The Edge

Gideon: Part One

He searched the entire ship more than once, each time very thoroughly. Eventually, his anxiety accepted what his logic already knew: the guy with the knife wasn't on their ship. If he was, he was some kind of wizard who could make himself invisible, and if that was the case, they had much bigger problems on their hands.

Gideon tried not to think about that. He'd started looking around to keep his mind off things, and didn't want anything to wreck that. But once the chore was over, the mental fog settled back in.

The memories of Arian's injuries didn't help.

He hadn't caused them, but...

You could've. You could've snapped the fool's neck. The thought wasn't in his voice; it was in a voice as familiar to him as his own, one he'd been trying to forget for decades but couldn't quite seem to shake. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, it was still there. Taunting him. Whispering the worst possible thoughts in his ears.

Gideon stopped in the hallway and took a long, deep breath. Calm down, he told himself. Now is not the time to lose it.

Now is not the time to lose it twice, corrected the voice.

Gideon growled quietly and started stalking the halls again. He needed to find someplace quiet, calm down. This entire situation had been one big stress trigger. He was trying to hold it together, but with the way things had been going, even the most thoroughly researched psychological techniques only helped so much.

There wasn't much that could prepare you for a situation like this, he supposed.

Gideon locked himself back in his room and sat down on the edge of his bed. He tried the usual breathing exercise. Slow breath in. Hold. Slow breath out. Repeat until he felt more in control of himself. Repeat until the intrusive thoughts stopped.

He knew those whispers weren't hallucinations; they were more like memories, resurfaced or pieced together sound bytes of what his old mentor would've said in certain situations. Like remembering advice from his parents or someone else in his family. Except unlike them, his old meteor was a piece of shit who never gave good advice or had Gideon's best interests at heart. So why...?

Gideon stopped that train of thought and kept breathing.

He was a little surprised that no one had noticed how questionably he was doing. Benefit of Arian being up to some bullshit again, he supposed; it left Gideon free to fall apart in peace. The part of him that tried to follow his therapist's advice to the letter said he should've reached out to someone by now. Tola, Adoette if he didn't feel like burdening his little sister more...definitely not Helen. She was going through enough as it was.

But then again, weren't all of them? That was the whole reason he hadn't reached out. He didn't want to add to anyone's weight, not when everything was falling apart. It was his job to look after them. It had been from the second they let him on this ship.

Gideon focused on that thought. He treated it as an absolute certainty: he had to protect his family. It was the most important thing in the world to him and it would stay the most important thing. He had to protect them.

They were all he had.

He aired until the thought settled in before getting back up. His hands were shaking, and there was still some fog in his mind, but he could work with it. Time to get back to business.

Which planet are we going to? How can I prepare for that?

The list Arian had recovered had narrowed things down to three. He was sure the others were figuring out the most efficient way to search each and move on. It was a delicate balancing act; they wanted to be thorough, but they couldn't waste any time, either. Not when Cassandra was still at risk. On top of that, with their luck, they'd probably be held up again by some other ridiculous bullshit. Insane cults, moons with just enough atmosphere to make storms, cybernetic fucking gangs...they really couldn't catch a break. It almost felt personal.