Much of the city had changed, torn asunder by the Vaadwaur, or even just transformed over the decades as people lived, thrived, and grew. Even his family home was different; no children living there, not even his father there any more, the vast red brick house with its white trims grand and stately but more of a memorial than a bustling house filled with light and love.

The garden, however, was always exactly like his childhood memories.

The trimmed lawn stretched out from the back patio, bordered by hedges allowed to grow wild enough for the imagination and privacy, but tamed into limits. Flowerbeds followed seasonal rhythms, their cultivation his mother’s favourite distraction. The evening sun slipped through the old sycamore at the end of the garden, long golden streams of light striping the stone path.

John Rosewood stepped out through the rear conservatory, and let the glass door settle shut behind him. He’d built a lifetime through lying in diplomacy and espionage, but putting on a brave face for a family dinner like nothing was wrong was new heights – or depths – of deception. Their mother was in the kitchen now, stacking away plates and dishes. She’d ushered him away once he’d cleared the table. Perhaps she’d sensed he needed to be elsewhere.

Daniel, inevitably, hadn’t made it through dessert. He’d stepped outside to take a work call, but now stood by the small stone table near the edge of the lawn, sleeves rolled up, a PADD in one hand and his half-empty wineglass in the other. He either hadn’t heard John come out, or chose to not react.

‘Mom put the pie back in storage,’ John called as he padded down the path. ‘Take it home if you don’t finish it tonight.’

Daniel started. He hadn’t heard him, then. The PADD was put down sharply, his brother’s gaze laced with guilt. ‘I was just – I had to follow up with some messages…’

‘Explaining work taking you away from family to me? How the tables turn,’ John drawled. The jest at once turned to ash, and he swallowed, the taste of a good meal already washed away.

Daniel’s expression clouded, the old resentment seeping in. ‘Yeah, well, it gives you time to actually talk to Mom…’

‘I know about your debriefing with Commander Alastair Ingram, Dan.’

He hadn’t known how he was going to broach the subject. He was a master of a thousand manipulations, every word chosen with careful intent. But here, in the garden where he’d played with his little brother every summer, the words just spilt out.

Daniel froze like a man who wasn’t sure exactly what crime he was being accused of. ‘That was weeks ago.’

‘You had a lot to talk about.’ John forced himself to keep his stance and voice neutral. He still had a half-empty glass of wine himself, so stood there in the dying rays of the sun, like they were two brothers reminiscing about the ancient past. Not litigating recent crimes. ‘Like your handling of civic records under the occupation.’

Daniel didn’t blanch, because it was clear he’d been braced for this. His gaze did drop, and he turned away, back to the stone table and the deepening wilderness of the end of the garden. ‘That was my job.’

John couldn’t help but scoff at that. ‘To collate all public service logs – school rolls, employment rosters, residency records – and put them into Vaadwaur security hands as quickly and efficiently as possible?’

‘They had complete control of the government, John, they were going to -’

‘Take weeks securing all databases, take weeks familiarising themselves with our systems, our records, how centuries of civic data infrastructure has developed.’ John took a step forward. It was easier than he’d feared, now he was into it, to keep his voice level. ‘Instead you made it really easy for them to cross-reference these records against suspected resistance families.’

Slowly, carefully, Daniel set his glass down. He took a moment to fidget with his cuffs, still not looking at John. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. ‘I didn’t think anything about it until people started disappearing.’

‘Okay,’ said John reflexively. ‘Did you then stop?’

‘They already had the lists. Yes, I made them cleaner, clearer, easier – they said it was stopping mass sweeps. Stopping them from rounding everyone up -’

‘Our world was conquered, Dan!’ John took a sharp step forward. ‘And you kept going into work and sorting their records for them?’

‘And where were you?’ Daniel rounded on him at last, eyes blazing, though John could see the curl of his lip. The tell-tale sneer of self-hate. ‘Sitting comfortably on a Starfleet ship on the far side of the galaxy while we -’

‘I strapped myself to two hundred meters of metal and got catapulted across the quadrant by experimental tech to be the first boots on the ground here, slipping under Vaadwaur noses and then shooting the first damn shots of the liberation -’

‘Yeah, yeah, heroic John Rosewood, transmitting his defiance across to the whole system.’ Daniel waved a hand, looking away. ‘They did a fresh round of executions in Council Square after you sent that. Before the Battle of Proxima was even over. To make us pay for your heroism. Is Starfleet Intelligence interrogating your culpability for that?’

‘That’s facile bullshit, Dan, and you know it.’ John jabbed a finger at him. ‘There’s a difference between defying an occupying force that retaliates, and helping that force.’

‘Yeah, well, someone had to look after the family.’ Daniel squared up now, jaw jutting with stiff determination.

‘You can’t pull the “I’ve got kids,” argument; you know how many people -’

‘I don’t mean my family! I mean the family! All of us!’ Furious, now, Daniel’s voice dropped to a hiss as he swept an arm across the garden and towards the house. ‘Mom, Pop, Ellie, every cousin, aunt, uncle, great-uncle! You know how deep our name goes, has gone, into every single inch of Alpha Centauri life!’

John stared. ‘What’re you…’

‘Your stunt at Innes,’ Daniel snarled. ‘Sure, I’d been doing paperwork for them then. Then this Vaadwaur lieutenant, real piece of work, looks closer at you, the darling of the liberation. Looks closer at me. My name. Our names.’ His lip curled anew, but the hatred was spread wider now. Himself. The Vaadwaur. John. ‘“Don’t give me a reason to make an example of the Rosewood name,” that overseer said, right before mentioning Pop’s retirement home and how it should maybe get shut down, the residents relocated. Ellie’s university faculty, how maybe there was too much dissent going on in learning institutions. Everyone.’ Daniel took a step forward, and it was his turn to jab a finger in John’s chest. ‘I had to be the good one. The cooperative one. Not to save my neck or for my convenience. But because you had to be a big damn hero.’

John’s instinct had been to smack his brother’s hand away, deflect the accusing point. As Daniel’s words thudded in, though, he didn’t move. Didn’t say another word for a long moment, letting the accusations hang in the air.

John had been elsewhere, wearing his uniform, proud and heroic – even, somehow, from among the Rooks’ ranks, this time. Daniel had been here, working hard and quiet and supporting the family. Even in war, some things didn’t change. Behind him, back up at the house, he could hear the gentle clink of their mother’s movements in the kitchen, of china on the counter. The world hadn’t stopped. Never did.

‘Do they know?’ John asked at last, voice low. ‘Mom. Ellie. The others. Do they know what safety cost?’

Daniel’s hand fell away. He looked past John, towards the house with its warm lights glowing brighter in the gathering, sinking dusk. ‘No. And they don’t need to.’

John nodded once. It was neither agreement nor acceptance. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d been here,’ he admitted.

Daniel scoffed. ‘Yeah, well. The universe would be a really different place if you were here.’ He turned to go, scooping his PADD off the table. There was no question of what John would do, no challenge as to whether this was a secret he’d keep or a truth he’d use to tear them all apart. Perhaps he trusted his brother. Perhaps he didn’t think he could affect the decision any more.

But John stood still, clutching his now empty wineglass as Daniel walked back into the house they’d both grown up in. The sun had nearly set by now. Shadows stretched long across the garden.

He didn’t go back inside for a while.