Why was she smiling? He couldn't understand it. It'd been a month since they were both sent out on their mission, and now that it's over and he's fairly certain they're both going to die, she's smiling.

He dodges carefully, holding his gun out in front of him with a determined hand. He knows his face is blank, because she's told him so several times and because he doesn't see a reason to show his enemy what he's feeling (if he could feel, anyways), especially mid-battle, and her face used to be the same at the start: quiet and blank as a blackboard, powdered by the chalkdust that is her determination to get her mission done. That was her focused face. That was her dangerous face. Her face right now does not look like that face.

Curly Brace, his partner in vanquishing the target. She was efficient, if not spontaneous, and usually accurate. She uses her machine gun effectively and with a sure hand, and not a single movement is wasted in battle – especially not against an enemy like this.

Their enemy is dying. Slowly, but surely, he is perishing. Quote knows that they are too, but at a much faster rate. And he knows that she knows just as well, because she contains the same amount of knowledge capacity as he.

And yet, she smiles.

Their enemy dies. He roars in agony as she sends the final shot, and when his body collapses the floor completely gives way. Quote's fingers slip from his gun grip, and he realizes how overheated the pistol had become in its absence. He rotates in midair, turning to face his partner. Curly Brace faces the ceiling, faces the stars that he is certain they will never see again, and she still smiles.

He says nothing, but she answers his question for him.

"Quote ..." She turns towards him, blue eyes locked on his. "I … I'm really happy right now. And I don't know why, but I can't stop smiling."

He can tell. Her face is radiant in the rapidly vanishing light of the night sky.

Quote doesn't know what to do. There's a hunk of scrap in his pocket, some little bit of nothing that he's been trying for the past few days to turn into something vaguely artistic, but he's not sure if it worked; nonetheless, he pulls it out, and tosses it into the empty space between him and his partner. Curly Brace catches it with ease, just as he thought she would.

"... Quote?"

He doesn't know why he does it. But somewhere deep inside his metal body, he wants Curly Brace to remember him.

He tilts his head back, staring into the abyss that they're falling and falling into. He know they'll hit rock bottom soon. They've been falling for a while now. His vision is turning fuzzy and it goes static here and there, but on the opposite side he sees it, just barely: a cave, only big enough for a split-second decision. Quote turns back to Curly Brace. She is staring at him, and her blue eyes are flickering just like his. She hasn't moved since he tossed his little pet project at her, and for some reason it makes him happy.

He checks her over silently, noting that she's still got her machine gun with her. He concludes that Curly Brace will get out okay.

He angles himself towards her."Don't forget me," he whispers, and he gives her the first and last smile she'll ever see out of him, and with the last of his energy he kicks her with both legs straight into the cave.

"Quote!" she screeches. He can hear something smash against rock, and he feels little pebbles of debris brush his face, and he briefly worries that he undershot before he flickers for the last time and goes black.

Curly Brace, his partner in vanquishing the target. The only person he would trust his back to.

He hopes he'll see her again.