***Depending on how the last part crunches out, I think this is the second-last chapter. This one's a bit short again, but I needed the room in the upcoming one to bring in the final character.
I wrote this five years ago at least, but reading through it, I see that I'll need to add one more person for the ending.
This is still largely the recollections of Ryan as he worries about the two most important people in his life and it's a strange thing to him, which makes it worse.
He's lived his life - the latest part of it anyway, alone. Now he cares about Taela and Shorty and they're missing.
But that's for later.
The hot chocolate?
~grin~ I added it since that's what I was sipping a big mug of while I was checking this over.
0_o
*****
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A year of earth time had gone past. Taela and Ryan had grown their relationship into something that neither one could have ever expected to have. They had the odd disagreement now and then, and a few of those had even grown into minor fights, but they'd never lasted long.
Long before the winter set in, they were a true hunting pair, a couple so in love and in tune with each other in all respects, though they went about it a little differently.
Ryan taught Taela as much of the technology of Earth as he had on hand in the shuttle and they spent days out there inside it. It was during one of those times when Ryan had an idea.
He accessed the old beacon that Betty had set out from her probe ship ages before and, finding that it was still functional, he queried it for everything that it still had, and he learned a lot.
"What are you doing?" Taela asked him one day as she sat in the co-pilot's seat with Shorty. It hadn't taken Ryan long to see that the two of them had their own relationship in a very real sense. He guessed that it had come about from their time together when she was younger and had to look after the screecher when Betty was out hunting.
By the time that he'd figured it out, Ryan found that he didn't mind it very much. In fact, he liked it a lot. Seeing the two of them walking together was a nice thing, he decided, since they were close, a little like a girl with her younger brother, though it was a lot different from his own relationship with his younger sister had been when they were kids.
They'd hated each other as children and that had matured as they did themselves to the point where he hadn't seen his sister since he'd left home and had no desire to ever set eyes on her again. There just wasn't anything there, other than mutual avoidance. Of course, it was also a bit of a moot point, he realized, since by now, she was more than likely long dead.
But Shorty and Taela had something. One of Ryan's favorite sights was to see them walking without their knowledge that he was watching. They were different, but it was obvious that they fit together and the way that they looked together always gave him thoughts about ...
Left alone or in only Ryan's company, they were affectionate toward each other, though not sickeningly so, as though they'd discovered a piece to each one's completion as a person in the company of the other. He liked to see it, and he guessed that something about the two of them had changed the way that he saw Shorty as well.
The screecher still had his odd relationship with Betty, but as time went by, she seemed to be finally beginning to age to a degree and for a time, it had caused Shorty some difficulty, since he hadn't understood it at all and took it to be a little bit of rejection of him on her part.
It had been Ryan who had stepped up for Shorty then, seeking to give him more of his friendship as well as a bit of mentoring in a way.
He just hadn't interpreted Shorty's adoration of him in the correct way -- at first.
The sound of Taela's question to him put him in mind of the day that Betty had gotten angry with him when she'd walked in on them as Ryan was teaching Shorty about PDWs. She'd about lost her mind when she saw the little guy practicing with field-stripping the weapon on a table while sitting on Ryan's knee, since he liked to do that whenever Ryan allowed it.
And Ryan allowed it because he saw that Shorty learned things even faster when he had a teacher to be in physical contact with, as though part of what he learned flowed better for him that way.
"What I'm doing," he replied, "is getting Shorty over his fears. He's not a minor in age and he's not retarded, the way that you like to tell yourself that he is. I've found that he's got quite a sharp mind in his head. I'm just giving him a way to use it and I guess that I'm also empowering him here a little. I'm slowly learning how to talk to him so that he understands a lot more.
One of his biggest fears is that one night, his nutty relations outside will get in here with us. He's always felt helpless fear over it. You've got racks of Morgarod weaponry. I've got my stuff. He's had only his fears and his utter dependence on the rest of us. Even after I gave you and Taela a PDW each, there's still one for me and one left over.
I've given it to him and I'm training him how not to shoot himself or any of us. You know what I've found?"
Betty had been almost furious. "What? That he can now kill us without meaning to?"
Ryan had just shaken his head, "No, Betty. I've found that he can calculate how much to lead a flying target by almost innately. After only about three mags through his weapon, he already knows the trajectory that this ammunition flies at over any given distance -- and we both know that he's not exactly an idiot savant. He's got a lot of processor between his pointed ears.
I've learned that his difficulty in speaking is not due to the lack of mental horsepower. It's quite the opposite, to my mind. He's something which can only engage his vocal chords as a screech for the most part.
He's got a brain and it's hungry. I'm feeding it, and my reward is that he's finding that he CAN speak - he just only has the ability to whisper and hiss the words, that's all."
She'd turned on her heel then and stormed out.
Shorty had looked over at Ryan with an expression of concern then. "Don't worry about it, Shorty," Ryan had smiled, "I'm sure that you know just how to get on her good side again in a little while."
Shorty's face showed that he was thinking about it and then the screecher had grinned and nodded.
"Now," Ryan had said, "start from fresh and take this thing down and then put it back together with your eyes closed. It's really important that you can do this blindfolded and by only feel."
Shorty had nodded and then went to work with his eyes tightly closed. He had it apart, field-stripped right down and then back together in less than a minute -- and that included the strong and wickedly devious spring which was a bitch to get into place and hold while one screwed in the gas adjustment plug against its compressed force.
When Ryan told him that he'd done it faster than he'd ever seen anyone do it, Shorty had half-turned where he sat to hug Ryan tightly. It was the way that Ryan knew that the screecher expressed his happiness over something that he'd been either given or had learned and he'd smiled at his smaller friend.
But then Shorty had done something that Ryan knew had taken him months to get his courage up for and he didn't know what to do, not wanting Shorty to feel badly over it.
All the same, Shorty's soft kiss on his lips had come as a total shock.
Even more as Ryan found that he'd really liked it.
While he'd sat there wondering how to respond without causing a setback, Shorty had laid his head on Ryan's shoulder and sighed softly with his eyes closed. After a moment, he'd raised his head to look at Ryan very searchingly for a moment, and then -- as if what had happened hadn't been enough - he'd actually managed to form a very rare whispered question.
"Is it ok, Ryan?"
The veteran soldier had been struggling for a long time over Shorty anyway, out of the way that he liked him and felt for him. This -- while it had been a bit of a rude shock to him, didn't seem to be that far wrong somehow.
Ryan had what he might have called a 'what the hell' moment and then he'd just kissed Shorty back for a second or two, and the soft sigh that he heard felt so good to him.
Just then, Taela had walked in and she chuckled at them, "That's been a long time coming."
Shorty looked as though he'd have blushed -- if he'd had the ability to -- and he got down from Ryan's knee to pick up the PDW, taking it over to Taela and showing her what he'd learned a little proudly.
"What do you mean?" Ryan had asked Taela as Shorty worked.
"Just what I said," she replied, smiling, "Shorty loves you, Ryan. He loves us both quite a lot. I've been wondering just how long it would take you to see that." She watched as Shorty repeated what he could do with the firearm and she fussed over the screecher a little.
"I've loved him since we were kids, him and I, and now, well I know that he's dying to go a little farther and begin something more with us."
She asked Shorty to put the weapon down and then she put her arms around Shorty's waist and the response was almost instant.
Shorty groaned softly and put his arms around Taela's neck as he looked up at her. In turn, she began to kiss him and Shorty's wings unfurled to wrap around her a second later. When they broke the kiss, Taela turned her head to smile at Ryan.
"You don't mind, do you, Ryan? I'm really hoping that you're not going to start feeling jealous. I've seen the way that you like to look at us when we're together. We both love you, Ryan. That hasn't changed one bit. I really don't think that it ever could."
