Ae's POV (Past is Poison)

Ae doesn't think much on much.  Can't change what's been, can't be afraid of what will happen, because eventually we all die.  All you can do is what you do best, with people as close to good as you can find.  Ae's feeling pretty good about her choices right now.  These people don't ask for much other than what Ae does best, and she's even started to like them, might even be friends with the lizard-guy. When she does reflect, she imagines introducing a Trandoshan to her mother, and the look of horror on her pointed face before she and Harrsk kill the monster. That would be good.

Enjoying these feelings of warm camaraderie, Ae looks up and is pleasantly surprised to see the man she refers to as Kabal--another body guard she got into a tiff with several years back, and then again more recently when he ended up blasting her square in the face while she sent him into an explosion.  A good guy. She saunters over to Kabal, thinking maybe they can try to shoot each other again, or maybe get a drink. 

"Hey, Kabal, what're you doing here?"

"Here for work, Aeri.  Your husband sent me."

"I don't have a husband," Ae responds absently.  Aeri?  Why would he call her that?  Only one person ever called her that...

"Do you mean Darrin?  Do you have Darrin?" Ae asks, demeanor shifting from friendly to threatening in an instant.

"He sent me."

"I don't understand..."

"He wants you to come with me."

Ae turns, cold with her mounting aggression, to her captain.  "Captain, I must ask permission to leave."

Ruby looks at her large crew member, concern written on her face. "Do you need help?"

Ae blinks.  Help?  Why would she say that?

"I don't understand." Ae says again.  She's gotten used to that phrase over the years.

Ruby repeats the question, and decides for them.  Ruby, Trance and Harrsk follow Ae and the man Harrsk identifies as Rane--a runner in his mother's crew.

Outside the stripped-down ship Rane piloted, Ae requests a moment from the crew to find out the situation with Darrin.

On board, a thin man in a cloak turns.  Even though his face is sunken and pallid, his form ematiated, Ae recognizes the only person with whom she's ever had a connection.

"Darrin! What...what happened?"

"Aeri! Let's not talk about that yet.  I've missed you."

Ae can't stand to hear that name. She can't stand to see him sick.

"Where...where is..."

From the shadows comes a small person.  Blonde, curly hair like her mother.  Long, fine-featured face like her father. They talk, but Ae hardly hears it.  She can't stop staring at how different he looks. At how much their daughter looks like them both.

Ae picks up her daughter and the three walk off the ship, over the clobbered Rane and back onto the Helios Rain. The crew inspect the child curiously, but keep their distance, for Ae is feeling fierce and desperate.  On board, she takes Darrin to her bunk and permits Min to show Cyra around, as her daughter is called.

"I'm dying, Aeri.  Your mother found me."  

"You can't be dying," Ae pleads.  "How did they find you? Are you sure? We can take you to a doctor, we can find....
"I came from the Core, Aeri, trust me.  I don't have long and I needed to find you. Our daughter needs a parent.

" Darrin, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. But I can't be a mother."

The former couple sit as Darrin explains how Senator Zubaestra found and poisoned him.  Cyra, their daughter, found him and attempted to resuscitate her father, but instead, the remnants of the toxin burned her tongue out.

"She's a senator.  I'm a teacher.  She was always going to find me"

Guilt.  Fear.  Two emotions Ae hasn't let herself feel since she escaped with their daughter, and lay her on Darrin's door.  She had been so sure that that was the best way to protect them.

"If we abandon her, your mother will find her, too, and then what? Aeri. She needs you. I need you. Before I die, what I want is...to stay with you, until it's time."

"You can't ask me that, Darrin.  You can't ask me to be a family.  You know...I can't...I won't..."

"Good families are there for each other."

Good families.  Her family was one of the Best Families.  Invited to every event.  Fawned over.  And here was little Aerina, never good enough to be wanted, never smart enough or pretty enough, afraid and alone and hurting. She couldn't do that to her daughter.

"How long til..."

"A day, two, maybe five."

You can't change the past.  We all die. All we have is now. Ae walks over to the chest that holds all her belongings and finds a gun casing large enough for a finger.  With a little filing, she places a ring on both her and Darrin's fingers. Her husband did come looking for her.

"It is customary for my people to initiate a hunt for the newlyweds'" Harrsk congratulates his friend.

"I am honored. I have a target," Ae replies quietly.

For a few short days the three play at being a family.  Darrin is upbeat but fading.  Ae awkwardly works to get to know her daughter, who seems to have Ae's talent for violence, and her father's intelligence.  Just when Ae thought her heart would break from knowing how good things could have been, and how bad they would be again soon, the poison took Darrin.

Ae and Cyra bury him on a hill on the planet that had reunited them.  The sun beats down on the two golden heads.  Cyra hands the last small stones to her mother, securing the holo-stone with a message of the inhabitant of this grave.

"Here lies Darrin Novar, husband, father, teacher. He was all that was good, and though the monsters took him, they could not take that. Remember him."

Sweating in the heat, Ae takes off her protective jacket, exposing the scar tissue that covers her arms and back to the light.  She takes Cyra's hand and they walk back to the Helios Rain.  Ae can hardly speak.  The past plays before her eyes, a darkness so enveloping, a pain so deep she knows she cannot break it, and moments so bright, so beautiful that she feels blinded as her mind drifts from one thought to the other.

On the ship again, Ae finds a solemn crew waiting.  She stands before them, arms exposed. Her left side looks almost shredded. Her right is even more scarred, but this side has been turned into designs of flowers and vines and wild life.  Her face is illuminated from the overhead lights, which throw those scars into deep relief.  Her daughter sits by her side, gurgling happily as she pummels a pillow doll someone made for her.

"This is what family means to me. I...did not get most of these from working.  Now they killed him.  And I am going to kill them.  I am not asking for help.  My mother is an Imperial Senator. I know this is going to be dangerous.  I just...need to get there."

Quickly the rest of the crew exchange glances.  

"Of course we're coming with you" Ruby asserts.

There are some moments so beautiful, they can blind you.  Family might always be a black word to her, but maybe friend, maybe friend could share the same space as the words Darrin and Cyra.