She walks into the large rec area outside the kitchen and dining area, but pauses, seeing that it was occupied.  She watches for a moment, but only one person plays the video game, and she sighs deeply.

“Livy,” she says, loudly over the explosions of the game.

“Sec, Mum, I almost got it.”

Amelia walks across the room, planting herself in front of the teenager, “Mum, move!”

A robotic voice interjects, “Wounds critical.”

“Hand it to me.  Now.”

“Thanks a lot, Mum.  I ‘bout had the next level.”

“You promised me.”

“I couldn’t find him.”

“Oh, really…..where did you look?”

“Here, the training courtyard, and…..” watching her Mum’s face, “back here.”

Sighing again, she sits down next to her daughter, “You said that you’d give him a chance.”

“Yea, well, I changed my mind.”

A flash of anger, then gone, “He’s a good man.  It’s not his fault.”

“Yea, you already said that, like every day they were in Argentina.”

“Well, they ain’t there anymore.”

“So what?”

“So,” she replied, before asking the air, “Ms. Apex?”

“Yes, Amelia Taylor?”  The woman winces at the full name, and the teen scowls, laughing bitterly, “Guess you better get that changed.”

Ignoring her daughter, she asks, “Is Brett on the base?

“Brett Anderson is in the library, Amelia Taylor.”

“Thank you, Apex.”

“You are welcome, Amelia Taylor.”

“Well, that is not where I expected him to be.”

“Why?  Is he stupid? Uneducated? Illiterate?”

“Stop that right now.  Of course not, he’s neither stupid or illiterate.  He just….well, normally he enjoys other things.”

“Well, maybe he’s changed in the fourteen years since he skipped out on his family.”

“Damn it, Livy that is not what he did and you know it.”

“Do I?  Really? Because I should just trust what you say right?  It’s always the truth?”

The older woman twitches, before regaining control.  “Go! Now!”

“Where?”

“To the damn library.”

---

He heard her coming of course.  The stomping would have been heard by anyone, well, maybe not Henri when she was in here researching, but everyone else.  With his senses, he could hear the anger behind the steps.  He’d never forget Amelia’s patterns, and most everyone else was gone from the base today, trying to catch up on “normal” life since their return a couple days ago.

He heard her pause at the open entrance to the wider library, or “office” as Henri called it.  Taking up most of two floors on the base, he still really wasn’t finished working on it.  But, there was already still plenty of space for Henri’s book, scrolls, research materials, and whatever else she planned on putting in here one day.

He knows he isn’t visible from the entrance, so he moves the elevated ladder a couple of feet along its rolling base.  It really is fairly quiet, he didn’t build things to squeak, but he made sure it rattles.

The teenager walks more peacefully into the library, and around the corner before stopping.  “Whathcha doing?”

He turns, looking down at her, “Looking for a book.”

“Yea, right.  Whatever.”

He slides down along the ladder, landing lightly on his feet.

He starts to explain, and at her obvious eye roll, he shrugs.

The silence grows long and awkward, before he says, “Do you want to take a walk?”

“No.”

“Want to help me…” before she interrupts with another, “No.”

The silence grow again.  “Well, what do you want to do?”

He ignores the mumbled, “anything without you” response, although the pain it causes inside makes that difficult.

“Here.  Come sit down.  Maybe we can just, I don’t know, talk.”

“Whatever.”  But she sits down on the far end of the couch, as far away as she could scrunch.

Again, the heaviness of a silent library grows, and Brett didn’t have a clue how to connect with his newly discovered daughter.   Just as he starts to speak, she murmurs, “What’s your favorite color?”

“What?”

“You know, favorite color like purple, yellow, pink, blue?

“Uhm….Green, I guess.”

“You guess?  How do you not know what your favorite color is? Who the hell doesn’t know their favorite color…..’green, I guess.’  Guess that makes sense….I mean, if you wear green all the time while you abandon your family…..green it must be.”

He sits there for a few seconds, before replying.  “I guess that could be true, wearing green all the time.  Very observant.  But, actually, I was thinking of that greenish tint the water has right as you slip beneath the waves off the coast of Port Hedland, right before you take that breath, and dive down, the snorkel gripped in your teeth, eyes open for the view.”

Olivia grunts…. “I suppose that’s …. acceptable.”

“Glad you think so.”

“What about hobbies?”

“Rugby….” Which receives an exaggerated eye roll followed by an “of course.”  Plowing on, he says, “Building things….I remodeled most of this base….with help of course.” That response get an exaggerated yawn, followed by a murmured “boring.”  “Snorkeling, parachuting I guess, scuba diving.”  With the last answer, she slowly perks up, trying to avoid showing any interest, before saying, “that’s kind a cool, I guess.”

“What about you, what are your favorite things to do?

“Racing, duh”

“When did you start?”

“Five years ago, right before I turned 8.  Won a few races, wrecked a bunch to start with, which made it expensive, but a couple years ago, I guess I won enough that I got a sponsorship from this parts company in Maine.  How far away is that from here? Maybe we could visit or something?”

“Well, its on the other side of the country, but I am sure we could check into it.”

“Oh, well, then …. that time we went scuba diving a few weeks ago was cool.  I guess we could do that again.”

He smiles, “Of course, I’d love to.”

“What are your favorite foods, besides the obvious of everything the way you eat?”

“Well, I have a strange metabolism that…..” and he pauses after another slouched eye roll, “well, anyway, I was just thinking about this the other day, now that Mum is here.  I miss her ham and pea soup.  Dad always hated it, but she made it on my birthdays anyway. Maybe she will in a couple weeks again.”

With no scowl of disdain to that response, he asks in return, “Your Mum said you used to spend time with Mum, I mean, Hanna, well, I guess your Nanna.  Was there a favorite she made you? Or another favorite food?”

With a slightly wistful look, “Lamb chops, or maybe prawns. She always had TamTams for when I came over too.”  Then with a snarky tone, “Now that I live in America, thought it will probably be hotdogs, pizza, and lies.”

Annoyed with her tone, “I haven’t lied to you.  I may not have told you things, but I haven’t lied.  And I won’t.  I won’t lie.  I may not tell you everything, but I won’t lie. Everyone has personal things they don’t want to talk about, things about their jobs, in this case maybe about the Alliance.  But I want to get to know you, and I want you to get to know me.  And the only way for that to happen is to talk about things.”  He’d pause and since she appeared to be listening intently, without anger, “But I’m not very good at that.  I have spent 18 years as a soldier or as a member of this team, keeping secrets.  And you can ask your Nanna or even your Mum, I was never very good at talking about stuff.  But I’d like to try with you.”

“Oh great, the whole ‘omission isn’t a lie’ speech. Yea, Mum already gave it to me. And because I’m such a dill I guess I’ll pretend like I can’t tell the difference.”

Pissed, his face locks into a controlled, neutral expression, shutting down visually, “I know you’re angry about things that have happened in the past with…family.  So am I.  I understand it, sort of, but I am still angry. I wish I’d known when you were born. I like to think I’d have been there from the beginning but guess there’s no way to prove that.”

With not response, he says, “I guess one thing proves who you are though, your Mum’s wit combined with the Anderson sarcasm….”

Now clearly annoyed herself, she fires back emotionally, “Being half Brown and half Anderson is gonna make parenting my own kids super hard. I mean, how I’m gonna know whether to lie to them or just run out on them?”

Gritting his teeth, he takes a very deep, calming breath, “I know I can’t make up for it.  Maybe some time we can talk about what happened, maybe there will be memories you want to share with me.  I want to try.  But I do want you to know one thing….I will never forget that jump in Port Hedland when you won a few weeks ago, I’ll never forget watching you take your helmet off in the victory circle.  Or later that day when you hopped up on that bar and cheered with your fans.  So, I know what I am starting with….let’s just go from there maybe?”

She looks at him with wide, beautiful green eyes, before replying, “Sure, perfect, good idea. Let’s move forward, beginning with that race.  And what’s come since.”