by Ashley West
“I want to go find my shuttle,” he said finally. “She called me Captain Samel, and I was obviously coming here for a reason.”
He’d half expected finding the shuttle to be one of those easier said than done sort of things, but it wasn’t. As if he’d memorized the route, making his way through the square and to the wreckage of his shuttle was easy, and he directed Naomi as she drove them there in her car.
Once they reached the thicket of trees that he’d crashed down in, they had to get out and walk, and Naomi stuck close to his side, seemingly unable to relax.
He felt the same.
His body was humming with nervous energy, and he went ahead and let one of his hands burst into flame to help light the way as the sun was beginning to set already.
“Is that it?” Naomi breathed, pointing ahead of them. A fresh layer of snow had fallen since his crash, but the dense trees had done enough to slow the fall of the snow that there was no mistaking the pieces jutting out.
“Yes,” he replied, and climbed over a fallen tree to get to the mess. As he approached, he was seized by memory.
"Approaching Refuel Station, designation six-one-four-nine-Beta-seven," said the AI. "Initiate refuel protocol?"
It was the same voice from his dreams! And it made sense now. “It was the shuttle AI,” he murmured. “One of the voices I was hearing. It has to be. It was...it was recording something.”
“Recording what?” Naomi asked, voiced hushed. She kept glancing around at the growing darkness, unease on her face.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” Samel said. “It isn’t safe.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that staying with the man with the fire in his hands is the safest place to be,” Naomi replied. “Answer the question.”
“I don’t know what it was recording,” Samel said. “Something important, clearly, if I keep remembering it.” He walked around the wreckage, using his flaming hand to clear away the snow. There had to be something here, something that would tell him something.
“Samel,” Naomi said, and her voice was high and tight.
“What?” He looked up and then followed her finger to the where five of those creatures were emerging from the trees.
His eyes narrowed and his other hand burst into flame. “Get behind me.”
She slipped and clomped her way through the snow until she could do as he said, hiding behind him as he stepped forward. “Be careful,” she breathed, and he inclined his head, acknowledging her words.
The creatures moved closer, seeming to glide through the snow. They were focused on the light from his flaming hands, and that was fine. He could take them out with a couple of good blasts of the fire, and that would be that.
But something inside him was clamoring for attention, and he frowned and allowed it to take hold, watching, amazed as the fire in his hands shaped itself into a broad sword made entirely of flame.
“Did you know you could do that?” Naomi asked.
He shook his head.
But it felt right. It felt like this was what he had been missing, a weapon in his hand, and an enemy ahead of him, and he didn’t waste any time. His body knew what to do, so he let it do it, adjusting his stance and then leaping into battle.
He didn't even have to think about the movements as he went from one to the next, muscles burning with the exertion after weeks of not doing this. He slashed the burning sword through one of the creatures three times, lopping off its head and then its arms and watching as it crumpled to the ground, wounds already cauterized and the creature already dead.
The others weren't smart enough to take that as a sign that they should get out of there, and that was fine with Samel. They could die like their friend, then.
He moved in a blur, ducking their swipes at him and using his sword to remove their arms first thing. Their shrill hisses and shrieks of pain echoed in the thicket, and Samel could only hope that no one was going to come investigate.
By the time they all lay dead around him, he was breathing hard, but he had never felt more like himself.
"Hillsiders," he muttered. "They never learn." And then he froze. How had he known that? Before this moment, he wouldn't have been able to name those creatures if you'd paid him, and now the name just tripped easily off his tongue. They were Hillsiders and he was... "Captain Samel, of the Warriors of Fire."
And just like that, it all came rushing back, like something inside of him had been unlocked, letting all the answers come pouring out. He was Captain Samel. He was from the planet Selal. He was a fire warrior, and he had come here to... No. He hadn't meant to come here. There had been an explosion, and he'd ended up here. Probably by passing through a warp star. He'd been at the refueling station near his planet, and then there had been an explosion.
"I know what I was recording!" he said loudly. "I know where I came from!"
Naomi stepped out from behind a tree. "You do?"
"I just remembered," he said, laughing. "It all came back to me after I fought them. You were right, this is a part of me. It just felt so right that it all came rushing back."
She smiled at him, and he noted it was a bit shaky. "That's amazing," she said. "So what were you recording?"
He told her the whole story as he dug through the wreckage of his ship, praying to the stars that something had survived the crash and then the cold. He told her about the Hillsiders and then breaking into the library and of the Elders. He told her how he'd been sent to scout outside the planet's atmosphere and how he'd been running a scan before he was struck down and crash landed here.
"If I can find the recording or my comm device, then I can get a message to the Generals, and they can..." He trailed off, not wanting to say the words 'come and get me'. Because...because he'd have to leave, wouldn't he? He'd have to go back to his planet where he belonged, and he'd never seen Naomi again.
The fact that there was something—someone—who he now valued enough to give him pause in doing his duty hit like a punch to the stomach. That had never happened to him before. Before this, being a warrior was his whole life. And now...
Now he didn't think he had ever been so confused.
His fingers closed around something with a promising shape, and he let out a pleased sound as he pulled his comm device from the snow. It was cold and the screen wasn't on, but that was alright. With some tinkering, he thought he could get it working again.
"Come," he said, getting to his feet. "Let's go home. I need to work with this for a bit."
Naomi nodded. "Right. Let's go, then."
Chapter Nine: Pyre
Samel was a completely different person now that he knew who he was. Before, he'd been quiet and sort of unassuming. His size and presence were enough to keep him from fading into the background, but he'd carried a vulnerable and lost quality about him, and Naomi had wanted nothing more than to protect him. Some of that had been shed during sex because then he was all confidence and strength, but once it was done, he'd go back to being thoughtful and almost shy.
But now he seemed to fill the room in a much bigger way than he had before. Now the confidence was in every line of his body. He even held himself differently than he had before, posture straighter and eyes clearer. He was a captain, supposedly, and she could see that about him now.
It made her sad, even as it turned her on, and she wanted to slap herself in the face.
Of course he was going to leave. He was always going to leave.
Hoping that he never got his memory back and that he'd stay here was so selfish she didn't even know where to begin, and she couldn't believe that she'd ever entertained that thought.
Because he'd never been meant for her. He was meant for his people and his mission and his power. It was clear that it was a life he loved and had dedicated himself to, and as she watched him tinker with the little device he'd pulled from the wreck of his ship, she knew she was going to let him go. What other choice did she have, really?
"Will yo
u tell me about your people?" she asked. "Now that you remember them?"
It was late, and they were the only ones in the living room. Samel was working by the light of the lamp near his couch (his couch: the one he always managed to fall asleep on when he sat near her while she did accounting on her online class work--she was always going to think of it as his now), and he glanced up at her, a smile on his face.
"Of course," he said, and then launched into an explanation of where he was from and how he had lived before coming here.
"So you really don't have a wife or anything?" Naomi wanted to know.
Samel shook his head. "No, I was right about that. There's no time, really, for things like that. Being a warrior is a passion that consumes you. You can have dalliances and friends and family, but there would never be enough time to really be with someone like they deserved."
"Oh," Naomi said. "That makes sense. Well, I'm glad I wasn't helping you cheat on someone, then. Does it still count as cheating if you're on another planet?" She laughed, and it sounded hollow to her own ears.
"Are you alright?" Samel asked, looking at her in earnest now.
"Mmhmm," she replied. "Just tired. It's been a day."
"It has," Samel agreed. "You don't have to sit up with me, you know. You should get some sleep."
He was right, and she knew that, but she didn't want to leave. She couldn't say 'I don't know how much time I'm going to have left with you, and I don't want to waste any of it'. She couldn't say 'I want you to remember how much you like me and like it here and then decide not to go back to your life's passion'. So instead, she said "I'm going to make some tea."
Samel laughed softly. "Of course you are."
For some reason that rubbed her the wrong way, and she sighed and took herself into the kitchen. Maybe he didn't even want her anymore now. Now that he knew who he was. Maybe he thought she was silly with her humanness and her house full of misfits. He probably slept with more important people back on his planet and all.
She made a face as she put the kettle on to boil, banging it onto the stove with more force than was strictly necessary. Tea would help, Naomi tried to convince herself. Tea would make things make sense again.
But she didn't really believe it.
By the time she had a steaming cup pressed into her hand, Samel had clearly gotten his comm thing working. It was about the size and shape of a small tablet, and he was cradling it in one large hand while flipping through screens and menus with the other. She walked over and peered over his shoulder, but it all looked like gibberish to her.
He pressed something and then typed in a string of symbols and within minutes, a reptilian face was filling the screen. Naomi squeaked and moved out of the way, not wanting to be seen, in case this was like an intergalactic skype call or something.
"This is Captain Samel," he was saying. "And I'm calling for the Generals."
The...person on the other line answered in a series of words that didn't even sound like a language to Naomi, and Samel replied in the same, and that was when she took herself and her tea to bed.
He didn't need her down there, and she didn't want to feel like she was in his way.
It had been stupid, really, this whole thing. Naomi knew that things like this never lasted, and she'd let herself hope anyway. It was just that it had been different from anything she'd done back in a shelter. Those were temporary and silly by nature, and....so was this, in retrospect. Someone who couldn't remember who he was, lost and confused, was never going to stay with her.
Of course he was going to get his memory back and then leave. That was how these things worked in the real world. But she hadn't stopped to think about that at all. Instead, she'd just barreled ahead and let herself start to have feelings for him.
"Because you're an idiot," she muttered to herself, slurping at her tea savagely as she turned the heat up in the room and then took off her clothes so she could get into her pajamas.
She tried to remember that she was young and that just because this hadn't worked out didn't mean nothing ever would, but it was hard. It was hard because she cared about Samel more than she'd ever cared about any of those men in the shelters, and he actually had fit into this life here.
This house, these people who lived in it, this was who she was now. The people were her family, or as good as one, and anyone she was with was going to have to understand that and work to fit in. Samel hadn't even had to work that hard.
Camille liked him, Samantha liked him, Matthew and Raven didn't have any complaints about him, and Finn had just about given his approval of the whole thing.
It was like Samel belonged, only...he didn't.
He belonged with his people, not with her.
She got into bed and pulled the covers over her head.
She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes next, it was to see Samel moving around the room quietly. The covers had slipped down, and she could see him stripping off his clothes, uncovering that gorgeous body as she watched.
It seemed rude to stare, but he was leaving soon enough so she gave a mental shrug and drank it all in.
When he turned to face the bed, he smiled. "I thought you were sleeping. I'm sorry if I woke you."
"You didn't," she said. "Did your call go well?"
He nodded. "Yes. I spoke to General Farleen, who was...oddly happy to hear from me. I think they thought I was dead, though they didn't say as much. But they had been looking for any signal from my shuttle and getting nothing, so I know they assumed the worst."
"I'm sure they're all glad you're alive, then."
"They are. Or they will be, when she tells them."
"And then you'll go back." Her voice was soft as she said it, and she tried to keep any inflection from her tone. She wasn't so silly as to think that her being upset about him leaving would make him stay, but she wanted to put on a brave face all the same. She didn't want to make it seem like he had to make a choice. They'd had a good time, and it was over now. It could just stay like that.
"I have to," he was murmuring back, and he reached for her as he got into the bed. "But, Naomi, I want you to know—”
"You don't have to do that," she said. "You don't have to try and comfort me. I always...I always knew that one day you were going to remember and leave. It's fine."
Samel shook his head and took her hand in his. "No. This isn't to comfort you," he said. "This is just something I need to say. I...before this, I didn't really know what it felt like to be happy. I knew what it felt like to do my duty and to be on a path that I knew was the right thing for me. I knew how I was going to spend every day of the rest of my life, more or less. But I can't say I was happy. Content, maybe. There's a word for it in my language that basically means something like satisfaction, and I was satisfied. But being here with you and everyone I've seen what it could be like to build a life from nothing. To start with nothing and end up with everything, and it was...amazing, to say the least. If I'd never remembered that there are people counting on me, I would have stayed. I would have stayed here with you and tried to be a part of your life."
Naomi looked at him and felt the emotions rising. She'd promised herself that she wasn't going to get emotional until he left, but there she was, about to start blubbering. She wiped her eyes with her free hand and gave him a shaky smile. "That means a lot to me," she said. "I would've let you. Stay, that is. Be a part of my life. Everyone would have let you."
"I'm glad." He sighed. "They're sending a shuttle for me. With the use of the warp path, it can be here tomorrow."
"Jesus. That's fast. I thought space was supposed to be vast and untravelable."
"For humans, perhaps. But we've mastered it. Otherwise it would take forever for trading and things like that."
"I guess that makes sense." She tried not to think about how her heart was sinking. Naomi had assumed their time was short, but she didn't realize just how short it really was. "That's good, then. That you can get back to your peo
ple faster."
"Yes," he said. "It's good. I have to put an end to whatever it is that's going on here. That woman, I haven't seen her before, and when I mentioned it to the General, she didn't seem to know who she was either. But at least now we know what she's after."
"Your power."
"Yes. I'm not sure how she thinks she can get it, though. Either way, we have to stop her. That should also stop the Hillsiders from attacking people here."
Naomi nodded. "Sounds like a noble cause."
"It's my duty." He reached out and stroked hair back from her face. "But before I go, I want to make sure you know just how completely I'm going to miss you."
"How do you plan to do that?" she asked, even though she had a pretty good idea.
"Before, when we did this, I didn't remember myself. It was me, giving it to you, but it wasn't really me as I am. And now, I'm going to give you something to remember." His voice was low and heavy with promise, and Naomi already felt herself reacting to it. She licked her lips and wiggled closer to him.
"Do you really think you can do that?" she asked. "Ruin me for human men?"
He leaned in close, his fingers in her hair going tight for just a moment. "I know I can." And then, as if to prove it, he ripped her nightshirt off of her like it was made of paper.
It left her in bed naked but for her panties, and she gasped at the sudden cold air on her breasts, her nipples going hard. Samel slid his hand down from her hair to her chest and cupped one breast before he pinched her nipple lightly, drawing a moan from her.
"Everyone's here," she whispered. "They'll hear."
"Not if you're quiet," Samel pointed out.
That seemed like one of those easier said than done kind of things, and she was tempted to tell him as much, but instead she just moaned as he slid his hand down further to cup her sex through her panties.
She knew she was already hot and aching for him, and she could see the line of his cock through his thin pajama pants. It looked hard and delicious, and she half wanted to push his hand away and fall to her knees so she could worship that fine specimen.
