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writergracethepanda · 2 days ago

Text

THIS IS SO SO SO GOOD

Progeny

Dr. Erland does not die of Letumosis. When the dust of the revolution settles, he must navigate his relationship with Cress and learn how to be—not just her father—but her friend.

Dr. Dimitri Erland was not Dimitri Erland at all. He was a husk of man; his sanity ravaged, memory, sense, morality all lost to the decaying recesses of his mind.

The mind of a brilliant scientist. The mind of a senile old man.

He remembered Logan Tanner, the head doctor at the Artemisian Medical Centre. Ever sharp, always well-spoken. Never that chummy with any of the other prominent doctors. Eyes perpetually set on galaxies far beyond their rock. He remembered seizing Logan by his collar, slamming him against the wall of an alleyway and demanding the location of Princess Selene. That man hadn’t been Logan at all. A limp rag doll lost to Lunar sickness, the creature inhabiting his body something inhuman.

Dimitri had never imagined himself becoming that way, but as he wrestled against restraints in a bed in the hospital wing of the Lunar palace, he began to understand why Logan took his own life.

He had managed to keep the visions at bay for years. But when he heard that his Crescent Moon had been stabbed, was half dead, all threads of sanity snapped.

He couldn’t forgive himself. He should die, not her. He hadn’t even mustered up the courage to tell her the truth. To tell her how much he loved her.

Dimitri existed in a daze. Emperor Kai visited him once, silent, hair unruly and eyes circled by the deep purple bags. His queen visited later, clutching her wound with a grimace, casting a worried gaze over his form. She told him that they were developing a prototype of Linh Garan’s device and that he would be one of the first recipients. We can fix you, she assured him.

Weeks or months or millenniums passed before he was informed by a chipper nurse that he would receive the device that afternoon.

Not long after she had left, the door cracked open. He wanted to ask for water, but these days any attempt at speech usually came out as a drunken slur, rambled and incoherent even to his own ears.

It was not the nurse. Cress came to his bedside, hovering at a distance. Her brow was creased. She looked pale, a little gaunt. But she was alive.

Seeing him conscious, she gulped. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I…I heard you were unwell.”

Dimitri’s fingers twitched, desperate to reach for her but unable. Restrained by the bonds, and his own conscience.

Cress produced a flower from her coat pocket. It was a soft pink. He had no idea of its name. “These made me feel better when I was recovering. I thought it might help you too.”

She set the flower on his bedside table, gazing at it, and for the first time in weeks, he truly spoke.

“...Why?”

She jumped, startled eyes landing on him. “Wh–why what?”

“Why would you bring me this? Why do you care?” His voice was gravelly, barely comprehensible, as though wolfen soldiers had run their claws down his throat.

Her head tilted to the side as she thought. “I’m not sure. I know you did a lot of bad things, but I also know it took you a lot of courage to help Cinder. I think…you are a good man, with all you did for her.”

I didn’t do it for her, I did it for you.

She allowed a small smile. “She told me that you had a daughter, a shell, like me. And that you wanted to save her but couldn’t. I always dreamed that my parents missed me. I don’t think that anymore but…it’s nice to know that some people did care about us shells.”

Gratitude coloured her sky-blue eyes. With a final nod, she turned and began walking back to the door.

“Everything I did,” he wheezed, “was for you.”

She froze, glancing over her shoulder. “Uh—yes,” was her uncertain reply. “For us shells. Thank you.”

“No. Not for the shells. For you. My girl. My Crescent Moon.”

Cress bristled, something harsh invading her soft features. “How do you know my full name?”

All breath left his lungs. “Because I named you.”

———

It was confounding—not realising how blind you have been until your sight has been returned to you. As the device took fast effect, Dimitri now understood that he had been mad for many years. With this fresh clarity of mind he could recognise the gravity of what he had done.

Cress wouldn’t look him in the eyes. Cinder insisted that she was merely in shock and simply needed time to come to terms with this revelation. To expedite that process, she assigned him to join the Rampion Crew in distributing the Letumosis antidote to the American Republic. His medical expertise and knowledge of the disease would be crucial to eradicating it as soon as practicable. Being in close quarters with his reluctant daughter was simply an unfortunate side effect.

The first few weeks on board were awkward to say the least. Dimitri kept himself cooped up in his room most of the time, researching and writing, sharing his findings with the heads of Letumosis research across Earth—most of them old friends. They were understandably hesitant, knowing now of his deception all these years. But they needed his help and they didn’t have the luxury to not accept it.

Cress busied herself spending time with Miss Benoit, Mr Kesley, and of course, her boyfriend. For all his disdain for the young cad, Dimitri acknowledged that he was the captain of the ship, and in that, he would not question his lead.

As a beau to his daughter, his opinion had not changed.

Meals were the worst. Friendly comradery, joking and smiles. At some point, a gaze would unintentionally fall onto him, having forgotten that he was there to begin with, and their smiles would falter.

He began eating in his room. It was during one such meal that he heard a knock on his door.

“Can I come in?”

Dimitri said nothing, yet Carswell Thorne entered all the same. “Hey Doc. Finished eating?”

“No, but does it matter?” grumbled Dimitri, already nettled by the boy’s overly casual address.

Carswell was undeterred. “I have a request for you for the next antidote run.”

He raised an eyebrow. Dimitri was the researcher. He hadn’t yet done much else.

“We’ve got to deliver the antidote by 10:00. But we’re also slated to pick up supplies for the ship at the same time. We need someone to go receive the order. Scarlet, Wolf and I are probably better suited to hauling antidote crates off the ship, so I was hoping you two would be willing to meet with the vendor for us.”

“Us two?”

“You and Cress.”

Dimitri sat up in his chair. “What? Have you told her this?”

He scoffed. “Obviously. Aces, do you think I go around forcing Cress into things without her permission? I’m not that bad of a boyfriend.”

Dimitri dropped his knife onto his plate with a clang. “If she agreed to it…”

Carswell sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Listen, Doctor, I have to respect you. You haven’t put pressure on Cress. I appreciate that. But one of you has got to fill this awful chasm between you. You both seem to deal with confrontation in the exact same way: avoiding it entirely.” He chuckled. “Must be a genetic trait.”

For Cress to be anything like him was a simultaneous bloom of hope and a dagger to his chest.

“The way I see it, if you don’t start trying to patch things up now, you’ll never have a relationship. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I want her to be happy.”

“So do I. But Cress seems to interpret the space you’re giving her as rejection, regardless of how I reason with her.” He huffed, but there was fondness laced through it. “She always wanted parents who cared about her. Show her that you do, and then she might start to believe it.”

Dimitri scrutinised the Captain, searching for complacency or condescension on his face. He could only detect sincerity.

“You love my daughter, don’t you?”

“I do.”

He knew it was true. Whenever Cress complained of pain around her stab wound, a stormy expression clouded Carswell’s face. Dimitri may not entirely trust the boy, but this he knew was fact.

He sighed. “I’ll go with her. But I won’t push her.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

Carswell moved away from the doorframe, shrugging. “Try to be her friend.”

He sauntered away, appearing so confident he seemed eons older than Dimitri. For the first time, the doctor felt a flicker of begrudging respect for him.

If the Captain had succeeded in winning his daughter’s heart, perhaps Dimitri could learn something from him.

———

Dimitri had no idea what to say to Cress as they met with the vendor. Fortunately, she seemed to have endless questions prepared for him.

“Where did you grow up?” “Who were your parents?” “Did you have any siblings?” These were simple, safe questions, but as she broached into “Who is my mother?” and “What work did you do for the queen?” his responses veered into shameful territory.

Noting his hesitation, she said, “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No. There should be no secrets between us. Your mother is also a scientist. I believe she’s still alive.”

Her gaze was thoughtful as she approached the next storage crate. With their limited stature they both had to lean on their toes to peer inside. “Should we tell her that we’re both alive?”

Dimitri sighed, scratching his brow. “I don’t believe that would be wise, Crescent. She…she didn’t want you. The moment she discovered you were a shell she…” his mouth grew heavy with salvia, “she wanted you dead.”

Cress began to nod slowly. “Will you go back to her?”

“No. After you were born, I could never look at her the same way again. Every time she smiled at me, all I could see was her revulsion when she handed you over to Sybil.” He exhaled shakily. “I did love her, but I could have never loved her more than you.”

Cress was silent, busy marking items off the list, but her hands were trembling around the portscreen. “It’s okay. When I was in the dormitories, I contacted the parents of one of the shells with me, a boy named Julian. But they didn’t want him back. I suppose I’m lucky that I had at least one parent that wanted me.”

When she smiled at him, his heart pounded.

It was once they had approved the order and begun the walk back to the Rampion that he ventured to ask his first question. “How did you grow up? You must tell me, please, what Sybil did to you.”

Cress did. She told him of her childhood, how she discovered her talent with electronics, her years in the satellite and her trek through the desert. Her eyes sparkled as she recounted falling in love with Carswell. She shamefully admitted her role in fueling Levana’s power.

“That was not your fault, Crescent.”

“I was her programmer,” Cress resisted. “I could have pretended that it wasn’t possible to spy on Earth. She would have never had the upper hand.”

“Yes, she would have,” he corrected. “Cress, I knew her. Nothing would have stopped her. All you did, you did to survive.”

She shook her head, eyes glassy. “So many lives were lost, and I was a part of the equation.”

Dimitri knew he should do something, say something assuring, but words would not reach through her guilt. And then, without second-guessing it, he gingerly laid a hand on her shoulder.

She blinked at him but did not pull away.

“I created the mutant Lunar soldiers. I understand what you’re feeling.”

He admitted to her all his wrongdoing and she listened. His deeds of horror didn’t draw her away from him, rather, she asked more and more questions, all the way until they reached the Rampion’s docking hatch. She of course became distracted by Carswell and the others, and before they knew it, lunch and unpacking and dinner had passed and all parties were off in their rooms preparing for bed without the pair having ever formally finished their conversation.

It was a start, a great start. Dimitri repeated this as he trudged down the hallway to the bathroom.

“He’s done a lot of bad things,” he heard Cress say. His feet stalled beneath him. “But he has a good heart.”

The voice slipped through the crack of Miss Benoit’s door. “Well that’s good. Bad things can be made up for, but it’s difficult to fix a rotten heart,” said Scarlet.

Cress sniffled. “I know. It’s just—it’s still strange to have a father.”

He heard the rustle of bedsheets and imagined Scarlet taking Cress into her arms. “Trust me, Cress—there’s far worse fathers to have.”

———

Now, instead of tiptoeing around each other, Dimitri and Cress reached a comfortable understanding. Their conversations—although still sparse—grew more frequent by the day. Dimitri noticed a general improvement in his mood, a gentler lean of his speech. Even the other members of the crew had begun to fold him into their moments of revelry.

It was in one such moment that these bonds were tested.

Cress lay her hand of cards on the table. “And I win.”

All at the table groaned as Cress bested them for the fourth time.

“How?!” Scarlet whined. “You have disproportionate luck.”

“I have the luck,” Carswell grumbled, dejectedly resting his head on his forearm. “I think she stole it.”

Cress giggled.

Dimitri straightened his cards into a uniform stack. He hadn’t won, though he was in the running for it if he had used some of his old tricks. Then he’d seen the glint in Cress’s eyes and knew with certainty that she was playing them all.

When Carswell delivered her a particularly petulant scowl, Cress held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, I won’t play the next round. Give your luck a shot.”

Carswell stuck out his tongue at her and gathered up everyone’s cards. The round proceeded as usual; Carswell’s smack talk, Scarlet’s serious look of concentration, Wolf barely paying attention, too busy idly twisting his fingers around her curls. Dimitri had an average hand, nothing special, but it was the perfect candidate for one of those old bluffs he had learnt back in his days on Luna. He and some of his fellow doctors used to play poker or blackjack; some would even bet using the money they earned from performing plastic surgeries for thaumaturges and Artemisian hopefuls.

Cress caught his eye. His mouth turned up on one side. She smirked.

When Dimitri won the round, the groans were even louder.

“Are you both cheating? I’m pretty sure you’re cheating,” Scarlet complained.

“It’s not cheating, it’s strategy,” Dimitri and Cress said in unison. Their gazes flickered together with some surprise.

Scarlet thrust her cards away from her. “Oh who cares, anyway?”

“I do!” Carswell cried.

Cress rested her head against his arm, smiling up at him. “Captain, you know you’re still better than me at poker. But statistically, I have to win sometimes.”

He pouted. “You’re already a genius. This was one thing I could claim! Now what do I have to offer you?”

“Your love and affection?”

Wolf, Scarlet and Dimitri all stood at once as if sensing the tender moment and wanting to get out before things got gushy.

“I’ll start on dinner,” she announced. “Wolf, you’re on chopping duty.”

Wolf trailed after her like a loyal puppy. Knowing that following them would lead to another equally romantic and uncomfortable situation, Dimitri rerouted to the hallway, catching the last tendrils of Cress and the Captain’s conversation as he went.

“It’s not just you. The Doctor beat me too! It’s like you’ve both got something against me.”

With a laugh, Cress said, “I guess it must be the family curse.”

———

“Is that all that’s left?” Wolf asked as he began hauling a crate of antidote up the ramp of the ship.

Cress checked her portscreen. “Looks like it. Only eleven crates were assigned to us.”

Scarlet, who was shifting the crates into a neat row, frowned. “That’s a lot less than our normal pickup. Are they running out of antidote?”

Carswell charged onboard, rubbing his hands together. “That’s Cinder’s problem. Let’s bounce, people. We gotta get a move-on if we want to make it to the Cali’s New Year’s fireworks tomorrow.”

Dimitri, scanning over the figures on the antidote allotment order, was not so quick to shrug off this irregularity. It was less stock than normal, and judging by the scheduled deliveries over the next month, they would only just manage to have enough.

He commed his queen that evening.

Cinder sighed over the link. “We’re running out. There’s still so much demand for it on Earth and Luna, and with the synthetic version still only in the developmental stage, our supply is dwindling.”

“Can you not enlist more shells to supply the ingredients for the standard antidote in the meantime?” Dimitri suggested.

“We have. Some of them have agreed, but most of the shells aren’t willing to donate. Most of them are only kids, you know.”

He clucked his tongue. “Then perhaps they are too young to understand what’s at stake.”

Cinder asked him to think over some alternative solutions and to get back to her with a response. Over the next weeks, Dimitri made this his sole topic of study.

They were about to land in Miami when Cress peered into the empty crates with worry. “I hope we’ll have enough left.”

Dimitri was alone with her in the dock, fishing through a new shipment of medical supplies. He looked up. “Enough for today, yes. For our entire planned run? Difficult to say.”

Cress twiddled her thumbs. “I can’t stand the thought of leaving without curing everyone.”

He sighed. “Until we fix the supply issue—”

“What supply issue?”

He blinked. He supposed he hadn’t made the others privy to his research. “Luna is running out of the antidote.”

She leant her back on a crate. “I thought they were manufacturing the synthetic antidote now.”

“It’s still only in the developmental stage. All we have is what was manufactured under Levana’s reign. Cinder has asked me to come up with a strategy to manage the limited supply.”

Cress smiled at him hopefully. “So…what have you got?”

He swallowed, pulling a diagnostic monitor from the box. It was a thin bracelet that could determine oxygen levels, blood pressure and heart rate. He slipped it around his wrist. “Well unfortunately it seems the only way we could manufacture more antidote right now is if we extracted samples from ungifted Lunars.”

Her smile fell. “Oh. Are there not enough volunteers?”

“Virtually none. Most shells are unwilling to donate samples.”

“Of course. We’ve been test subjects our whole lives. It’s hard to trust that they wouldn’t just lock us away again.”

He pursed his lips.

She lifted off the crate and sighed. “Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

As she left the bay, the monitor beeped. He checked the reading. Heart rate 91bpm—higher than normal. He wondered if that was why he felt bizarrely nervous.

———

“Doctor, could I borrow your port? The overseer wants the antidote clearance code and Thorne took my port to comm Scarlet.”

“Of course, Cress,” said Dimitri, unclipping it from his belt and handing it over. Usually their job was to deliver the antidote crates and let the local authorities administer it. But the breakout here was so severe that the victims were waiting by the ship. The line spanned half the block, people coughing, crying, some slumped on the ground in a heap. Carswell had given Wolf and Scarlet the day off to explore Miami, but with the unexpected workload, he was trying to hail them back.

Dimitri took four vials and approached a young sickly boy in the front of the line.

“Hello there. I have something for you.”

He held out the vial to the boy, but when he was too weak to grasp it, Dimitri placed the vial at his lips and coaxed it down. The boy began choking on the liquid. Though Dimitri tried to force him to swallow it, the boy shoved away from him.

“You need to drink all of it, son,” he advised.

The boy shook resistantly, whipping his head away each time Dimitri steered the vial back to him.

After several minutes of struggling, he sighed and discarded the vial. “I can only hope that was sufficient.”

He proceeded down the line over the next hour. Carswell and Cress unpacked the antidote and passed it to him as he went. Scarlet and Wolf reappeared by the end and helped with the final stragglers.

Finally, they boarded their ship, near ready to drop dead into sleep. Dimitri only managed to prop himself up in a chair before he felt his eyelids flutter shut.

“Doctor.”

He peeled his eyes open. Cress was standing in front of him. Her hands were locked around his port.

“Ah, thank you,” he murmured, reaching a hand out to retrieve it.

Her expression was enigmatic but eclipsed with iciness. “What is this?”

She flicked on the screen and showed it to him. Once his eyes adjusted to the glare of the light, he read the title and paused.

“Well?”

“It’s, um”—he coughed—“it’s my findings in the project her Majesty requested me to research.”

“I read it.”

His face darkened. “It wasn’t yours to read.”

“I thought there were no secrets between us,” she said coldly.

She snatched the port back to herself, scrolling up and reading aloud a phrase, “I advise that the only means possible of maintaining a sufficient antidote supply is to legally enforce the retrieval of samples from ungifted Lunars, irrespective of their personal feelings and consent.”

Her voice spoke the words with a greater vitriol than he’d ever heard from her.

“Yes—well—”

“You want to steal their blood? Force them to volunteer?”

Her glare was poison. His lungs twitched.

“Crescent, I understand the ethical ambiguity—”

“Ambiguity? What’s not clear?” She thrust the port towards him. “That was perfectly clear to me. You just want to use us shells as lab rats.”

Dimitri pushed back into the chair. “Crescent. I can appreciate your apprehension. But they are mere children. They do not comprehend the gravity of the matter. Millions could die if we do not obtain enough antidote.”

“They were stolen from their families! Forced into suspension tanks. They had their whole lives stolen from them! And you think they’re being unreasonable?”

His breath hitched. “...Their momentary discomfort is an unfortunate sacrifice to made for the greater good.”

She scoffed, dropping the port in his lap. “Of course you’d see it that way. Taking the Lunar boys and turning them into soldiers. Killing cyborgs so you could find your princess. Did you ever think of their feelings?”

“I have hated every sacrifice I have had to make, but in the long term—”

“What about me?” Her eyes were glassy, her voice frantic. “Should I expect a comm saying I’m being shipped back to Luna next week to be harvested too?”

“No, of course not, you—”

She fisted her hands on her hips. “Oh, I get an exemption because you care about me, unlike the other shells?”

“Cress, I—”

“I told you how I felt about this,” she said, voice quivering. “You say you care about me but you don’t.”

He shot up. “Crescent, you know I care about you.”

She bit her lip, shaking her head slowly. “No. I thought you were better than this. But you’re still the same thief from Farafrah that bought me like I was livestock.”

Before his trembling lips could form a reply, she left.

Dimitri’s heart was tearing out of his ribcage, threatening to burst through his skin. Every sneer, every accusation replayed in his wretched mind on an endless loop. Still, his own indignation eclipsed the feeling.

He hated how he had made his daughter feel. And yet his mind was still not swayed. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to revise his assessment, yet he sent it to Cinder immediately.

If he had learnt anything in his lifetime, it was that sacrifices had to be made.

Cinder sent back a response mere minutes later. No, I’m not going to force shells to donate their samples against their will. Are you crazy?!

———

It had been tolerable when the Rampion Crew ignored him. Now they avoided him and it was excruciating.

Cress had obviously told them of their argument, and it was clear whose side they were on. Wolf, who never spoke to Dimitri anyway, maintained his silence. Scarlet cast him severe looks. Carswell was the only one still to speak to him, but always curtly. Worse, he seemed disappointed in him.

And then there was Cress. Each time they crossed paths hurt and resentment flashed in her eyes.

It was beginning to dawn on him how gravely he had misstepped. The chasm Carswell had mentioned had split down the middle, torn apart by tectonic plates so deep that any hope of salvaging their relationship was burnt in the fire of Earth’s core.

Cinder imposed upon him the responsibility of finding an acceptable solution to the antidote crisis. His mind was so swarmed with the ramifications of his own crisis that nothing fruitful had been produced.

The ship landed in Des Moines, Iowa between antidote runs. The young ones were going to a shopping mall, intending for a ‘double date’—as they called it. Dimitri had the misfortune of requiring a new processing unit for his genetic testing module, and the only outlet with such supplies nearby was in that very same mall.

He practically melted into the seat of the hover as they pointedly ignored his presence.

Once inside the mall, they split ways. He overheard Scarlet saying something about attempting to find clothes to fit Wolf’s oversized chest and Cress instructing Carswell to go obtain snacks for the cinema.

Dimitri huffed as he followed the trail on his portscreen to the medical supplies outlet. If they were planning to watch a film it would be several hours before they intended to leave. Perhaps he could hail a hover to return him to the Rampion.

The part took no time to secure and purchase. He was already on his way to the entrance when suddenly Cress flew out of a store, her back to him.

He slowed dramatically, unwilling to overtake her and be noticed. She stalled in the middle of the busy walkway as Carswell approached her.

“Ready?” he asked, chewing through a mouthful. He didn’t notice Dimitri either.

“Yep,” she replied excitedly. “Scarlet said they would meet us out front in a few minutes. Whatcha eating?”

“Skittles,” he answered, poking out his multicoloured tongue.

She gasped. “Oh! I’ve always seen those in netdramas! Can I try some?”

He produced the bag from his pocket. She took it and glanced inside. Offence covered her face. “You barely left me any.”

He shrugged insouciantly. “No, I left the right amount.”

“What?”

He smirked. “Well you’re about a third of my size, so proportionately you would therefore be entitled to a third of what I ate.”

Indignation flared on her face. “What on Luna are you talking about?”

He braced his hands. “Hey, calm down, I’m just looking out for you—all that sugar isn’t good for your health, you know.”

Dimitri felt his own rage rise up to his temples. How dare he speak so crudely to Cress? To insult her so crassly? Oh, he’d always known that Carswell boy was a cad. He would break between the two of them and lambast the scoundrel until—

Carswell laughed heartily. “I’m messing with you, babe. Here—” He presented a second bag from his pocket. “This one’s yours.”

Dimitri’s hackles fell, adrenaline suddenly quashed.

Cress gaped at him. Then, regaining her senses, she smacked him on the arm. “Carswell!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he choked. “But you should’ve seen the look on your face.”

She rolled her eyes, but the ire had faded. “Well, you’re not getting any of this.”

“Of course not. It’s yours. Along with these.” He opened a shopping bag that was hanging from his belt, pulling out a bottled drink, a tray of doughnuts and a chocolate bar.

Cress blushed. “I’m not going to eat all of that.”

Carswell flicked her nose, slung an arm around her shoulders and led them forward. Dimitri, cemented in place, heard his fading, “Well maybe I was onto something with those portions, huh?”

———

The next weeks were the most he’d every worked in his life. He poured every waking moment into his research, to writing and estimating and testing. With each antidote run he spent hours documenting the reactions of each patient, compiling as much data as possible into his arsenal.

Once he deemed it acceptable, he sent his new proposal to Cinder. It was underdeveloped to be sure, but he couldn’t face Cress until he’d done it.

Exhaling a sigh of relief, inhaling a breath of anxiety, he entered the cockpit bay.

She was sitting on a chair by the window, hand cupping her chin as she gazed off into the endless sea of blackness and stars. Hearing him enter, her gaze flickered towards him, and that perpetual hardness returned in full.

“May I speak to you?” he asked softly.

A beat. She nodded.

He approached her cautiously, unable to maintain eye contact. He looked at his feet. “I want to apologise to you.”

She stayed silent.

“Crescent, I know that what I did was incredibly wrong. I destroyed the faith you had in me. In truth, you never should have had that faith to begin with.” Inhale, exhale. “I have never done anything to repent for my sins of the past. I thought I was better now. I fear that I am worse. I’m so truly sorry.”

She folded her hands in her lap, face stricken.

“I do not expect you to forgive me,” he continued, “but I hope I can at least make you believe that I recognise my need to change.”

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe you’ll change once your law is passed and I get shipped back to Luna to be their blood supplier.

“There’s no law,” he rushed to say, “No shells will be forced to donate. It was wrong of me to ever consider that. I have submitted a different proposal; actually, it was inspired by your boyfriend.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

Over the past weeks, Dimitri had begun experimenting with apportioning the antidote to victims based on their age, height, gender and weight. His test groups proved that children and teenagers needed less of the antidote than adults to make a full recovery; women needed less than men; those who weighed more and were taller needed the full dose. Once he had enough evidence, he readjusted the metrics for each group and applied this to the number of remaining antidote vials. Instantly, their supply would last three months longer than initially projected.

Cress watched him carefully as he explained this. Eventually, she said, “That makes sense.”

He clutched his hands together behind his back. “I know it cannot make amends for what I did to you—”

“It’s a start,” she interrupted, sounding genuine.

Exhale. “I know I have acted wrongly my whole life. Truthfully Cress, I don’t quite understand the parameters of right and wrong. But—if you’re willing to again accept my company—would you please teach me?”

Her eyes returned to the window. Earth was edging into the corner of the glass, filling up the room with its swimming blue brightness.

“Okay. But you have to promise me something.”

A former Dimitri—the doctor, the mentor, the wise man—would have hesitated, but he was now a student. He would be teachable.

“Anything.”

Glimmers of a smile, the first directed to him in so long, crept up to her lips. “Promise to stop viewing me as the baby you lost sixteen years ago, and start viewing me as a person.”

Inhale. “I will.”

———

It took time for their interactions to evolve from nonexistent to tense, from manageable to cordial. The more and more Dimitri learnt about Cress, the more he mourned not knowing. He mourned not having the opportunity to raise her, to hold her hand as she walked for the first time, to drop her off and pick her up from school every day. But Cress had made him promise not to dwell on that. So for the first time, he took her in as the person she’d become.

Without his or anybody’s help, Crescent had raised herself to be a remarkable young woman.

Every new thing he learnt about her was greater than any scientific discovery he could have made. She was a genius, which was no surprise given her pedigree. But she had taught herself everything. To read. To write. To hack. She was an optimist and a daydreamer. She was a loyal friend. She had her share of weaknesses too, but they were only those common to mankind.

When he stumbled upon her in the galley, he learnt that she could sing.

No, not sing. Her voice soared, sweet as honeysuckle and clear as a trickling fountain. His little songbird.

She was standing by the bench, assembling a sandwich—to her an ordinarily mundane task. To him, it was a moment of reverence.

The words slipped out unprompted. “Your voice is beautiful.”

Cress peered over her shoulder, and for once, she didn’t seem startled to see him. “Thank you.” And then, after a pause, “Did I get that from you?”

He barked out a laugh. “Certainly not.” Then his memory stirred. “But my sister had a voice like yours. She’s still alive. She has children—your cousins—and some of them have children around your age. I could…I could take you to meet them all one day if you’d like.”

Her smile was beatific.

Being a student of Cress was more challenging than all his years of medical school. Stripping back years of his own thinking and reasoning on matters was more than difficult—near impossible. He resented the thought he harboured deep inside that he could never change. But even worse was the niggling sentiment lurking in his chest, asserting that he was older, wiser and shouldn’t listen to a mere child.

With the unofficial ban on associating with him lifted, the crew tentatively reintroduced him to their activities. He regained trust to the point that when he assured them that he could handle a small antidote delivery on his own, they believed him and jetted off in the podships to the mountains for the weekend.

The outbreak in Seattle was the worst he’d ever seen. Where in most places the line of victims was able to stand, these victims were all sprawled on the floor, shivering and drooling, with more blisters than actual skin.

“Why haven’t they been brought the antidote sooner?” Dimitri asked the overseer, aghast.

“We had been promised the leftovers from the outbreak in Tacoma. Then they had a surprise wave and used up all their supply. That’s when we called on you.”

Dimitri administered the antidote to as many people as he could, the rest distributed by the Seattle team. It was gratifying to see the light returning in the eyes of the victims. It was not enough to shake the sense of failure when two men—one in his thirties, one elderly—didn’t make it.

With a grim nod to the overseer, he stepped into a hover and programmed the address of the Rampion to the guiding system.

He checked his portscreen. Cress had sent him a photo of the four of them overlooking a sheer cliff. They were all smiling, sweaty with exertion.

Half an hour into his trip, his port pinged with a comm from the Seattle overseer.

We’ve had 40 more Letumosis victims brought to the quarantines. Can you come back with additional antidote?

Dimitri reread the comm at least five times.

He was due in Portland in only a few hours time for a large delivery. The number of victims there was reported to have risen exponentially in only the last two days alone. But that was only this morning’s estimate. He had approximately 300 vials of antidote left. The victims there had been sicker for longer than these forty new cases. There wasn’t enough time for both.

His initial reply halted on his fingertips as the image of the light leaving the eyes of those two, withered men flashed across his vision.

Dimitri set up a voice comm to Cress. It bounced back. This portscreen is currently out of range.

He didn’t know how to trust his judgement anymore. But right now, he had no one else but himself.

He commanded the hover to stop. He thought and thought and thought for a good fifteen minutes. Then he sent his comm and directed the hover to his destination.

———

He met the others back at the ship. They returned glowing red and panting but exhilarated.

“It was amazing,” Scarlet sighed. “I wish we could’ve stayed for longer.”

“Not when we got a delivery in an hour,” Carswell said with an affected responsibility in his voice. “Unless we teach the doctor to fly and get him to do all the runs for us.”

Wolf was the only one who seemed impervious to the exhaustion of the hike. He read Dimitri’s face with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Cress, flanking Carswell and sipping from a water bottle, glanced at him curiously.

Dimitri rubbed his brow. “After I left Seattle, they commed saying additional victims had arrived and needed the antidote. I did not believe that we would have enough for them as well as for our upcoming delivery.”

“What did you do?” Cress asked quietly.

Dimitri took a seat, shrinking down. Voicing aloud his decision was nearly as hard as it had been to make it. “I…I knew we would need the antidote for Portland. We already have limited supply and we have no idea what state they’re in. So I—I rejected their request.”

“So what?” Scarlet accused, “You’re going to leave them until we get more antidote in a month’s time and those people are already dead?”

“I sent another supplier a comm requesting assistance. They promised to travel there by Monday.”

Scarlet softened. “Oh.”

“I can only hope the supplies make it there soon. They already had two people die this morning.”

Carswell shook his head, frustrated with himself. “We should’ve stayed and helped you.”

“No,” he dismissed, “there was already no hope for them.”

The silence in the bay was dense and heavy on his shoulders. The corpses still felt fresh on his fingertips. “I know it may not have been right. I tried to contact you, but I couldn’t. I had to make a decision.”

The others nodded assent and soon all were preparing for takeoff, the happy morning coloured sombre. Dimitri felt responsible for it.

And then as the ship was rising shakily into the air he felt a hand on his shoulder. Glancing back, he saw Cress standing behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. She was here to tell him what she would have done in this scenario, he guessed. Flashes of their previous argument clung to him; her anger, her disappointment. To have disappointed her again was a blow worse than insanity.

But instead, she spoke, voice even and clear, “No. You made the right decision.”

———

Cinder commed him occasionally, asking him for advice and updating him on the gradual improvements to Luna. One day, she sent him a different comm.

He had a new assignment—to study the wolfen soldiers he himself had created and see if he could reverse the transformation.

It was optimistic at best, completely impossible in all probability. But he knew that he must dedicate the rest of his life to atoning for this sin.

It also meant that his tenure on the Rampion would soon expire. Being separated from Cress was a bitter taste on his tongue. So he prolonged his stay, asking Mr Kesley if he would be a temporary participant in his research. Wolf was initially hesitant but—eager to be fully human again—he agreed.

Months of research and experiments proved fruitless. Dimitri kept trying.

He pulled out his port again, thumbing it adamantly as the screen flickered and protested. He harrumphed. Setting it down on the table, he took a moment to stretch out his complaining limbs with a groan. It was late in the afternoon, though time was tricky when a glance out the window illuminated the perpetual blackness of space.

“Are you okay?”

Cress hovered by the doorway, her hands tucked behind her back.

“I’m all right,” Dimitri replied. “Just old.”

His port chimed. He picked it up, hoping for success, but it was merely a ping for a software update. He grumbled under his breath.

“Something wrong with your port?”

“I’m trying to transfer some of my notes from old files on Luna to my current files. I believe there’s a compatibility issue, given the original files are at least thirteen years old.”

Cress tossed from one foot to another. “I could help you, if you’d like.”

“Please.”

Cress came over and hooked up her port to his, running through the analytics as the system diagnosed the problem. When the file name Human-Lupine Mutation Trial #11 appeared on her screen, she hesitated.

“Do you really think you can fix them?”

Dimitri gazed at his feet. “I don’t know. But I will keep trying. I did this to them. I must try to undo it.”

She was silent for a beat, then in a low voice: “I’m glad you’re trying.”

Her port pinged as it completed its diagnosis and she got to work. It was amazing watching her fingers work, only just able to keep up with her mind. Her face was brilliantly scrunched in concentration.

“Okay,” she chirped, detaching the plug. “It will take a while for the files to load onto your port, but now at least they will won’t fry your RAM.

He took the port as she offered it back, eyes widening as he saw the notification on the screen. Override disabled from user: Crescent Darnel.

“Darnel?” he voiced softly.

She tucked hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I, uh, updated my records. I never knew my last name. I quite like it, actually.”

“Crescent Moon Darnel.”

Cress smiled. “Crescent Moon Darnel,” she repeated.

She looked at her own port, frowned, and showed it to him. Red text on the screen read: Connection disabled from user: Sage Darnel.

“Why don’t you use your name?”

“Pardon?”

“Well, we all just call you Doctor. But Cinder calls you Dr. Erland. That was your fake name, wasn’t it?” She listed her head. “Wouldn’t you prefer to be called…Sage?”

He took off his glasses and rubbed them on the end of his shirt. “Wouldn’t your wolfen friend prefer to be called Ze’ev rather than Wolf?”

She chewed her lip.

He switched off his port. “To be honest, Cress, I don’t think I am Sage Darnel anymore. Or Dimitri Erland. I am somewhat of an amalgamation.”

Cress thought this over. “Can I call you Sage?”

“If you want to.”

Her eyes twinkled. “I do. After all, we should share a last name, right?”

Sage felt a flicker in his chest, growing warmer by the second. “Yes, yes we should.”

———

Sage ambled down the Rampion’s hallway, idly browsing through the data on his portscreen. The report came from the Health Board of Minnesota—where they had delivered the antidote last month. The distribution of the antidote had put a significant dent in the fatality rate, but the disease was still spreading prolifically. We would greatly appreciate your expert opinion, wrote the chairperson.

The options were limited. A statewide lockdown—the logical solution, but an economic reluctance. Or to immunise the greater population—presently infeasible with the limited supply. It would be months more before such a solution could be implemented, and the question remained: could they justify the continued loss of life?

New York had already completed a lockdown period, whereas Virginia had trialled immunisation in a small pocket of the state. Sage would have to compare the data before drafting his response. He headed to the cockpit bay. As they had been in transit between Earth and Luna, the connection had been too tenuous to send directly to his port. He would have to connect his port to the Rampion's mainframe to establish the link.

The ship was quiet. Mr Kesley and Miss Benoit were watching a net drama and last he’d heard, his daughter and the captain were doing a stocktake of the shipping containers. Sage found the door to the cockpit already open and the lights off. He crossed the threshold, switching his port off and glancing up.

His feet solidified beneath him. Carswell was in the pilot’s seat with Cress tucked into his lap, his arms around her waist as the two engaged in a languid kiss. Sage held his breath, very aware that he should leave immediately and in a way that he would not be detected. The couple seemed sufficiently distracted.

Sage stepped back. They continued to kiss. Another step. His shoe squeaked against the floor.

The couple tore apart from each other, gaping at the figure at the door.

“Uh, sorry there kids.”

Cress sprung away from Carswell. “Dad!” she shrieked. “Uh—Sage! I—we…”

Cress was positively red. Carswell was blushing a little too, but he mostly just looked amused.

Sage nodded at them and backtracked further. “I'll leave you be.”

He hastened down the hallway, allowing a cringe to cover his face. Cress’s embarrassed groans followed him, along with Carswell’s booming laughter.

Sage couldn’t help a smile. Not at the antics of the young couple—he had only just begun to tolerate his daughter’s relationship with the ex-convict, and interrupting them mid-makeout was really testing that boundary.

He didn’t care about that. Let his daughter be giddy and romantic all she wanted. He cared more about what she had called him unintentionally, a slip of her inner thoughts.

Dad.

———

Sage returned to Luna after eight months onboard. Part of him was devastated at the thought of again being separated from his little girl, but he knew that she needed to grow on her own. On her own—with her boyfriend.

Scarlet and Wolf had already returned to their farm last week. Sage needed to return to Luna to support his queen and fulfil his assignment.

His return to Luna was also planned as an opportunity for an antidote restock, so his farewell was not overstated. They hauled the shipments onboard, shared laughs and lunch with Her Majesty, and then filed into the docking bay.

Cinder released Cress from a hug. “Are you sure you can’t stay longer?”

Cress squeezed her hands. “I wish. The captain is a hard taskmaster.”

Carswell nodded proudly. “Yep. This shipment is due in 16 hours. No time for dilly-dallying.”

Cinder rolled her eyes and pulled him into a hug. “When did you get so responsible?”

“Cress keeps me in line.”

The three turned to Sage. Carswell approached him first. “All the best, doctor.”

Sage extended his hand. “Captain.”

They shook firmly. Sage buried his desire to warn Carswell about his conduct around Crescent. Carswell would treat her well. Sage trusted him in that.

When Carswell stepped back to Cress’s side, she tapped his arm and leaned up on her toes. He craned his neck towards her. Sage read “Give me a minute with him,” on her lips.

Carswell gave him a final nod, Cinder a wink and a playful jab to the side and sauntered up the Rampion’s dock, whistling as he went.

Cress said nothing, eyes darting down at her feet. In his peripheral vision he saw Cinder discreetly stepping away.

Sage cleared his throat. “Take care, Cress. Stay safe.”

“You too.” She stepped forward. “Will you visit us? When we come back to pick up the antidote?”

He smiled. “Of course. I already look forward to it. I will…I will miss you greatly.”

It was the kind of statement Sage had avoided making, never wanting to pressure her or set a sense of obligation. But Cress nodded.

“I—I’ll miss you too.” She finally looked up at him, something of shame in her eyes.

“I wanted to apologise before we go. For being…hesitant. For treating you like a stranger instead of…instead of my father.”

Sage shook his head quickly. “No, Crescent, you didn’t know me. I can’t ever fault you for being distant. If anything, it’s my fault.” He shuddered. “I should have fought Sybil. I should have escaped to Earth with you the moment I discovered you were a shell.”

“I don’t think it would be that easy,” she replied, and he sighed, knowing she was right.

“But please, Cress, you are my daughter. I love you. But I will never, ever expect you to reciprocate that. All I ask”—his breath hitched—“is that we could be friends.”

Cress sniffled, eyes glistening. Suddenly she threw her arms around him, causing him to stumble off balance. “We are friends,” she whispered. “And I would like to be your daughter one day. I’d like you to be my dad one day.”

Tears sprung to his eyes. He chuckled shakily. “Thank you, my girl. Thank you.”

They separated with shared feelings and matching smiles. Because she had inherited it from him, he realised.

Carswell slung an arm around her shoulders when she reached him on the ramp. They waved until the hatch folded up.

Cinder came up behind Sage and rested her metal hand on his shoulder. “I’m happy for you, Doctor. And I’m happy Cress has you.”

“I am too, Miss Linh.”

The Rampion roared to life and stumbled out of the dock under the Captain’s unsteady hand. Sage’s heart clenched, already aching to be away from Cress. They watched until the Rampion was no more than a distant star in the infinite black sky and the aching was supplanted with relief.

His songbird had been freed and no one could ever trap her again.

Notes

Was anyone asking for a Dr Erland fic? Not a soul. But a writer cannot deny the howls of a tale unsung.

@cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @kaixiety @snozkat @mirrorballsss @skinwitch18 @bakergirl13 @wassupnye @linh-cindy @therealkaidertrash21

#the lunar chronicles #tlc #lunar chronicles #dr erland #sage darnel #dimitri erland #crescent darnel #writergracethepanda #save

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