A matter of perspective

It hadn't taken Soolin very long to discover what had happened on the shuttle, not when Vila wanted to tell someone so very much. A concerned look, a kind word, she could do them when it mattered, and he had spilled it all out, tears shining in his eyes and a stunned, almost hopeless, whine in his voice. She'd frowned as he told her and she had seen a faint flicker of satisfaction precede a shadow of guilt in his eyes.

She had patted his shoulder, given him a glass of wine, and gone to find the other party in this debacle, her resolve stiffened by the inescapable conclusion written in the sorry tale and her growing fear of what was yet to come.

She found him in his quarters, the lights down low and the man himself no less dark than the shadows, lying on his bed, eyes locked on the silent computer on the table.

"It has to end Avon." She stood over him her face as blank as his.
He shifted slightly and sighed.
"Vila told you then."
Statement not question but she answered as if it had been the latter.
"Yes of course. He was bound to tell someone, and better me than one of the others."
He smiled faintly.
"No doubt."
"No doubt at all, I, at least, will do something about it."
"Will you?"
Dark eyes moved to lock on hers and she met them without hesitation.
"Yes. As I said it has to end."

There was silence for a moment then he shifted, rolling over to sit up, hands clasped on his thighs, eyes staring down at something she couldn't see.
"Yes, it has to end." He agreed softly.

Yet she could not accept his easy agreement, perhaps because it was so easy, perhaps because she suspected that they were not talking about the same ending. So she would have to spell it out in all its unpalatable tragedy. Soolin allowed her voice to take on a more urgent tone, as her hand dropped to his shoulder.
"This time it was Vila, but what if it had been Tarrant or Dayna? What then?"
A face blanked of expression turned up to look at her.
"Or you?"
She drew a deep breath.
"Or me." The words seemed torn from her throat and she cringed inside at the sound of them.
He smiled faintly.
"I know."

She sat down beside him, reaching out to place one hand over his two where they lay still clasped upon his knee. She tried for impartial comment, for simple logic, and failed, the desperation seeping into her voice.
"You couldn't kill him Avon. There was no way you could have missed him in that shuttle. Not from what Vila told me and he was too shocked to lie. You could not have missed him if you had really wanted to find him. You know that."
He stared at her for a long moment before a faint smile broke the blank look and he turned his eyes back down to his linked hands.
"Yes, I know that. "Avon's voice took on an angry raw and bitter edge, "I couldn't let myself find him. I wanted to so very much Soolin, but I couldn't."
There was no doubting his anger at himself and at Vila.
"No." her reply was flat and uncompromising.
He drew a deep breath.
"But had the roles been reversed…" he said softly.
"He would have killed you." She finished for him.

There was silence for a moment and then he squared his shoulders, staring into the darkness as if seeing something there. His mouth twisted slightly and he gave a hard half laugh.
"Yes, he would have killed me. If he could see no other way out, to survive, and he had the means to do it, then he would have found me and killed me, crying as he did so. I know that."

Soolin allowed herself to clasp her fingers around hands as cold as ice.
"It has to end Avon, or we will all die. I've known it for a while but given where we are it didn't seem to matter. But now perhaps it does. You were not built to be a casual killer." her voice took on a mocking note, "take it from one who is."
His smile became tinged with bitterness.
"I know. Anna taught me that, I left it until the last moment and even then it nearly destroyed me."
He was silent for a moment then smiled another twisted smile.
In battle….." he shrugged, "I can kill as a soldier does, and I can kill if I don't have time to think, or if any of you are threatened, but otherwise…"
"You hesitate, and that could kill us all. With Vila..." she shrugged, "I know why you did it, and this time you found the other way out, but that doesn't change the fact that if that if the shuttle had gone down then Servalan would have had Orac and the rest of us would have been dead within a day. The rebellion might have lasted a month or two but no more than that."
"Yes. I know."
"Yet you hesitated all the same".

He pushed himself to his feet.
"You are right, it has to end. Either we find another way or…"
"Or what?"
"Or you find someone who won't hesitate. Someone who can give you what you need."
"And what's that?" she rose to stand beside him.
He smiled at her, a cold and brittle smile.
"Certainty."

He moved away from her and towards Orac.
"One last try at another way, a way not steeped in blood," he said quietly, "and if that fails then…"
"Then what?"
Avon turned to her with that cold smile she so hated, knowing only too well what was behind it.
"In the pattern of infinity, Orac thinks he has found certainty."