Private I Don't Wanna Be Me

[Emryc]

He'd reached the end of his cigarette and so was forced to sit, complacently idle, while he rolled all this new information around in his head. It all boiled down to the fact that he had some digging and research to do, but it wasn't of utmost importance. For as long as she'd been in his company and under his care she'd not had a single threat against her life. Either time had weathered the sting of her great atrocities, her death really had been accepted as final, or she'd succeeded in living clandestinely as wheelchair-bound Beatrice Govan.

Whatever the case, there did not presently seem to be an active pursuit for her head.

"Okay," he said finally as decisions slowly began to emerge for immediate actionable items of business, "I'll increase your Guard retinue when you travel and make sure they are informed, prepared, and equipped to handle Force Users. Is there anything else I should know?"

Beatrice Govan needn't worry about rejection, he was prepared to accept her for whatever or whoever she was. Doing anything otherwise would only make him the galaxy's biggest hypocrite.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

She relaxed back into the couch as Emryc Qosta, the galaxy's most transactional person took her sordid, morbid history and turned it into business affairs. For once, the woman fully appreciated his trademarked strangeness.

Thank you, Beatrice said turning to finally look at him, the barest traces of a grin smile threatening to hang itself upon lips.

Was there anything else?

I really did die.

 

[Emryc]

A furrow ridged his brow at that. A lot of odd things had tumbled from the woman's lips since they'd met at the pool and that one certainly took the cake. Emryc didn't even like cake.

"That so?" he asked in a moment of unbelievably casual response, turning to look at her with brows now faintly raised and give her a solid once-over, "You look pretty alive to me."

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Sharp observation, she commented, allowing a wry smile to flicker as emotional apprehension faded in the face of his apparent acceptance of her former life and crimes.

The body is vat-grown from my remains, she explained plainly, my father deigned me worthy of a second chance, a small part of her felt that this conversation warranted a drink in hand but a larger part wisely vetoed such notions, nobody asked me if I wanted a second chance.

The irony of Beatrice Govan was not lost upon her.

Yet here I am.

 

[Emryc]

Her wry smile was met with a look of levity from the man, probably the closest thing she'd ever seen to humor. Emryc studied her face from where he sat, thinking it to be quite a bit more attractive than he recalled without the shadow of self deprecation and doubt hanging over it. Now that she'd found a shred of confidence and self-assurance, she damn near looked the part of a noble lady. It was impressive, this change in her, and he wondered how much the Shrink had to do with it.

Vat grown. He wasn't sure he knew what that meant. A clone? Not that it really mattered too much. A body was a body - this one seemed to maintain all the usual hitches of a typical human form if her physical maladies were any indication. As for her second chance ... well, the normal answer would be that most people never got second chances and she aught to be grateful, but that wasn't quite his speed.

The levity disappeared for a re-furrowing of his brow in thought, Emryc shifted on the couch slightly to face her more fully, bringing an arm up over the top to hang and drawing a hand over his jawline.

"Here you are," he echoed, "so what do you want to do with your second chance?" The tone suggested the question was rhetorical as neither it or his gaze seemed to push for an answer.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

I don't know, she replied truthfully, looking down upon her hands as she clasped them together in contrast and rested them upon her lap, it's never really been up to me before.

Turning her head she looked to him, offering a somewhat sombre smile that softened sharp features. It was peculiar, looking at him and not being frustrated at the same time. Beatrice didn't hate it, even if such serenity was fleeting.

I suppose I quite like what I'm doing now.

 

[Emryc]

"Mm," Emryc gave her a knowing stare, "schedule your drunken benders to Coruscant off the clock next time."

Oh yes, he knew about that. Her assigned guards had reported the unscheduled movement the moment she went missing from the booth at W H S K. Emryc had known she'd been in the company of someone, but not who. He still didn't know it was Aver, but it wasn't a stretch to think that it was. Beatrice was easy enough to track - Cortez wasn't going to let her experimental biotech go waltzing out into the galaxy without some ability to track its whereabouts and status.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

"...a-aa," Govan suddenly vocalised with a croak, caught off-guard as eyes widened and head suddenly turned to the side to avoid the scrutiny of his stare. Not accustomed to such mortification she could feel a warmth spread to her cheeks, face becoming a furnace of embarrassment.

How do...

Her memory of that night beyond leaving the W H S K was...sparse to say the least, and the idea that she'd gone to Coruscant with his sister to eat hot dogs seemed more fiction than fact.

I've decided to abstain from drinking, actually, she admitted rather sheepishly, as per Cortez's advice.

Brows knotted in mild consternation.

Are you upset with me?

 

[Emryc]

That mortification and pinking of her cheeks brought him some curious amount of amusement. If the man knew how to smirk like his sister, he would have been wearing one right then. Fortunately for Beatrice she'd not find herself at the merciless whim of such a beast like Aver Brand. He might've been disappointed if he felt any ownership at all of her choices - but he didn't. She was a woman grown, capable of making her own shitty decisions and drowning in her own shitty consequences. If mortification and embarrassment accounted for nothing, it was a lesson learned. Hopefully.

"No," he replied casually, "but I will be if you go against your word."

It would be so much more interesting to watch her continue her recovery and see what kind of person she'd shape into. Emryc had watched and helped break down too many people in his life and he'd found no level of satisfaction at that. Thus far, the project of building Beatrice back up was proving curiously enlightening.

"Which I hope you do not because I have grown to like you and would rather not be upset with you."

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Oh.

Suddenly, she was thrust into an almost entirely unfamiliar realm as the words 'grown to like you' hit her in the face like a brick in a sock. This was foreign territory, far from the familiar comforts that came alongside being manhandled and shouted at.

She froze up, staring blankly ahead as if she'd just been asked to pick a drexl egg to bond with.

What does like you even mean? Was it as innocuous as a friendship? Force, she'd never even had a proper friend. Or could it be something more? What if h- Beatrice caught her mind's hand dipping back into the cookie jar of overthinking and wrenched it out of there, turning to face him with a strained smile.

Well, we can't have that, can we?

She felt the whisper of a flashback, something about being soft and vulnerable...

I must confess I've grown quite fond of you too.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

Some time passed. Beatrice continued to recover. Cortez continued to grow restless for that golden arm.

Then finally the day arrived that, after their patient had managed to clear the entire course in the gym for a third time, Emryc signed off for moving forward with the project of that hideously haunted limb.

"So," Cortez began, her voice echoing not at all in the confines of the lab where Beatrice sat on the table while the Doctor ran tests on the arm, "there is a veritable cornucopia of limb replacements we could look into. Cybernetic, biotech, synthetic, cloned, biogenetic ..." she probed the blackened skin where the golden metal connected to Beatrice's torso, sending tiny jolts of electric signals in to the skin and measuring twitch response to see ... what tissue still remained viable.

"Have you decided what route you'd like to take?"

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Beatrice wasn't particularly fond of Cortez, having gotten off on the wrong foot the moment that the doctor insisted upon the power of positivity. When the aforementioned power of positivity was the secret to experimental spine rehabilitation the woman chose to double down in her distaste instead of admitting she was wrong.

It cut the shit, so to speak, all business and no pleasure.

I'd like it to be flesh, she answered plainly, head turned to observe the probing of the cursed tissue, and as close to organically mine as possible.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

"Pity," Cortez continued her poking about the woman's shoulder where corrupted skin met gleaming brassy Sith frippery, "I would have liked to fix you with the full set of biotech replacements. The possibilities....uuoah." The sound was dramatic deflation, easily swapped for a look of sinister excitement behind Beatrice's back.

"But the options for skin aren't all boring. Cloning has its curiosities but takes time. If I was to do it properly, we'll need to set ourselves up here for a clone induction chamber ... that will take time. Then growing it will take more time. Then you have DPO syndrome to deal with afterwards and that's terribly fun. Plus you'll have the remainder of your very own clone self, available to harvest from at any time of need," she leaned around to affix Beatrice with a mechanical sapphire grin.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

The possibilities for you or for me, Beatrice thought to herself as the woman rounded her back to poke and prod at exposed flesh like a scientific deviant.

She nodded as Cortez rattled through the benefits of cloning, lips growing thin and stare turning suspicious as the Doctor gradually moved into such factors as DPO syndrome and having a body around to harvest parts from as needed.

This seemed ethically...dubious given her evident excitement. Govan raised both eyebrows at the maniac, suddenly full of pertinent questions.

What is DPO syndrome? I'd like to avoid complications if possible.