The green and yellow glowing crystals in the ceiling were dimmed as Frank, Patrick, Gerard, and Patrick's partner, Pete now sat at the table. A small plate of fruit was sat in the middle of the group, containing only the inedible pits and seeds.

The conversation had died after Patrick's revelation of familiar magic from Frank. Gerard refused to look at Frank. Pete kept glaring at him. Patrick kept reaching for Pete's hand and closing his eyes, seeming to travel miles away without moving at all.

Frank looked down at his hands. He didn't understand how there could be magic within him. How could it have allowed him to inject the magic suppression into Gerard? How had it never come up until this point?

There was a soft groan across the table. Frank looked up to see Patrick massaging the sides of his head while Pete kept a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, it's still hard to focus." Patrick opened his eyes. They flared yellow before dimming slightly. "Coming back from your memory took more than I bargained for."

"I'm sorry..." Frank apologized, his voice almost a whisper. Even with how soft his words were, Frank still flinched when they came out of his mouth. The words of his recovered memory echoed, making his chest tighten underneath the dark mark that consumed it.

Patrick shook his head. "No, it wasn't your fault. Something happened to you, Frank. It's clearly still affecting you."

"Of course something happened to him," Pete gestured towards Frank, "he grew up as a force soldier. If he does have magic, there's no telling what they did to him or where they got him."

"I was born there." Frank couldn't bring himself to speak louder than before. He kept his eyes down on the table, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.

"How can you be sure?" Pete questioned, "Offworlders don't have magic like us."

"It takes more than just being born here." Gerard spoke up, though he wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. "You needed a connection to the mother. To the planet." He pursed his lips, as if holding words in his mouth. It took a brief moment of his eyes flaring from pink back to their natural tone before he shifted his eyes to Frank. "What did you have to earn it?"

"Please!" Patrick slapped his hand on the table while Frank shrunk into his chair. "Enough. This is something new to all of us, especially Frank. He needs compassion, not confrontation."

Pete scoffed, "Like the Force gave us?"

"I said enough!" Patrick spoke louder, a yellow glimmer spreading into the air around him. The yellow of his eyes dimmed again as he looked between Pete and Gerard. "That. Is. Enough." With each word, his voice lowered back down to his natural tone. He sighed, covering his eyes with one of his hands. "Please."

Pete muttered something, putting his head down. Gerard kept his eyes on Frank for a moment longer before putting his head down as well.

"They're right, though." Frank shut his eyes."How could I have magic? I never even touched the surface of this planet until I was forced out by someone with magic I had been torturing." He choked on his last word, bringing his hand up to his chest. "I hurt magic."

A chair moved and footsteps made their way around the table. The empty chair to Frank's side moved. A hand rested over the one Frank held in a fist over his chest. Frank opened his eyes and turned toward Patrick, who now sat beside him.

"We don't need to have all the answers now." Patrick assured him, "We can figure it out."

Frank felt tears weld in his eyes. "What if we can't?"

Patrick smiled. "We'll try our best."

"You can't do much more today." Pete lifted his head. His brow was set with worry as he looked toward Patrick. "You've already pushed past your limits."

Patrick sighed. "That, he's right about." He pulled his hand away from Frank's and held his head. "I need to better ground myself before we do anything. You and Gerard are welcome to rest here. If you're still hungry, there's some more fruit in the room to the left."

"Thank you." Frank blinked away his tears as Patrick rose to his feet. Pete came around the table quickly, looping his arm with Patrick's to guide him out of the room.

Then it was just Frank and Gerard.

Frank didn't want to turn around to face him. He could practically feel how upset he was. What could he say? It's not like he had any idea what to say...

Instead of facing him, Frank folded his arms together and rested his head on the table. He shut his eyes, focusing on the darkness behind their lids in hopes to not see his memory yet again.

When Frank eventually lifted his head, he had to blink sleep from his eyes. The crystals in the ceiling had dimmed further, casting the room in mostly shadow. Frank rubbed his eyes as he continued to wake up. He shouldn't have felt as tired as he did. He had lost so much of his day just to relieve something from when he was a child... He frowned as he pulled his hands away from his eyes. His vision was blurry as he looked around the dimmed room. Nothing was different that he noticed. Nothing, except that Gerard didn't appear to be next to him anymore.

He blinked, trying to clear his vision as he shifted in his chair. Another look around the room revealed Gerard to be laying on the moss bed near the room's entrance. He was laying still, presumably asleep.

Frank sighed. Even if Gerard had been awake, he had no idea what he would say. Gerard had just become so angry, yet again, over the revelation... Not that Frank could blame him. He pushed a hand through his hair, gripping the ends of the strands rather than just letting his hand fall. A single question kept repeating in his mind, but it was one that he didn't yet have an answer to.

"Are you finally awake up there?" Gerard muttered from the ground. He sounded half asleep as he rolled onto his back to look at Frank.

"Are you awake down there?" Frank asked in return. He received a groan as Gerard pushed himself upright, bringing a faint smile to his lips for the first time in what felt like ages.

Gerard stretched his arms above his head with a loud yawn. He dropped his arms after a moment and patted the moss beside him. "C'mon, I don't feel like having you look down on me."

Frank slid his chair away from the table and moved to the spot Gerard had indicated. Once he was settled, Gerard motioned to his chest. "How's the thing?"

Frank shrugged. "Still been hurting, but I haven't checked what it looks like."

Gerard's lips formed into a tight line. His eyes kept darting between Frank's chest and his face. "Frank, what did they put into that magic suppression serum?" He finally asked, voice soft.

Frank shook his head. "I have no idea. Not many people had the clearance to know..." He rubbed his hands together, feeling his chest tighten. "I should have never stuck you with it."

"It's in the past." Gerard replied flatly, "No need to dwell on it."

"Not the distant past!" Frank balled his hands into fists to stop their twisting movement. "You can't say you don't still hold it against me, I can feel it in how you speak."

"Have you ever considered that maybe I'm just a bit of a bitch, as your Force would call it?" He replied with more of a tone now, raising his eyebrow as he spoke.

"Gerard, I just want to apologize." Frank put his head down, holding his hands against the back of his head, "It's already been eating away at me and after the last few hours, I only feel worse."

"You don't need to apologize if I struck back already!"

Frank raised his head. Gerard's expression was full of frustration coated in magenta as he stared at Frank. "Do you really not remember what happened in the cell the day I escaped?" He demanded, "You really don't know how you got that thing on your chest?"

Flashes of memory overrode Frank's vision. Going into the cells to interrogate Gerard. Throwing up a grey bile. Conversations overheard in a muddled state of darkness. Frank quickly brought his hands around his head to cover his eyes as he doubled forward. His chest pulsated with pain.

"Frank!"

He could feel Gerard move right beside him. He could feel his hand on his arm followed by the same light tingle that had come from Gerard covering his hand earlier in the day. "Please, don't get yourself stuck in your head again. I didn't... I should apologize too. Just, breathe."

Frank inhaled a sharp breath. The visions of days past faded back into black. He inhaled a few more breaths before dropping his hands from his face. "I already forgave you for snapping all those times." He whispered, "You don't need to apologize."

"Snapping is only one thing I need to apologize for." Gerard spoke softly after sighing. He brought his hand up to Frank's face to turn his head towards him. He wore a frown as he looked Frank in the eye. "Well, it's a lot I need to apologize for." He dropped his hand and brought it to his own chest. "My magic came back the day I escaped and knocked you out. I used it to keep you asleep but then my magic was just so angry when I saw the serums outside the door... I stabbed the magic suppression into your chest."

Frank brought his hand to his chest. The raised skin under his shirt was still there, giving a slight pulse under his fingers. "This... This is from the serum?"

"I didn't think it would do anything to someone without magic." Gerard gripped the shirt over his chest, "Now I worry... What did I do to you?"

Frank sat silent. He had been injected with magic suppression? Is that why he had been losing time? Is that why he his chest had been sending so much pain through him? If he really did have magic...

"I still don't know you, and you don't know me." Gerard looked down as he spoke, "Continuing to keep that from you won't help us move forward. There aren't a lot of good people on this war torn world, and I'm definitely not one of them."

"I don't know that there is such a thing as a good person." Frank shook his head. His chest began to sting, but it was a faint pain. "Look at what I did to you. I'm not a good person either. I could have stopped sooner, but I didn't. I did what the Force said... and I may not even be like the rest of them. I may have... I may have what I took from your reach."

Gerard reached out, putting a hand on Frank's knee. "You were just following orders, like a soldier. You, as an individual, seem to be better than those giving the orders."

"I've followed them my whole life." Frank brought his feet up onto the moss and drew his legs close to his chest. Gerard's hand fell as Frank wrapped his arms around his legs. "Following is all I know how to do. I followed them, then I followed you. Now I'm here, finding out things I don't understand." He brought his head down and rested it on his knees. "Who am I supposed to be now?"

He could feel Gerard nudge him. "Now, you get to figure that out. Follow what's in your heart. That's something they say the Mother would share with her children. Our hearts, our magic, will be our guide if there is nothing else."

Frank turned his head. His cheek rested against his knee as he looked at Gerard. "I thought you said she was gone before you were born."

"Words can last longer than a lifetime." Gerard reached out and brushed some hair away from Frank's face, "Her words helped keep hope in our hearts to fight back for the world she loved so much. I hope her words can bring hope to you."

"Yeah..." Frank looked past Gerard towards the wall. What kind of hope was there for him, though? Did he hope for magic? Did he hope Patrick was wrong? Did he hope for continued change? Did he hope for normalcy? He didn't have an answer. He didn't have a direction in his heart to tell him where to go.

"Are you okay?" Gerard's soft question pulled Frank back to the moment, bringing his eyes to Gerard's face. "After everything. I... I was a bit harsh."

Frank shut his eyes. "As okay as I can be, I guess."

A silence hung in the air between them. Neither seemed to know what to say. They just sat close to each other under the dim crystal light.

—-

When Patrick came back into the room, Frank and Gerard were still sat next to each other on the moss bed. His eyes were a bright yellow as he smiled at the two of them. "Rest well?"

"There was a bit of rest." Gerard leaned back on his hands, "You seem to have gotten a good one."

Patrick nodded. "Feeling recharged and ready to dive into our mystery." He turned to Frank, who still had his knees pulled up to his chest. His chin rested there as he looked ahead. "Frank?"

Frank brought his eyes up to look at Patrick.

Patrick sat on the moss bed on beside Frank, opposite the side Gerard still occupied. "I think our best bet is to try looking through more of your past." A look of fear came across Frank's face, to which Patrick brought his hands up. "I can guide you, though, so you don't have to fully relive it like what happened earlier."

"How would you do that?" Frank sat upright, letting his knees straighten and stretch.

"Well, I would have to tap into your head a bit to stay in your timeline." Patrick tapped the side of his head as he spoke. "I would temporarily connect us so we could keep each other grounded. Then, we could explore what may be blocked or obscured in your memory."

"Is it dangerous?" Gerard chimed in.

Patrick shook his head. "We have both you and Pete to help pull us back to this reality. For us, it will be like we're...sleeping and dreaming, I guess would be a good way to describe it."

"Will it hurt?" Frank asked.

Patrick frowned. "For you, I'm not sure. You seemed physically pained by the memory you relived previously. If we go too deep, it may hurt again."

Frank shut his eyes. He could practically feel the white cracks spreading over his skin once again. "How do we do it?" He asked, reopening his eyes, trying to push the memory away.

"Maybe we could try to look at our other options, first?" Gerard put his hand on Frank's shoulder. "We have to have more than one, right?"

"No." Frank shook his head, "We shouldn't waste time. We need answers..." He paused, thinking of his home. Of the people he knew as he grew up in the Force base. "There's a chance they could be sending people looking for us... You are a rebel leader, after all." He turned to Gerard, who was grinning at his words.

"The one that got away." He squeezed Frank's shoulder as his grin shrunk. "Are you sure you're up for it, though?"

Frank bit the inside of his lip. Was he? "Guess we'll find out." He replied, locking eyes with Gerard. He held their gaze for just a moment before turning to Patrick. "When can we start?"