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At first, Aliez debated on whether or not it was worth following after the Commodore, especially after everything they’d just discussed. Maybe Lyndin needed some time to himself. Maybe he would take care of himself and not just brush everything aside.

Then he decided that, if nothing else, Vyn needed a chance to at least see that Lyndin was okay. Obviously he looked okay, but Vyn didn’t know what Lyndin did when it was suggested that they offer their own energy to the shield.

‘Come with me, please,’ he’d asked Vyn, his jaw set in an insistent expression. He wanted to wallow and be upset, but now wasn’t the time.

Which included Vyn, who seemed to want to wallow even more than Aliez.

With his hand around Vyn’s wrist, and practically dragging him along, they arrived no later than ten minutes after Lyndin departed from their communal house. The place the Negaverse set up for Lyndin was as it always was, except maybe there were more projects strewn about as Lyndin prepared to protect a planet whose powered occupants hadn’t shown the same compassion to them in their time of need.

“I would like to check your vitals, please, sir. And see your hand,” he announced, head high with determination, despite the wetness that still lingered along his lashes.

Lyndin expected he'd have company sooner or later, and it wasn't surprising that it would be Vyn and Aliez coming down. He'd already changed out of his uniform and taken a shower. There was a practicality to it, but he'd wanted a bit of luxury, too. Velencians had developed an effective, wasteless means of cleaning themselves but the warmth of the shower helped ease his aching muscles. He was gently massaging a Source Stone into his arm when they arrived.

He didn't try to hide it.

Dressed in loose cotton pants and a sleeveless shirt, he was unsurprised that Aliez was here for a checkup. He'd done what he could to make it easy.

"I took a reading of my vitals when we first arrived." He nodded to a tablet on the table. "Again, a few moments ago."

The information was easily accessible and Lyndin wasn't making an effort to conceal anything. He expected Aleiz might want to do a scan of his own just to confirm, to which Lyndin intended to be obliging.

When they'd first arrived, his heart rate had been significantly elevated with notable palpitations, but the last reading indicated that, while still high, it was slowly returning to something more natural for him. The other readings indicated similarly; he had high blood pressure, high body temperature, and a lower oxygen saturation in his blood, but these too were drifting back to a normal expected realm for him.

He had a way to go, but he was on the right track.

"I'm fine," he said, to both Aliez and Vyn.

His arm had a strange leathery texture to it, like it was burned but without any color distortion. He massaged the Source Stone over it again, working slowly up and down his arm.

"I've got a headache but I haven't taken anything for it. I've had a few muscle spasms and some joint stiffness, and a bit of tightness in my chest. I'm tired. Nothing some nutrients and rest can't combat."

He sat down on the couch, obviously intending to make any sort of examination easy for Aliez. He presented his arm even as he continued to work on it. There was a slight tremor in both hands, the one that held the stone and his injured hand, which he rested on his knee.

Of his arm, he said, "It still feels warm. I can feel a current but it's probably psychosomatic. It's sore but manageable. Are you two all right?"

Vyn was not fine, though he refrained from saying so. He was the complete opposite of fine—uninjured, yes, after treating his superficial wounds himself upon their return, but emotionally unstable in a way he could neither explain nor gain mastery of. He felt paralyzed by dread, robbed of his newfound hope by doubts that had nothing to do with the Calamitous Hollow.

The Commodore being harmed by what Vyn thought had been a reckless decision certainly didn’t help matters.

“Why would you do that?” Vyn said, voice heavy with emotion and strained by rising panic. “You have four Commanders. We were all there. You could’ve had one of us do it, or we could’ve taken it in turns instead of you putting yourself in harm’s way like you’re not already dying!”

Maybe it was a foolish concern, considering what they’d been up against. The mere act of going could have resulted in any one of their deaths, yet they’d gone anyway—the Commodore included. Without help, they would’ve been stuck there. They’d all risked Velencya’s fate for Earth’s sake.

Vyn didn’t care much for logic right then. The impulse to stomp his feet or throw something or do something else needlessly dramatic hadn’t quite gone away yet. He didn’t act on it only because the tears were embarrassing enough. He left them now instead of trying to wipe them away again.

“You should’ve been resting already,” Vyn insisted, tone growing progressively more distraught. He drew close enough to start digging through Aliez’s bag. “The debrief could’ve waited. It’s not like—”

Not like anyone had much to offer, except more of the same: hopes that might not go anywhere; judgments that served no purpose. Vyn hadn’t liked it the first time, after the hilltop, when Lyndin had sat against the door while the others had bombarded him with questions and accusations despite his poor state. He liked it no better now.

Vyn shut his mouth instead of continuing. Aliez’s bag presented its own frustrations. It was well stocked, which meant Vyn couldn’t immediately find what he was looking for. His shaking hands quickly made a mess of Aliez’s careful organization.

“Which medicine?” he asked between short, stuttering breaths.

In his distressed state, Aliez didn’t even think to specify which medicine. His cheeks were already hot, but he kept his focus on Lyndin.

“Thank you, Vyn. They’re in a small bottle with a green band,” Aliez told Vyn as he did his best to process what Lyndin said without becoming more emotional.

“Andreiya’s efforts. I just condensed them into pill form,” he quietly explained. He hadn’t needed to distribute them yet, so he hadn’t offered them. He’d been using the leaves to make tea, but steeping the plant could only yield so much. Having it condensed down would increase the potency.

“Just one should be enough,” he told Vyn. The pills looked more like vitamins than the chalky white medicine he’d experimented with while he figured out how he wanted to make them. A simple mold and a lot of patience with grinding down the leaves seemed to have the best result. At least where the readings from his ComTech were concerned.

“Lyndin,” he said quietly, his Source Stone still against the Commodore’s chest as he worked to regulate his vitals. He couldn’t quite look at him, at least not at first. But when he did, it was only after he’d made sure he could keep the tears at bay.

“We can’t afford to lose you. And careful or not--” Aliez paused and grit his teeth to keep himself from letting his voice crack with emotion.

“You don’t have to tell us what your secret devices do if you don’t want to get our hopes up, but we are capable of following orders and we can calibrate things to your specifications. If something happened to you-- If you were incapacitated, we would have been just as vulnerable. We rely on you so much, and it’s not fair to you... but you’ve also made us rely on you.”

Without making an effort to take the pill and handle it himself, Lyndin let Vyn do the task, and he drank the water for nearly as long as it was offered. It was half finished by the time he leaned back.

His silence was not indicative of his mood, though it had given him a moment to consider their words before his own. After a soft word of thanks meant for the both of them, he exhaled.

It was a choice not to hide how tired he was, and it was a disservice to the both of them. They wanted more honesty than he could give but he did what he could, when he could. There was no point in lying to them about things of this nature.

“I am not irreplaceable,” he said after a long moment. “I know the role I carry. I know my obligations and duties. I know what I owe to the Vanguard, and to Velencya.” And an older debt, to Velenia. To all who had fought for it. To all who had died for it.

“I am not going anywhere any time soon.” He had too much work to do. Lyndin had not asked to be Commodore. He had not pursued power or leadership. He had slotted into the role in the absence of those more qualified, and he had carried this mantle since he was younger than them.

The role was different back then, but people had been looking to him for almost as long as he could remember.

He did not want to be responsible for making them rely on him. He wanted them to know that they could. He wanted them to grow. One day, someone would succeed him. Exceed him, hopefully.

“Perhaps I put too much weight in trusting you would help me carry this burden,” he said, curling his hand into a fist and then relaxing it as he ran the Source Stone over his arm again. “Instead of the one that preceded it. I am used to making decisions in the heat of battle.” They’d accomplished the desired effect so he had been ready to count this as a win, but Aliez and Vyn had come to him with such heavy emotions that it was difficult to assess the situation in full.

“I thought I made the best choice given the circumstances. But I did not mean for that choice to make you doubt my faith in you.”

Of course he trusted that they could follow orders. He knew that they could have calibrated the device. With enough time and instruction? Easily. Those things were just not readily available given the circumstances. He felt like the entire experience had been a race against time. Maybe he’d taken shortcuts. He’d buried himself in projects, a dozen of which had gone nowhere, and one that exceeded his expectations.

The remnants of unfinished research and half-built devices were still strewn around the room. He’d have to decide if it was worth investing more effort into them or scrapping everything and starting over.

They wouldn’t be so blindsided if this happened again, but there was no way to predict what the next threat might be. Now that things had calmed down, now that he expected to be resting, he’d have time to think about it. To document where he’d gotten with the devices and what his intention had been.

He was not unwilling to pass the baton to others if they were interested in picking up where he left off.

The medicine seemed to further ease some of the strain on Lyndin’s body but he expected to still need a good bit of rest.

He could not remember a time when someone didn’t rely on him so it was a strange concept to think it wasn’t ‘fair’ to him. Lyndin did not expect life to be ‘fair’ to him, but he bore responsibility without complaint. His gaze found Aliez and he asked, “Do you feel like relying on me is holding you back?”

Vyn set the half finished water aside with the bottle of pills. He sat beside Lyndin rather than standing there idly, close enough to facilitate contact if necessary but not yet touching. Vyn tipped his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, forcing every deep inhale and subsequent slow exhale in another attempt to regulate his breathing.

Lyndin’s attention was on Aliez and so Vyn kept quiet, grateful to be spared such a direct question. He didn’t know what he would have said if he had to come up with an answer himself. His thoughts kept swinging wildly back and forth between his predilection for loyalty and his tendency to doubt.

Guilt and shame ate at him. He wished Aliez hadn’t forced him to come along. The events of that night were too recent, his misgivings too fresh to openly discuss without adequate time to analyze them. Vyn’s concern for Lyndin was no less than it had ever been, but it was not restful for Lyndin to deal with either of them like this, much less both of them at once. Lyndin shouldn’t have to explain himself when he was ailing. Vyn and Aliez were no better than the others, in the end. What difference was there between anguished worry and moral outrage when both required time and energy to address?

Maybe it had been presumptuous of them to question Lyndin at all. Maybe it was selfish of them to come here expecting their worries and distress to be entertained. Vyn wanted to be pleased that Lyndin might rely on them in the aftermath, but he couldn’t set his uncertainties aside enough for pride to seep in. They should have conducted themselves better from the start. The focus should have been entirely on Lyndin, not on their own wishes. Lyndin knew what needed to be done. Beneath the worry and his own insecurities, Vyn knew it too.

While Aliez spoke, Vyn willed himself to calm down. He pulled more air into his lungs and held it there until he couldn’t any longer. He knew he would never again be as simple and naïve as he had been when they’d first arrived on Earth, but he strove to regain the pieces of himself that had shined through the trauma of the hilltop. Being at peace was too much to ask for. Decentering himself and focusing on what was most important was not. He mopped up his own tears with the sleeve of his oversized sweater and did what he could to disguise his sniffling. He was not a child, certainly not one of the ill-behaved Earth variety. As satisfying as it might have been if he were to let himself to act like one, Vyn would never recover from the humiliation. The Commodore trusted them. That still meant something to Vyn. He didn’t want to give Lyndin cause to question his intentions or his capabilities.

Aliez answered exactly as Vyn expected him to. Vyn let that be enough.

The pressure of Lyndin’s hand on his had Aliez pause, his breath hitch. It was embarrassing to be so emotional, especially in Lyndin’s presence, but he didn’t think he had it in him to hold everything back. Not now.

Vyn, though… he was holding too much back. Aliez had brought him there, hoping he would find comfort in being reassured, by seeing Lyndin was okay. They were all struggling, all with their own thoughts and feelings. And Lyndin had the weight of Velencya on his shoulders. They couldn’t expect him to carry his own Commanders when he was trying to keep everything else afloat. When he was trying to keep shields in place, and lightning at bay.

And, as loyal as Aliez felt to Lyndin, there was a nagging voice in the back of his head, making him wonder which version he needed to believe. Which version was being told to them out of an attempt at reassurance, or maybe trying to encourage them to work harder? Why tell them they were running out of time, that they could have been halfway to a reborn Sailor Velenia, and then insist that death was not a concern? That faith in Lyndin gave him all the strength he needed?

Aliez was quiet, gently brushing the fingers of his free hand over Lyndin’s hand that held his. He didn’t expect to see many scars, not with their technology, but there were some faint lines, perhaps of older scars when their resources dwindled, and Lyndin decided not to bother wasting energy on something that was trivial.

He wanted to stay. To make sure Lyndin actually got some rest. And it would be easier to make sure Vyn was taken care of as well if he was there too.

“I will always be available to help you,” Aliez said quietly, easily. Even if he was still struggling with everything.