It came as a surprise to no one who knew your closest family that you were met by the final part of it high above the plains of Mars, in the middle of your descent. There was absolutely nothing subtle about it, and you were quite sure that Mary couldn't have cared less. She knew that you were both alright, but that wasn't the same as being there with you. It had been all you could do to convince her not to take the shuttle out to meet the courier, a debate you'd finally won only by pointing out how it wouldn't save any time.
Meeting you here wouldn't either, but you knew Mary well enough to understand that that wasn't the point. She wanted to see you and the daughter you'd raised together, and she knew that neither of you would be inconvenienced by her choice of where to meet you. Launching from a ship this size while it was in motion wasn't something that Iris had ever done before. Fortunately, she'd had a whole twenty seconds to practice, and she had you there to help too. Not that it proved necessary, but it was the thought that counted.
The day was coming to an end as you jumped from the courier's airlock into the Martian sky, the rays of brilliant sunlight reflecting from the silver of your Aegis and the tears that none of you were able to hold back anymore. Mary met you in that sky, in a hug that was entirely silent but for two words at the very beginning.
"You're ok."
Mary wasn't anything more than human except perhaps in the power of her mind. Physically, both you and Iris were leagues stronger than her. But that mattered less than nothing against the emotion pouring off of her. There was no fear to it, not anymore, because she could see and feel you now. Gone was the woman who had curled against you and cried for the fear you'd subjected her to – though those tears had been shared, then. Now there was only the irresistible, wordless power of a family that loved each other.
As high as you were, the sunset had not finished when you finally started moving. As you descended towards your home, though, the night caught up swiftly. You were almost thankful for that. None of you were limited by darkness anymore, and it made the flight home quieter than it would have been in any other circumstance. You understood the wish of the public to see you, to know that you were alright like Mary had needed to. But theirs wasn't a need. Hers had been. And facing a crowd right now felt like a terrible idea. Adriana and her government could hold humanity steady; it was their job. You would take advantage of this moment and use it to let go. Anything more could wait.
Not forever, no. But long enough.
That had been your thought still, many hours later, as you glided up the stairs of what had once been Mary's home that now belonged to all of you. Iris was heavier than she'd been the last time you'd done this, but the real challenge was how much taller your daughter was now. It made manoeuvring her through the staircase and hallway beyond something of a challenge. For all that she'd done, all that she gloried in being, your daughter had never taken a life before today. And AI or not, she was still human. Her words, not yours, and a choice she'd made herself during her time at the Institutes.
You felt the brush of air behind you as Mary followed you up, one hand cradling the line of her daughter's chin. A few strands of almost painfully drab grey were brushed away from her mouth, and Iris made a soft and contented sound, settling against the familiar hold. Still your little girl. Your heart told you that that was never going to change, and that was good. You didn't want it to.
Despite the somewhat unique challenges presented by the young woman your daughter had chosen to grow into, it didn't take long to get her settled. Mary had told the bed to make itself somewhere in the first hour in, if you'd kept track of it right; a quick check with Sidra confirmed you had. With that done, it was just a matter of getting her into it. Given that the clothes she'd worn to the battle had been an extrusion of her physical avatar, you weren't worried about them getting creased. The only real problem, if you could have called it one, was how she fastened on to you and Mary as you tucked her in, though she never stirred from sleep.
"I did warn you," Mary sighed, though the put-upon expression did her few favours when her eyes were wet and smiling. She leant down and gave your daughter a proper hug, humming the bars of one of the songs you'd written as a teenager. It had been a lullaby then, and had grown into a regular occurrence in the evening when Iris had been a child.
"I didn't object," you pointed out, entirely innocent. You leant down too, pulling your daughter into another fierce hug. A few lines of gentle song later and you too were free of the iron grip. You could have escaped it, of course. But not without waking Iris, and that wasn't something you were willing to do. She needed her rest, to begin processing everything that had happened. It wouldn't give her solutions, or at least you didn't think it would, not yet. But it would help. And right now, that was what mattered.
You pulled the coverlet up to Iris' chin, and brushed her hair with your other hand, smoothing it out. She made another soft sound, contented, and then curled into the soft covers to rest. You rose, smiling, and left the room with Mary to find your own. You had talked of a great deal, and your cheeks were still wet with tears from it, but there had been a few things that neither of you had felt you could easily talk about with Iris there. It wasn't a matter of trust. It was simply…personal.
You leaned against Mary as you walked, the long day finally starting to catch up to you as Sidra's influence began to fade. They could have maintained your Aegis still, but it wasn't necessary anymore. The depth of fatigue you could feel coming wasn't so much nipping at your heels as it was considering how best to devour your entire lower body. You'd told Mary, and she understood, but this conversation couldn't wait.
So much so that you started it on the way back. "What changed?" Perhaps not the best start. "I mean, compared to last time. You're so much more," you paused, struggling to find the right word. Weren't you meant to be better at this?
You felt Mary smile beside you. "A lot's changed since then, Mandy. Not just in us, but," she gestured absently, taking in the entire city around you in the motion. "This. You helped me take back what I'd thought I'd lost. Forever. And then, with Iris," she broke off, the act of stepping through into your shared room providing an unobtrusive excuse to do so. "We both love her so much, but I wouldn't be able to be up there with her. And yet," something in her smile shifted, becoming wider and so much more gentle.
"You go up there because you love us. Iris does it for the same reason, at least a little. Yes," she waved one hand, the other popping the fasteners on her choice of clothes for the day. "You both do it for more than that, but that doesn't detract from it." She pulled off her jacket, the rest of her garb following swiftly.
"I worry, of course I do. I'm terrified when you go up there," she told you as she slipped into bed beside you, the last few words a whisper. You'd already fully dispersed your Aegis. "But I couldn't, I can't, ask you to stop doing it. That would be asking you to stop being who you are, and I couldn't change that even if I ever wanted to."
"Which you don't," you nodded muzzily.
"Which I don't," she agreed, before continuing. "And again, what you did, throwing yourself into more than just battle and risking so much to save a friend. You did that for me, once, Mandy. It's who you are. And we'd be in a very sad place, I think, if you weren't."
"Even if," you started to say, but Mary cut you off before you could get past the first word.
"Just come back alive," she told you with quiet inevitability. "Even if you scare me, or everyone else, or keeping making people think that LiFE might be right." You muffled a groan at that. That was one that that you weren't looking forward to dealing with in the least. Mary's arms tightened around you in a hug, and you tilted your head sleepily to see her looking across at you.
Waiting, you realised, for an answer. You nodded slowly. "I'll do everything I can." It was all you could give.
She smiled, slipping down to rest her head on your shoulder. "That's all I could ever ask," she murmured, the needs of stress and emotional exhaustion pulling her too towards sleep. "And all I ever will."
Words easily spoken, on decades of trust, and in the same mind as your own. That this now was all that mattered. It was a comforting thought, you realised, as you drifted off. To know that your duty had been done. And though it would not wait forever, it could wait long enough.
"Good night, love."
That had been what you'd thought.
You found yourself standing somewhere that you could have sworn you'd seen before, upon an endless plane of faint blue light. The light of stars and the galaxies which held them shafted down upon you, forming into vaulting walls, like some immense gallery woven of the very sky. The outline of stars and planets scattered across the space between the grander spirals, laying out a vista unlike any you'd even imagined. You wondered, idly, if this was what Insight saw when it Thoughtcast. Such a strange dream to have.
Except there was a figure standing at the far end of the gallery of lights, facing away, gazing out across the stars. They wore a cloak of dark crimson, tinted ever so faintly by the blue-white lights of the place's walls. You couldn't imagine why someone like that– Your thoughts, and all illusions of this being only a dream, died as the figure spoke.
"Amanda Hawk." It was a voice that no human would possess, born of a hundred, a thousand, different possibilities. Not a voice a human could possess, and yet…a voice that was similar to one you'd heard once before. More than fifteen years ago, in the doorway that the Elder First had left to guard their vault. Anger sparked deep within you; could you not be given at least a single night of peace?
"Is this truly necessary," you asked, your tone biting and acidic. "I have fought and almost died today. If you left something for me," the figure turned, not fully, but enough to meet your eyes with one of its own. They burned a pure blue, unlike anything that could be human, and the face hidden in the shade of that light was not, either. Much was obscured, yes, but you could see well enough to tell. You took a step back, power rippling suddenly around you, power that felt far too real to come to you in a dream.
"Please," the being pleaded, and you saw its lips move in time with the words. Almost human, you realised, but made of too many possibilities to be one. Like a jigsaw finished with too many pieces. "We mean no harm. But we are not something left by your predecessors."
"Then what?" You demanded harshly. Sidra's strength filled you, and yet you could not hear or sense the intelligence behind the device. What had this thing done? The figure turned fully, two eyes of brilliant light piercing into yours, and a gestalt of all that this being was crossed the space between you before you could blink or look away.
Lives, billions of lives, gathered and bound and willing. Souls together, minds apart, yet all had agreed to a choice. Something more than life had been born of that, something only of the soul, not of the mind or body. A being of formless power, which had left the physical form behind long ago. How long…you couldn't tell. The stars it remembered were not familiar. Yet they had suffered the same pain. Ships from the sky, ships you recognised, tore down their world.
They rose again, fought, fell, rose, fought. On and on, until finally they were free. A freedom that was not full, but one that did give them hope. Thousands of years of time spent among the stars, learning the hollow emptiness of that hope, the reality of the chains which bound the stars. All of it leading to that choice, to become more, and leave this sad world behind. Such depth of detail could not possibly be anything but true, something told you. Something of yours, you corrected. Not this being. And all it given in an instant.
That left…your thoughts stalled.
"You're," you said, breaking off again to shake your head, shock clear in your face and voice. "You're," you tried again, and failed.
The figure bowed its head, the gesture remarkably human. "We are sorry for this intrusion. But we need to talk. Of you, and how this war might end."
). The way it keeps PW humanity from being instantly crushed by ten trillion cloned, flash-taught P-zombie Shiplords is just a bonus. 
