(Part Four)
Bard looked up as Apollo neared him, smiled an absent greeting. "I know what you're going to say, so don't ask. I've got my team working on it." He reached up impatiently, swept his hair out of his eyes as it fell across his face. "I've been looking at something else." He motioned the warrior forward. "Here."
"What is it?" Apollo asked, looking down at the shard of jagged metal. "Teleri's Viper," he realised a micron later. "What are you - ?"
"Flaws in the base fabric," Bard said.
"From the explosion? Is there anything left besides flaws?"
"Not from the explosion. From before. Fatigue cracks. Microscopic. They'd have passed a general inspection." He rephrased himself. "They did pass a general inspection!"
"But that was one of the new Vipers," Apollo protested. "From the Foundry Ship. Fatigue cracks on my Viper I could understand, or Starbuck's, or Boomer's – any of the original ones – but on the new ships?"
Bard lifted the fragment in his hands, turned it around and over aimlessly, set it down again. "It struck me as odd," he said, "that we should have had this long run of instrument failure, equipment failure, but with no pattern to it. It's not just one part that's finally succumbed to wear and tear, it's something different every time. He looked up at Apollo again and said slowly, "What if the fault was not in the Vipers?"
Apollo say down heavily. He put his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. "I just got out of Life Centre," he said plaintively. "I'm not ready for this. The fault is in the Vipers. They keep crashing. You want to tell me that's not a fault?"
"Warriors," Bard said witheringly. "Tunnel vision. One-track minds."
"Two-track minds!" Apollo protested. "Drink and women!"
The other man ignored him. "What," he continued determinedly, "what if the fault were not in the Vipers – but in the Foundry Ship equipment? What if the materials they're supplying for repair and replacement are faulty?"
Apollo sat very still, the implications slowly stretching to fill his mind. "Deliberately?" he finally, faintly asked. "Sabotage?"
Bard shook his head. "I don't think so. Simply … if a Viper part can wear out, then so can the foundry plant, or at least a part of it. Not even a major part, necessarily. Suppose an alloy, say – suppose a fault in the foundry resulted in its being compounded fractionally out of true, the proportions not quite exact. That tiny error might not show on any routine scan – but it might make all the difference at full stress."
"Might," Apollo said, hearing his own voice shake. "Would. I know that much." He stood, scraping the bench back across the floor. "Bard, you want to come and tell Colonel Tigh what you've just told me?"
Bard grimaced. "Not much, but I suppose I will. What do you think, I could be right?"
Apollo glanced down at the fading marks on his hands, reached involuntarily to touch the sealed scar across one temple. "The way things are going," he said practically, "I would be prepared to consider any theory. I don't want to lose any more pilots, and I'd like to hang on to the trust of the ones I still do have. What's more, I don't want to lose me. This is your theory, Bard – we're going to see the Colonel together." He looked his friend over with a critical eye. "Don't worry about changing your coveralls – at least it looks like you've been working."
Bard stared meaningfully at Apollo's uniform which was, reasonably enough in the circumstances, immaculate. "Yeah?" was all he said.
"So," Apollo said brightly, several centars later, "how does it feel to be the hero of the fleet?"
Bard prised his eyelids apart and focused painfully on the other man. "Feel?" he echoed hollowly. "I was past feelin' after the fifth … or was it the sixth?" His fingers moved tentatively upward to touch his head, but fell back midway as he thought better of it. "Besides," he added, a few moments later, "you should know – I thought you were the number one hotshot hero 'round here."
"Not tonight I'm not." The turbolift slid to a smooth halt. Apollo put his hands on his friend's shoulders and steered him out into the corridor. "You're the man of the moment. Except possibly with the engineers on the Foundry Ship …"
"Can't win 'em all." Bard came up short in front of a closed door, regarded it in some puzzlement. Apollo keyed the entry control, thoughtfully steadying the other man as the wall fell away from him.
"Here." He manoeuvred the singer around to the seating unit. "Sit." He closed his eyes in sympathetic pain as Bard hit the seat with a thump; the medication he was still taking had kept him confined to drinking water all night, but he'd been there. "Caffia." He moved to the dispenser, keyed an order for two cups, set them down on the table. "Wait a centon." Noiselessly he slid open the door to Boxey's room and reached inside to switch off the monitor system. Muffit growled at him or, rather, whirred. He made a mental note that the thing was about due for a service and slid the door shut again. Turning, he saw that Bard had managed to gather himself together and stand. He was supporting himself against the far wall, looking down at Boxey's painting.
"Is this the picture you had up before?" he asked.
Apollo moved to join him. "No, this is the latest version – Galina just put it up today. They're all variations on the same theme … I think it's worrying, other people tell me it's only to be expected. One of the joys of fatherhood." He leaned against the wall, folding his arms. "Problems. What do you think?"
"Think?" Bard raised his head, glanced toward him absently, his eyes going past him, unseeing. "Nice daggit … You got a stylus?" he suddenly asked.
Apollo looked at him, shrugged, went to the desk and found a stylus and a writing block, brought them back. "Here," he said. "Any particular - ?"
Bard was scribbling rapidly and didn't seem to hear him. Apollo shrugged again, reminded that he was in the presence of what had been described as genius, and turned back to his by now lukewarm caffia. Bard rejoined him a few centons later, laying the block down on the table.
"Anything?"
"Maybe. An idea, anyway. A spark, a seed …" The singer fell silent. Then he shook his head, winced, and said, "Shouldn't I be getting back?" He leaned across to check Apollo's chrono. "Gods, I'm due on early shift …"
Apollo reached out and pulled him back down as he tried to stand. "You're staying here – remember? I've logged you in as being on a special assignment." Which, he thought, was almost true. "You go on duty in the state you're in, you could end up short-circuiting the entire fleet."
"Oh," Bard said blankly. "Did you tell me that before?"
Apollo gave a patient nod. "Twice. I fixed it all up when I came back here to put Boxey to bed." He saw Bard's perplexed expression and almost laughed. "Lords of Kobol. You didn't even notice I'd gone, did you?"
"Not really." The singer reflected for a moment. "I guess that's okay, then," he finally decided. "Thank the lords for friends in high places."
"No kidding," Apollo said. He went into his own sleeping chamber, fetched a spare blanket from his locker, brought it back and tossed it to Bard. "Make yourself at home. I'll see you in the morning."
"If I live the night," Bard murmured, faintly but with feeling. Apollo grinned maliciously, but went back into his room and fetched a phial of painkiller capsules.
"Here. I'd hate to have the hero of the fleet die on my sofa."
"So," Bard agreed fervently, "would I. Goodnight, Apollo. Thanks."
He thought as he closed his eyes, I seem to be always saying 'thank you' … and his mouth curled a little at some unspoken irony.
He was woken far too early in the morning by his friend's son who, with his daggit drone in tow, erupted out of his sleeping chamber at what would, planetside, have been first light, helped himself to breakfast from the dispenser, and then stood at the foot of the seating unit, chewing cereal and fixing Bard with an accusing gaze.
"I know who you are now," Boxey eventually, triumphantly, said. "You used to come and see my mom, when I was just a kid." He sat down hard on the end of the unit, just missing Bard's feet. Muffit jumped up beside him and settled in a solid lump across the boy's lap, making the seating unit tilt precariously. "You used to sleep on her sofa, too."
Bard gave a rueful smile. "I remember," he agreed.
"I wish I'd remembered before," Boxey went on. "Then Galina would've had to let me go down to Maintenance with you." He looked sulky for a micron, but recovered rapidly. "Can I still? My class went down to the bay for a visit, but they never let us look at anything we – "
"Yes," Bard interrupted. "I heard all about that. We'll have to time it for when Chief Tech Ishmael's not around, I guess." He smiled at the boy. "I expect your father will want you back all in one piece, after all."
"I'm not scared of Chief Tech Ishmael!" Boxey said scornfully.
"Maybe not, but I am," Apollo put in, appearing at the doorway. "Boxey, did you turbowash yet? You'll be late for instruction."
"Can't I stay - ?" Boxey began, and was ruthlessly cut short.
"Absolutely not. No instruction, no visit down to Maintenance. You got that?"
The mutinous expression returned to Boxey's face, but he obediently slid to the floor and trailed off in the direction of the turbocubicle, Muffit following. Bard looked up at Apollo.
"He remembers me." His voice was laden with some unnameable emotion. "He – " He swallowed. "He's … very like his mother. He's all her child."
"Is he?" Apollo asked quietly. He was still, biting back the question that thrust itself forward, that he had promised himself he would never ask: do you know who …? "I used to see Serina in him," he finally said instead. "Now, mostly, I see only Boxey." He smiled wryly. "I forget, you know, that he's not my own. Sometimes I catch myself thinking I see myself in him, or my kid brother …"
"You have a kid brother?"
"I used to."
Bard winced. "Damn. I should have learned by now, you don't ask questions like that any more. I'm sorry." He looked at the expression, the sudden extinction of expression, on Apollo's averted face, and said again, shaken, "I'm real sorry."
Apollo recovered, shook the moment away. "It's a long story … The way he died, it was partly my fault …" The twisted smile came again, this time with a trace of bitterness. "It took me the best part of a yahren to get it down to only 'partly'. You know how it is."
"I know," Bard said.
"I never thanked you," Apollo said suddenly, "for spending so much time with Boxey while I was in Life Centre. It was good of you. I hope he wasn't too much trouble."
"No," Bard assured him. "No trouble at all."
"Well," Apollo observed, "that makes a change." He turned away, crossed the room to the turbocubicle. "Boxey, if you've drowned in there, don't block the drainage system, okay?" An indignant response could just be heard coming through the closed door.
"Yes," Bard said, again, quietly. "I know how it is. I know." He reached out and took up the writing pad, read through the words he had scribbled the night before and then forgotten until now.
I was just a child when the Cylons came
And I remember fire, and I remember pain
But I don't remember sunshine, I don't remember rain –
Won't you tell me how things used to be?
He laid the block back down again, dropped his head into his hands; whispered, "… how it used to be …"
If you could recapture the way things were, live again the moments lost forever, passed too quickly and scarcely noted at the time, regretted ever since …
If you could salvage just one thing, one small thing, out of the millions upon millions of missed opportunities, of what had fled, what had been snatched from you …
If you could rearrange the world to a pattern of your own making, without a thought for any but your own needs …
But past was past, and lost was lost, and the world went on its own relentless, unheeding way, a kaleidoscope of change. And the needs of others could never be forgotten; individual freedom, directed inward, unconnected to the world outside, quickly became meaningless. Least of all could one ignore the needs of a friend, of one who thought only of giving, whose life was already balanced on the razor's edge. One could not betray a trust given freely and without restraint.
Words were the instrument of his craft. But words need not always be spoken.
"Okay," Bard said finally. "Break." He unslung the liot, laid it carefully down on a bench, and headed for the dispenser. Around him the remainder of Orpheus did likewise, each in their own way: Daleth and Mistral downed gravis and liot respectively, vanished outside for a micron, reappeared laden with tankards, and settled on the edge of the podium by the flatharp, discussing triad with Tenebrae; Rossignol claimed a quiet corner for her own, curled up into a complex and uncomfortable-looking knot and began to meditate; Pulsar set his batons neatly down side by side and disappeared into the turbocubicle to soak his aching hands in the bucket of iced water kept in readiness for him. Only the Academician remained where he sat at the celesta, his fingers picking out patterns at random from among the keys, the notes falling soft as rainwater, a gentle, undemanding refrain. Negus jumped down from the podium, joined Pulsar in the turbocubicle for a moment to rinse the sweat off his face and hands. Reemerging, he crossed to Bard's side. He helped himself to caffia, watching the singer from the corner of his eye.
"Are you going to tell me?" he finally asked, his voice so low it could hardly be heard over the Academician's noodlings.
Bard turned, hitched himself up onto the table. "I don't have to," he said, "do I? When did I ever have a problem you didn't know about before I did?"
"Serina." The big man swallowed his caffia in one gulp, poured another. "The child."
"And Apollo."
Negus raised a quizzical eyebrow. "He matters?"
"What do you think?"
Negus said nothing for a moment. "I thought you would resent him. Do you not?"
Bard sighed. "Of course I do. But what I owe him … it balances out. It more than balances out." His shoulders lifted, fell, in an attempt at indifference. "Serina and I were history long before the destruction."
"She always knew which side of the sheet to lie, that one," Negus murmured. "The thought of Serina sealing with a warrior is somehow incongruous: married quarters, a military pay voucher, just another officer's wife … I give her full credit for having had the intelligence to realise that, off-planet, things would be different."
Bard gave another shrug. "You never liked her."
"I disliked what she did to you. And I would be more willing to accept the transformation at face value were it not for the fact that the warrior she married is not just any warrior but a Viper pilot, and not just any Viper pilot but a squadron leader and the son of Commander Adama."
"Well," Bard said explosively, "so? So what? Maybe she did latch on to him just because of who he was, because he was in a position where he could take care of her. That doesn't make her some kind of monster. She had Boxey to think of, remember? And for all I know, she might have come round to loving him the way he loved her. He does love her, and he's an intelligent man. He'd have seen through her games, if she tried them out on him."
"As you did?" Negus countered. "Bard, I was there." At the hurt in his friend's eyes he relented a fraction. "You may be right. You, after all, were the one who knew her. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Serina was never the angel of grace that your friend the captain seems to think that she was, and it's no good asking me to think of her that way. I remember the way she left you, without a word, as soon as she had a better offer."
"Yes." Bard's gaze dropped. "I remember it too." Then he looked up at Negus again, his eyes bright with passion. "But I don't want Apollo to know it – you hear what I'm saying? Let him have his memories, okay? After all – it's not what you do believe that matters; it's what you believe you believe, what you need to."
"As you say." Negus finished his caffia, tossed the container into the recycler. "And Boxey?"
Bard's eyes held his. "Boxey is Apollo's son. That's the way it stays."
In the corner, Rossignol unwound herself, stretched, and rose to her feet in one liquid motion, combing out her vermilion hair with her fingers until it haloed her face. "Serina?" she enquired interestedly, fragments of the conversation having evidently intruded upon her concentration. "She went with the warrior, the pretty one?"
Bard's mouth quirked. "Don't ever," he suggested, "call him that to his face. Yes, she did – she married him."
She wrinkled her nose disdainfully. "He looks sensible. Why would he want her?" She added something vituperative in her native Aquarian. "Chè salopa," she ended darkly.
"Not at all," Bard said firmly. "Just ambitious, and ready to use whatever weapons came to hand. Your double standards are showing, La Rossa: if she'd been a man, you would have admired her." He slid from the table, turning back to the podium. "Okay, everyone, back to work." He picked up the liot, strummed a couple of chords, adjusted the tuning. "Shelter From the Storm. One – two – three – four – "
Outside the winds howl
Outside the rains fall
Across the darkness
I hear you calling
Come inside:
I'll give you shelter from the storm.
In the cold and restless night
Your light will shine and give me shelter from the storm …
Bard's throat was raw; he spun the words as though for the first time, and the audience heard them as they had never heard them before. Rossignol leaned in close, closer, her voice weaving in and out of his like the warp and the weft of a tapestry. Pulsar's rhythm gave the music form, a framework for the finished design; he threw his batons spinning into the air and caught them without missing a beat. At the back of the stage Daleth and Mistral, right- and left-handed, stood face to face, mirroring each other's movements as their notes echoed one another, and wove their own corresponding harmonies. Tenebrae shadowed them and, like a shadow, added a subtle new dimension that seemed not quite of this world. And at the celesta the Academician sat quietly, calmly, his hands moving without thought or effort or even, apparently, his awareness across the keyboard as he watched the rest of the band with critical detachment, watching the pattern take shape, as though he himself were not a link in their invisible chain, a thread of gold rippling through the fabric of their rainbow design.
Bard tossed back wet hair from his face, stepped back up to the microphone. "We're gonna take a little break now. We'll be back with you in just a few centons – stay with us!" Somewhere at the back of the specially converted Council Chamber an unseen technician hit a switch and the stage darkened. It broke a spell. The audience, reverently, disbelievingly silent up until then, leaped to their feet almost as one, and the auditorium rang with their applause, their whistles and stamping and cheers, and the inevitable yells of "Bard!" The band members glanced at one another as they jumped down backstage, their faces wreathed in triumphant smiles.
"Did we do it?" Daleth kept asking, over and over, to nobody. "Did we really do it, or what?!"
Rossignol threw her arms impulsively around Bard. "I want to fly!" Negus took her elbow and steered her firmly away.
"You can fly all you like, after the second half." He thrust her toward the curtained-off alcove that served as a dressing room. "Go and shower, unless you want all those men out there to know you sweat." He glanced back at the rest of the band. "That goes for you guys, too."
"How about you?" Pulsar asked, hanging back at the doorway. "You coming?"
Negus indicated Bard with a jerk of his head. "I'll see him settled first." He grinned down at the singer, whose expression was faintly stunned. "I want to make sure he keeps his bootheels on the deck."
"I can't believe it's real," Bard said faintly. "People remember us – so many people – "
"Half the fleet, to be precise," Negus told him.
"Out there?!" Bard's voice held a note of horror.
Negus patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. Concerts had always had the effect of rendering Bard temporarily oblivious to the real world. "Not on this ship. On the video relays. Simultaneous broadcast fleet-wide, remember?"
Bard was frowning as he stripped off his drenched shirt and trousers and stepped into the turbowash. "Half?"
"The other half," Negus said patiently, "are in sleep period." He shut the turbocubicle door. "Now, are you going to be okay by yourself? Think you can find your clothes for the next half?"
"M'm," Bard responded absently. Negus sighed.
"I'll come back. We just want this concert remembered for the music - !"
The backstage area was crowded with friends and wellwishers. In the hospitality room the after-concert party was already in full swing.
"Bard – " Apollo looked up from his conversation with Zara, the IFB linkperson, as the singer came into the room. He excused himself and made his way over to him, wading through the throng. "Bard, it's incredible. I can't believe – I keep thinking I'm going to wake up – "
The other man laughed. "You can't believe?! I feel like any moment Chief Tech Ishmael's going to walk in and tell me I'm ten centons late reporting for my shift." He grabbed a tankard from a passing tray. "Listen, is that really me out there, or is it just some guy that looks like me?"
"It'd better be you – the Council's already approved your grant."
"Your father."
"Friends in high places," Apollo said. "But who's going to turn down a full-fleet tour by Orpheus? There'd be riots!"
"Sounded like they were already rioting, back there," Bard observed.
"Yeah. Aren't you glad they're on your side?" He turned, seeing movement at the corner of his vision, smiled a welcome.
"Dad!" Boxey hurtled toward them weaving a complicated course between and around packed adult bodies. Unthinkingly, Bard turned to meet him. And, between one breath and the next, saw in Apollo's white face and huge, shocked eyes what he had done. He was suddenly, absolutely, sober.
The warrior reached mechanically down to touch the child's hair. "Boxey …" he said faintly. His eyes flitted from the child's face to the man's, for the first time acknowledging what he had tried so hard not to see. He drew breath. "Bard – "
Boxey was tugging at the hem of his half-dress cape. "Dad? You okay?"
A buzzer sounded over the intercomm.
"Two centons." Bard shook himself back to the here and now. "I've got a concert to play, Apollo. Catch you later …" He hesitated, knowing he had to go, needing to go; needing to stay. "Wish me luck …?"
Apollo swallowed hard, struggling for breath. "Luck …"
Boxey smiled sunnily, oblivious to the sudden tension in the air. "Good luck, Bard!"
Bard was gone. Boxey too had slipped away, back to whatever vantage point he and his friends had managed to scrounge. Apollo stood still, the room surging around him, deaf and blind to his surroundings.
We fool no-one so easily as those who wish to be fooled; we fool no-one as easily as ourselves. Am I such a fool?
A light hand touched his arm; he jolted.
"Apollo? Are you coming to watch the concert?"
He fought back to the surface, found Cassiopeia's eyes fixed on his. He blinked, nodded.
"Yes … I guess …" He shook his head, disorientated. Cassiopeia reached for his hands, held them.
"What is it?"
"What - ? Oh … I don't know."
"You look," she said seriously, "as though you've just seen a ghost. Have you?"
"In a way." He tried to smile. "But this ghost's alive." Then he burst out, "Cassi, what's the matter with me? Why am I always the last to realise - ?"
Her hands tightened reassuringly on his. "There's nothing the matter with you, Apollo. You're just a little slow, that's all. We make allowances because we like you. And," she added, quite serious now, "you like to close your eyes to what you don't want to see every bit as much as the rest of us."
He looked at her, trying to read the thoughts behind her expression. "Did you know?"
She met his eyes openly, but asked cautiously, "Did I know what?"
"That Bard … that he's Boxey's father."
For what seemed a very long time she made no answer, which was all the answer he needed. Then she moved closer, sliding her arms around his shoulders. "Apollo. You're Boxey's father. All the father he knows, all the father he wants. Don't you think he'd say the same? Have you asked him?
He whispered, "No. I – "
Haven't. Haven't had the time. Haven't had the courage. Maybe never will. And he thought again, He's all I have!
She held him tightly for a moment, as though she could sense his thoughts, then stepped back a pace. "Apollo. Try trusting people. Trust Bard to do the right thing. Trust Boxey to make his own decisions." She smiled. "Trust me. Now – shall we go watch the concert?"
The stage lights dimmed; the band moved silently away. Only the Academician still remained, his celesta weaving a fragile filigree of delicate tones and half-tones; and Bard, standing still at centre stage, head bowed, a single spotlight spilling his shadow, a pool of dark, about his feet.
The Academician found a chord; pressed it softly. Bard's head lifted.
"Twenty yahren ago," he said. His throat caught; he coughed, and began again. "Twenty yahren ago I was a kid on Libra. Twenty yahren ago I was sixteen, and I had just one dream. Twenty yahren ago I was going to be a Colonial Warrior, a Viper pilot, and I was going to be the one who made the difference.
"Twenty yahren ago I applied for the Academy on Caprica. Twenty yahren ago I was accepted. And twenty yahren ago I found that the dream wasn't enough. Not enough to make a Warrior. Not enough to fly …
"Twenty yahren ago I found that, no matter how much you might dream of a thing, if it's not meant for you then it won't come. Twenty yahren ago I failed my final medical exam, and I thought my world had ended.
"Twenty yahren ago I crawled home, praying that no-one would see me, that no-one would blame me, no-one laugh at me or, worst of all, pity me. Twenty yahren ago I sat down and I tried to put the way I felt into words.
"Twenty yahren ago, I wrote a song …" The murmur from the audience rose, drowning him out for a micron. "I wrote it out of feelings, not experience, and maybe I'd write it differently now. But I don't think so. Because twenty yahren on, I'm still singing. And I'm not alone.
"I'm going to sing it for you tonight. For you, and for me, and for all of us. But most of all tonight, I'm singing this for my friend – " He threw a brief glance across into the wings; Apollo, standing in the shadows, felt Cassiopeia's fingers tighten around his. "For my real good friend, Apollo. Because he gave me back something I thought was gone forever. Because he showed me the way when I thought I was lost. Because, if not for him, then none of this – " He gestured outward, around the hall. "None of this would be happening now. And, mainly, just because. Because even though I failed, he didn't. He hung on to his dream. He became the one. The one who makes the difference."
He stepped back. The Academician wove his notes into one final, perfect pattern and was still, his hands poised. There was, for a moment, perfect silence.
Incandescent, luminous
The suns that shine in other skies
On worlds our feet will never touch
A light not meant for human eyes.
Infinite, intransient
They burn, the beacons of the night
And, moths into the candle flame
We break ourselves against their light …
The band drifted back, caught up the notes and made them each their own. Rossignol's voice rose, high and pure, a shimmering backdrop to the melody.
They took the words, the people of the fleet, and they gave them back to him, multiplied a thousandfold. They sang; the last, lost fragments of humanity, they sang of life and hope and the promise of a future, of a vision to lead them from the shadowlands in which they dwelt, from the jaws of Hades. From the Underworld. They sang, and their voices were as one voice: the voice of humankind, the voice of everyman.
Only the warrior in the wings stood dumb, watching as if in a dream, unheeding of the tears in his eyes, the comforting arm around his shoulder. Apollo watched, silent; he had no need to sing. He, as every warrior, knew the song too well: lived it, breathed it, would do so until the day he died.
Wings of passion, wings of pain
Dreams fade, but still return again
Our lives are shaped by fantasy
On wings of gold, forever free …
And again, the words that once had been carved on warriors' deathstones:
Wings of silver, wings of fire
That blaze, that burn, my heart's desire
A path of glory through the sky
A vision that will never die …
Slower now, quieter, fading as the dying embers of an ebbing life are extinguished by the void of eternity:
A hope that death cannot deny
We live to fly, oh, lords, we live to fly …
Almost a whisper now, caught deep in the throat, like a sob:
We live …
Oh, lords, we live
To fly …
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked. The party rioted and swirled all around them, unnoticed.
"I was going to," Bard said. "The first night I came to your quarters. I meant to."
Apollo looked up at him, eyes wide, defenceless. "And?"
"And," Bard said, "within the space of ten centons you gave me at least as many good reasons why I should say nothing." He felt the other man's silence like a tangible thing and said, gently, "Apollo. I'm his parent. You're his father. I'm not going to try and take him from you. Besides – do you really think I could?" He smiled. "The only thing I am planning to take from you," he added, and the smile broadened into a grin of pure triumph, "is your childminder. You don't begrudge me that, at least, do you?"
Apollo moved stiffly, feeling as though he had travelled very far in the last few centons. "Would it make any difference if I did?" he said; reflected a moment, as words and actions that had made no sense at the time suddenly fell into place. "Oh, lords," he said, with deep and bitter feeling. "Please, say it's not so. Am I the last to know again?!"
The winds of change blow down the road tonight
Blow across my face, fill my eyes with ashes
And smother out the light
Well, I guess you were bound to be leaving
Ah, but that doesn't stop me from grieving
As I stand and watch you go.
Won't you turn around, give me a second chance?
Don't turn the page, don't end our story
Without a second glance
The wind's blowing cold down the street
And my heart's growing cold in defeat
Still, there's something you should know.
I'm nobody's hero, you know it's true
But everything I am and do, it's all because of you –
You're the one who shapes me, the one who makes me
Recreates me in all that you do.
Oh, darling,
Don't walk away, don't leave me standing here alone.
Don't dazzle your eyes with the glittering lies
The empty promises of the unknown.
What more can they give you than I could?
Will they love you the same way that I would?
Can you make it on your own …?
Return to Alpha
Launch Bay