Chapter Text
When 7 left the hospital, he saw Pavia’s car waiting in the lot. On most days he made the five minute walk home with 6, who insisted on coming with him to every physical therapy session, but today, something was different. Pavia rose from her seat outside the entrance, giving 6 and 7 each a brief hug.
“7 took his first step today.” 6 said proudly, knowing 7 wouldn’t mention it himself. “The doctors said his growth stimulation is going well.”
“That’s wonderful news.” Pavia smiled, but 6 seemed to sense something. He gave her a look, and Pavia nodded. Almost as if agreeing to something. Giving in. “I came here because I have to tell you something, 7.” Pavia took a deep breath.
“Levitsky has asked to speak with you, 7.” 6 frowned, his expression turning immediately suspicious. Whatever he expected Pavia to say, it wasn’t that. “I told him I would ask you.” 7 didn’t reply. Pavia watched him anxiously. “You don’t need to think about it now.”
7 bit his lip. As they drove home, 7 tried to follow Pavia’s advice, but he couldn’t shake the dull memory. The strange sounds, words of another world, as Levitsky held him, as the ringing from Payne’s death faded. 7 shook himself, turning off everything but his hearing as he tried to focus on 6 and Pavia’s conversation. It didn’t work. The strange sounds played over and over in his head, insistent but intangible. They were mystical, almost dreamlike.
They sat down for dinner together as soon as Liang came home from work, 6 and 7 swallowing their supplemental vitamins before they ate. In a brief lull in the conversation, 7 spoke up.
“I want to visit him.” Liang and Pavia exchanged glances.
“You understand that you don’t have to, right?” Liang asked him carefully. She was always careful. “Nothing bad will happen if you don’t.” 7 only nodded.
“I’m not done with him.” 7 could see the worry on Pavia’s face, but she said nothing. Made no comment. 6 was frowning, confused, maybe even angry. But 7’s mind was made up.
Two days later, 7 walked down the halls of the Central Planetary Prison, accompanied by two guards. When they reached Levitsky’s cell, the guards hesitated.
“Do you want anyone to stay with you? Or maybe a chair?” The woman gestured awkwardly to 7’s crutches.
“No. I’ll be fine.” The guards exchanged a look and one went to the wall, entering a code. The wall became transparent. Levitsky sat on his bed, facing 7, his hands gripping his knees tightly. But that was not what caught 7’s attention. He looked different than he had in court. Something wild and desperate in his eyes that made 7 nervous.
When he looked up, saw 7 standing outside his cell, he shifted, jolting in a way that was oddly familiar.
“7.” It wasn't a question, so 7 didn’t answer. “It is good to see you.” Levitsky’s face softened for a moment, but he checked himself quickly. And 7 knew when he recognized it from. It was same look Pavia got when she wanted to hug him, but stopped herself. Again, 7 didn’t respond. He couldn't reciprocate the feeling, so he said nothing. Levitsky was restless in the silence, struggling for something to say. “You look different.” Levitsky paused. “Your plaque is gone.” 7 nodded. The skin on his forearm was still tight with scar tissue. “Why did you agree to see me?”
“The first time I was attacked in the lab, when I was thrown down the stairs, I tried to crawl up but I passed out. When I woke, I was at the top of the stairs.”
“Yes.”
“You carried me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to help.”
“It was stupid.” To 7’s surprise, Levitsky was not angry. He only chuckled and raised an eyebrow.
“As stupid as stealing from Payne’s lab?” 7 frowned. He quickly changed the subject.
“Pavia told me about where you grew up. She told me why your speech is distorted.”
“I grew up speaking a non-standard language. Russian, it was called.”
“You still speak it. I heard you speaking to me, after you shot Payne.”
“Yes.”
“Why do you still speak it? What purpose does it serve?”
“None really. I know no one who speaks it any more. It functions no better than Standard. But it is different to me. Russian is the language of my heart, the language I speak with my family, with those I love.” 7 felt strangely heavy. The meaning of Levitsky’s statement was not lost on him. But 7 felt no desire to run away.
“If you had a family, why did you leave?”
“I was not as wise as you, 7. I put myself before them.” Levitsky’s voice was sour. “But that is every parent’s greatest wish, is it not: a child that surpasses them. Already you have surpassed me in so many ways. I am glad of it.”
“You’re not my father.” 7 gritted his teeth, prepared for another desperate declaration of affection. But Levitsky remained calm.
“No,” he responded evenly. “Just as Pavia and Liang are not your mothers.”
“They are good to me. They’ve helped me.”
“I know. And I’m glad of it. May I ask one thing of you?” 7 didn’t respond. Levitsky looked slightly discouraged, but he continued. “I know I am not your father, but you are my son.” 7 could hear blood in his ears. “Will you come back?” 7 felt the familiar burning in his stomach, fury crawling into his throat. But the voice in his head was not Levitsky’s, but 6’s.
You are family to him, but he is not family to you.
7 had never been in prison, but he knew what it was like to be trapped. Tied down, with nothing to do, nothing to think about but the pressing. 7 shuddered as he remembered the bed. Everything that made him 7 was gone: his mind, his body, his control. They took everything and left him only loneliness. 7 would have done anything to see 6. Even if he couldn’t touch him, even if they could never really be together.
6 wouldn’t like it, 7 was sure, and he would be right. 7 owed Levitsky nothing. But there was more than that. 7 couldn’t come up with any sort of reason to help him, but he knew he wanted to.
“Next month.” Levitsky was speechless. He rose from his bed silently, mouth open, and walked forward slowly like a man in a trance. When he reached the glass, he fell to his knees, staring up at 7 with eyes wide in awe. Levitsky’s lips began to move, but still he made no sound, and it took 7 a minute to realize that he was repeating one word, over and over. 7 looked down at him, hands tight around his crutches, a strange tightness in his throat. Not until he returned home, until he searched the world net for a Russian dictionary did he understand that it meant “thank you.”
The next day, 7 found himself on the net again searching for more resources, guides to pronunciation, the Cyrillic alphabet. They were surprisingly scarce. Since his tutor had introduced him to the world net, he had found there was little information that could not be found, yet, whether by deliberate suppression or a more natural obsolescence there was little to be found on the Russian language, barely enough to attain a working knowledge. Still 7 puzzled over the dictionary, his lips struggling silently to create the sounds that lingered still in his memory.
“I don't understand.” 7’s eyes snapped up from the page. 6 was standing in front of him.
“What?”
“You didn’t say anything when you came back yesterday, and now this.” 6’s voice was hard, but 7 knew he wasn’t angry. His eyes were open, wide and worried, so 7 was not afraid.
“You don’t need to be scared.” 6’s eyes narrowed and he paused, changing his angle.
“You’re going back aren’t you. Is that why you’re learning Russian?” There was no point in hiding it from 6, even if 7 had wanted to. He nodded silently. “Did he offer you some kind of information? Did he threaten you?”
“When have I ever let someone threaten me into doing something? Even Payne understood that; he knew better than to waste time trying to push me around. 935 already tried.”
“Okay, so he didn’t threaten you. I still don’t understand.” 6 was angry now, but 7 didn’t know why. 7’s answers were frustrating him, yet he couldn’t seem to ask the question that was really weighing on him.
“You don’t have to be angry.” Immediately the anger seemed to drain away. 6 sat down on the table in front of 7.
“I’m sorry, 7. It’s just, I’ve been thinking a lot. History and literature and politics are interesting enough, but still, I’ve had a lot of time. I think about him sometimes, all the lies, the things he let happen. But I always go back to that day. The last test results. He heard the alarm, and then he had a choice.” 6 shifted, wringing his hands. “He sent us to die. You and me and twenty-three other people. I know there was a protocol; he couldn’t just cancel it and save everyone. But he could’ve saved us, couldn’t he?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, he didn’t believe it would work. Maybe he thought security would notice if too many people diverged from the emergency plan. Maybe I could have saved them too, if I had told everyone to come with me.”
“Are you trying to defend him?” 6’s voice said that ‘yes’ was not an answer he would hear.
“I’m just saying we all had choices. He chose to follow protocol. I chose to take you with me, and no one else. You chose to trust me, and then on the ladder, to not give up on me.” 6’s face softened a bit.
“I’ve thought about that too.” His gaze wandered, oddly distant. “About why I chose the way I did. But I think, it wasn’t really a choice. I remember feeling trapped, as though if I had gotten out alone, without you, I wouldn’t really have gotten out. I would’ve been stuck forever in that moment.” 7 smiled. Because the feeling that had confused him so much on the ladder now made sense. Immediately, he thought of syringe cases through a window, alarms blaring in his ears. And he remembered the choice he made without choosing, simply because he knew it was the only way he would ever escape, even if it meant being caught.
“Levitsky isn’t family. But I want to see him.” 6 stared at him for a moment, serious but not worried. Then he nodded, slow and sure. 7 felt something inside of him release, like a breath held for too long.
The silence was broken by a pattering sound on the roof, soft at first but growing steadily louder and more insistent. 6 look confused for a moment before glancing out the window.
“It’s raining, 7!” he declared, like he had just discovered the secret of life.
“Yes.”
“It only rains once or twice a year in the city.” 7 frowned. That was true of course. Pavia had explained the meteorological controls of earth, how most storms were kept away from major cities, distributing their rain to farmlands where it would do good rather than harm. But 7 wasn’t sure what the significance of that was.
“What do you want to do?”
“Go out.” 7 frowned, confused. Neither of them had seen rain before, but 7 had gotten the impression that people viewed it as an inconvenience.
“I thought people stayed in during the rain.” 6’s face fell a little, and 7 immediately regretted saying anything.
“It isn’t dangerous is it?” 7 wracked his brains, calling up everything he had learned about meteorological activity. Of all the forms of precipitation, rain was the most harmless. As long as there were no strong winds or flooding, the risk was inconsequential.
“We need coats.” 7 said, and 6 grinned. Pavia and Liang weren’t home yet, so 6 and 7 found the coats themselves, rummaging through the closets until they found two very large water-proof jackets. 7 sat down, placing his crutches to one side so he could pull his arms through the sleeves.
They didn’t go far, not straying beyond the small strip of grass that separated their house from the street. Pavia and Liang didn’t like them wandering the city. But it was probably for the best. 7 had to walk slowly, placing his crutches carefully to make sure he didn't slip. 6 was hesitant at first, carefully pushing back his over-sized sleeve to feel the raindrops on his hand, but after a moment, it seemed to meet his approval and he smiled, pulling his hood from over his head to let the rain hit his face.
7 watched silently. The streets were empty, no one went outside without a vehicle in this weather. When he looked up, the sky was dark, clouds covering the brightness, hanging over them.
“I read that you can get sick from standing in the rain.” 6 only laughed.
“Not after all the vaccinations we’ve had,” he paused. “Are you alright?” 7 smiled.
“Yes.”
“Take your hood off.” 6 grinned at 7’s reluctance. “Trust me.” 7 leaned on one crutch, lifting his other hand to his head to pull the hood back. Instinctively, he switched off his sensory input, shying away from the pricks of cold on his face. Off.
But 6 didn’t seem to mind. He stood, his arms out, face raised, as though trying to feel as much of it as possible. Water poured down his head, running down in little streams down his cheeks, the back of his neck. 6 was happy. So though it was strange, it couldn’t be bad. Nothing that made 6 happy could be bad.
Gradually 7 let himself feel it, the warmth wrapped around his arms, his chest. Then, the soft impact of raindrops on his face. 7 laughed as they tickled him, running down his neck and wetting his shirt. He blinked them out of his eyes, feeling them pour down his face like tears. They were cold, like ice on his face, but his mother’s coat was warm. So 7 turned the feeling on. Turned the cold on. 7 gasped at the shock of it, the strangeness of being warm and cold, wet and dry, but when he saw 6 smiling up at the storm, he couldn’t help but smile too. He went to his switchboard, not bothering to make careful selections.
On. Everything on.