FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

C H A P T E R F I F T Y-F I V E

THIRD PERSON POV

"What is it, Tech?" Fern repeated, tilting her head against the linen bedding to meet his eyes. Her soothing voice reached the intellectual clone's ears. "Come on, it's me, remember? You can tell me anything." She forced a kind smile to reassure him.

What...? Fern... Tech blinked. His heart clenched. Drops of sweat trickled down his temple. His teeth broke skin on the inside of his bottom lip.

He had fabricated the entire endearment in his mind...

The kiss had not transpire...

And he was relieved to realize so...

He could not fathom what repercussions he would have faced if he'd committed such an act of passion against his better judgement. Nevertheless, his exceptional mind managed to prevail... But at what cost?

There Fern laid before him in her weakened state, her focus set on him, and he could not conjure a harmless fib to ease her conscience. She must be thinking he had lost his wits. However, there were two fundamental truths forged in his judgement: that she deserved answers, and he deserved closure.

He heaved in a deep sigh, gathering what courage he had left. "Fern, when we discussed my behavior towards Wrecker and Omega, do you recall the last statement you cited before I departed at your request to reconcile with her?"

"Perhaps. Could you remind me?" Fern hummed, lightly scrunching her nose.

"You attested my words, 'All living things emote and feel. Even though we are defected clones, we acquire the same brain activity as any other living thing. Yours, is just altered.'"

"Ah, yes." she snickered. "Why do you ask?"

"Because," Tech felt his fingers twitching; he wrung his hands together to hide it. "it is still very much relevant."

"Yes?" Fern's light chuckle grew nervous.

"What are your thoughts—" Tech began, then cleared his throat to start over. Inside, the embarrassment festered; he had exhibited extreme confidence in his imagination, so why couldn't he replicate it? "I mean, I would like to ask you...What was like to at last reveal your emotions to Hunter after our...prolific discussion on Iego?"

Fern blinked. For a moment, she'd thought she misheard the clone. The inside of her skull was still throbbing from her head injury, despite receiving a full dosage of bacta spray that could erase scars, so there was a possibility. However, when she closely studied his expression, it dawned on her that he was completely serious. "I don't know. It all happened so fast. And the timing was not the best." She remembered her first kiss with the sergeant in the detainment cell just before Crosshair had collected them and transported them to Kamino... "But I knew in that moment, it was real. It was no longer theoretical nor skeptical. It was instantaneous his feelings reciprocated mine."

"Do you know when you were positively certain of your feelings?"

"Tech," Fern said his name firmly. Her brows furrowed in concern. "why are you asking me this? I don't understand what you are leading up to, but you are beginning to scare me. You are never one to elude from the point. Not to mention—Oh, ow..." When she attempted to prop her upper body up by her forearms, a rush of dizziness and increase in pulsation in her brain commenced. She sucked air through her teeth as her right hand jumped to her head. Her fingers scraped at the dry blood matted in clumps in her hair. Tech's own reacted autonomously, grasping her hand and squeezing it.

"Tech?" Fern ignored her headache and raised her eyes at her friend, who was staring at the tops of her slender appendages.

"For once, Fern," Tech sighed. "I do not acquire the words to explain." His thumb subconsciously rubbed over the top of her hand before he began guiding it to his mouth. When her knuckles brushed across the center arrow of his lips to the vermillion border, something snapped inside her...