Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Three (section)

===Quiet In the Library===


As the group retired – with lingering looks for a few – Alex took a detour to the ship’s tiny library, citing the need to get something new to read before bed.  As he arrived at the deserted little room, he settled down in a seat by the back bulkhead and stretched out.  He was hoping Freya wouldn’t have been here, and she wasn’t.  As much as he appreciated her company, he needed to think this one through alone.

The faint ticking of his wristwatch was the only sound.  He tilted his head back and thought over his mother’s latest message.  He still hadn’t told her about the argument with his father.  He wanted that to be something she didn’t worry over while he was off on the trip.  He would have to tell her eventually, of course.  That wasn’t even open to debate.  Beyond the obvious, he would be living with her between college semesters, unless his living situation with Freya drastically changed.  That wasn’t unappealing of course, but then, he was in a cynical mood.

Alex pulled a scrap of plastic out of his pocket.  It was a small data chip, containing the address to which his mother was going to be moving once the old house sold.  She had taken great pains to assure him that his possessions would go with her, and he could keep or sell them at his leisure when he got back to Earth.

Hive living.  THAT would take some getting used to.  He craned his head back, his heart clenching.  Even the most luxurious and spacious home in the hives cost less than a home in the surface cities, of course.  Hell, the new place might actually be nicer.  But the fact remained: she was going to be living in the hives.

Jake was living proof that that wasn’t inherently bad, of course.  Jake also came from a large, loving, supportive family with connections to the Mechanicus and several prestigious colleges.  Alex’s mother had none of that.

Alex groaned in the darkness of the room.  What choices did he have?  Aside from the money in his pockets, which of course he had spent dry on Nocturne, he had nothing.  A few small accounts on Terra in his name instead of his father’s, maybe, but the hundreds of millions of credits in his accounts in his father’s name were effectively gone, now.  Not to mention the billions of credits in his father’s empire.  He hadn’t intended to become his father, certainly.  He didn’t want to become a grave robber.  If he had taken control of the business, he might have even sold the writ for tens of billions of credits and lived like a god on any world of his choosing.  With Freya, without her, a life of infinite luxury either way.
He grinned bitterly.  Now he was going to be stuck playing rugby forever, without a credit to his name, unless Freya…

Well.  As much as the idea of spending a very great deal more time with her was becoming more and more appealing, he couldn’t impose on her like that.  Leman Russ may have been one of the richest people in the galaxy, but Freya was the penny-pinching sort.  Until a few days prior, that had been an advantage.

He leaned forward in his chair, staring at the deck.  “What the hell, Dad…” he whispered.

“Alex?”

Alex surged upright.  Remilia was standing in the hatch.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, backing out.

“Wait,” he said.  She paused.  “You can come in.  Looking for some light reading?” he asked with a forced grin.

“I was.  I’m out of movies and games on my slate.”  She walked over to him and glanced over the row of books beside him.  “I didn’t know you were into architecture.”

“Uh, I was just sitting here,” Alex said.  “I wasn’t reading those.”

“Oh, okay.”  She hesitated.  “…Do you want to be alone?”

“Not any more,” he said.  She sat down next to him.  “Can I ask you something about what you talked about with me before?” he asked evasively.

“What was that?”

“How…I mean, what are you going to say to your father when you see him again?” he asked.  “I didn’t want to pry, but it looks like Dad and I are going to have a bit of a slugging match over the accounts he opened in my name when I was a kid.  If I know him, anyway.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry, Alex, money problems are a pain,” Remilia sympathized, as if the daughter of the fifth richest being in the known universe could talk.  Alex ignored the bitter sense of irony.  “If it helps, I think Dad and I are going to be able to talk when we get home…what do you want to know?”

“Well…what’s your mother like?  I’ve never met her,” Alex said.

“She sits on about a dozen boards.  Charities, companies, a housing concern.  She’s never home, really, and considering her job, she has the worst sense of time prioritization I’ve ever seen,” Remilia said.  “But…I wasn’t really fair to her before I left, either.  I should make a point of talking to her directly before we head off to school,” she noted under her breath.  “What about your mother?”

“Before they divorced, Mom was a paper-shuffler in his businesses.”  Alex sighed.  “She found work as a paralegal on Terra, but without the interest from Dad’s accounts keeping her afloat, she’s basically going to have to sell it all and move into the hives.”

“Oh.”  Remilia rubbed her hands idly.  “Well…is that so terrible?  The uppermost spires are pretty comfortable…and if she could paralegal for firms on the surface, she could work at any firm in the hives, I’m sure…”

“Not the point.  You know they only divorced two years ago?” Alex snorted.  “I don’t even remember a specific argument.  They just fell apart.  Dad didn’t blame me, and I don’t think Mom did, but she resented that I spent so much of my time away from them both.”

Remilia looked down.  “I’m sorry.”

“Why?  It’s not your fault.  Hell, Dad was buying and selling arm candy like it was going out of style.  It’s his fault.  Mom couldn’t tolerate his infidelity, he thought she was a stifling old bat.”  He shook his head.  “Can I ask how your parents act around each other?”

“They love each other.  More than me, or at least it feels that way.”  Remilia squeezed her hands.  “We’re a matched set, aren’t we?”

“We are.”  Alex finally smiled.  “If this were a trashy romance holo, we’d be falling into each other’s arms right now, solving our problems with musical scenes.”

Remilia laughed.  “And then babies and horrible sequels ever after.”

Alex laughed too, and the mingled sounds were a catharsis for both.  “Speaking of…hey, on a nicer subject.  It’s good to see you smiling again,” Alex said.

Remilia flushed a bit.  “I’m worried.”

“What?  About Kines?  He’ll be fine, if Venus told Haarlan to back off.  Did she?”

“Yeah.”

Alex shrugged.  “Problem solved.”

“Yeah, but I kinda want this to be more than a summer thing, you know?” Remilia asked uncomfortably.

“But it can’t be.  If you got him transferred, it’d destroy you in the press, right?” Alex asked reasonably.  “Just enjoy the time you have.”

“I guess…but it’s disappointing,” Remilia confessed.

“Freya wasn’t my first girlfriend, I wasn’t her first boyfriend.  Finding the right combination of person and timing takes a few tries,” Alex counseled.  “Venus was the lucky one.  Most people don’t get it right the first time.”

Remilia looked up at him.  “So just use this as a springboard for the next one?  That’s a little callous, isn’t it?”

“Not at all.  You’re going to a great liberal arts school for four years.  Plenty of time to find someone right for you,” Alex said.

She stared at him, before looking away and thinking it over.  “I guess you’re right.”

Alex stood.  “Well.  Thanks.  I feel a little better.  Have you written home since we got aboard?”

“No, and I don’t think I will unless something changes, since I think Mom is taking off for some conference and Dad is taking the Phalanx out to New Damascus to sortie the fleet.  Not that you heard that from me,” she said drily.  “No point in writing to an empty house.”

“I’m writing home tonight,” Alex said.  He looked around at the stacks.  “Might as well find something good as long as I’m here, though,” he added.

“What do you like to read?” Remilia asked, rising to her feet.

“I like old speculative fictions.  You know, the ones that tried to guess what the galaxy would look like when the Crusade was over.”  Alex grinned as he paged through some titles.  “They’re all so hilariously wrong.  How about you?”

“I was just here to see what caught my fancy.”  Remilia glanced through the romance section and chuckled.  “The fact that the number of trashy skin books is larger than the non-fiction section on a mixed-sex crew is distinctly amusing.  I don’t know why.”

Alex selected a tome and made for the hatch.  “All right…I’ll see you tomorrow, Remilia,” he said.

“Night, Alex,” Remilia said, still browsing.