with it. So, I went on my mission. Investigate genestealer activity on… some hive planet. Don’t remember the name. There were seven of us. Two veterans and five new to the Deathwatch. And guess what? We were caught by the genestealer cult! Since I was the sergeant, they busied themselves with torturing me until their broodlord would arrive back. I didn’t even understand what they wanted. Completely nuts.” Arrick looked around for a moment. He seemed rather less comfortable now. “There was a woman”, he continued. “She suddenly stood in the room in the middle of the night and freed me for no other reason than crazy kindness. She hid me over the following day in one of her hideouts and the next night we went back to the cult, got my brothers free and our armours back…” Titus waited patiently while Arrick was silent for a while. “Well, we spent the whole day together in a small room and even humans need only so much sleep…” The wolf tried to move but with his arms not obeying him, he just rolled from side to side a bit. “I always had a thing for people who used an upper hand to help me out…”, he said. “And she was… Soft and considerate and caring. I mean, she had come to steal provisions and found me by accident. She risked everything to get me free and keep me safe, without asking anything in return. I don’t know why. People can be like that… When I found out that she had been the last girlfriend of the head of the cult I almost killed her for the chance to be infected and with my hand at her throat, all she thought of was that she didn’t want to hurt me because she was a psyker and burst into flames because I stressed her out.” He laughed bitterly. “Come to think of it, I always had a thing for psykers too… Magically attracted to them, you could say. The woman before her was one as well… Whatever. I fell in love. Blindly and stupidly and I was already grieving because I had to send her off to Terra since she wasn’t sanctioned. After we had engaged the cult and tried to kill the broodlord, I found her dead. Bullet to the back. Took half her shoulder with it. She was a healer but she couldn’t heal herself from that.” He paused. “My kill team and I made it out but it turned out that all my brothers had been infected by the broodlord. All six. The damned xeno had returned in the night, they had only still fought at my side to get off planet and only the mission follow-up revealed them.” Arrick gritted his teeth. “The Inquisition killed them all, liquidated every single female crew member on the ship that had transported us to make sure no one carried that damned seed and I had to spend five weeks in quarantine, contemplating on the many ways in which this dead sweetheart of mine had saved me… She had gotten me out just in time. Well, and when I came out, I was scheduled to go back to the chapter in a week or so while another team was sent to deal with the damned genestealer cult.”
Titus frowned.
“Was the planet called Almond?”, he inquired.
“No. Forgot the name. Some hive world beginning with M. Why?”
“Because we had contact with a genestealer cult on Almond. It was a hive as well.”
“Not Almond”, Arrick repeated and Titus scolded himself that he had interrupted his flow. He was glad that the captain went on: “You might imagine what kind of state I was in after that”, he said. “Lover dead, brothers infected and dead, Arrick worthless and would have liked to be dead. Hell… And you know what happens if you don’t seem stable enough to your chaplains, right? So, I couldn’t even confide in anyone… None of the brothers talked to me. Nobody even tried to and then, two days before I was leaving, Vox came back. She took one look at me and flat out asked me what had happened. I wasn’t inclined to tell her. Hell, I don’t even remember how she got me talking, especially since she did it during training but she got it out of me. All of it.  I got wounded badly that day. So bad that my return had to be postponed. When I awoke after the first night, Vox sat by my side. She had to leave but she returned the next evening. I remember this feeling of her. She was just there, sacrificing her nights for me. Returning whenever her duty allowed, never speaking much until I started to talk and…” He took a deep breath. “Somehow, she brought healing. A psyker with blue eyes and the face of an angel, who came for me to bring healing in the night… Story of my life really. Lying around wounded to get visitors in the night.” He grinned at Titus. “I applied for a second mission when I was released from healing duty”, Arrick said and moved around again. “And was put in charge over Gladius. I remember thinking that maybe I could prove myself worthy of Aegis. Maybe I could stand at the side of the one who had come for me in the night… Well, and then, we arrived on Zenith and walked into that trap, bam! Two missions, two captures. What a record!” He laughed and his voice went soft. “And then it was her outside the door, coming for all of us, pulling us through. Don’t know if I’m just small-minded or soppy or stupid… But I couldn’t bring myself to distrust someone like that. And really, Titus?”, he said, his one-eyed gaze wandered over to his superior again. “Tiberius told me a few things about how you met Vox and I bet that wasn’t half of what had been going on. How could you ever doubt anything about her?”
Titus shrugged defensively.
“In hindsight, I think that it was mostly fear. Fear of rejection.”
“That, I can understand”, the white wolf said, looking at nothing. “Makes you stupid, something like that. That’s why we’re supposed to know no fear”, he laughed. “Which only means that we don’t know how to handle it when it comes.” He took another deep breath and looked around, emerging from wherever he had sunken. “At least I didn’t have to fear”, he then added plainly. “I just got rejected.”
Titus folded his muscled arms and refrained from asking when this had happened. He was growing uncomfortable with the direction this monologue took but he had asked and Arrick did not seem inclined to spare him anything.
“When I had kicked you aside because you had been attacking her, she turned her face to you”, the white wolf said thoughtfully. “When I told her to find someone alive to hang onto, she looked to you. When she wept blood for your quarrel and tried to kill herself with the pistol in my hand and I stopped her, she whispered your name. And not only did you two lovebirds make me sick on our way to Thetis, when she was Mistress of Secrets again, she chose you as her lover.”
Titus turned away in embarrassment. Vox had taken half the burden of his guilt onto herself but Arrick could only see what had been readily visible. I dawned on him that she could not recall what had been going and with her half of the picture missing, he suddenly felt the weight of his failings weigh on his shoulders again. 
“You know, what bothers me most?”, Arrick interrupted his train of thought.
“Can’t begin to imagine”, Titus said hoarsely.
“That I’m not entirely certain I’d have done better in your position.”
Titus took a deep breath.
“Thank you for that”, he said. “I can’t think of another time I have screwed up as hard as that.”
“Funnily, screwing up makes Vox just care for you more, have you noticed?”
“No”, Titus said sternly. “I haven’t. What I have noticed is that Vox used to be able to see everything about a person and not let someone’s failings get in the view.”
“Probably the better way to say it”, Arrick conceded.
They both were quiet for a while. Then Arrick suddenly fixed Titus with a calculative grin on his features.
“You really think I could be sleeping with her if you had died?”, he asked nonchalantly and immediately laughed. “Sorry”, he grinned. “Sometimes I just can’t stop myself.”
Titus got a grip on himself.
“That’s what I appreciate about you”, he said calmly. “Most of the time”, he warned him though.
Arrick looked at him and Titus saw something happening behind the white wolf’s stare: The spark of defiance in his eye suddenly seemed to wink out. Marked with leaden tiredness, his gaze wandered down to look at the metal covering his body now. The prosthetics spanned half his torso to ensure the needed stability.
Titus leaned forward and laid a hand to Arrick’s shoulder again. 
“Thank you, Arrick”, he said quietly. “Thank you for saving my life.”
The captain looked at him.
“You’re welcome”, he said with a short, brittle smile. “Can I ask you something else?”, he inquired.
“Sure.”
“I would like to know why you always seem to know everything I told her and vice versa.”
Titus sighed.
“You noticed that?”
“It’s rather obvious if you have a greater attention span than a krike.”
“What’s a krike?”
“You don’t know krikes?”, the white wolf asked in surprise. “I thought, almost every world had them. They’re some kind of large rodent, about this big”, he waggled his feet and held the toes about half a metre apart. “And attack you if you move too fast. If you get out of reach, they just forget that they were attacking you while they run towards you. Unless you keep moving of course. Then they’re nasty buggers. Can take your thumb right off if you don’t watch out. Tasty though.”
“I’ll watch out for them”, Titus promised.
Arrick grinned.
“I do have a higher attention span than a krike”, he pointed out. “So, will you answer me?”
Titus weighed his rights and obligations for a moment.
“I want to ask Vox before I do that”, he decided.
“Thanks for considering it”, Arrick said solemnly and somehow seemed to sink back onto his slab further. “Titus, I’m rather tired”, he admitted.
“No worries, Arrick”, he replied soothingly. “Do you want me to leave or stay?”
The captain looked at him for a moment, considering this question.
“I think I’d feel awkward with you in the room”, he said cautiously. “Also, I think you’d better watch over someone else.”
“She was worried that nobody would watch over you.”
“Yeah, but I’ll not open warp gates in my dreams. No need to guard me at all times.”
“You mean won’t fall to daemons if unattended?”
Arrick gritted his teeth, his features clouding over.
“I’m not Celeste”, he growled bitterly.
“Do you want to talk about that?”, Titus asked softly, noticing the sore spot.
“I’m not sure how long we can talk about me not being Celeste”, Arrick grumbled. “And since I don’t want to talk about being with Celeste…”
“Arrick, I have to tell you that Celeste and Saphane were lovers”, Titus said quietly. “I don’t mean to hurt you, I just think you should know to avoid trouble. You’re still a captain and Hierouba died on Corred. Vox is going to suggest Saphane as chapter mistress. There will be times when you might get talking.”
Arrick stared at the ceiling for a long time, a number of expressions crossing his face. They ended in a rather devious grin.
“We seem to have a rather high wear and tear on chapter mistresses lately”, he stated.
“Yes”, Titus confirmed cautiously, wondering what he was getting at.
“And didn’t Aegis always have trouble keeping their chaplains alive? I mean, Vargov had just achieved the two weeks running-award when I met him.”
Titus could not help but grin himself.
“You mean a chaplain as chapter mistress will implode at inauguration?”, he asked.
“Be sure not to stand too close”, Arrick counselled and they both sniggered.
“Come on, ultrimate alpha”, the white wolf said then. “That’s the lightest note we’re going to get tonight. Let’s leave it at that, what do you say?”
“Promise me, you’ll be alright”, Titus asked while he stood up.
“Oh, you know me”, Arrick said easily and probably tried to shrug. Since he lacked several muscles for this movement now, he only wobbled a bit. “I’ll sulk at the fact that masturbating will be a pain in the groyne now and fall asleep over it.” He grinned when he saw Titus face. “I should leave if I was you”, he said happily. “Lest you die of embarrassment.”
“I’ll be sure to bring some parachutes tomorrow”, Titus said in a baffled tone, making the friend laugh again.
“You know, for the frequency with which that comes up, I really would like to hear the story behind that”, he pointed out.
“It will be my pleasure to tell you. Good night, Arrick.”
“Good night, Titus. May the Emperor guide you through the darkness.”
“May he guide us together”, Titus replied and tried to look natural while he pulled Arrick’s blanket higher clumsily. Arrick called out to him when he was at the door. Titus stopped.
“It worries me that you don’t say that anymore”, Arrick said and the gaze of his dark eye had this sharpness to it he always displayed when he tried to figure something out. It was rather uncomfortable to see it in this instance.
Titus looked down.
“That’s a story I cannot tell you”, he said quietly.
“Thanks anyway, Titus.”
“Sleep well, white wolf.”
“Now, leave already!”
“Giving up so soon?”, Titus asked, allowing the amusement to return and Arrick grinned and decided to grant him the last word.