The serenity brought on like an angel from the complete denial and disbelief his mind firmly gripped in response to the situation where he was currently comforting a mass memory manipulator was gratefully broken by the sound of Cassio's growling tone. He caught bits and pieces of it. "Dimwit….Can't… Shouldn't…Using….Ecto on a wound… Not Hygenic…."

Then the screeching alarm sounds, the blaring beeps of the droid crew as they swept through the debris to the fallen individuals, the chaos of everything coming back to him all at once, made him vomit. Into Hawthorn's lap. Though, he didn't have much left in his stomach, so thankfully it was mostly spit. Didn't make him feel any better though.

"My wings!" Yngvir stumbled forward and grabbed the pair of feathered limbs, grasping them tightly. Hemlock should have known the first time he saw the pair of black wings that they were Yngvir's. They were the same color as his hair, and the same soft fluffy puff that Yngvir's hair always had. Yngvir cradled them and carried them to Cassio's side. "Will you be able to reattach them?"

Cassio ran a hand along Yngvir's face, and Hemlock assumed they'd gotten over whatever quarrel they had before. Then Yngvir leaned in and they shared a kiss that put the most passionate pornography to shame. He simply had to look away because it was honestly inappropriate for the situation they were in.

Hawthorn had just confessed he'd taken people's memories. That he had control over memories. How many memories had he warped in his mind? What had he been looking for that time he'd decided to scourge through his mind?

A cold sweat fell over him.

That day, when the sync numbers had been given out. After Blackthorn had passed by and he'd tried to stand up. When he'd come to in the holovater without any memory of how he got there except the murmur of a voice and a gentle touch on his sleeve. He shoved Hawthorn away as hard as he could. "You!" The horror crawled up his spine into his throat and out his mouth as he gaped at Hawthorn.

"What did you do to my memories?!" He was furious now. Something that had been keeping him all locked up was torn open. He grabbed the front of Hawthorn's jacket, standing up, using all his strength to lift Hawthorn off the ground. In the corner of his red vision, he saw Cassio try to stop him. He was stopped by Yngvir's hand wrapping around Cassio's thin wrist.

He held Hawthorn there, in the air, so that his legs dangled. He might not have the force, but he had enough rage to power this entire ship. "Is this what you were talking about that time? About the me before? What did you do to my mind?! What did you do to my memories?! What have you done to me!" He was screaming, so loudly it deafened his own ears. Sound so loud it woke the dead. Or at least the near dead around him.

Cassio began tending to them, alongside the droids.

He couldn't let the rage go. It was eating him, gnawing through whatever tethers had been keeping them in place. There wasn't a single tendril or fragment of the barrier left and the wrath gushed out of him, exploding and creating tremors around him. Pieces of metal, wires, glass began levitating around them.

And Hawthorn had the audacity to smile.

He let Hawthorn go, letting him catch his own fall. The force dropped him easily to the ground, no harm done.

"What…?" Hemlock stared at his hands, and the slowly falling pieces that had begun to float. They caught the light like starlight, twinkling in their millions. He felt his good knee buckle and the enhanced leg let him down slowly.

Hawthorn didn't try reaching for him. "That's the Hemlock I remember."

"How?"

Hawthorn shook his head. "This is not the time and place for that story. Please… come back with me so I can get you cleaned and dressed in something more comfortable."

Hemlock didn't think he should really be trusting this man right now, but Cassio nodded at him, tugging his head to the side motioning for him to go. He took Hawthorn's hand and let himself be helped to his feet again and out of the debris.

"You'll tell me everything?"

Hawthorn nodded with a broken smile.

"Everything there is to know."

They were halfway through a step, when the power of the entire ship cut out, even the emergency lights cutting out.

Hawthorn whipped around and shared a look with Cassio and Yngvir. Their expression gave him the chills. Goldhorn seemed to wake from the change in emergency levels and grabbed Cassio's leg, dragging him down. "What the Fuck is happening?"

"Gingko's waken his people. The Nightmares have returned."

Goldhorn lifted himself to his feet, swaying, but staying firm. At his full height, he towered them all and his bulk gave him the extra intimidation he needed. Yet, Blackthorn had blasted Goldhorn and 5 others away like they were nothing but a pile of old clothes. Why was Blackthorn suddenly so powerful? How?

Goldhorn roared as he grabbed a chunk of reinforced steel and threw it in a direction that didn't contain any droids or living beings. It only caused more infrastructure damage and sent more sparks flying. "This is what we've been trying to avoid for the last 13 years! I told you that we should have killed him when we had the chance."

Goldhorn stalked up to Hawthorn, hands curled into fist. He jabbed a finger hard into Hawthorn's shoulder. "Except you wouldn't allow a single fucking hair on his head to be damaged."

Hemlock attempted to block Goldhorn, but he was just shoved out of the way, like some fodder in the way of the true reward. "Are you happy now? Now that your fucking pet project has sealed our fate? Every single life on this ship, all 100 thousand of them? "

Hawthorn stood his ground, leveling Goldhorn with a nonchalant glare. "And if you hadn't crash landed on our planet and destroyed our world, we wouldn't be in this clusterfuck."

Goldhorn grabbed another obscenely large piece and threw it in the same direction. With this kind of rage, he was almost helping the droid with the clean up job. Almost. If he wasn't throwing with all his strength. "Don't you DARE PUT THIS ON ME."

Hawthorn's expression was cold. Colder than the liquid nitrogen that had burned and blistered his hand. Colder than the vacuum that surrounded them. "Who was it, that ran the Zvenigrad into the ground with the lack of energy resources. Who was it, that held the lives of an entire planet at gun point and forced us to bend? Who was it that stole an ENTIRE population of inhabitants to keep this goddamn trap moving?"

A weak whimper made the behemoth of a man stop dead in his tracks and move so fast Hemlock almost missed it. Goldhorn cradled Rowan in his arms, who curled into his chest. So frail, so weak, like a flower, snapped at the stem. Goldhorn's voice shook as he hushed Rowan. "Rowan, please, don't leave me. Don't… please." Goldhorn was pressing kisses into Rowan's blood stained hands and along his temple and his eyes.

Rowan spoke, with great effort, "Cabal."

Goldhorn nodded rapidly and turned to Cassio. "Is he safe to carry?"

Cassio pressed his lips into a line. "It's not highly advised, but the ecto is holding enough pressure against his wound for transport. Be careful though, he'll need to go into cryo as soon as possible if you want him to live."

"My ship has a cryo bay. You're coming with me." Goldhorn lifted Rowan, as if Rowan was the most delicate and precious of things in existence to the entire world. As if he was carrying the fate of the world in his arms.

Rowan passed Hemlock and reached out with a weak finger, brushing his shoulder. He whispered through chapped lips, "Be at peace, my friend." And as the finger lost contact, a deep calm settled over him as Rowan slumped into Goldhorn's chest.

He blinked as he touched where Rowan had grazed his shoulder and watched as the four of them left, into the hallways.

Hawthorn pulled at his hand, weaving his fingers through his. "Are you ready?"

His voice felt raw, probably from all the screaming. "For what?"

Hawthorn led him down the halls towards the stairwells leading to his rooms. "For the truth."