Apologies

He didn't see the trap, and, apparently, neither did she.

It was a brilliantly deadly trap, simple as it were. It was a series of five or so mines coming at a mini nuke. The resulting explosion was enough to kill anyone, even a whole caravan.

And neither of them saw that first mine.

She had miraculously managed not to step on any of the landmines, but he wasn't as lucky. He had already stepped on the mine before he realized what had happened, with the only alert being the loud beep the mine gave off.

But in the few nanoseconds between the beep and the actual detonation, he felt a powerful shove, and since he was still disoriented, he stumbled back.

He was still hit by the explosion, but it wasn't as bad as being directly on the mine. But something—someone—was knocked into him, and, as it dawned on him, his employer was the one that shoved him out of the way.

She had taken most of the hit, and the limbs below her waist are a mangled, bloody mess. He looked at her on shock, at the eyes that were laced in pain, and barely managed to hear her mutter an apology. Before he had time to understand—to process why she was apologizing—the mini nuke at the end of the line exploded, blasting him off of his feet and quickly into unconsciousness.

/-/-/-

The first thing he noticed upon waking up was the excruciating pain. The second thing was the radiation that was now surrounding the area and was trying to speed up his healing. He groaned and forced his eyes open, wondering what had happened. He tried to sit up, to get moving again, but the pain stopped him from doing anything more than flexing his fingers.

Yet the pain was instantly pushed back when Charon remembered that his employer was closer to the blast than he was.

Sucking a breath between his teeth, he forced himself to sit up and look around. He found her face down not far from him. With rising panic, he called out to her, but she didn't reply. He tried to get up—to get moving—but the pain was too much, and the most he could do was fall back to the ground.

He grunted in pain at the contact, and it apparently it was what she needed to hear because she turned her head towards him and looked at him with dimming eyes.

He felt the same way she looked, and, as the pain came back more powerfully, he realized that he was dying. He couldn't feel anything lower than his chest—he saw it was there, but the feeling was gone.

"I'm sorry." He called out to her, the words holding as much meaning as they could, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry…."

"No, it's okay," was her reply, her voice sounding much like his. "You're okay."

They both went quiet and looked at each other. He tried to convey everything he ever wanted to tell her through his eyes; tried to tell her how grateful he was for everything she had done for him. For buying his contract from Ahzrukhal and for teaching him how to be humane again. For never giving up on him. For treating him like he was a human being and not a weapon.

For trying to protect him at the cost of her own life.

And the look on her face…he couldn't read it. He couldn't understand why she looked at him with such tenderness and regret. A part of him knew—a part of him knew exactly what that look meant—but he didn't dare to hope that it was true. Even after all this time spent in her company, there were some things he didn't dare think about, lest they break.

They stayed like that for a while—a few minutes, a few hours, Charon didn't know. He was too disoriented and was losing his senses much too fast. Nothing changed in the meantime, until she called out, "I'll see you around, Charon."

He had laughed then. A small, frail, pathetic sound as he replied, "I don't see how that's going to be possible, Smoothskin."

She smiled at that; a small, sad smile before she took her last breath and the light passed from her eyes.

And Charon—Charon didn't take his eyes off of hers until the lights passed from his eyes too.