Turn Around And Face Your Fate

by Alicia McKenzie

That was how it started. One shot. So small. So inconsequential, in the greater scheme of things. Not exactly what you'd call a shot heard round the world.

Just one shot. Cold, hard instinct stepping in, faultless logic telling me I couldn't let Hammer hand that disk over to Stryfe. That a chunk of plastic and the information on it were worth too much. More than his life, more than trust, more than friendship--

More than the Pack, friends who might have been family. If I'd let them.

Is that why I'm sitting here, kneeling on the bathroom floor, throwing up everything in my stomach? Because part of me knows what I just threw away?

Is that why I can't stop shaking?

I only had a second. Not enough time, not nearly enough time. You couldn't make a real decision in the space between two heartbeats. So instinct took over. Easier that way. Give in to training, discipline--step back and let the machine in you take control.

Machines don't have hearts. Don't have souls.

A machine wouldn't be sitting here crying.

Closing my ears to Hammer's scream as the plasma blast severed his spine. Just another death, another necessary kill. Pretending not to feel it as every bond I had to the Pack snapped instantly, leaving me alone, adrift, tied to nothing.

My choice.

Hadn't even stayed to clean up my mess. Hadn't cared that I was leaving them trapped in a base about to explode.

Only Stryfe. Nothing else had mattered. All I'd cared about was Stryfe. My hands around his throat. Wanting to watch his eyes glaze over in death, wanting it so much I could taste it, acid, burning hate choking me.

So much easier to take life than save it.

My choice. Five lives for one death. One death that I wanted more than anything else in the world. Easy choice, right?

But I'd lost him.

I'd LOST him.

Better luck next time, Nathan, he'd laughed, slipping back into the timestream.

Next time.

There wasn't going to BE a next time. I was going to find him, make him hurt, make him suffer--make him scream for mercy, beg me to kill him--

I wasn't any better than him.

Not real. None of this is real. I'm dreaming, having a nightmare. I didn't do this, I couldn't have done this--

Please? Someone tell me it's not true, please--

Please--

But Hammer's blood is on me. I can smell it, feel it. There wouldn't be blood if it wasn't real. Blood, fresh blood that hadn't dried yet.

Too bad there's not anything left in my stomach to come up. Now, if my body would accept that, I'd be set. But I can't stop. I can hear my own heart trying to burst out of my chest, pain in my head throbbing in unison.

Can't stop crying.

Can't--can't breathe. Stars in front of my eyes. Chest hurts. They're dead. They're dead, and I killed them. I might as well have shot them all, not just Hammer. Would have been quicker. More merciful. Rather than letting them be buried beneath the base when it went.

They trusted me, and I killed them.

Darker. Something cool pressing against the side of my face. The floor, maybe? Doesn't matter.

/Nathan! Nathan, breathe--/

Professor. Just now realizing what happened? Or have I just been ignoring him? Maybe he's been shouting at me all along, telling me to stop, not to do it--why didn't I listen, to him, to myself, why did I do it? Oath, how could I have done it, nothing's worth that--

/Nathan, you have to breathe. BREATHE!/

Dom--

/Nathan!/

Sound--the door, opening so fast it crashes into the wall. "Nathan!" Hands on my shoulders, and I take a deep shuddering breath, an indrawn moan, scrabbling away frantically.

Don't touch me, don't--he'd see the blood, know what I'd done. And he wouldn't be angry, no, he'd think I'd done the right thing, the necessary thing--and that just made it worse, so much worse.

I wonder what I'd find if I went back. If their last expressions would be frozen on their faces, shock and betrayal lingering in their dead eyes. Or maybe there wouldn't be bodies, only pieces. Bloody bits and pieces that no one could ever put back together again--

Dizzy. Room's spinning around me. Chest still hurts--

The next thing I know, I'm somewhere else, lying down on something soft, my feet propped up. I blink up at the ceiling for a while.

"I know what happened, Nathan."

Don't think I've ever heard Blaquesmith's voice so gentle. I didn't turn my head to look at him, though. Didn't dare. I wasn't going to bawl like an infant in front of him. Might rip his throat out if he said anything about the 'why of any situation', but I wasn't going to cry.

Tears were useless. They wouldn't change anything, wouldn't fix things.

Tears couldn't wash away blood.

I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed long and slow. I could feel the cold inside, spreading. I let it. Not too far. Not enough to take the pain away, I didn't deserve that. Only enough to let me think. I had to be able to think.

"Do we know where he is?" My voice was almost right. Just a little harder, a little colder.

"Of course not. We won't, until he chooses to be found. You know that." No rebuke, though, despite the words.

I must be a real mess, if he's being so delicate about this. Opening my eyes, I sit up, my head spinning. "But we'll watch. We'll be ready." A little too much of a plea, there. Like a child wanting reassurance--not good. Have to be strong, have to face up to what I've done.

That was all that was left to do. Swinging my feet over the side of the bed and standing up, I look down at him, see the strange, troubled look on his face.

Sympathy. Sorrow.

My jaw clenches. "Don't--just DON'T--"

Insect-like eyes narrow, as if he's sizing me up, trying to decide something. His lips purse, and then he says it, says the words that hit me like a knife to the gut, that make my knees buckle as if someone had just kicked my legs out from under me.

"They're alive."

I won't cry.

I won't.

I--

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry--" Hard to get the words out, past the sobs.

A hand falls on my shoulder, squeezing gently. No reprimand for the apologies that keep spilling from my lips, over and over again. No 'what is, is'.

"--so sorry--never meant--"

fin

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