Reunion part the fifth Alpha Male

It was like having a hangover, except Lucca knew she hadn't been drinking. "Hey, uh, what just happened?" asked Bart. There was the same sense that you didn't know what was going on, and you didn't really want to know just yet. "I feel sick," Marle groaned. There was that aspect too, Lucca reflected hazily, of nausea. "Head hurts," Ayla complained. The sense that you could figure everything out if only you had a few more hours. "Review of my visual logs reveal several major discrepancies," noted Robo. "Did something just happen?" asked Crono, scratching his head. Lucca closed her eyes tightly and tried to concentrate.

"I don't know," Lucca admitted.

"It was like I was asleep with my eyes open," mused Bart, looking around as if to confirm this. "Where'd Marle go?"

"I'm over here, not that you'd care," Marle sniped. Crono raised an eyebrow. So did Bart.

"What? First you go all weird on me and start talking like Robo, and now you're pissed off? What's the deal?" he demanded.

"I did no such thing," Marle fumed. "And what do you mean, 'what's the deal?' You were the one being a total jackass!"

"So that's what I get for trying to make peace with you? You call me a jackass?"

Crono put a hand on Marle's shoulder. "Calm down, everyone. We can't go blowing up at each other until we've figured out what happened."

"I suggest we quit this place," Magus spoke. Everyone turned to him, and he looked into each of their eyes in turn.

Bart nodded, finding Magus' gaze almost as penetrating as whatever had been affecting them. "All right, let's move then." Crono moved toward the door, squinting and trying to figure out what happened as he dove into the water. "Robo, go ahead. No offense, but I don't want to be under you when you land."

"Affirmative," Robo nodded. He took a running start and cleared the water in one jump, landing on the Epoch's fuselage.

Bart shook his head, still amazed at Robo's bizarre leaping ability, and dove in after Crono, who was about two lengths ahead of him. A vague notion of beating Crono to the Epoch floated through Bart's head, and before it was even a conscious thought, Bart was trying harder; he put more effort into his strokes, kicked more forcefully, and tried to remember everything he'd learned about swimming in high school P.E. while Ayla zoomed past him. It was useless as soon as Crono noticed. Crono effortlessly pulled ahead, careful to give the impression that he wasn't even trying. He slapped the Epoch, smiling, and pulled himself up beside Ayla, who had long since arrived; and Magus, who, disdaining conventional travel, had floated across the water to avoid getting soaked.

Bart stopped to catch his breath before wearily pulling himself up. "Haha. You got beat by a girl."

Crono nodded and smirked. "And you got beat by a man."

"Doesn't count. Floating across is cheating," Bart shrugged as Marle paddled up to the boat. He glanced down at her. "I suppose you wouldn't want any help up from a jackass."

"Suppose I wouldn't," simmered Marle.

"Here," Crono offered his hand. "Let me help you out, then."

Bart stole a quick glare at Crono and briefly considered "helping Crono out" as Lucca arrived. Spying his chance to prove his non-jackassdom, he offered a hand to Lucca, who took it, panting from the effort of the swim.

"Thanks."

"No problem," Bart smiled ingratiatingly as he rummaged through his backpack, producing a small plastic packet of kleenex. "Here, dry your glasses off. You shouldn't fly the Epoch like that."

Magus looked around, ascertaining each person's presence before nodding once. "It is safe to speak here," he declared.

"You sure?" Bart asked. "Someone might decide you're a jackass."

Ignoring this comment, Magus turned and looked significantly at the Omen. "You were all under some form of hypnosis or mind control while in there. We are out of its range now."

Robo, being partially immune to the weight of shock that fell across the rest of the party, was the first to speak. "Elaborate."

Magus nodded again. "None of you were perceiving your companions correctly, if my experiences with Lucca are any judge. She believed me to be Robo. Furthermore, when I notified--"

Bart suddenly spun towards Marle, as if struck. "Wait a sec! When we left, I wasn't even *with* you! I can only imagine who the *real* jackass was," looking over his shoulder at Crono.

The red-haired warrior bristled. "I wasn't being a jackass to *her*."

"She seems to think you were," Bart countered smugly. "Or rather, she seems to think *I* was, but I wasn't even there!"

"Neither was she, as far as I could tell," Crono protested, "I thought Magus was just acting weird! And anyway," he said, narrowing his eyes, "it's not like *I'd* mistreat her on purpose."

"What are you suggesting?" Bart asked cooly, glad to be involved in an argument he could finally win, until Lucca spoke up.

"Shut up!" she sobbed, and Bart blinked. "Why are we always arguing like this?"

"Luccs is right ... " Marle nodded, frowning. "It never used to be this way. Can't the two of you at least *try* to stay civil to one another? You're both good people."

"I'm not convinced," Bart mumbled.

"Remember, all of you," said Magus sternly, "that mind control was at work here. You'd do well not to attach meaning to anything said in the Omen."

"What about afterwards?" Bart asked, and shook his head. "Sorry. I'm just a bit pissed off now." He turned to Lucca. "Can we go home yet? I'm feeling a bit squeezed in here."

"Sure," she said softly and turned the engine on. There was an awkward pause.

"Lucca not forget left ale her on," Ayla reminded.

They'd landed the Epoch deep in a forest outside of town. The trees reminded Bart of magnolias on Earth, they had the same kind of full white blossoms amidst dense, intertwining branches. This being summer, the flowers were in full bloom, and they grew so thickly that the scent was everywhere.

"Who do you think did it?" asked Crono, sitting on a fallen log in the shade of the forest canopy, one leg pulled up against his chest.

"The butler," Bart said automatically. Crono rolled his eyes.

"Given previous associations," said Robo, standing upright as usual beneath a ray of sunlight sparkling off of his newly polished shell, "Queen Zeal is a possibility."

"You think she did made it here, too?" Lucca asked, cleaning another spot of Robo's face with the rag, then dipping it back into a small beaker of rubbing alcohol and looking for more scuff marks.

"I cannot say for certain. To assume either way would be unwise." Lucca nodded.

"This is just peachy," Bart sighed, leaning against a tree, feeling the rough bark on his back. "Luccs, how long do you think it'll take to fix the Epoch up?"

Lucca shrugged, putting away her cloth. "Probably two or three days. Four at the outside."

Bart nodded carefully and pushed off of the tree, assuming a square-shouldered, authoritarian stance. "All right. Everybody collect your things ... we'll head into town and try to figure out our next move." All rose from their seats and, in Ayla's case, dropped from their treetop perches to get ready.

"Wait."

Everyone slowly drew to a halt and looked at Crono inquisitively. "Why are we going into town? Why not just stay here to think things over?" The group looked at each other sheepishly and put down their things.

"Listen," Bart said, red-faced, "I can understand making plans in the woods when you're way out in the wilderness, but there's a city under a mile from here."

Crono shrugged. "It's nice and secluded here."

"Yeah, nothing's nicer than sitting on a dirty forest floor for three hours straight and then pulling pine needles out of your ass."

"What are you talking about?" Crono stared incredulously. "There aren't any pine trees here!"

Bart blinked and looked around. "Oh. Huh. You're right, I was thinking of your hair." Crono rolled his eyes. "Still," Bart pressed, "a hot meal and padded chairs never hurt anybody."

Crono grasped Bart by the arm and fairly dragged him along, whispering harshly. "Look, can I talk to you for a second? Over there?" Bart shook his arm off, glared, and made a show of willingly following the red-haired youth into a clearing some ways off.

The clearing was apparently over some kind of deep underground pool that had been polluted, for nothing grew in a fairly wide space, about fifteen feet wide. It was just a dirt circle, without grass or trees. The hole in the vegetation above made it an unusually bright spot in the shady grove, especially now that it was nearing noon and the sun was almost directly above.

Crono released Bart's sleeve with a light shove. "What are you doing?" he fumed quietly. "Are you deliberately trying to confuse them, or are you just stupid?"

Bart shrugged. "A little of both, I suppose."

"Well, stop," Crono scowled.

"Is that an order?"

"Does it need to be?"

Bart nodded carefully. "It'd probably be better that way. Yeah."

Crono crossed his arms and took a deep breath. "Fine. Yes, it's an order. I'm ordering you now not to make me look bad in front of everybody, or the group might dissolve. Okay?"

"All right," Bart nodded again and began to walk back to the Epoch.

Crono silently let out his breath as he watched Bart leave. That was one crisis averted ... and yet, it didn't feel like anything had changed at all. He felt as tense as ever, thinking about what was happening to his friends.

Bart stopped suddenly, and Crono dimly noticed the muscles in his shoulders tensing. "Wait a sec!" the blond man said, spinning on one heel with a look of surprise on his face. "If I'm trying to undermine your leadership ... I can't very well start taking orders from you, can I?" Crono clenched his teeth. "And what's this about making you look bad," Bart demanded. "It's not like you need my help for that."

"I don't need your insults," Crono explained as calmly as he could. "These are my friends, and that's my girlfriend you're with. It probably wouldn't be a great idea to get into a loyalty contest with me."

Bart smirked and leaned up against a tree. "Oh no? Guess what Marle and I did the night after I defeated Ozzie."

"I can't imagine," Crono said disinterestedly, trying to mask his growing apprehension.

"I imagine you can't."

"So tell me."

Bart grinned wider. "I'll just say that she was phenomenal ... and leave you to figure out the rest."

Crono's eyes widened, and his right hand started to quiver, wanting to hold a sword. "You lie."

"Occasionally," Bart agreed, "but not right now."

It was the wrong thing to say. Later, Bart would wonder just what he thought would happen as a result. What actually did happen was Crono letting out an incoherent cry and swinging with all of his strength at Bart. That the blow only connected glancingly off the shoulder was more the result of a lucky cringe on Bart's part than any skill or dexterity. "Shit!" he yelped, rubbing his shoulder and looking at Crono with disbelief.

"I don't believe you! Take it back!" Crono shouted.

"If you don't believe me, what are you so angry about? Come on, anybody could make up something like that," Bart pointed out, digging himself in deeper and getting an elbow to the temple for his trouble. The force of the impact jerked him backwards until the tree trunk stopped him. "Jeezus," he said hoarsely, wiping blood from his lip.

It was time to fight back, he decided all at once, and lunged awkwardly, aiming a punch at Crono's nose. Surprised and taken off guard by the sudden retaliation, Crono fell back. "You finished yet?" Bart asked. Crono stood back up and dropped carefully into a fighting stance, his green eyes bitter and vengeful.

Bart carefully mirrored the stance as best he could, now aware how serious this had become. "I'll take this as a no," he said flippantly.

Crono rushed again at Bart, who was ready now. He waited for the right moment, then crouched low and dove into Crono's legs. The action came too slow, though, as Crono jumped up above the lunge, landing behind Bart, who merely ate a cloud of dirt kicked up by his slide into the dead earth. He scrambled to get up and faced Crono again, who was standing in place glaring at Bart, seemingly at rest. Bart took the opportunity to feint with a left-handed punch, striking instead with his right.

Crono, though, was too alert at this point to fall for that. He grabbed Bart's fist, and Bart found himself flat on his back before he was quite sure what had happened. He sucked air, the wind knocked out of him by the fall, and stood up shakily. "Bart," Crono said quietly. "I'm trying not to hurt you here. I'm just teaching you a lesson. Stay away from Marle."

Crono delivered a kick to Bart's solar plexus, but the small breathing space had given Bart the time he needed to get his act together. He caught the foot as it landed, pulling Crono off of his feet. They fell together, disturbing the dirt.

Crono rolled away, coughing, and stood up. Bart staggered back, bending over and resting his hands on his knees. "Now we're kicking, too?" he groaned while wiping blood off his lip.

"Oh, is that unfair? Maybe you should have thought of that before you took advantage of Marle while I was away," Crono spat.

"Took advantage! Just what the hell makes you think that wasn't genuine--" Bart was cut short by the fact that his arm was now in a lock behind his head, and it hurt. Crono pulled quickly, and Bart was once again on his ground. The sunlight streaming through the hole in the trees was really quite beautiful from this perspective, he noticed. For the fourth time, he stood his ground and tried to go on the offensive. He swung forcefully at Crono's face again, and was pleased to note that it connected, sort of--Crono was tired enough now that it slipped past his hasty defense. He made up for this quickly by spitting the blood flowing from the wound into Bart's face, temporarily blinding Bart and setting him up for a straight, no-frills punch to the chest. Bart staggered back, now blind and dazed. Crono, fed up, just lept forward and wrestled Bart to the ground, wrapping his hands around Bart's throat.

"Never go near her again!" he shouted in Bart's face. Bart, purpling, tried first to knee Crono in the groin, but the spiky-haired youth didn't even feel it. Bart concentrated for a moment, and a wave of pure magical force burst forth, rippling the air in its wake and sending Crono crashing against a tree ten feet away. Bart would have been surprised at the strength of the spell, but he was too busy being relieved that Crono was no longer strangling him.

"If you want to keep this fight friendly," Bart gasped, "keep your hands off my throat." He propped himself up with one hand, hurting too much to stand up right away.

"Friendly!" Crono yelled bitterly. "We're not friends! The only way I like you is halfway across the world!" He got up and instantly winced from the pain in his back. Bart sighed inwardly and got up again, despite his injuries.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered as he watched Crono go back into a shaky fighting stance. It hurt to move his legs now, and his arm didn't like the way he was trying to move it, but he did his best to match Crono's position.

"Leave us," Crono panted, "or I don't hold myself responsible."

"You're fooling yourself if you believe it wasn't mutual. It takes two, ya know. *She's not your girlfriend anymore.*"

Crono responded by charging through his pain into Bart, aiming for the head. Bart, in no condition to block or dodge, was knocked back several steps. "C'mon," he laughed darkly, "you can hit harder than that."

Crono hit him harder. "I was right," Bart said from his vantage point on the ground. Bart tried to rise again, but his feet buckled under him.

"Stop it!" came a scream from just beyond the clearing, "Both of you!" Marle came hurrying into the dead spot, an appalled expression on her face. Crono looked back at her through puffy eyes. Bart, relieved that the fight was finally over, closed his eyes and lay there bleeding.

Lucca rushed over to check on Bart's wounds. "So, how do I look?" Bart grinned, opening an eye partway. "Like you lost a fight," she shrugged.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing," Marle demanded, looking suspiciously back and forth between the two.

"Marle," he panted, "he said ... horrible things about ... you ..."

"Such as?" she said warily. Crono looked at the ground, ashamed. "Well?!"

"I was making a comeback," Bart whispered to Lucca. "Sure," she nodded, "Just lie still."

"It's ... I can't say here, Marle," Crono explained weakly. He looked around, still breathing heavily. "I don't want to repeat his lie in front of everyone."

Marle's eyes widened with comprehension. "Bart ... did you tell him ... what I think you told him?" Bart coughed, nodding almost imperceptibly. Marle turned bright red.

"What?" Crono asked, looking numbly at Marle. She continued to stare at Bart, tears forming in her eyes.

"I can't believe you would use me as leverage in a fight," she said, her voice trembling. She walked over to Bart and suddenly slapped him across the face, reopening the wound that Crono had inflicted. Bart yelped with pain and reflexively covered the cut with his hand, the adrenaline no longer masking the pain.

She turned to Crono, openly sobbing now. "And you! What makes you think you have exclusive rights to my life! Obviously neither of you are who I thought you were!"

"I didn't ... I had no idea," Crono protested half-heartedly, but it was too late. Marle had already run back toward the campsite, tears streaming down her face.

Bart sat back down dizzily once she was out of sight. "Look what I did," he mumbled. Magus shook his head disapprovingly and walked off, his face a blank. "Go away," Bart murmured. "All of you." He hung his head. "I won't be following ... I never really belonged here." Ayla and Robo exchanged glances. Robo left reluctantly, while Ayla and Lucca remained, looking worriedly at Bart. "Do I have to ask twice?"

Ayla walked up to Bart and put a hand on his shoulder before walking off. Lucca watched her go for a second, bit her lip, and set a small medicine kit beside Bart. "Use this. Please," was all she had to say before she followed.

Fighting back tears, Bart opened the first aid kit and applied some water to a small cloth. "I'm so sorry," he apologized softly, much too late. The sun had moved past the opening, and all was dark in the circle of earth.

It was late evening by the time Lucca came back. She found Bart leaning up against an oak tree along the perimeter of the clearing. His eyes were distant and slightly red, and his cheeks--at least, the parts weren't smeared with dried blood--had the dull sheen of dried tears.

"Bart?" He looked up at her upon hearing his name, but the blank expression did not leave his face. "Feeling better?" she asked. "Physically, I mean."

Bart sniffled and wiped his nose with his wrist. His voice was hoarse and lifeless. "Well, I hurt like hell, but I'm not bleeding anymore, and I don't think anything's broken."

She nodded. "I brought some wet rags to clean you up, if you want."

With his thumb and forefinger, Bart picked up the small, damp cloth that had come with his first aid kit, now thoroughly bloody and useless. "Yeah, that'd be good."

Kneeling down beside him, Lucca dabbed the cloth lightly just below his right eye. Bart flinched slightly; she could tell it was hurting him a lot more than he was letting on.

"Sorry about that. There's a chemical mixed in here to kill infection."

"Nothing to be sorry about," he answered. "I did this to myself."

She ran the cloth along the side of his nose, causing him to wince visibly. "You beat yourself up?"

Bart almost smiled. "You know what I mean. I brought it on."

Lucca shrugged. "In a way. I'm sorry it happened, though. I don't think I've ever seen him get so worked up over anything before."

"Well," said Bart, wiping a fleck of dried blood away from under his lip, "that would be because I said something really stupid."

Lucca nodded absently and moved on to the twice-opened wound on the right side of his mouth. "Are you really leaving?"

Bart nodded. "I think so."

Casting an appraising glance at his face, she checked him for spots that she had missed. Satisfied, she set the cloth down on the ground. "Shame," she said quietly.

"How come?"

"You're a nice guy," she explained. "You would have fit in well with us if there hadn't been other circumstances."

"Well," said Bart, shaking his head, "it's those damnable other circumstances that get in the way, isn't it? Listen ... why don't you have a seat, and I'll try to kind of explain myself. I wouldn't want to run off and leave a bad taste in *everyone's* mouth."

She did so, leaning up against a nearby tree. Once she had gotten situated, she looked over at Bart expectantly.

"Know anything about Earth?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"It's just cold, hard reality."

"As opposed to?"

Bart shrugged. "I dunno. Here, for instance. Or your own homeworld. Back on Earth, though, everything's explored, everything's populated, everything's cut and dried. You just kinda live your life day in and day out, and follow your little routine."

Lucca nodded.

"Anyway," he continued. "It's not that Earth is a *bad* place or anything. Sometimes it can be really fun, and there are a lot of nice people there. It's just ... there are no frontiers left. And no magic, either."

"But you're a magician," she interrupted.

"Yeah, I am." Bart rubbed idly at the cut under his eye. "But back there, I wasn't ... but that's part of what I'm getting at. Coming to Nu, getting magical powers, falling in love with a princess--it was like living a fairy tale. I mean, for a brief moment there, I was actually a hero."

"Like a story come true," she mused.

He nodded slowly. "And I guess I should apologize for that, as well. It doesn't say much for what I thought of everybody here, or how seriously I took things." He sighed. "Anyway, reality has since reasserted itself. The *real* hero comes back to claim his princess, and all of a sudden I'm just Bart again. And let me just say," he added, holding a finger in the air, "there is nothing grand or glorious about being just ol' Bart Kelsey."

"I thought you said once that there is no *just* Bart Kelsey."

"Well, after a good slap in the face--" He reached up and touched the painful bruise on the side of his mouth. "--literally--I've come to realize the folly behind that reasoning. I was just Bart back there, and I'm just Bart here as well. Magical powers don't count for crap."

Lucca fidgeted for a moment, and then looked back up at him. "You know, I actually came out here partly to tell you that I admire what you did?"

Bart blinked. "Why?"

"You were there with Marle, happy until Crono showed up. But you did something about it, even if it was something nigh-suicidal like picking a fight with Crono. You didn't just stand there and let the two of them steamroll you." She adjusted her glasses and looked him in the eye. "I mean, call it foolish if you will, but that's the kind of foolishness that takes guts. Maybe you lost, but at least you fought."

"Better a brave fool than just a fool, I guess. And I maintain that I was coming back." He moved to sit up and then winced at a sudden pain in his side. "Ouch."

Lucca smiled. "Sure you were. That's the part that gets me; I can't believe you saw us do something like destroy Lavos and then think it would be a great idea to go at it bareknuckles with him."

Bart scratched the back of his neck lightly. "Yeah, that was kinda dumb, now that I think about it. Didn't occur to me at the time, though ... things rarely do."

"Speaking of which, has it occurred to you where you're going?"

Bart thought for a moment. "Yeah. I figure I'll go back to Shinkyo, find myself a bar, drink until they throw me out, and then cry myself to sleep."

Lucca stood up and brushed herself off, shaking her head.

"What?"

"Maybe I was wrong," she said. "It happens once every few years."

"About?"

"Apparently you're not as strong as I thought. Well, have fun wherever."

Bart looked up at her speculatively. "You're trying to goad me into changing my mind, aren't you?"

"I don't goad," she shrugged neutrally.

"Sorry. I keep thinking everybody thinks like me. In any case, it almost worked."

"But since you bring it up," she said, crossing her arms, "it's not fair to either of us if you leave."

"How so?"

"Because you don't get Marle," she explained, looking away into the night, "and I don't get Crono. You go back to being 'just Bart', and I go back to being the third wheel on Crono and Marle's little love bicycle."

Bart chuckled at that. "I'm sorry. This isn't funny--it's just that I've never heard that particular expression before. At any rate, I think I've pretty much destroyed any chances I had at getting Marle back, but I'll tell you what." Grunting slightly, he pulled dizzily up on to his feet, steadying himself with his hand on the trunk of the tree.

Shaking his head to clear the fuzz from his brain, he took a breath and continued. "If you can tell me sincerely that your chances with Crono aren't the only reason you want me to stick around, I'll do it."

"I already did."

"Humor me," Bart replied.

"You're a fairly impressive magician," said Lucca. "You'd be leaving behind your other friends like Robo and Ayla. And, though I hate repeating myself, you're a nice person and I admire you."

"Damn," he said, wiping a tear away. "There's all these dry leaves around, and crap keeps blowing into my eyes." He paused. "But thanks, Luccs." He smiled, the light of the moon in the clearing illuminating his facial features.

She nodded. "You're welcome. Back to camp?"

"Yeah, I guess I'd better go face everybody now. This is gonna be unpleasant."

"Probably," she agreed. "Look on the bright side. However unpleasant, it can't be worse than everything that's already happened, can it?"

Notes: 'Luccs' is an abbreviation, not a typo, as some of you have suggested. The last time I asked people to CC comments to Bart, they took that to mean send him comments and not me. So please send comments _to both of us_. Thanks. :)

"It is useful to associate with each closed sentence a validity game. This will be an infinite game we may imagine we are playing against a malevolent universe. If we win, the sentence is valid; if the universe wins, the sentence is not valid." --Zohar Manna, _The Deductive Foundations of Computer Programming_

Nich Maragos | nichm@thegia.com | http://www.thegia.com