by Brooke Hembree
Author's note: The title for this story came from a poem by Lord Byron. If you have any interest in reading "When We Two Parted", Brooke has placed a copy on her page, Falling Into Place. Please read it, it's a truly beautiful, if extremely sad, piece.
Cable looked at his sensor. "Look like we're finally going to get that maniac, Bridge." He smiled grimly at his partner.
Bridge didn't return his smile. Instead, he looked around. "I don't like this, Cable. It's a residential area. It's crazy to take Sabretooth on like this. Someone's going to get killed."
Cable inspect his surrounding. They were in an exclusive neighborhood, nicely manicured lawns, high fences, signs in the yard saying "Warning! This house protected by police alert security system."
He snorted. All the cops in the world wouldn't stop Sabretooth if he was bent on damage.
"You heard what Nick said...no ordered," Cable corrected himself with a humorless smile. "He told us to take Sabretooth down at all costs, Bridge. And that's one set of orders I plan on following to the letter."
"Creed do something to you, Nate? Do you have a personal vendetta against him?" Bridge questioned, eager to learn more about his mysterious friend's past.
Cable considered the question, then looked Bridge dead in the eye. "Bridge," he said, his voice quiet but intense, "People like Creed tried to destroy everything I ever had. They make a mockery of everything I believed in. So, no, Creed never did anything to me, but yes, I have a deeply personal vendetta against Creed. He goes down tonight, and if someone gets caught in the crossfire..." Several emotions flashed across Cable's face, ending with a look of grim determination. "I hate it, but I can't choose one life over the hundreds, or even thousands, that taking Creed down tonight will save."
Bridge looked away. Cable's words, though true, had been
spoken with such a quiet intensity that it had cut Bridge to the
bone.
Cable cursed himself for losing his center. Why had he told GW that? It wasn't necessary...and although GW *did* try to understand Cable, deep down Cable knew that his partner could never conceive where Cable had come from, and what he was fighting against.
He sensed her before he saw or heard her. It was a strong mind, brilliant, but clouded with fear. He felt her terror and horror like shards of glass. Then, she hit him. It almost knocked her down, but she managed to stay up. It was a girl...twelve, maybe thirteen, with long black hair and a very pale complexion. She looked at him for a brief moment, then kept running. Bridge started to go after her.
"No," Cable said, "She'll be fine. We have to find Creed."
Cable looked at the tracker in his hand and smiled coldly. "We got him, Bridge. He was obviously in the same area that the girl ran out of."
Cable headed toward Creed's coordinates, with Bridge on his heels. They stopped outside a two story house with a broken window. Sabretooth was standing in the yard covered in blood. He grinned wildly at Cable and Bridge.
"Must be my lucky night. Get paid big bucks to take out some spineless wimp, and now you two drop into my hands. This is going to be fun." Sabretooth, obviously on some sick adrenaline rush, leaped at Cable. Cable reacted calmly and instinctively: He fired a few shots at Creed's chest, sending him flying back into a clump of bushes.
Creed jumped back up and started running, cutting through yards and jumping fences. Cable swore at himself for letting Creed get away, then hoisted his gun and took off after Creed with Bridge close behind him.
After running about ten minutes in the direction Creed had taken, Cable stopped and swore. Creed was nowhere to be found and the tracker had apparently been damaged. "Damn. We lost him."
Then, Cable sensed Creed's thoughts, and another familiar set. "Looking for me, Cable?"
Slowly, Cable turned to find Creed grinning at him, holding the girl that Cable had seen just minutes earlier. His claws were at her throat.
"Now, Cable, Bridge, here's the way I see it. You drop your guns, and just take off. I keep the frail here with me for about thirty minutes and then I dump her somewhere. I'm free, she's alive, and you two...well, who gives a damn about the two of you anyway?"
The girl was obviously terrified. She looked pleadingly at first Cable, then Bridge. Creed was standing under a streetlight, so Cable could see the girl's face clearly. Pale skin, a black circle around her left eye and the most piercing violet eyes he'd ever seen.
"Cable?" Bridge was holding his gun steady.
"He's lying. He'll kill her the second we leave...if she's lucky. We've got to take him down," Cable said, levelly. He tried to aim for Creed's head, but the girl was blocking his shot.
Creed shook the girl, tightening his grip. Under the streetlight, he saw a trickle of blood running down her pale neck. She noticed it as well, and whimpered, her eyes widening. Creed saw that the hostage wasn't softening Cable or Bridge. Cable could see what Creed was thinking, even without sensing it. Cable knew he had to act fast, because soon Creed would tear off her head and throw it at Cable to cover his escape. He raised his gun and fired a shot at Creed's shoulder, hoping to loosen his grip on the girl.
It was a desperate gesture, one that he should have never made. And even as Cable doing it, he knew it was over. When Cable hit Creed, Creed tightened his hand around the girl's neck, then flung her to the ground. She tried to land on her feet, but she slid to the ground. Cable watched her, curled up on the pavement, her shoulders trembling. It was quiet...all Cable could hear was the girl's labored breathing. Cable could see that Creed had torn her soft neck to pieces. She was going to bleed to death, choking on her own flesh. A cold fury gripped Cable, unlike anything he'd ever felt. He didn't aim, he didn't need to. And Creed didn't have a prayer. Cable fired at Creed, again and again. He lost track of his shots and he didn't stop till Creed was laying on the ground. He extended a probe and felt nothing from that chaotic jumble that Creed had called a mind. Then, he went over to the girl.
She was still on the sidewalk. He knelt by her and cradled her head in his lap. Cable had hoped that it hadn't been as bad as it look, that it was only a flesh wound...that they could take her to the hospital and she'd be fine. But he knew that even if she were in a hospital, even if she were prepped for surgery, there was nothing that could be done. Creed had ripped her throat open, severing both veins and arteries...but at least she wasn't in pain.
She knew it was hopeless, too. She was watching him, but her eyes, the color of tear drenched wood-violets, were already hazy. He pushed a lock of raven hair off her pale forehead.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I messed up, big time. I didn't expect that to happen..." He trailed off, realizing how feeble his attempts to apologize were. She was laying there, bleeding to death, and the best he could offer was "I'm sorry".
I forgive you. He heard her voice in his mind, and stiffened. She wasn't a psi...how was she speaking in *his* mind? It didn't matter, though. He took one of her hands and squeezed it, trying to project comfort and reassurance. Then, she caught his eyes again and he gasped. In her eyes, he saw the two of them, throughout the years...together. Learning from each other, laughing with each other...eventually even loving each other. And as the light began to fade from those violet eyes, he saw any chance of happiness in this time fading with it. He linked their minds, determined to hold her as closely as possible for these last few moments...trying to make up for the years he had thrown away in these precious few minutes that she had left.
She gave a little gasp, then shuddered, her back arching. Then, it was over. Her body seemed much smaller now...without her radiant spirit in it. He reached up and closed her eyes, then looked at Creed's body, then at Bridge.
"Let's go. It's over," he said, flatly. And those
last two words seemed to echo in his mind: It's over, it's
over, it's over.
Six months later:
Bridge sat in a chair in front of Nick Fury's desk.
"You're sure you don't want these?" Nick asked, "I'd say that you have more of a right to them than anyone else."
Bridge looked at the weapons on Bridge's desk. They were all futuristic, powerful weapons, capable of leveling a large building or taking down a small army. He ran his hand over all of them, pausing first on the large gun that had stopped Sabretooth on that horrible night, then on a small, antique pistol. Bridge picked it up, turning it over in his hands.
It seemed ironic that, with all the elaborate guns at his disposal, that Cable had chosen this gun. It was tiny, it didn't even look like a real gun. But he had chosen that gun, and it had done it's job well, ending Cable's life in his apartment after months of guilt and heavy drinking. He replaced the gun.
"No." Nick looked at him in sympathy, then pulled out a folder.
"They ID'd the girl. Student at an exclusive private school, little Miss Perfect by all accounts, mother was a trophy wife and her father...well, he tried to make some fast money with the wrong people...." Nick laid a picture on the desk.
Bridge picked it up, hoping to understand what had gone through is old friend's mind that fateful night. He'd seen a hell of a lot worse than that, made harder decisions, but after the girl died he had seemed to lose whatever had kept him going all his life.
It was a school picture...sixth grade, according to the bottom of the picture. It showed a pretty girl, with a bittersweet smile and guarded violet eyes, wearing a lilac sweater and a gold cross around her neck. He still couldn't understand why her death had hit Nate so hard...why he had essentially died with her that night.
Still, looking at the picture, Bridge got an odd feeling. One almost of longing, as though that girl should have played a bigger part in his life, and Nate's as well. Was this what Nate had felt that night? Bridge sighed, and laid the picture back on Nick's desk.
"Pretty, wasn't she?" Nick asked, putting the picture back into the folder.
Bridge nodded, standing. He had work to do. As he left Nick's office to start one some paper work, thoughts of what should have been ran through his head.