## Reed — 2401

We sat around the table, saying nothing, each doubtless lost in our own thoughts. The decision to pare down our dinner hadn't been made all in one go, but in fits and starts.

We arrived back in Marsh's study quickly enough, finding it far more full than when we had left. The initial offer of dinner was well received, but the longer we talked about it, the more that seemed to cool. 

Lily, of course, refused almost immediately. Although she appeared to have made the decision to reconcile with Dry Grass, that didn't mean that it'd be easy for her. She still had her anger, her resentment for what she felt that the Odists had done in their shaping of the System and its history, their role in Marsh uploading in the first place, and for that, I could hardly fault her. I'd had my own share of feelings over the years that had lingered, that I had bathed in helplessly, struggling to escape the odd comforts of depression or angst or anger. I could hardly expect her to climb free immediately.

"I do not blame her, either," Dry Grass had said when I voiced these thoughts. "It is not comfortable, to be clear. I do not like that she hates me. My role — the role of my whole stanza — is to revel in feelings of motherhood. I saw myself as mother to the System on a very real, very mechanical level, back when I was working as a systech. To have a citizen of the very System I love hate me is perilously close to having a child hate me. Everyone wants to be liked."

Sedge had was the next to turn down the invitation.

"I'm feeling stretched really thin, all of that research over the last few days. I love it, don't get me wrong, I just can't think anymore," she'd said, shoulders slumping. "My brain has turned to mush and I just kinda want to find a really dark sim and stare at nothing."

Rush, initially quite interested in a communal meal, bailed not long after, saying that ve was too sleepy, that the night was coming on too quickly, ve felt, with so much new information coming at ver too quickly.

And finally, Hanne refused. She sent me a sensorium message saying that she was still out with her friends, with Warmth In Fire leading a drunken memorial for Shu. That was more important than dinner, and the prospect of forking of engaging with the mechanics of our world felt fraught to her.

So it was that Cress, Tule, Dry Grass, and I sat around a table, hotpot bubbling away in the center, in a nearly deserted restaurant. We said nothing, each doubtless lost in our own thoughts, as we dredged veggies and tofu, thin strips of fish and surimi, and thinly sliced lamb through the spicy broth, carefully fishing them back out after the scant few seconds it took for them to cook so that we could eat them atop bowls of rice.

It was Tule who broke the silence. "This is all incredibly fucked, but at least the food is good."

We all bust out laughing. Cress, most of all seemed caught up in the humor, laughing uncontrollably until tears streamed down its face. That laughter briefly veered into hysterical sobs as it hunched over in its seat. We had long since set up a cone of silence, and I think we were all glad for that now, as it made the space feel more intimate, more comforting as Tule and Dry Grass bookended Cress and rubbed their hands over its back.

"Sorry," it said once it was able to sit back up. Its voice was round, stuffed up. "I don't even know why it hit me like that."

"Too many emotions at once?" I suggested.

It shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, that's definitely true, but I don't know if that's why I fell apart."

"You do not need to know why, love," Dry Grass said gently. "You are allowed to be a confused mess in this confusing mess of a life."

I nodded, dredging a skewer of fish through the bubbling hotpot and waiting for it to cool enough to eat. "I have no clue how to feel, myself. I keep alternating between tired and down on myself for not doing enough, and working frantically on what feels like a good idea until another comes up."

Dry Grass tilted her head, a curious gesture I'd noticed in her cocladists as well. "Are you still feeling conflicting emotions from your merge?"

I stiffened in my seat.

"Only if you are comfortable discussing it, of course," she continued, voice soft. "I just imagine that there is no more appropriate crowd than this."

Both my cocladists had a blank look on their face before Tule fell once more into laughter. "Oh my *god,* Reed."

"What?" Cress asked.

"I merged down before New Year's."

"Yeah? And? I don't–" it began, then flushed red in its cheeks. It started to laugh as well, "Oh no, Reed. You kept the memories?"

"Yeah. It was a confusing night, you merged down before I'd forked my new instance, then my spare instance quit," I said. I slouched down in my seat, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks as I watched both of my cocladists laugh while Dry Grass sat, smiling earnestly at me. I knew that smile well, knew it from nights and nights together, from Sunday brunches and afternoons lounging in the sun. I shook my head to clear it. "You really want to talk about this now?"

She nodded. "I would like to talk about anything — *literally* anything — other than what we have been talking about for days, and I will never turn down the chance to talk about feelings."

"It's not a bad idea, Reed," Cress said, still grinning. "If you want to, I mean. I imagine it's gotta be weird as hell."

"Oh, it is!" I said. "I certainly wasn't thinking I'd wind up with a bunch of feelings for someone I've only met a handful of times. I have six or seven years of memories of you two together, seeing each other every day, even you falling in love, and those have always gone to the instance that merged down with Marsh."

"Wait, so...everything?"

I shrugged. "My up-tree quit and I was left with a whole merge just sitting there so I merged the rest anyway to have less weighing on me, you know?"

Dry Grass nodded. "Pending memories get uncomfortable after a while, yes."

"Right, and I know we usually talk before I keep any of those, but there was so much going on and I really didn't know what to do or think about what else to do in that moment."

"Why, then, did you not choose to quit in favor of your up-tree? To let those memories go?"

I looked down at my plate, nudging my skewers into a neat row. "I don't know. Stress? All of that stuff started happening with Marsh and it felt more important to focus on that. I was the one who tried pinging them, right? It was very in my face, very immediate."

"So now you're left with our feelings," Cress said. The laughter had left its features, but so had the embarrassment. "You're left with our relationship."

I nodded.

"You're left with our hyperfixation, more like it," Tule followed on, laughing. "God, we were both just head over heels for you, love."

Dry Grass scoffed, hand to her chest in mock effrontery. "Are you not still?"

"Nah."

"Nope, not at all."

She snorted, shook her head. "Do you see the guff I must put up with, my dear?" she asked me, a look of long-suffering pain on her face. "I build a relationship with sweat and blood, and am repaid in snark and tired humor."

"Don't listen to her," Tule said. "She's just being a dramagogue."

I laughed. "I remember that, too," I said. "And I guess that's sort of the problem. I remember what it is about you that drew Cress and Tule — or, at least what attracted Tule — and I'm as much a Marshan as they are, so here I am, feeling awkward about being around you because I remember those months of hyperfixation, and then the comfortable normal that you settled into afterwards."

All three of them smiled, all three looked a bit bashful.

"You're all really cute together, is what I'm saying."

Dry Grass gave a hint of a bow. "We do try, I believe." She reached forward to the box of empty skewers and tapped it against the edge of the box, cycling through options until she wound up with another set of sliced lamb to drop into the bubbling broth before her. "Are these memories of us, of Tule's relationship, clashing with your lived experience to date? And how about those of Sedge and Rush?"

More food sounded good, if only for something for me to do, so I tapped through options until I came up with a skewer of fish cakes — Dry Grass having requested we skip my usual choices of thin-sliced pork or shrimp for her own dietary restrictions — which I let slip into the bubbling pot. "Since Sedge's merge-down fork incorporated Tule's memories wholesale, they weren't exactly tainted. And besides, they mostly tallied with what Sedge, Rush, and I know of you already."

"That does not quite answer my question," she said gently, lifting her skewer and nudging the slivers of meat onto a bit of rice in her bowl. "I am pleased to hear that there was no great clash up against what you know of us. What I would like to know, however, is how memories of being in a relationship with someone you already know are fitting in with your lived experience of *not* being in one with them. We have met, yes? Attended the same dinner parties? We have seen each other here and there, chatted now and then. Throughout all of that, I have just been that weird old woman that lives with Cress, and then with Tule, and now some part of you remembers, I suppose, loving me."

Following her lead, I pulled my own skewers and rested them on my bowl of rice. It was a good distraction, a moment for me to think as I nudged the fish cakes off of the skewer onto a bite of rice.

Or, well, I had hoped that I would have a chance to think.

Instead, I found my mind hopelessly empty. I found my thoughts focused on trying to get the chili-stained fish to stay atop that morsel of rice, on trying to get as much of that as possible held in the precarious grip of my chopsticks, on trying to fit it all in my mouth without looking like a complete idiot.

The rice was too dry or too sticky, the fish cakes too chewy or too spicy, the bite too big and yet over with far too soon for me to make anything that could be considered headway on the topic at hand.

*What a dumbass,* I thought to myself.

"I don't know," I said aloud. "I guess that's not all that eloquent, but it's only been a few days now, and...well, yeah, you're right. There's a part of me that remembers being in a relationship with you and all that goes with that. I–"

Tule looked aghast. Cress, laughing, shook its head. "Oh my *god,* Reed."

"Hush, my dear," Dry Grass said. "Had he not brought it up, I would have asked after the memories of sex next."

"*Love!*" Tule said, burying his face in his hands.

"*Love!*" she echoed, laughing and leaning over to kiss his cheek. "This is the future we have found ourselves in, and it is a future entire, not some clean story stripped of references to gross anatomy and base desires. Reed, please continue."

The exchange had led to a flush of embarrassment of my own. I had been talking about emotions when I said "all that goes with that", but I suspected that Dry Grass was right to bring the topic of sex up sooner rather than later. That she had done so so adroitly, with humor and not a shred of bashfulness about her, certainly helped to ease the humiliation that I felt brush past me. I was able to master it for the time being — or at least ignore the burning in my cheeks — in order to continue on. 

"There's a part of me that remembers everything, but it still feels just like that: memories," I said. "I could dredge up any one conversation, but none in particular stick out to me in the same way as a conversation that I'd experienced directly would. The memories are there, and I'll be reminded of them, but they're not at the forefront unless something happens to bring them up."

Both Cress and Tule visibly relaxed. "So it's not exactly something you're thinking about, then?" Cress asked.

"Well..." I started, then stalled out.

"I suspect he might not be," Dry Grass said, speaking slowly with her curious gaze lingering on me, as though prepared to stop at the first sign of me jumping in. "Except for the fact that we have been working together quite closely these last few days, yes? That is part of why we are here now, is it not?"

I nodded. "I guess so. If things were...uh, more normal, then I guess there might be a strange moment or two at dinner parties, I would've missed you for a while, but we've been together more often than not the last few days, so it's...I don't know. It's weird."

"I bet," Tule mumbled. He still looked flushed from the previous rush of embarrassment. "I can't imagine what that must be like."

"Surreal," I said, laughing. "It's really highlighted just how parallel our lives are, because I'll be reminded of all of these things when you speak, Dry Grass, or by the way you look or move, and it'll mean two different things to me."

"Is that unpleasant?" she asked.

I shook my head vehemently. "Not at all, no. I can even mostly ignore it. It's like a dream that sticks with you through the day, you know? Except that it's a decade of memories that have been sticking with me for a few days, now."

"Do you *want* to ignore it?"

"How do you mean?"

She sat back in her chair, folding her hands over her stomach. "Well, you could continue on as you are, ignoring these concurrences as they arise, or you could act on this new life that you have been given. You could request that we not work so closely together for a while, for instance. This is a perfectly cromulent thing to ask of someone, yes? You have an issue to work through; the issue is spurred by someone's presence; them not being around would alleviate that stress; hey presto. There is your solution.

"You could talk about it *more,* much as we are doing now. That is just as valid an act. If you would like to engage with these memories actively, then there is nothing stopping you from doing so, least of all me." Her faint smile slipped into a smirk as she added, "Hell, you could decide to ask me on a date, if you wanted, since you already have memories of that working out quite well."

"God, love," Cress said, giggling. "Are you aiming to net the whole clade?" 

She smiled primly. "Would that be so bad? Though I believe I shall pass on Lily."

The three of us Marshans laughed.

"Jokes aside," she said once we had calmed down, "what I am asking is if ignoring these memories is comfortable for you. I suspect not entirely, or we would not be having this conversation."

Put like that, I really did have to sit and think for a moment. I poured myself a cup of tea and watched as the other three settled back into a more mundane conversation. I watched as Dry Grass ladled broth from the hot pot over her bowl of rice to eat it like a soup, watched the way that she talked with her partners, my cocladists, one of whose memories rode shotgun alongside my own.

I had lived two lives in parallel, Tule's and mine, and so I let that parallel continue into the future in my own imaginings. One Reed slipped almost effortlessly into a relationship alongside his cocladists, one woman acting as the pivot for our three lives. That Reed sat Hanne down to dredge up the topic of polyamory, untouched these last few years, to discuss this new relationship. That Reed forked to share time where it was required. That Reed grew ever closer to Cress and Tule in this shared orbit around Dry Grass, fell in step with however many others had found themselves mingling with the Ode clade over the more than three centuries they had been alive. However many had had conversations in their heads exactly like this.

And the other Reed made the explicit decision to step back. It would have to be explicit, to; I wasn't sure I could ever keep such a thing from Dry Grass if I wanted, her whole personality seemed to be built around openness. That Reed simply...slipped back into life as it had been. There would be a few awkward meetings here and there. Some part of me would still love her, but then those memories would fade into comfortable normalcy, as might any dream that sticks with one. Life with Hanne would continue as it was. Life with the clade would be as it had always been. And what would that matter to Dry Grass? She didn't have these memories, this internal strife.

Dry Grass had truly left me two forks in the road of equal value. There was no 'winning' or 'losing', no better or worse. The only path that felt unequal was to continue trying to ignore these feelings. Not just unequal, it felt inaccessible to me. She'd forced the topic out into the open, for better or worse.

Better, I suspect. She knew the clade well enough to read those signs of discomfort in my words — no great feat; "I can even mostly ignore it" sounded like an equivocation even to me — that she had nudged me toward some more complete understanding by talking it out. She did so before anyone got hurt, too.

I — that me who had his own memories and not Tule's — could certainly see what had drawn my cocladists to her.

Setting down my tea and reaching forward to snag the ladle in the broth alerted the others to my return to the present. I focused on the task at hand, filling my half-full rice bowl with broth before sitting back once more. "Thanks for talking this through with me," I said. "I think you're right, that it'd just be uncomfortable for me to keep trying to ignore it."

"Wonderful," she said, smiling.

"I don't have an answer beyond no, I'm not comfortable ignoring all of this, I'm sorry to say."

She shook her head. "Nor should you. It has been five minutes and change, Reed."

I laughed.

"Yeah," Cress said, leaning forward on its elbows. "There's certainly more than enough going on besides, right? Not like you need to solve *every* problem."

"Ah!" Tule said, sitting up straight and shaking his head. "This is too good a break to be wandering back into talk of whatever it is that we've been working on. Let's stick with making fun of Reed instead, alright?"

It laughed, holding up its hands. "Alright, I wasn't going to say anything else, but fair enough." It turned to me, grinning. "Just enjoy dinner with us, is all I'm saying."

"I am," I replied. "It's been too long since I've had hotpot."
