My Cause-

Disclaimer- I do not own the characters or lyrics from the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera

Plot Summary- A year after the events of the Opera, Amber (the new CEO of GeneCo) assaults and leaves Graverobber for dead. Fortunately for him, a certain teenager stumbles upon him and takes care of him. Grilo.

"Who's there?" He weakly murmured. His body ached and screamed as he tried to hold on to the fading light that was his conscious. A shadow—small in height, weight and otherwise was walking towards him. He could hear the heavy clank of boots. He feared it was Amber, checking to see if she had finished the job she set out to too. After sending her repo boy after him he no longer had the desire to fuck her—in fact, if he didn't feel so out of breath, he would jab the needle straight into her fake little neck.

As the figure came closer, he realized it probably wasn't Amber. The shadow had a flowing, long dress—more graceful than the GeneCo queen would ever be caught in. That didn't mean that it was a friend though (not that he had any of those per say). Just another addict probably—coming to prey on his corpse like he had done to so many before him.

The black was narrowing his sight, consuming him like a bottomless hole. The last thing he saw was the figure leaning down, a white mouth with black lipstick frowning down at him.

"Graverobber?"

()

He escaped from the darkness—though not alone. Graverobber listened to a swwshing sound and opened his eyes. He was no longer out on the cold pavement and in the unforgiving city. Just the opposite—he was in a comfortable bed, covered with heavy blankets. Around him was an open room with early 21st century wall paper and a lonely desk and piano.

How'd he get here? Or better yet, who had brought him here? A beeping accompanied the swwshing one as he fought back the pain. He had to get out before he was stuck forever.

A gentle hand pushed him back down. "Don't. You're hurt pretty badly, you might make it worse."

Graverobber looked to the owner of the voice. He had to squint his eyes to make sure he was seeing correctly. "Kid?"

Shilo smirked and stood straight. If it hadn't been for the sharp features on her face and her small figure, he might not have recognized her. In the year since he had met her, the teen had grown her own natural black hair which ended just below her ear, pulled away from her face with a few clips. If she had been wearing a flowing dress earlier, she wasn't now. She stood before him wearing a black one shoulder shirt and ripped jeans—a sliver studded belt wrapping around her small waist. Shilo wasn't well endowed or rounded like most of the women he meant but somehow that didn't hurt her appearance. In fact, she was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her.

"Well, it doesn't look like you've suffered too much head trauma… And lucky you, no internal bleeding either from what I can tell." She walked across the room to the desk, her back turned away from him. Even in his condition, he couldn't help but appraise her from behind. "Whoever did this to you, didn't want you to live through it…I have three guesses but I think I only need one."

He snorted. "Fucking Amber…who else?"

Shilo turned with a handful of pills in her hand. Every step created a clunking sound which he now knew to be her. It seemed impossible that someone so small could make such a rough noise. She grabbed a glass of water off the dresser and extended to him. "Are you strong enough to do this or should I?"

Graverobber bit down his yelps as he accepted the pills and swallowed them dry, denying the water Shilo offered. She shrugged and set it down. "Is Amber looking for you now? I'd like to know if I'm a fugitive or not."

"She will be. When she comes back and sees my dead body isn't there. She won't get the cops in this yet."

"How can you be so sure?"

He chuckled, feeling himself becoming lighter all the while. Whatever was in the pills—he liked it. "Because Amber's a lazy, fucking brat. Me being alive proves that. Besides…if people find out she's looking for a Z dealer…she might has well be…"

"Wearing a sign that says Zydrate Slut?" Shilo finished. Graverobber would have nodded, if he had the strength to do so. He wanted to sleep again, while the pain was buried in a cloud of haze. Shilo switched the lamplight off. "I guess it doesn't matter then, you're safe here…so just rest Graves."

She walked to the door. He watched her, about to give in but felt guilty that he hadn't thanked her. He very rarely said the words so especially under the influence of drugs; they couldn't slip from his tongue.

Still, for her, he tried. "Kid….th..th…"

Shilo shushed him smiling over her shoulder at him. "Ssssh, you need to get better. It makes me really sad to see you like this."

The last thing he heard before he went out again was the shut of his door. Blackness dragged him under yet again.

()

Graverobber didn't wake up for twelve more hours, but was surprised to find that when he did, he felt very little pain. He was also surprised to see Shilo sitting in a chair in the corner, reading a book called Conscientia de Corpus.

"Damn, how can I get that fix?" Shilo glanced up, marking her place in the book and smiled.

"Don't worry about it. It's just some medicine my dad left lying around."

"I was talking about you, kid." He said, inching to sit back up. She didn't try and tell him otherwise so he took it as permission to do so. A small tinge of pain and an odd sound accompanied him, but Graverobber was able to sit up in the bed. Realizing for the first time, he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Shilo got up and walked over to him. "I'll take your libido as a sign you're feeling better. You look better too. I hope you don't mind that I cleaned you up a bit and changed your clothing. Most of it was pronounced dead on arrival."

"What about my jacket?" He frowned. He'd been through everything with that jacket—cold winters, violent druggies, almost all of the Rotti's.

"Still in surgery. I'm trying to fix it, but you've taken it to hell and back a few times too many. I was going to work on it a little more after doing some homework but I can't focus too long on it—it smells like shit, I hope you know."

"You in school now?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. Last time he checked, the girl had never stepped foot in a high school. He wasn't even sure if she had a diploma. She must have had some education—enough to count as high school anyway, because she answered;

"College—eventually med school hopefully." Shilo checked his pulse, keeping an eye on her watch. "My dad said he wanted me to change the world. What better way than to save lives?"

He could see her doing it; especially with the way she had been caring for him. Chances were she knew a great deal about the medical world, spending years looking for a non-existent disease and what not. In that time she had known what it was like to be a patient and had seen the world for the screwed up, unhealthy place it was. She would probably be a fantastic doctor.

It felt like a shame to him; he usually hated doctors. "And what about you? I'm guessing Amber didn't beat you up because you gave up Z peddling."

"No, it was because she get it up." He joked. Shilo placed a hand against his chest, feeling for compression. Graverobber sighed contently at how warm she was. "Still robbin, selling, and fucking my way through life kid. Nothing's changed except now Amber's so sick of herself she has to get rid of everything that makes her want Z; otherwise she'd just come crawling back."

Her finger traced over his bruised and battered body, stopping at his third rib. He took an intake of breath as the pain pushed through the medication.

"Sorry," Shilo brought her hand away quickly. "One of your ribs is broke—it's going to leave a mark but it will heal. You're going to hurt for a few weeks though, I'll try to control it with pain medication… So Amber was trying to get rid of you because she didn't want to do Z anymore?"

"Simply put, anyway." He said as the pain shrunk once more. "She wants to be more liked by the people; so she's making herself out to be a victim. You know, I'M the guy who fed her Z and I'M the evil that must be stopped. She's guilty of nothing more than falling into trends. At least—that's what she wants the masses to think."

He laughed, despite the way it inflamed his rib. "She was always a good actress; can't hold a penny to Mag singing, but she's as fake as her face—and people are lining up to buy it."

"It's stupid."

Shilo was looking away from his face, clutching the blanket and bringing it up against his body. He watched her; half-shocked, half-thoughtful as she explained. "You may not be a victim—hell, you might not even be a good person. But Amber…" Shilo sighed and let go of the blanket. Graverobber pulled it against him. "Amber's a Z addict because she didn't know when to stop. Because she hates herself so much, she has to constantly change her appearance just to look at herself in the mirror... It's stupid to think that getting rid of you is going to change that. If she just took responsibility for herself and convinced herself that to break free from what she's become. She might not need the glow so much."

"We're all in control of our own destiny. That lesson was the only good my dad ever did me."

Graverobber swallowed everything she had just said. A lot of it; he wasn't sure what to think. But he did agree that their place in life was because of the things they did. Shilo one day broke out of her bedroom, and now she was an eighteen year old orphan taking care of a wanted drug peddler.

But—she was also free. Free at last, he recalled hearing them say of her.

"I bet your starving… Let me get you something to eat."