Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, this world, or the property known as Claymore. I'm just having fun in someone else's sandbox.

10. Comrades of a Different Kind

Tabitha can feel her blade vibrate in her hands as the youma bone it meets shudders before shattering. She hears the youma laugh in response and grimaces. He immediately jumps away clutching with his arm trailing behind him in his wake. She was separated from Galatea in the fight, but she can feel her not too far away, vital signs still good. The children and the sisters they hid away earlier are still safe beneath her feet. Clarice and Miata's energy signals are steady holding off wave after wave at the east wall.

Tabitha understands that the city itself has already lost quite a few innocents, some good soldiers, and some sisters and brothers when the Cathedral was first attacked, but for the moment, everyone important to her in Rabona is okay.

She hears the flutter of cloth and feels Galatea's presence before she sees her land on the cathedral roof beside her. With the retreat of that last youma, they have a few precious seconds to survey the battle and form a plan.

Tabitha nods toward the east wall and says, "They seem to have marched from the east. The bulk of their forces are coming over that wall."

Galatea scrunches her nose at the rusty smell of blood that perfumes the city now and pushes damp hair from her neck where it clings.

"We have a powerful little girl and an unskilled warrior there, and two awakened coming from the west," she says and strikes her claymore vertical in the stone roof. "What would you have us do? Assist the east or defend the west?"

Tabitha can see the first awakened smash into the western wall before climbing up and over, a grotesque thing with gaping mouths across its torso. Roofing tiles on the first house scatter when it lands, and the part of the wall crumbles behind it, crashing into the dirt below. Two seconds, that's all she has, she knows. It's two seconds she doesn't need.

"Don't be cute. You damn well know what we're going to do," Tabitha says and takes off toward the west wall. Galatea is after her in a heartbeat.

"Have you always been this impulsive?" she hears just barely before the wind whips the words away. They slice their way through three youma who foolishly try to attack them in midair.

"Have you always waited for someone else to give commands?" Tabitha asks as they land on the last roof before the first awakened. The second has breached the wall, taking down half of the wall with it.

"Cheeky," Galatea says. "I've got the one of the left."

Tabitha grips the hilt of her blade and prepares to attack. They're both up and in the air in the same moment. Tabitha likes that jump before an attack, when your legs launch you into the air. Those few seconds it takes to cover the distance between you and your opponent, when your body commits whole-heartedly before you can think about it. It was Miria who taught her how to do that, how to commit, to put your heart into what you're doing. These precious nanoseconds before first contact on the battlefield is when Tabitha feels the bravest.

Tabitha had traveled north with two higher ranked warriors, number 17 Eliza, and number 27, Emelia. They were friendly enough, but were not chatty. All Tabitha had been told, at her mere 31, was they were needed in the north for a campaign shrouded in rumors.

"I'm plenty jealous," number 29, Finna, had told them back at the border of Toulouse. "I hear the Organization is keeping this mission confidential. Maybe only for trusted warriors."

"I wouldn't bet on it," number 25, Rivka of the Deceitful Blade, crossed her arms and leaned up against a large boulder that towered over the road they traveled. She pushed hair from her eyes and caught them in the corner of her eye. "Undine's up there. And so is Natalie and Keeny. The Organization doesn't trust them as far as they can throw them. You two've caused your fair share of drama, as well."

She nodded toward Emelia and Eliza, who exchanged glances. Only Eliza looked back at Tabitha. Tabitha didn't know either of them before being matched with them for the trek north, but by the way Rivka eyed them and the way Emelia and Eliza returned the harsh gaze, she didn't think anything else needed explaining.

"So what are you saying?" Emelia asked, "that they're punishing us for going missing for a few days?"

Finna's features softened. "You were almost labeled deserters, Emelia. And you still refuse to tell them what happened those days you were gone."

"Because nothing happened. We got off course, missed a few meet ups," Eliza said. "That's all."

"We came back," Emelia said with a stern look on her face. "That's all that matters."

Rivka snorted and looked away as if bored. She bent a knee and rest the heel of one foot against the boulder she'd claimed and let out a huff of air.

"Whatever," she said. "I don't care what you did. It's no concern of ours. You can die up there with the rest of the troublemakers for all I care. Come on, Finna."

She pushed herself off the rock and turned south, bending over to snatch the top of a blade of grass. Finna gave them one last regretful look before she caught up with Rivka. Tabitha can still remember the way the sunlight fell like patchwork on their silver uniform, blinding out to an almost white as they made their way down the shaded path and disappeared around the bend. Emelia's fist quivered and she shook off Eliza's attempts at comfort before looking over her shoulder.

"So what'd you do?" she asked. "Are you a lap dog or a trouble maker?"

Tabitha had hesitated, couldn't find her voice right then. What had she done, indeed. She hadn't tried hard, didn't really care to move up in the ranks. She completed every job she'd been given, but she usually did the bare minimum. She kept to herself, cautious of both warriors and the robed men of the Organization. Tabitha existed like a ghost, a mirage who was there when you needed her but faded off somewhere distant when you didn't. And she was fine with this. She came up with the closest thing she could thing to answer the question.

"Some villagers paid me for a job in two installments," she said. "I forgot to hand over the second installment immediately."

Eliza and Emelia glanced at each other and then grinned. Eliza said, "So, what? The Organization thought you were saving up for desertion? That's ridiculous."

Tabitha had shrugged. "That's probably how they took it. The truth is, I just didn't care enough to do it in a timely manner."

Emelia had laughed and clapped her hand across Tabitha's shoulder, pulling her along the path. "I can't see why apathy would be such a dangerous thing to them. Maybe they just need as many free hands. If that's the case, we better get up there quick."

They made it up in good time. Within the next day or two the temperature dropped and over night, they were in snow country with their hoods drawn low to keep the biting flakes from stinging their eyes. They were some of the first to arrive. The first time Tabitha saw Miria was inside the lobby of the first crude lodgings three warrior's had constructed on that frozen waste. Flora and Victoria had met them first and ushered them to this room where Miria sat with an unrolled piece of parchment and looked at them. The manner in which she spoke to them was direct and unapologizing, but calm and respectful.

"My name is Miria. I'm number six," she said, turning the parchment where they could see the list of names and ranks carefully inscribed in a neat column. "Please write your symbols next to your name."

Miria was everything Tabitha expected from a single-digit and had never gotten before. Flora was graceful but not tactical. Undine was abrasive and aggressive. They were accomplished warriors who could command small units on awakened hunts, but lacked the skill to organize a platoon on a battlefield. Miria, however, could. Miria was a leader.

Miria explained that they had at least a week of wait before everyone else was supposed to arrive in the north. In the mean time, they were to repair the buildings in this deserted village for shelter and weapon storage. Most of the warriors weren't pleased with the busy work and were very vocal about it. Tabitha found she didn't mind it. She liked to keep busy, to keep her hands and her mind occupied. She can focus her attention on a single task for an extended period of time until she perfects the skill. She learns quickly and likes to know all the components of a task and how they work together.

While she was working on fixing a lousy patch job on the armory roof, Tabitha caught sight of Miria making her rounds, watching the others work and listening to conversation with that analytical expression of hers.

She was figuring something out, Tabitha knew. Maybe figuring them out, all of them. From the corner of her eye, Miria noticed her, turned to toward her and said, "You're working roofs now? Weren't you on structural support earlier?"

"Just redoing this roof," Tabitha said. "Carla's not great with her hands and this roof will shed shingles in a month if nothing's done."

Miria nodded but her lips neither smiled nor frowned. Tabitha saw her scribble something on that same rolled piece of parchment. This was before Tabitha's fierce loyalty, before Miria became her captain, and so nothing stopped Tabitha from leaning over the edge of the roof peering over her shoulder to glance at the parchment.

"What kind of notes are you taking on all of us?" she asked.

"All kinds."

"Why?"

"That's how one comes up with good plans. Figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of your team and deciding where they plug in best."

Tabitha pulled herself back onto the roof and straightened, throwing her feet over the side.

"Where do I plug in?"

Miria tilted her head and glanced up at her, and her lips thinned into a small smile that softened the stern aura around her. Tabitha remembers almost being taken aback at this, at how different she looked.

"You're a jack-of-all-trades as long as you're passionate about what you're doing. You can plug in anywhere," Miria said, scribbling something quickly on the parchment. "But I gather your passion isn't for the Organization. I can see why they sent you here."

"What do you mean?" Tabitha had asked.

Tabitha remembers the way she tilted her head and looked up at her with that knowing look, like she could see passed everything else and to all the awful things she held inside her.

"You would be one formidable warrior if you put that passion into something the Organization didn't approve of," Miria said. Then the corners of her lips lifted and she smiled. "But that's what I like about you."

That was probably the first time Tabitha felt her heart flutter. It would not be the last time Miria caused her heart to hurt.

Caught in a dance of death, her claymore moving in its element, shining as it is revels in the moment it can be exactly what it was created to be, Tabitha's heart burns at the memory of Miria's blade coming down fast upon her. The anger inside her almost surprises her and she rips her blade through youma flesh as if she were knocking her captain's sword away, as if she were reliving that awful moment Miria disappeared without, making it right.

The worst part was after the fact, after Miria was long gone, and Tabitha was on the mend, the nerve endings reattaching, the muscles of her shoulder finding their other halves, Galatea had found her. Tabitha knew she had seen the damage Miria did to her. She not only nearly severed her arm, she stopped short, twisted her blade, and then pulled it up and out broadside facing the sky so it traumatized the flesh, tore it instead of sliced, making the regeneration take that much longer.

It was a dirty trick designed to stall her long enough for Miria to get reach the Organization and settle this matter on her own. By the time Tabitha reached her, it probably all be over.

Galatea had knelt beside Tabitha, once she was allowed, and examined the wound with her fingertips, trying to push bone fragments together to facilitate healing. She didn't say anything about the tears that had dried salty on Tabitha's cheeks.

"Miria is clumsy when it comes to others," Galatea had said, aiding in the stitching of severed muscle. "She is so very scared of losing those dear to her. Like you, for example. Like all of you."

Tabitha grit her teeth together but said nothing.

"She merely wants to keep you, Tabitha. If only just a little longer."

Tabitha's silence was a creature curling in on itself over and over, refusing to expose its treasured words, not to someone like Galatea, a person she does not trust. How do you know so much about her? She wants to say. How do you dare to put words to her actions like you know what's going on inside her head?

"Hold still," Galatea says. "Let me help you."

But then she saw it, in the way Galatea avoids looking at her when she says Miria's name, in the quiet way she tends to her shoulder in obligation, not from warrior to warrior, but from the most bitter of love.

She remembers this know as she dodges claws from below, pulling her claymore in an arc above her head. The sun glints off the metal and the thrash of red circles around her head as she brings the heavy blade down, crushing the offending youma hand. The heel of her boot cracks against his jaw, shattering teeth and sending saliva slinging in opposite directions. She is fueled by hatred.

She hates his glowing eyes and the obscenity that is his tongue, and she uses his face as a launching post to sail up into the air, avoiding the two monsters aiming to tackle her. She hates that they clamor after her like rats trapped in a corner at feeding time. She hates that this shoulder severed four hours ago is as good as new, that it was healed with Galatea's touch, that she even that sliver of soul radiating and followed it to its source to see a truth she did not want to see.

You are important to the person I care about, Tabitha, and that makes you important to me. We are comrades in more ways than one.

Tabitha sails backward through the open space between youma bodies, leaving a trail of crimson in her wake as her claymore finds the flesh of beasts and severs it. But all she can think of is how Miria left them, both Galatea and herself, left the two of them whose love for her can no longer be contained.

It's not a surprise that her anger overflows when the others return in the aftermath, when Rabona is quiet once more, and the youma are gone. You took too long. You're too late. She's already gone. What took you? There's too much to say, too much to explain. I wouldn't have let her go by herself. I wouldn't have. She wants to say but doesn't because she doesn't have an answer for the inevitable question that follows. "Then why did you?"

They wouldn't understand, no matter what she'd say. It turns out we're more human than we think. Isn't that remarkable? That your brain can be brave but it matters little if your heart is a coward? Deneve is asking her questions.

"Where's Miria?"

"What happened?"

"Did Dietriche come?"

"What did Miria say?"

"We don't have time to sit here and talk," Tabitha said, frustrated that every moment they spent talking here, is another moment Miria could die. "We have to go now. I'll fill you in on the way there."

"We can't leave just yet. There are things that need to be taken care of here," Deneve said, casting her a cold shoulder. Deneve was like that. More aloof than Miria but not willing to share what she was thinking. "There are people who need help here."

"Let Galatea help them." Tabitha grabbed at a long weed and ripped it from its stalk, jamming her thumbnail into its leaf. She watched the juice bubbled onto her finger. "Right now, the captain is fighting every warrior the Organization has and then some and she needs our help. Is that not what comrades do?"

They're quiet at her demand and Tabitha finally understands that they've known all along and were too well-mannered to say.

She hates the way Deneve ignores her, glancing off in the direction that Helen disappeared, hates how calmly Cynthia and Yuma wait, in silence, like they don't comprehend the single word she'd just said. Do they not care? How could they not care? How can they just stand here like this is something that needs to be put to vote?

She scowls and flings the weed away. "Nevermind then. Do what you like. I'm going to save the captain. And to hell with all of you if you don't love her either after all this time."

She spins on her heel, rips those rotten tears from her eyes, and prepares to march off. The captain taught me I was worth something. She taught me that all I had to do was put my passion into something and I have put that passion into her. I am gong to her.

She senses it before she knows its coming and reacts. The edge of her blade catches both of Deneve's, and while the force of the twins combined is discernable, Tabitha does not shudder beneath it. No, Deneve, no. She will not be stopped another time but a dirty shot to the shoulder. This time, she will not be stopped.

Continued…

A/N: Contrary to what you might think, I actually liked Tabitha a lot before beginning this story, but with this chapter, I may have come to love her.

Unending apologies, readers, for a number of things. First, the long wait. I had written most of this chapter back in January, decided it was too far out of scope of the original story concept, then removed it, then hated how dishonest the chapters after it felt after it was removed. I struggled to get the story's sincerity back. I cannot cut Tabitha out to get Miria back faster. Sorry. Meanwhile, you amazing readers have continued to check this story and have left me humbling feedback. I replaced this chapter and everything is now smooth sailing. Chapter 11 is finished. It will be posted when most of chapter 12 is almost complete. I'm aiming for no longer than 15 chapters.

Next:

"I see that you're still here as well."

"A promise is a promise, Miria."