Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

Poison

The lunch dishes were drying and Hannah and I were sitting on the couch, just quiet. She was humming to herself, slightly slumped against me, her head resting on my shoulder, her fingers busy doing a small needlepoint pattern. I had no idea where she pulled the hoop and cloth and thread from but I'd seen her work on that needlepoint before so I wasn't too worried.

Her strangeness didn't bother me. In a way her inhumanity was a relief. She was fickle, whimsical, and more than a little odd, but any betrayal of me would not be out of cruelty, not be out of a desire to hurt me, but just her nature. Once I'd shifted my thought process so that I realized that all of us, all of the Atlas crew, all of Echo-Five-Actual, were nothing more than our basic natures, it made things easier.

Made it so I could approach Hannah about how I felt about her.

As the months rolled on I stopped caring about how different she was and just cared that she was who she was.

"Are you lonely sometimes?" I asked her, breaking the silence.

She stopped stitching, leaning forward to set the needlepoint on the coffee table, before snuggling back up against me. "Often," She said quietly. "Not at Atlas, not when I am with you, but often."

"Because you're different," I said.

She nodded, her hands seeking mine out, her fingers intertwining with mine. "My blood is Aine. I see the world differently. I hear the world differently. Even at this distance I can feel the heartbeats of those we have mingled blood with, feel destiny and necessity collide, tell how things are flowing."

"Is everything OK?" I asked, noting the fact she had mentioned, obliquely, the Atlas crew.

She shook her head. "I do not know. I just know that it is not our weird to become involved, that whatever is involved is a dark road that they must walk alone together," She looked up, her eyes wide and luminous and her hair rustled at her back. "Another thread has begun to intertwine with those we love, a shining one, a strong thread," She shivered, "Aodan, Jonathon, and kelly Nagle have their own dark road to walk."

She sighed and lowered her face, cuddling against me. "But my place is here, with my Paul, and I feel no desire to leave your side."

I hugged her gently. "Will they live?" I don't know why, but the thought of Atlas, of life, without Ant, Nagle or Bomber made a flutter of fear in the emptiness. Ant had been more and more reluctant to take action, begun second guessing himself more and more the last few months since the bunker explosions had wiped out the Atlas crew. I'd seen it more than anyone else, but what the hell could I do about it?

Hannah sighed again, standing up and smoothing her dress, "I do not know," She moved into the kitchen, getting a cup down from the cupboard and pouring a cup of coffee. She stirred in hazelnut creamer and spooned in three spoonfuls of sugar. "May I tell you something? Something that he understands even if he does not realize it? Something dark and terrible?"

"Of course, Hannah," I said. She set the coffee down and returned to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea. The tea she made always smelled strange, odd, and it was always made with herbs and leaves from the small embroidered pouch she carried with her.

"Ant will die in some dark and cold place, howling in rage and hatred, blood on his hands, steel in his fist, and his boots on. He will die with everything taken from him, with nothing left, forgotten and alone," She said, sitting down next to me. "I have known this since we were children. John and Nancy will too, I realized that when I tasted his blood, tasted theirs, that their weirds were intertwined with his and they too would die when he did."

I hugged her, rubbing her upper arm. Most people would scoff at their girlfriend making pronouncements of doom, but I knew to take it seriously.

"So I worry about him, about all of them. About you. At times I hate that more people come into my life and I can see their weirds, see what awaits them. I do not know when their thread will end, I just often know how, know in ways I have difficulty explaining. From our beautiful Cromwell to that bright thread that is twining into our weaves of destiny," she told me and lifted her face. I closed my eyes and kissed her upraised lips. After a moment we leaned back and she blushed. "It does not bother you?"