Disclaimer: Naughty Dog owns the Jak and Daxter games and all characters included.
It wasn't fair that people didn't know about this. It just wasn't.
He doesn't care about the hypocrisy of his thoughts. He's often told soldiers that asking "why" and saying "it's not fair" never got anybody anywhere. But she was one of the most important people to the Underground, and nobody except him and the handful of soldiers outside her room would ever know how it had happened. To everyone in the Underground, her injury would just be another selfless act of bravery that gets pushed down under the list of responsibilities. And to the city, she would just be another telltale accident pointed at the Underground or metalheads. A piece of propaganda. A grand name without a single fond memory attached.
It's a bitter thought that makes him want to storm the Baron's castle, just himself and his gun, shoot the eyes out of every KG that moved, challenge the Baron head on and let the man have it right here in the palace throne room. Praxis deserved all the pain Torn could dish out. Every single bit of it.
Then the feeble voice next to him and the cold hand clasping his own brings him out of his vengeful thoughts and back to the horribly sterile, quiet room they're both in. She's struggling for breath, no longer worried that the room is too cold and that she's only got a white gown and white sheets to keep her warm. She should be worried. She's going to live, so she needs to be worried about the cold.
"Torn..."
It's the way she's always said his name that had made him believe he had a capacity to feel. He has not felt that in so long. Not since he last saw his family. It must mean something, the subtle flicker of warmth that radiates in his heart, which he imagines is like a black cavern with echoing walls, empty in his chest. But she was going to live, so he didn't need to worry about that emptiness. He shouldn't.
"We fought a good fight, huh?" she says weakly.
He tells her, very sternly even though he can't manage more than a raspy whisper, that now is not the time for reminiscing talk. She's supposed to work on getting better, so she needs all the oxygen she can get. Save your breath, he says.
She tilts her head back and chuckles, just like she used to whenever he made an obvious observation or tried to make a joke whenever the Underground had parties and people got hammered, closing her eyes and grinning. It's always a laugh she's used when he's being an idiot.
"Always a great commander, believing in me even when I couldn't do a thing."
Now he's angry. She's talking nonsense, mocking him even though she's so weak and he knows she's always been stronger. She's got guts making fun of him he says with a growl, and she laughs a little more. She almost sounds healthier. But then she coughs a bit, and he remembers that the bandages adorning her entire torso and the faint red circles peeking out from under those bandages aren't just for show. There's still lead underneath those swaths of gauze; she'd refused to let the doctors remove any more.
She turns to look at him in the way she used to when they talked about what Haven might be like when the city was free. She turns to lie on her side, her eyes just as lively as they used to be, but her skin too pale, even with her tan.
"Tell me about that time you went to Haven Forest..."
His stomach clenches and his brain tells him, much like a mother telling her child gently to let go of something he wants but can't have, that the time has come to accept reality.
"Last time I went...some of the first things I saw were bluebirds."
She closes her eyes, and his heart almost jumps out of his throat, but she's still breathing. He calms down, and continues, moving just a tiny bit closer to make sure she doesn't leave without him knowing. He clasps her hand just a little tighter. "It was spring. There were flowers everywhere. Lots of sunlight...coming through the leaves..."
He knows he sounds like a sentimental fool, stuttering away at these bits of scenery. He'd bet that if this were just a giant set-up to blackmail him, his colleagues would have enough evidence to humiliate him for life if they recorded him talking so fondly of something like a forest. Only poets did this sort of thing. Never him. Not unless she asked him. If it could keep her alive he would recite poetry for the rest of his life.
"Clear water running everywhere," he says, realizing now that his voice is only just above a whisper, and he's leaned so close that his forehead is practically against hers. He stops when he realizes this, but she mutters "mm-hmm" for him to continue. And he does, right after closing the tiny distance between their foreheads.
"You can't hear anything except nature. If you spend long enough there, you forget you're right next to Haven."
She chuckles breathily, disbelievingly. No one could ever be free of this city until they were dead. "...What was it you once said? About the feeling you got when you were there all night until morning?" she asked, opening her eyes, looking off into the distance of nothing in particular.
"...Makes a man feel like he's the only one in the world," Torn finishes, feeling his breath bouncing off the mattress edge. He looks to the side very briefly to see the bridge of her nose and her eyelashes, and the edges of her cheeks which are more defined, suggesting she's smiling.
They stay silent for who knows how long, each minute agonizing as he hopes for the rising and falling of her breathes to keep going.
"...Promise you'll bury me there," she says at last. His breath catches in his throat, and he almost chokes. "...Bury me with the flowers and the bluebirds," she says, the phrase almost sounding like something out of a child's story.
As she says this with her eyes still closed, her hand lifts blindly up to his face, fingers clumsily bumping against his nose and cheek as she does so. She runs her fingers down the rest of his face, down the remainder of the bridge of his nose and over his lips, causing them to open just a little, and her fingers linger there. He half-blinks, staring ahead at the white wall in half-defeat, the other half scrambling to say something. But nothing comes. He presses a very tiny, very silent kiss to her fingertips, it's only evidence the almost unheard sound his lips make against her skin. It may not seem like much, but the fact that he's never bothered to really initiate a kiss until now means something. It means something, so she's got to live. She's got to try...
Her fingers run from his lips to his chin, curl into a tiny weak fist beside his chest, and he can't help but wonder what it might've been like had she ran her fingers down his cheek because she was fond of him, not just because she was dying. "...You're the best, Commander," she teases, reminiscent of what she would always tell him after she completed a report he needed done quickly, only to give her another. He watches her carefully, but she hasn't passed yet. He closes his eyes once, closing them shut hard, then opening them again. No tears have come. He supposes it'll only be a matter of time. He wishes she'd call him something other than 'commander' before she leaves, just for old time's sake.
"Torn..."
His unspoken wish is answered. He responds with a very soft grunt.
"...You take care of the others. Keep my babies safe."
By her "babies" she means her guns, and at this he gives a tiny, weak smile. He nods, her head moving just a little when he does this because their foreheads are still resting against each other.
"...Thank you, Torn."
It doesn't matter how many minutes passed after that. Eventually, she too, passed away.
It's only then that he acknowledges the crick in his back and neck from sitting beside the bed so awkwardly, and the coldness of the tile having gotten through his leg armor and frozen his skin. He does not dare linger beside her for fear that he will stop feeling the warmth that had been on his forehead and fingertips.
Like a good commander he walks through the door silently, not daring to look back at the person who is gone. He would not be able to handle that; seeing her eyes not blink and her chest not rise and fall. Everyone looks at him, knowing the news but still denying it, hoping for a miracle like he had for the past hour. But the silent, heavy nod that he gives seals up the fact, and seals his bitter fate to the feeling of loneliness and regret.
She's gone.
A/N: This has been sitting in my files for a long time now. It was originally much longer and described Torn's actions shortly afterwards (how he mourned and tried to think of a way to cope, etc.), but I decided that all that was too lengthy to throw in since this wasn't going to be a story with more than one chapter. Obviously, this is AU. I'd place this during Jak II before the confrontation with Baron Praxis, but not immediately before. Maybe during the raid of the Underground or something.
I know it was sad, but thank you for reading.