"Okay, I'll try. What do I have to do?"

My words released something inside the doctor. She smiled, not as if no longer in pain, but as if the end of pain had been foretold. She waved for me to lie down. I shook my head; I couldn't meet my fate lying down. She shrugged and spoke.

"At this point, you mostly have to acknowledge and listen. You don't have to like what I'm saying, but everything I'm going to tell you is factual. You can check it with anyone you like, but given the rate I've been fading, I'd really prefer you trusted me."

"I do." I had since she took my nightmares away. Since before, even, since I'd had to trust her for her to work that particular miracle.

"Good. Now, what we'll be doing shortly is a review of your options..."

"I have options?" I couldn't help it, when facing the potential dissolution of my soul I got snarky.

"Yes, Dustie. As long as I'm around, I'll give you options. First, though, I need to make sure you understand them."

"You don't know whether I do or not already?"

"I'm a professional, Dustie, not some kind of peeping tom." The pain in her voice tore at me, though I had no idea whether my memories or my assumption had caused it.

Heat painted my cheeks the color of my hair. "Yeah, I know that. I'm sorry. I'm really trying, doc. It's hard."

"You never knew your father," I bit my tongue on my automatic correction, "and when she realized you weren't him, you were abandoned by your own mother."

I couldn't hold it in this time, "She's not..." I bit my tongue until hot, coppery blood seeped out between my teeth. "Fine," I spat. "She's my mother. He's my father. Whatever you want."

"This isn't about what I want, Dustie." Despite my sniping, her tone never wavered. Patience tempered with pain permeated every word. "This is about what you need."

"Why? Why do I need to call them mother and father? Do I need to call them mommy and daddy, curl up in her arms and have him take me flying, too? 'Cause those aren't going to happen!" I'd never dared say the things leaking from my mouth, and now I shouted them at the poor, wretched doctor huddled in front of me.

"Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. I can't give you those things, and I'm not going to try. Do you really want to know why?"

I inched back across the freezing steel of the exam table, eyes glued to the doctor's huddled form. "I'm... not sure." This wasn't me. I didn't run from things. I fought. "What are you doing to me?"

"Holding back your nightmares and talking to you. Nothing more." I'd been mistaken. I'd always thought of her voice as soft, warm, and comforting. It was soft and warm, but so was an advancing wall of lava. It would roll over me and leave nothing in its wake but cinders. "You're frightened because you know looking at this could destroy who you are, and very likely will destroy who you think you are."

"What's the difference?"

She paused, considering my question, or maybe her answer. "Who you are is the sum of everything that makes you, you; your personality, your mind, your emotions, your memories, and even your body to some extent. Some of those change all the time, but it's pretty rare for a single piece of knowledge to destroy those. Not impossible, though. Of course, who you think you are is just one bit of knowledge, and those are easy to knock about, or even discard entirely."

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The doc wasn't pushing me away. I was running. By force of will I silenced my shivers, straightened my spine, and pushed myself to the edge of the table until my legs dangled off. "I am not a coward."

"Good. Not excellent, but a start.”

I'd worked hard to be excellent all my life. No one would tell me otherwise. "I am excellent."

"Yes, yes you are. Now, are you ready?"

The memory of fear ripped at my gut, echoed from behind the shield of the doc's mind, but I stood firm. "Yes."

"Who is your father?"

I winced, but spoke in a firm, commanding voice, "My father is Dustin Dabig, Protector (Retired) and Imperial Marine."

No echo met my words. Despite my intent, they hadn't run through med bay. They'd squeaked through a throat gone tight with terror. I couldn't control my subconscious, but I would control the parts of me I could. I cleared my throat.

"Next?"

"Who is your mother?"

My throat tried to collapse, but I forced the words out, "My mother is Grace Li, Imperial Princess and spoiled brat."

Doc Andrews coughed out a laugh. "I think that may be the first time I've heard anyone dare call an Imperial Princess a brat. Now, tell me about Dustin."

"I...," I groped for words to shove through my throat before it closed off completely. I hated him. I loathed him. He'd left me with this horrible tarted up wreck of a body and hadn't even bothered to show up and take possession. Everyone expected me to be him. Everything bad that ever happened to me was his fault and his alone.

None of that would come out. Only seven words fit out of my recalcitrant windpipe, "I don't know. I never knew him."

She shrugged, acknowledging my point. "Good enough. Tell me about Grace."

I didn't care about her. She meant nothing to me. Living gestation chamber. Father's wife. Nothing at all. Water ran down my face, metal filled my mouth.

"I... I hate her."

"Why?" A simple question asked by the kindly old woman currently saving my sanity from my own inner demons, and I needed to throttle her until she couldn't ask it ever again.

"Why do you hate her, Dustie?"

The water streaming down my face burned. I could barely taste the salt over the metal on my tongue.

"She left me." I couldn't even hear my own words, but she did.

"Is that why?"

It was. It wasn't. I couldn't face this any longer. I jerked away, twisted myself around to run, and collapsed. I stared uncomprehending at my own hands, clamped tight to the edge of the exam table, one to either side of my legs.

I am not a coward. I will not run from a dead woman. Fire sparked deep inside, roaring up through my throat, scorching my mouth with the words that did echo through the bay.

"She hated me! She hated me, and you want to know why, why, why? Because I'm worthless, I'm nothing, I'm a waste of time and energy and space all because I'm not him. I hate her because that flaming, cluttered, bitch would rather run screaming to Hell itself than stay with me when I was two flaming years old! Is that reason enough to hate her? I hope so, because I hate Grace Li. I hate her more than you or anyone else will ever be able to flaming comprehend!"

"I might..."

Fury enveloped me at the interruption. Without turning I screamed at the top of my lungs. "You think you know hate? Try living with the fact that not even your own mother could love you! Try living as the object of every stupid attempt in the book to 'educate' you on the 'man' you really are! I don't care what you think you know, you have no idea what hate is!"

"I think I might understand better than you'd believe, Cadet."

Ice washed over my skin, pebbling every inch, as that cool, sardonic voice turned liquid helium cold. I hoped I hadn't recognized that voice. Unable to stop myself, unwilling to admit to fear even now, I twisted my head around to stare at the woman who'd interrupted me. My eyes slid shut in horrified embarrassment, and I choked out the first thing I could think of.

"Hello, Captain De'Lann. Is it time for ATT already?"

Then I did the only sane thing I could do. I fainted.