There is some fluff and some swearing. If you don't like swearing, then you don't have to read it. I will admit I normally don't write fluffy things, so if you're looking for something darker, you'll be in better luck in the next chapters. Thanks for reading and all the wonderful messages; reviews in my email box are the motivation to actually sit down and finish a chapter, so I'll thank you all for that! Again, I don't own anything to do with anything to do related to "Repo: The Genetic Opera" and any of it's worlds or characters. I wish I did, but I don't.


"Welcome back to the world of the living," said the man sitting in the corner. "Or, at least to the land of the nearly, but not quite, dead."

Her room was lit in soft shades of pink, the edges of light smudged by the dark gray of approaching dawn. The moonlight had disappeared to make way for the sun, that twilight hour of the morning when everything seems to fade and ebb before the chaotic day begins. Shilo groggily tried to brush a piece of hair out of her eyes and found that both her arms were practically unresponsive. Every attempted movement was shot through with pain and panic as the girl woke up from her deep unconsciousness.

"Who- who are you?"

"Come on, kid, you can't be serious."

Shilo lifted her head from the pillow, realizing she was in her bed only when she felt the fabric of sheets slide from her neck to her chest. The bed wasn't warm, just softer than the floor. She remembered the floor rushing up to her as she had fallen... Shilo could hardly see the figure of a man resting with his back against the wall, sitting upon her vanity seat he had pulled over by the door. If she hadn't recognized the jacket, she would have remembered the face. She had seen it in her dreams the past few nights, confused and frustrated about why he had made his appearance among the bloodshed and horror Shilo experienced every time she closed her eyes. He had been one of the better dreams in these past few weeks of misery.

"Graverobber..."

"Yeah?" he drawled, raising an eyebrow, never smiling, just looking at Shilo as she pitifully tried to sit up again and failed. Her little whimpers of pain as she tried to put pressure on her wrists bit into him and he considered standing to help her, but just considered it and nothing else.

"I don't reward failures," the dealer stated bluntly as he saw Shilo's pleading eyes try to latch onto his. Graverobber purposefully didn't make eye contact; it was best to stay as disconnected from this girl as possible. How could he have thought she would be the one to help him? If she was trying to kill herself, he might as well go and find a different way to begin his plan. Not that he wanted to leave her here alone and in misery, but the entire world had to find their way and he didn't even know where to begin if he tried to help Shilo. He didn't even like to think about his own life because of the uncertainty and nervousness that greeted him like those scalpel sluts on the street, eager and all too willing to pounce him when he least wanted company.

Whimpering still, Shilo couldn't repress the panic as she rested back on the pillow and swallowed bitter tears. She was tired, so tired, and couldn't remember how she got into bed. Although Graverobber had never hurt her, why was he here? Why did she ache so much, all her bones and muscles and joints protesting the very thought of movement? Shilo turned her head, neck cracking and causing her to cry out as she tried to face Graverobber. He was still sitting on that chair, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and knees spread. The look on his face wasn't encouraging. A few hot tears escaped her eyes and slipped across the bridge of her nose and the corners of her face to be absorbed by her wig and pillow.

"What happened? Graverobber? Why- what happened?"

Graverobber stood casually, the fluidity of his movements, the purposeful stride making Shilo suddenly wish he was still sitting down across the room instead of walking toward her bed. Every word he said matched the careful step he took until he was standing right next to the bed.

"You tell me, kid. You did it to yourself."

Without warning, he grabbed the edge of the sheet that had fallen onto the shelf of Shilo's chest and whipped it down toward her knees, snatching up the closest arm and shoving her wrist in front of her face. Shilo saw, in the pale purple that was gathering in the East and streaming in through her window, that there were black threads holding her skin together where the hand had separated from the rest of the arm, a clean cut from one wrist bone to the other. There was still dried blood on her arms, flaking onto the sheets, and Shilo gasped before starting to panic.

"I- I wouldn't have done this! No! What happened? Graverobber, what happened to me?"

In her rush to move, to do anything but lay there helplessly, Shilo sat up and broke part of the scab starting to form over her other wrist. Too much pressure caused too much pain for Shilo to do anything but scrunch her eyes and cry in agony as the blood started to pour.

"Knock it off," Graverobber said, his tone gentle despite the harsh words. He didn't take pleasure in Shilo's pain, or the pain of other beings that didn't deserve it; the expression on the girl's face was too authentic to be a trick and Graverobber set the arm he was holding down upon Shilo's stomach.

"How could I have done this? Why? I don't think I did this!"

Graverobber's face was oddly lit by the lamplight, the pink of the lampshades and orange of the rising sun bringing out the strange highlights in the hair that probably hadn't been washed in weeks. His jacket was scruffy, his neck ringed with dirt, and the many pockets of his clothing jingling with Zydrate vials in every movement he made. He stood there, looking at Shilo, looking everywhere but her eyes. Her clothes were in even worse shape than they seemed and she wasn't much cleaner than he was; the girl had completely neglected herself.

"Why don't you think you did this? What makes you think that someone would care enough to just waltz right in here and cut your wrists for you? You have knives, right? Your father's tools? You could have done this so many ways. You didn't even slice the right veins to do the job," Graverobber said, still avoiding eye contact as he took her hand, more gently this time, and turned it palm up.

He had done as good of a job as he could with the stitching. The wounds had looked bad, and they were, but Shilo wasn't at danger of dying now that she had some blood in her from the tiny medical refrigerator where there were actual pocket bags of of the stuff. There wouldn't even be a need for stitches if Graverobber was assured that Shilo wouldn't forget her own limits and end up doing more damage to herself. God, even tape would have done the trick, but let her have those threads through that thin skin, let the pain linger for a few more days. He knew it would heal, although she would always have the scars. Good, he thought. Let it be a reminder how he saved her pathetic ass from death's doorstep because she was having a hard time dealing with reality. Let her think of him whenever she saw those scars. Maybe it would remind her that there weren't people like him who would save her from herself just anywhere.

"I wouldn't have-" Shilo started before breaking into sobs, hiccuping. She looked pathetic, half falling out of the bed, twisted in pain. Finally taking pity on her, Graverobber carefully took Shilo's shoulders in his hands (how frail her bones seemed) and pulled her up to rest against the headboard, ignoring her weak flails of protest. Gathering his jacket to one side, he sat on the edge of Shilo's bed, watching as the girl cried. Salty tears fell down her cheeks, dripped off her chin, and she needed a tissue, but Graverobber didn't do anything but watch her cry until, minutes later, she settled down enough to take a deep breath, then another.

The sun was almost done with it's ascension into the sky, the orange and yellow blaze turning to the monotonous butter yellow hue that lit the city with all day long. The lamps weren't necessary, rather ridiculous actually, but Graverobber didn't turn them off. How many times had he been in the dark and wanted a light to sit by? How many times had he wanted a room of his own, somewhere he could come back to more than once and know he would have someplace comfortable to rest? The bed was so soft, the fabric of the sheets smooth and unfamiliar underneath Graverobber's fingertips as he unconsciously slid his hands along the edge of the mattress. He looked at the floor, the hardwood floor stained with blood, the rugs dirty from his boots, footprints leading to-

"Kid, how long has that window been open? Did you try to jump out or anything?"

Shilo shook her head, sniffling, wiping her face with her hands gingerly.

"Why are there bloody footprints?"

"I- I was try- trying to tell you! I didn't-"

As Shilo broke out into more tears, Graverobber stood up and walked to where there were two footprints set into the wood by blood, both of them hardly recognizable as footprints if not for the fact that there was a definite heel to one and toe on the other. Someone had stepped in Shilo's blood on their way out of the room, but Graverobber couldn't see any damage to the window or anything else that could explain a break-in. The shoe prints seemed too big to be from anything Shilo would wear, nearly his size, and he wondered if maybe he even had gone to the window after finding the girl. No, he hadn't, and the window was definitely open when he had walked in. He was tempted to ask her if he was being set up, but Graverobber could tell, anyone could tell, that Shilo wasn't acting.

Carefully, he asked, still wanting to doubt the evidence that supported Shilo's story, "Do you remember anything?"

"No! I fell down on the floor and I don't remember anything else!" she yelled, becoming more and more frustrated as she couldn't stop her tears. Shilo started gasping, wrapping her arms around herself despite the pain, rocking back and forth. She was having a panic attack, something she had never really experienced before, and Graverobber could tell it scared the hell out of her. Hurrying to her side, he wondered what to do.

He did the only thing he could think of.

Loading one of his smaller vials into the Zydrate gun, he unwrapped one of Shilo's arms from around her ribs and stuck her in the crook of the elbow, a sharp and quick stab he wondered if she could even feel through the panic that didn't ease until, after what seemed like minutes instead of moments, Shilo relaxed and took a shuddering breath. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the headboard and slid down into the mattress, taking her first Zydrate dose and falling into the stupor that comes with being drugged with such a strong chemical. It was quite innocent, actually, the way she nearly smiled in her relief of the pain easing away, and the way her hands relaxed and her shoulders drooped. Her breathing became regular, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Graverobber brushed away some of the hair that fell over her face and sat back down on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on knees as he turned his head to watch Shilo fall asleep. Her hands, wrists in all their bloody disarray, rested on the bed and Graverobber took one in his own hand. He wasn't much good at this doctor stuff. Nor was he a sleuth. Why would someone attack a young woman and stage it as a suicide?

As Graverobber ran over names and faces, plots and places, he started to droop. The lamplight was comforting, the plush bed inviting, and, against his better judgment, he slipped off his boots and pulled his jacket tighter around his thin frame. Closing the drapes was easy, right after shutting and locking the window and door, and he turned off the lamps. Feeling slightly ridiculous in his stocking feet and taking care not to step in the blood that was nearly dry in puddles on the floor, the dealer stashed his jacket and bags of tools and Zydrate under the bed. The floor would have been just fine but, even on the streets, he tried not to sleep next to anything as questionable as blood. He was never much for sleeping sitting up, either, and the dealer wondered if he should just sneak around the house and find a guest room, or even a good patch of carpet. He hadn't slept in what must have been going on two days, though, and he knew anything was better than nothing.

Graverobber was unusually kind in the way he covered Shilo in the sheet he had so rudely ripped off her. Pulling the blankets around her before tugging up the comforter and sheets from where they were so perfectly tucked in at the end of the bed, he climbed in. It was ridiculous, he thought to himself, rolling his eyes. Here he was, one of the best Zydrate dealers in the city, sleeping at the foot of the bed in a little girl's room. And most of everything was pink. He hoped he never would remember he had slept like a faithful pet in the pink bed owned by an orphaned girl. But, Graverobber thought to himself, at least he was one of the few from the streets who had a bed to sleep in, especially when it was particularly large, soft, and he wasn't alone inside it.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Shilo woke up wondering why she had such unusual socks on. She never wore socks to bed, not unless she was sick, and she didn't remember owning a pair of socks that didn't flex when her feet did. They must have had holes in them, too, because only the arches and toes were warm, the heels buried in a different sort of fabric. Stretching, then realizing why she hadn't stretched in the first place, Shilo whimpered as her muscles hardly moved how she wanted them to, resisting her commands. Wincing, she tried making a fist with both hands and decided against forcing the issue as her fingers only bent halfway down before the discomfort became too much to continue. Why was there stitching in her skin? Why did she feel so good when she should be in so much pain?

The previous night came flooding back to her and Shilo flopped down into the mattress from where she had been trying to sit up, trying to beat back the waves of confusion and despair. It hadn't all been a nightmare, a vision she created in the darkest realms of sleep. It was real: the floor, the blood, anger, pain, the awful pain that crippled her... Accusations, realizations, and a figure sitting in the corner of her room... Glancing to the corner, Shilo held her breath to realize that the only thing from her memories that wasn't there as she remembered it to be was the man who saved her, the Zydrate dealer that took a needle and thread to the slashes across her wrists. The thread was thin and partly buried in scabs forming over the wounds; she bet it would be a bitch to try to take out later, though.

The socks on her feet moved and Shilo jumped, realizing they weren't socks at all as she saw a rather large lump at the end of the bed shift, buried under the blankets. They had been hands, wrapped around her toes, and Shilo realized Graverobber was just waking up.

Blushing unsuccessfully, not enough blood to flame her cheeks, Shilo didn't say anything as the strange man she had met in the graveyard just weeks ago was sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his face, partly covered by her lacy pink blankets. It was a large enough bed that the dealer had been able to sleep comfortably, although Shilo's feet were practically in his ribs. The image was so startling and so unusual that Shilo didn't know how to feel and wondered why he was still here when he had any place in the world he could sleep.

"Good morning?" she said tentatively, more of a question than a statement. Graverobber, visible in the dim light coming through the curtains that shut the light of day out of the room, realized where he was.

"What the- What the fuck am I doing here?"

The question was followed by a flurry of movement as Graverobber practically tore the bedding off the mattress as he got up and dragged his boots, bags, and jacket to the chair in the corner, getting dressed to leave. Shilo was still completely startled, jaw dropping when Graverobber looked up from his rush to get out and glared at her.

"Why are you upset? You can stay here, I don't mind. Stay."

The girl was so damned innocent, he thought, sneering. Even in this moment, when she is probably so confused and shy as to not know herself from one of those stupid stuffed animals resting on the floor beside the bed, she can't stop to think what she is offering. How could he have slept so long, so unaware? Normally he didn't sleep more than a handful of hours at a time, always on guard. What was so fucking special about this place that he had slept more than half the day away?

"Really, I don't mind sharing," Shilo added as Graverobber hurried his actions.

"What would you know about sleeping in someone else's bed, kid?"

"Well, we weren't, well... You were just so comfortable down there and I really don't mind you, I mean-- I..."

Shilo's voice faded away as she realized she lacked the words to convince him to stay, that she was only making him more and more aggravated when she tried again and he cut her staggering off mid-sentence.

"Listen, kid. I stayed here last night because I wasn't thinking right, okay? If anyone even asks you about me, you and I never even met, got it? Not last night, not last week, not ever. And take better care of yourself; not everyone actually gives a damn."

"But you slept here. You-"

"I've slept other places, too, with actual women, and I wasn't at the end of the bed like one of those fucking stuffed animals of yours. If I had actually seen a bed these past few months, I wouldn't have stayed here last night, believe me. Don't pretend you're anything special. Or is that what you want to think, huh? Think you're like those girls on the street that can pay me without cash for a shot or two of the drug? If you even knew anything--"

"Don't," Shilo muttered, turning her head away from Graverobber's mocking stare. She wished she never would have brought it up, the fact he had slept in her room last night, at the end of her very bed. She knew this was something along the lines of a punishment for ever mentioning that Graverobber himself had tolerated pink and lace and had even suffered to have stuffed animals in the same room as him.

"--about sex," he finished smugly, watching her face turn pink from behind a thin veil of hair. "You wouldn't have brought it up. You don't know anything about touching and sharing beds. You know nothing of anything. Don't pretend you do and don't pretend you will."

Graverobber slung his bag over his shoulder and stood, glancing at the fading light leaking in through gaps in the curtains. It was nearly nightfall and there was plenty of work to be done; his plans were out the window, much like the mysterious attacker Shilo had carried on about. Was he really as tired as to believe her last night? What a waste of time, Graverobber thought as he recalled what he was going to ask Shilo. There wasn't any need for her in any of these plans after all.

"Where are you going?"

"Away," he said coldly, walking past Shilo and out out of the bedroom. "I don't need to be here and I don't need to come back."

"But you came here! You found me! You saved me!" Shilo yelled after Graverobber as he walked down the hallway and started descending the stairs. "Don't leave me!"

The dealer paused, head bowed, foot hovering over the next step in the staircase that would take him down and out of the Wallace's house for what might actually be the only visit. The anger inside him faded and all Graverobber felt was stupidity. Stupidity for what he did, for what he was going to say, and for what he was going to do in the future. Turning to look at Shilo, who stood so weak in the doorway that she leaned against the hallway wall, eyebrows raised and lips parted in desperation. She was all alone, in this house, and he doubted if there was going to be anyone to even come check up on the kid besides himself. Although his frustration at being caught sleeping and staying in Shilo's room, next to the stuffed animals, was still burning inside him, Graverobber put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Do you really, really mean that?"

"Yes."

"With everything you are?"

"Yes!"

"And you're sure about wanting me to come back?"

"Yes! Why won't you just say you will?"

"Because I don't think you know exactly who or what you're dealing with."

"But what if the person, or whatever it was, that attacked me comes back?"

Shilo's face started to crumple and she carefully wiped her cheek with the back of her hand as she started to accept the answer Graverobber hadn't yet given. Feeling uncomfortable, rolling his eyes, he sighed again.

"Kid, I'll come back. I don't know when, but I'll come back, okay?"

He didn't pause to wait for her expression to change or to allow her to say anything else to him, just turning and continuing his way down the stairs. Only mysterious forces knew what else he was going to be convinced of doing for this girl. And maybe he would have enough time between now and when he came back to think over the plans nearly abandoned. There was just one request:

"I'm going to need my own bed next time."