Disclaimer: I do not own "Repo the Genetic Opera" or its characters.

Amber Sweet was a perfectionist.

At age eight, she left a piano recital after a single flubbed note and threw herself into music studies, playing the same song overandoverandover again until it was perfect.

At age 16 she had her first sanctioned surgery to fix her Roman nose and make it straight and perky and petite and perfect.

And at twenty six, she inherited her father's company and began campaign after campaign to fix Sanitarium's ruined infrastructure, operating on the city like a surGEN, vowing to make it perfect.

She was thirty years old now. A true business woman. Still striving for perfection.

She placed a hand on her hip as she watched the construction going on at Sternum Street. A Center for Orphaned Offspring of the Repossesed. COOR. The third of many centers like it Amber funded throughout the city.

"Well, as I live and breathe, Amber Sweet."

Amber jumped at the sound of her name as much as the sound of the voice. She turned and faced GraveRobber for the first time since she'd quit doing Zydrate. He smiled at her, stepping out of the shadows.

"Your little publicity stunts seem to be winning over the populace," he said. "Kissing babies and clothing the homeless."

"You and I both know I'd rather disrobe the homeless," she said coyly, studying him. "I could have you arrested here and now for trespassing."

"If your GeneCops could catch me," he said.

"I've intensified their training program," said Amber.

"I know." GraveRobber scratched the bridge of his nose. "I've had to stop holdin' back when I run."

"Ha-ha."

Silence stretched between them.

"You look good, Sweet," he said. "Old face?"

"Mmm. You'd be proud. Haven't changed it in three months."

"I read the papers." He held up a copy of last week's Vanity&Vein for her to see. "Gotta say. Didn't think you had it in you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she cooed. Then, more seriously, "I didn't either."

"So are you actually overseeing the construction or…?"

"I just wanted to see their progress," she confessed. "Don't know a damn thing about architecture."

"I wasn't sure. You been full of surprises this year. Quittin' Z. Steppin' it up. Not bein' a raging bitch."

"Did you come here to insult me or…?" Amber narrowed her eyes. "Because I reallycould have you arrested…"

"If you were gonna do that, you would have by now," he said. Then, "Walk with me."

An order, not a question. Amber Sweet didn't take orders anymore. The CEO of GeneCo, the de facto queen of the world. Not even Luigi dared to sass her these days. She hesitated and then nodded.

"Fine. Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

They walked in silence, the tentative awkwardness between ex-lovers, a former-dealer and his ex-best-client. She wondered if he was still dealing these days. Probably. He looked much the same as before. Waxy with the makeup, but broad shouldered and handsome. His knotty, rainbow hair fell in curtains town his back.

"Like somethin' you see?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"You're starin'."

"You look good," she told him. "Healthy."

"Liar," he said. "I look like the same old scrawny street rat I've always been."

"Still dealing, then?"

"If I was, would I tell you, Miss GeneCo?"

Silence.

They reached the pier. Sand crackled under Amber's high-heeled feet, GraveRobber's heavy boots and they climbed the ladder so they could sit on the rotting wood and look out over the wasted sea, dangling their feet over the edge.

They used to sneak out here to skinny dip and fuck where no one could find them. Amber wondered if they were going to do that now. Instead, GraveRobber's blue eyes seemed distant. Her chest was a cave. Hollow. Echoing with pebbly memories his presence kicked up. Nights in alleyways, nights on the beach, nights in shady motel rooms. Always nights. She'd never seen him in the light of day. Not before now. In the sunlight – sickly sunlight, but sunlight that cut through the smog anyhow – she could make out fine lines around his eyes and mouth where the makeup cracked and revealed his age. They weren't young anymore. Even though she looked it, he was a telltale marker that she wasn't the young, hot thing he remembered. She didn't feel like it.

"I lied, y'know," he said abruptly.

"You lie all the time," she said wearily. "What was it this time?"

"I knew you had it in ya," he said. "The Carmela Largo I fell in love with was a good woman."

"The Carmela Largo you fell in love never became a woman. She died at eighteen," said Amber. "It's Amber Sweet now. Still is. Has always been since that night."

He'd never said he loved her before. Not when she needed him to say it, not when she was Carmela Largo and eighteen and contemplating ending it all. Instead, that night, he'd Z'd her and the next day, she went under the knife for a full transformation into the beautiful, synthetic, perfect thing she was now.

"Maybe for a while, yeah," he said. "But… Lately…"

"Don't fool yourself," she said. "Everything I do, I do as Amber Sweet. Don't get romantic."

"I'm not. Christ. Give a girl a compliment and get bitched out. That's why I never bothered with you before now."

Again silence. Years separated them. Amber looked at her reflection in the grey water. Rippling, distorted, she could see her face. It looked faltering and imperfect and tears stung at her eyes.

"Do you miss me?" she asked him, this time, looking over at GraveRobber.

"You or Carmela?"

"Me."

"No."

Acute aches swelled in her lungs and she couldn't breathe. Amber shut her eyes. Deep breath. She didn't need a criminal's approval.

Glad she asked first. Because she missed him like hell. How embarrassing. How pathetic. She was sitting in the company of a stranger.

The son of a bitch, she thought. Bringing me out here, knowing full well…

"I have to get back," she said, clambering to her feet. "I have a company to run."

As she turned to go, he caught her wrist.

"Amber," he said. The way he said her name, so raw with need used to be a surefire way to get her hot and bothered. But now, she pulled her hand from his.

"Good luck with the GeneCops," she said. "Good luck with everything, GraveRobber."

"Joseph."

She froze.

"Come again?"

"I look at you these days and I see Carmela, whether you do or not," he said. "So…"

"No," she said. He was offering her his name to reclaim, his name, which used to taste like lush, forbidden fruit on her tongue. Now, it soured there, withered, died. "We aren't those people. We won't ever be again. Don't be a sap, GraveRobber. You're only going to hurt us both."

She walked away from him. His eyes seared her back as tears seared her eyes. But she held her head erect, like a queen, ready to reascend her throne, as always without a consort by her side.