Unintended consequences of dynamic interactions.

Physical injuries often heal quickly. Emotional ones, not so much. While I'm no real healer - just some training as a combat medic with more experience at it than I'd like to admit - I'm much better healing people's physical traumas then emotional ones. I try, and I care, probably showing a good deal more compassion than I ever would have even a year ago, but there's some things I can't fix.

But I digress.

After several weeks of quiet, the Raiders returned to Hale's. Not sure how many actually came down. At least two. Probably more. They actually had the audacity to come into Fook's asking about a cargo pickup before they got on to stealing our shit. For such a small group, they managed to do remarkably well. Don't think anyone died, but they managed to keep the colonists busy long enough to break into a few of the shipping containers and make off with more cargo than we'd care to admit. Nothing vital, fortunately, but incidents like this didn't help us establish ourselves as a good cargo transfer port.

All told, no one died. A few colonists got winged and Belize managed to patch them up. I got a few rounds on target from one of my favored perches and gave them a parting gift: some 7.8mm rifle rounds under one of the shrouds on their port engine. Could even see a stream of fuel, or maybe coolant, trailing off it before they got out of range. Between the vapor trail and the idents, it shouldn't be hard for the navtrak to get a good vector on that Firefly. Of course, with the sheer number of those things plying the inter-colony runs, having a n ident probably wouldn't amount to much unless they came back.

I was hoping the night would settle down again after the Raiders left. With the town on alert, it would have been suicidal for them to come back. Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on how much fallout we'd still have from the Auction.

While I wasn't privy to everything that happened on Blackburne last night, I did know that Imrhien'd grounded Lily with Td's full support. Something about it almost coming to blows between Xzander and Ben over her. Only not really over her. Over how she was playing them. Lily had been acting a little strange since the auction and this seemed to be part of that. Only at some point she'd evidently ignored Immi's grounding and spent time with Ben anyway. At least that's what I was getting from it all.

The interaction between Lily and Imrhien was fractured from my perspective. Tempers flared. Voices raised. I could see reflections of my own arguments with Mother or one of the nannies when I was about five, and for all the world Lily sounded like a little girl arguing with her mother. Which, legally, at least, she was.

It took a while to get everything sorted back out. Belize helping calm Imrhien back down after she stomed out saying she wasn't cut out to be a mom, me and Sabrina talking to Lily, trying to get to the root of what was going on. I don't know what Belize said to Immi, but she came back after short while to hold Lily and apologize for the harsh words. Gave me faith we would make it as a family. Probably the weirdest family in the 'Verse, but we'd make it.

It all came down to Duncan winning Immi in the auction. Lily was still a little vague on the differences between Just Friends, Dating, and Married. Somehow the date with Duncan turned into Married to Duncan, turned into our family breaking up, turned into Lily trying to do something to hold us together. It was complicated as hell but in Lily's mind it somehow worked. She was still grounded at that point, though at least now we knew what was bothering our adopted daughter and could work towards soothing her fears.

That, unfortunately, wasn't the only thing to come out of the evening. Imrhien's comment to Lily about Duncan, 'we're only friends, but maybe if I wasn't already with Td,' set General off. I knew well he was in love with her. We'd had the "Neither of us can have her. Move on" talk. I just thought he'd manage to get over it. I'd had to, and I'd been pining for her longer than he had. Hell, I'd had to watch him spending time with her, and all I'd given him was the warning not to treat her wrong.

I should have said something as soon as I realized what was going on. It might have been able to stop what happened next from happening at all.

When General came back, presumable after cooling off a bit, Immi confronted him. We all knew something was eating him and most of us knew what it was. I don't think any of us expected the confrontation to turn into an armed standoff. General threatening to kill Td. Immi telling him to hit her to get it out of his system. Xzander drawing down on General. Belieze putting herself in front of General's gun. Sabrina crying in pain as if she was feeling the pain in the room herself.

It was too much. I couldn't stand by and let it all happen. Let friends bloody well kill each other. I forced myself into Combat Zen: the icy calm before the storm. It was a learned state: Heightened senses. Time slowing. No fear. No pain. Mind racing. Combat moves and branches planned out in advance, branching almost instantly as the situation changed.

I couldn't maintain the state for long, but it would be long enough. Long enough to disarm Xzander, convince Immi to move far enough back that I could disarm General, and then hand my Deputy his ass if he didn't back down.

He didn't back down.

It wasn't easy. I was a good deal faster and far better trained, but he had that gorram reinforced skeleton and muscle enhancement. It didn't matter though. In Combat Zen it was all slow motion. His moves predictable. Counterable. His enhancements made it difficult not to defeat him, but to do so without killing him in the process.

I couldn't feel the cuts and bruises he'd given me in the brief moments the fight took. I'd worry about the bandages later. In the immediate aftermath of the fight I only knew that our little slice of Heaven had changed for the worse. Words exchanged. Friends coming to blows. Threats that would be hard to withdraw.

Imrhien would have Td to vent her frustration, as I would have Sabrina. But what of Belize? She'd been a part of this too. And General. What of General? I understood what he was feeling. Understood his pain intimately. I'd felt that pain. But what would happen now? It might have been a kindness to end him, but I couldn't do that to him. Not to a friend. He knew he had to let go of her. He knew she wasn't his to claim. She was her own woman. But could the damage of this last night ever be undone?

I didn't know.

I could only hold onto Sabrina and cry.