Celastrus - Epilogue: Burned Out

By J. Rolande, aka Moonlight Sonata 2004

Samus sighed and dropped her current now-empty bottle next to the other five. They clinked together musically, and rolled a short distance away. Her hand dangled languidly from the pilot's seat where she had draped herself, and her mouth was full of the strong, bitter taste of vomit. She could not recall the last time she'd been quite this drunk, nor could she remember any other time, other than that night, she'd so badly wanted to drink herself to death, succeeding only in terribly intoxicating herself instead. Now, sitting down, the cockpit seemed to spin around her and the ship's gravity manipulation controls did not help her drunken feelings. Her head felt light, and it took a conscious effort to make her limbs move, which annoyed her. Any time she recalled in detail her tryst with Adam, all she wanted was to hide away. She wanted to curl into her morph ball form and tuck herself in some forgotten corner away from the sight of all existence. She wanted to just wallow in her emptiness and regret, regret brought on by the fact that she could never have back that moment in time---ever again.

"I just don't know anymore," she said at last, voice slurred from intoxication.

"You just don't know about what?" Adam replied with programmed, forced curiosity.

But Samus was far too drunk to feel patronized at this point. "Anything," she drawled. "Specially life," she finally said. "I can't figure any of it out."

"We are bound by our experiences," he said sensibly, as he always did. "Our experiences tell where we've been, what we've done, whom we have become. To regret our experiences is to regret ourselves." Silence. Then, "Do you have regrets, Samus?"

"No. I don't do regret because it's pointless," she lied, stifling a hiccup. "I can't change what's happened because what's done is done. There's no going back. I can't change myself or what I've become." She did not tell him that she wished she could change herself, that she could go through the remainder of her life without feeling that a piece of her was missing. It was not so much the actual act of lovemaking or sex with Adam she regretted. It was more so the knowledge that there had been a time when she'd been complete, and now, a decade later, there was no bringing that back. She was left completely alone with her emptiness.

They were silent for a time before she finally gave a melancholy chuckle and laboriously straightened up a bit in the chair, hugging her knees to her chest like the scared little child she'd always been deep down, like the scared little child she’d always be. "There were others," she confessed a bit awkwardly, unsure of why she bothered telling him. God, it was just a computer; it wasn't even the real Adam. It wouldn't care about her other encounters, and the idea of feeling embarrassed telling this computer about it was pitiful. Yet a small, still-lucid portion of her consciousness whispered that it was the man the computer represented that made her feel this way.

"There were others," she said again, trying to think of the right way to phrase what she wanted to say, so that it conveyed things in a way the computer could understand - or in such a way that she could understand all those thoughts and feelings she had dealt with by ignoring. "Some of them were better lovers than you, some of them worse. Some I stayed with for a few nights, others a few minutes, but none of it ever meant anything. They were quick jaunts between missions, meant only to satisfy a physical urge."

She was quiet for a time, resting her chin on her knees, and staring out the viewport at the uncountable stars set against the infinite blackness of space. She had traversed the known galaxy, even ventured on the boundaries of the unknown. She had met alien races, seen curious creatures, and set foot on planets untouched by time or civilization. She had watched stars die and nations born, yet everywhere she'd been, and in everything she'd done, there had never been anyone quite like Adam, or anything that filled her and completed her like the night he made love to her. She smiled sadly, blinking back the fine mist of tears forming over her eyes.

"You know," she said, still quite a bit drunk, "I realize more and more everyday that there was never anyone quite like you. And not just because you were the first," she said, shuddering a bit as she thought again on that night he'd taken her and made her whole. "Any others meant nothing to me, because they didn't care about understanding me. I don't think they even knew I was Samus Aran, bounty hunter extraordinaire," she slurred bitterly. "They just cared that I was some nice broad willing to give them some action. I meant nothing to them, just as they meant nothing to me."

She stopped herself there; it was pointless to say anything more. This Adam with her now was a computerized version of the Adam she'd known. It was purely intellect, no opinion and no emotion. It wasn't jealous to know that other men had had sex with her. It probably didn't even care. It held the memories, but only the facts, the mere sequence of events with no emotional investments attached. She realized, very painfully, that she was completely alone now and would be forever. Computerized Adam had been a help, but when she began recalling the real Adam, even that small comfort became nonexistent.

"Did you ever discover what you wanted out of life, Samus?" Adam asked after several minutes of silence.

Bleary eyed and fighting a losing battle against her tears, she looked up. "No," she lied, but found she could not be dishonest with the computer; not out of honor, but out of her love for he whom the computer represented. The real Adam would have seen beyond the "no". He would have looked right in her eyes, seeing hrough the icy, hardened exterior, and understanding just what that "no" was hiding. "Yes," she sighed after a moment. "And I had it, but..." She choked on a sudden sob. "But then you died, damn you. Fuck it. I'm going for another bottle." Her throat constricted painfully, and she struggled to get up.

"Stay here, Samus," Adam commanded gently. "Don't keep destroying yourself."

"Fine, I'll stay," she said in a cold voice as she stopped in her tracks. "I'll stay right here with you for all eternity, the two of us lost in space on this bloody ship. It could be beautiful, don't you think? Just the two of us!" she drawled as she walked back over to his monitor, trailing her hand over the screen. "The two of us together." Without even thinking she clumsily peeled her jumpsuit away from her skin, inhaling sharply when the cool air of the cockpit made contact with the exposed flesh. But she continued to slide the full-body suit off of her shivering form until she stood there, naked, before the computer screen. Adam made no hint to suggest he noticed or processed the change.

"What do you see when you look at me?" she asked him for the first time in a decade. "Do you still see the warrior? The lonely woman? How about that lost little girl? What am I to you now?" She knew her dedication to training and conditioning herself had kept her body lean and toned, and knew what the majority of men in any spaceport in the Federation would be willing to give for a night with that body, and what those muscles could do. She knew she still retained much of the physicality of her twenty-one year old self, but mentally and emotionally she was the tired thirty-something of the present. Did Adam see that reality? Or did he still see the younger Samus Aran?

Adam had remained silent during her outburst, and now that she seemed to be finished, he obliged her by replying, "I see Samus Aran; humanoid female with hybridized DNA structure. Class A Bounty Hunter with minimal military experience. Stands five feet eight inches tall, weighing..."

"That's enough," she interrupted quietly, rubbing her arms to warm herself. The chill caused her nipples to stand at attention, but something small like that, that might have aroused Adam before, meant nothing now. Her breasts were merely mammary glands to him, part of the female anatomy that would nourish the children she would never have. Her curves were signs that she was physically fit; and her reproductive system was just that, and nothing more. All mere anatomy. Her eyes weren't windows to her inner soul, just complex ocular organs. She was nothing to him, at least nothing more than a heap of female anatomy, dissipated into drunkenness.

Her unconscious suspicions were now painfully confirmed; this Adam was not, nor would ever be, a substitute for the real Adam, whose gaze had been able to transcend the physicality of the five-foot eight-inch humanoid female and see the aching woman within. Samus took in a breath, forcing it past the rapidly coagulating lump in her throat. There was nothing in him now, not desire, not understanding. He did not want her, he did not want to be with her. Any feelings he had regarding her were programmed and calculated, but nothing else. She turned to go but a few short steps found her lying on the floor, her poisoned coordination at last manifesting itself. She didn't stand up, but instead fought off the moisture that was beginning to gather in her eyes. It was the loneliness clutched at her breast made it difficult to breathe. It was the loneliness she knew would not go away.

For a short while she had been led to believe that she would not be lonely anymore. Having the mind of Adam controlling her ship and guiding her through missions initially seemed ideal. She had been comfortable with him. She had been herself with him. And during the frightening, trying times aboard the Biologic Space Lab, she had relied on him. She should have felt better about herself, about her situation; but now she only hurt more. Love.... that vacuum within her soul was caused by love. She remembered very little about her early childhood; she supposed her human parents had loved her, but she did not recall any memories or feelings to support this. Love was an alien word in the Chozo culture, and though her adoptive parents had nurtured her and provided her needs, there was no love. But with Adam holding her, guiding her, seeing her for who and what she truly was, there had been love, and it had filled her until she felt that she would explode. It was the most beautiful feeling she'd ever experienced. If experiences defined a person, then the lovemaking she'd shared with Adam was her defining moment as a human being. But those experiences were gone now, part of a past filled with darkness, rage, and murder for hire. They stood out like the stars on the velvet infinity that was space: clear and bright, yet still at risk of being enveloped by the darkness. She lay on the cold metal floor, a woman past her prime, drinking herself to oblivion and undressing for, of all things, a computer.

This was not Adam. It was his tactical, military brain, it was generated emotions, it was even his voice to a degree, but it was not the real living, breathing, loving Adam. This computer could do nothing to satisfy her desires for wholeness, physically or emotionally. It could not be one with her in body and spirit. It could call her "Milady" and even "Samus", but it was not the man who had manifested love for her that day over ten years ago.

She hauled herself to her feet, nearly toppling over again, so impaired was her balance.

"Where are you going?" Adam's voice asked her. "Do you require more drink?"

"No. I'm going to bed," she said, not sounding angry or bitter, or even sad; merely, defeated. She rubbed her bleary eyes and willed her vision to focus. "I need to sleep this off," she added lamely. What "this" was, she couldn't name just yet. She couldn't stay out here in the cockpit, reminded of Adam and all she lacked. Even drunk she realized that doing so would be more torment than she needed at this time. She didn't know if it applied to the drunkenness and its inherent hangover, or the deep, empty sadness she felt upon realizing that her hopes for a relationship with this version of Adam were dashed to irreparable, miniscule shards.

"As you wish, Milady," Adam said formally.

Still fighting tears and not trusting her legs to support her, Samus stumbled the short distance to her habitation quarters and keeled over on her hard bed. There was very little to cushion her bones, and soon the hard metal of the frame was digging into her ribs, hips, legs, arms... all over. And it was cold; she felt so chilled she feared she’d never be warm again. Part of that was the side effects of her Metroid DNA, but she knew that mostly it was from the emotional void inside her. Desperately she craved the warmth of Adam flowing into her and consuming her, their two bodies melded into one warm, unified being. But this, of course, was impossible. Morose, bitter, and defeated, Samus wrapped her tired, naked body in the flimsy blankets, buried her head in the excuse for a pillow and wept not only for what she'd lost, but also for all that she would never have, and for all that she would always be.

Fin.