Amending the Record

Posted on 23 Jan 2011 @ 10:14am by Captain Reva Madhava & Captain Antonio Vazquez

872 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: M7: Shore Leave - Mercer Colony
Location: Planet-side

This time, when Antonio had pulled away from her, Reva agreed it was time to dress and head back to the ship. Watching him come back toward her with his swimming gear, she caught his arm and fell into step with him. "What was on your mind before, Antonio?" She was different now: calm and quiet; her angst of the past week had slipped away.

Antonio was tense. There was silence for a few minutes before he answered,"Years ago I lost a part of my memory. Well, more like it was taken away from me...", he stopped walking, lifting the arm she held onto to rub his forehead, "I thought it was permanent, but I think my memories are trying to return...or at least fragments of them."

Stopping, she faced him and was mildly confused. This was the reason they had to dress? There must be more to his admission. "And...? Wouldn't that be good?"

"I don't know...no...yes..maybe..." he answered, stepping back away from her.

His turmoil roiled towards her. She frowned then asked, "These memories... are they bad? What caused... or who took them from you?"

His eyes betraying his worry, he watched her as he revealed, "Someone within...the Orion Syndicate".

No other phrase could have rocked her as much as that one. The Syndicate... It wasn't just that she and it shared a race - her mother had been, still was, part of it. It, in the form of the stout man, had just saved her hide at auction. "I suppose, then, that you've certainly got your reasons for hating green skinned women," she muttered and heavily sat in the sand.

He dropped his bag and scuba gear, "That's not how it is.." he swallowed, looking around them, and then back to her.

"Isn't it?" She watched him for a moment then looked out across the water. "No one could fault you."

'No' he thought, shaking his head as he pulled her up by her arms, "No, it isn't. Reva, I lived within the Orion Sector for almost two years, I know how the people there think, how things are done..." he grabbed her shoulders, "Believe me when I tell you that it is not how it is..."

Two years? Amongst Orions? Intense curiosity shifted in her belly. "Then how is it? What's bringing these memories back?" She touched him and an awful thought came to her: "It's me, isn't it? Not how I look - you taught me on the Montague and this didn't happen. My pheromones?"

He shook his head again slowly, and turned away rubbing his hands down his face as he walked a few steps away, "I don't know what's bringing them back. But it isn't your pheromones. Right now Reva, it isn't always best for you to be around me..." he raised his head up, closing his eyes tightly as he thought about it, "Since this began, certain expressions, or mannerisms, the things that you say when you're..."

As he spoke, Reva thought of her mother... was she thinking of her or was.... "Oh gods...," Reva had an epiphany, a terrible one that she didn't want to voice to Antonio. Shaken, she turned and started walking; better to walk away than face the idea that he'd had his memory wiped by her mother.

Antonio stood there, watching her walk away. Thinking he hurt her again by rejection, he grabbed his bag and angrily hurled it out into the ocean, and then scooped up his scuba gear, about to do the same.

Reva spun back towards him and yelled, "Hey!", to make him stop what he was doing. She had caught his thought, felt his anger, loud and clear; she hadn't yet thought that he was rejecting her... Had he just done so? Pushing that problem aside for the moment, she stalked back towards him, stopping only a few inches from him. "Europa," she said.

He turned towards her breathing hard, and then wavered as he had a sudden flashback; one of another woman, an Orion woman, one with a gleeful expression of both hatred and seduction, leaning over him. It was fast and as he returned to the present with his vision blurred, and feeling a little disorientated, "What?" he asked, giving her a 'what did you just say?' expression.

She grabbed his arm, intending to steady him. "Europa," she said it again, drawing it out a little, "It's a name. Do you recognize it?" Her gaze on him was hard and searching; her brow furrowed and she frowned. "Antonio?" He had gone blank.

His world crashed in around him; there was darkness, voices, a sense of being captive and afraid. For a moment, it cleared and he saw Reva... but not Reva; an older female Orion. She smirked in a way that was so familiar to him and he realized she was grabbing his arm. He reacted...

And connected, hard, with Reva's cheek. Both of them went down in the sand, Antonio on his ass; Reva on her knees. She looked up at him and knew something was seriously wrong, medically. "Ensign Madhava to Achilles Medical, I have an emergency on the planet...," she hailed the ship.

 

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