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He realized he had been playing the same note over and over again and began to fiddle with retuning the instrument, if only to avoid direct eye contact. Damned if he could lie to someone when looking them straight in the face. He could barely lie to someone when looking elsewhere, or over the telephone, or in a written letter. "Uh, well, what rank do you think I am?" It was a lot easier to lie if someone else said the words proper.

Snow wriggled momentarily. His human was being weird, but being petted was so rare and wonderful...

Lucas laughed, a single, bark-like sound. "Guess you caught me," he surrendered. "Yeah, I'm a grunt. More than forty years old and a grunt. That's your cue to laugh, if you want to. I laugh about it myself all the time." As if to prove his words, a chuckle accompanied them. It really was rather ridiculous. He was even older than the Kodo branch's elites. Hell, he had been involved in organized crime for longer than they had been alive!

He couldn't help but think it would have been better if she had laughed. The whole ordeal was starting to feel something like an interrogation. "Mmm, thirty years ago, I guess I was in Sinnoh." He felt Merry's ribbon-like tail appear on his other shoulder, wrapping around the back of his neck to remind him of her presence. Worse came to worst, the Chimecho did know Hypnosis...

Lucas considered her second question in silence before he found a response, "Team Rocket's got no branch in Sinnoh." It was a roundabout way to put it, but it answered the question.

It was peculiar how her demeanor changed, and Lucas watched carefully as his own apprehension turned to a vague suspicion. He gave a slow nod in response to her quiet word, a mumbled "that's the one" furthering his affirmation. He recognized the expression on Claire's face - it was one of someone trying with everything they had to remember something, an expression he had spied in the mirror so many times throughout his muddled life. Nothing could have prepared him for her next words, though, and concern for the well-being of the expensive hobby in his lap was all that kept him from leaping to his feet.

"You mean--" i won't remember this when i wake up... His mind immediately turned to the little note he had found in his pocket, the only clue had had as to why he was on that ship. 'Mutiny' and 'a huge falling out' were the descriptions written on the paper, but they explained nothing. "Do you know what happened?" His voice was desperate, bordering on frantic, as though Claire would vanish at any moment, taking all her clues with her.

Snow, frightened by the tension and the sudden change in the Nice Lady's demeanor, took her distraction as a chance to scurry away. His own human's side didn't seem any warmer a sanctuary, though, and so he found himself back at the window, watching from beneath a brow furrowed in worry.

Claire's sudden movements and tone of voice caught Lucas's attention, and in one motion he had set aside the guitar and risen into a defensive pose. But instead of attacking, she spoke, and the dark mask that had settled upon his features quickly gave way to his former confusion.

How did he forget? If he knew that, perhaps he would be able to remember. But he didn't, and he couldn't, and he was left floundering for some way to assure her that his want for information was born of no ill intent.

"...Tarvos." If Claire was what she seemed to be, then she would know exactly to whom that name belonged.

Lucas's jaw was set, eyes narrowed in a combination of rapt attention and cold realization. "Ugh..." He turned slightly and leaned against the wall, pulling his glasses away from his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. It was everything he had feared it had been. He was quiet for a few long moments, and the silence was eventually broken by the sound of his fist striking against the wall behind him. "What in the world did they think they would accomplish? The elites alone would have been able to put them down, and they wanted to take out the commanders? The boss?" It was saddening and infuriating all at once. Why hadn't they said anything to him? If he had known, perhaps he could have talked some sense into them before it was too late. How many perfectly promising young lives had been extinguished in their reckless folly...?

He breathed out a long, quiet breath. Being frustrated about something that had happened months prior would accomplish nothing. He unclenched his hand and moved it to pat Merry's side, and she chimed in response.

"...I'm glad you got out of it okay, at least."

He dragged a hand across his face, rubbing briefly at his eyes, and drew a breath. "'I won't remember this when I wake up, but there was a mutiny. I'm on this boat so I wouldn't get caught up in the mess. There was a huge falling out in the base and my rank will make it difficult to go back now. I should keep on towards wherever this boat is headed and forget I was ever a part of Galactic.'" He had read the message so many times in the past few months that he had inadvertently memorized it. "I came to on a ship, and there was a scrap of paper with that written on it in my pocket. It was in my handwriting, but..." He sighed in frustration and rubbed at his neck.

"You know, I've been forgetting things all my life. 40 years old and I've only got enough memories for 20. It's always the important stuff, too. Stuff like... well, like this." He turned his palms out with a helpless shrug.