Home Sweet Home

"What?" Gallus almost jumped back, but the pain throughout his body stopped him mid-motion. "How did they get dirt on you?" Donald exhaled sadly and spoke slowly. "You relayed all the pictures and video from the hotel basement to me, and that's very easy for the police to track over Q-Net." Gallus cringed, now realizing why Donald was so apprehensive about using the very obvious Empire-wide quantum network.

Donald sensed this and waved away his embarrassment. "You were in a very tough situation. I would have done the same. But that doesn't change our reality." As he finished his sentence, the pod pulled up, and the two climbed in. It was a bit tight, but not particularly uncomfortable. "What is our reality then?" Gallus asked.

Donald hesitated. "Well, we're probably going to be tried together for assaulting Grotto. We can try and claim that we were sniffing out corruption, but we don't have the evidence for that." Gallus sighed. "None of my footage got the whole room?" Donald shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. There are a few low-light pictures of oxygen cannisters, but tracing it back to that room and to Grotto would be very difficult."

Donald slouched back. "Besides." Donald added. "This is going to be a show trial. Grotto is backed by some high level people in New Brooklyn's government. They were probably in on the whole thing too. There's no way they're going to let us walk." Gallus felt like crying. He wished he had never went playing vigilante to begin with. His job, Rachel, all of his material comforts; they were only a moment away from vanishing.

Donald noticed that Gallus was staring off into space, and gave him a good shake. "Hey." He said, spinning Gallus around and staring him dead in the eyes. "We're going to figure this out. One way or another." Gallus just nodded and stared at the metallic floor of the transportation pod. He felt like puking. Eventually, they pulled up to Gallus' home, and Gallus disembarked the pod with a pained grunt.

"Good luck." Donald said gently, waving to Gallus as he left. Gallus gave him a half-hearted arm raise and stumbled to his door. The door read his bio-signs and slid open for him. His home seemed empty, and he dragged himself to his couch, feeling more corpse than man. With a sigh, he fell onto his back and stared at the ceiling. His life was basically over. His job was toast, and whatever they charged him with was going to be severe enough to set him back for years, if not forever.

"Hey." A soft voice floated from behind him. It broke him out of his trance-like state, and he squirmed his body to find its source. "No." Rachel said. "Don't try and move. You're just going to hurt yourself." "Ok." Gallus said, falling back onto the sofa. There was a very long silence between them, and Gallus felt her eyes boring in to him, even though he could not turn to look at her.

"Are you mad?" He asked, his voice cracking. "No Gally. I'm not mad. I'm sure you had a reason for what you did." Gallus tried to sit up again. "That bastard was stealing air. I had to stop him, I had to. My honor, my life..." She shushed him, and gently but firmly pushed him onto his back again. "Like I said. I believe you had a good reason. I'm not mad, I'm just sad. Sad that it had to happen to us, to our lives. I've been waiting to marry you for years, and now, it's all gone, like dust swept away in a storm."

"What do we do now?" Gallus asked? He was relived somewhat that his beloved was not angry, but couldn't shake the feeling of dread surrounding his circumstances. "Your trial isn't for two or three weeks, so let's just spend this time together. We've always been working, or travelling, always in a rush to be somewhere. Let's be together, until we can't." She circled around the couch and into view again, and sat down next to Gallus, holding him gently as to not disturb his injuries.

After a few minutes, they both fell asleep, fatigue and sorrow overtaking Gallus. They stayed like that for some hours, and Gallus breathed in each second, enjoying each moment while dreading the end. Eventually though, human nature took over. "Sorry babe." He muttered, struggling to his feet. "I have to take a shit." There was a moment of silence, followed by a mutual burst of laughter.

A brief moment of lightness and joy broke through the dour mood, and Rachel through a pillow at Gallus as he walked away. "Hurry the hell up and get back here!" She called after him. Gallus did his business, took his cocktail of pain pills, and returned to his fiancée. For just a moment, he managed to forget his fate.

They spent the next week or so at Gallus' house, constantly together. As the date of the trial drew near, Rachel tried to get Gallus to think about his defense, or consider hiring a lawyer. Gallus refused both, stating simply. "I'm a dead man anyway. I might as well tell the truth." She brought the subject up again and again, but each time Gallus rebuffed her. He wanted to enjoy his remaining time, and he knew he had no chance of winning his case.

As those weeks progressed, his wounds began to heal. The bone healing medication was extremely painful, but caused his wrist and ribs to mend far faster than they would naturally. By the date of his trial, he was still in a sling and still hurting, but was much improved.

A few days before the trial, Donald himself came over to visit, bringing three sealed containers with him. "What's in the drink containers?" Gallus asked as Donald joined them around his dining room table. "The poison that started this all. I went to the Dying Sun and got three Cruisers, to go." Gallus shrugged. "Might as well. We don't have anywhere to be tomorrow." Rachel sighed but picked up her steel mug. "I guess I'll see what all the fuss is about." She said, recoiling strongly as she smelled the beverage.

It was a good night. Donald took them stories of his many adventures, not only to Olympus Pons but to other strange places, both on Mars and on Earth. Gallus told stories of his childhood on Earth, and of all the strange and opulent customs Earthlings of the 28th century took part in. Rachel worked at a local animal hospital, and discussed some of the strange new pets people were bringing in. After enough alcohol, she began to refer to them as "genetic abominations."

The trio laughed through the night, and the cruiser tasted better and better to Gallus as time went on. Like all good things though, it eventually had to come to an end. Gallus passed out on the couch, and Donald face down on the floor. Rachel ended up puking a few times, as she was much smaller than both of them, and went to sleep in Gallus' bed, leaving the two men unconscious in the living room.