Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Remus was being promoted again.

Her third promotion that month. it was absurd. No one advanced that quickly at Black Enterprise. 

It should have been cause for celebration, the kind of miracle people at Black Enterprise clawed toward for years, bleeding themselves dry for one rung on the ladder. But no one questioned her speed. No one whispered about favoritism or luck. Instead, they smiled as if it were inevitable

"You deserve it," they said. "You're gifted. You're different."

Different. The word lingered in her head as she walked down the corridor toward Orion Black's office.

She smoothed her hair, tucking stray strands behind her ears, trying to look presentable. The pale gray uniform clung to her shoulders, the company insignia stitched above her heart in thread just dark enough to catch the eye. Black Enterprise. 

Their technology division was spoken of in hushed tones across the city. a fortress of innovation, untouchable, impenetrable. The kind of place people killed to work at.

And somehow, she had made it in.

The memory of her acceptance still felt unreal. the impossible interview, the doors opening when they shouldn't have, the way they had smiled at her as though they already knew her answers.

Now, she stood before Orion's door. She knocked.

"Enter."

The voice was clipped, sharp, as if carved from stone.

She pushed the door open.

Orion Black sat behind his desk, posture precise, everything about him honed to an edge. His eyes dark and severe seemed to pierce through her as though she were nothing but glass. Even his beard, unshaven for weeks, had the look of something deliberate, like shadows placed exactly where he wanted them.

"Mrs. Lupin," he said, his tone formal but cold. "Come in."

Remus stepped forward, her throat dry.

"I assume you've heard of your latest promotion. Quite remarkable. No one has ever reached this level at such speed."

She forced a small smile. "Yes, Mr. Black. Thank you. I'm very grateful for the opportunity. I promise I won't let you down."

For a long moment, he said nothing. He simply studied her, eyes narrowed, as if the words she spoke were irrelevant compared to the way her hands fidgeted or the way her shoulders tensed.

Finally, he looked down at the papers on his desk. "Do you know what your new position entails?"

Remus blinked. "No, sir. I thought it would be... like before. New tasks. Different responsibilities."

Orion's jaw tightened. He set the papers aside, steepling his fingers. "Not this time."

She stiffened.

"You will be transferred to another facility. Your belongings will be moved. You won't be needed here again."

The words landed like a stone in her stomach. Transferred. Permanently. She hadn't expected that. She wanted to ask why, to demand an explanation but Orion Black's eyes made the thought die in her throat.

Instead, she nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good."

That single word, clipped and final, dismissed her more than any gesture could have.

When she stepped back into the hallway she felt the fluorescent lights harsher. Every corner, every camera, every vent felt like an eye. As if the building itself was watching. As if the promotion wasn’t a gift at all, but a narrowing cage she had just stepped into.

-

The car ride was silent. 

No driver's chatter, no music, no hum of city life. Just the muted growl of the engine and the way the windows seemed tinted too dark, cutting her off from the outside world.

Remus kept her hands folded in her lap, the uniform crisp against her knuckles. She told herself this was good. promotions meant progress, progress meant security. 

Black Enterprise didn't just promote at random. They were precise. Calculated. If they moved her, it meant they saw something in her.

Still, the unease sat heavy in her chest.

When the car stopped, the door unlocked with a hollow click.

She stepped out into a facility she had never seen before.

It wasn't like the Black Enterprise tower, gleaming steel and endless glass. This place was older, buried on the city's edge, where the concrete had begun to rot and ivy clung to broken stone. 

The windows were barred. The air carried the faint smell of rust and ozone, like machines that hadn't been powered in decades.

"Hello?" Remus's voice echoed through the hollow corridors, bouncing back at her like a taunt. For a moment there was nothing. just the hum of unseen machines somewhere in the dark.

Then, faint at first, a voice rose out of the echo, cheerful and strange "Hello... hi. Yes, hi there!"

She froze, watching a figure emerge from the shadows. He moved strangely, almost comically, his limp forcing a crooked rhythm into his steps. 

A white lab coat swung over a black-on-black outfit, one hand gripping a stack of papers so tight the edges curled, the other pressing his glasses into place as though they might slip away if he didn't.

"Hello, you must be Remus, right?" the man said, looking up at her as he closed the distance. He was shorter than her, grinning a little too wide.

"Yes, that's me. Why is this p-"

"Great! We've been waiting for you, Remus. You have no idea how excited we are to finally work with you." He cut her off like he'd been rehearsing the words for years.

"We?" she asked carefully.

"Oh, silly me. Forgot my manners." He licked his lips quickly before continuing. "I'm Dr. Barty Crouch Jr. I'll be supervising you."

Supervising.

Why would a financial department employee need a doctor? Remus's stomach coiled with unease, but she stayed silent, watching him.

"You really are lucky to have made it this far, do you know that?" Barty went on, papers rattling in his grip as though his excitement shook through them. "We're grateful. You're going to change the world for the better."

Change the world? Remus hadn't signed up for that. She wanted her work, her paycheck, the routine of normal life. Not this.

They reached a door, ordinary at first glance, the kind you'd expect in an office hallway. But when Barty stopped, he didn't open it right away. Instead, he turned and studied her with sharp eyes, like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve on the spot.

"Before we do this," he said at last, "I heard that before finance, you studied history. Why did you change?"

Remus hesitated. "I... I'm still interested in history. But it wasn't the path I wanted for my career. I needed something safe, you know?" Her tone was clipped, defensive, but honest enough.

Barty smiled faintly. "I know exactly what you mean."

Then he pushed the door open.

It wasn't an office. 

It was a lab.

Not the clean, sterile kind she had seen in textbooks. This one looked lived in, used hard, maybe even broken. 

Wires twisted across the floor and walls like veins, some plugged into hulking machines, some trailing off into nowhere. Strange equipment hummed in the corners devices she didn't recognize, even with her knowledge of modern tech. 

It looked like pieces of different worlds stitched together. circuits, glass tubes, metallic arms, flasks of cloudy liquid. A giant screen hung on one wall. Tables sagged under piles of papers, notebooks, loose wires, and, bizarrely what looked like vials of potions.

It made no sense. No pattern. Not tech, not biology, not chemistry. Just... random.

And at the far end of the lab sat a hospital bed, out of place and yet dominating the room like a silent threat.

Barty set his glasses on the desk beside a computer, tapping the keys with nervous energy. "My partner will be here any moment. Make yourself comfortable, please."

"What is this place?" Remus asked, her voice steadier than she felt as she slid the strap of her bag off her shoulder and set it on the floor.

"This?" Barty's grin widened. "This is home. Don't mind the mess. I've been working a lot lately."

She gave a noncommittal hum and lowered herself onto a spinning chair, eyes catching the scattered papers.

Half of them were numbers, endless strings of equations written in precise, elegant handwriting. It was almost beautiful, in a way. 

Remus was fluent in numbers; she could follow some of the patterns, but others slipped away from her. The rest of the papers were articles, research, pages photocopied from books. Some of the names were familiar, scientists she had read about in passing.

The only sound was the clicking of Barty's keyboard, sharp and restless. Then the door opened.

A tall, blonde man stepped in, his skin tanned against the sterile glow of the lab. He was broader than Barty, his presence heavier, but his voice smooth as he spoke.

"Sorry I'm late."

He extended a hand toward her. "I'm Dr. Evan Rosier. Barty's partner."

"Remus Lupin," she said, shaking his hand. His grip was firm, polite, but she couldn't shake the unease gnawing at her.

"Yeah, I know," Evan replied with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You have no idea how long we've been waiting for you."

Remus's chest tightened. Waiting for me? She didn't belong here. She wasn't supposed to be here.

Evan leaned toward Barty, whispering something too soft for her to catch. Whatever it was, it made Barty's whole face light up. He grinned, passing Evan a piece of paper Remus couldn't quite see.

"So..." she said slowly, biting her bottom lip, "they didn't really tell me what I was going to do here. Does anyone have any idea what I'm supposed to do?"

Barty's eyes glinted as he typed, his lips moving like he was reciting scripture only he understood. The black prompt flickered with equations as if it were alive, whispering to him. When Remus shifted in her chair, he looked up at her like a priest caught in prayer.

"You don't understand, Remus," he said, voice hushed, reverent. "You're not here for finance. You're here because you fit. You complete it."

Before she could respond, Evan leaned against the lab bench, arms folded, watching her with an unnerving calm. He didn't leer. He didn't grin. He just stared at her as though she were the last page of a prophecy.

"Barty," Evan said quietly, "she doesn't see it yet. Don't frighten her. The revelation comes with time. Always with time."

Barty chuckled, licking his lips, nodding eagerly.

"Yes, yes. You're right. Forgive me, Remus. It's just-" his hands trembled as he gestured at her, "we've waited generations for you. Do you understand what that means? they've been searching for resonance. The body that sings in harmony with the machine. And now, here you are."

Remus swallowed hard. "Look, I think there's been a mistake. I'm not-"

Evan cut her off, his voice silk over steel. "Mistakes are statistical noise. You are not noise. You are signal. The Equation brought you here. Do you think you chose Black Enterprise? That you earned promotions by merit? No. Every step was calibration."

He moved closer, lowering his voice until it brushed against her ear "You're not here to save numbers. You're here to save us."

Remus pulled back, panic flashing across her face. "Save you? I don't even know what the hell you're talking about"

Barty slammed his hand on the table, startling her. "Because you're still thinking like a worker bee. Obedient. Blind. But you're more than that. You're the bridge. Flesh into circuit. Mind into machine. The human equation solved."

Evan's hand dipped into his coat pocket, pulling out a syringe. His tone was calm, almost soothing "Don't fight, Remus. This isn't cruelty. This is communion. We're giving you clarity."

Remus jumped to her feet, voice sharp and desperate. "Stay the fuck away from me!"

But Barty was already circling, murmuring as though in prayer, "The first resonance. The last missing note. Sing for us, Remus. Sing."

Evan lunged, grabbing her arm with frightening strength. The needle sank in.

Her scream echoed through the lab.

And then the world folded in on itself. Her heartbeat roared in her ears. 

The machines around her whined as if waking from centuries of sleep. 

She clawed at Evan, but her limbs were failing. The cold chemical fire surged through her veins, fusing her body to the hum of the machines.

Barty pressed his forehead against the monitor like a zealot before an altar "Yes. Yes! The song begins. The bridge is open. She is becoming."

Remus's vision fractured into static. The last thing she saw was their faces not madmen, not scientists, but believers. Devoted, raptured, waiting for their salvation through her.

And then, 

only darkness.

-

When Remus woke, she was lying on the same hospital bed she'd seen earlier, though now it gleamed with sterility. No clutter. No scattered papers. No evidence of chaos. The lab looked new, polished, purposeful. As if it had been waiting for her.

Thin tubes pierced both her arms. Only, when she tried to focus, she saw they weren't tubes at all. Not plastic. 

Not veins. 

They were wires. Silver veins stitched into her flesh, pulsing faintly, humming with some rhythm her body didn't recognize.

She tried to move

nothing. 

Her muscles wouldn't obey. Paralysis gripped her spine. A fog in her vision made the ceiling ripple, lights bending. And beneath that hum of electricity, she thought she could still hear them. Voices. Familiar.

Barty. 

Evan.

Those bastards.

She blinked, fought the blur, forced her right arm toward her face. The skin she saw wasn't hers. Pale, raw, carved with scars like circuitry burned straight into the flesh. 

The wires threaded through her arm didn't look connected to a machine. 

they were the machine. 

Her heartbeat spiked, the monitor beside her screaming in sharp, rising beeps.

Fragments struck her, uninvited.

>Barty's grin as his hands hovered above her chest, like a conductor over an orchestra.

>Evan's trembling voice, "The resonance is holding. keep her under, keep her under-"

>A sharp blade cutting through her chest.

>Metal clamps biting her skin.

>Their faces lit by the glow of machines older than she could name, younger than she could understand.

Her body remembered what her mind refused to.

She sat up with a ragged cry, tearing one wire from her arm. It wasn't fluid that spilled. her skin bled, yes, but beneath it something glinted, something metallic. She didn't care. She ripped out the other. Agony split her nerves. 

The scream sounded too distorted, too sharp, like her voice was filtered through a broken speaker.

She staggered, 

fell, 

forced herself up. Every step a war. The white gown clung to her like shroud. Blood dripped, bright against the steel floor.

She stumbled to the door, half crawling, half dragging herself forward. The voices outside grew louder. She wanted revenge, wanted to burn them alive. But when she heard the footsteps, panic overtook vengeance. All she wanted now was out.

She ran. Somehow her body obeyed. Her limbs felt wrong, like strings pulled by invisible hands. But adrenaline drowned thought. She ran.

Until-

A click behind her. The metallic snarl of a gun cocking.

"Turn around."

Not Barty. Not Evan. The voice was calm. Soft. Human.

She obeyed slowly, heart slamming against her ribs.

What she saw wasn't what she expected.

A woman with silver eyes, sharp and luminous, staring at her with a mixture of shock and tenderness. 

Dark hair fell in waves to her shoulders, gun lowering as her mouth parted in a quiet gasp. Beside her stood another girl, dark skinned, curls pulled high, glasses framing eyes wide with horror.

"Jesus Christ," the second whispered.

"What happened to you?" the silver eyed girl breathed.

Remus tried to answer but her throat clawed against sound. Her voice came out broken "I- I don't-"

Her body flinched when the curly haired girl moved forward, steady hands catching her before she collapsed. "It's okay. You're okay. You're safe now. Sit. Breathe."

Safe.

They eased her into a chair. Water pressed against her lips. It burned going down, like drinking knives, like her body had forgotten what water was.

"Can you speak?" the silver-eyed girl asked, crouching before her.

"...a little."

"Good. You don't have to push. We'll get you out of here."

The words wrapped around her like a promise she didn't believe but needed.

They walked her out. The sun outside blinded her instantly. She hissed, closed her eyes. The silver eyed girl draped a leather jacket over her shoulders, murmuring reassurances Remus could barely process.

The car waiting for them was unlike anything she'd ever seen in her entire life. Sleek, silver, sharp edged like a weapon disguised as transport.

"Cybertruck," the curly haired girl said with a faint smile as she watched remus amusement, or maybe confusion. 

Remus barely registered it. She sat in the backseat, the silver eyed girl beside her. She tried to breathe. To focus. But her mind kept glitching. Half thoughts, half memories.

The silver-eyed girl was watching her. "Do you remember?"

Remus's voice cracked "I- I don't- They said I was... the match. The equation. I was supposed to..." She broke, clutching her temples. "I was going to work and- and they did something to me. I don't know they said I- I don't know what's happening to me"

"Who did this to you?"

>Barty's eyes, fever-bright "You're the one, Remus. The bridge. Human intelligence married to machine. You'll live when we don't."

"Them, the doctors. Barty and Evan, Fuck. They- told me they were waiting for me and they looked creepy and they drugged me and I tried to fight them but they were faster and I- I woke up with those scars-" Her breath hitched, too fast, too shallow

"When was this exactly?," The curly haired girl met her gaze in the mirror, voice low. 

"I don't know, yesterday maybe? Two days ago? I don't know."

"That's not possible. Dr. Barty and Evan died fifty years ago"

>Evan's hands, shaking as he injected himself "If we fail, we die with it. No one else will understand. Only her."

"They got caught doing some kind of experiment they called this project, operation 72. But it was shut down. They poisoned themselves before they could be interrogated. No survivors. No subjects."

>The sound of choking. Poison. Their bodies hitting the floor. She saw them die for her. She saw them chain her to eternity.

"No."Her throat bled raw with denial.

"I work for them. I- I just saw them. They were there, they touched me"

"Hey," the silver eyed girl whispered, touching her shoulder, grounding her. "Do you know what year it is?"

"...1975. It's still 1975. I just-"

The girl's eyes softened with sorrow "No, its not. It's 2025"

No.

-

‎‏Remus hadn't spoken the entire ride.

‎‏She sat pressed against the seat like the world might split open if she moved too suddenly. Fifty years asleep? It couldn't be real. No living being would survive that. not her, not anyone.

‎‏Her thoughts looped, glitching like a corrupted recording. Maybe Barty and Evan had poisoned her, filled her with something that made nightmares bleed into waking. 

‎‏Maybe she was still strapped down, still screaming. Maybe none of this was more than the drug's cruel theater.

‎‏But the worst part was the noise in her head.

‎‏Memories she had never lived crawled through her skull, sharp as broken glass. She would blink and see hands. someone else's hands, threading wire through flesh. She would hear whispers she had never been meant to hear

‎>‏The flesh forgets. 

‎‏>The mind remembers. 

‎‏>The vessel will carry you farther than the body ever could.

‎‏She pressed her palms against her temples. The pain was unbearable. It wasn't just pain. it was clutter. Like her brain was running two sets of thoughts at once. One was hers, frantic and human. The other was colder, too sharp, too clear. Equations, details, entire sequences of memory unfurling without her permission.

‎‏She didn't know where it came from.

‎‏She didn't want to know.

‎‏It felt like prying on someone else's mind, like she'd been forced into a stranger's body. Every time she tried to hold onto her own memory, another would crash in. hers, not hers, stolen, planted, imagined.

‎‏Her stomach turned. Maybe she was losing it. Maybe this was madness. Maybe this was what they'd done to her.

‎‏Her temples throbbed under her palms, but the ache only deepened. She was split in two, and the seam was tearing.

‎‏"What do you know about Operation 72?" Remus said suddenly, shattering the silence.

‎‏The driver's grip tightened on the wheel. The woman beside her shifted, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.

‎‏"Tell me," Remus pressed, leaning forward, her voice dry and cracked.

‎‏The driver breathed out like she'd carried the weight for years. "We don't know much. No one does. The Operations began long before us. Generations of scientists. Some say before the war. Some say before even memory itself."

‎‏"Before?" Remus frowned, numbers colliding in her skull. 

‎‏Visions flared chalked blackboards, equations in dead tongues, fragile pages crumbling under unfamiliar hands.

‎‏The passenger nodded, voice trembling with reverence. "The last project anyone spoke of was Operation 55. After that, silence. We thought it ended. But there were seventeen missing. Seventeen ghosts. Lost, erased, or hidden because they succeeded too well."

‎‏"Seventeen," Remus whispered. The number echoed inside her like a code.

‎‏"Yes," the woman driving said flatly. "And now we found ou there's 72. And here we  are."

‎‏"Here we are," The woman beside her echoed, but her voice was reverent, almost prayerful.

‎‏Remus leaned back, heart pounding. 

Lab coats, faceless voices, her own body opened like a book on a table

‎‏memories she had never lived but couldn't escape.

‎‏"We need to go to the Black Enterprise," she blurted, trying to anchor herself in reason. "Someone there can help me. They'll-“

‎‏But the women exchanged that look again, a silent language Remus couldn't break.

‎‏"The Black Enterprise was shut down the same year Barty and Evan died," The driver said tightly. "Illegal experiments. Too dangerous to continue."

‎‏Remus's chest tightened. "But I work there. I got my promotion- I was going to report in- how is this happening? What's happening to me?"

‎‏"I don't know," the woman said softly. Her silver eyes burned with warmth that could cut through bone. "But we'll figure it out. I promise. I'm Sirius. This is Lieutenant Jamie. You're not alone anymore."

‎‏Her voice was so full of care it felt like fire.

‎‏"Sirius," Remus whispered, disbelieving.

‎‏"Yes?" Sirius tilted her head.

‎‏"Sirius Black?" The name tasted wrong on her tongue, but she had to say it.

‎‏Sirius's body stiffened, her jaw tightening. Jamie shot her a quick look.

‎‏"How do you know that name?" Jamie demanded.

‎‏Remus's words spilled, desperate: "You're Sirius. Orion's daughter. You used to come into the office- you were a child- how-"

‎‏Sirius's silver eyes studied her like she was a puzzle built from broken pieces. "Who are you."

‎‏"I'm Remus. Remus Lupin. I worked- I work in finance. I just got promoted- I was heading to my new department and then-" Her voice broke. She was pleading, but with who these women, or herself?

‎‏Sirius whispered her name, "Remus..." and laid a hand on hers with pity. Remus jerked away, retreating into silence.

‎‏No. 

‎‏She wouldn't believe it. 

‎‏She wouldn't.

‎‏She didn't speak again. 

‎‏Not when They reached the compound of the

‎‏The city that had changed beyond recognition. towers of glass, lights that hummed like stars dragged down to earth, cars that glided instead of roared. 

‎‏It was another planet, another five decades. She had no language for it.

‎‏She didn't speak when the command center swallowed her whole. 

‎‏Clean metal, bright white. Strangers in uniforms who spoke in clipped tones, their eyes on her like she was both relic and threat.

She Didn't speak when They handed her off to a nurse. A young woman with tired eyes, her movements practiced and careful. She led Remus into a small chamber that smelled faintly of antiseptic and steam.

‎‏Remus didn't speak when the nurse said "Undress," so softly.

‎‏She just obeyed, numb fingers loosening unfamiliar fabric. Her body felt foreign, heavy, as if it belonged to someone else. She stood naked under the sterile light, trembling.

‎‏The nurse guided her into the shower. Warm water cascaded over skin that should have been hers, but wasn't. Hands washed her hair, her face, her arms with steady patience. The intimacy was unbearable. It wasn't kindness. it was ritual, like preparing a body for burial.

‎‏Remus kept her eyes shut, but her thoughts screamed. Every touch reminded her of their whispers

‎‏>The flesh is clay.

‎>‏The body is nothing but a vessel.

‎‏When it was over, the nurse handed her a towel. tilting her chin toward the mirror.

‎‏Remus lifted her eyes.

‎‏The face staring back was hers but not hers. The same angles, the same mouth, but younger than she had any right to be. Her skin was untouched by age, by fifty years of sleep. But it wasn't untouched at all.

‎‏Scars ran across her body in cruel precision. A perfect line down her chest, from the hollow of her throat to her belly, stitched with surgical indifference. 

‎‏Another along her spine, mirroring it, neat as a ruler's edge. 

‎‏Arms carved open and closed again, like a butcher's specimen.

‎‏She turned. Every inch bore the mark of knives that had not cared to hide themselves.

‎‏Her gaze caught on the jagged scar that marred her face. Unlike the others, it wasn't careful. It slashed down from her brow, splitting her nose, dragging through her lip. A wound that hadn't been given the dignity of order.

‎‏Her stomach lurched. She touched the line on her chest, then the one across her face. Not one of them was hers. Not one of them had been chosen.

‎‏Whatever she was now, it had been cut into her. Made.

‎‏And for the first time, she understood the horror in Barty's smile. The devotion in Evan's eyes.

‎‏>This is salvation, 

‎‏>This is a rebirth

‎‏their voices whispered in her skull. 

>To be remade is to be eternal.

‎‏Remus gripped the edge of the sink, bile rising in her throat.

‎‏But the face in the mirror did not waver.

‎‏It only stared back, silent, waiting.

‎‏>The flesh forgets. 

‎‏>The mind remembers.

‎‏She pressed her hands to her ears, but it didn't silence it.

‎‏The words weren't in the air. 

‎‏They were in her.

‎‏Her brain was splitting itself apart, 

‎‏dragging her between two realities

‎‏When she went back to the nurse and sat on the cot, the cold edge of the sheet biting through her bare thighs, as wires and monitors hummed around her. 

‎‏The results flashed. 

‎‏The woman had been professional, almost gentle swabbing skin, checking reflexes, sliding the scanner over the length of her arm.

‎‏But now she froze. Her eyes flicked to the screen, then back to Remus, then back again. The color drained from her face. She tried to keep her voice level, but her hand shook when she set the scanner down.

‎‏"Stay here," she said too quickly, and left before Remus could answer.

‎‏Remus's chest tightened. She'd seen that look before   not on herself, but on others. The look of someone staring at something they couldn't explain. The look you gave the impossible.

‎‏She sat there alone until the hatch opened again.

‎‏Fleamont Potter walked in first. His presence filled the room without raising a voice. Calm. Steady. Too steady. Behind him, Jamie slipped in with her head lowered, and Sirius followed, shoulders tense, already lighting a cigarette she wasn't supposed to smoke in here.

‎‏The nurse handed Fleamont the data. He read it in silence. His face didn't move. Not a twitch. He only gave the papers back and dismissed her.

‎‏Remus knew then whatever it was, it was bad.

‎‏The three of them stayed with her after the nurse left. They didn't rush. They didn't even sit at first. It was Sirius who finally broke the silence, exhaling smoke toward the floor.

‎‏"Tell her," she muttered, sharp as glass.

‎‏Fleamont pulled the chair forward and sat across from Remus. His hands folded loosely, his voice calm, measured like he'd done this before, telling soldiers what they didn't want to hear.

‎‏"Remus," he began, "what we found during the scan... it's not standard. Not human standard."

‎‏Remus's throat went dry. "What do you mean?"

‎‏Jamie flinched but didn't look away. Sirius swore under her breath, pacing the length of the room.

‎‏Fleamont kept his gaze locked on hers. "Your nerves. The pathways that should carry signals from your brain to your body. They aren't organic anymore."

‎‏Remus felt her breath stutter. "What-"

‎‏"They've been replaced," Fleamont said. His tone was almost gentle, but not soft. Steady. Controlled. "With something synthetic. Wires. Circuits that mimic nerves."

‎‏Her skin went cold. She pulled her arm against herself as if she could hide it, but she felt nothing. No difference.

‎‏Sirius flicked her cigarette into the sink and turned, eyes burning. "They rebuilt you, Remus. Piece by piece. And they didn't bother telling you what the hell you were walking around with."

‎‏Jamie stepped forward then, voice quiet, almost apologetic. "We didn't know if you'd ever wake up. Operation 72 was... buried. Even in the files, it's half redacted. But you survived. Somehow."

‎‏Remus stared at them, at the way Fleamont stayed steady, the way Sirius shook with anger, the way Jamie's voice trembled with grief. Her heart hammered but her head felt split, torn between the panic rising in her chest and the other part of her brain. cold, mechanical whispering data she didn't ask for.

‎‏Wires. 

‎‏Signals. 

‎‏Circuits. 

‎‏All true.

‎‏And then, like a lock turning the whispers weren't whispers anymore. They were commands she couldn't unhear, etched into the new lattice of her nerves. 

>The flesh forgets. The mind remembers. The machine will carry you farther than the body ever could.

‎‏"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "That's not me."

‎‏But Fleamont didn't move. Sirius turned away. Jamie's eyes shone.

‎‏And for the first time, Remus wondered if she even belonged to herself anymore.

Chapter Text

Sirius leaned against the bulkhead, smoke curling around her face as she watched Remus unravel. She couldn't stand still. Her boots tapped against the deck, restless, like if she stopped moving she might explode.

She'd seen bodies ruined by war, seen soldiers come back half dead, held friends as they bled out in the darkness. but this? This was different. This was deliberate. Engineered.

And she knew exactly whose fingerprints were all over it.

The Blacks.

Her family had been calling it prophecy for generations. That twisted religion of theirs. half scripture, half circuitry. 

They thought they could hear the God in the hum of machines, thought the divine whispered through wires and data. Every child was told the same thing The flesh is weak, the machine is eternal. The God command us to ascend.

Sirius had spat that poison out of her mouth years ago. They'd disowned her for it. Fine by her. Better than staying chained to their delusions.

But now here was Remus. pale, shaking, eyes wide as she tried to process what Fleamont had just told her. Wires for nerves. Circuits where veins should be. The work of men who called themselves faithful. Her family's faith.

Sirius felt sick.

Because whatever the Blacks had done, they hadn't asked her. They hadn't warned her. They'd carved her open and rewired her like she was a hymn they were rewriting for God.

And Remus didn't deserve any of it.

"Gods," Sirius muttered under her breath, shoving the thought down, running a hand through her hair. She wanted to scream, to tear holes in the bulkhead, to burn every last Black lab to the ground. But instead she lit another cigarette, the flame shaking just enough to betray her.

She glanced back at Remus.

There was something about her. Something beyond the wires and the damage and the broken look in her eyes. Sirius couldn't name it yet. maybe she didn't want to but it was there. That pull. That gravity.

Like a pilot catching sight of a star she hadn't seen before and knowing, without a map, that she was meant to follow it.

Sirius let the smoke curl out through her teeth, eyes locked on Remus as Fleamont spoke in his calm commander's tone and Jamie hovered with her quiet grief.

To them, Remus was fragile. Something that might shatter. The girl's nerves weren't nerves anymore. Her veins weren't veins. She's half machine. They've replaced her body with wires. Wires where flesh should be.

Sirius swallowed, fighting the surge of nausea and rage. And they think this is holy. They think this is God.

She could see Remus trying to understand, trying to pull herself together, but it was too much. Sirius wanted to take her, wrap her in her arms, shield her from the history she couldn't even see yet. Shield her from the Black faith, from the Black legacy.

She hated it all. Hated the ceremony, the doctrine, the way they had the audacity to call this divine. Hated that her family's obsession had created this... this weapon of flesh and wire. Hated that Remus had to bear the cost.

Sirius watched her from the edge of the command center, leaning against the steel rail like a sentinel. Remus didn't notice her at first, didn't notice anyone. She moved through the room like a shadow of herself, careful, small, always hesitant. The longer the days went on, the quieter she became.

At first, it was little things. She spoke less. She pushed the tray away, barely touched the food. She murmured occasionally, just fragments, whispering under her breath in a rhythm that made Sirius's skin crawl. The words were soft, almost melodic, but there was a weight to them. ancient, religious, uncompromising.

"The flesh forgets. The mind remembers. Serve the will that guides."

Sirius had heard those words before, when she was a child, when the Black faith had been forced on her. The family sermons, the litany of obedience, the idea that their god spoke through action, through pain, through conquest over the weak and imperfect. 

And now, those same echoes were trapped in Remus, a mind wired fifty years ago, still reciting commands she didn't understand.

Remus's eyes stayed downcast. She seemed stuck in a place between decades. her body was twenty-something, but her mind... it belonged to 1975. Everything past that was alien, incomprehensible, too fast. The world had moved on, changed, evolved, and Remus was still living in a past that no longer existed.

Sirius hated it. Hated watching her shrink like this. Every time she caught Remus murmuring in her sleep, those old commands fragmented, half remembered, half programmed she felt a fist tighten in her chest. 

She wanted to yell, to shake her awake, to tear the wires out herself if she could. But she couldn't. Not yet.

Jamie noticed it too, though she was gentler in her approach. She tried to coax Remus out of her shell, asking simple questions, offering small comforts. But every answer Remus gave was clipped, careful, like she was guarding a secret she didn't even fully understand herself. And Sirius... she just stood there, watching, keeping the space around her safe, observing the slow erosion of Remus's spirit.

Sometimes, late at night, Sirius would sit in the quiet corners of the command center, watching Remus sleep in the small quarters she had been given. The murmurs never stopped, and sometimes she thought she could hear her past lives bleeding into her words. Remus's own memory merging with the instructions embedded in her, the god that the Blacks had worshipped and the machine that now ran inside her.

"Obey. Endure. Merge."

The commands made no sense to her human mind, and Sirius could see the frustration in Remus's brows, the tiny bites of panic whenever she woke. It was like a war in her head

the human side clinging to the present, to freedom, to understanding, and the machine half pulling her back, insisting on obedience, on carrying out purposes she didn't know.

Sirius hated it. And she hated that she couldn't fix it. She could protect her from the outside world, yes. She could shield her from the command center's cold glare, from the faint, sterile hum of machines that measured life in beeps and pulses. But she couldn't stop the war inside Remus's own mind.

Sometimes, Sirius imagined taking Remus in her arms and holding her until the machine side stopped whispering, until the religious half didn't chant, until she could be just human again. But she knew that wasn't possible. The Black faith and the wires were stitched into her too deep.

Still, Sirius stayed. She watched her. She waited. She vowed silently that if anyone tried to claim her, to bend her again, to force her to obey... she would fight like the fires of hell itself.

For now, all she could do was watch. And hope that the real Remus, the one from fifty years ago was still in there somewhere, fighting to be found.

-

Weeks passed.

They didn't bring in doctors because they trusted them.

They brought them in because they had no other choice.

Remus had a problem no one knew how to name. A living woman whose blood tests never matched her flesh, whose nerves ended in threads that weren't nerves at all. A woman who carried memories that were not her own, who whispered prayers in the voices of strangers while she slept.

The command couldn't risk the truth spilling beyond their walls. Not even their own people could know. If word got out that a human experiment; a failed, abandoned thing, had survived. the world would tear itself apart with questions they weren't ready to answer.

So they tested. Quietly. Carefully. Doctors, mechanics, specialists. one by one, pulled from the shadows and sat across from her. Each given fragments of access, never the whole picture.

And every single one of them failed.

Some recoiled at the first sign of what she was. Others drowned her in procedures, reducing her to data points, refusing to look her in the eye. A few simply broke under the weight of the unknown, walking out and never coming back.

Twelve tries. 

Twelve disappointments.

Remus remained. Withering. Waiting. Watching them leave.

And then came the thirteenth.

Dr. Lily Evans.

Her reputation preceded her, whispered in the halls of the command center,

 the youngest to ever publish on neural bioengineering, the one who had written theories that made entire faculties rewrite their curriculum. The kind of prodigy who wasn't supposed to exist outside of fiction.

She wasn't older than Sirius, maybe a year or two, yet she carried herself like someone who'd lived a lifetime already. Not weighed down, but sharpened. Every step measured, her gaze bright and restless, like she saw more than she let slip. Sirius caught herself tensing, the way she always did around people who thought too fast.

The room changed when Lily entered. Not silence, not awe.  just... steadiness. Fleamont introduced her in that clipped way of his, but even he seemed to watch her a fraction longer than usual.

Lily didn't waste time. No glances at the commander, no hesitant circling like the others. She went straight to Remus, lowered herself to eye level

She asked her questions no one else had dared. She studied the scans without flinching. Her hands were steady when she adjusted the instruments. When the impossible results printed. the readings that had sent twelve others running or raving. Lily didn't falter. Her jaw tightened, yes, her eyes narrowed, but she leaned closer, not away.

Sirius knew that hunger. She'd seen it before, in the Black family, in the priests, in the fanatics who dressed cruelty in faith. But with Lily, it was different. She wasn't worshipping the machine. She wasn't kneeling to it. She wanted to master it. To take it apart. To understand the cruelty and maybe turn it into something else.

That terrified Sirius more than anything.

Because if Lily failed, Remus would be nothing but wires and faithless whispers.

And if Lily succeeded... Sirius didn't know what Remus would become.

"Do you believe they made you this way for a reason?" she asked, voice calm but pointed.

Sirius, leaning against the far wall, nearly flinched. The others had avoided questions like that, wrapped themselves in safe diagnostics and technical terms. Lily went straight for the jugular.

Remus blinked, as if the words hadn't registered at first. Her lips parted, trembled. Then, almost unconsciously, her head tilted, her voice low and uneven

"Because God willed it so."

Not her voice. Not exactly. It was layered, distorted, the cadence off like someone speaking through her mouth. 

Sirius froze. 

She'd heard that before, long ago, in the Black household. The ritualistic cadence of a belief system that poisoned her childhood.

Lily didn't recoil. She leaned in. "Whose words are those, Remus?"

Remus's brow furrowed. Her fingers dug into her own arms. "I... I don't know. Sometimes I hear them.the people who have done this to me. They... they say it like it's a prayer."

The room seemed to constrict around them.

"Do you believe them?" Lily pressed, her voice low, sharp as a knife.

Remus's eyes watered, confusion knotting across her face. "They sound so certain. Like they know something I don't. Like it's already decided." Her voice cracked. "But I don't want to believe it. I don't want it to be true."

Sirius clenched her fists. She knew those words. Not Barty's, not Evan's, not even Remus's. They were the Black family's poison, dressed in new voices, new disguises. Their obsession with God's will, with sacrifice, with purity and destiny. 

Sirius had burned her bridges to escape it. And now here it was, alive inside this woman who hadn't asked for any of it.

Lily's gaze stayed steady. "When you hear them, do they feel like memories? Or commands?"

Remus closed her eyes, shaking her head as if the question itself hurt. "Both. They feel like... like thoughts I shouldn't be having. Like I'm remembering someone else's faith. Someone else's voice."

The silence that followed was heavy, electric.

For Sirius, it was unbearable. Because Lily had done in minutes what no one else managed in months. she stripped away the surface and forced Remus to look into the abyss of what was inside her.

And Sirius hated it. Hated how necessary it was. Hated how Remus trembled under the weight of words that weren't hers. Hated most of all how familiar it felt like the ghosts of her own blood had found a new body to haunt. 

The night was still, the command center's hum softened to a distant murmur. Sirius had slipped away from the bright, sterile lights of the main hall and found Remus perched on the edge of the observation deck. Outside, the city sprawled beneath them, lights flickering like distant constellations against the dark sky. The occasional hum of distant traffic mixed with the faint whisper of wind through the buildings.

Remus sat with her knees drawn up, hands wrapped around them, staring at the illuminated streets below. Sirius approached silently, letting the quiet stretch between them. She didn't want to startle her. Remus flinched only slightly, as if expecting the world to demand something of her.

"You... like it out here?" Sirius asked, her voice low, carrying that familiar warmth tinged with amusement the kind that made people trust her instinctively.

Remus didn't answer immediately. She just nodded, still watching the city glow like it belonged to someone else entirely, someone fifty years removed from the life she remembered.

"You know," Sirius continued, sitting down a careful distance away, "I didn't think anyone could ever find this peaceful. Out here, the universe is loud. And you can just pretend... at least for a little while that's it's normal, that all the noise isn't just inside your head."

Remus finally turned slightly, just enough for her eyes to catch the reflection of the moon in the glass. "It's... different," she whispered. Her voice cracked, fragile, like someone pulling it from another time. "Everything else... it's all so... new. So fast. I don't even know what year it is most days. You... you're the only thing I can recognize."

Sirius felt the weight of that, a pang she wasn't ready to admit. The way Remus clung to familiarity. it wasn't weakness. It was survival. Fifty years lost and yet here she was, still clinging to someone who, somehow, felt safe.

"You think you're stuck in the 70s?" Sirius asked gently, nudging the conversation forward. "You're not. You're... you. And I don't care what year you think it is, or what they did to you. You're here. Right now. You're breathing. And that's enough."

Remus swallowed, a shiver running through her. She seemed almost startled by the warmth, the sincerity. Her voice was barely audible "It... it doesn't feel real. It feels like I'm not supposed to be here... like I'm still wired somewhere... like I belong... somewhere else."

Sirius's heart clenched. She knew. Not all the details yet but enough. The wires, the whispers, the Black enterprise, her father's twisted faith. it was all there, threaded into Remus's body and mind. And Sirius couldn't let her go alone.

"You belong here, Remus," Sirius said softly, reaching out but stopping an inch away. She didn't want to frighten her. "Not because of the world they built. Not because of the wires or the whispers. You belong because you survived. You made it through what no one else could. And I... I'll make sure you stay safe."

Remus's hand twitched, almost reflexively, as if reaching for the connection she didn't dare form. "I... I don't even know what I am anymore," she admitted, voice trembling. "Half of me... feels... machine. I don't know what's real. I don't know what I should feel."

Sirius leaned closer, letting her presence be a shield, a constant. "You're still you," she said quietly. "Machine, human, whatever they tried to make you into... it doesn't matter. You're still Remus Lupin. And... you're not alone."

Remus's lips quivered, a small, unsteady exhale escaping her. She didn't reach out, not yet but she didn't pull away either. And for Sirius, that was enough.

The moon outside shone, indifferent to the centuries of pain, the twisted experiments, the faith and madness that had shaped their world. But in that small, quiet corner of the universe, under the cold light of distant suns, Remus was alive

The nights became theirs.

Not planned, never spoken about, but inevitable.

When the command center dimmed into its tired hum and the corridors finally exhaled the day, Sirius would find her there. Remus, seated on the edge of the same rusted railing, her face tilted toward a sky that never changed. Earth's sky, but still carrying the weight of eternity.

Sometimes they didn't speak. Sometimes silence was all they needed, Sirius with her cigarette, Remus with her haunted stillness. Other nights, fragments of a life that didn't belong here slipped between them. Sirius would ask about the '70s, about music, about things lost to the ash of time. Remus would ask about the world now, her voice soft and bewildered, as if she were a ghost trying to relearn the language of the living.

But one night, it broke.

Remus's voice carried through the dark, low and steady. "Do you ever wonder," she murmured, "if we're just... stories someone else is telling? Like we're nothing but a draft that could be rewritten at any moment."

Sirius arched a brow, the smoke curling from her lips. "That's a hell of a thought."

Remus turned to her, pale eyes sharp even in the dark. "Back then, in '75, I thought I was real. I had a job, a desk, numbers to calculate. I was small. Ordinary. And now-" She hesitated, her throat catching. "Now I don't know if that was real. Or if this is. Maybe I've always been someone's experiment. Maybe I never lived at all."

Sirius studied her, something tightening in her chest. She wanted to laugh it off, to deflect the way she always did but the look in Remus's eyes pinned her still.

"You sound like me when I was fifteen," Sirius said finally, voice rough. "Except I wasn't waking up fifty years out of my time. I was just stuck in a house where every prayer was poison. They told me we were chosen. That we'd live forever in the light of God if we gave ourselves to the machine. And for years I thought what if I'm not real unless I believe them? What if I'm nothing outside their story?"

Remus tilted her head, studying her in turn. "And what made you stop?"

Sirius let out a humorless laugh. "I didn't stop. I burned it. Burned their story, burned the whole damn book. Told myself if God wanted me, He could come down and take me himself." She flicked the cigarette into the night, sparks scattering. "But He never did."

Remus's lips curved not into a smile, not quite. Something sadder, softer. "Maybe He sent me instead."

The words hung there, dangerous, too intimate. Sirius's breath caught, her chest tightening in ways she didn't like to admit.

"Careful, Remus," she said lowly, leaning closer, silver eyes locked on hers. "That's the kind of thing people kill for."

Remus didn't flinch. She held Sirius's gaze, steady, unblinking "Or the kind of thing people live for."

And Sirius, for the first time in years, had no idea which side of the line she stood on. 

The nights after that one were different.

They didn't stop meeting on the deck. if anything, they drifted there more often, drawn like moths to the same quiet flame.

Instead, they spoke of other things. Smaller things.

Remus, awkward, with that 70s tongue, asking about the music that pulsed out of passing cars or why bread tasted different now. Sirius explaining badly, half amused, half sad because Remus's world was gone, and every question was a reminder.

Sometimes Remus just sat in silence, watching the city lights flicker against the horizon, like she couldn't decide if it was still her Earth at all. 

Sirius let her. She'd lean against the rail, and wait for whatever scrap of curiosity Remus found in her chest that night.

One evening, it was the stars.

"They don't look the same," Remus murmured. "I swear, they don't."

Sirius followed her gaze. Same constellations she'd grown up under, but different eyes were searching them now.

"Maybe it's you who's different," she said, too sharp, then softened. "Or maybe you're seeing what the rest of us forgot to look for."

Remus tilted her head, thoughtful. She didn't answer right away. That was her way. long silences, then words dropped like stones into deep water.

And in those silences, Sirius found something almost... safe.

Because after that night when Remus asked if they were stories, Sirius had been afraid that Remus would vanish into herself, fold into the machine whispering in her veins.

But here she was. Talking about bread. Talking about stars.

Alive. 

Human.

Later that night, Sirius slipped into the locker room

The room smelled faintly of metal and coffee gone stale, like most corners of the command center. Sirius sat slouched on the bench, boots half untied, cigarette balanced between her fingers. Jamie leaned against the locker, arms folded, pretending not to be listening as Petra talked.

Petra talked a lot.

"And of course, no one ever listens to me. Not that I'm bitter. well, all right, maybe I am bitter. But if people would simply accept that I'm usually right, things would run a lot smoother around here, don't you think?" Petra's hands fluttered when she spoke, fingers sharp, restless. Her blonde curls were a mess, her shirt untucked, and yet she carried herself like the smartest one in the room, because she was.

Sirius smirked, exhaling smoke. "Petra, love, you've been trying to convince people you're right since the day you were born. At some point you've got to accept you're just... intolerable."

Petra gasped, pressing a hand to her chest in mock injury. "Intolerable? To you maybe. But to Jamie-" she gestured grandly, "I am extremely entertaining, aren't I?"

Jamie arched a brow, lips twitching. "You're... something."

Sirius barked a laugh. Petra grinned, satisfied, as though that counted as a victory.

But then, as if unable to stop herself, Petra's words tumbled out again. "Have you seen Evans lately? Honestly, I don't know how she does it. She's down in Medical half the night, then straight into Analysis at dawn, no sleep, no break. And she's- well she's actually making progress with Lupin. Actual progress. She's the first one who doesn't look at her like she's a broken toy."

Jamie's posture shifted just a flicker, the kind Sirius caught. Her arms uncrossed, her gaze softened. "Yeah. I've noticed."

Sirius narrowed her eyes, amused. "Careful, Lieutenant. You're starting to sound impressed."

Jamie rolled her eyes but didn't deny it. "She's brilliant. Scary in a way that makes you feel small, but... kind, too. Like she actually cares what happens."

Petra gave a theatrical sigh, flopping into the chair beside Sirius. "See? That's the difference. Evans gets admiration. I get... tolerated."

"You get drinks with us," Sirius said, nudging her knee. "That's more than most people get."

Petra paused, blinking. Then she smiled quick, awkward. For all her complaints, that meant something to her.

The three of them sat there in the low hum of the command center, the world outside falling quiet for once. It wasn't much. Just friends, smoke curling through the air, laughter covering the cracks. But in a place like this, it was everything.

Chapter Text

Remus was awake, 

but trapped. Every nerve screamed, but her body refused. She lay on the cold floor, on a table, somewhere. but she couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even blink fast enough to escape the images pounding into her mind.

Barty and Evan appeared, 

fragmented, 

like her brain was skipping frames. 

One moment they were in lab coats, arguing quietly about something holy and terrifying. the next they were in casual clothes, laughing over a meal that smelled like metal and fire. 

Another flash 

shattering glass, Evan holding a vial, Barty kneeling, whispering words she couldn't entirely understand. Every movement too fast, every day condensed into seconds.

Their voices were calm, soft, devout like worship. They spoke not to her, but to each other, about beliefs that bent logic "To ascend is to become whole. the mind must obey the pattern."

 "God's truth flows through circuits as surely as it flows through blood. We must perfect the vessel."

Sometimes they kissed. Sometimes they shouted. Sometimes they argued about abstract sins, about purpose, about power. 

Remus saw flashes of fingers brushing faces, then stabbing papers with pens, then leaning close, murmuring in reverence. The timeline scrambled. 

yesterday became today, today became a memory, all collapsing into one endless loop.

And she couldn't do a thing. She was a witness, pinned in herself, trapped in a body that wasn't hers. Her eyes were open; her mind screamed; her soul twisted. Panic rose, then numbness, then a creeping despair she couldn't name.

Her heart raced, but no one heard it. Her lips moved, but no sound emerged. She wasn't there. And yet, somehow, they saw her. Not as a person, but as something faintly alive in the corner of their world. They acknowledged her presence but did not interact. She was both invisible and essential.

One frame,

Barty's hands splayed over a desk, Evan kneeling, whispering a prayer she didn't understand. 

Another frame,

a kiss that lingered too long, a wordless argument, broken glass raining over the floor. 

Another frame,

just silence, their backs turned, murmuring in that same reverent, mechanical cadence.

It was too fast, too fragmented, too intimate and horrifying. Every second of the dream compressed decades, and Remus felt fiftyyears of helplessness in the span of minutes. Hopeless. She couldn't stop them. Couldn't scream. Couldn't interfere. She could only... watch.

And then, the world cracked open.

She woke gasping, sweat coating her skin, body trembling. Heart hammering. The nightmare, or whatever it was, pressed its cold weight into her chest. Lily was there, calm, poised, watching not judging, but studying. Observing every flinch, every rapid breath, every twitch.

"Bad dream?" Lily asked softly. Her voice was steady, but it carried something deeper understanding, a touch of concern.

Remus's lips parted, trying to form words, but all she could manage was a shallow, rattling breath. "They... they... I was there. I saw them. I couldn't... do anything."

Lily nodded, jotting notes in a small notebook, but her eyes never left Remus. "You're safe now. You're awake. Tell me everything you remember every detail. Nothing is too small or too strange."

Remus shivered, her thoughts tangled with the kisses, the arguments, the reverent whispers, the broken glass, the sense that everything they believed was right, sacred, and utterly terrifying. 

Before Remus could gather her thoughts, the door creaked open. Jamie peeked in, her shoulders hunched, curly hair messy, and circular glasses hung loosely to the bridge of her nose on her face, cheeks flushed like she'd run all the way there. "Uh- hi. I didn't mean to interrupt. I just... uh..."

She shuffled inside, hands twisting a pen in nervous circles, then trying to tuck it behind her ear. "I brought, um, some water? And, uh..." She paused, staring at Lily like the words themselves were enemies. "I thought maybe... you'd want company? Or, you know, talk. Or... I mean, not that you need me, or-"

Lily's gaze didn't waver, calm and collected, her presence serene yet unshakable. Jamie swallowed hard and tried again, nervously brushing a strand of hair from her face. "I mean, I know you're busy with Remus, and, okay, I'm totally interrupting ugh- sorry but I just... maybe you'd like to, um, grab a cup of coffee later? You know, as colleagues? Not, uh, date... I mean-"

Her words tripped over themselves, tumble after tumble, and her blush deepened, turning her from flustered to red. Lily, ever composed, simply arched an eyebrow, her lips curling into a subtle, patient smile not amused, but gentle enough to let Jamie save some dignity.

Remus, lying there, felt the tension lift ever so slightly. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. The scene, Jamie's awkward stammering, her flushed attempts, Lily's calm, almost untouchable elegance made her chest tighten and then loosen all at once. A faint smile tugged at her lips, small and hesitant, but it was the first warmth she'd felt since the nightmare.

Jamie's words finally stumbled to a halt, and she pressed her hands together, almost hiding them behind her back. "So... uh... never mind. I'll just, uh... leave you to... science and stuff?" Her voice quavered, a mixture of embarrassment and hope.

Lily tilted her head slightly, the tiniest trace of humor in her calm demeanor. "Science and coffee later, perhaps," she replied softly, her voice kind but distant, leaving Jamie blinking in surprise and slight awe.

Jamie squeaked and backed toward the door, tripping slightly on the threshold, but recovered, flashing a nervous grin. "Right! Science and coffee. Got it. I yes I'll... get out of your way." She disappeared with a small, hurried wave, leaving behind the faint echo of her flustered energy.

Remus exhaled, letting her smile linger a moment longer than she meant to. That little human chaos so small and inconsequential was like a balm to her frayed nerves, tethering her briefly back to the present, away from the fragmented, terrifying echoes of the dream

Remus began, voice low, almost trembling. "It wasn't like any dream I've had before. I was there... watching them. Barty... Evan... they were... they were... I don't even know. Talking, moving, kissing, fighting... it was like a- like a hundred different days all at once."

Her hands twisted nervously in her lap. "And I... couldn't do anything. I couldn't... move. Or speak. I just...watched. And they they... they... they knew I was there. But... they weren't speaking to me. Not really."

As the words left her mouth, her brain registered things she hadn't noticed before, the rhythm of their voices, the cadence almost like a chant, like the cyborg prayers she remembered faintly from... somewhere. 

Her throat tightened as fragments of memory she didn't consciously recognize surfaced the heat of solder on skin, the faint hum of machines in sync with her heartbeat, the whisper of commands threading into her mind.

"I think they were... trying to... make me..." Her voice cracked, and she stopped, realizing she had said more than she had intended. Her mouth spoke before her mind could fully catch up. "...They... weren't just... teaching me... I mean-"

Lily leaned forward slightly, pen paused over the notebook, watching the micro expressions ripple across Remus's face. She noticed the flicker of recognition in her eyes, the instant her brain connected the dots she didn't even know she'd stored. The way her jaw tightened when she said something that wasn't fully conscious.

"They... wired me," Remus continued, voice barely audible, "...not like a- like a person. Not like a normal body. My- my arms, my... head. I feel... things I shouldn't. I remember... things I didn't live. Things I shouldn't know."

Her chest heaved, and her hands fell to her knees. "And I- my mouth... sometimes it says stuff... before I even know it. Like it's... it's recalling something my brain doesn't... want me to. But it does anyway. And I don't... I don't know if it's mine. Or theirs."

Lily's eyes softened, but her pen still moved, jotting observations. "It's okay, Remus. It's more than okay. you're remembering. The body and mind... they have a way of holding truths even when you can't consciously access them. What you're describing... it's Clues."

Remus swallowed, biting her bottom lip, eyes darting away for a moment. "Clues to... what? I just see flashes. Faces... wires... whispers... prayers? Commands? I don't know. My head... it... it keeps splitting. Like there's a part of me... that isn't... me. But I can feel it. And it's... they're there. Always."

Lily nodded slowly. "And that part... we'll figure it out. We'll map it. Understand it. You're not alone in this."

For a brief moment, Remus felt the barest weight lift from her chest. But the unease lingered the sense that her mouth had spoken truths her conscious mind hadn't fully digested, that somewhere deep, some machine, some program, some echo of Barty and Evan's beliefs, still threaded through her. And Lily... Lily would help her unravel it.

-

After the day’s tests, the hours bled into each other Remus drifted through the corridors, quiet, searching. The observation deck was empty. The corner table in the mess empty. Even Jamie, usually inseparable from Sirius, hadn’t seen her.

No trace.

It was wrong. Sirius was loud, reckless, always where she shouldn’t be, always making herself known. But now? Silence.

Remus overheard it later, whispered between officers like classified smoke 

Sirius was out. 

A mission. 

Dangerous. 

an infiltration on the ground, gathering intel where borders blurred between resistance and execution. The kind of job people didn’t come back from.

Something inside her twisted. The human part of Remus recoiled in fear, a rising tide she couldn’t swallow down. But then, like a switch thrown in her skull everything changed.

Her vision sharpened. The world narrowed into lines of logic, grids and outcomes. Her heartbeat flattened, no longer panic but rhythm. Calculation.

Find Sirius.

She didn’t decide to think it; it simply appeared, written into her nerves. A command. A purpose.

Her lips moved before she understood them.

“Missing unit. Parameters unfulfilled. Sirius Black: location unknown. Error. Error. Does not compute.”

And yet her human mind screamed underneath it, thrashing. She can’t be gone. She can’t be missing. She’s reckless but she’s alive. She has to be alive.

The machine disagreed.

Probability streams cascaded. Numbers. Routes. Enemy patterns. No emotion, no hope. Just data.

And in that terrifying clash, human grief pressed against programmed order. Remus felt herself cracking.

Because for the first time, she couldn’t tell which side of her was real.

Remus’s legs moved before her thoughts caught up. The corridors blurred past her, boots striking in sync with the steady pulse in her skull. The human part of her whispered stop, breathe, wait, but the machine refused.

Sirius Black: Location Unknown.

Mission Status: Red.

Directive: Initiate Retrieval.

Her hand slammed against a control panel in the command center. The techs stationed there jolted, startled by the usually quiet, reluctant woman suddenly overriding terminals with a speed their eyes couldn’t follow. Lines of code spilled across the screens, code no one had taught her, commands buried too deep for any civilian to access.

“Unit Black, last transmission: twenty three kilometers east,” she muttered, voice flat, mechanical. “Route deviation confirmed. Probability of survival decreases every six point three minutes.”

Fleamont Potter entered behind her. His face was unreadable, steady, but his eyes locked onto her with something between recognition and dread. He’d seen this before. He’d hoped it would never happen again.

“Remus,” he said firmly, voice carrying the weight of command. “Step away from the console.”

She didn’t hear him. Or maybe she did and the machine inside her simply discarded the sound. Her fingers blurred across the interface, pulling maps, satellite pings, encrypted reports. She began stitching them together with inhuman clarity, drawing a pattern none of the analysts had pieced together.

Jamie stood at her shoulder, stunned. “She’s- she’s triangulating.”

“No,” one of the techs whispered. “She’s calculating. Like- like a system.”

Remus’s eyes flicked, sharp and glassy. “Target locked. Probability of life: thirty four percent. Decreasing.” Her tone was cold, clipped, like a computer announcing a failed diagnostic.

And then she froze.

Her own words hit her.

Thirty four percent.

The human in her slammed against the machine’s grip, desperate, breaking through in a gasp. “No. She’s not- she’s not a number. She’s-” Her chest heaved, tears burning her eyes. “She’s Sirius.”

The system flickered, stuttered, error codes flashing in her skull. The machine wanted precision. The human wanted hope. Remus’s fingers kept flying, her breathing ragged, her whole body trembling with the force of something that didn’t feel entirely hers. Numbers stacked, maps cross-stitched, probabilities climbing and collapsing in dizzying succession.

Her voice fractured, splitting between human desperation and machine cadence 

“She’s alive, I can find her. I have to. probability decreasing thirty two percent, twenty nine percent, error, error-”

Her hands slammed against the console so hard the screen glitched. She didn’t stop, even as her nails cracked against the keys. Her eyes glassed over, wide and burning, tears streaking unnoticed down her cheeks.

“Remus.” Fleamont’s voice was iron. “That’s enough.”

She didn’t hear him

Jamie stepped forward fast, quicker than anyone expected. She didn’t shout. She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed Remus’s wrists, yanking them from the console with both strength and care, pinning her arms against her chest so she wouldn’t hurt herself further.

“Remus!” Jamie barked, sharp but steady, her soldier’s voice cutting through the noise. “Look at me. Stop looking at the screen- look at me.”

Remus fought for a moment, body jerking, breath shuddering like she was short-circuiting. But then her eyes snapped to Jamie’s, unfocused at first, then searching, desperate like a drowning person clawing at the surface.

“She’s not. she’s not a number,” Remus sobbed, her voice finally cracking into something human. “She’s Sirius.”

Jamie’s throat worked, but she didn’t let her grip falter. She kept her tone level, anchoring. “I know. I know she is. And she’s my friend too. We’ll find her, but not like this. You’re going to tear yourself apart before we even start.”

Remus’s knees buckled, the machine sputtering out as if it had drained her dry. Jamie caught her under the arms and eased her down before she collapsed completely, holding her steady as she shook, silently with sobs.

The command center was quiet, everyone else frozen at their stations, unwilling to intrude. Only Fleamont’s stare lingered, heavy and calculating, like he’d just witnessed exactly what he’d always feared that Remus wasn’t built to survive herself.

Jamie crouched with her, still holding her wrists in a gentle grip. Her voice softened, stripped of rank, stripped of formality. “You’re not alone in this. Not with me. Not with Sirius either. We’ll bring her back. you hear me? But you’ve got to let yourself breathe.”

Remus pressed her forehead against Jamie’s shoulder, trembling, her voice breaking into a whisper like static between sobs: “Error… error…”

Jamie shut her eyes tight, holding her like she could ground her back into flesh again.

…

The hours stretched, 

thin and merciless.

Remus sat in the dim light of her quarters, back against the cold wall. She hadn’t moved since Jamie helped her back here, not really. Just… sat. Waiting.

Her body ached, her mind worse. Whenever her thoughts started to drift, the machine would stir, cold and calculating, feeding her probabilities and outcomes she couldn’t shut off. Every one ended with the same conclusion

The words pulsed in her skull like a heartbeat. She pressed her palms against her ears as though she could block it out, but the noise was inside, too deep to silence.

Sometimes she whispered the numbers out loud without realizing it. Sometimes the prayers slipped instead scraps of voices she’d never asked for, the ones Barty and Evan had carved into her. Words about God, about purpose, about being chosen. She hated them, but they came anyway.

She hadn’t eaten. She hadn’t slept. Every sound in the corridor made her jolt like it might be her. Sirius, walking back in like nothing had happened. Sirius, with that half smirk, that careless swagger that said the world could burn but she’d light the cigarette anyway.

But the corridor stayed quiet.

Remus’s hands shook when she finally lowered them to her lap. She felt hollow. Like she was losing both halves of herself the human part starved, the machine part choking her with silence and static.

She thought about Sirius’s laugh. About the way she made even this bleak, iron caged world feel alive. She thought about how easy it had been, just sitting beside her on the observation deck, pretending for a moment that things weren’t broken beyond repair.

And she thought, what if that was the last time?

Her chest caved with the thought. A sob clawed its way up, harsh and raw, but she strangled it down. The machine didn’t understand grief, only error messages and missing data. The human part did. And together they were tearing her apart.

She curled tighter against the wall, whispering words she didn’t believe, numbers she couldn’t trust, prayers she didn’t want.

Waiting.

Always waiting.

At some point, waiting blurred into something else.

Not quite sleep. Not quite wake.

Remus blinked

and they were there.

Barty and Evan, leaning against the corners of her mind as if it belonged to them. They weren’t doctors anymore, not exactly. They shifted too fast for her to catch. a flash of lab coats, then civilian clothes, then nothing but pale outlines lit from within.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Barty said, voice almost tender. “The disruption. The error.”

He crouched in front of her like he had in the lab, eyes bright, delighted. “Say it with me, Remus. Error. Error.”

Evan snorted, slouching beside him. “She won’t say it. She thinks she’s human. Still clings to the little scraps of flesh like they’re holy.”

“She is holy,” Barty corrected, reaching out as if to touch her cheek. “She just hasn’t woken up to it yet. The machine knows. The body resists. That’s the comedy of it all.”

They laughed, quiet, conspiratorial. Not cruel, not exactly. Just amused, like priests sharing a private joke with their god.

“You worry about her,” Evan said suddenly, tilting his head. “The soldier. Silver eyes. Sirius.” His grin widened. “Oh, Remus. You think she’s an anchor, but she’s the storm.”

Barty chuckled, leaning back. “That’s the error we told you about. You’re not supposed to feel that much. Love is a glitch in the system.”

“Glitches are beautiful, though.” Evan’s voice dropped to a whisper, intimate as a confession. “That’s why we built you broken.”

Remus tried to speak. tried to say No, you didn’t, you don’t own me

but her mouth wouldn’t move. Her tongue was heavy, her lungs frozen. She could only watch as they smiled down at her.

“Don’t frown, sweetheart,” Barty said, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve. “We’ll always be with you. In the marrow, in the circuits, in the dreams. You’ll never be rid of us.”

“And one day,” Evan added, voice lilting like a hymn, “you’ll thank us.”

The sound of their laughter echoed as the world peeled away.

Remus gasped awake, slick with sweat, her heart hammering. The command center lights burned back into focus. 

“Whoa,” a voice said softly. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. Or… I don’t know, a really bad tax report.”

Remus turned. Petra was slouched a few seats away, boots on the table, arms crossed. Her grin was crooked, nervous, the kind she wore when she wasn’t sure if she was welcome.

“You’ve been staring into the void for hours,” Petra went on, tapping her temple. “Want to let me in on the joke? Or the nightmare?”

Remus opened her mouth, then shut it again. She didn’t have words for the dream or whatever it was. Barty and Evan, error and faith tangled up until she couldn’t tell if she was haunted or programmed.

Petra didn’t press. She leaned back, sighing theatrically. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll just assume it was about me. Most things usually are.”

Despite herself, Remus huffed out a quiet laugh.

“See?” Petra said, seizing on it. “Progress. I made you smile. Historic moment. Write it down.”

Remus shook her head, but the corner of her mouth stayed curved. Something in Petra’s bumbling insistence cut through the heaviness like a crack of light.

Petra’s grin softened, almost shy now. “Seriously though. Whatever’s in there dreams, ghosts, bad programming- I don’t care. You don’t have to carry it by yourself.”

For a moment, Remus just looked at her. Not quite believing, not quite rejecting. But she let herself lean back in her chair, and when Petra bumped her boot gently against her shin, she didn’t pull away.

“I’m… just thinking,” Remus muttered, not trusting her own voice.

Petra tilted her head. “Uh-huh. Totally thinking. Or maybe overthinking. Either way, I know that look. The one that screams, I care too much about people who terrify me.”

Remus narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “That’s… oddly specific.”

Petra shrugged. “Call it a gift. Or a curse. Depending on your mood.” She paused, then added, almost sotto voce, “You know, Sirius doesn’t tell anyone anything. Doesn’t even let me worry openly. And I do worry. You know that, right?”

Remus’s throat went dry. “Sirius.”

“Yeah,” Petra said lightly, but the humor cracked at the edges. She leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I see it, Remus. You’re tangled up in her… whatever it is she is, and she’s… complicated. Dangerous. Gorgeous. And infuriating.” Petra waved her hands like she were fending off the weight of her own words. “And yeah, maybe I worry she’s going to implode under all the weight she carries- and that you’ll get caught in it.”

Remus blinked, speechless for a moment. Petra continued, tone flicking back to playful, as though she were protecting herself from admitting too much.

“Anyway, don’t get all serious on me. I’m not your therapist. Mostly. But… if anyone can survive the mess Sirius makes of everyone’s lives, it’s you. Somehow.”

Remus let a small laugh escape, shakily. Petra grinned like she’d won some unspoken battle. “See? Told you. Two laughs already today. You’re welcome.”

Then, almost as an afterthought, Petra’s gaze softened, fleetingly. “Don’t let her scare you too much, alright? Even she doesn’t realize how far she’s pushing. And… well, if anyone breaks, I don’t want it to be you.”

Remus just looked at her, a strange mixture of gratitude and unease twisting in her chest. Petra, true to form, masked it immediately with a hand flick, a laugh, and a jab about Sirius. But the spark of genuine concern lingered there, tucked behind the humor, like a hidden wire in one of Barty’s machines. deliberate, careful, and quietly vital.

-

The room was dim, the soft hum of machinery a constant background. Lily found her first, hovering at the edge of the bed, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning but gentle. Remus barely noticed her, staring past her at the shadows that flickered in her mind.

Because they were there,

Again. 

Barty and Evan. Not as ghosts, not as memories. but as presences. She could see them clearly, dressed in everyday clothes from days that weren’t her own, laughing in sharp bursts, whispering in tones that would have been tender if not for the edge that sliced through every word.

“You are… ours,” Barty whispered, his voice crawling into her ear like smoke, shrill and sweet at once, jagged with mania. “Not a daughter, not a child no, no. A proof. A testament. Every wire, every scar, every error in you is a hymn we wrote.”

Evan’s voice followed, smooth and precise, every word sharp as glass. “We don’t believe in love, Remus. Love is messy. Inefficient. A glitch. A virus in the system. What we have,” he turned his head slightly toward Barty, the shape of a smirk almost affectionate “it’s cleaner. Beyond your little human words.”

Barty’s laugh split the silence, thin and sharp. He leaned into her mind’s eye like a shadow perched too close. “You think it’s love that makes us eternal? That makes us burn for each other?” His teeth bared in something between a grin and a snarl. “No, no, little ghost. It’s need. Pure need. We are function. We are design. We would tear the world apart not because of love, but because there is no world without the other.”

Remus’s chest tightened. The word love tasted sour now, infected by their voices.

Why am I seeing this? 

Why can’t I stop them?

She pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to shut out the vision, but it lingered, Barty’s hand brushing Evan’s neck, their words like a liturgy, a prayer, a mockery.

Lily’s voice broke through, soft, probing. “Remus? Are you… okay? We’re just checking your vitals.”

Barty laughed, a low, private laugh. “See how fragile she is? How human. How… beautifully unfit.”

Evan tilted his head, gaze burning into her, intimate and cruel. “You feel it, don’t you? That hunger? That itch in your chest when you look at her.” 

Sirius’s shadow flickered behind her eyes like bait. “You call it love, but it’s a malfunction. The human rot still clinging to you.”

Barty clapped his hands once, sharp and delighted, as though Evan had told a joke only he could hear. “Yes! Yes! Say it! Say it louder. she needs to hear it. She needs to understand. Love will break you”

Evan leaned closer, his voice lowering into something almost tender, almost intimate. “What we are, what we gave you. that is eternal. You are not meant to love. You are meant to endure. To be more than flesh, more than weakness.”

Remus’s body trembled. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. Their hands hovered over her, not touching but shaping, molding, every gesture laced with obsession. They looked at her not as a person, but as a reflection, a continuation of themselves.

“We made you,” Barty whispered, grin stretching too wide. “And we don’t make mistakes.”

Lily’s presence was a thin tether to reality. “We’ll figure this out,” Lily said gently, unaware of the mental hell Barty and Evan were inflicting. But even Lily’s warmth couldn’t stop the vivid flashes kisses, arguments, whispered obsessions, murmured commands.

Remus felt her mind fraying, the human and the machine pulling against each other in violent oscillation. I cannot love like them. I cannot. And yet… I exist. I exist. I exist.

Chapter Text

"Do you remember the day you stopped being afraid of pain?" Barty's said like he was holding back laughter.

Remus's chest tightened. She tried to swallow. She couldn't.

"Oh, she remembers," Evan chimed in his grin too wide. 

He leaned across her mind like he used to lean across the instruments, eyes darting quick as a knife "She screamed until her throat bled. It was beautiful. Like an aria."

Barty's hand hovered in her memory, fingers trembling with something too intense to be control "Pain taught you obedience. It taught you who you belonged to. Don't you see, Remus? That was the first time you were truly ours."

"They think love is different," Evan whispered, turning his grin toward Barty as though it was all a private joke.

"They think love is sweet. Gentle. Love isn't that. Love is ripping someone open and still wanting them when they're bleeding."

...

The second day without Sirius, the command center buzzed with quiet efficiency, but every hum of machinery felt like a countdown to Remus's breaking point. Everyone kept telling her to wait. Wait.

"Nothing we can do," the commander had said, voice steady, eyes sympathetic. "Sirius will contact us when she's back." 

Back.

The thing is, Remus understood Jamie. She really did.

Sirius’s absence wasn’t negligence. It couldn’t be. Jamie had known her too long, had followed her into storms no one else would survive. She wasn’t ignoring it. She wasn’t pretending it didn’t matter. No, Jamie carried it like fire in her chest, raw and uncontained, scorching everything around her.

But Jamie wasn’t the girl she had been before. She couldn’t be. Remus had watched her sharpen, watched her laughter vanish into clipped orders, watched her transform from reckless brilliance into something harder, more deliberate. Future commander.

And yet, Sirius was the fracture in her steel.

To the others, Jamie was still Lieutenant Potter, the commander’s daughter, precise and calm when she needed to be, her reports delivered with clear authority, her strategies sharp enough to silence a room. She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t pretending. She said it plainly: finding Sirius was priority. She would look her father in the eye and declare it, would realign patrols, reroute resources, rewrite priorities as if the survival of the humanity itself depended on bringing Sirius home.

And no one dared argue. Not because she was the commander’s daughter. But because she was right.

Still, Remus saw more. She saw the twitch in Jamie’s jaw when the searches came back empty, the way her fists curled behind her back when the briefings ended with no word, the restless edge in her voice when she snapped too quickly at an officer who suggested waiting longer.

Jamie wasn’t calm. She wasn’t caged. She was burning, open flame in a world that demanded control.

Remus’s chest tightened. Because she knew. She understood.

Jamie wasn’t swallowing her grief. She was weaponizing it. Turning it into orders, strategies, missions. pouring every piece of herself into the search until there was nothing left untouched by Sirius’s absence.

And it made sense. It was who Jamie was. Brilliant, relentless, flawed only in that one place where she allowed herself to love too much.

Sirius was the exception. Always would be.

And Remus couldn’t fault her for it. Because in her own way, she was doing the exact same thing.

Between tests with Lily, between the endless memories of Barty and Evan. their twisted conversations, their mocking tones, the ghostly glimpses of them like some omnipresent jury of her failures. Remus felt the edges of herself fraying.

And so, after hours of pacing, after moments of curling into herself until her ribs ached, a decision formed. Not planned, not rational, but inevitable.

She would find Sirius herself.

No one could stop her. No one needed to know.

That night, 

when the command center dimmed and the staff moved to their quarters, Remus moved too. Quietly. Carefully. Every step measured, every shadow her ally. 

She slipped through corridors, past guards and sensors, blending into the hum of the facility until she reached the outer streets.

The rain hit her face like needles. The city reflected off every puddle, fragmented, blinking, and she could swear the lights themselves were judging her. 

Every billboard shouted something she didn't understand, every voice was doubled human tones layered over distorted, synthetic modulation. 

Her human instincts screamed to hide. Her machine mind screamed to analyze, calculate, move.

She stepped off the curb. Cars hummed past, some levitating, some crawling on rubbered treads. 

She barely understood their mechanics, but the algorithms in her brain calculated safe paths faster than she could blink. Sirius. Find Sirius.

The alleys were worse. Steam hissed from vents, reflecting holographic ads that warped her vision. She ducked under one, almost colliding with a courier with robotic arms and cybernetic eyes. Her human side jumped back

A screech from above. A hover truck groaned as it shifted lanes, lights slicing through the rain. She pressed herself against the wall, chest tight, heart racing but the cold wires inside her urged her forward. Sirius. Locate target.

Every shadow was a threat. Every human augmented or not could be a predator. And yet, her brain saw patterns, connections, hidden pathways, ventilation shafts, service doors... all escape routes. Locate Sirius.

She paused at a plaza, the neon city washing over her face. For a moment, she allowed herself to look up. 

The sky was a black ceiling pierced by flying vehicles, holograms, and drifting advertisements. 

It was breathtaking, overwhelming, terrifying. The world is not for the faint hearted. Not for her. Not for anyone.

The city loomed, alive, indifferent, and dangerous. She was small. Fragile. Yet the thing inside her the thing Barty and Evan built would not allow failure. Find Sirius.

Every step brought her closer, and yet further from herself. Rain, voices, shadows they blurred into one, but her mind, her machine mind, kept counting, measuring, remembering. And she would not stop. Not until she found Sirius.

Days passed like this. She moved through the city alone, unseen, unnoticed. The streets of the night market throbbed with movement, a river of colors and sound that made Remus's head spin. 

She stumbled through the crowds, her senses bombarded by the clatter of hover carts, holographic signage flickering across puddles, and the mix of synthetic scents from food stalls. 

The streets twisted before her, slick and jagged, reflections of neon fracturing across puddles like broken memories. Every corner, every alleyway could hide danger or escape but the weight on her chest was not the city. It was them.

she heard it, footsteps. Soft, deliberate, echoing behind her. She stiffened.

"Ah," Barty's voice slipped between the buildings, low and amused. "She thinks the city can hide her. That the neon and puddles can erase what she carries."

Barty's whisper snaked along the edges of her perception. "Did you think you could outrun the imprint we left on you? That moments with her... you carry it. The fire, the ache, the vulnerability. How predictable."

Evan's voice layered over it, lighter, playful, but sharpened like a scalpel. "She is gone. And yet you run with her shadow at your side. Tell me, little one, do you dream of her in your sleep? Or is that warmth a new error in your programming?"

Remus's steps faltered. Sirius. Keep her safe. Find her again.

The rain had returned, but it did nothing to wash away the residue of their voices, the subtle pressure of their presence. She tried to shake it, to pretend they were gone, but the wires beneath her skin hummed with recognition. They were inside her now. Watching. Waiting. Testing.

"You see, running is a human flaw," Barty murmured, soft enough for her to barely hear, but sharp enough to pierce her. "Flight is instinct. Weakness dressed as courage. And you... oh, you try to be strong. Admirable."

Evan's tone followed like footsteps in her mind. "And yet, the error remains. The spark. The need. She is gone, and you ache. Delicious, isn't it? That you cannot unlearn her presence, even as you crawl through this city alone."

The neon lights above shimmered, reflecting off her pale skin, turning her into a moving projection of herself. But she didn't look human in her own eyes anymore. Just data. Patterns. Probabilities. And beneath it all, a pulse she couldn't quantify fear, longing, defiance.

She ducked into a narrow alley, steam hissing from vents, holographic ads flickering across the wet brick. The city seemed alive, but it was indifferent. Only them mattered here. She could feel Barty's calculating gaze, Evan's playful malice.

"Hey there." A voice cut through the chaos. Calm, amused, confident.

Remus turned sharply. Leaning casually against a nearby stand was a young black woman, hair a bold halo of curls threaded with tiny beads that shimmered in the city glow. Her outfit was a patchwork of color and metal, like she'd been painted from the city itself, bold and alive. Her gaze swept over Remus in a way that felt like reading a file, calculating but not unkindly.

"You're... not from around here, are you?" She said with a faint smirk, noticing the way Remus's eyes darted at everything, the hesitation in her movements, the slight warp in her posture as if she were trying to fit into a puzzle that refused her.

Remus froze. "No," she admitted, voice low. Her chest felt tight, exposed.

Her eyes flicked over her. "Yeah, I can tell. The way you're standing, like the ground's gonna bite you if you shift wrong. And that face, you're lost I'm Mary, by the way."

Remus blinked, a flush creeping up her neck. Somehow, in the middle of this foreign crowd, she felt exposed, caught but not judged. "I'm Remus, I'm looking for someone." Her voice trailed off.

Mary tilted her head. "Aren't we all?" Then, softer, "Yours must matter. You look like you'll crack open if you don't find them."

The words hit too close. For a second, Remus thought she might crumble right there, in the middle of the crowd.

But Mary didn't push. She just smirked, nudged her shoulder, and said, "Come on. You'll get eaten alive in this city if you don't blend in. Let me show you."

They walked together through the market. Mary pointed out odd foods, fabrics that shifted like water, performers bending light into shapes that defied physics. 

She guided Remus with a gentle authority, never rushing her, letting her touch the bizarre displays, smell the strange foods,

They ducked into a small boutique tucked between a noodle stand and a street artist projecting glowing graffiti into the alley. 

Inside, racks glimmered with fabrics that shifted color as they moved, coats lined with thin, flexible LEDs, dresses that seemed to hum with their own energy.

Mary plucked a jacket off the rack and held it out. "You need this. No, not need you want this. Trust me."

Remus hesitated, fingers brushing the smooth, light reactive fabric. "It's... bright."

Mary tilted her head, smiling like she knew a secret. "Exactly. You've been hiding in greys. Let's put some life back into you."

Reluctantly, Remus tried on a few outfits under Mary's enthusiastic guidance a cropped holographic vest, a pair of slim reflective pants that caught every shimmer of the city outside, a dress that seemed to ripple as she moved. 

Each one made her feel... different. More herself, somehow, despite the futuristic fabric pressing against her still healing scars.

Mary clapped her hands. "Yes! Look at you! You're glowing. Literally. People will follow you with envy."

Remus couldn't help the small laugh that escaped. "I feel ridiculous."

"Well Everyone feels Ridiculous, So what. It’s fun. Come on, try this." Mary handed her a layered skirt, covered in panels that shifted color from purple to silver as she walked. "You'll thank me when people mistake you for one of those holo performers."

For the first time since Sirius's disappearance, Remus felt a spark of joy, a tiny flicker of excitement that wasn't overshadowed by fear or calculation. 

She twirled in front of the mirror, watching the panels flare in motion, and Mary laughed, clapping her hands.

"You're ridiculous. But the good kind," Mary said, stepping closer to adjust a strap on the skirt. "Not the boring kind. You're learning fast maybe you'll survive this city yet."

Remus smiled, a genuine one, teeth showing, the first since she'd stepped out into this world. The city reflected off her eyes, and for a moment, the city didn't feel cold or alien. It felt... alive. And she felt, strangely, a little more alive too.

They stopped at the edge of a bridge suspended over a street of light. The city spread below them, endless and impossible.

Mary leaned her elbows on the railing, hair catching the neon like a halo. Her tone was casual, but her eyes were sharp, deliberate.

"You really don't belong here, do you?" Mary asked after a while, watching Remus carefully.

Remus shook her head, a half smile tugging at her lips despite herself

Mary laughed softly, a sound that made Remus's shoulders loosen slightly. "Well, maybe that's a gift. You notice things others miss. You feel things they've forgotten. Just... don't let it overwhelm you."

They found a quieter terrace overlooking the maze of lights below. Mary leaned casually, arms crossed, looking at Remus with curiosity and amusement. "So... who are you looking for?"

"My friend," Remus admitted, the name tasting heavy. "They... disappeared. And I don't know where they are. I have to find them."

Mary's eyes softened, a mixture of empathy and mischief. "Sounds dangerous."

"Yes," Remus whispered "But I... can't stop."

"You know what this place teaches you?" she said. "That nothing lasts. Not the lights, not the faces, not even the things you love most. Everything burns out."

Remus frowned. "That's... comforting."

Mary laughed softly. "No, silly girl. That's truth. But here's the part no one tells you," She turned, pinning Remus with a look that felt like it could see straight through her ribs. "If you love something enough to keep chasing it, even when it's gone? That's when it stops being love. That's when it becomes faith."

The word hung there, raw and cutting. Faith.

-

By the third day, Remus was starting to recognize herself in the city not fully, not yet. but she felt... fluid. She could move without thought, without hesitation, slipping between people as if she belonged. The machine half ran simulations in the background, predicting paths, avoiding detection. The human half... she just laughed, loud and raw, at a floating holographic billboard of a singer Remus had never heard of.

And Mary lingered in her thoughts longer than she expected. A guide, a friend, a spark of the unfamiliar in a city Remus was beginning to call her own. Every time Remus returned to her safe spots, her mind replayed Mary's energy. 

how she had dared her to taste street food she didn't know existed, how she had shown her shortcuts and hidden corners. Like a ghost she couldn't quite shake, Mary left impressions on her soul that data couldn't quantify.

Night had fallen, but the city didn't sleep. and the hum of hover traffic blended with the distant music spilling from clubs. 

Remus moved like a shadow, weaving through alleys and marketplaces, her machine half scanning for patterns, for anomalies anything that might indicate Sirius's presence. 

Her human half clenched with a nervous energy she hadn't felt in years, a mixture of longing and fear.

She caught a flicker. a reflection in a polished chrome wall of someone wearing a silver jacket, angular and sharp, glasses catching the city. The figure moved with purpose, weaving through the crowd, brushing past stalls and pedestrians without slowing. Sirius.

Remus's chest tightened. Her mind went into overdrive probability calculations, escape routes, potential contact. Every instinct screamed caution, but her heart if she still trusted that organic mess pushed her forward. She followed, silent but intent.

She ducked through a narrow street, muscles protesting after days of city exploration, and the figure stopped at a small club tucked between skyscrapers, its entrance pulsing with colored lights. Music thumped from within, deep and insistent.

For a moment, she hesitated. The music, the crowd. But Sirius wasn't here for herself; she was on a mission, moving through danger like it was air. 

Remus's machine half calculated, odds of confrontation 52.6%.

Human half responded, doesn't care, go.

Inside, the club was chaos made beautiful. Holographic projections danced across the walls, patrons moved in fluid patterns, and the lights sliced through smoke like colored blades. And there, amid the storm, Sirius stood. The jacket silver, panels glinting, silver glasses, hair done in the best way possible covered with glitter? She was performing. 

Remus's body reacted before her mind could. She took a step forward, then another, feeling the machine half attempt to overlay risk assessment over her every motion. Her human half drowned it out, calling only for Sirius.

"Sirius," she whispered, voice nearly swallowed by the music, trembling.

Sirius's head jerked, eyes scanning the crowd, then locking on Remus. For a second, her face hardened, as if she hadn't expected to see anyone here. Then the corners of her mouth tugged up in that crooked, exhausted grin.

"Lupin," she rasped, and even through the chaos, it was enough.

Alive. 

She was alive.

Mary's voice cut through her, sudden, unbidden. 

If you love something enough to keep chasing it, even when it's gone... that's faith.

They collided in the middle of the club, the hum of music turning into background static. Sirius's hands found hers, grounding her, steadying her.

"You were gone," Remus said, voice breaking, yet her machine half noted the exact frequency and pitch vital data, if she were to ever survive without Sirius again.

"Miss me?" 

Chapter Text

At first Sirius thought the lights were playing tricks on her. silver glass, bodies shifting too fast to track. She blinked, rubbed sweat from her brow, kept her eyes on the mark she'd been shadowing. And then

There.

Like the universe cracked open just to spite her, Remus.

She stood out, not because of her clothes though even that startled Sirius, the metallic threads, the way her jacket caught the light like it belonged to this decade instead of the ruins of the last five but because she shouldn't have been there at all. Not here. Not in this world of smoke and strangers and the Black Family's reach.

For a heartbeat Sirius couldn't breathe. Her chest caved, like something raw and holy had been torn out of her ribcage. She'd spent days convincing herself she could live without seeing that face, without hearing that quiet rasp of a voice. Days lying to herself that Remus was safer away from her. A black. 

But the truth slammed into her ribs like a fist, she'd missed her. Missed her so much it was unbearable.

Sirius felt herself soften, melt, almost fold right there in the crowd. The mission, the danger, the lies all of it fell away. For a single, stolen second it was just Remus. And everything in her screamed mine.

The bass throbbed like a living heart under their feet, the kind that didn't just pulse it threatened, rattling ribs, shaking bones until even thought felt like static. 

Lights slashed through the smoke in violent bursts of blue and red, turning every face into a blur, every body into a shadow moving too fast to pin down.

And then Sirius saw her.

Regulus.

Her little sister. Or what was left of her anyways. Standing too close to the mark. Eyes too sharp. The Black blood still fresh in her veins, the old religion carved deep into her bones. 

If Regulus even suspected. if she even so much as looked too long at Remus everything would unravel. Their mother would know. The Family would know. Operation 72 would no longer be a secret.

And Sirius would lose her. No. Not here. Not like this.

Remus felt swallowed whole. Too much sound, too much movement. Like She'd never learned how to disappear into a crowd; her body felt stiff

And then Sirius's hand slid from her wrist to her hip. The touch steadied her, pressed her into rhythm. Sirius moved like someone born from noise and fire, and she tugged Remus forward with the same ease she had when leading, when daring the world to try and stop her. "Miss me?" she asked, voice curling through the beat, too close to be lost to the music.

Remus huffed, the sound escaping her before she could choke it down "Hmm. Did I?" The words were meant as deflection, a shield painted in sarcasm but the smile tugging at her lips gave her away.

For Sirius, the answer didn't matter. What mattered was the way Remus looked in this dim, fractured light jacket threads catching like they'd been spun from stars, body tentative but moving, step by step, into the chaos with her. For half a breath, Sirius let herself forget the mission, 

forget Regulus's hawk like stare on the other side of the floor. For half a breath, it was just this: Remus, silvered and sharp and too soft all at once, held in her hands.

"Gone a few days and you've already-" Sirius leaned closer, smirk brushing against Remus's ear as if it were a secret. "Upgraded. Who dressed you, Lupin? I'd like to thank them personally."

Remus rolled her eyes, but her cheeks flushed under the fractured light. "Please. I'm just trying to keep up. Don't get used to it." The joke was thin, her insecurity slipping through like cracks in glass.

Sirius hated it. Hated the caution in her gaze, the way she never seemed sure whether Sirius was mocking her or not. 

She wanted to burn the doubt out of her, wanted to shove back every stare that ever made her feel lesser. So she laughed, loud and easy, throwing her head back just enough to make it look careless. 

Let anyone watching think they were just two girls caught in the thrum of music and nothing more.

She dipped her head lower, mouth brushing so close to Remus's ear she felt her flinch before relaxing into the warmth. "Relax. Just follow me."

And gods Remus did.

Her steps fell into Sirius's with only the faintest hesitation, her body moving to the rhythm like she was learning how to breathe all over again. For a fleeting second, Sirius caught something that looked like peace flicker across her face. Silver threads glinted, and Sirius thought maybe this was the truth: keeping someone alive wasn't just dragging them through blood and fire. It was this. Making them move, laugh, glow under impossible light.

Sirius smiled, sharp and soft all at once. "See? You fit right in."

For a moment, just a moment it almost worked. The music drowned out the static, the colors bled into each other, and Sirius's grin softened into something less guarded.

But Remus wasn't blind. She saw the flick of Sirius's eyes past her shoulder. She felt the tightness in her hands, the way her movements carried calculation beneath the easy swagger. Sirius wasn't just dancing, she was shielding. Hiding her.

Sirius spun them lazily, laughing into Remus's hair like this was just a game, just a night out. But over her shoulder she saw her. sharp jaw, Black family poise, eyes that could slice a person in two.

Regulus.

If Regulus saw anything, the wires under Remus's skin, the way her presence bent Sirius into something softer, something vulnerable she'd report it. Straight back to their mother. Straight back to the altar where the Blacks offered people up in the name of God and machine.

Sirius's grin didn't falter. Couldn't. She bent close to Remus, pressed her lips to her ear, whispering words that sounded like flirtation but carried the weight of a command

"Don't look. Just keep dancing."

Remus stiffened, but Sirius guided her back into the sway of the crowd, hand firm on her hip. She painted her smile brighter, laughed louder, masking the crackling tension that turned every nerve in her body to wire.

Inside, though, it was prayer and fury,

Not her. You won't touch her. She's not yours. She'll never be yours. I'll burn down every temple before I let you lay eyes on her truth.

Regulus's gaze slid over them once, assessing, suspicious. Sirius twirled Remus then, pulled her close "Just follow my lead," she murmured again, softer this time, as if the words alone could hold back the tide of her family's faith.

And under the flashing lights, she swore she felt Remus's hand tighten in hers, as if she understood more than Sirius dared to admit.

She didn't let go of Remus's hand until they'd rounded two corners, swallowed by shadow.

Only then did Sirius's smile fall clean off her face.

Her chest heaved, breath coming fast, but not from the dance. Her eyes scanned the mouth of the alley, every flicker of movement, every echo of footsteps. She hated the way her hands shook so she shoved them into her pockets, like maybe Remus wouldn't notice.

"You shouldn't be here, Remus. Fuck-" Sirius said, voice sharp, too sharp, but it cracked at the end, softened by something raw. "Gods, Remus do you have any idea-"

She stopped herself, swallowed it down. The words felt too much like her mother's.

Remus, still flushed from the heat of the club, tilted her head, studying her. "I was just looking for you."

That simple. That devastating.

Sirius laughed once, short and bitter, dragging a hand down her face. "You're out here playing dress up in neon skirts, making me look twice because I didn't even recognize you at first meanwhile, she's here. Regulus. My sister." Her jaw clenched hard enough to ache. "If she even suspected what you are..."

She trailed off, shaking her head. The words she wanted to say clawed at her throat, They'd tear you apart. They'd put you on an altar and call it devotion. But she couldn't put that into Remus's ears.

Instead, she reached forward, catching Remus's wrist. The grip was too tight, desperate. "Please, promise me you won't come out here again. Not without me. Not ever."

Even in the alley, Sirius couldn't shake it. The burn of Regulus's eyes. The quiet, elegant way her sister moved through a crowd, like she was born to haunt it. She'd looked so much like their mother tonight. every tilt of her head, every glance a knife wrapped in silk.

Sirius felt it in her bones they'd been seen. Maybe not recognized, maybe not yet, but seen. And that was enough.

Remus's hand in hers was warm, grounding, but it didn't quiet the pulse in her throat. She forced herself to meet those steady amber eyes, so unguarded it hurt.

"We're not safe here," Sirius muttered, softer now, but sharper, too. "She'll remember your face. She never forgets."

Remus tilted her head, faint frown pulling at her mouth. "Your sister?"

Sirius's jaw worked. She hated the word. Hated how small it made her feel, even now. "Regulus," she spat, like the name itself was poison. "She belongs to them. To her. And if she..."

Her gaze drifted over Remus's scars, the faint glow of neon catching on the thin lines across her hands where skin met something else. Remus pulled her hand free, almost violently, like if she held on any longer she'd unravel right there in front of her.

"They'll burn you, Remus" Sirius whispered "They'll kneel and praise, but it's not worship its hunger. They'll carve your light into doctrine, bind you in scripture, and bleed you dry to keep their faith alive. That's what they do. They make sacrifices not worship"

For a moment, Remus only watched her, silent. Then she stepped closer, closer than Sirius expected, her expression unreadable "Then don't let them burn me."

Sirius froze. The words landed in her chest like a brand. And for a flicker of a second too fast, too dangerous she thought about kissing her, here in the dark, just to prove she could keep that promise.

Instead, she dragged her hand through her hair and exhaled hard, like she could push the thought back where it belonged. "You have no idea what you're asking."

Remus's mouth twitched, almost like a smile, but not quite. "Maybe I do."

But Sirius felt them like a knife driven into the marrow of her bones.

It wasn't a plea. It wasn't even trust. It was something darker, heavier. like Remus was binding her to the very core of who she was.

Sirius's pulse stuttered. She knew fire. She knew what it meant to be offered up to the flame, to be told your worth was in how much of you could be consumed. The Blacks had taught her that lesson in blood and scripture. Regulus still believed it.

But this? This was different.

Remus wasn't asking Sirius to protect her.

She was demanding it. Claiming her. Chaining her to the vow.

And Sirius wanted those chains. Wanted to be the one tethered to Remus, even if it meant dragging herself into the abyss alongside her.

She wanted to carve the vow into her skin, bleed with it, let it bind her so tightly there'd be no space left for air.

Her lips moved before her mind caught up.

"I won't."

But it wasn't enough. The fire inside demanded more. She leaned closer, voice shaking with something near her religious.

"I won't ever let them burn you. If you go to the fire, I'll go first. If you drown in it, I'll drown with you. You don't walk into the flames alone, Remus. Not while I'm here."

The vow felt poisonous, intoxicating. Sirius wanted it to kill her, wanted it to brand her soul so deep there'd be no undoing it.

Not devotion. Not love.

This was fate.

This was surrender.

And Sirius, for the first time in her life, welcomed the chains.