Her head just kept shaking. Left to right, left to right, over and over again. Slowly. Deliberately. It was not the only thing in motion, either. Her body itself had begun to shiver and shake at the Omega's pronouncement, or soon after it. After the air had returned to her lungs from the vacuum it had created in the room, at least.

Why did Claire keep doing this to her? Why was she so intent on showing her just how...just how not right everything about the Omega was? Why did she just keep piling it on, one thing after another? First it had been that horrible shrinking thing she had done on their first real day together, followed by her somehow managing to...to hear her, despite being trapped in that repugnant shoe and enveloped by the titan's pounding toes. And then that incessant needling had begun, weeks of her constant casual questions about...

Stephanie's hands, still crossed over chest, tightened a bit more. Both in the grip that held her friend, and in the pressure exerted upon that curled hand by the other. And then today, the Omega had chosen to escalate those attempts. Just one thing after another; from the unnatural way in which she had held the little form now clasped safely in Stephanie's fingers, to that awful little question...The way she had talked about playing with her tiny, helpless, insignificant brother, and the awful images that had spun through her head. The safety in that horrible video, that happiness. The statement that the Omegas apparently just stopped aging.

So many things that just weren't right, that weren't...natural. She had already been buried under an avalanche of things that just shouldn't be.

And now the monster above her was telling her they didn't even die? Things were supposed to die. Sometimes it happened sooner (too soon), sometimes it happened later (not late enough). But...but all things did it. It was natural (should be natural). Evading that rule shouldn't...couldn't be possible.

She wanted to look upward, to see the Omega's face and wipe this most recent farce from her mind. All she had to do was tilt her head, and she would see the mockery in the Omega's face, an enthused smirk, those lying eyes. One little look and this trembling would subside. Yet as much as she wanted - needed - to see those signs of a charade, it was fear that stopped her. Fear that she would look upward and see a face that did not lie. So she fought to keep her head down, thankful for the silence.

Until Claire calmly called her name, causing the shivering young woman's body to jerk from the sudden breaking of that wonderful peace. Her fight ended then and there with the arrival of what felt like a frigid hand upon her scalp, icy fingers curling against it, their invisible tips digging mercilessly into her forehead.

Digging, and pulling.

Stephanie continued trembling as the force of her curiosity pulled at her head, gradually tilting her eyes upward and toward the truth that waited for them, one inch at a time.

Oh, God.

Stephanie's eyes widened as the Omega's face finally came into view, all doubt extinguished. There was no mockery on that face, no enthusiasm shown by those straightened lips, no hint of a lie in the dark circles that looked down upon her. Something else, perhaps, but not a lie, and then something else even beyond that. Stephanie had no issue identifying the recognition she saw within them, that acknowledgment that the tiny being caught underneath them was now devoid of any disbelief.

Stephanie swallowed, and her head tilted downward, vision instead tunneling upon the wooden surface between her legs.

"Can you imagine it, Stephanie? Living forever?" a melancholic voice called down, and the exhausted Alpha girl gave her head the barest of shakes. "It's a weird thing. It's weird, knowing that I'll get to be there for so many things, but I sort of look forward to that a little bit. I'll get to see Betas be treated as they should be, all over the world, no matter how long it takes. That's really nice. And I'll get to be there when we really commit to space travel. It'll be cool, because eventually we'll - all of us - colonize Mars and that'll just be amazing. And I'll be there when we push further than that, until we're even moving beyond the solar system and that'll be more than amazing, and I don't even know what will come after that. But I'll be there for it, and I may even get to take part in it. It'll really be something else."

Then why don't you sound happy about it? was Stephanie's immediate thought. That stuff...most of it...did sound amazing. But despite the wonderment in the Omega's chosen words, there was little of that on her actual voice.

"The thing is, as great as all that sounds...it doesn't come without a price," Claire continued, "and it's not a very fair one, at least not to me. Sure, I'll get to see a lot of great things, some of it the likes of which people only dream about right now...but I'll lose out on things, too. Constantly, really. Because part of being able to always move forward is leaving behind people who can't, even if you don't want to. And I'm going to be leaving behind a lot of people who are very, very precious to me."

"I'll be able to see a lot of things, Stephanie, do a lot of things. But the thing I'll probably be doing the most is saying "goodbye" as I watch people I love pass away."

A short, almost inaudible whine wormed its way through Stephanie's lips at that, her shoulders slumping at the rising coarseness in that voice.

"I'll make new friends, I'm sure, and it will be fun to meet those people. And I'll still have Mom, Melody, and Jenna. Pretty much all of the other Omegas, really. But they're not...they won't be replacements for the people I'll lose on the way, the people I've made such wonderful moments with. Because once someone you love is gone, they're gone, aren't they? And then there's no more moments to be made."

An irritating wetness had formed in the corners of Stephanie's eyes there, and despite her already slouched posture she managed to slump forward just a bit more. Her clasped hands went into motion, wiping softly away at the affected skin, and soon settled against her thinned lips.

"But passing on doesn't mean they're fully gone," Claire said, her tenor now uneven. "I don't think so, anyway. You might not be able to make any new moments with them, but you can still treasure the moments you already made, right? You can still hold those memories close, and carry them with you. There's a problem, though. Eventually, little by little, those memories start to fade. That detail leaves them, is what Mom said. "Everything fades," she told me when we first talked about this, "except us." And that's true. It's awful, it's unfair, and it's true. And the thing that always gets me when I think about this, is how that already happens in normal lifetimes. How much worse does that fading become after another lifetime has passed? And then another, and another beyond that? When eventually, and inevitably, you lose count of the generations you've lived through, and suddenly that first lifetime is now just a drop in a bucket? In a tub? In a pool?"

"I hate that thought," the Omega announced with a voice that could no longer stop itself from cracking, and that loss of control sent a quake through Stephanie. The confident, self-assured, powerful young woman that had lorded over her for the last month was gone now, that image crumbling into something the Alpha found all too familiar as a distant tapping drew her attention. Her head rose in time to watch Claire's hand retract from that earlier photograph, the two little Betas now fully displayed once more as they stood in the valley between the mountainous Omega's knuckles. "I hate looking at Corey and at Dad, as small as they already are compared to me, and knowing that if their entire lives were put next to mine, even I wouldn't be able to see them anymore."

Then that's your own fault.

Stephanie wanted to scream those words upward at the pained goddess above her, that label now more appropriate than ever. She shouldn't put herself through this anguish that seemed to lay beneath that cool exterior, not over...not over some Betas. Not over two little people she so hideously outclassed in every way. They just weren't worth it, she told herself as her grasping fingers released their protective grip around her doll, blurry eyes affixing upon the frail construct that continued its tranquil rest in the bed of her palm in a forced attempt to look away from happy father and son.

They couldn't be.

"But," the Omega started again after a moment's pause, an element of forced evenness present in her voice in the wake of that momentary collapse, "but that's why I'm so glad I have this, Stephanie. My library. Whenever I start to think about this stuff, when it starts to become a little too much...I like to just come in here and watch a little video or two, just as a small reminder of what I have. That I still have more to come, more to add to it. A reminder that even when I can't add to it any more, I'll still have all these memories I can continue to carry with me into the years that follow."

"And that brings us back to the question I asked you, Stephanie, about why I record all these videos," Claire continued, even as Stephanie's eyes lifted from her doll to settle upon the theater-ready screen before her. "I do that, I maintain this library, so that I can carry the memory of two people I love for as long as I can. I know that I'll meet new people, make new friends, but that doesn't make things any easier - not at all. Because I'll only ever have one big brother...I'll only ever have one Daddy...and I don't want to forget them Stephanie. No matter what happens, I don't. I love them so much, and I don't want to forget their faces, the sounds of their voices. I don't want the great memories I've made with them to become just vague recollections without substance. I don't want them to disappear."

Stephanie swallowed, eyes darting to that photo once more to take in those two smiling faces as their respective owners rested in that bronzed basin. Parent and child, both occupying such a ludicrously powerful being with such unearthly comfort and ease. A being that one called "sister", and the other "daughter." And she had not forgotten the other woman that stood beside her, a wife and a mother, whose eyes Stephanie had clearly seen tilting ever-so-slightly to regard the husband and son on her daughter's hand. She had not realized it immediately, the shock Claire had sent her into blinding her perception for a moment, but now she comprehended what that picture was truly of.

A family.

Her eyes returned to the monitor, eager again for a change, and Stephanie's free hand slowly snaked upward to furtively grasp her shoulder. A family. That word conjured another image from the ether of her mind, sending her face into more ugly contortions. An image of a picture frame, lovingly placed on the shelf above their fireplace - a shelf she had not looked at in years. Stephanie could feel her mind work to recreate the details of the photograph contained within, felt it struggle on small details. But that image was there. A woman, her mother, standing against a murky blue background, holding her young daughter's sides as the girl stood in front of her. Both wearing perfect smiles with a shared sense of delight. Yet the number of happy faces did not stop at two. For on the girl's shoulder - she couldn't remember which one - with brunette hair at their backs, sat a small man and a small boy, with smiles of their own that could only just be made out. In that picture resided a husband and a wife, a father and a mother, a son and a daughter, a sister and a brother.

A family. A family that would never be complete again.

"But y'know," Claire called as Stephanie quietly sniffled to herself, "as much as this whole thing is for me, it's just as much for them. Because make no mistake Stephanie, there is no permanence in this either. I keep backup after backup of everything here, both in this house and elsewhere, but that's no shield against advancement. Eventually, these formats will become dated. Obsolete. Technology will keep progressing, until eventually...eventually, I probably won't even be able to play these anymore, and all these wonderful little reminders leave me, too."

"Then why even bother?" Stephanie eked out harshly in a mix of bitterness and...was that pity? Yet despite the harshness in her coarse voice, for the first time she truly looked at the contents of the screen in front of her. At the long, long list of video files that sat in that folder, each file beginning with a number and followed by some textual indicator, with one file in particular highlighted in blue - the one they had just watched.

14_LastGame.

Stephanie grunted lightly, realizing the meaning of the number as the first photo she had seen on the day flashed briefly through her mind. Her eyes continued to scan as a wistful chuckle reached her ears from above.

"That should be obvious," Claire stated with uneven, bittersweet tones, "it's because they deserve it. I could never, ever ask for a better father or a better older brother. They've both been so wonderful to me, and treated me with so much love since the moment all of us came together. I "bother" with doing this because it's honestly the least I feel I can do to show them how thankful I am for all the love they've shown me, for all the times they've been there for me."

"I might not be able to hold on to these things forever, Stephanie, and eventually the memories of the time we had together will fade. But the one thing I can do for them after they're gone, as one last display of my love, is to embrace the time we had together and carry those things with me for as long as I can."

The Alpha girl simply continued to stare forward, back straight as a board and her breathing audible as air fought to make its way through her runny nose. She just couldn't stop herself from surveying the columns of video, each little phrase a small peek into the life of the this happy family. Sometimes, though, the peek those words provided was far more personal in nature, of a family that no longer existed.

Stephanie practically jumped as her vision was blocked by wall of tanned swirls, and her head pulled away even as the fingertip worked its way under her chin. With some panic, her fingers cocooned around her doll and she pulled it in hard against her clavicle, eager to protect it. The fingertip began to gently push against her chin, arcing her head backward until she could see the canopy of Claire's outstretched hand directly above her. Beyond that, though, was the Omega's face, staring down upon her. Stephanie could feel the frown form on her lips as she took in those brown saucers bearing down upon her, and she swallowed harshly upon doing so. The sight of those glistening orbs reacquainted her with the lingering dampness of her own eyes; the wet trail that traced below them renewed it even as Claire's lips began to part.

"And don't you think William deserves the same, Stephanie?" she asked, causing the girl's stomach to seize up and the muscles of her neck to go into overdrive in a futile fight against the pad that so casually kept her looking upward. "Doesn't his life deserve to be recognized?"

The halting finger mercifully removed itself then, and Stephanie's head snapped forward with such speed that her chin smacked hard into the fist she held close above her chest. The sudden contact jarred her, and her head instinctively bounced away. In a near-panic she pulled that shielding hand away to look upon its occupant, the desire to check on it briefly overwhelming to her in the aftermath of the increased pressure that impact of her chin must have provided.

The doll, of course, was fine, and Stephanie shakily lifted her eyes to view that monitor again.

"Doesn't the time you spent together?"

Stephanie kept her head straight in defiance to her trembling body, kept her eyes moving as they devoured the contents of the Omega's library. The memories she held so dear. And with each little name her eyes passed over, an image came with it. Some more unwelcome than others.

"The love he had for you?"

Picnic.

A tiny little boy, stuffed from the veritable feast his mother had provided for the family during their trip to the nearby park. His cute, tired little eyes looking upward, begging for just one thing and lighting up as his big sister's upturned palm came to rest before him. Him crawling with a slothful eagerness into her hand, snuggling into the flesh of her palm, and drifting off into a well-earned nap as her fingers curled atop him like a blanket.

"The love you had for him?

Painting.

That same little boy jumping into a myriad of colored puddles, soaking his bare feet and hands in the watercolor paints provided for him and happily going to town on the immense paper canvas his big sister had provided. His childish giggling as he spread a rainbow of foot and hand-prints across it proving to be infectious.

"The love that you two shared?"

Making Cards.

Him holding the cut tip of a blue crayon in his hands, pressing down onto the thick, russet construction paper card his sister had made and running full speed in planned directions, his sister lightly supervising from above while still allowing the hyper child to leave his own unique mark. The card was from both of them, after all, a shared gift for their mother to be delivered with two bright smiles when she returned home from the firm. And then another day, with different circumstances. That little boy working meticulously on a small card that fit into even his minute hands, taking careful instruction from his bigger sibling so as to properly convey the message she wanted to leave for their beloved father.

Stephanie could feel her features shake amidst that flurry of questions and visions, her nose running a bit more. And deep inside her, a voice called out. A whisper, at first, but growing in volume, little by little. But no, not just in volume, in desperation as well. Desperation to answer those questions. Desperation to provide the only real answer there was.

"Please, Stephanie," Claire said as Stephanie's lips began to quiver. "Please, just one thing. If you won't do it for me, if you won't do it for yourself, then please...please just do it for William. For your little brother."

Stephanie's eyes continued working, and the recesses of her mind continued to dredge up one image after another in response as the accompanying numbers got smaller and smaller. A sign that soon, she would reach both the end and the beginning of this torturous archive. And that voice within her...that voice continued to rise, along with the rate of her breathing. She could feel the mucus trickling down from her nose, coming dangerously close to invading the surface area of her lips, and lightly rubbed her nose against the sleeve that adorned her free arm to remove that threat.

"Please," Claire pleaded once more, "do it for someone you used to treasure."

And that final word could not have hit Stephanie's ears at a more opportune time, as her eyes finished their work and focused upon the last video they could, the first one this immortal being behind her had created at five years old. She had no idea what the video truly contained, the specific contents the Omega wished to cherish. She didn't need that idea. The title itself did the job in telling her why it was contained within this library, to be preserved for as long as it could be.

My New Brother.

Stephanie's face crumpled, right then and there. Her teeth grit, the muscles of her cheeks tight and aching as they stretched with her wide, open-lipped frown. A fresh, salty stream began to pour from her eyes, the liquid pooling around her eyes and blurring her vision anew. A minor inconvenience, that, as the only thing Stephanie now saw was yet another picture from the depths of her memory.

A picture that saw her as four years old again, accompanying her mother into a special nursery, one just for Betas born to Alphas. A certain anxiety had stricken her at the idea of meeting the newest member of their family, and it was only the warm embrace of her mother's larger hand around her own that kept her steady. But that all came to an end as she was brought to a small, clear basin that was no larger than a soap dish and which sat upon a table in the middle of the room. With bated breath, her little fingers tightening around her mother's fingers, she peered over into it.

And almost immediately, her nervous eyes lit up. In the center of that basin, barely half an inch in length and swaddled up in a comfortable blanket lay her new baby brother. William. Red-faced and with eyes tightly shut, the newborn Beta was a picture of adorable tranquility that had elicited a coo from his older sister as she had continued to stare down upon him with continuously swelling love in her eyes.

Not just love, though. No, as she had looked down at his tiny, vulnerable little form, she had become overwhelmed with an almost instinctive sense of her new brother's immense frailty. She would have to look out for him, care for him. Protect him from the dangers of a world too big for him, from the same mean people that said bad things about her Daddy. Because she was a big sister, and that was her responsibility to him - to protect him as if he were the greatest of treasures.

Because he was, that voice within her cried out, and that was how he deserved to be treated.

Stephanie's clenched jaw began to part, that voice still desperate to be heard. Her breathing intensified, the words forcing themselves upward in a vicious attempt to escape black, tar-like pool that had trapped them for so long. Yet all that was accomplished was the wracking of Stephanie's body, as all that escaped was a wretched, dry heave.

And his life did deserve to be recognized.

She recovered from that first failure, gritting her teeth in anguish. Another attempt was coming, stronger than the last. Yet this one failed in much the same manner, the words transforming into another painful heave.

Along with their time together.

The love they'd had for each other.

The loves that they had shared.

Each declaration was accompanied with another desperate wracking of her body. Her chest ached along with her cheeks and jaw now, a consequence of one failure after another. With panting breath, she looked down at her little friend one more time. Comfortable and happy in her hand, as it should be. Stephanie's wide eyes narrowed, her lips pursed together.

William deserved so very, very much. He deserved to live a full, happy life, secure from threats of harm. He deserved that, and so much more.

What he didn't deserve was the pain she had inflicted upon him, the loss of his life. He didn't deserve to be a victim of her failures.

"Hi-" Stephanie heaved, the syllable trailing off into a labored breath.

He didn't deserve to be insulted.

"Hide-"

He didn't deserve to be forgotten.

"Hide and -"

He didn't deserve to be pushed out of her mind...

"Hide and -"

...just to make herself feel better.

"Hide and seek."The words felt like a trail of barbed wire pulling through her throat, and she could swear a stomach's worth of tar came with it. "We used used to play hide and seek."

Her happy little doll was pulled into her cheek, dampening it with the fresh tears that streamed from her closed eyes. For the first time in years, Stephanie cried, as hard as she could.

"Thank you," the soft voice of Claire Lindon told her, before she felt the return of a soft finger against her back. It rubbed at her gently, comfortingly, and in perfect timing with her sobs. "Thank you for sharing that with me."

"Did he have a favorite hiding spot?" she then inquired innocently, and with a genuine sincerity in her curiosity that Stephanie could pick out with ease. But still, she would have none of that, and began to gently shake her head, nuzzling her doll softly with each shake.

"Y-You said," she quavered out between sobs, "you said y-you just w-w-wanted one thing."

"That's true," the Omega replied apologetically, her finger still rubbing away. "I'm sorry. No more, then. Thank you again, Stephanie. I mean that."

"C-C-Can I just...j-just go back...to my cell?" Stephanie pitched upward. She just...she just wanted to go lie down in her bed, and hug her pillow close. She just wanted to lie there and keep doing this for however long she wanted. For now, though, as she waited for a reply, she would simply continue to cry into her hands.

"No," Claire finally replied after a period of expanding, relative quiet, "no, I don't think so." Stephanie slumped forward a bit at that. "I think you're coming with me, actually." At that, her back straightened once more, and she nervously turned her head in the Omega's direction while quietly assuming the worst.

"But you...you said," she eked out amidst trembles, "you said no-"

"No session, Stephanie," Claire gently interrupted, giving the shaking girl a reassuring curl of her lips, "I just don't feel comfortable leaving you by yourself right now. So you'll come with me while I go pick up Dad. In my pocket. Okay? And then by the time we get back, I bet Jenna will have Naomi home, too. And you two can spend the night together. Does that sound good?"

Stephanie found herself slightly nodding amidst her sniffles. That sounded...that sounded a little nice, having a little sleepover with Naomi. The thumb rubbing against her back gave her one last, comfortable stroke and retracting, only to be replaced by two of the Omega's fingers as they curled around her torso and lifted her upward.

"And Stephanie," Claire tenderly started as she stood up, the hand that held Stephanie tracking toward the front pocket of the massive woman's cargo shorts, "I'm not sure...what you believe in, religiously, but...but I bet that wherever William is now...I bet he was really happy to hear you say that."

Stephanie's head hung at that, eyes tearing up anew. She barely paid attention as she was inserted into the dark, linty confines of Claire's shorts, the fingers laying her gently against the bottom of the pocket before they retracted, leaving her with one last gentle rub. Left alone in the warm darkness, she brought her doll into her cheek once more.

"William," she muttered pathetically as she felt Claire's powerful leg go into motion, Claire's last comment still on her mind. Desperately, she held her doll just a bit tighter against her damp skin. "I'm so, so sorry." She liked that thought, she did. But deep within, she knew that was an impossibility.

Because wherever William was now...and she had no doubt as to where that would be, it was the only place he deserved to be...wherever William was, she was absolutely certain that he hated her. And he had every right to.