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“Caboose, you don’t have to do this.” Wash held a small chip in his hand and instead of holding it out to Caboose he had his fingers curled loosely around it like he was keeping it from escaping. “I’m pretty sure there’s a way we can get the data from it without plugging in the chip.”
Two days ago they’d finished the battle for Chorus. In the end everyone said they won but it didn’t really feel like they’d won. Sure, they’d destroyed the last forces that the Chairman had sent their way but there were a lot of gaps in the teams after the battle. There were lots of people that Caboose knew that were gone when he woke up in the hospital with the scary doctor. She told him he was just there because of exhaustion but Caboose was pretty sure from the way he felt when he tried to move one of those giant aliens like Junior’s not-Tucker dad had played pat a cake with his head while he was sleeping.
“But Wash, it’s from Church. That means I have to. He knew what he was doing, he always told me what to think because I had trouble doing that.” Caboose held out his hand hoping Wash was going to stop being weird and dramatic and just give him Church’s message. For some reason his message was different from the others. Everyone else got a hologram message you could watch on your datapad but Church had left Caboose something that needed to be viewed via his implants.
Wash still hesitated even though Caboose thought he was being perfectly obvious. But then everyone was being weird right now. Caboose had even caught Tucker crying. Tucker had yelled at him that he wasn’t crying and to not be stupid and ‘go the fuck away Caboose’ but instead of actually making him leave Tucker had sat beside him in the hallway while they waited for Wash to get done getting his check up from the scary doctor and leaned his shoulder against Caboose’s until it was time for all of them to leave.
“If you’re sure....?” Wash looked like he wanted to say a lot more but when Caboose nodded he finally reached out and gently placed the chip in Caboose’s hand. He still looked worried but that was pretty much how Wash always looked...when he wasn’t yelling at someone...so Caboose didn’t pay it any attention.
“Thanks, Wash! I’m going to go listen to my message.” Caboose turned and walked off before Wash could change his mind. There weren’t a lot of places that you could be alone when they were in Armonia because they had been all crammed into a small space for protection but now that the fighting was over and the big city was destroyed people had started spreading out so Caboose found a spot he could watch his message without a bunch of people around.
It was all a memory, just bits and data on a chip but once Caboose slid it into the AI slot it was indistinguishable from actually being at Blood Gulch. “Oh. We’re back home. Neat.” He might have just stared out across the canyon for a lot longer but just then a very familiar voice came from behind him.
“So how many times did Wash try to talk you out of sticking the memory chip in?” Church was there. He wasn’t wearing his armor, something that hadn’t happened that often back in Blood Gulch, and at first he looked like a taller man with dark hair and glasses before he shrank a few inches and his hair lightened to a mid brown. Caboose had seen Epsilon-Church look like the tall dark man before but he had always tried to switch up to look like the Church Caboose knew when he was around him so he still knew that both were Church. “And I hope I got the look right. I haven’t seen Alpha’s face in a long time.”
“Church!” Caboose hadn’t expected this. He knew that everyone else got a hologram that talked to them on their datapad and they didn’t get to go home to Blood Gulch like he did. They were kind of lame that way. Maybe Caboose should let them use the chip and see their base but none of them seemed to really miss it. “You look just like you. It only took you two tries.”
“I really wish I could figure out how Delta was able to leave messages with predictive text. I mean I have his memories but the asshole still makes things too complicated.” Church trailed off and kept grousing under his breath about explanations making no sense and decision trees sucking.
It was all so normal that Caboose couldn’t remember why he wasn’t expecting it. This is what Church did. He grumbled and bitched and when he didn’t know what to say...or sometimes when he did...he yelled.
“Anyway look, I couldn’t think of exactly what to tell you. Let’s be honest I’m not even sure you would understand it if I managed to figure out what to say so why bother?” Church rubbed his forehead like he was developing a headache then made a gesture pushing two fingers up the bridge of his nose before he rolled his eyes. It took Caboose a minute to realize that Church had been trying to push his glasses up but when he wasn’t wearing his Epsilon-Church face he didn’t have any. “So, here’s the thing you did a lot of remembering of me so I thought instead of trying to tell you what I wanted maybe I’d show you. Then you can remember that too.”
So, Church wanted him to remember something for him. Caboose could do that, he was good at remembering. “I can remember for you Church. Go ahead and remember for me so I can remember for you.”
There was a long pause while Church shifted restlessly before he finally sighed. “Okay, you know what? I’m just going to have to guess that you said okay because I really have no idea if you did or not. So….yeah.”
And after another long pause Caboose found himself inside one of Church’s memories.
The whole reason that Church used the chip and asked him to implant it was so he could put the memory straight into his mind from Church’s point of view. Epsilon had always had and collected all the memories of the different versions. Usually he was the one watching and absorbing the memories but somehow he’d figured out a way to do the opposite this time.
Caboose hadn’t been right ever since O’Malley had been in his head. Like, Caboose hadn’t really been right ever since he showed up in the canyon as their rookie but now he wasn’t just a little weird in the head and completely stupid about all things military. And all things about girls. And all things period. Now he also seemed to lose time and forget things all the time.
When he and Tex had been inside Caboose’s mind they hadn’t exactly been as careful as they probably could have been. Pieces had been damaged and destroyed while they were in there and Church was pretty sure that they’d fucked up Caboose.
You know, more than he was already fucked up when he got there.
During the day aside from being even more of an idiot than he used to be Caboose insisted he was fine. If you asked him if something was wrong he scoffed at you and changed the subject in ways you couldn’t keep up with mentally and showed no signs of remembering the encounter with the O’Mally AI as anything other than a vague recollection. But at night….well at night he seemed to remember things and not be able to hide the fact he was dreaming.
Church tried to ignore it. He didn’t know what to do about it so he didn’t say anything about it. And he and Tucker did their best to avoid talking about it.
There were holes in Church and he knew it. He couldn’t remember if they were there before he died and ended up a ghost but they were definitely there now. He didn’t talk about that with Tucker either. He’d brought it up once with Tex but she’d gotten so pissed off at him she hadn’t even hit him. Tex not hitting you when she was pissed was actually one of the scariest things Church had ever seen so he’d never, EVER, brought it up again.
Tonight they’d ended up hanging out with the Reds, pretending that they weren’t actually hanging out with them so Sarge didn’t shoot anyone, and after that they’d all gone back to their respective bases to sleep and wait for another shitty day of staring at each other across the canyon and doing nothing.
Only now that he was a ghost in a robot body Church didn’t need to sleep (and boy did that make the long days of doing jack and shit so much worse) so he was wandering around the base after getting bored of watching the same crappy videos for the hundredth time on his datapad when he heard Caboose. He was having another nightmare.
Church almost kept walking despite the clear sounds of thrashing and whimpering from inside Caboose’s room. He’d actually made it two steps past the door before his determination to not get involved broke and with a sigh Church turned around and opened up the door. Caboose never locked anything so he was able to go right in.
Caboose was tangled in the blankets with his mop of brown curls plastered to his neck and forehead with sweat. He twitched and jerked with another whimper making Church just about jump out of his skin. Caboose would stay still just long enough for Church to think he’d fallen back into a real sleep then start up again. It felt like the few feet across the floor of the room took an hour. When Church reached the bunk he ended up sitting on the edge next to Caboose not sure at all what to do and just sitting there like an asshole.
And that was when Caboose rolled over and bumped into him. He was ready for Caboose to wake up or thrash away the other direction, instead he wrapped his arms around Church’s waist and buried his face in his hip like he was holding onto a lifeline.
Church froze with his hands out, leaning away from Caboose, caught in the act of trying to get out of the way. Slowly he straightened up and relaxed as he noticed that the whimpering had stopped. Church still didn’t know what to do with his hands but he got tired of holding them out and slowly lowered them. There really wasn’t a place to put them that wasn’t Caboose so he rolled his eyes and finally let one hand rest on the damp tangle of hair.
The fingers in his hair seemed to be the last straw for the nightmare and with a deep, shuddering sigh Caboose went limp with his face still shoved into Church’s hip.
If he left now the nightmares would still probably be done for the night. He really didn’t have to stay. For some reason he still didn’t pry Caboose off of him and leave. Instead Church let Caboose hold onto him like he was the world’s biggest teddy bear and kept running his fingers through his hair. He marked the passage of time by the way the hair slowly dried out and the curls freed from sweat started to wind around his fingers as he ran them lightly over Caboose’s scalp.
Those pieces he was missing? Church knew that was why he was never really happy. He was also never really scared, okay you could still jump scare him but he didn’t worry about the future, he didn’t analyze anything, and he sure as hell never was hopeful or felt like everything was going to be okay. Maybe it was the head injury that Flowers said he had. Whatever it was didn’t matter.
But sitting there with Caboose he slowly realized that maybe all those other pieces were missing but other things were still there. He stayed there listening to Caboose breathing and running his fingers through his hair until he started to show signs of waking up. As soon as that happened Church pushed his way out of the arms holding him around the waist and slipped out of the room.
Maybe he wasn’t as broken as he’d thought before. But he still didn’t know what he should do with that.
The memory faded back to the original view of the canyon leaving Caboose blinking as he stopped thinking from Church’s point of view and went back to his own. Church was trying to push up his non existent glasses again and flickered between black and brown hair.
“Look, I was missing too many pieces of myself, I wasn't afraid but I wasn't ever really happy either. I know why now but back then...look it doesn't matter, all I was trying to say is that night I was as close to happy as I ever got.” Church put his hands on the sides of Caboose’s face and pulled him down so they could press his forehead to Caboose’s.
“So, thanks. Now go make sure those idiots don’t mope around too long over me okay?”
The memory chip stopped and everything went dark. Caboose opened up his eyes and wasn’t surprised to see Wash there. Sure, Wash had started out as someone who was pretending to be Church but over time he’d really taken over that role and tended to stalk Caboose and Tucker whenever he wanted to make sure that they were okay or maybe when he wanted to make sure that someone wasn’t stealing one of the vehicles with Freckles. That last one was just a made up what if thing. No one tried to do that.
Ever.
Really.
“Hey buddy, how are you doing?” Wash was watching him in that way he did when he was worried about him. Since there had been a lot of people crying the last couple of days (like Tucker) he probably thought that Caboose was going to start crying because of his message. Whatever Church had said in the other messages he must have been mean to people because Caboose didn’t feel like crying. He had a memory about Church that no one else in the entire galaxy had. That was something special to hold onto. Later when he missed seeing Church he might feel like crying again but maybe his new memory would help with that.
“I’m okay.” Now Wash had his ‘concerned Freelancer face’ on so Caboose got up and grabbed Wash by his wrist to pull him to his feet with him. “Come on, let’s go see how Tucker’s doing.”
Church had told him to make sure they didn’t mope too long. It was never too soon to get started on that.