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“He loved you, you know.”
Carolina didn’t look up from where she was cleaning her weapon. “Who, Dad?” she asked absently. Church, the little glowing apparition, shrugged. He wasn’t as fluid in his movements as she remembered Theta being, but Epsilon was more defensive than Theta had ever been. She guessed it was a side effect of being the memory fragment.
“Well, yeah, him. But I was talking about York.” Carolina stilled. York was something they didn’t talk about, not since seeing his journal entries and finding his…armor.
“Epsilon, I though we agreed-”
Suddenly, Church was in her face. “Fuck that, ‘Lina, we never “agreed” on anything about this. He loved you. He loved you so much he wanted to run away with you. Hell, that’s why he did run!” Church sighed. “I didn’t show you all the journal entries,” he said in a quieter tone.
She looked at him, wide-eyed and scared and confused. “Church?” she whispered.
“He wanted – God, he wanted to marry you, ‘Lina. He wanted to take you away, and marry you, and have as many adorable, green-eyed kids as you would give him.” Church turned away, ready to disappear into the ether again. “That’s what I couldn’t show you then. He put his dreams in those journal entries, all of them, and Delta kept them all in order there. He was – he had plans, money saved and set aside. I just kinda wish he’d been able to see it all through.”
Carolina’s heart jumped, and her hands pressed against the short chain she wore around her neck, the one with two rings on it. One was her mother’s wedding ring. The other York had given to her, pressed into her hand and whispered, “Keep this safe for me.” It was after she’d woken up from surgery, after that failed fight with Tex that had resulted in her AI screaming in her head. She’d woken and he’d been there, like he always was. He’d kissed her softly, first on the lips and then on the forehead, and given her the ring. She’d strung it next to her mother’s and tried to forget about it, honestly, because thinking about York had hurt.
Now, though, Carolina’s heart was breaking; he’d meant for her to find him, or him to find her, it didn’t really matter, to make good on the unspoken, unasked promised the ring represented. She choked on a sob and curled in on herself, mourning the man she’d loved.